JE SUIS CHARLIE

Posted on January 9, 2015 by stutteringsteps

The fact that expressing an opinion which offends somebody, can now get you killed makes us all potentially ‘je suis charlie’.  Unless of course, we bow the knee to those who are prepared to kill and maim in order to silence criticism or satire.  The realisation that having and expressing an adverse opinion about a religious belief system falls into this category is to be given a glimpse of the days when institutionalised religions ruled the world. In the past, all religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have resorted to intimidating and assassinating those who criticised the beliefs and practices of their respective creeds. Now, in the 21st century, some religious believers clearly wish to return us to that state of affairs.

It is a matter of historical record that it took protests, loss of life, large-scale desertions and economic and political revolutions in Europe and elsewhere to end this previous domination by those who thought they had a divine right to force their rule upon all within their reach. Whilst many moderate Muslims are in denial concerning the political content of Islam, it is a fact that an increasing number of the radical wing of Islam  wish to re-create a modern version of the totalitarian religio-political rule of the ancient Caliphate. The recent resurgence and spread of Islamic fundamentalist atrocities, in the wake of the territorial conquests of ISIL, is steadily becoming globalised.  India, Africa, Australia, Spain, Britain, and now France again have become the repeated scenes of detached and outreach efforts of retaliation and intimidation in the name of Islam.

The killing and injuring of practically the whole of the staff of Charlie Hebdo was not only meant to permanently remove the ‘offending’ magazine from the news stands of France and elsewhere. As with other such past atrocities its purpose was to create a climate of terrorised fear of speaking out against any part of Islam. This natural reaction needs to be resisted, because Islam, is a retrograde, dangerous ideology which authorises killing in the name of God and the subjection of women and children to domination by men. Also its core religious ideology perpetuates aggressive discrimination against homosexuality, lesbianism and it certainly does not respect atheists and secularists to any appreciable degree.

Furthermore in its most radical and fundamentalist form (as per the full reading of the Qur’an) it does not even respect or tolerate alternative opinions among Muslim communities. Historically and more recently, Sunni and Shia versions of Islam are notorious for exterminating each other on the basis of their alternative religious opinions. Bowing the knee and keeping quiet in order not to risk becoming a victim will only strengthen the determination of the fundamentalists to perpetrate more such sectarian outrages. Why would they stop doing it if it works? In this sense we all need to be ‘Charlie Hebdo’.  If this atrocity succeeds in shielding Islam from criticism of its manifold defects and failings, these aspects will also continue to be practiced to the detriment of all those subjected to it, particularly women and those who disagree.

The conflation of anti-Islam with racism.

Among some Muslim apologists and some on the political left there has again been an attempt to identify the criticism of religion with racism. Already in the wake of these Islamic-inspired murders, there has been an attempt to play the race card against the cartoonists and authors of the magazine.  In actual fact this magazine criticised and satirised right-wing racist organisations along with the religious beliefs of Christianity and Judaism. It should not be overlooked that Charlie Hebdo was a radical secular left publication which also satired the bourgeois political elite. The magazine may not have been a product of revolutionary anti-capitalists, but it would be rabidly sectarian not to express solidarity with it.

Of course racists and fascists will be  eager to jump upon this outrage in order to blame it not on the religious beliefs of the perpetrators, but on their colour or origin. However, this does not mean that the rest of us should defend the religion of Islam in order to actively oppose anti-Arab, or anti-black racism.  In this case as in other cases, we should not conflate but distinguish between the ideological opinions of people and their right not to be physically harmed or exploited.  We cannot rely on the bourgeois elites to make this distinction and publicise it because there are vested interests to blur the distinction.  And of course, these same elites will use this outrage to strengthen the forces of the state

Among the political elite, there is also an implicit desire to dodge the political and religious dimensions of the problem regarding the rise of Islamic fundamentalism today.  The political elite do not want to be too explicit in any criticisms they may have with regard to religion, because this may lose them ‘religious’ votes at election time. For this reason they choose to classify the various religious-inspired atrocities as ‘terrorism’. This conveniently avoids drawing the links and connections between the nature of the acts and the precise ideologies which inspire them. Similarly the political elite strenuously avoid making the links between the ’foreign policy’ decisions (for example in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine etc.) they make and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The conflation of anti-immigration with racism.

An allied conflation of two separate issues is also occurring in regard to immigration and racism. This too will play into present and future debates sparked by this atrocity. What will not be ‘officially’ factored in will be the primary motivation for post Second World War European integration and immigration. The primary motivation has been to ’free’ the movement of capital and labour. Capital has been freed to move between countries to take advantage of local conditions and capital is free to recruit labour from other countries. The advantageous results for capital are clear. It can go to places of cheap labour and other costs thus exploiting the local population.  It can also bring cheap labour into countries where labour is more expensive and undermine the wages and conditions of the indigenous working populations. So the disadvantages for working people is also clear.

Yet when indigenous working people start to campaign against this erosion of their hard-won economic and social rights by economic ‘immigration’ they are declared racist by the employing classes and their intellectual apologists. According to this bourgeois view, in order not to be declared racists, workers and others should accept a continual erosion of their economic and social well-being. The fact that working people by and large have in the past never really been fundamentally racist is ignored. Despite the fact that racism was deliberately promoted by the colonialist and imperialist bourgeois elite in order to justify invasion, appropriation and exploitation of foreign peoples, most working people have welcomed newcomers and even supported them. This fact is in danger of being ignored.

If we do not clearly distinguish between these discrete aspects of 21st century neo-liberal capitalism then this will leave working people at the mercy of racist ideologists and proto-fascists. If revolutionary anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists do not offer a clear explanation of the crisis of capitalism and alternative ways of struggling to surmount the current hardships, then workers will be attracted to alternatives which ‘seem’ to offer a common-sense (but racist) way forward. Fascism was used to divide working people in the last systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, in the 1920’s and 1930’s,  there is every danger that history can repeat itself if not exactly then at least enough to be dangerous.

Finally, if the revolutionary left do not publicly defend the already limited freedom of expression currently available to us, then it will soon become our turn to be intimidated and eventually silenced.  Je suis Charlie!

[See also ‘Elites in Denial’; ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Book Review – ‘The problem of Islam today’. on this blog]

Roy Ratcliffe. (January 2015.)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Politics, Religion, Sectarianism | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

20th CENTURY FEMINIST FRAMEWORKS!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by stutteringsteps

(A critique of some of its aspects.

In the 20th century, Feminism became a useful but problematic term with which to label all the various currents and strands of ideas originating from women who stood in opposition to the oppression of their gender.  General opposition to the oppression of women was the principle factor that in practice unified feminism and stood as the practical bedrock upon which its various strands were built.

In turn feminist theory sought to strengthen the practical unity, purpose and direction of broad layers of women in opposition to their allotted position in the bourgeois ‘order of things’. This is why together with its day-to-day organisational forms (consciousness raising groups, conferences, campaigns and other events) it was often described as (and saw itself as) a ‘movement’.

The reaction of a majority of men during this 20th century feminist movement was dismissive and generally ‘reactionary’.  Even much of the left, and this includes the so-called revolutionary left, patronisingly declined to engage with the struggle for women’s liberation. Most of the anti-capitalist left, for example, dogmatically suggested women would only cease to be oppressed – ‘after the revolution’!

This was despite the fact that the male-led  ‘revolutions’ in Russia, China and the Eastern bloc countries – after decades – had not seen the liberation of women. Nor had working class men been liberated from exploitative wage-labour for that matter.  Meanwhile women, from these Leninist, Trotskyist or Stalinist leadership perspectives, were generally advised to assist the men in more important task of overthrowing the capitalist mode of production. Only then would the men be able to become the ‘active’ patrons of efforts to achieving female equality. Patriarchy and left male patrifocality was not seen as any kind of a problem. But more of that later.

After achieving some recognition and gaining some statutory reforms and legal precedents, the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 20th century, gradually ebbed away until hardly a trace of the original ‘movement’ can be found in the 21st.  Yet, originating in the USA and spreading elsewhere, it was an important movement while it lasted. For this reason it deserves to be considered in some detail for there is still clearly a need to address the issue of male-female socio-economic status and their personal relationships.

In many ways the situation of the majority of women – working class women in particular – is now worse economically and socially, particularly if we consider the result of the current systemic crisis of capitalism and the pro-capitalist elite’s campaign of enforced austerity. Even more so if we acknowledge the threats which emanate from the rise of patriarchal movements such as religious fundamentalism and if we factor in the position of women outside of the economically ‘advanced’ counties of Europe and the West.

Returning to the subject of the 20th century Womens’ Liberation Movement, however, it is important to recognise the following. The ‘movement’ contained within its overall practical position of oppositon to female oppression, substantial difference of principle, purpose and approach.  Apart from published books and documents, these ideological differences were mostly hinted at but not dealt with in any great detail – at least in front of us men.

In order to understand 20th century feminism it was necessary to look beyond the general derogatory ‘male-stream’ stereotypes of feminists prevalent at the time (as men-hating failures or lesbian lothario’s) and to grasp the nature of these differences. And fortunately, for this task there were at the time many books and pamphlets available during the period of its flourishing. What appears – under the same title – in the pages section above was offered as a contribution to understanding 20th century feminism from my own first-hand observations and studies during that period. (Click here for the full article)

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2014)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, co-operation, Critique, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Patriarchy, Reformism, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

1939 – 1945! CAPITALISMS 2nd GLOBAL WAR!

Posted on November 4, 2014 by stutteringsteps

In a previous article, (1914 – 1918: Capitalisms First Global War,) documentary evidence was presented, to support an assertion that the mainstream media and historians in the west generally ignore. The contention in that article was that; the underlying economic basis of modern wars since the 17th century lies in the extraordinary expansionist propensity of the capitalist mode of production. In other words, at the core of the 20th century confrontation between the then ‘Great Powers’ was capitalist economic expansion. This article will provide documentary evidence that what was true in the case of the 1st World War, was also true for the Second.

It may be recalled from the evidence produced in the first article, that despite the rhetoric the motives of the German capitalists, pro-capitalist politicians and the military elite, before and during the 1st World War was to gain territory, material resources, markets and cheap labour. The same evidential source indicated that these elites were confident that they would win this war of annexation and aggressive exploitation. It was also their intention to enforce the defeated countries to pay for the enormous cost of this – by then – mechanised form of total war. As additional evidence of this intention, consider the following extract from a 1915 memorandum signed by almost 700, top German industrialists, bankers, business men, university professors, state officials, generals and admirals,  before their final defeat in 1918;

“We must ruthlessly impose a heavy war indemnity on France…And we should be in a position to impose an indemnity on England, no sum would be too great.” (quoted in Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 308.)

In the previously article it was established that the First World War was prompted by  the clash of rival capital circulation and accumulation among European concentrations of this form of wealth.  However, the defeat of Germany in this 1914-18, armed ‘collision’ had not solved the problem of Germany’s geographical boundaries being ‘too narrow’ and its colonies ‘too few’, to contain its animated and competitive capitalist form of economic production. Germany had in this First World War failed to acquire ‘new territories for settlement’ and had lost its pacific bases. Nor had this defeat eliminated the internal discontent of the German masses. Indeed, both problems had been exacerbated since on top of the internal costs to its economy, it was Germany which now had to pay indemnity to the allies.

Inflation – a pro-capitalist tool for survival.

The German capitalist elite solved this particular indemnity problem by allowing (and encouraging) inflation to rise dramatically. In mid-1918 the exchange rate was such that it took 4 German marks to purchase 1 US dollar. By September 1923 13 million Mark’s were needed to purchase 1 dollar and that was not the worst exchange rate. In other words the German capitalist elite were able to pay their debts (including indemnity payments) with an increasingly worthless currency. For the capitalist classes, this self-interested strategy had a fortunate set of side effects which helped their other problems. Inflation also undermined the wages of the workers and eroded the wealth of the middle-classes, both of whom then looked for scapegoats to blame. It couldn’t be made clearer than the following:

“In other words, the inflation was an easy means for the industrialists and junkers to enrich themselves at the expense of the workers and middle-classes, while directing the hatred of the dispossessed against foreign countries. It was an excellent mechanism to reduce the working masses to destitution, to subject them to shameless exploitation, and at the same time create an atmosphere of rabid nationalism.” (Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 308.)

The success of this nationalistic blame-game over the effects of the capitalist inspired war had dire consequences for the working-classes of both capitalist alliances. These consequences and events led, during the inter-war years, to the rise of the National Socialists Party (the Nazis) and later to the outbreak of the Second World War. Another consequence of the success of nationalistic ideology was that German based capital along with Anglo-Saxon based capital was still intact and was still capable of producing more commodities and services than could be profitably consumed by the home market. So in one sense despite the massive sacrifices of human life, nothing had changed, except the realisation that capital can even survive total war!.

Capital’s needs created another World War.

The First World War convincingly proved that capital and capitalists could survive total war and prosper whether they win or lose the ensuing rivalry battles. This was despite a level of warfare which devastated and even annihilated the lives, welfare and infrastructure of citizens under its control. The capitalist essence of the ‘system’ survived – albeit in a modified form. Shortly after the First World War, capitalists still needed to expand their production and market their products and this involved the increased consumption of raw materials and labour.

So in 1925, when Hitler wrote what follows in his rambling rant of a book ‘Mein Kamf’, we can understand that he was merely regurgitating – in his own particularly racially politicised form – the previously held view that Germany still desired an Empire as large, if not larger, that that operated by the British. Britain being one of the states whose activities  embraced ‘entire continents’.

“In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost entire continents, we cannot speak of a world power in  connection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometres.” (Hitler. ‘Mein Kamf’. Section 14 of Book 2.)

The only slight modification Hitler made at that particular moment in time, to this earlier genre of capitalist/nationalist thinking, was to down-play the desire to acquire exploitable ocean-based colonies. Hitler, his financial, industrial backers and advisers, realised that unlike the 19th century, in the 20th century, the conquest and control of distant colonies first required a continental empire of considerable size. Large-scale land-based material and taxation resources, along with a willing industrial and agricultural population, were necessary in order to achieve this sea-dependent expansionist ambition. So for this reason he and his acolytes set his and his countries citizens sights on expanding on land to the east and on achieving internal social ‘order‘.

How the German capitalists and pro-capitalists achieved sufficient internal stability to create the basis for renewed economic expansion and its eventual subordination to re-armament and warfare is a complex question. It is one which will be considered in a further article. For the present I shall focus on the economic factors that once again drove the unfolding logic of German capital and how this was understood by a considerable spectrum of the German elite. Among that post-war pro-capitalist elite were the same liberals and ‘socialists’ who had betrayed the resolutions of the Second International and voted for war credits. This is how one ‘socialist’ deputy had previously expressed the implicit economic needs of capital dressed up explicitly as the emotional needs for retaining territory gained in previous conquests.

“In the name of the Social Democratic representatives of the German territories…..I have to make the following statement……we raise our voice…to protest against the separation of our homeland from the Motherland……We shall also not abandon the hope as long as we live that sooner or later the territories detached from their homeland by the decree of a short-sighted and hate-imbued victor, will be returned to the Fatherland.” (Deputy Hoersing. June 1919. quoted in ‘Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 206.)

The lack of a critical recognition of just how these territories had militarily come under the control of Germany in the first place, clearly shows, among other things, that by this time the term ‘socialism’ had become a left-wing camouflage for a part of the bourgeois political spectrum – as it still is!  This new generation of ‘bourgeois socialists’, took for granted the capitalist mode of production and the best they could desire for workers was the following: Wages that did not pauperise workers; and conditions that kept them healthy. Both of which enabled the owners of capital to extract sufficient surplus-value to satisfy their private greed and the continued self-expansion of their capital investments, whilst staving off revolution.

War again – with a lot of help from capital’s friends.

This type of collusion with the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite and their needs also extended to the trade union movement. In November 1918 when mass demonstrations of workers were taking place in Germany a meeting took place between socialist trade unions and industrialists. At that meeting a document was signed by both sides agreeing to give each other mutual support in order to keep the factories operating normally. In other words, the ‘official’ labour movement was completely wedded to the continued existence of the capitalist mode of production. This cannot be too surprising! After all it was this ‘mode’ of economic activity which created their privileged ‘positions’ and their lucrative salaries.

This collaboration of the ‘socialist’ and social democratic left with capitalism in Germany continued throughout the inter-war period as did the machinations and intrigues of ‘big capital’. So a number of years later, after the use of emergency powers granted by Article 48 of the Republics Constitution,  when these intrigues had become involved with Hitler and the National Socialists (Nazi’s) other things  cannot be entirely surprising. For example, reading the following extract from a statement by one of the largest owners of industrial capital in Germany, should not be surprising coming as it did from the owner of large-scale capital – in this case steel and armaments production.

“On 20th of this month I expressed to Reich Chancellor Hitler the gratitude of approximately twenty-five industrialists present for having given us such a clear picture of the conception of his ideas.” (Alfred Krupp. Quoted in ‘The Arms of Krupp’. W. Manchester, pub. M. Joseph. page 407.

That clear picture later included the full collaboration of the state and private capital in the re-construction and re-armament of the German War machine. Designed and constructed as it was in order to fulfil the needs of the capitalist mode of production for territorial expansion and control of raw material resources and markets. This collaboration also included the complete subordination and ultra-exploitation of the entire working classes, white-collar and blue, industrial and agricultural, to these self-expansionist needs of capital.

As noted previously, how this subordination of ‘labour’ was achieved is the subject of a future article but the motives of both the political Fascists and the economic elites were in complete harmony over the war aims of the Third Reich.  Commencing with annexations and Blitzkrieg conquests German capital for a second time shaped up for a war for global domination and control of resources and markets against the still dominant Anglo-Saxon  economic empires of Britain and France.

And of course, both sides elites dragged the rest of humanity into its bestial competitive war for global economic and financial domination. A study of modern history demonstrates that in periods of systemic crisis, the capitalist and pro-capitalist elites have pursued this course of ‘total’ military action twice before on a global scale and unless stopped will probably try to do it again.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2014.)

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BOMBS AND BOMBAST!

Posted on September 27, 2014 by stutteringsteps

As was to be expected, the western political elite this month have demonstrated their complete inability to see the wood for the trees. This week the world was treated to the surreal spectacle of so-called world ‘leaders’ mounting the rostrum at the United Nations and delivering high-sounding phrases whilst denouncing the very thing they are themselves guilty of – organised terrorism! Co-authors of state-orchestrated terror, such as Obama, Sisi, Cameron, Rouhani and others, were able – without so much as a blush – to bombastically lecture everyone on the dangers of the spread of Islamic terrorism, and the need to defeat it by their own state-promoted terror of guns, torture and bombs.

In complete denial over the role of decades of high-tech state-funded terror in promoting – all over the world – anger, frustration and opposition, such leaders demonstrated they are the most substantial part of the problem and consequently will never be part of the solution. By simply labelling all young Islamic fundamentalists as “psychopathic, murderous, brutal people” as UK’s David Cameron and others have done, they conveniently and effectively avoid their own complicity in bringing about the present dystopian and bestial nature of the middle east and the rest of the globe.

Their own decades-long practice of rendition, torture, mass-decapitations and extra-judicial murders by incarceration, shrapnel and laser guided bombs, are conveniently overlooked as they focus entirely upon the savagery of a considerable number Islamic thugs and decide to repeat – ad nauseam – the same tactics as before.  Urged on by the financial, economic and military imperative of capitalism, ‘bombs and bombast’ just about sum up the nature and essence of the pro-capitalist political and military elite in every country of the world.

Starting from a self-interested assumption that the present mode of production is basically sound, these elites can only presume that any malfunction of, or serious opposition to their system is caused by demented individuals, who are bent upon mischief or evil. Yet freed from that self-conditioned supposition, it is obvious that the sources of religious fundamentalist resistance to the west, such as ISIS etc., etc., (and other forms of radicalisation), in the minds of many participants have economic, social and ideological roots.

The economic and social sources of conflict

The real material base for young people joining such violent patriarchal projects is more often than not, a mixture of two or more of the following characteristics: anti-Imperialist sentiments, a reaction to white racist prejudice, a sense of needing to oppose global injustice, these perhaps motivating relatively affluent jihadists. The same motives plus perhaps anger or frustration over unemployment, low pay and exploitation for those less affluent or destitute. In other words it is the same material base – springing from the totality of the capitalist mode of production – as previous forms of opposition to some or all of these symptoms.

It is only the choice of ideological expression in response to these characteristics stemming from economic, social and emotional factors, which is relatively new. Previous generations during systemic crises, have chosen, nationalist, fascist, communist or social-democratic ideologies to violently oppose the liberal-democratic hegemony of rampant, exploitative capitalism. The failure of these ideologies and their proponents to create a humane, sustainable well-being for the majority of people, has resulted in the vacuum being filled by the current obsession for a return to ancient religious forms of social interaction and control.

Yet these ancient religious forms are no less reactionary and regressive than the neo-liberal ideologies they make deals with or alternatively violently oppose. Look at the ideology of Judaism, which spawned, Zionism: reflect upon Christianity, which supported (and still supports) capitalism and colonialism;  think about Islam, which has yet again, generated Caliphate conquest by the instruments of death.  They are all patriarchal and sectarian. Protestant against Catholic; Sunni against Shia; Orthodox against Zionist; rich against poor!

These ideologies are all outmoded forms of understanding the world since they are based upon ancient gullible hearsay concerning an invisible male super-being whose ‘true’ (!) desires – only a male religious elite – can interpret. They are all detrimental to peace, understanding, equality and  progress.

The ideological sources of conflict.

It is at this point that we can also see the mirror image of another set of elites in denial. Just as the pro-capitalist elites deny that their capitalist mode of production is out of control and systematically ruining the lives of millions along with the ecology of the planet, so too are the religious elite in denial. According to the moderate Islamic elite, Isis, Boko Harem, the Taliban,  al Qaeda, etc are not following the dictates of Islam – but in fact they are. One only need to read the Quran, in any of its translations from Arabic to find ample passages which authorise and justify killing in the name of God. Killing in the name of God is part of the DNA Islam shares with the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity. Here are just a few examples;

“It is He who has sent forth His apostle with guidance and the true faith to make it triumphant over all religions, however much the idolaters may dislike it.” (Surah 9. 33. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth, and your persons.” (Surah 9. 41 N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.” (Surah 9. 73 N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Allah loves those who fight for His cause in ranks as firm as a mighty edifice.” (Surah 61. 2. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolators wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” (Surah 9. 5. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Do you not see how those who dispute the revelations of Allah turn away from the right path? Those who have denied the Scriptures and the message with which We have sent Our apostles shall know the truth hereafter: when with chains and shackles round their necks they shall be dragged through boiling water and burnt in the fire of hell.” (Surah 40. 68.   N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Others you will find who seek security from you as well as from their own people. Whenever they are called back to idol-worship they plunge into headlong. If these do not keep their distance from you, if they neither offer you peace nor cease their hostilities against you, lay hold of them and kill them wherever you find them. Over such men We give you absolute authority.” (Surah 4. 91. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

So when ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalists read these verses – and others – it provides them with religious justification for their barbarism against anyone they decide falls into the categories the Qur’an outlines. And the fact is that moderate Muslims by their total support for this supposedly sacred book are underwriting the very justifications used by their barbaric co-religionists. If Muslims choose to regard the whole of the Qur’an as authentic and legitimate, then they should not be surprised if other Muslims choose to follow ideas and instructions from it that they personally find objectionable.

Bombing an idea out of existence – really?

The decision to try to bomb ISIS out of existence, whether in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere, can only be the product of a complete lack of understanding among the political and military elite. For a start, these fundamentalists are located among non-fundamentalists, who will suffer from the bombardment. Lives, buildings and infrastructure as well as economic activity will be devastated and destroyed by the most powerful bombs imaginable, delivered in the most cowardly and anonymous way – drones or high speed planes. Does anyone in the normal world think that communities treated this way will only blame ISIS and not the west? It is far more likely that targeted communities – who manage to survive – will begin to see the Islamic fundamentalists as the lesser of two evils. Perhaps only a few will become so angry they will actually join the ranks of militant fundamentalists, but their ranks will undoubtedly swell.

It is simply not possible to destroy an idea by destroying the people who believe in it. It can only be destroyed by proving itself inadequate or destructive. The ancient pagan imperialisms tried to destroy monotheism by crucifying, annihilating and otherwise killing and destroying those who adopted it. They failed. The monotheisms themselves, once they became dominant, tried to kill alternative monotheistic ideas by torturing, burning and wiping out those they saw as heretics. They also failed. Both Communist and Fascist elites tried to kill oppositional humanist ideas by torture, concentration camps, gulags, and assassination of those who thought differently.  To no avail!

Sectarianism, whether religious or political, always turns in on itself, before, during, or after it has turned upon others. This is because sectarianism is a manifestation of male arrogance and dogmatic certainty that thinks itself superior not only to women, but to all others who do not accept its dictates.  Those who personify sectarianism, will manifest some or all of the characteristics of sectarianism however these are mediated by the religious or political  constraints organisationally placed upon them. Sectarianism is an intellectual cancer eating away and destroying the intellectual creativity of humanity. As such it cannot be bombed out of existence. Indeed, in this case bombing will only create more fertile ground upon which it will flourish.

The religious sectarianism of ISIS and others, as with its intellectual brother – political sectarianism – needs to be struggled against on the terrain of ideas and values. It needs to be exposed for what it is, what it represents and what its logical outcomes have been, are being and will continue to be.  The various fundamentalist ideologies of fascism and communism were not destroyed by killing those who believed in them, they destroyed themselves by proving in practice that they represented nothing more than new forms of oppression.  The same was true of religious fundamentalisms in the past and it will be proved again in the present and future.

The past Caliphates, were established by sword-wielding, horse-mounted patriarchs bent on forcing their will on believers and non-believers alike. The self-serving and self-justifying myth of an Islamic Golden Age, once seriously examined, turns out to be no more than a tarnished system of oppression and exploitation. It was a system in which wealth – the Gold – derived from extracted produce and taxation was accumulated and transported back to the ruling Islamic elites for their personal disposal.  The present embryo Caliphate has already plotted its own – now mechanised path – along almost identical lines and the reality has been starkly revealed to the world. Taxation, conversion or death! Assassinations, decapitations and crucifixions of Muslims, Christians, Jews, non-believers, men, women and children.

Of course, international communities need to defend themselves against Islamic Fundamentalism, but not by ruthlessly attacking or bombing the communities in which these extremists reside. Not all participants, joining or caught up in this movement are evil psychopaths bent on an orgy of killing.  Some joined these resistance groups for the reasons noted above – resistance to the domination of neo-liberal economics and politics and their puppet regimes. They will learn, sooner rather than later, that the form of resistance they have chosen is counter-productive, inhumane and doomed to failure. They will be helped in realising this if more and more Muslims vocally reject and negate the above noted passages of the Qur’an.

The case for a collective revolutionary-humanist understanding within a clearly articulated anti-capitalist  perspective has never been more needed by humanity. It is to be hoped that one soon emerges.

Roy Ratcliffe. (September 2014.)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Ecological damage., Economics, Finance, Fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Politics, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism, The State | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

ELEVEN THESES.

Posted on September 16, 2014 by stutteringsteps

1. Capitalism has long outlived any historical usefulness its many advocates may have claimed. As a system of economic and social organisation it creates the following existential contradictions: Obscene extremes of poverty and wealth; continual wars over resources and markets; environmental pollution, ecological destruction and the exhaustion of the essential natural resources necessary to sustain all forms of life. In addition, in the 21st century, capitalism is once again in a systemic economic, financial, political and moral crisis as well as sponsoring further military aggressions.

2. The capitalist mode of production is based upon depriving the world’s working classes of two essential means for promoting or sustaining security and welfare in their lives.  The first deprivation is the complete loss of control over the nature and duration of their labour. This is a form of deprivation that lasts throughout their own and their children’s entire working lives. The second denial is the continued dispossession of the huge volumes of surplus-labour and surplus-value which working people, rural, urban, white-collar and blue, create whilst at work in their multifarious occupations.

3. All previous attempts at reforming, re-shaping or transforming capitalism by revolutionary or reformist political means, have failed to radically change the oppressive relationship between capital and labour. Either privately controlled capital has subjugated working people to its exploitation or state-controlled capital has done so in its stead. Despite, their rhetoric, Social Democratic, Fascist and Communist political ideologies and their organisational systems have all been based upon and retained a political and social elite, continued with capital formation (state or private) and enforced the extraction of surplus-value.

4. In face of the current capitalist inspired global dystopia, the historic task for humanity is the re-establishment of egalitarian (and fully communal) economic and social forms of society. Only this transformation can ensure the welfare and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants – human and non-human. Only by everyone becoming a worker and collectively co-operating to utilise the value and surplus-value produced by collective labour, can humanity salvage what is best from its own past and present creativity. Such a post-capitalist transformation is also the only means to preserve what is left of the rapidly diminishing global ecology.

5. The nation-state everywhere – and at all times – has above all else been a vehicle for the maintenance and enrichment of the economic, financial, political and military elite. At the same time it is the armed instrument wielded by the elite for the suppression of the population – particularly during times of crisis. As such it aggressively stands in the way of grass-roots solutions to any crisis the elite create, whether economic, financial, political or military. Communities are forced, by the state, to implement what is in the state elite’s own interests and are prevented by it from implementing what is in  their own.

6. The economic modifications found necessary for the survival of the capitalist mode of production in the 20th century, have provided a glimpse into a future mode of production. The existence of large-scale, non-profit, public institutions such as health, education and social services along with small and large co-operatives have introduced actual and potential post-capitalist forms. Despite, being saddled with bourgeois and elitist practices, they have all proved viable and valuable for the working classes.  As proto-models for a post-capitalist future, they only need the removal of hierarchy,  patriarchy, rendered sustainable and subjected to communal regulation.

7. The words ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ have become detached from any revolutionary content and for all practical purposes are now obsolete. They have become increasingly devoid of any substantive or universally agreed meaning. Consequently, the working classes and poor in general no longer feel any real attachment to them. Clinging to such obsolete abstractions is more of an idealised  ‘fetish’ or an act of religious type ‘faith’, than a revolutionary indicator of intent or a pointer to the future. Yet the concepts originally attached to these terms – non-exploitative economic and social relationships – still has relevance and resonance, particularly among working people and the poor.

8. As a consequence of past mistakes, a renewed revolutionary-humanist paradigm of activism and theoretical understanding is both necessary and is now possible. Based upon the economic and organisational advances made by Karl Marx., Rosa Luxemburg and other pre-Bolshevik anti-capitalists, a way out of the recent and present sectarian vanguardist cul-de-sac is slowly but surely emerging. Building upon this original revolutionary-humanist tradition requires further collective effort, support and refinement along with its vigorous promotion by a new international movement – untainted by past deformities and shameful acts.

9. It was never sufficient – as some anti-capitalists once claimed – that the realisation of full equality for women within an anti-capitalist movement needs to be postponed until after some future revolution. From the outset any such revolutionary movement  should have equal rights for women and ethnic groups, not only promoted, but accepted in practice and embodied within its principles. Patriarchy and patrifocality along with elitism and hierarchy have no part in any movement dedicated to an egalitarian, classless economic and social transformation, particularly one which expects and wishes to go beyond capital.

10. Theoretical and practical diversity within any movement dedicated to going beyond capital is both inevitable and necessary. Sectarian divisions within anti-capitalism are more often than not a result of egotistical arrogance and dogmatic certainty which emanate from this type of religiously minded frame of reference.  It is a mind-set which despite its frequent use of revolutionary rhetoric – is essentially reactionary. Arrogance, dogma and divisions are a serious impediment, if not a absolute barrier to any future struggle against the capitalist mode of production. Diversity within the unity of this struggle is essential.

11. The guidelines and operating principles for a revolutionary-humanist practice within a new anti-capitalist movement should include at least the following. a) Opposition to capitalism in all its economic, social and political forms. b)  Opposition to sectarianism and dogmatism. c)  Opposition to polemical distortion in disagreements. d)  Opposition to disrespect, sarcasm and intimidation. e) For, sharing of information and understanding, including joint tactical discussions. f) A refusal to allow theoretical differences to impede or prevent joint action.

R. Ratcliffe (September 2014)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, co-operation, Critique, Ecological damage., Economics, Marx, Patriarchy, Politics, Reformism, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism, The State | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

CAPITALISM’S ‘Catch 22’

Posted on September 7, 2014 by stutteringsteps

The term ‘Catch 22’ was immortalised in a book of the same title by Joseph Heller. It arose out of the experiences of an American bomber pilot during the Second World War (1939-45), but it is equally applicable to the ongoing situation in the middle east.  In the novel, the lead character, is constantly facing problematic circumstances, for which the solution is prohibited by the nature of the circumstances themselves. An example the author gave, of a ‘catch 22’ is with regard to flying dangerous missions over enemy territory.

According to the bureaucratic military regulations at the time it was possible to be removed from such life-risking duties if you were crazy. However, you had to apply to your superiors in order to be discharged on such grounds. Yet the very act of applying was considered a rational one and so demonstrated that you were not crazy. Hence – Catch 22! In other words, within the system, whatever you did there was no escape. However, the concept goes wider than this one particular example and under the hierarchy of military bureaucracy (and also) capitalist society it also boils down to the following; “they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”  Which was the case with the original Iraq War and now faces the elite – and us – with a modern catch 22.

The Neo-Liberal Catch 22.

Despite unprecedented public anti-war demonstrations and dodgy dossiers (dishonestly alleging ‘weapons of mass destruction’) the elite claimed the right to bomb and invade Iraq and we couldn’t stop them.  This illegal act to rid themselves of a regime which irritated them, has created the conditions for a modern version of a ‘Catch 22’.  The very act of military invasion, occupation, resource destruction and exploitation by the west in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, has created even more dangerous regimes in the form of al Qaeda, the Taliban,  Boko Haram and now the Islamic State of Iraq. The weapons and methods exported and used by the USA and Europe, to fight regimes they dislike in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, have been turned upon them. Every act of aggression and oppression, to suppress resistance, results in more resistance and opposition to Europe and the west – not less!  Hence Catch 22!.

Aggressively spreading the ideology of neo-liberalism across the globe and accommodating to patriarchal religions in their own countries has resulted not only opposition to the west but a patriarchal and militant religious movement par excellence! If the western elite do nothing now, fundamentalist Islam will spread across the middle east, Asia and Africa, because the hatred of the western elite is by now almost universal. Of course, without further interference, Isis will continue to attract recruits and funding, because they are actively opposed to the corruption, oppression, exploitation and immorality of the western neo-liberal elite and their puppet regimes.

However, if the west  tries to bomb and blast Isis into oblivion, situated as they are among civilian populations, they will only create more opposition and even more hatred. It is a hatred that is increasing within and without the countries of practically the whole world. Consequently, in the wake of further bombing and economic crisis, Islamic fundamentalism will still undoubtedly spread, for at present there is no other large-scale ‘value’ system which is opposed to the corruption, immorality and exploitation at the heart of the capitalist mode of production.

In short, after all the 19th and 20th century interference and manipulation, the more the west intervenes in the middle east, (as elsewhere) the more reaction it will create. Whatever the western elites do now, the problem will escalate. Hence – the western pro-capitalist elite have placed themselves – and us – in  a ‘Catch 22’!  The consequences of this elite-led, military phase of neo-liberal capitalist expansion have created a dangerous and dystopian economic, social and political world for everyone. And from the position of the working class lower ranks – military or civilian – it adds the following twist to this increasingly existential problem;  “The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.”

The catch 22 repercussions for working people.

Getting killed by your own side of course does not only apply to military deaths by so-called ‘friendly fire‘, nor only to death and injury from gung-ho politicians and generals sending ill-equipped troops into ill-conceived battles and countries they wish to ultimately exploit.  It applies to the civilian population as well.  For the ‘war on terror’ (which is actually a ‘war of state terror’) has produced in abundance what it sought to eliminate.  The ‘war on terror’ initiated by the western political elite has created more global terror not less.  Now humanity is faced with more than just isolated groups who seek a vicious form of revenge and control. Terror has morphed into large-scale territorial ambitions to form a state on the basis of Islamic law and to physically eliminate those who refuse to conform to its antiquated dictates.

The directly related catch 22 for working people in the west is that when terrorist revenge is dished out it will be our ranks that get beheaded, tortured and bombed, not the political and military elite who kick-started the whole sorry mess. Already, wage or salary earning news reporters, working class civilians and soldiers from the working class ranks are the direct revenge targets for the crimes perpetrated under the command of the western elites. No individuals from the senior elite – political or military – have suffered more than a momentary frustration at an unexpected outcome of an action. And even this frustration has been ‘endured’ from the safety of their well-protected bunkers  and official headquarters.

So here’s the double ‘catch 22’ for the majority of us below the levels of the elite. First of all, our working class ranks, white-collar and blue, military or civilian will be the ones to suffer from any coming terror motivated by extreme hatred of our elite.  And second whilst many of us continue to vote for the political elite in the forlorn hope of worthwhile benefits from a system in collapse or shrug our shoulders without mass protests, we are putting in power those who will continue to put us in danger and get us killed.  It is worth repeating from above what the author of ‘Catch 22’ wrote:  “The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.”  In other words, from a working class standpoint, our enemy is not only the Isis and all patriarchal fundamentalists, but our own economic, political and military elite, who continue to ‘fiddle’  and ‘meddle’ while the conflagration and devastation grows.

R. Ratcliffe (September 2014)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Economics, Fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

DIVERSITY – within – UNITY?

Posted on August 25, 2014 by stutteringsteps

Variety and uniformity along with unity and diversity are often counter-posed as opposites, yet this phenomenon of unity opposed to diversity or diversity opposed to unity is rarely found in real life. Nevertheless, the former is frequently active within the anti-capitalist movement. In this article I will argue not only that there can be diversity within the anti-capitalist struggle, but that there is already diversity – without unity – and in the future there must be diversity – within unity – for it to have any chance of success.

Any revolutionary movement by working people (white-collar and blue) against the capitalist system will inevitably require a degree of unity among a diverse mix of individuals and communities. It is a self-evident reality that working people of one country, let alone the world, differ in beliefs, aspirations, motivations, languages, ages, genders, skin pigment and abilities.  Diversity, within an overall anti-capitalist and post-capitalist unity will therefore not be simply an ideal to aspire to, but a necessity to achieve.

But stating this necessity does not entirely exhaust the question of diversity within unity.  Unity for this purpose would by no means be an exception. Diversity among human communities and individuals are only two examples of this clearly observable fact. It occurs within the overall unity of an individual organism as well as within their separate species. Examples of diversity within unity – from the whole of the natural world – are countless. In fact, diversity within unity is the default condition for the entire expanse of the material world, from the microscopic to the astronomic.

Yet this – with one century-old exception – is not the case within the past and current anti-capitalist movement. In this particular activist paradigm, sectarian diversity without unity is the default and currently deeply entrenched position – even when anti-capitalists are faced with common dangers. It is a symptom at odds with the whole of nature and most social experience and this sectarian symptom mirrors the elite nature of class-ridden social systems.

Anti-capitalist diversity, without unity.

The fact that within the anti-capitalist movement, there is considerable diversity but not a semblance of unity, I suggest, should be cause for serious concern. Sectarian diversity and a systemic lack of unity among anti-capitalists, is a serious practical  problem for those who seek to revolutionise the way the economic and social fabric of humanity is held together. However, it is also a problem which is connected to the theoretical aspects of this ongoing struggle and the way this theoretical perspective is reflected within the realm of politics.

Politics is the social system of governance based upon; leaders and led; controllers and controlled. It requires an elite and a rank and file. To maintain this pyramidal hierarchy the political elites, of whatever persuasion, perpetuate the illusion that they ‘know’ how to lead and have the pre-eminent ideas. Anti-capitalist groups are no different in this regard. Most anti-capitalist groups go beyond this internal arrogance and insist that they have the ‘correct’ ideas and practices to lead the whole of humanity. As a consequence any diversity of ideas within them is extremely narrowly defined and organisationally constrained. This at best leads to factionalism and the suppression, proscription or eventual expulsion, of divergent ideas because the ‘ideal’ such groups are working toward is based upon absolute unity of theory and practice. Lenin for example during the revolution in Russia;

“We must combat the ideological discord and the unsound elements of the opposition who talk themselves into repudiating all ‘militarisation’ of industry’ and not only the appointments methods, which have been the prevailing ones until now, but all appointments..” (Lenin ‘The Party Crisis’ Complete Works. Volume 32 page 50.)

In the Leninist concept of anti-capitalist organisation, ideological differences are correctly seen as an existential problem for the leadership and in this extract, as elsewhere, any divergence is characterised as emanating from ‘unsound elements’.  To stress, the nature of the ‘combat’ he envisaged against those who thought differently, Lenin a month later, at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, declared the following;

“Comrades, this is no time to have an opposition. Either, you are on this side , or on the other, , but then your weapon must be a gun, and not an opposition.” (Lenin. Speech to Tenth Congress. ibid)

Let us overlook Lenin’s crude polemical dualism of either/or – an opinion permitting of no other logical or dialectical alternatives. And let us remember – but pass over – his idea that workers democracy under a post-capitalist system was by implication an ‘unsound’ idea.  Instead let us focus on the existential nature of Lenin’s position with regard to party membership and the emergence within it of divergent viewpoints opposed to his own.

We know that much later Stalin, having taken over the leadership reins formerly held by Lenin, was to use not only the gun against opposition, but torture and assassination of the family members of oppositionists – all in pursuit of party unity. However, the real point here is that whether or not Stalin and other ‘leadership’ figures thought independently of Lenin, they all thought the same on this question. The idea of killing opponents within ‘the party’ or ‘movement’ was part of theirs and Lenin’s overall anti-capitalist ideology. A pattern notably replicated within modern religious fundamentalism.

Of course, those 20th and 21st century anti-capitalist groups who still claim to imitate or inherit the Leninist and Bolshevik views on organisation, may not be so extreme as to contemplate killing those who disagree within and without their organisation – at least not yet! However, experience over the last fifty years or so have demonstrated, that tolerance of diverse views and opinions within such sects, is not something they have been able to consistently adjust to.

Intimidations, expulsions, distortions and even physical violence against internal and external dissent have been part of the intellectual and organisational agenda of most left groups since the end of the second world war. This perverted practice cannot be entirely surprising. The idealistic concept and practice of ‘vanguard’ democratic centralism and ‘secure’ leadership positions within it, leads inevitably to uniformity, intolerance and the suppression of diversity in the vain attempt to achieve it.

Diversity in the First International.

In contrast, the perspective of Marx and Engels was completely different. They consistently stressed that the revolutionary work of superseding the capitalist mode of production was the task of the working classes. They well knew the diverse nature of the working classes and that their ‘self-activity’ would involve the necessity to achieve unity and overcome the prejudiced ‘muck of ages’ in the process. It was also the conclusion they drew from a study of the Paris Commune in which they later asserted that provisional and local self-government was “the most powerful lever of the revolution“. It is also clear from the correspondence of Marx that the providing the overall aims of the 1st International were accepted, each section could organise its work in its own way.

A first probing question: If self-activity and creativity are necessary elements of any revolutionary transition, how else could this be developed, practised, sustained and maintained if not by diversity within a previously practiced overall unity?

There is an obvious reason why Marx, Engels and others got it right. In the original 19th century revolutionary-humanist tradition of Marx, and others, economics, politics and social life were examined from a consistent materialist perspective in opposition to an idealist or mystical point of view. It was this consistent perspective which enabled those who used it to avoid the intellectual trap of inconsistency and idealism. Yet far too many modern anti-capitalists have also drifted away from a consistent materialist perspective and toward one consisting of idealistic and dualistic formulations such as those espoused above by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. [See also Marxists against Marx on this blog] Marx again.

“The working class in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.” (Marx ’The Poverty of Philosophy’ Collected Works Vol. 6 page 211-212.)

The two important organisational points in this extract concerning the revolutionary activity of the working class are the following. First; ‘associations’ which exclude classes and second, the absence of ‘political power’.  Democratic associations of working people will not all think alike or act alike, even if they may do so for a period of time. Associations of working people already, debate, discuss, agree, disagree, experiment, modify etc. In a future with no political power, there will be no permanent leaders and led, but collective discussions and decisions. Certain individuals may play a facilitative role from time to time, based upon the trust of the association members and the knowledge or skill level required, but no politics and no political power. Instead diversity within unity.

A second probing question: Why would a movement dedicated to achieving such a post-capitalist state of affairs – as précised above by Marx – be any different?

Diversity in the natural and social world.

It would be an impossible challenge to find anything other than diversity within unity in the natural world – even down to the level of bacteria and viruses, which comprise of discrete and different internal components with divers functions. The amalgam of such diverse cellular structures combine and co-operate in a multitude of diverse ways to form the higher building blocks of all forms of animal and vegetable life. Even in the non-living mineral materials diverse elements are combined – and re-combined by natural or human activity – into a unity which is preserved over millions if not billions of years.

The human body is a complex, multi-cellular entity, which is made up of millions of living cells, including bacteria which communicate, co-operate, co-ordinate and mutually support each other. We, and all multi-cellular life-forms, are a living example of the evolutionary advantage of diversity within an overall unity. Over  millions of years of human social development , humanity has lived in collective, co-operative and reciprocally beneficial associations known as groups, bands, tribes and confederacies. No two groups being identical, yet constituting a species unity – and not always or continually at war with each other. Trade Unions, although limited in their ambitions, are also made up of diverse members! Why should an anti-capitalist movement be any different?

On the basis of current evidence galaxies of billions of stars and orbiting systems and bodies exist in space with no known examples of two or more which are identical.  In other words, galactic diversity within a unity of galaxies and solar systems. And out there, as on earth, also nothing static but evolving as well as revolving. If diversity within unity exists everywhere in the natural and social history our planet and, as far as we know, everywhere outside it, what makes politics and religion any different?

Why do political movements and religious movements, constantly disintegrate into warring sects, which after a period of time splinter even further, while the rest of humanity in general just get on with each other and get on with life? I suggest there is something relatively recent (in the history of humanity) and ‘unnatural’ (ie social) which has made a virtue out of desiring unity without fully or consistently accepting diversity.

The histories of all religions are saturated with internecine and inter-denominational wars of aggression, torture, death and destruction in the ’cause’ of one religious elite or another. The history of politics since the times of the Greek Polis is no less devious and contemptible. The facile and self-serving medieval polemical splitting of hairs between the religious revolutionaries, Luther and Zwingle being replicated in revolutionary politics by the Jacobins and Herbertists in France followed by Lenin and Martov in Russia and their many imitators elsewhere since.

If humanity, is to transcend this 10, 000 year interregnum of oppression, exploitation and now planetary devastation, I suggest a return to the natural-world examples of diversity within unity needs to be part of that transition. Since such a future cannot be achieved under the capitalist mode of production, it would make sense for such a return to ‘diversity within unity’ to take root again within the anti-capitalist movement itself.

The case for creating a meaningful  degree of unity.

There is already considerable diversity within the anti-capitalist movement but, as noted above, hardly any semblance of unity. Indeed, in the UK and elsewhere there is the debilitating example of competition and rivalry among sections of those who claim to be opposed to the capitalist mode of production.  Not only are rival anti-capitalist group-lets manifold, but rival anti-austerity groups exist independently of each other and compete for membership and influence.

In this type of organisation and activity they resemble the capitalist private sector who compete for membership and supporters among the rest of the population. Internally, they even mirror a bourgeois division of labour with executives, boards of directors and annual meetings, only changing the designations of these bodies to ‘leading comrades’, ‘national committees’, and aggregates or AGM’s.

Likewise, the similarity of male-domination and patriarchal seduction within these sects, cannot be overlooked by the female half of the struggle against the bourgeois mode of production in pursuit of their own human rights.

We need to ask ourselves a further number of serious and searching question. Why could there not be an anti-capitalist movement in the 21st century which accepted as legitimate and valued contributors to the struggle against capital – all those who openly declare this position – but differ on how, when and why to pursue that goal.  What stands in the way? Is it inevitable that those currently emanating from serious, but different anti-capitalist traditions cannot be a supportive part of the same struggle for a more humane post-capitalist society?

A third probing question: Can a  society of diversity and difference accompanied by respect and even support be assisted by groups and individuals who insist on unanimity in line with their own particular dogmatic views?

More questions: Why shouldn’t a clear anti-capitalist social movement emerge which reflects the diversity of humanity, not only with regard to their physical appearance, but with regard to the diversity of opinion – within a paradigm of anti-capitalism and a humane post-capitalist alternative? What is stopping this?

It is surely not necessary to agree on every crossed (t) and dotted (i) of what comes after capitalism, providing we can agree that that is up to the communities of workers to decide this for themselves – when the opportunity occurs.  What prevents us now respecting others views on how to resist, how to develop, how to get there and what mistakes were made in the past – if not egotistical belief in always knowing better than all the others?

And if that is the case, then this is a fundamental flaw in the thought processes of those who think this way. The progress of science and scientific revolutions indicates that knowledge advances, by discussion, difference, contradiction, experience and achieves this advance by leaps in understanding. What was once thought to be ‘correct’ was later proved to be ‘mistaken’. What the majority once thought was ‘right’, proved later to be ‘wrong’.

The same overall pattern of development exists in everyday life and personal relationships. How can an anti-capitalist and revolutionary-humanist movement afford to be any different in this regard? Only sectarian religious views can assert absolute truths and unchangeable dogma and sectarian politics simply mirrors this kind of ‘belief’ in unchanging forms and irrefutable doctrines.  Or, as Marx noted in reference to ‘left’ politics, “Every sect is in fact religious.”

Humanity and the planet are faced with two serious existential threats. The first threat stems from the capitalist mode of production itself. This current mode of production is terminally exhausting and despoiling the planets material resources along with creating poverty, ill-health and injustice for the bulk of the human inhabitants. Not to mention extinctions for many other life-forms.

The second threat is from the rise of militant patriarchy, in the guise of religious fundamentalisms particularly within Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These modern patriarchs wish to maintain capitalism, but transform the elite at the top of the capitalist mode into religious bigots who not only kill and oppress women but decapitate, crucify  or shoot anyone who refuses to conform with their world view.

A final probing question: In the face of these two momentous threats to the future of humanity, is refusing to unite with other diverse anti-capitalists within a broad movement of opposition, anything but stupidly churlish?

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2014)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Ecological damage., Fundamentalism, Marx, Patriarchy, Politics, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

THE DIALECTICS OF DISCONTENT.

Posted on August 12, 2014 by stutteringsteps

The past and present atrocities committed by the advanced capitalist countries of UK, Europe and North America are now being matched, but not yet exceeded, by those of the militant Islamists in Syria and Iraq and the equally militant fundamentalist Zionists in Israel. Beheading, limb severing and mass annihilation from shells, missiles or shrapnel by the pro-capitalist warriors of the west and Israel is being imitated by the sword, the knife and rifle of the Islamic warriors of the former ISIL/ISIS of the east.

Whatever other motives may be involved, at the root of all these non-state atrocities are huge amounts of displaced (and misplaced) anger and discontent caused by increasing levels of individual and collective dispossession occuring across the world. Not surprisingly, a tsunami sized wave of militant discontent is occurring globally at the same time as the social and ecological decadence of the capitalist system of production is increasing exponentially.

The capitalist mode of production with its expansionary stages of market saturation, Colonial conquest, Imperialist expansion and Neo-liberal domination, has created previous historical periods and now new periods and regions of dispossession and discontent among the ordinary non-elite peoples of the world.  For centuries, only the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie have consistently welcomed the domination of capital over the social and economic structures of communities and nations. The rest of the worlds populations of workers and peasants have reluctantly accepted this before (or after) resisting its imposition upon their way of life.

This bloody victory for capitalism has been via the destruction and dispossession of the many indigenous socio-economic resources and relationships encountered by its military agents. It has also resulted in the almost total exhaustion of the eco-systems upon which life itself depends. That process of bourgeois victory and global submission, however, has not removed the many levels of discontent and antipathy to the domination of capital. On the contrary, it has intensified them and this discontent has invariably sought an ideological framework to express it.

Ideology and opposition to capital.

Ideas are crucially important to human communities. Shared socio-economic conditions give rise to shared ideas which are necessary expressions of these conditions in order to ensure for the smooth functioning of economic and social life.  These ideas become embodied in the cultural and, linguistic norms of particular communities. So when the economic, political and military agents of ‘capital’ set about the economic and political dispossession of communities, they not only create discontent, they also undermine or destroy the basis for the previously shared ideas. The replacement ideas, supplied by the bourgeoisie, are those rationalising the dispossession, exploitation and oppression of people by capital. For this reason they do not express the needs and interests of the majority of the worlds populations.

As a consequence, alternative ideas were needed and frequently sought by the oppressed; ideas which many thought might unite them in the effort to rid themselves of (or ease) the domination of capital.  In the 20th century, working people were presented with three alternative forms of ideology, each of which promised to free them from all, or at least the worst, characteristics of the capitalist mode of production. The first two ideologies presented and embraced by many workers were Bolshevism and national socialism or Fascism. Both of these turned out to be elitist, authoritarian and hierarchical forms of government which continued the ruthless and unapologetic extraction of surplus-value from the working classes.

Both ideologies along with their anti-imperialist nationalist variants proved dead ends, for they sought to end the symptoms of exploitation whilst protecting the cause of this exploitation.  The cause of all forms of economic and social oppression and exploitation is the dispossession of the means of production from those who work them – the working classes. The third ideological form offered to working people, promising at least the amelioration of the worst effects of capitalist domination was social democracy. This too turned out to overwhelmingly benefit capital over working people and its representatives have ‘guided’ the system to the current economic, financial and political crisis facing humanity.

All these ideas – condensed into ideologies – and put into practice by elites have proved absolutely disastrous to humanity. By instigating wars, genocide, further dispossessions, poverty and environmental exhaustion, Fascism, Stalinism, Maoism and neo-liberal social democracy, have proved divisive and counter-productive to the struggle for human rights. All four ideologies and their variants were capitalist or state-capitalist, patriarchal and sectarian.

Thus they produced practically nothing of lasting value to the majority of working people, women or non-white people. For a considerable period after the Second World War, there was therefore an almost complete absence (a vacuum) of aspirational ideas which could attract a majority of people.  As a consequence of these predictable failures, in the late 20th and early 21st century discontent, for many people, was not channelled logically into anti-capitalism, but by a dialectical twist into nationalist and religious fundamentalist ideologies.

Religion filling the ideological vacuum.

In response to the many negative effects of capitalist domination, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and even Buddhism  and Hinduism have all seen a rise in fundamentalist and militant tendencies. In the countries with significant Muslim populations, the struggle for existence against the capitalist mode of production – in all its varieties – has frequently taken the form of Islamic fundamentalism. The results of years of dispossession and discontent in the middle-east and North Africa has resulted in radical Islamic political parties and movements whose members are collectively resisting the domination of one neo-liberal, colonialist or Imperialist puppet regime or another. The latest, most extreme manifestation of this radicalisation process is the declaration of an Islamic Caliphate by the ISIS (former ISIL).

The growth and military success of this form of Islamic fundamentalist movement emanating from Syria (and elsewhere) is an indication that treating it as a small-scale terrorist outbreak is nonsense. This development, as with others, is an organised manifestation of widespread discontent with the capitalist mode of production as installed in the middle-east and elsewhere after the first and second world wars.  For example, when a majority of the citizens of Gaza voted for Hamas it was not the case, that these voters were all sectarian fundamentalists. This was because all other methods of resistance to Zionist oppression had not removed it.

Many voted for Hamas because, among other things, they offered the most resolute opponents of the illegal occupation by Zionist Israel. All other political groups had compromised and failed. The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS etc., are movements of opposition to the direct and indirect effects of domination by the capitalist west and its puppet regimes. This is why people vote for such party’s or join their military wings. As movements of resistance to colonialist occupation or capitalist dispossession, these ideas and movements cannot be bombed out of existence as the bourgeois leaderships in Israel, the USA and Europe seem to think.

Indeed, the late 20th and 21st century political and military interventions by the neo-liberal west has created even higher levels of anger and resistance. Further oppression in the form of yet more bombing, shelling, drone-assassination, death lists without due process and genocidal brutality will only further entrench people in their existing views.  What they previously characterised as the Evil Empire of the west will now be seen as reaching new depths of depravity. If previous atrocities and invasions have already motivated thousands to join religious militias, further atrocities will only motivate yet more to join these reactionary movements of opposition.  Entrenched views and ideas can only be changed by experience and by ideas which more accurately express the changing reality and experience of people and communities.

And here is another element of the dialectic: These movements of radical opposition to the west and their own self-appointed elites, are reactionary, and are successful primarily because there is no real acceptable revolutionary alternative. Patriarchal religions and their fundamentalist affiliates, have become a pole of attraction for resistance to capitalism and its numerous effects, because they ‘appear’ to be a better alternative to accepting what is dolled out to them by the ‘Christianised’ capitalist west and their puppet allies. Reactionary movements against the western model of socio-economic communities, also appear to be an attractive pole of attraction because the other forms of anti-capitalism are split into warring, disrespectful sects with their own set forms of patriarchy and dogma.

For disillusioned, discontented young people in the east (as well as the west) faced with joining a sterile anti-capitalist sect to fight against capitalist imperialism, or going on armed jihad to confront their imperial agents, their choice is becoming obvious. It is to be expected that if there is no other set of ideas which offer a more acceptable perspective on the present and future than those currently on offer, then reactionary choices will be the default position for many.  And it has surely become obvious to many that these reactionary religious fundamentalists are only fighting against the political and military agents of the capitalist west, but not the capitalist system itself. They attack the symptoms and not the cause. Furthermore they are fighting against all those who do not share their particular sectarian version of religion. Not only that but it is obvious that they are thoroughly and viciously patriarchal in their attitudes to women. What we are faced with, among other things in the 21st century, is a battle of ideas.

A new paradigm of ideas and practices are needed.

The religious fundamentalism of ISIS and those who have their own alternative version of fundamentalist religion, (Christian Zionists, Judaic Zionists, Islamists) have no ideas which will unite people of no religion, different religions, genders or sexual orientation. They offer only a distorted glimpse of the religious wars of the past, and offer nothing for the future of a mixed humanity except wars and terrorist discrimination. For some time to come, they will undoubtedly consume themselves and others in internecine mutual destruction, and unfortunately eliminate all those who get in their way.

Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, they will exhaust themselves and alienate most of their active supporters.  Eventually, religious domination will be universally seen as a dead end – the relic of a gullible past. But meanwhile, what should also be obvious to all serious thinkers amid this global discontent with the current state of the world and its existing mode of production, is the following. A new anti-capitalist conceptual paradigm of non-sectarian resistance needs to be painstakingly constructed.

Ideas and concepts are essential to envisioning an alternative future to the current capitalist cul-de-sac of continuous and unlimited production and consumption. Ideas are also essential which envisions the elimination of the systemic economic and social divisions between those who command obscene levels of wealth and those who are submerged in absolute and relative poverty.  These need to be a set of ideas which are not utopian, mystical, elitist or dogmatic, but are rooted in the present reality and resolve the glaring contradictions between the means of production and the mode of production.

The production of such non-sectarian and non-dogmatic ideas require a serious commitment and sustained actions which are consistent with and in harmony with the intended purpose. This would need to be a labour of revolutionary-humanist endeavour analogous to that essence of human labour undertaken by Marx and described by him as follows.

“We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose.” (Marx Capital Volume 1 Chapter 7.)

Ideas based upon the reality of the 21st century interconnected world are important as a conceptual focus for those who feel they cannot support the ideologies of capitalist exploitation of the entire world nor a return to the radicalised fundamentalism of patriarchal religions. This new paradigm of ideas need to also reject and transcend the previously noted supposedly anti-capitalist ideologies of patriarchal/elitist Bolshevism, Stalinism and Maoism or they will not attract any more than a tiny minority who will distribute themselves among the remaining atomised sects. The pieces are all there, very few things require invention. The task, therefore need not be idealistic or utopian, but a process of intellectual and practical labour which effects a change of existing form and requires activist exertions to be consistent with this revolutionary-humanist, anti-capitalist purpose.

Roy Ratcliffe. (August 2014.)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, dispossession, Ecological damage., Economics, Finance, Fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

GAZA CALLING!

Posted on August 6, 2014 by stutteringsteps

Re-bloged.

All out on Saturday 9 August Day of Rage

Join the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Movement today. Demand Sanctions on Israel Now.

Palestinian trade unions are calling on our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement internationally to stop handling goods imported from or exported to Israel. The trade union movement has a proud history of direct action against Apartheid in South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions has joined us in the call for direct action to end Israel’s impunity.

As we face the full might of Israel’s military arsenal, funded and supplied by the United States and European Union, we call on civil society and people of conscience throughout the world to pressure governments to sanction Israel and implement a comprehensive arms embargo immediately.

Take to the streets on Saturday 9 August with a united demand for sanctions on Israel.

From Gaza under invasion, bombardment, and continuing siege, the horror is beyond words.  Medical supplies are exhausted. The death toll has reached 1813 killed (398 children, 207 women, 74 elderly) and 9370 injured (2744 children, 1750 women, 343 elderly). Our hospitals, ambulances, and medical staff are all under attack while on duty. Doctors and paramedics are being killed while evacuating the dead. Our dead are not numbers and statistics to be recounted; they are loved ones, family and friends.

While we have to survive this onslaught, you certainly have the power to help end it the same way you helped overcome Apartheid and other crimes against humanity. Israel is only able to carry out this attack with the unwavering support of governments – this support must end.

This is our third massacre in six years. When not being slaughtered, we remain under siege, an illegal collective punishment of the entire population. Fishermen are shot and killed if they stray beyond a 3 km limit imposed unilaterally by Israel. Farmers are shot harvesting their crops within a border area imposed unilaterally by Israel.  Gaza has become the largest open-air prison, a concentration camp since 2006. This time, we want an end to this unprecedented crime against humanity committed with the complicity and support of your own governments!

We are not asking for charity. We are demanding solidarity, because we know that until Israel is isolated and sanctioned, these horrors will be repeated.

Take action this Saturday.

Make boycotts, divestments and sanctions the main message at every protest around the world. Take banners and placards calling for sanction on Israel to every protest. Tweet them using the hashtag #GazaDayofRage. Email us your pictures and action details to GazaDayofRage@gmail.com.

While news of all the mass protests outside Israel’s embassies around the world have given us hope, after weeks of protests, we urge you to intensify your actions. Occupy Israeli embassies, challenge Israeli officials (and others) supporting the current aggression against Gaza whenever they appear in public and stage sit-in in government buildings.

Boycott all Israeli products and take action against corporations profiting from Israel’s system of colonialism, occupation and apartheid. March to boycott targets in your city and educate the public about companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing military assault and illegal siege of Gaza.

Palestinian trade unions are calling on our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement internationally to stop handling goods imported from or exported to Israel. The trade union movement has a proud history of direct action against Apartheid in South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions has joined us in the call for direct action to end Israel’s impunity.

From occupied and besieged Gaza
Signed by
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
General Union of Palestinian Women
University Teachers’ Association in Palestine
Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (Umbrella for 133 orgs)
Medical Democratic Assembly
General Union of Palestine Workers
General Union for Health Services Workers
General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Pal-Cinema (Palestine Cinema Forum)
Youth Herak Movement
Union of Women’s Struggle Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
Union of Palestinian Women Committees
Women’s Studies Society
Working Woman’s Society
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
Gaza BDS Working Group
One Democratic State Group
Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions National Committee (BNC)
BNC includes: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Palestinian National Institute for NGOs, Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition, Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS), Federation of Independent Trade Unions, General Union of Palestinian Workers, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Farmers, General Union of Palestinian Teachers, General Union of Palestinian Writers, Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), Union of Professional Associations, General Union of Palestinian Peasants, Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector, Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW), National Committee for Grassroots Resistance, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba, Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Coalition for Jerusalem, Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations, Palestinian Economic Monitor, Union of Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps, Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Initiative
– See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/gaza-calling-all-out-on-saturday-9-august-day-of-rage-12423#sthash.PUcxchS7.dpuf

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1914 – 1918: CAPITALISMS 1st GLOBAL WAR!

Posted on August 1, 2014 by stutteringsteps

Much has already been said this year (2014), about the causes of the First World War. Its military and political personnel, their conduct, and its positive or negative outcomes have once again been extensively reviewed. Such was the scale of devastation to life, limb, infrastructure and property, that even after 100 years this ‘war to end all wars’, as it was once optimistically described by the British Liberal reformist, Lloyd George, simply cannot be ignored. Undoubtedly there is even more detailed narrative dissection to come. However, what has been missing and is almost guaranteed to still be missing within the upcoming plethora of discussion and analysis from pro-capitalist sources will be the underlying economic causes of this first world-wide war.

So in this 100th anniversary year of the 1914-18 war, it will once again be eloquently and comprehensively analysed from the military, the political, the historical, the psychological and even the social perspective, all of which are important to consider. However, the underlying economic basis of modern wars which, since the 17th century lies in the extraordinary expansionist propensity of the capitalist mode of production, will generally be ignored. Yet understanding this cancerous economic pre-disposition is vital. For this reason the following sections will consider this underlying economic feature in more detail along with some of the available political material which explicitly recognises this underlying expansionist motivation  for wars of conquest.

The full-scale military engagements of the 1914 – 18 war started during August 1914 and ended in September 1918, but this period of brutal hostilities merely identifies the military and political phases of what by then was a centuries-old war between national based capitals strewn across the developing nations of Europe. Yet despite these previous epochs of aggressive competition, this 20th century industrial scale war and its enormous loss of human life, was a first.  It was the first fully globalised demonstration of the extreme lengths national and international capitalist elites are prepared to go in order to protect or achieve their international domination of the capitalist mode of production.

As we will see below, for a real understanding of the complexity of the social, political and military events of the 20th century (or the 21st century) and their outcomes it is necessary to first understand the motivational economic processes of capitalist mode of production. This economic foundation of how societies function will be in the main ignored by mainstream historians as they assemble the material and construct their narratives on the war.  For this reason, the economic analysis and insights of Adam Smith and Karl Marx are a necessary addition to making sense of such appallingly destructive episodes among the human species. Hence a few extracts from these sources will be introduced later.

From agricultural to industrial based wars.

Of course civil wars and belligerent wars of conquest pre-date the domination of the capitalist mode of production. Since the dawn of civilisations, ruling elites, supported primarily by agricultural surpluses, have sought to extend their ability to exploit people and resources and have done so in order to accumulate and consume the wealth produced by human communities.  To do so, they have often had to fight  each other in order to assert their domination and control. The elites of the capitalist mode of production, therefore, did not invent continental scale wars. However, the advent of the capitalist mode of production, has added a qualitative and quantitative twist to the ancient personal motivation for elite conquest and particularly since this mode began to dominate.

First of all, under the capitalist mode of production the motivation of greed has spread to a new and more extensive economic and financial class among the elite – the big capitalists and small capitalists (bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie). In addition these two classes, have along with the middle classes,  increased their membership by a considerable degree and have managed to dominate social and political discourse along with political power. Second, in addition to this individual and bourgeois class-wide greed the particular existential motivation, noted above also emanates from the economic necessities contingent upon the capitalist mode of production.

This existential driving force arises as a consequence of the necessary investment requirements of those who own and invest capital in commodity production or circulation. That is to say the dominating need for an incremental return on their investments ie., the requirement for profit on capital. Third, the industrial and scientific techniques introduced by capitalism enabled the mass-production of advanced weapons of destruction and in this way assured the massive loss of life among the estimated total of 9 million plus men recruited to fight each other to the death.

Capitalisms ‘inner’ need for economic expansion.

This necessity for the continual expansion of production and return on capital arises because under the capitalist mode of production, production is undertaken to create and augment existing wealth (as money capital), by producing – and selling – commodities and services which contain surplus-value. To maintain and/or augment their capital, capitalists need not only to produce such ‘goods’ as quickly as possible but to successfully sell them. However, once the goods and services they manufacture have exceeded the numbers that can be sold locally, they are compelled to try to sell them elsewhere or suffer loss.

Therefore, when the home market is saturated, foreign markets are sought. They are even invaded where new markets do not volunteer to accept these surplus goods. In order to effect a return on investment of capital, the productive capacities of capitalist industries are continually enlarged and extended creating more and more commodities hence the need for more and more outlets. In order to preserve and augment capital via surplus-value extracted from the labouring population, the aim is that the entire mass of commodities should be sold. Under the capitalist mode of production there is therefore a;

“……general competitive struggle and the need to improve production and expand its scale as a means of self-preservation and under penalty of ruin. The market must, therefore be continually extended, so that its interrelations and the conditions regulating them….become ever more uncontrollable.” (Marx. Capital Volume 3. Page 239/240.)

This inner need to insatiably produce for the self-expansion of capital (surplus-value transformed into profit) rather than social need is the cancer eating away at otherwise healthy working communities and the ecology of the planet. One way devised by the elite to extend the market because of the expanding scale of production was via colonialism. The need for ever more markets via colonialist expansion was recognised by the bourgeois economists before the advent of the more comprehensive analysis of capital by Marx. For example, Adam Smith noted;

. “The effect of the colony trade, in its natural and free state, is to open a great though distant market, for such parts of the produce of British industry as may exceed the demand of the markets nearer home of those of Europe, and of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea.” (Adam Smith. ‘Wealth of Nations. Book 2, Chapter 7 part 2. Emphasis added RR)

As Smith notes in this section of this seminal book, the products of capitalist industry in one country had already exceeded the demand of local and Mediterranean markets. Therefore, colonies were sought for their ability to absorb the surplus production. He also noted that trade with these colonies also encouraged increases in the productive capacities of the home country. In Smiths view, with regard to America; ‘The colonies were so good at providing cheap raw materials and absorbing surplus production that the bourgeoisie of every capitalist country wanted them and having gained them by conquest wanted exclusive access to them.’ Already Adam Smith writing in the 18th century, noted the economic nature of the coming clash of nations.

“Every European nation has endeavoured, more or less, to monopolise to itself the commerce of its colonies, and upon that account, has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and has prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation.” (Adam Smith. ‘ibid Book 2, Chapter 7 part 2.)

Or as Hannah Arendt  was to put it, in developing her theme of how capitalism engenders Totalitarianism;

“When capitalism had pervaded the entire economic structure and all social strata had come into the orbit of its production and consumption system, capitalists clearly had to decide either to see the whole system collapse or find new markets, that is to penetrate new countries which were not yet subject could provide a new non-capitalistic supply and demand.” (‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’. Hannah Arendt. Chapter 5 part 3.)

The conquest of colonies and the battles to hang onto them and/or take them away from other national based capitalists covers a long period of European history. This economic history is glossed over – yet frequently referenced – in the often superficially romanticised era of the Dutch, Spanish, French and English battles in wood and sail fighting frigates and piratical galleons. Yet the economic underpinnings of this wood and canvas colonialist period are essentially the same as those which appeared prior to the First World War when fighting ships were by then manufactured in steel and powered by coal.

However, by this later industrialised period the whole world had been largely carved up and controlled or colonised by the advanced capitalist countries of Europe. The only way to grab more in the early 20th century was to take it from another capitalist country.  So as in the case of colonial warfare, the First World War was not ‘inevitable’ or ‘necessary’, nor was it ‘God’s will’ or the ‘hand of destiny’, as far too many historians have claimed. The motivation was essentiall the same – economic competition for further resources and markets. As such it was pre-planned. Thus;

“…the war that erupted in August 1914 was widely anticipated, rigorously rehearsed, immensely resourced and meticulously planned. By 1913, the leaders, if not the led, were anticipating and planning a major continental war. (1913. ‘The eve of War’. Paul Ham. Chapter  3.)

The capitalist nations which took part.

By the late 19th century the world was dominated by two great European capitalist powers, Britain and France and the two continental powers of the United States of America and Russia.  Capitalist Britain, in particular had become, in its own words, the workshop of the world and controlled (ie exploited) the inhabitants and habitations of much of the accessible planet. The development of French capital was somewhat behind that of Britain, but after much competition an accommodation in 1860 (the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty) between these two European  powers had been reached.  But this new war dragged others into it.

“The First World War involved all major powers and indeed, all European states except Spain, the Netherlands, the three Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. What is more, troops from the world overseas were, often for the first time, sent to fight and work outside their own regions.” (‘Age of Extremes’. Eric Hobsbawm. page 23.)

Nevertheless, the primary combatants were Germany and its allies – the Triple Alliance – on the one-hand and Britain and France on the other – the Triple Entente. However, both these two main powers attracted allies, in the form of Turkey, Hungary and Austria on the German side and Czarist Russia on the British and French side. The elites in these allied countries had their own economic problems and ambitions caused by the development of capitalism within their borders and the penetration of foreign capital within their industries. Take Germany for example;

“In 1913 German industries were the most advanced in Europe, German cities were rapidly expanding, and the nation confidently entertained huge ambitions. German mines and factories now outpaced Britain’s in the production of pig iron and steel.” (1913. The eve of War. Paul Ham. Chapter 1.)

This expanded raw material production needed additional outlets for further commodity  production or for export and represented a serious competitive threat to other European capitalists, particularly Britain. For this reason, the British and French liberal elites wanted Germany’s ambitions curtailed and the conservative reactionary elites in these countries wanted them ‘crushed’. So those in the countries noted above became  partners in the struggle for the acquisition or defence of territory and resources and willingly, if not enthusiastically, participated in the war.

Particularly beneficial prizes of war anticipated by all capitalist and pro-capitalist elites – at that time – were the middle-eastern territories of the former Ottoman Empire. These areas were seen as ripe for conquest, control and capitalist development, by all major participants in the first world war. The eventual fulfilment of this  ‘middle-east’ ambition at the end of the First World War had repercussions that are still unfolding in the 21st century. As we shall see, the expanded capacities of capitalist production and the need for profitable outlets were undoubtedly the motivating forces for war. And these economic reasons were made clearest by Germany.

The monstrous Blockade.

A ‘Decree’ in Berlin as early as 1806 lays out the essential complaint of German Capitalistsprimarily against those based in Britain. The British navy, on the orders of the capitalist elites in government, regularly intercepted merchant vessels and blockaded harbours and ports of trade against many competitive merchants (ie Holland, Spain and France) from the continent – including those of Germany. Point 5 of the Berlin decree asserted;

“That this monstrous abuse of the right of blockade has no other object but too impede communications between peoples and raise the commerce and industry of England upon the ruins of industry and commerce of the continent.” (Included in ‘The Process of Industrialisation 1750 – 1870’ Volume 1. edited S. Pollard & C. Holmes. page 278.)

There are numerous governmental and industrial documents from this period and later stating such complaints and others, with regard to capital expansion. Many of them are conveniently gathered together in a book entitled ‘Germany from defeat to Conquest’ by W.M. Knight Patterson, from which a few extracts will be taken. One further example  was made in a speech by a delegate at a Pan-German Association Congress in 1912. This speech, given two years before the outbreak of war, contained the following transparent declaration.

“Our people has since grown enormously in numbers…at home discontent is rife….Germany’s boundaries are too narrow. We must become land hungry and acquire new territories for settlement,..” (Baron von Vietinghoff-Scheel. Quoted in ‘Germany from Defeat to Conquest’. WM K Patterson. page 23. Emphasis added. RR. )

Note the three common capitalist/colonialist themes ‘population growth’, ‘discontent’ at home’ and the need for ‘territorial expansion’ . Numerous such statements from the German based capitalist and pro-capitalist elite about the need for territorial expansion were made prior to the invasion of Belgium in 1914, which triggered the 1st world war. The vaguely worded economic formulation of ‘territories for settlement’ allowed for multiple interpretations and multiple aspirations. To those capitalists wishing to farm, it meant the possibility of obtaining free or cheap land.

For those in capitalist mining activities, the prospects of new areas of lucrative extraction; for industrial capitalists, new factories and labour to exploit; for those in banking and finance capital, new investment opportunities; for state bureaucrats, new regions of administration; for the military, new outposts of command and control. These sectors of the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite were at one in anticipation of this aggressive expansionist project. In 1914, the first year of the 1914-18 war, a petition from a consortium of German capitalists made the integrated needs of big-capital quite clear.

“Coupled with the demand for a Colonial Empire that shall be fully adequate to Germany’s  many sided economic interests, the security of our financial and commercial future,… It should be specially noted at the end of this note that the political, military and economic objects which the German people should do their best to obtain are intimately connected with each other and cannot be separated.” (Quoted in: ‘Germany from Defeat to Conquest’. WM K Patterson. Page 56.)

Can the economic motives be made any clearer than that? And Germany was then merely articulating what was already assumed – and much of which had already been seized – by other capitalist controlled nations in Europe. These nations had previously expanded and controlled large expanses of territory and resources, throughout the world. It is estimated that over-producing European capitalist countries by this time controlled at least 50% of global territory and even a higher proportion of the important sea routes required for international trade. From 1870 on German capital, late on the scene, but by then also vastly over-producing, merely wanted to challenge and usurp other nationally based capitals for global control of the available land, resources and transportation routes.

The German war aims as expressed in 1916.

After two years of brutal warfare in which millions of working people –  conscripted into the various armies – had died agonising deaths, the German Supreme Command issued a declaration of their underlying war aims. The following is a much reduced abstract of the seven acquisitive resource demands communicated to the German Foreign Office to be presented later to the British led Triple Entente .

1. Modifications of the Prussian frontier to our advantage…..decisive interest in the railway system.

2. ..annexation up to  the line Gulf of Riga, to the west of Riga, passing Vilna to the east……the inclusion of the Kingdom of Poland.

3. Belgium. Absorption of the mineral wealth of the Campine..taking over the railway system. Right of occupation….The annexation of Leige with corresponding stretches of territory.

4. France. …the coal districts of Briey and Longwy.

5. Return of the Colonies…Acquisition of the Congo State.

Predictably, the Allied opponents of the German military alliance rejected these terms and demanded the return of all occupied territories to their original people along with confiscated resources, so the war continued. By this refusal and these counter-demands, the allies – led by the British – were able to present themselves and appear as the ‘good-guys’ in opposition to the ‘nasty’ Germans and this was what the allied propaganda churned out and to some extent still does.

This was the basis of the eventual application of ‘war-guilt’ status to Germany and the imposition of reparations by the Treaty of Versailles when the allies finally won in 1918.  So the real ‘nasty’ elements in the First World War were on both sides of this carefully prepared and engineered conflict between rival nations. They were the capitalists and pro-capitalist politicians of both allied camps in this ruthless competitive struggle for economic and financial supremacy.

The allied insistence on returning to the previous status-quo merely meant returning to the pre-war global domination by British and Anglo-Saxon capitalism, but now with the added benefits collected in the process of the war effort. These economic and financial benefits were something of a life-line to a crumbling British ‘financial’ Empire, which had been previously established by the gun, sabre and warship.  They were gained by the re-drawing of boundaries in Europe, mainly to the disadvantage of Germany and in the drawing of new boundaries in the middle east. The war had not only killed millions, but had also de-stabilised or destroyed the former remnants of the Ottoman Empire opening new avenues of financial exploitation in this area of the world. But the aftermath of this war also created the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggles in these and other areas. A final word from another commentator on one of the many dystopian outcomes of the 1914-18 war.

“The tensions between Israel and Palestine are the products of the First World War, and the states of Iraq and Syria were given their present shape by the peace settlements that followed that war. All four countries still have bones to pick with the British.” (‘The First World War’. Hew Strachan. Introduction.)

The books mentioned in this article are well worth the read for the detail they include, but most of them are all also notable for the detail they omit. With the exception of ‘Germany from Defeat to Conquest’, by WM K Patterson, not one of them seem to have understood (or at least have a critical understanding) of the capitalist mode of production and the role this mode plays in promoting modern aggressive warfare. In general only the political, legal, military and moral superstructures of capitalism are closely examined by bourgeois historians. Yet this capitalist mode with its economic and financial needs for resources and markets is the substantive foundation upon which the political, legal, moral and military superstructures are erected.

Although these superstructures can gain a relative degree of independence from time to time, they are nonetheless dependent upon the economic base and the majority of those who staff them will ultimately act in unity to protect and extend that economic base – when the need arises.  We are currently living through a new period of intense existential crisis for the capitalist mode of production. A new phase of relative overproduction in the economic, financial and social areas of this capitalist mode is replicating under modern conditions, essentially the same problems associated with the outbreak of war in 1914 and again in 1939.  It cannot be surprising therefore if we have also entered a new period of wars, uprisings and potential revolutionary situations.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2014.)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Economics, Finance, Marx, Nationalism, Politics, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , | 2 Comments