THE IMPORTANCE OF THEORY.

Posted on February 27, 2014 by stutteringsteps

Introduction.

A previous post [‘Fundamentalism’] noted that whilst the numerous current popular upsurges throughout the world are mainly targeted against the neo-liberal capitalist system, its western elites and their numerous puppet regimes, they are not taking on an explicitly anti-capitalist form. Indeed, in many places there has been expressed a desire to return to forms of governance based upon ancient religious foundations. Whilst the general content of these struggles continues to be dissatisfaction over basic economic needs such as jobs, housing, health, food and water etc., the perceived means of achieving these have not generally been seen as involving a change to the capitalist mode of production. In the current world-wide battle of ideas, anti-capitalist ones have been largely overlooked or deliberately ignored.

As a consequence, achieving these 21st century economic aspirations is predominantly seen by participants in the modern uprisings, continued sectarian killings and quasi-civil wars, as only requiring a change in forms of governance. The most extreme examples of such struggles have been in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and now the Ukraine. Only slightly lesser extreme examples are everywhere. The changes envisaged by such determined anti-regime activists leave the capitalist mode of production intact and instead focus upon one or two alternatives. Either one of creating a ‘truly’ representative democracy or alternatively establishing a ‘strong’ theological autocracy. However, such sectarian religious and divisive political ideologies cannot even partially create the necessary unity or the circumstances for realising such a minimalist political aspiration.

Considering the undeniable fact that the 20th and 21st century neo-liberal phase of the capitalist mode of production has ruthlessly dispossessed further millions from former subsistence agriculture and craft production in even more regions of the world, this conceptual disconnect between the base and superstructure; between politics and the mode of production, is quite remarkable. For these large-scale neo-liberal capitalist-inspired dispossessions continue to cause huge socio-economic problems in developed as well as less capitalistically developed countries. From a revolutionary-humanist, anti-capitalist perspective, trying to fulfil the basic economic, ecological and social needs of the mass of people on the basis of politics and religion, is to struggle against the symptoms and not the cause. Thus making a difficult task impossible.

It perhaps should be obvious to millions by now that a change in the global mode of production is actually what is needed. But clearly it is not! It should be obvious to left economists and politicians that renewed economic competition between capitalist countries for markets and resources can now only lead to lower wages, more over-production, further ecological damage and even more armed confrontations. But again it is obviously not! By now it should also be obvious among anti-capitalists, that only a non-sectarian revolutionary-humanist anti-capitalist perspective has a hope of offering the necessary basis for uniting working people, from different countries and different traditions. Yet this too is not generally recognised! In fact only a few individuals among the anti-capitalist left are articulating such a non-sectarian perspective and even less are actually operating in such a manner.

That large-scale and obvious wide-spread effects and defects of the capitalist mode of production have not resulted in a massive turn to revolutionary anti-capitalist ideas and practices, but to various religious fundamentalisms and nostalgia for an idealised authentic petite–bourgeois democracy, should be cause for considerable concern. Importantly, the dominance of these two tendencies needs both explanation and resolution. But of course, any serious explanation requires serious study and evaluation. In our field of study it requires a development of anti-capitalist and revolutionary-humanist theory. Among the anti-capitalist left the case for critical study, including self-critical study, should not need to be made, but given all the above noted problems, and some to follow, I suggest it does.

The general – and obvious – importance of theory.

If things are as they first appear to perception and common sense then there would be no need for science nor any form of critical study of the world and its constituent parts. There would be no need for complicated reasoning, evaluation and therefore no real need for theory. Simple common-sense observation would suffice to guide us through our lives. However, one of the lessons we often painfully learn first hand is that things are not always what they seem – and this lesson does not apply just to ex-partners, con-men, telesales personnel and politicians, but to many other areas of life. [So for this reason bear with me until I get to the main points of this section.]

Our eyes, ears, touch and common sense do not always reveal the world as it really is. In everyday life, for the main part, common sense and our unaided senses are sufficient, but the more serious the situation or need gets the more superficial our common-sense opinions can become. Consequently, the modern world is full of branches of science, (medical, metallurgical, electrical, biological, geological, astronomical, mechanical, anthropological, meteorological, etc.) in which common-sense and unaided sensory perception are insufficient. Instruments and theories have become a necessary part of these areas of modern life upon – which to a greater or lesser degree – we all depend.

Point 1. It took decades of intense study of economics and history by many individuals before an adequate theoretical understanding of the capitalist mode of production was achieved. The common-sense of most capitalists held one view (its the best economic system ever.); most bourgeois theorists held another (its a system of efficiently producing goods), whilst the common-sense views of workers varied. Very few people actually understood its contradictions, nor that it was just the latest form of social production, and one with dire consequences for humanity and the planet.

It took a decade or so of economic study by one person, Karl Marx, to minutely examine the workings of the then relatively new mode of production and expose what was hidden beneath the various common sense views and within the bourgeois prejudiced theoretical ones. What was not perceived by the unaided senses allied to common sense ideas, was exactly how workers were robbed of the full value of what they created by the wages system (the mechanism of surplus-value extraction) and that the system periodically created more goods than could be sold at a profit – the phenomena of relative over-production crises.

Point 2. We would not think much of a doctor, electrician, engineer, weather forecaster, astronomer, etc., who had not bothered to study the theoretical and practical applications of his or her area of expertise and had not kept up-to-date with the latest discoveries and evaluations appropriate to this field. We would feel even less confidence in someone claiming to be a leader in his or her particular field if they too relied upon common-sense and unaided observations supplemented by a meagre smattering of almost 100 year old ideas and practices. Would any sensible working person be advised to trust them? In that case; Why should those active in revolutionary-humanism and anti-capitalism be treated any differently by working people?

Besides, one of the many important changes the capitalist mode of production has gone through are the broad economic categories of modern life. There are now more white-collar workers than blue. Another is that practically all working people in the advanced countries and in many less advanced, can read and write. Furthermore, the once large class of small businesses in production, distribution and sales, along with their owners and siblings have all but disappeared. These changes have now led in the advanced capitalist countries and in some less advanced, to a massive relative over-production of university educated, white-collar workers.

Literally hundreds of thousands of trained lawyers, teachers, social workers, doctors, engineers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists, and other disciplines in the 21st century are having their aspirations frustrated. The world-wide production of such job-requiring and seeking categories has far exceeded the vacancies capitalists have available. Increasingly, frustrated educated young people will be both angry and deeply concerned with their futures. With nothing to lose, for they have had to work hard without gaining anything but a paper certificate, they are likely to be in the forefront of coming struggles for something to change.

Point 3. The present and future activists among them are unlikely to be attracted to an anti-capitalist movement, split into warring factions and whose grasp of their own area of concern is fragmentary, contradictory and based predominantly on wishful thinking allied to little more than a smattering of commonsense.

Theoretical problems facing the anti-capitalist left.

There is a further closely related fact facing the anti-capitalist project. After several severe, world-scale crises of the capitalist mode of production and two capitalist inspired world-wars, there is still no positive example of a large-scale alternative to the capitalist mode of production. Despite fortuitous circumstances, only several disastrous attempts have taken place. This lack of a positive example is also in need of explaining. Why they have all failed, is not something which can be answered by a few quotations and some commonsense. And in turn this failure raises yet another related issue. From within the anti-capitalist left, there is no clear, comprehensive and convincing explanation of why previous attempts at a large-scale post-capitalist economic system turned out to be disastrous failures. Critical observers are left to draw their own conclusions as to why this is so.

It is a fact that not one attempt at post-capitalist construction has produced a humane and egalitarian social and economic system, for even a short time. Nor one in which the workers escaped wage-slavery and savage exploitation. Yet all we have from the past defenders of such attempts are various, often puerile, excuses. This notable absence of a convincing explanation also needs explaining. Self-critical and evaluative explanations for these previous failures cannot be expected from the bourgeois and petite bourgeois intelligentsia, nor their analogues in the academic and political spheres of neo-liberal capitalism. Such thoroughness must be motivated and articulated from within the revolutionary-humanist and anti-capitalist movement itself. So far this has not been the case and for this reason the bourgeois condemnation of the post-capitalist project dominates common-sense thinking.

Unfortunately, the sectarian fragmentation of this traditional milieu and its partisan nature has prevented such a wide-spread, comprehensive analysis and self-critical evaluation. There is a veritable wide-spread vacuum in this regard. In place of this necessary work, the intellects and literary efforts of this anti-capitalist milieu (Stalinist, Leninist, Trotskist and Maoist) has been dominated by confirmation biased evidence and mainly directed at self-justification of their own and their name-sakes efforts, ideas and reputation. To this self-serving output has been added an internal and external atmosphere of sectarian point-scoring, character-assassination and frequent sabotage – aimed at rival anti-capitalist sects.

Since Bolshevism (Leninist, Stalinist or Trotskyist varieties) and Maoism began to dominate 20th century anti-capitalism, the intellectual output of those who accepted this model have reduced the problems of humanity to the relationship between themselves (the so-called vanguard) and the masses. In very few instances has this self-appointed sectarian elite recognised the need for a critical attitude to itself. In their criticisms of the capitalist world and of other anti-capitalists, Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists and Maoists have for decades demonstrated a completely uncritical attitude to their own tradition of elitism, patriarchy, sectarianism and dogmatism. As a result these characteristics persist. What else can be expected?

This state of affairs has in turn led to further fragmentations, disgust and the haemorrhaging of individuals from these groups. Obvious too, has been a distancing from these sectarian theoretical polemics and the groups which conduct them, by many individuals wishing to work for an alternative society. All these factors should lead directly to a realisation that attention to critical evaluation (or an increased attention to up-dated anti-capitalist theory) is a necessary requirement for those proposing that a post-capitalist socio-economic form is both necessary and possible. Otherwise why should anyone listen?

In my view we are well overdue for a permanent revolution in this particular regard. To constructively engage with workers influenced by education, religion or petite-bourgeois notions of democracy, the anti-capitalist movement will need to change and become a non-sectarian revolutionary-humanist movement. It will need to display these non-patriarchal and humanist characteristics in its everyday practice and do so consistently over a very long period of time. It will also need to be self-critical and armed with sufficient knowledge to convince others that all its members know what they are talking about when they offer to play a facilitative role in the coming struggles.

My own view is that we need more updated theory of the self-critical and evaluative kind and not less. Less of the self-serving sectarian kind of course. Further anyone within the anti-capitalist milieu who suggests or implies that theory (critical and self-critical) is not important or belittles its pursuit in contrast to practical activism not only contradicts Marx, but to my mind attempts to undermine the crucial interaction and balance between reflective thinking and purposeful acting.

The current and past left pattern of a sectarian elite (elected or not) producing the ‘paper’ and the ‘party line’ and a rank and file rushing around distributing ‘it’ is outmoded and needs discarding. A final word from Marx on how we should play a critical, evaluative, non-sectarian and facilitative role with regard those who may not as yet agree with us.

“..we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it doesn’t want to……The reform of consciousness consists only…..in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions.” (Marx to Ruge, September 1843)

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Revolutionary-Humanism, Revolutionary-Humanist theory, Sectarianism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SANDBAGS AND SEWAGE.

Posted on February 14, 2014 by stutteringsteps

Over the last month large sections of the UK have been inundated by sea and river water and the production and allocation of sandbags has practically dominated the main news outlets. Are there enough?; are they in the right place?; who is responsible for supplying them?; who else can be filmed helping to place them? These were questions repeatedly asked. Not one newscaster, reporter. politician or local official has ever asked the most obvious question. Why is this 18th century form of technology (absorbent sand often in a porous sack) the main and practically the only last-ditch defence available to working and middle-class people in 21st century Britain? Is that really all the elite think they deserve? It is clearly the cheapest possible form of defence and one which cannot really prevent flood damage even though it may – in some circumstances – slow the ingress of water into houses and buildings.

In addition there seems to have been a conspiracy to hide incompetence behind one or other of two mantra’s.  First ‘no one could have predicted this’ or second; ‘no one could have predicted it would be so bad’. Both rationalisations are of course nonsense. Floods of great magnitude have visited UK shores on a number of previous occasions. One as recently as 2007 and yet another in 2012. In addition, climate scientists have long predicted that due to global warming, such severe weather conditions creating storms and floods, are not just a possibility – but a probability. And anyone or any group who does not adequately prepare for some drastic event which has happened before, remains a distinct possibility and is now also an increasing probability are either fools or people who just do not care. In an advanced tax-collecting capitalist country, such as the UK, those who control the way tax-payers money is spent are exactly those who are responsible for such flood defences – and are selectively offering very little else except – sandbags!.

Unfortunately we cannot excuse government officials and politicians on the basis that they are fools, although that may be the case for a few individuals among them. This is because they are very good and looking ahead and preparing for future eventualities. In their preparations for future wars a constant concern of theirs is to update the latest in the expensive technology of warfare. Preparations for resisting future civil unrest against the system they uphold are also a constant focus for their attention and are well advanced, legally and materially. Indeed, where it effects them directly, they are also far-sighted with regard to flood defences. The ‘high-tech’ Thames Barrier system, protecting the city of London, costing the equivalent of billions in today’s devalued currency, was started 40 years ago – in the 1970’s. No reliance on a few low-cost sandbags for them. How far-sighted was that project for the protection of the politicians, the wealthy and privileged?

Of course anyone who has penetrated the smoke and mirrors of pro-capitalist ideology will have not been taken in by the clichés and common-sense rationalisations oozing out of the mouths of television news anchors, officials, politicians and reporters. They will have correctly identified all the faked patronising sincerity emanating from these directions – as just another load of verbal sewage. However, that is not the only form of muck they will have to deal with.

The next serious problem those communities now flooded will have to deal with is the effect of raw sewage. This is because yet another area of serious neglect are the existing sewage and urban drainage systems. These sewage and water supply systems, built by the Victorians with far fewer urban citizens in mind than the current populations of villages, towns and cities, are also crumbling and inadequate. Consequently, when floods occur, raw sewage is backed up and rises along with the flood water, to be soaked up by house bricks, carpets, furniture, fields, and of course sandbags.

The barely effective semi-porous sandbag defences will of course like sponges absorb the contaminated water and their surfaces, along with many other items, will become a serious viral and bacteriological health hazard to be disposed of – even when the water has gone. If, there is a subsequent outbreak of disease, among the young and the old as a consequence of the neglect of real substantial flood and sea defences along rivers and coastal areas (and it is by no means impossible), then this will present problems for the health services. It is to be hoped that such an outcome does not materialise for obvious reasons. Already stretched and in serious staffing, cultural ethos and infection difficulties, the UK health service is another system operating close to a disastrous collapse of its ability to maintain acceptable modern standards. Isn’t that something else that politicians and officials have been warned in advance about by medical staff?

It should be obvious that the previous neo-liberal governments of Labour and Tory and now ConDem elites – over decades – have sacrificed all those previous useful and necessary public services, either by neglect or by continued privatisation. Relatively efficient and cheap utilities and services have been replaced by expensive and inefficient private operated ones. Countless roads, bridges, schools and hospital buildings (also surviving remnants of previous periods of history) are in an appalling condition for an advanced country. And it has also been known for decades and now proved again that sea and river defences – everywhere – are woefully neglected and extremely inadequate. However, nothing better can be expected of an economic and political system which rewards the owners of capital, the obscenely rich and famous and is based upon the profit-motive, for it has now gone too far to correct itself.

The UK elite as with many other advanced capitalist countries elites has neither. the inclination nor the ability to correct their past and present neglect. Other capitalist countries, Holland for example, have in the past looked ahead and spent tax-payer money on high-quality and large-scale flood defence systems. Iceland, recently prosecuted corrupt and self-serving Bankers and refused to honour the debts they had incurred. Not so the UK, European and North American elites. These are hand in glove with the financial elite and their corrupt system. So much so that they have ramped up the sovereign debt to such a level, that even in the unlikely event that they eventually develop a conscience, they could no longer afford to repair or re-instate all the long neglected and damaged infrastructures that now exist. Not even an uprising could accomplish that.

The recent and past destructive flood and storm events in the UK and the USA – symptoms of the growing ecological and environmental crisis – arrive at a time when public finances in these countries have been squandered upon huge costly aggressive armed forces, invading other countries and in patching up the self-ruined financial system in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. So until enough people decide enough is enough and start to campaign against the capitalist mode of production and all it entails, high-tech solutions and astronomical bonuses, self-interested patronising officials and politicians will continue to exist on the one-hand; whilst low wages, zero-hours, poor facilities and services on the other will continue for the rest of us. And until such time, those who live near a river or the sea, will more than likely continue to get spades full of sham sympathy, along with further deposits of sandbags and sewage.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2014)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Ecological damage., neo-liberalism, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

FUNDAMENTALISM.

Posted on February 6, 2014 by stutteringsteps

In practically every part of the world, dissatisfaction with the existing neo-liberal regimes and the economic system they uphold, is being displayed. From the advanced capitalist countries, to the less-advanced ex-colonised countries, people across the globe are up in arms both metaphorically and literally. Mass opposition to the systemic economic and social inequalities that the capitalist mode of production has inaugurated, is producing not only large-scale demonstrations and uprisings, but also armed groups. Many of the latter are prepared to fight and die in order to bring about changes to the way countries and communities are governed. In all this upheaval, there is an almost universal recognition that the present mode of existence for the ordinary citizens of the world is in dire need of change.

There is however, no agreed vision of what form those changes should take. Indeed, even in the most ‘advanced’ capitalist countries, the most potentially militant visions of what form of economic production and governance should replace the existing neo-liberal capitalist ones are currently not anti-capitalist ones. For in Europe and North America, the ascendant dissident views are in fact to be found among the category known as religious ‘fundamentalisms’. As the unfolding 20th and 21st century economic and social crisis has steadily increased competition for jobs and resources among members of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities, there has been among them, a resurgence of religious identities and fundamentalist views on how to combat the oppressive symptoms caused by capitalism.

Since they presently dominate the news, the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa are useful as examples. These have been dominated by movements and armed groups dedicated exclusively to replacing the existing political, often pro-secular regimes. Not, however, with anti-capitalist forms of self-governance, but with Islamic fundamentalist ones. Of course, the current proliferation of such armed groups killing in the name of their sectarian version of God rest predominantly upon the often hopeless and alienating socio-economic situations they face individually and collectively. Nevertheless, the current form their struggle most often takes against these situations, is mediated and justified by previously developed fundamentalist religious ideas.

For example, after directly observing the mid-twentieth century socio-economic situation in North America, an influential thinker within the early development of the Muslim Brotherhood movement commented on western capitalist policies;

“..any objectives other than the immediate utilitarian ones are by-passed and any human element other than ego is not recognised. Where the whole of life is dominated by such materialism, there is no scope for laws beyond provisions for labour and production. The result is class struggle which becomes inevitable and visibly evident.” (Savyid Qutb ‘Islam and Universal Peace. Quoted in ‘Fundamentalisms Observed’ by Marty and Appleby.)

Similar views are currently expressed across a wide geographical and cultural range of peoples, from Egypt, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Burma, Congo, Nigeria. and Turkey, just to mention a few. In the more advanced capitalist countries, particularly in the United States of America, the injustices and exploitation gave rise to the black separatist movement of the Nation of Islam, a resurgence of Christian Zionism, and many other forms of Protestant fundamentalism.

All of these fundamentalist religious trends, articulated by the Bakkers, Farrakhan‘s, Vasil’ev‘s, Bonnke‘s, Kook‘s, Savakar‘s, Bodhiraksa‘s, and many, many others of the fundamentalist world, are deeply critical of the contingent immorality and injustice introduced by the capitalist mode of production. But none of them draw anti-capitalist conclusions. They all see many of the social, cutural and political symptoms, but their ideologies prevent them from examining the economic causes. On the continents of South America and Africa, religious fundamentalism (Protestant and Catholic) has also been the most successful ideological development in mobilising opposition to the dominant elites and their economic, military and political inter-connection with the dominant Anglo-Saxon sources of neo-liberal capital.

In each of these multifarious movements there is a clear identification of the way the present capitalist mode of production dominates the whole of life and creates societies focussed upon the acquisition of money and the advancement of corrupt elites. It also creates new class divisions and class struggles around labour and production. But the solution envisaged by Qutb and others such as Al- Banna, to this historic capitalist-introduced problem, was for the oppressed to struggle for a return to the fundamentals of Islam.

This particular Islamic thinker (Qutb) was imprisoned and cruelly tortured by the government of Nasser and began to articulate the beginnings of a militant resurgence of Islam. One requiring the identification of unbelievers and the complete allegiance of believers to Islam. It was only a short step from such mid-twentieth century militant scholarly interpretations of Islam for later followers to obtain weapons and attempt to enforce their will upon communities – which they did! This is a trend which now stretches across continents from Africa to Asia.

But as indicated earlier, a return to religious fundamental forms of governance in order to escape the wealth inequalities, corruption and injustices of capitalism is not restricted to the middle eastern and Asian ex-colonised countries. In North America and Europe many of those most oppressed by the system of capitalism are also not turning to anti-capitalist analysis, proposals and activism, but to religious forms of identity with publicised hopes for a return to religious forms of communal governance.

In North America in particular, the fundamentalist tap-root dates back almost to the origins of capitalisms domination of the United States. However, the last huge capitalist crisis in the 1930’s led to a massive upsurge in protestant Bible studies (Bible Colleges and Radio stations) which was further strengthened or ‘born again’ as opposition grew in response to post Second World War economic, cultural and social developments. The legacy of this development is ever present in the 21st century.

Perhaps not surprisingly, in the former Soviet Union, the anti-capitalist viewpoint has all but died out completely and now Orthodox Christianity and Islam compete for ascendancy as the supposed standard bearers of humane conduct for their disenchanted and disinherited citizens. A glaring litmus test of the domination of this reactionary pro-religious trend in modern Russia was supplied by the substantial and orchestrated demonstrations against Pussy Riot activists (Katia – Masha and Nadia) who peaceably gyrated in front of the alter in ‘Christ the Saviour’ church. In the former land of so-called ‘Marxism’, the Orthodox Church and the Russian State eagerly collaborated in the persecution of female activists simply demonstrating against patriarchy and the Patriarch.

All these late 20th and early 21st century retrograde developments across the globe should be cause for considerable concern among anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists. For, despite, the current world-wide capitalist crisis, the project for a post-capitalist society is further removed from working class and mass social consciousness than it has been at any time since its articulation in the form of ‘socialism’ in 17th and 18th centuries.

And of course, the palpable failures of state socialism and state communism in their various guises from their social democratic forms in Europe and the middle east, to the Communist regimes of the former Soviet Union along with its satellite countries and China have turned countless workers away from such so-called anti-capitalist alternatives to capitalism.

This suggests that a considerable task of sustained endurance faces us. We need to convince those few who are willing to listen, of the following.

1. That it is necessary and possible to go beyond economic and social domination by capital. [See ‘Defending Public Services’ and; ‘Workers and others in the 21st century’.]

2. That the mistakes and failures of previous attempts to go beyond can be remedied and corrected. [See ‘Marxists versus Marx’ and; ‘The Riddle of History Solved.’]

3. That religion and religious fundamentalism offer no way forward because;

a) Religion does not seriously challenge or seek to go beyond the capitalist mode of production or patriarchal domination.

b) Religious fundamentalisms are a recipe for direct sectarian competition and warfare among people over territory and resources.

c) Religious fundamentalism puts governance of communities into the hands of an elite who believe in the existence of invisible entities and continued elite male domination.

[See ‘Religion versus women’s rights’ and; ‘Killing in the name of God’]

For all the above reasons religion cannot be treated as a harmless personal issue to be defended or even championed, as some on the left, out of misguided political correctness, have done. Religion and religious fundamentalism are a public issue and the first (religion) is a solid foundation for the second – fundamentalism! Furthermore, religion is based upon a dangerous illusion, that an invisible male super-entity, has opinions and rules which only a male elite can decipher or interpret.

For when these religious fundamentalists become radicalised and equip themselves with guns and bombs they become a serious existential threat to increasing numbers of communities throughout the world. With millions, if not billions of practicing and subscribing members, these religious fundamentalists have fertile recruiting grounds among those who share their ideology and who are suffering from hardship and exploitation.

So as I suggest the promotion of a modern version of post-capitalism represents a lengthy and difficult task. It is a task which is not helped by those anti-capitalists who think the solution is to shun theory and dive into practice hoping that crisis-driven activism supported by selected passages or programmes from the writings of Lenin and Trotsky will solve a multitude of problems and convince millions to sign up to the anti-capitalist project. Given the current proliferation of fundamentalism and sectionalism among the working classess, much more is needed.

Indeed, the sectarian nature (subtle or blatant) of much of the current anti-capitalist left also stands in the way. For this mirrors in a miniscule way the sectarian nature of religious fundamentalism. They simply replace absolute belief in an inerrant god and their scriptures with absolute belief in one or other versions of an inerrant Leninist or Trotskyist type vanguard along with its basic programme – and they also often shun all those who fail to sufficiently agree.

Given the scale of the problem, it may or may not be the case that many failures of religious motivated change will need to occur before masses of people are again driven by circumstances to consider alternative and more radical non-sectarian, inclusive revolutionary movements. However, the above noted tasks retain their validity whatever the outcome of the current multi-dimensional crisis. These tasks will require modern revolutionary-humanists and non-sectarian anti-capitalists to critically re-visit all the theories we have inherited and flush out all the distortions and deviations they have accumulated over the last 100 years. The working classes, white-collar and blue, indeed have the numbers, however, as Marx, noted;

“…but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge.” (Marx ‘Inaugural Address of the Working Man’s International Association.)

Needless to say that ‘unity of combination’ also requires an end to sectarianism among the anti-capitalist left and sectionalism among the working class. And ‘knowledge’ in the modern context – as in the past – requires an absence of dogma along with a critical and self-critical comprehension of the past and present practices of us anti-capitalist activists. Contrary to the modern distaste for theoretical effort among some activists, there is, I suggest, an urgent need for much more of it. The latter is a theme which will be developed in the next post on this blog.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2014.)

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

DISPOSSESSION! (Part 2.)

Posted on January 21, 2014 by stutteringsteps

5. Colonialism/Imperialism. (Dispossession spreads across the planet.)

The colonialist and imperialist stages of capital accumulation merely extended the theatre of operations for the dispossession of people from their lands and means of subsistence and/or production. Building upon the previous merchant-capitalist networks, the development of navigation and in particular the opening up of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, sea lanes in the 14th and 15th centuries, introduced new lands and new resources to the dubious embraces of the capitalist classes throughout Europe. Traditional merchant trading was soon supplemented or accompanied by armed invasion and theft of resources, from Africa, North and South America, and Asia. Naval sorties of this kind were followed by ‘planted’ colonies in many resource-rich parts of the world thus ensuring new markets and supplies.

Much of the dispossession taking place at this time was masked or mediated by religious pretensions and hypocrisy. Religious missionaries and religious-minded entrepreneurs were often at the forefront of colonial dispossession and oppression. They and religious-minded investors frequently helped to rationalise European dispossessions of foreign peoples by claiming to be motivated by ‘saving’ the miss-named ‘heathens’ for god and educating away their alleged ignorance. In this way indigenous peoples were dispossessed of their tribal lands, their means of production, the results of their own labour and – as in ancient times – frequently dispossessed of their lives.

In this colonialist expansion phase of European dispossession, the capitalist classes were still divided along city and nationalist lines. Each national aggregate of capital sought to expand its sphere of influence by trading monopolies and/or armed wars against rival groups of capitalists. Conflicts of interest, primarily among European capitals, took the form of skirmishes and battles both on sea and land. In the early period, the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, French and English aggregate capitals battled as each sought to expand its control and dispossession of colonial resources. Importantly, since labour is necessary to create wealth, where wage-labour could not be obtained the previously noted slave-labour was introduced.

Much later this constantly simmering war of competing capitalist inspired dispossessions – and colonialist/anti-imperialist uprisings against them – was elevated to world shattering levels as two world wars for economic and financial domination took place. The first and second world wars of the 20th century took place between two groups of capitalist nations over which group would be able to overwhelmingly dominate the world’s resources and markets. Using the ideology of nationalism, the bourgeois and petite-bourgeois elites of all sides were able to persuade or compel the dispossessed workers of their own countries to join armies, navies and air-forces in order dispossess the other sides capitalists of their markets and the other sides workers of their labour and their lives. [See ‘Humanity, Class and Nation’]

6. Compensatory reforms. (Voting rights, trade union rights and welfare benefits.)

After the Second World War, working populations in the advanced countries, were able to obtain some forms of compensation for their continued dispossession of independent means of subsistence. In addition to the previously won right to form trade unions and the right to vote, these compensations took the form of obtaining above average wages, welfare benefits such as improved pensions, sick pay, unemployment benefits and non-profit-making services. These compensatory reforms for a time ameliorated the worst of the earlier savage exploitation at the hands of their respective capitalist classes.

Unemployment became an integral part of the capitalist mode of production as it cycled through its boom and bust periods. However, as capitalism further developed its efficiency and technological proficiency, unemployment for large numbers of workers became a permanent condition of their lives. The result was indeed, a ‘reserve army of labour’ as Marx characterised it. For this reason in the late 20th century whole generations became dependent upon unemployment, housing and other benefits for long periods of time. Time enough for some of them to adjust – however reluctantly – to the organised charity of life on the dole.

Dispossessed of independent means of subsistence and with no places at the capitalist work-benches, offices or fields these unfortunate members of the working classes first became an object of pity and numerous state educational interventions. Later, they were perceived as, and transformed into, an unwelcome burden upon the state. Like the ancient ‘sturdy beggars’ before them, these modern victims of the earlier capitalist inspired dispossession of independent means of existence and now the long-term victims of capitalisms reduced need for labour were (and still are) being blamed for their own hopeless and helpless condition.

When a victim of the capitalist system is successfully blamed for their own situation and the wider and longer picture of historical dispossessions remains unknown, then further dispossession cannot be far away and it wasn’t. It came in the form of neo-liberalism.

7. Neo-Liberalism. (The dispossession of working class benefits and reforms.)

For a brief period in Europe and America, after the second-world-war, wages increased, welfare benefits were sufficient to survive and profits for capital reasonably high. However, it was not long before the system, from the capitalist point of view, was not functioning well enough. In some industries, profits began falling, company taxation and individual wealth taxation had increased and they became dissatisfied with their levels of surplus-value dispossession and accumulation. After many incoherent attempts to curb wages and increase productivity (both being attempts to increase the level of dispossession of surplus-labour/value from working people) a new elite policy emerged which has become known as neo-liberalism.

One barrier to increased working class dispossession in the 20th century was the organised labour movement. Once neo-liberal representatives gained sufficient power, organised labour was attacked by the neo-liberals both frontally, by industrial confrontation and by legislation using the state. Trade union resistance was further weakened by capital exporting jobs and importing cheap labour. Neo-liberal political representatives also passed legislation to lessen the tax burden upon the capitalists and the most wealthy, whilst increasing it for the working population by additional means such as value-added tax. But that was not the end of it!

Other neo-liberal targets for dispossession were the accumulated resources of the various nation-states. In many parts of the world, advanced and less advanced, nation-states had provided certain infrastructures and resources out of general taxation. Water, electricity, gas, transport, postal services, telephone communications, roads, bridges, tourist sites and certain industries, had became large-scale important resources. For the neo-liberals, these public service industries offered the tantalising potential of a further period dispossession. Dispossession of the state – via the state – became the project for the financial elite! A case of the bond-holders seeking to inherit the earth.

Of course this secondary dispossession of compensatory benefits could not be described as such. Instead it was (and is) packaged and sold to the public as increasing efficiency by privatisation. Privatisation of state assets amounts to the following. Dispossessing white-collar workers of their once relatively secure occupations, salaries and pensions in public services such as health, education, welfare, social and local government services. It involved dispossessing workers of their access to relatively cheap electricity, gas, water, post, phone-calls, train and bus fares. Neo-liberal work is currently under way to dispossess working people of the health and welfare benefits granted as post-war compensations for their historic loss.

Calling these various mechanisms of increased exploitation and oppression by their real names – dispossessions – articulates what everyone who is effected by these measures realises. Today if one or more of the waged or salaried working class are made redundant they have been dispossessed of a job – and all that implies. If anyone is cleared off their land or kicked out of their house they have been dispossessed of means of production and/or shelter. If a communal area has been polluted by capitalist industry or commerce (by oil or chemical spills or fracking for example) that community has been dispossessed of a normal or clean environment. If anyone has had their pension reduced, they have been dispossessed of security in old age.

If anyone through no fault of their own cannot afford enough, heating or food they have been dispossessed of these necessities. If savings from working have been reduced by fraud or inflation some people have been dispossessed of some saved up value. If someone has been discriminated in any way they have been dispossessed of their basic human rights. If students have studied and qualified for a recognised career and there are too few openings they have been effectively dispossessed of their time, energy and commitment. If anyone has been harassed, abused – or worse – they have been dispossessed of their fundamental rights as a human being. If anyone has been tortured or killed by a nations neo-liberal or military elite using extra-judicial means, they have been dispossessed of their human rights.

8. Repossession. (Taking back what was taken from us – all.)

The political classes will undoubtedly point to one compensatory reform which as yet remains intact at least in the west. The right to vote for who will continue to administer the systematic dispossession of humanity is one to which they (left, right and centre) tenaciously cling. This is not surprising. After all, it keeps them in well-paid jobs. But, despite their never-ending ‘pie in the sky’ promises, it has become almost universally clear, that putting a tick on a piece of paper and placing it in a box to be counted every few years has never resulted in ending or reversing the numerous dispossessions which have been perpetrated against humanity.

Indeed, politics itself is a form of dispossession and can be easily be used as such – as is evident in all parts of the world. Politics is an organised way of dispossessing the right for everyone to have an effective and ongoing say in how their communities and resources are organised and utilised. Politics assumes a powerful elite will give the time and resources to govern societies and this ensures they will be able to use their power and influence to manipulate economic and social life as they see fit. Politics, historically and contemporarily is part of the problem of dispossession, not part of the solution for re-possession.

Another form of politics promising a reversal of previous dispossessions, but failing, was the emergence in the 20th century of Leninist, Stalinist and Maoist political parties. In all these cases, where they succeeded in gaining power a ‘left’ political elite merely substituted itself for an aristocratic or capitalist elite and dispossession of working people continued. In Russia, China or the eastern bloc, working people were not allowed to repossess the means of production, the system of wage-labour was continued (administered by the state) and in Russia a system of gulag slavery introduced for those who bothered to complain loud enough. The ‘party’ and its officials dispossessed individual and communal control of all aspects of human life. Their rule was backed up by means of police and military force. [See ‘Marxists versus Marx’]

It should be obvious, that the capitalist mode of production – including the state-capitalist form – has continued nearly all of the historic dispossessions of previous modes of production as well as developing its own unique forms of accelerated globalised dispossession. It is also clear, that in any of its forms, the capitalist mode of production, which is based upon such dispossessions, is simultaneously abusing not only the human populations of the world, but the non-human life of the planet and the environment.

The profit-motive of wealth accumulation – for the benefit and under the control of the minority capitalist classes – drives production to such a competitive frenzy of relative and now approaching absolute over-production, that it causes, economic, financial, moral, ecological and social crises of vast proportions. The 21st century neo-liberal mantra of more competition, more production is a recipe for further wars and ecological disasters. There is a pressing need for the dispossessed – the majority – to not only communally re-possess the means of production but to collectively re-possess their localities along with their full humanity.

The period of elite class-led – so-called – civilisation began with dispossession at their very socio-economic core and they have continued to the present day with this same patriarchal and class corruption. In contrast, real human-led civilisation will need to begin with re-possession of the communal means of production – industrial and agricultural. Repossession of communal and former tribal lands. Repossession of full human and communal rights for women, children, black, white, old, gay, infirm and disabled. Repossession of homes, public spaces, public buildings and public services, turning them all into worker and/or community-led egalitarian co-operatives with no hierarchy and instant re-call for any elected positions. Re-possession – in full – is the historic revolutionary-humanist task facing suffering humanity.

Such universal repossessions will be no easy undertaking, but these full aims need to be articulated for them ever to be discussed and considered. Presentation of the full extent of dispossession and the need for full repossession I suggest is the task of those who consider themselves committed to going beyond capital. The OCCUPY movement was (and is) a step in that direction. It is an embryonic recognition of the extent of dispossession, but future occupations brought about by response to the crisis should be re-defined as revolutionary repossessions, not simply identified as tactical forms of protest within a system of large-scale dispossessions.

Perhaps, the full and more modern implications of the famous call ‘workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains’ should be the following – ‘dispossessed of the world unite – there is a world to win and a planet to preserve.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2014.)

Posted in capitalism, dispossession, neo-liberalism, Reformism | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

DISPOSSESSION! (Part 1.)

Posted on January 13, 2014 by stutteringsteps

If there is one word that, when its concept is seriously considered, can take us to the root of all systems of exploitation and oppression – that word is ‘dispossession’! And this concept covers the most recent form of large-scale dispossession – the capitalist mode of production. The dispossession of any independent means of production and the constant dispossession of surplus-value, from working populations lies at the historical origin of the accumulation of capital and continues at the heart of the capitalist mode of production down to the present day. The capitalistic forms will be dealt with in a later section, but meanwhile there are pre-capitalist forms to consider. For wealth accumulation by dispossession goes well back into historical times and was already evident from the onset of ancient civilisations.

The conquest and control of large areas of land and sea resources, by the leaders of ancient empires such as Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, etc., required to a greater or lesser degree, dispossessing the original users (hunter-gatherers, pastoralists or agriculturalists) of the full use and benefit of these resources. The tributes and quotas extracted from the productive activities of conquered peoples, along with elite directives on when, where and what kind of production should take place, required varying levels of control. Varying levels of dispossession of the basic human rights for working populations over their means of production and their surpluses therefore occurred. But even before such ancient forms of ‘imperial’ dispossession, the previous onset of patriarchy, had already dispossessed women from control of their own lives.

1. Patriarchy. (the dispossession of female productive and re-productive rights.)

By the time the so-called civilisations of the ancient world had developed and spread, the dispossession of a woman’s right to choose her own partner, the dispossession of a females right to produce and retain (or dispose) of her own surplus-product, had already taken place. This historic dispossession committed against the female half of the species, included the dispossession of the human product of her own pro-creational labour – the child – in name and ownership. In the ‘civilised’ world of antiquity, women along with children became the almost total possessions of men to do with as they sought fit – and they did. Regarded as property, women and children were (and often still are) treated as carefully or as brutally as the male owner’s mood dictated.

This ‘original’ dispossession of female rights (along with children, land and the rights of pagans) required an appropriate systematic ideology to justify it. Conveniently, three dominant forms of this patriarchal ideology emerged in the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That these three religions are based upon this dispossession of women’s (and others) basic human rights is exemplified not only by their respective scriptural texts which justify it, but by the practices of the 21st century religious adherents who still implement them, either non-violently with civility or violently with acrimony. The refusal to implement equal pay, conditions and representation for women being an example of the former and shootings, acid attacks, and hacking limbs off women, being examples of the latter.

2. Slavery. (the dispossession of all rights.)

Before, or around the same historical period as the dispossession of women‘s basic human rights, ancient forms of slavery emerged. Human beings rounded up and processed as slaves were dispossessed of practically every human entitlement to which they were accustomed within their previous forms of production. Once captured and taken into slavery, how a person lived, where they lived, where they worked, how they worked was determined not by negotiating with other community or tribal members but by the dictat of the slave owner. It was a process which frequently resulted in them being worked to death.

In part 2 of this article dispossession of colonial lands and colonial peoples by the European capitalist powers will be considered but here it can be noted that slavery played an important part in the accumulation of wealth under the capitalist mode of production as it did under the more ancient modes of production. The whole motive of ancient slavery and semi-slavery – as with modern – was to dispossess human beings of their basic human rights to produce and reproduce for themselves and their families. Control of their productive capacity was forcibly taken away from them in order to dispossess them of as much surplus-product or surplus-value as could be wrung out of them.

Despite 19th century campaigns against slavery under the capitalist mode of production, slavery and semi-slavery still occurs in the 21st century. Campaigns in the UK and elsewhere have indicated slave and near slave conditions exist for adults and children in India and other parts of Asia. The Australian and Scottish Governments have been prompted to criminalise modern forms of slavery, presumably for good reason. Trafficking of women into forms of sexual and domestic slavery exists in Europe, the UK and in the United States of America. In 2013, the world football Association (FIFA) has had to be shamed into looking into slave labour conscripted in constructing buildings for the 2022 World Cup.

Wealth accumulation by utilising slave-labour pre-dated capital-accumulation by wage-labour, but capitalists in the 21st century still like to take advantage of it when and where they can. This form of dispossession of economic and social rights has lasted as long as the dispossession of women of their right to all forms of self-determination within whatever stage the modes of production have reached. Such ancient inhuman dispossessions have been, and where they still exist, continue to be, cast a dark shadow on the development of the human species. The full repossession of human rights and the permanent ending of such ancient dispossessions remains a task facing humanity. However, these two forms of dispossession – patriarchy and slavery – are not the only ones in the historical record.

3. Feudalism. (The semi- dispossession of the agricultural populations.)

The feudal system throughout Europe and elsewhere after the fall of the Roman Empire, was based upon an armed elite seizing large tracts of land (the main means of production) and thus dispossessing or continuing the dispossession of the rural population from direct use of these means. This feudal mode of production included forcing agricultural workers to part with a variable percentage of their production (a tithe, or tenth or twentieth) and/or enforcing a number of days/weeks work to be done for the conquering lord or baron. In this way the labouring population were dispossessed of their surplus-labour along with other social freedoms.

A later form of this feudal mode of production – in certain places – transmuted the percentage of product dispossession into a monetary form of payment which became a form of rent. However, these different forms are of less importance here than the fact that dispossession of the means of production and the dispossession of the workers surplus production continued. It continued whether by surplus-product which the feudal landholder obtained directly or indirectly after it being converted to a monetary payment. In many places and during certain stages, the agricultural population were also dispossessed of any freedom to leave the district or the employment category assigned to them.

It is also said that in many places during the feudal period that females were further dispossessed of any local or patriarchal restricted choice of male sexual partner if the lord of the manor wished to possess her this way himself. This dispossession of women’s rights merely being an elite male asserting superior claim against a lower class male. Nevertheless, all these various regional and time differences oscillating around the feudal form of dispossession and appropriation were the basis of wealth accumulation during that long period – often referred to as the dark ages.

Dark or not, this feudal form of dispossession for wealth accumulation by an elite, continued its onward march until after centuries it was fully superseded in Europe by another mode – the capitalist mode of production.

4. Capitalism. (Dispossession of ‘means’ from agricultural and craft workers.)

The full economic dispossession of the agricultural worker in the transformation of wealth from its landed form to its capitalist form in England is briefly covered by Karl Marx in Das Capital, at the end of Volume 1 (ie Part 8). Marx described this dispossession of rural communities as ’so-called primitive accumulation’, meaning it was a primitive stage for the development of the industrial phase of the capitalist mode of production. Marx noted that;

“The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production…..men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and ‘unattached’ proletarians on the labour market.” (Capital. Volume 1, chapter 26.)

Clearing the ‘commons’ of people, clearing and demolishing farms, towns and villages was the form such capitalist inspired dispossessions took and they did so at an increasing pace.

“History has drawn a curtain over those days of exile and suffering, when cottages were pulled down as if by an invaders hand and families that had lived for centuries in their dales or on their small farms and commons were driven before the torrent. Ancient possessions and ancient families disappeared.” (JL and B Hammond. ‘The Village Labourer’. Guild Books. Volume 1. page 100. )

Even after this initial dispossession of the bulk of working people from any independent means of subsistence and production, capitalists could only accumulate wealth if they continued the dispossession of surplus-labour and/or surplus-value. However, the capitalist mode of surplus-value extraction was obtained by a completely different means. In short the wages system was fully developed. Capitalist accumulation takes place when the money-value of the wages paid to workers does not equal the money-value of what they produce. The difference, the unpaid surplus-labour created by workers during their employment, is confiscated and later banked by the employers of capital as surplus-value or in accounting terms – gross profit. This new combination of active, dispossessed labour harnessed to the new industrialised means of production created vast monetary and material wealth for the emerging capitalist classes.

Capitalism grew up in similar but not identical fashions throughout Europe, but this growth of capital initially took place within the confines of previously defined national entities. During the early industrial phase, an important fact became abundantly clear. Such was the productivity of this new mode of production, that it not only created vast wealth for the capitalist class, but also massively over-produced goods. Industrialised production methods also needed a constant supply of huge amounts of raw materials. It became obvious to the controllers and beneficiaries of the new mode of production that in order to continue their wealth accumulation they constantly needed new markets and new sources of raw materials. Having exhausted their own and nearby territories, new geographical arenas of dispossession were urgently needed – and in the voyages of discovery of the 14th and 15th centuries many were found.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2014)

(The Colonial, Imperial and Neo-liberal dispossessions will be dealt with in ‘Dispossessions Part 2, the next posting – in a weeks time. This second part will also consider from a revolutionary-humanist position, the all-round need for the repossession of all that has previously been dispossessed.)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, dispossession, Economics, Marx, Patriarchy, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

HUMANITY, CLASS AND NATIONALISM.

Posted on December 31, 2013 by stutteringsteps

A short discussion on nationalism took place recently on the ‘Commune’ blog (see blog roll – useful links – below right) which was sparked off by a much needed critical look at the bid for Scottish independence by Barry Biddulph and how it was being addressed by some parts of the Scottish left. The comments on the article raised some interesting issues and it is these issues and the starting points for some of them which prompted me to write this article. It seemed to me that what was missing in a number of the comments, given the restricted space, was an insufficient recognition of the fundamental economic basis from which most of the anti-capitalists who follow in the revolutionary-humanist tradition of Karl Marx, start. So to continue the discussion begun by Barry and also with newer anti-capitalists in mind, l will sketch out this humanist basis, before re-engaging with the issues of Class and Nationalism.

HUMANITY.

Since its origins in the distant pre-historical past, humanity has collectively provided what they needed from the worked-up materials and processes provided by nature. They have done so in various forms (or modes) of social production and re-production. From hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and agriculturalists, humanity has over millions of years, formed communal groupings corresponding to their mode of production – as they variously thought suitable. Production and re-production are the economic and biological foundations upon which all of human species life is built. It is not upon politics, but productive and re-productive relationships, therefore, that all subsequent revolutionary-humanist analyses are founded. However, it is not production in the abstract, but production in its capitalist mode – and not as it once was but – as it has developed in the 20th and 21st centuries. This is the basis for any further sensible anti-capitalist analysis and needs to be always kept in mind.

The capitalist mode of industrialised production is merely the latest historical form of human social production to emerge out of the previous feudal one. It is a social mode of production which has progressively torn the means of humanities production away from the bulk of society and at the same time concentrated, revolutionised and increased the complexity of these means of production. The organisation of these means of production has also contrived to place them under the control of an elite. This concentration of societies means of production in the hands of an elite minority – who only stir it into action in order to further increase their wealth – creates widespread problems for both the bulk of the worlds populations and for the ecological conditions of the entire world.

The most obvious problems are large-scale unemployment, low-pay and poverty along with large-scale pollution, ecological damage, detrimental climatic changes and increasing extinctions for the non-human inhabitants of the planet. There are of course, numerous other serious social problems which spawn multitudes of charitable and campaigning organisations. The capitalist mode of social production is in serious, existential conflict with the needs of the bulk of humanity and with the welfare of the planet.

Yet the capitalist mode of social production is tremendously beneficial to the minority who own and/or control it. The capitalist class, their beneficiaries and supporters have no incentive to seriously reform their system, let alone change it for some other form of social production. Even under the present dire economic and financial crisis, they are greedily milking the system for as much wealth as they can wring out of it, irrespective of the effects upon the environment or the lives of billions of people. This war-torn 21st century reality is the modern foundation of the revolutionary-humanist position with regard to all other questions facing not only the working classes but all humanity.

Which brings us to a closer look at class. Since the past and present ruling capitalist and pro-capitalists classes have no incentive to change the system which supports them so regally, the question of who might be both capable and oppressed enough to initiate the much needed and now urgent need for change was long ago addressed to the working class.

CLASS.

Marx, in an earlier period, rejected suggestions made by many socialists that it would be an enlightened bourgeois or petite bourgeois who would seriously challenge the capitalist mode of production in order to transform it. He did so for very good reasons. When he further identified the working class as the potential agents of the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production, he did not do so from any romanticised or idealised view of working class abilities or organisational inventiveness. Indeed, he often referred to the practical and theoretical challenges they would need to face and frequently commented upon how they faced them.

He drew his conclusion about their potential role from his analysis of capital and because their situation, unlike that of the middle-classes, forced them to struggle against capitalist forms from day to day necessity. Further, this necessity to struggle could become generalised and thus revolutionary during any large-scale economic or socio-economic crisis. This was the basis of his comment in the ‘German Ideology’ that a revolution was necessary not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown except by way of revolution but because only in a revolution can the class overthrowing it succeed in ridding itself of the ‘muck of ages’.

So when we discuss the working classes it is not some totally abstract, imaginary or ideal class we need to have in our minds, but the actual classes in their 21st century economic and political interconnections – warts and all – and dominated as they are by the capitalist mode of production. For these modern discussions we cannot automatically rely upon any past studies or the generalisations about the working classes arising from these studies. Some things have very definitely changed. [See ‘Workers and others in the 21st Century’ for a brief contribution on these changes.] We need also to consider how the past and present changes in economic and political experiences are reflected in their frequently contradictory and shifting understanding of their own positions within the present mode of production.

Due to their position within capitalism, the ideas of the working classes are often based upon a generalised notion of ‘common sense’ in which appearances are often taken for reality. In addition, everyday bread and butter, leisure and family issues, are what demand their constant attention leaving little time for anything beyond keeping their heads afloat, so to speak. For this reason they are largely unaware of the historic nature of the task only they have the potential to fulfil. Instead, they usually operate with ideas and solutions promoted by the class which dominates the economic, social and political landscapes of societies. These bourgeois ideas and values are rendered into seemingly logical sequences and taught to the subordinate classes via formal and informal education along with media publicity as being ‘naturally’ produced elements of understanding. They are promoted as – universal for all – rather than socially constructed understandings with a particular built-in ruling class bias.

As noted, but it is important to stress, immediate class interests tend to focus thinking and ideas narrowly within these supposedly ‘natural’ class and national boundaries. Struggles and opinions are concentrated around how these class interests are to be preserved and protected. This is no less true of the working classes, than of the middle and capitalist and pro-capitalist classes. If there is a general and wide-spread acceptance among all classes that the capitalist mode of production – despite its problems – is the best possible (and as yet there is such wide-spread acceptance and/or resignation), then struggles to preserve and protect existing class positions and interests are consequently narrowly defined and narrowly adopted.

Trade Unionism within the working class reflects this bourgeois ideological assumption, that work (wage-slavery) under the capitalist system, is a ‘natural’ part of human life and that there is no preferable alternative, short of winning the lottery. Therefore everyday common-sense dictates that the task of organised workers is to protect the jobs and conditions of their respective locations within the capitalist created economic divisions of labour. This involves struggles, often severe and even violent, against individual capitalist concerns and occasionally pro-capitalist governments, but never against the entire capitalist mode of production itself. This cannot be surprising. The modern working classes are a product of the 21st century capitalist mode of production with all that entails, economically, socially and educationally.

Revolutionary anti-capitalist ideas and the role of the working classes in an alternative potential future for humanity arose out of their combined struggles, a careful and sustained critical examination of the capitalist mode of production and the direction it was already taking. However, such revolutionary ideas have so far failed to take a fertile root within working class communities or consistently surface within working class struggles. These ideas more often than not have to be taken to those day to day struggles but it must be said that they are rarely taken there in forms suitable for united action.

Over the past decades certain anti-capitalist ideas, not without serious sectarian and patriarchal distortions, have been promoted among workers but usually by what amount to pernicious self-appointed sects, who frequently did more harm than good. They saw their role as ‘leading’ the working classes, rather than facilitating workers self-activity and knowledge. Where they succeeded in getting workers to trust their sectarian vanguardism during 20th century revolutionary challenges to the capitalist system, they have left a trail of unmitigated disasters. These disastrous examples also act, and have been deliberately used by pro-capitalists, as a barrier to workers envisioning any post-capitalist alternative.

I suggest that what has been largely missing in the past and still missing in the present is the facilitative role of non-sectarian workers and their supporters among the working classes. A movement is needed whose members have not only reached an overall understanding that the capitalist mode of production is the problem facing humanity but which also consistently promotes the message that workers need to prepare themselves for the revolutionary-humanist tasks which are posed by the competitive and destructive anarchy of capitalism. And it has to be said in this regard, that an important task for the working classes in the modern era, is the need to rise above narrow class-based, trade union, nationalistic and other self-serving struggles constructed to remain within the capitalist mode of production.

There needs to be a clear and consistent recognition that working class struggle is a universal struggle; that its future lies in not seeking just to right the particularly savage wrong inflicted against its own members – wage slavery, poverty, exploitation etc., – but to right a universal wrong inflicted by capitalism against all suffering humanity and the planet. In the present struggles there is need to recognise that the most important task is the practical and intellectual preparation for struggle against the whole present system. The future target is to become fully-rounded human beings. It is not simply to become better-paid, overworked (or more patronisingly discarded) wage-slave appendages of an economic system, which rewards a tiny minority and in the process creates devastation among people and the planet.

In a serious collapse of the capitalist mode of production more and more people will be faced with attempting to understand the economic and political contradictions and complexities of capitalism. Common-sense will only take us so far. Abstract, rote-learned slogans are unlikely to get us nearer to solving difficult problems. As in every other part of life complex situations require complex understanding and whether they like it or not more and more activists will need to seek up-dated theory as much as up-dated theory needs to seek out activists. Meanwhile there is a continuing need and responsibility to criticise any and every bourgeois generalisation or rationalisation which seeks to appeal to commonly understood ‘sense’ in order to once again shepherd workers down certain ideological cul-de-sac’s. For they will do so in order to render workers divided and powerless to change the world other than in directions economically and politically advantageous to a bourgeois or petite-bourgeois ruling elite. As Marx long ago noted in a letter to F. Bolte;

“Where the working class is not yet far enough advanced in its organisation to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, ie. the political power of the ruling classes, it must at any rate be trained for this by constant agitation against this power and by a hostile attitude toward the policies of the ruling classes. Otherwise it remains a plaything in their hands.” (November 23 1871.)

Not every view or opinion that Marx wrote over 100 years ago is transferable to the modern period, but many things are. Of course, considerable care needs to be taken in utilising his views to strengthen a point of view. However, the above paragraph concerning the need to argue for the working class not to become a ‘plaything in the hands’ of the ruling classes, I suggest is one of the many instances which indicates Marx’s well researched opinions are well worthy of study. One such method of becoming playthings in the hands of the ruling classes is to succumb to a bourgeois or petite-bourgeois struggle for regional and national ‘independence’ and encourage the consequent enmeshment of workers in any re-emergence of nationalist sentiments.

And of course having a shared human and class experience does validate a considered criticism being made by working class activists. This is particularly so when other human beings and/or members of the working class are judged to be in danger of making a mistake or becoming ‘playthings’ in the hands of the ruling classes – as they indeed became during the two-world wars of the 20th century. For this reason considered criticism becomes something of a duty! Which brings us to a criticism of nationalism.

NATIONALISM.

The bourgeois mode of production based upon the domination of capital long ago broke out of the national boundaries created by themselves or their fore-runners. The periods of colonialism and imperialism were driven by a capitalist economic imperative which found that production and consumption needs could not be met from within a single national boundary. Markets for mass-produced surplus products and sources of raw materials for production had to be forcibly obtained throughout the known world in order to keep the system going. No atrocity or outrage was too much for the captains and barons of industry and commerce to contemplate in pursuit of profit, nor too unthinkable to order their military equivalents to commit. It is, as we know, a process, which is still going on today but now using 21st century technically advanced arms and equipment.

Today the economic and financial system overseen and controlled by capital and its elite agents, is truly global. Energy, media, finance, petro-chemicals, pharmaceuticals, air and sea transportation, metals, minerals etc., are all controlled by internationalised infrastructure links and international capital. All major local and localised means of production have been destroyed. Production of essentials along with many non-essentials is on such a scale that it is production which can only be met by an extensive world market. There can no longer be a capitalist economy – in one country – let alone a post-capitalist one.

Economically now, and at least for the foreseeable future, the world is one of inter-reliant, integrated production and consumption – albeit one in need of down-scaling. Only in terms of politics, religion and class is the world still irreconcilably divided. Religion and politics have for centuries been the ideologies which militarised ruling elites have adopted, promoted and enforced in order to divide and thus manage their exploitation of the masses. Nationalism is just another such ideology but one of more recent origin.

The national boundary and the ideology attached to this unit of land appropriation was kept alive in the 20th and 21st centuries, merely as a base of operations for some of the human agents of capital and as a means of influencing and controlling the human agents of production – the working classes – via the nation-state. This ideological construct based upon a mixture of ink (or pencil-drawn) and geographical boundaries, exists only for people and not for capital and has been advantageous in preventing international working class unity. Indeed, it has been extremely useful over a few centuries now, for dragging workers into fighting each other as foot-soldiers and cannon-fodder during the competitive antagonisms of various national based concentrations of capital.

It has been accurately said in discussions and comments that Marx once supported a nationalist struggle but this fact simply cannot be used to support a modern left adaptation to this petite bourgeois strategy. Marx, it should be remembered, saw the capitalist mode of production as terribly destructive, but as also creating the conditions for the emancipation of labour, both in terms of the rapid creation of a working class and in the creation of advanced social means of production. Both developments being necessary to allow the future advance of collective humanity beyond domination by capital.

This was the social and economic basis for his very limited – and time specific – tactical support for such struggles in the 19th century. Additionally, in a previous period, support for working-class tactical involvement in bourgeois national struggles could, under certain circumstances, create conditions conducive to workers self-organisation and self-activity. Even then, bearing in mind the anti-capitalist perspective this anti-colonialist or anti-imperialist involvement would only be as a tactic – not a strategy. Can it be so in the 21st century?

We know in the recent historical past patriotism and nationalism have been used to conduct colonialist and imperialist wars including two world wars between rival concentrations of capital. An alliance of nationalistic German, Italian and Japanese capital on one side and an alliance of nationalistic British and American capital and Soviet state-capitalism on the other – all defending or extending the respective ‘fatherlands’. The number of working class lives lost by persuading them that their primary identity was national and that their patriotic duty was to kill, torture and destroy the rival capitalist countries workers, has been astronomical. In the two nationalist and capitalist inspired wars it is estimated that sixty-four million died – most of them working class. We know also that along with religion and racism, nationalism has been used to internally divide the working classes of each country and to make solidarity with their capitalists trump the solidarity among themselves. The track record of the influence of nationalist ideology upon working people is overwhelmingly grim if not downright catastrophic.

How could it be otherwise? The theory of nationalism and the practice of nationists is to unite people around an elite and the physical appropriation of a territory delineated around borders secured only by force. Under the capitalist mode of production a ‘nation’ whether large or small, can only be composed of classes in which the most wealthy and powerful class are able to dictate or dominate the public discourses and the national form of legitimate organisation – including the decision to make war on other workers. Nationalism, which as we have seen can only be political nationalism under the 21st century capitalist mode of production, requires an alliance between workers and the bourgeois or petite-bourgeois elements in which the bourgeois elements exercise political power. At best some token worker representatives are accepted as left cover. In other words, nothing substantial changes and certainly for the workers – nothing for the better.

Political nationalism and its human advocates can no longer use it to develop the means of production. That is now an international technological and constructional process dominated by multi-national and trans-national organisations. Political nationalism and its advocates cannot increase the numbers of workers for there are already more workers than capitalism needs to profitably supply the world market with its goods and services. It is estimated that since the 1970’s neo-liberal capitalist expansion, approximately an additional 2 billion rural people world-wide have been propelled into the proletariat by being dispossessed of their previous forms of partial economic self-sufficiency.

In addition, in the 21st century, no nation-state can fund its current levels of expenditure, let alone increase the benefits to workers and non-workers because they are all in fiscal crisis. They are all teetering on the brink of financial melt-down and collapse. All national political elites must therefore cut their own and their supporters share of the annual surplus-value created or that portion currently going to welfare recipients. No bourgeois or petite-bourgeois elite can do the former without turning in on itself and self-destructing. An extremely unlikely scenario in any nation, large or small.

Instead, attacks upon the workers and others will be the logical and circumstance-determined steps after a short national ‘independence’ honeymoon period where any misguided alliance between a self-serving bourgeois or petite-bourgeois political class and working people takes place. Such a tactic will not allow workers to weather out the coming economic and financial storms for like real storms these also recognise no artificial national barriers. For all these reasons it would only be in exceptional circumstances that in the 21st century, revolutionary anti-capitalists would support or vote for such efforts at nationalistic political independence.

One such possible exception is the case of Palestine. Palestinian workers would doubtless be marginally better off politically and economically under the rule of their own indigenous pro-capitalist elites, than under the Fascistic-style occupation of their territory by the Zionist controlled state of Israel. Although given the revelations of the ‘Palestine Papers’ and other events – even that is debateable. It is also conceivable that Palestinian capitalists could for a time update and expand the local means of production and more jobs would be created. Palestinian workers would then at least be freed of Zionist restriction and free to defend themselves on just the one front rather than on two.

But can a case be made for Scotland being an exception? I doubt it. Scottish workers are not under military curfew, with severe restrictions in movement, and cut offs of electricity and water supply. Their houses and orchards are not being bulldozed to the ground by the foreign occupier. Nor are their children locked up and tortured for throwing stones at occupying military forces. Scottish students do not have to negotiate checkpoint after checkpoint, along with sick and injured people, both of whom may or may not be allowed to get to college or hospital. Scottish trade unionists are not locked up, tortured or assassinated.

The destruction of Scottish rural life has already made a Scottish proletariat and a large reserve army of labour out of the Highland clearances of the 19th century. Scottish capital is already as free to develop production as any other national capital can be within the neo-liberal regime of global capital. In addition there will be no change in the political form under independence for Scotland and therefore no advantage for Scottish workers. Therefore, it is legitimate to ask, as Barry Biddulph did; what tactical benefit does such an accommodation to bourgeois nationalism create and how in the 21st century can it contribute in any positive way to an anti-capitalist strategy? I too genuinely await enlightenment on that question.

So what is the possible if not probable motive force of some of the left support for Scottish Independence? I suggest its origins lie in the fact that there is a severe economic crisis occurring during a period of extreme weakness of working class organisation. If the working classes were collectively strong enough their representatives would be told to pursue their own agenda not hitch a ride on dubious bandwagons created for them. This weakness at the moment restricts the possibilities for class-wide defensive or offensive action against the capitalist system, creating a problem. [see ‘Crisis! So what else can we do?‘]

In such circumstances an impatient political left might be tempted to accept an invitation to sign-up for opportunist alliances with, or support for, other political forces wanting limited elite forms of change. But this would be an electoral alliance in the forlorn hope of advancing or defending the disappearing, boom-period, reformist programme temporarily granted to workers. To my understanding, exceptions apart, left involvement in such ’nationalist’ independence struggles are not only a sign of this periods working class weakness but also of a ‘left’ which has abandoned the struggle to revolutionise society and has settled for political manoeuvring in the hope of gaining a few additional crumbs for a tiny section of the exploited and oppressed.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2014.)

Posted in Economics, Nationalism, neo-liberalism, Palestine, Politics, Reformism, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

THE STATE: FOR OR AGAINST?

Posted on December 3, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Examining the entire spectrum of the ‘left’ reveals a multitude of sectarian differences of ideas and organisation but they are linked by one common thread of unity. That link is with regard to the continued existence of the state. From the liberal left, through to the radical left all these, except perhaps the anarchist left and revolutionary-humanists, accept the existence of the state in one form or another. Some may advocate a more democratic form of state, others a more pluralist state, some perhaps an egalitarian state and yet others – a workers state. The state, or rather the modern welfare state – with some modifications and adjustments (radical or otherwise) – is the model which a majority of the current left cannot see beyond. This is despite the fact that human beings and their communities for thousands, if not millions of years, have managed their affairs without being regulated by an institution called the state. There was life before the state and there can and will be life after the state has been finally abolished.

Indeed, the modern capitalist state is relatively new. The welfare state is an even more recent invention. Before that, apart from the city-states of the militarised Greek and Roman world, which were very different institutions, people in the main sorted themselves out in their local communities. Despite the physical domination of feudal overlords and burdened by a plethora of Priestly tithes, there was a large degree of local self-reliance and self-governance. It was only later with the breakdown of feudal local and kinship ties effected by the domination of capital that the state in its proper sense developed. The state as now constituted could not exist without the development of the bourgeoisie mode of production and the division of society into classes, based upon their relationship to the means of production. A state is only necessary where there are irreconcilable class differences and under the capitalist mode of production there are such irreconcilable differences. The social organisation of the capitalist mode of production therefore forms the basis of modern ‘civil society, with its private ownership of the means of production and this in turn constitutes the economic and social basis of the state. As Marx noted;

“To this modern private property corresponds the modern state , which, purchased gradually by the owners of property by means of taxation, has fallen entirely into their hands, through the national debt, and its existence has become wholly dependent on the commercial credit which the owners of property, the bourgeoisie, extend to it…..it is nothing more than the form of organisation which the bourgeoisie are compelled to adopt both for internal and external purposes, for their mutual guarantee of their property and interests.” (Marx. German Ideology. In Marx Engels Collected Works Volume 5 page 90.)

Yet despite this clear analysis of the function and purpose of the modern state, – the internal and external guarantee of capitalist property and interests – much of the left cannot resist placing requests and demands upon the current state to rectify all the inconveniences and oppressions attending the bourgeois capitalist mode of production. It seems that because the modern state in the last 100 years, has taken on elements of public service and welfare provision, the left has blindly accepted its continued existence. Many of them now seriously look to it – under alternative politicians – to correct all that is evidently wrong with capitalism. This is despite the fact that under alternative politicians, left, right and centre, the state is still demonstrably the organ of bourgeois rule and cannot and will not go beyond capital. Even under the so-called revolutionary anti-capitalists of the Bolsheviks, the state was viewed as ‘the’ most important and necessary element of liberation for the ‘oppressed’. And look what happened there!

It is interesting in this regard, that on the question of the state some 21st century pro-capitalists have gone much further than most of the ‘left’ in questioning the fundamental nature of the state and the need for its continued existence. This has been fluently, if only partially, expressed in a recent book with the title ‘Life after the State‘ by Dominic Frisby. This pro-capitalist book provides and substantiates a whole litany of the failings of the bourgeois state. Chapter after chapter lists in substantial detail the self-serving nature of state governance, its utter failure to sort out the mess it has itself created and its expensive interference in the lives and well being of ordinary people. In its analysis of the shortcomings and oppressive nature of the state it shames many contributions from the left. In the next section I shall highlight just a selection of the many criticisms levelled at the state by this particular pro-capitalist author.

Life under the State.

In the prologue to the above referenced book, the author presents a long abbreviated list of the social problems we have witnessed which have been orchestrated by the modern state. What follows is just a short selection from that list to give a flavour.

“…a financial crisis that almost brought down the entire global banking system. Youth unemployment in Greece at 62.5%, Spain at 57%, Portugal at 43%, Italy at 40% and an EU average of 24%…..36 million people across the globe taking part in 3,000 protests against the war in the Middle East – and the UK and US governments ignoring them and going ahead with it anyway…..The UK currently owes..just under £1.2 trillion. That’s almost £40,000 per working person…..President Barack Obama has overseen an administration that, in its first term, increased the national debt by 60%, adding $6 trillion, on top of the $5trillion Bush added in his two terms.” (‘Life after the State’. Dominic Frisby. Prologue.)

The list of offences produced by this author and committed by the state could well appear in any radical left publication. Indeed, these parts of his book could outshine many recent so-called revolutionary ‘left’ contributions on the question. In the chapter which follows the prologue, the author discusses the demise of the city of Glasgow and goes on to quote at length from the historian A.J.P Taylor’s book ‘English History 1914 – 45.’ It is worth considering a short extract from this long quotation for it emphasises from a bourgeois point of view the recent nature of the state.

“Until August 1914 a sensible, law abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state beyond the post office and the policeman….The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale…All this was changed by the impact of the Great War….The state established a hold over its citizens which, although relaxed in peacetime, was never to be removed and which after the Second World War was again to increase.” (AJP Taylor. quoted in Frisby chapter 1.)

The progressive hold over its citizens was achieved through the mechanisms of state imposed regulations and restrictions over citizens movements, increased taxation, compulsory military enlistment, food regulations, news censorship and an ever increasing list of does and don’ts. All these regulations, restrictions, militarisations and even the few benefits come at a considerable cost. In this regard this author relies upon a Conservative MP’s research to suggest that ‘$36 of every $100 dollars an America earns now goes to support the US government. In Europe £46 of every British workers; 59 euros out of every 100 for French and German workers. The author further estimates that since 1900 the resources collected by the state from its citizens has increased by a magnitude of 30 to 40 and asks the rhetorical but pertinent question; have the services provided by the state risen this much?

Before considering this question of the ‘state’ further it is worth pointing out that the radical bourgeois viewpoint presented by this author, has typically missed the most important point about the capitalist mode of production and the reason for the state. It is that the main ‘means’ of production have been appropriated by a certain elite class and that elite plus its supporters control the state. Although at another point he describes himself as a socialist (so did Hitler and Mussolini for a time) he clearly is a champion of capitalism, and this is reflected by the authors he chooses to include in his research and those he does not. The main omission given his discussion of economics is that of Karl Marx. He does mention Adam Smith, but this disclosure only exposes his failure to understand the origin of profit. For example he asserts that; “Profit need not necessarily entail exploitation.” Yet Smith was clear upon the origin of profit derived from the surplus-labour provided free by workers – and which as developed by Marx – clearly revealed they are forced by circumstances to work beyond the time required to replace their wages.

Profit does indeed entail exploitation – in two ways. Capitalists exploit both the workers lack of their own means of production and exploit the difference between the labour-time they are required to work for a wage and the productivity of that labour during that period. He could have avoided that glaring mistake had he read Marx on the question or even if he had fully understood Adam Smith’s analysis of productive and unproductive labour in book 2 chapter 3 of ‘An enquiry into …Wealth of Nations’. His additional failure is to understand the importance of the restriction that the private ownership of the means of production, its size and complexity, creates to the exchange of commodities, leads him to superficial conclusions.

Yet on the question of the state he is largely correct. Also missing from his attention, therefore, is an understanding of the consequent commodification of labour-power at the beck and call of capital. All this unfortunate lack of knowledge, leads him to posit the current problems with the capitalist mode of production as being because of ’crony-capitalism’ which has increased the barriers to ‘self-interested’ ‘greedy’ ‘free’ exchange. Like others among the radicalised bourgeoisie he is in a form of denial. Powerful capitalists rigging the system IS the system of capitalism – there is no other – and there never was!

This ‘greed is good’ philosophy is prompted by his understanding of aspects of human nature as they have developed under the capitalist mode of production. He takes the culture developed under the domination of capital as the ‘natural’ one valid for all time. Instead of recognising the limited historical nature of capitalism, and the values it promotes he assumes that capitalism is based upon what he claims is ‘Natural Law’. So even when he ventures into positive remarks about altruism and co-operation he cannot let go of his bourgeois prejudice of the need for a ‘free market’ which is itself a self-imposed illusion for there has never been a ‘free market’ under the capitalist mode of production. The term was merely invented to assert the freedom of capital to rig or distort the market when and where it could when it was advantageous to do so – which it has always done. His idealised illusions about the capitalist mode of production abound throughout the book and in a good example he asserts;

“But capitalism in its most ideal form does not necessarily exalt material gain above spiritual success. It exalts peaceful co-operation between producers and suppliers without coercion, theft and rent-seeking.” (ibid chapter 3.)

At no time does this idealised vision of capitalism match the history or the present reality of capitalist mode of production in any part of the world. This idealised belief system even clouds his judgement on practical observations. At another point he asserts that because of the natural greedy desire to exchange goods ‘wonderful things get done‘ when, “Detroit assembly-line workers get up at the crack of dawn to produce the car that you enjoy.” Such simplified and idealised abstractions ignore the harsh reality of assembly-line work and how people are forced by circumstances to work on mechanised assembly lines.

It also ignores the fact that when profitability is reduced car-production in Detroit and elsewhere disappears to countries where other workers robbed of their own means of production and livelihood are pressed into wage-slavery. Detroit was reduced to practically a ghost town by the capitalist ownership and control of the means of production in pursuit of their ‘greedy’ desire to exchange at a profit. He argues, “Evil though the word may be to some, profit – not planning – is what makes the economic eco-system function.” Of course it is profit which makes much of the present economic eco-system function, but there are other serious alternatives as demonstrated by the public sector and other non-profit projects.

Returning to the question of the state it becomes evident that we need to consider two conflicting but popular viewpoints which have emerged in relationship to the growth of the state. This is crucial now that the state, as it is presently constituted, is unsustainable due to the massive imbalance between its expenditure and income. The current systemic ‘fiscal crises’ of all states upholding the capitalist mode of production, requires a serious consideration – for they are all about to fiscally implode. On a smaller scale even the city-state institutions of the advanced capitalist world, particularly in the USA, are beginning to collapse under the weight of their misnamed ‘public’ debt.

Two conflicting views of the state and an alternative.

So at the level of mainstream ‘popular’ left and right discourse there appear to be two main views of the state which conflict. The first viewpoint is held by those who see the state as essentially ‘good’ and support the need to strengthen it – particularly in areas of direct or indirect interest to them. The second is those who view the state as essentially ‘bad’ and wish to downsize it or remove it altogether in areas that are of direct or indirect concern for them. The interesting thing about this divergence in opinion regarding the state is the way this is currently reflected in politics.

The left in general favour the strengthening of the state particularly in its ability to tax and regulate capital, prohibit speculation, penalise misconduct and prevent corruption. In addition the left – again in general – favour the strengthening and use of the states powers to re-distribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Even the anti-capitalist revolutionary left often have this perspective as their main operating paradigm in the daily class struggles that take place within the capitalist mode of production. This much was in evidence by the Socialist Resistance support for the Left Party Platform at the UK’s Left Unity Conference in November 2013. This and other campaigns are initiated or joined by the ‘left’ urging the state to defend this or that, to increase or decrease one thing or another. This is despite the fact that the state, supported by the capitalist classes is the most oppressive force in the lives of ordinary working people. This is a huge contradiction which remains unresolved by the left reformists.

Economically, the state officials along with capitalists extract every portion of value and surplus-value they can wring out of the working classes by keeping wages low, taxes (income and purchase taxation) for those who cannot dodge them – high. Politically, the state inhibits the freedom of the organised working classes to organise, demonstrate and strike against the exploitation experienced by workers. The state colludes with capital in the exploitation of its own workforce and those of foreign lands. The state severely controls and regulates the movement of its non-elite citizens, whilst internationalising the elite. It institutes wars in which working-class soldiers and working-class non-combatants are slaughtered indiscriminately, whilst capitalists make profits out of destruction and subsequent re-construction. It allows large capital to disrupt working class communities and appropriate spaces and resources utilised by local people. Unquestionably, the state is an organ of oppression and exploitation.

But the state under capitalism – powerful as it is – is collapsing from its own internal contradictions. It is the institutional organ of the dominant economic and financial interests in their human personifications. The elite who control and influence it have used it to pursue their interests and this pursuit has led them to undermine the very thing which supports their rule. They have used the state to create huge, costly and unproductive military capabilities, to allow themselves the freedom to move their production to the cheapest location and avoid taxes, to award themselves lucrative state contracts and grant themselves huge tax-breaks. These state ‘benefits’ to capital have created a massive system of state insolvency and despite the current expensive loans they take on, all current capitalist states are heading for collapse and bankruptcy. Remember the £1.2 trillion UK debt and the $11 trillion US noted above? The present captains of industry, commerce, finance and politics, are sinking their own battleship – which in view of this and other things deserves to go down.

But in contrast to the anarcho-capitalists who with regard to the state, also think that way, much of the current left – as the traditional Labour Movement before them – wish to captain the rusting, top-heavy hulk themselves. Some have recently formed a new party to do just that. If successful, they will urge the workers to continue to patch up the boilers, keep the engine room running, staff the pumps in the bilge, scrub the decks, cook the on-board meals and do all the other menial jobs which keep this rotting vessel afloat. To demonstrate their bourgeois liberal aspirations, they are properly insisting that when they become captains of the rotting hulk there will be just as many women as men employed in the exploitative positions on this class-divided, elite-controlled journey to what they elastically classify as – socialism. For they have no plans to end exploitation – merely to even it out – whilst navigating their imaginary course to future parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, the course currently plotted by those who will definitely not give up the vessel easily is leading toward the fiscal and ecological iceberg which will finally send the capitalist mode of production to its graveyard.

Revolutionary-humanists on the other hand will continue to advocate that the crew will eventually be compelled by developing circumstances to recognise that they will have to rebel and dismantle the state, replacing it with self-regulating, self-governing egalitarian, humanist, ecologically-minded productive communities. The fact that the present state employs workers does not mean that these workers in education, health etc., will cease to have employment under a post-capitalist stateless mode of production. They will simply be responsible to their respective communities rather than some distant axe-wielding state official or local delegated elite boss. So in activist campaigns why not argue for this from the outset?.

If this perspective seems idealistic, then be comforted (or discomforted) by the fact that the state cannot continue in its present form – anyway! Many of these jobs are already going and more will follow! Change is going to happen – one way or another! If the evidence for this is, or becomes, compelling, then it just requires the rest of us to decide what kind of change is preferable. In such situations I am often guided by the following saying; it is better to struggle for something you want and not get it, than to struggle for something you do not want and get it. And of course, there is more chance of getting what we want if we struggle for that, than if we struggle for some dubious elite-driven alternative which by definition envisions their control of a ‘state’.

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Egypt, Finance, Marx, Reformism, The State | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

PRINCIPLES OF CO-OPERATION.

Posted on November 12, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Self-defeating forms of co-operation.

The recent announcement by the Co-operative Bank in the UK, that in future it is to be dominated by the interests and investment strategy of a hedge-fund conglomerate, cannot entirely be a surprise. This bank has been dominated for decades by the investment approaches common to all banking and finance-capital enterprises. Like the wholesale side of the British co-operative movement before it, the Co-op Bank in had long ago almost totally surrendered to the capitalist mode of production. Its total capitulation came in 2009 when its oligarchic management, decided to ‘expand’ its influence by first purchasing Britannia Building Society and then in 2012, encouraged by the UK’s Con/Dem government ministers, Lloyds Banking Group.

This final speculative gamble that the purchase of Lloyds would enable a quick-fix for the banks previous self-created balance sheet weakness, was the final blow in its independence. Instead of gaining branches and staff it will instead now lose both. To save the bank from its own self-inflicted debt problems, the Co-op Group leaders are poised to cede control of the bank’s equity, to a group of Hedge-funds with the ruthless US ‘terminator’ Aurelius-fund leading the way. Thus the type of bank (a co-operative) which is supposed to be only responsible to its ‘members’ and customers, is now to become responsible to those finance-capital vultures which circle every country looking for victims to plunder. The rescue plan has granted these predators a 70% stake in the business in exchange for £1 billion to save it from bankruptcy.

According to the Financial Times Newspaper, one of the MPs who questioned the Co-operative Banks executives during a Treasury select committee, said the following;

“Isn’t it the truth that what was in vogue was the same irresponsible risk taking that (Fred) Goodwin (former head of RBS) and others did in other banks? You and your colleagues had exactly the same mentality.” (Financial Times. November 8.)

Indeed, they did have essentially the same mentality. It cannot have escaped our notice that essentially the same thing has happened to the many ‘mutual’ institutions such as building societies. Under their executives these have all previously gone the same ‘privatised’ way and are now owned by ‘shareholders and not members! All these non-private organisational forms were originally set up in opposition to the cut-throat and ruthless practices of the private sector product and service provisions that put profit first. For this reason, they were more often than not painstakingly set up by ordinary working people – who refused to put profit before product quality, good working conditions and above average pay. These organisations were intended to be radically different, than private capitalist ones.

Clearly the idea and practice of co-operation (and mutualism) is either a complete waste of time or the principles adopted by these particular types of mutualism and co-operation were at odds with what is really needed. If these ideas are to have a long-term benefit to those working people who first supported these alternatives to capitalism, any contradictions in them need to be removed. Indeed there was a debate – of sorts – over this exact problem in the 19th century. Back then ‘co-operative societies’ were seen by many working people and their supporters as a revolutionary alternative to the dominant capitalist mode of production. Some, such as Robert Owen (of New Lanark fame), even thought that well-managed co-operative projects would prevent the desire and need for a working class revolution. Of employees and members of successful co-operatives, Owen noted;

“They will therefore have every motive not to interfere with the honours and privileges of the existing higher orders, but to remain well satisfied with their own station in life.” (Robert Owen. ‘Report to the County of Lanark’ Part 3.)

For bourgeois ‘socialists’ and liberals co-operation was never meant to supersede the capitalist mode of production, but was seen as allowing a small degree of freedom from it for a select few. In contrast, many working people promoting co-operation saw it as a long-term solution to achieving decent wages, better conditions of employment, along with improved quality of food, clothing and other products for their consumption. And indeed for a short time – for many workers – it did exactly that. But under capitalism such partial and dubious forms of co-operation, despite such high hopes re-created all the problems introduced by the domination of the capitalist mode of production and almost all have abandoned the original form.

Marx on co-operation.

Marx had once been accused of being against co-operation. He was not. He was only critical of some of the forms this was taking. He noted in a 1851 letter to co-operators, that it had become the custom to cry down any individual whose vision was not identical to others. He went on to write that those who advocate a principle in a different way were too often ‘denounced as an enemy, instead of being recognised as a friend’ …. Interestingly, with regard to the 21st century ‘left’ that particular custom still prevails as many of us know from direct experience. On the contrary, wrote Marx in the same letter;

“I am its sincere, though humble advocate, and, from that very reason, feel bound to warn the people against what I conceive to be the suicidal tendency of our associative efforts as conducted now….I contend that co-operation as now developed must result in failure to the majority of those concerned, and that it is merely perpetuating the evils which it professes to remove.” (Letter to the advocates of the co-operative principle. Marx Collected Works Volume 3 page 573.)

We can see as was noted in the section above that the majority of such co-operative efforts have failed and have indeed during their life-times perpetuated most of the evils they were intended to remove . Marx based his criticism of the co-operative models then being followed under four general headings. 1. They were still based upon capital and the wages system (ie they continued wage-slavery). 2. Under the capitalist mode of production small co-operative capital cannot compete with accumulated private capital. 3. They perpetuated profiteering and competition with other workers (dividend sharing schemes). 4. While they last co-operatives often re-create an aristocracy of labour. In short they maintained, wage-labour, capital, profit and managerial hierarchy.

‘Why do the rich smile on it? Marx rhetorically asks in this letter. Because ‘they know in the long run it is harmless to them’, he replies. Under the capitalist mode of production, co-operation starting off small and energised by many enthusiastic and willing hands could initially succeed. In such small local forms it was (and is) largely ignored by capitalists, particularly big-capital. However, soon as they grow large they can be under-sold, boycotted and competitively undermined resources-wise by large private capital. This was the eventual fate of Robert Owens cotton mill in New Lanark and the heirs of the Rochdale Pioneers. Alternatively, they become hierarchical, speculatively corrupt and prey to the capitalist inspired Hedge-Fund’s as indicated by the case of the UK’s Co-operative Bank.

Marx, from his thorough understanding of the capitalist system, was able to warn co-operative movements that;

“Believe me! You are digging the grave of co-operation, while you think you are fashioning its cradle.”(Marx. ibid)

Capitalism is built on and exploits co-operation.

Any form of social life, requires co-operation, either voluntary or coerced. The means of production, whether in agriculture, industry or transport, require the integrated co-operation of large numbers of workers, as producers and consumers. So to do other areas of life, such as education, health, social services or communications. Co-operation was indispensable to ancient modes of production and it is essential to the modern capitalist ones. But of course the form of society created depends upon what form of co-operation and to what purpose. The capitalist mode of production requires the high-intensity ‘forced’ co-operation of the workplace in pursuit of profit for the few. That is its essential form and also its primary purpose.

Capitalist forms of co-operation are suicidal, for humanity and the planet. The capitalist mode of production by its pollution and intensity of exploitation is literally digging the graves of millions of workers and making grave-yards out of much of the planet. Because capitalist means of production are harnessed to the need to create profits decisions are made by the few in charge of these means. They decide on what to produce, how to produce it, and where to produce it. These decisions are all taken irrespective of the negative effects on workers conditions and pay and irrespective of any disastrous effects upon the climate or environment. And it is the generally enforced working practices, conditions and pay of the capitalist sector which undermine any form of alternative within the capitalist mode.

Co-operatives implementing above average wages, salaries and working conditions, will on balance have higher costs than any rival privatised outlets. These higher costs will in general create higher prices, for commodities and services. Poor pay and unemployment among the bulk of the employed population – a systemic characteristic under capitalism – mean this bulk (and many others) will choose to shop at the cheapest possible outlets. In this way even initially successful co-operative projects invariably stagnate or atrophy. In response to this capitalist induced inevitability, the often hierarchical organisational structures of co-operatives allow the management elite to make their own decisions in attempting to reverse this decline.

The process of managing a co-operatives decline and the vain hope of correcting it inevitably leads to programmes of cost cutting and speculative dealings, both of which sound the death knell for the better wages and any socially aware principles, they had in the first place. It is for these reasons than co-operation, whilst the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, is unlikely to succeed, beyond a certain point, before it starts to resemble any other capitalist enterprise. However, even under the capitalist mode of production that certain point can be extended. There was, and is, an alternative model. Although it was ignored, Marx suggested an alternative model which dispensed with share-holder dividend (profit distribution) and competitive expansion simply for market share.

Self-affirming forms of co-operation.

This further extract, from the above-noted letter to co-operators, is a lengthy one, but it is well worth taking the trouble to read, for it explains how many of the pit-falls of ill-considered co-operative projects can be overcome.

“A co-operative association is formed: after payment of its working charges (including labour in production or distribution), it finds itself at the end of the year with a surplus in hand; instead of dividing this surplus among the members, it employs it to purchase land or machinery, which it lets out to other bodies of working men, on the associative principle. The rent paid for the land or the machinery and the surplus of each concern beyond the working charges, is again to be applied to the further purchases of machinery and land, on the same terms and under the same conditions and so on, continually extending the power, strength and resources of the association. This is co-operation. It is co-operation, because it establishes a community of interest – the success of each ‘branch’ furthers the success of every other and of the whole collectively. There can be no conflicting interests – no rivalry – no competition – for the greater success of each undertaking, the more the stability and permanence of the whole is ensured. It makes the interest of each and all to see co-operative associations spread and multiply. This I repeat emphatically, this is real co-operation.” (Marx. Marx Engels. Collected Works. Pub Lawrence & Wishart. Volume 11 page 587/8, emphasis in the original.)

The full voluntary co-operation necessary to create an alternative mode of production to replace the present decadent profit-orientated one can only come after those who wish to prevent such a development are removed from positions of power. At that revolutionary juncture, positions of power will need to be removed from socio-economic forms of organisation and governance. Positions of power will need to be replaced by workers self-governance and international co-operation with other workers structured in such a way to balance well-being for the whole of humanity with ecological and environmental sustainability. In other words, the creation of an international community of interest.

In the meantime Marx’s proposal could be used by those who under 21s century austerity measures are faced with trying to keep open those necessary productive and welfare activities which are currently faced by closures and bankruptcies. Set up co-operatives by all means but ensure that their principles are not infected with bourgeois assumptions of elite control, competitive undermining of others and the exploitative use of surplus-labour. Co-operation is the way forward for humanity, but co-operation freed from the profit motive, freed from its elite hierarchies and freed from its local and national focus and bias. That is the aspiration and target for real co-operation.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2013.)

Posted in co-operation, Critique, Economics, Marx | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

RE-BUILDING CLASS SOLIDARITY.

Posted on October 24, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Capitalist production creates divisions.

It was the development and eventual domination of the capitalist mode of production, that created the modern working classes. Before this could happen, ordinary people had to be torn from their previous links to their means of production, as peasants, cottagers and craftsmen. Once removed from any ability to directly earn their own living, working people were forced to work for another new class of owners – the capitalist class. The previous age-long dominant class divisions and antagonisms between rural workers and land-owning aristocrats were transformed into the modern ones; between the capitalist class and the working class.

As the early capitalist countries developed, the modern working class quickly became the overwhelming majority of the population. In the so-called ‘advanced’ countries the overwhelming majority of communities are now working class communities. In addition, the overwhelming majority of citizens of mixed class communities are also working class. But they are now working class communities subject to the profit-based whims and vicissitudes of the new capitalist class. It is a class which has gained control of the dominant means of production and sustenance and has developed them for its own needs and purposes.

Previous forms of voluntary co-operation between working people was reduced to non-work time and their work-time became the forced co-operation to a elite-imposed production plan. Production was now determined not by what was needed by societies but what made the best profits for capitalist investors. Under the competitive struggle for market share and profit, capitalist forms of manufacture almost from their beginnings required absolute control and discipline within the production process. Part of that control was the creation of hierarchical divisions of labour amongst the working classes. As Marx summed it up;

“Manufacture proper not only subjects the previously independent workman to the discipline and command of capital, but, in addition, creates a hierarchic gradation of the workmen themselves.” (Capital Volume 1, Chapter 14 section 5.)

Since the early development of capitalism, the labouring masses have been progressively divided hierarchically within enterprises, between enterprises and within society at large. Work-based economic divisions are consequently considerable and extremely widespread. The existence of substantial pay and condition differentials among and between skilled (blue-collar and white), semi-skilled, unskilled and unemployed, has always created problematic divisions between these sections of the working class. As a consequence, this continuous development of division-of-labour gradations within the capitalist mode of production has created problems for the unity and solidarity of the working class.

Even within the narrow boundaries of nation-states, these industrial, commercial and public service work-place divisions have consequently led to the development of widely differing working class experiences, standards of living, interests and motivations. Additionally, layered within (or on top) of these capitalist inspired economic divisions among working people, are also pre-capitalist divisions of age, race/ethnicity, gender and religion – all of which are again in resurgence. All these actual socio-economic divisions are practical ones reinforced by daily, weekly and yearly experience and have been consolidated over long periods of time and often along generational employment traditions.

In particular, the late 20th century globalised development of the capitalist mode of production has seen a progressive decline of work-place proximity and shared identity of interests particularly among the European and North American working classes. During the post-2nd World War period, the proportional reduction of productive to unproductive labour (industry/commerce relative to public service employment) in these countries has further removed common work-place experiences and shared interests from the experience of large numbers of working people. In addition, unemployment – a unique creation of the capitalist mode of production – has created a considerable percentage of working people who may have little or no contact with each other or with supportive groups of employed workers.

The resulting ideas springing from all these real historic and contemporary divisions create well formed patterns of behavioural indifference, competition and lead to varying degrees of ideological antagonism. These patterns form one crucially important element of working class experience and consciousness. So to expect ideas which are derived from this solid material base to simply evaporate in response to alternative ideas hurled at them by the ‘left‘, or anyone else for that matter, is naive and unrealistic. The recognition and acknowledgement of this material fact, however, is not a reason to suggest that challenging these divisive ideas should be abandoned.

Instead, such recognition should guard against idealistic expectations based upon a superficial understanding, derived from a combination of ‘left’ impatience, rote-learned abstract slogans and wishful thinking. The days are long gone when thousands of employees staffed individual, mines, mills, factories, docks, railways, and numerous public services and shared similar oppressive experiences. Even then class solidarity was not easily sustained. It is the above noted modern ‘real-time’ divisions arising from the capitalist mode of production – along with numerous betrayals and previous working class defeats – which have led to a serious erosion of solidarity among the working class and among working communities.

The effects of economic divisions on class solidarity.

The past historical experience of class-struggles clearly confirms that if sectional or sectoral actions and the resulting consciousness are not overcome, then many the resulting struggles can be lost simply because of this failure. The most glaring examples of this problem of sectional de-composition have been witnessed in action when semi-skilled workers and management have kept production going and broken a strike by skilled workers who have decided to strike to protect their own privileged positions or differential pay status.

This problem and similar examples of failures occurred in Mining, Engineering, Printing and Dock-work etc., during the late 20th century in most advanced capitalist countries in Europe and North America. There are numerous such examples. Failures of militant actions due to the wider social decomposition of working class communities have also occurred. Strikes of workers in one sector of industry, commerce or public service has seriously damaged the lives of workers, their families in another sector of industry, commerce, or in working class society at large. This internal class alienation has resulted in consolidating the existing de-composition of solidarity.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the separation and breakdown of working class shared experience and the consequent atrophy of ideas of solidarity has gone even further. Unemployed, homeless, handicapped, blue-collar, white-collar, private sector, public sector workers, are just a few of the presently established and currently entrenched material divisions between sections of working people to be overcome. To repeatedly call for sectional advantage or discrete sector defensive actions, as the Trade Union movement invariably did in the past, was always a de-facto acceptance and entrenchment of this capitalist created socio-economic de-composition.

These sectional and sectoral calls were also the result of a failure to recognise and challenge the tragic work-place and social-wide consequences of this de-composition. To continue to make such discrete sector defence calls in face of the present fundamental crisis of the whole capitalist system is doubly tragic and doubly misguided. So too are the equally misguided calls by some on the so-called revolutionary left for a General Strike. Such premature ‘vanguardist’ calls also fail to adequately recognise the reality of the current de-composed condition of the working class and the need to overcome it in practice and in theory.

A systemic crisis of capitalism changes circumstances.

And of course, this reversal is possible. The past experience of strikes and other large-scale oppositions (uprisings and revolutions) to the capitalist mode of production, suggests that with some effort – and under the right conditions – this material de-composition of working class identity, experience and solidarity can be overcome. For if we are to accept the following proposition; ‘that the ideas people hold reflect to a greater or lesser extent, the material circumstances of their lives’; then certain things follow.

It follows that for the vast majority of people only a radically changed set of material circumstances will consistently effect and challenge the basis of the present ideas they hold. Interestingly and importantly, those changed circumstances have started and are increasing week by week as the global economic and fiscal crisis continues to unfold.

Unemployment, zero-hours and low-pay; austerity, banking frauds and financial crises – along with health and other cut-backs – effect all sections of the working class. So too do increased prices for energy and other essential services. White-collar as well as blue-collar workers are also increasingly threatened by the unfolding circumstances of global warfare, pollution, ecological destruction and climate change. The material circumstances of working peoples lives are very definitely changing. However, a word of caution is due.

These changing material circumstances – ‘the maturing material conditions’ frequently outlined by Marx – will not immediately or automatically create the conditions for a re-composition of working class solidarity and class-consciousness. That re-composition needs to be experienced and be worked for by activists and those among the working-class communities who are ahead of the curve – so to speak. And this re-engagement with class-wide solidarity will not necessarily take place in the arenas of previous institutionalised forms or take on the appearance of previous types of organised struggle. The 21st century Occupy and UK Uncut responses, are examples of the emergence of new forms of opposition, struggle and solidarity.

The re-composition of working class solidarity.

For some time to come trade union and existing ‘left’ consciousness may deflect, hamper or even stand in the way of such a reorganization and re-alignment of working class forms of organisation and community solidarity. For these reasons, overcoming divisions and a resurgence of working-class practical solidarity are far more likely to begin in non-traditional arenas, where people have already no relative privileges to defend, because they have already lost everything – job, income, homes, individual freedom, citizenship, etc. To some extent this has already begun, particularly in countries which are ahead of the UK and the USA in the downward spiral of austerity attacks upon the working classes.

In response to the current pattern of capitalist cost-cutting and state-imposed austerity, working-class community action and consciousness has arisen in many places in Europe and elsewhere. These are actions which have begun to overcome the previous divisions among the working class. Community campaigns to keep schools, hospitals and other resources open and functioning are ways in which skilled workers, unskilled workers, unemployed, senior citizens, youth and other community activists come together and in a common project or projects overcome their previous separations structured by capitalist inspired status and pay. Anti-eviction and squatting campaigns are other such collective experiences having a similar potential. For example, a comment from Italy notes that a demonstration became an occupation when diverse groups came together. And;

“A careful insight on the demonstration can read through these diversities. There were house squatters in big numbers. It was not only concerning the recurring cycles of the housing squats in Rome, but something bigger and different. A visible trace of it is given by the huge attendance of migrants, as concerned protagonists of the march, and the diffusion that the housing issue acquired on territories it had never been present in. Thus, the occupation became a concrete and even necessary answer to a more and more questioned – or even denied by the crisis- material need. Then there was a robust presence of the youth proletariat and of those social strata deprived of income and opportunities that have dearly paid the costs of the crisis.” (‘It all began with a siege’ at ,http://www.infoaut.org )

All these types of community-based campaigns can and will become practical arenas, for the working out and challenging of sexist, racist, ageist, and elitist ideas and practices. But they will also be the arenas for challenging another form of negative de-composition – the past de-composition and present sectarian divisions of the anti-capitalist revolutionary left.

The challenge for the anti-capitalist left.

We should ask ourselves whether another attempt at unity among a broad left is a positive step forward or just creating another arena for further sterile sectarian wrangles. I suggest it is not a fragile ‘left-unity’ which is the most important factor in the coming struggles but campaigning for and assisting a class-based unity. A re-composed solidarity and self-activity among working people will be indispensable to the success of any defensive campaigns and if successful this will point to a positive way forward. The past and present left-sectarian practices, based upon male-biased, elitist vanguard ideas, will have to be resisted and challenged in such class and community-based campaigns. If workers unite and transcend their differences, the only thing they will lose – are their chains!

At the same time, if anti-capitalists can give up their sectarian characteristics the only thing they will lose will be their sectarian isolation and ability to bog-down any coming struggles. If they will reject sectarianism completely they will cease to be a problem and can become a facilitative part of the process of re-creating class solidarity and self-activity. So far (ie 100 years of left sectarianism) they have proved themselves incapable of leading themselves out of the ruts of their sectarian traditions and hopefully will – sooner or later – be faced with the task of learning from a reality of resurgent class-wide solidarity and struggle rather than hoping to train workers to follow them in pursuing self-defeating sectarian traditions.

The contradictions and antagonisms built into the capitalist mode of production have once again reached a crisis level and are creating the conditions and the potential way forward for a radical re-composition of working-class communal solidarity and self-activity. The anti-capitalist left can help or hinder this process. The realisation of a practical re-composition of working class solidarity will render our working communities fit to play a leading part among the revolutionary-humanist forces needed to create a new non-oppressive post-capitalist mode of production. Or as Marx succinctly phrased it;

“By the maturing the material conditions and the combination on a social scale of the processes of production, it matures the contradictions and antagonisms of the capitalist form of production, and thereby provides, along with the elements for the formation of a new society, the forces for exploding the old one.” (Marx Capital Vol 1 page 503.)

[See also ‘Left Unity: A contribution to the debate.’  plus ‘Uprisings and Revolutions’ – 1. and ‘Uprisings and Revolutions – 2]

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2013)

Posted in Critique, Left Unity, Marx, Politics, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Left Unity: A contribution to the debate.

Posted on October 18, 2013 by stutteringsteps

In Europe and the USA it is undeniable that there is a growing animosity to the socio-economic domination of banking capital and to the severity of the austerity programmes proposed by all mainstream political parties. As yet this animosity is predictably being directed at and toward the political process and toward existing political parties rather than the capitalist system in its entirety. The present ‘crisis’ – as yet – is not generally understood to be caused by a fundamental underlying fracture in the capitalist mode of production. In particular this current growing anger and frustration is providing the basis for numerous initiatives aimed at creating new political parties and new defensive movements.

In the UK and Europe it has given rise to the ambition to reverse the current trends of global capital and return nations to a situation of working class well-being and dignity by creating a political party with a clear programme of ‘reforms’. This view has been underwritten and complimented in the UK by Ken Loach’s film ‘The Spirit of 45’. It is the contention of this contribution to the pre-conference debate over ‘Left Unity’, that under the 21st century capitalist mode of production, this approach amounts to wishful thinking. It is a hoped for ambition which can only be sustained as long as people ignore both the systemic nature of the current economic crisis and the previous political experience of ‘left’ reformism in Europe and the west.

a) The economic basis for Reforms under Capital.

The economic origins of ‘progressive’ reforms in the advanced capitalist countries lies not in the willingness of the capitalist class to reduce their share of surplus-value extraction, but in the colonialist and imperialist stages of their mode of production. By intensively exploiting native peoples and resources in many areas of the world, the capitalist elites of Europe and the west were able to extract enough surplus-value and profits to satisfy themselves and allow moderately good wages, salaries and conditions to be granted to their workers. But nevertheless, these concessions were not given willingly.

In fact these capitalist and pro-capitalist elites had to be pressurised throughout the 19th century by trade union and other organised social movements to concede better wages and conditions. Pressure also had to be exerted to allow a greater level of public services to be delivered to their citizens. This gradual (and uneven) process was interrupted in the early 20th century by a massive economic and financial crisis which peaked before the onset of the Second World War. Progress in this regard, resumed and accelerated after that second capital-led tragic annihilation of human and material resources. Indeed, the destruction of human and material resources caused by the six years of total war (1939-45), was precisely the economic basis for a revival of the capitalist system and the pursuit of reforms.

A shortage of workers (over 6 million killed), a massive destruction of infrastructure and productive capacity (cities, industries, railways, roads and docks all flattened) meant almost full employment and steadily increasing wages for working people. This post-fascist war regeneration and modernisation of UK and European capitalism in turn necessitated and allowed a rapid expansion of public services in communication, education, health, social security etc. In other words, the material basis of the much vaunted ‘spirit of 45’ arose out of the ashes of 20th century industrial-scale extermination and annihilation. Such universal material devastation does not exist in the 21st century.

For these reasons proposals to regain such ‘reforms’ and temporary privileges granted to the workers in the advanced countries after 1945, needs to include the above understanding along with the following. Reforms – benefiting workers in advanced countries – always relied upon the ‘forced’ existence of cheap raw materials and low-paid foreign labour. In other words, under the domination of capital, reforms such as above average pay, unemployment benefits, sick pay, quality health care, adequate pensions, required and still requires low wages and abysmal conditions for foreign labour. Hence the 20th and 21st century support of the pro-capitalist elite for many authoritarian regimes which guarantee these two essential elements of production. Writing of this period, A Hoogvelt noted;

“Today authoritarian and repressive regimes in many successfully industrialising Third World countries perform a function in relation to the world capitalist centres comparable with that of the feudal overlords and slave owners of a century ago: they make available to the overseas investor both a docile, stable and unorganised work-force and the monopolistic rights to the use of land and natural resources; it is their political presence and their political domination which permit the capitalist production of commodities in the overseas countries….” (A.M.M Hoogvelt. ’The Third World in Global Development’. Macmillan. p 178.)

In the 21st century this situation has continued exponentially as the recent exposures concerning the deaths of garment, footwear, construction, chemical and other workers in the non-advanced countries, demonstrate. Note also the current treatment of workers in Quatar on World Cup preparation projects. So placing reformist demands upon capitalists and their governments in Europe, and the USA etc., for improvements in social welfare in the 21st century is to effectively turn a blind eye to the following fact. If – and as stated above it is a big IF – they are successful, then to pay for them, the capitalist classes will use their financial power to further increase the exploitation of third world peoples and their environments.

In the advanced countries a 21st century reformist agenda, divorced from a commitment to eliminate the rule of capital is reactionary not only with regard to working people but also with regard to the entire global environment. But it is also reactionary in another way. A reformist agenda pre-supposes there will be a power standing above working people which will grant these reforms and improved conditions and also guarantee them. In other words a programme of reforms aimed at modifying capitalism to benefit workers and the poor, requires a powerful and expensive state apparatus to carry out these modifications. It also requires a privileged politically trained class which will govern and administer them. Now isn’t that exactly the political basis that existed in 1945 and after?

b) The political basis of reforms under Capitalism.

The previously noted systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production occurred in the early 20th century and exploded financially in and around the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The rise of European Fascism in the 1930’s was one of the responses to the resulting economic, financial and political dislocations and collapse in Europe during that period. The ‘Great Depression’ and the ‘New Deal’ in the USA was an alternative. The outbreak of war was another. The experience of ‘one-nation’ class collaboration and many essential egalitarian measures during this war led to the return of a kind of ‘left unity’ Labour government in the UK and left-liberal governments in Europe. In the UK, the British version of the ‘new deal’, was the introduction of nationalisations of essential services and the adoption of the Beveredge proposals. The ‘Spirit of 45’ had taken on a physical form.

In 1945, therefore, the strongest possible political basis for left reformism was achieved by the election of a well organised and well-funded Labour Party. It was truly a party of ‘left-unity’ which achieved control of Parliament with a substantial majority and huge programme of reforms. In future, the state would ‘protect’ the vulnerable, extract taxes and supply services to those in need. All seemed rosy to those wearing the mental equivalent of rose-tinted spectacles. But was it? Of course not! The capitalist mode of production was still in place and still dominant. Pro-capitalists still dominated the main means of production and staffed government institutions. Nevertheless the illusion that Parliament is ‘the’ source of power in society continued to be successfully promoted and dominate social thinking. The real source of capitalist power and influence – control of; the means of production, financial institutions, state organs of repression and governance – were ignored.

Ignored also was the facile commitment of the fist-thumping left unity socialists within the Labour Party and labour movement to the cause of the working class. As soon as the system of capital needed assistance, enough of the ‘left unity’ members of the Labour Party quickly sided with the needs of capital. Wage controls and Trade Union restrictions were introduced by these so-called ‘left’ guardians of the working class and the welfare state. And the traditional well-oiled revolving political door of alternative Tory and Labour governments commenced. Through numerous stages these ‘left’ and ‘right’ alternating guardians of the existing economic and political ‘system‘ in the UK and Europe, whittled away at every post-war gain achieved by the working classes. The final chapters in this process continue today under the assertion that ‘we are all in this together’ and the need for ‘austerity’.

So what’s new? Well we have now arrived at another systemic crisis of capitalism, in which the serious, life-threatening financial, fiscal, political, ecological, social and political aspects are symptoms of a new period of relative over-production and fiscal crisis. There is now not too little production – but too much! That’s certainly new! Industrial, commercial and financial over-capacity is practically everywhere. Production has been progressively transferred to countries with low pay and low-paid workers have been recruited by capital in the advanced countries. The results are low pay, zero hours and high levels of unemployment – therefore low purchasing power! That’s fairly recent but not new! But now consumer credit is also close to being maxed-out! So for these reasons a further boom is out of the question and without a boom, under capitalism, there cannot even be temporary concessions or partial reforms to benefit the majority.

c) Further irresolvable contradictions.

On top of this, the level of production and consumption achieved during the 20th century is causing catastrophic levels of pollution, ecological destruction and climate change. Any further boom periods financially engineered by pro-capitalists will merely further accelerate this one-way track to the destruction of many sections of humanity. Capital is now causing not only relative levels of over-production, but in terms of resource depletion and pollution, it is rapidly approaching absolute over-production. Any serious movement in support of working people and future humanity cannot focus on domestic reforms whilst ignoring the global effects of the present profit-based system upon the environmental, climatic and ecological welfare of other sections of the working class. But again – that is not all!

Built upon the foundations of the capitalist mode of production the funding of the state organs – governance, military and welfare – the present sources of reforms and benefits, can no longer be sustained in its present form. There is a wide-spread fiscal insolvency crisis looming – as the recent shutdowns in the USA have indicated! And it is not only the USA which face this close to terminal problem!. Under the continued domination of capital – all of the above sectors will need to be reduced considerably. Some more than others – depending upon the views of respective governments and the support these have from their respective mainstream ‘establishments‘.

Yet if the averaged out Left Unity ambition is to be elected and create working class reforms against the continuing dominant interests of capital the ‘state’ will need to remain in existence. It will need to be large, strong and expensive to maintain. It will require a huge tax burden! Even in the most favourable circumstances, therefore, an irreconcilable contradiction exists. For if this ‘Left-Unity’ coalition ever gained political power – it will not be funded by the capitalist bond-holders, its tax base will continue to be too small and there will still be no sustainable prospect for capitalist inspired growth. So how and where will this powerful pro-worker Left Unity governed ‘state’ get its financial resources from?

d) In conclusion.

The ruling pro-capitalist elite and the capitalist class itself have no material reason for subscribing to a renewed spirit of 45. If they had, they would have already done so in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse and in view of the current devastating effects of austerity. Only the threat of revolutionary transformations would induce each countries ‘establishments’ to consider such reforms as those implemented in 1945 and after. And if the threat of revolution does not fully materialise would not any future ‘spirit’ of general welfare soon evaporate away – again? Irrespective of this, however, the economic, social and political base for the development of a renewed reformist politics does not presently exist and it is unlikely to develop in the foreseeable future. The present crisis is one concerning the fundamental basis of the entire capitalist mode of production itself. No amount of wrestling with secondary symptoms or its superstructures will solve this problem.

In my view any political party or movement advocating future reformist possibilities will be naively misleading those people who choose to believe its proposals. Well before such a political party or movement could get near to parliamentary ascendancy with even a half decent reformist programme the pro-capitalist establishment would unleash its dogs of class war upon it – which it is already preparing and will do in any case – as anger and resentment increase. For this reason the energies, commitment and resources of anti-capitalists are best allocated to arguing and organising for local community self-reliance and defence. In other words work towards a revolutionary-humanist – Class Unity! Funding and working for a reformist-based, populist, egotistical and therefore inherently unreliable ‘Left Unity’ has been done before and utterly failed – lets not be fooled into doing it again!

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Economics, Left Unity, neo-liberalism | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments