LEFT UNITY – The Three Platforms.

Posted on August 28, 2013 by stutteringsteps

After a number of years of gradual decline in the living and working conditions of the working and oppressed classes in the UK, the process was accelerated by the financial crisis erupting in 2008. This intensified crisis has finally energised some of the political forces of the UK left to do something different. The recent Left Unity initiative is an attempt to draw together all those seriously opposed to the current economic and social crisis into one large political party. The purpose is to gain access to parliament in order to defend workers (and others) welfare and work-place rights and challenge the current neo-liberal policy direction of all mainstream parties.

In one sense this is an attempt within a UK setting to plot a parallel and similarly transformative course to that already originated by the Syriza coalition in Greece. As such it has (at least by previous left standards) attracted considerable numbers of individuals and some groups – all to some degree radicalised or rejuvenated by the current austerity programme of mainstream political parties. A London conference has been arranged for 14 November 2013 in order to attempt to agree to a ‘platform’ (ie a set of ideas, principles and objectives) which will ‘unify’ those attending so they will become an active part of this new initiative. Talk of unity and the possibility of solidarity on the left is an important breakthrough, but do the proposals recently suggested represent a possible way forward?

So far (August 2013) three platforms have been proposed by various tendencies supporting and promoting this initiative. One is proposed in the form of a ‘Left Platform’ located at (http://leftunity.org/left-party-platform-statement/); a second in the form of a ‘Socialist Platform’ located at (http://leftunity.org/socialist-platform-statement-of-aims-and-principles/) and a third as ‘The Class Struggle Platform’ located at ( http://leftunity.org/the-class-struggle-platform/) These can be accessed by locating the appropriate http address. Since collectively they amount to a number of pages I will just give my general impressions after reading a summery by Felicity Dowling published in Links, (at http://links.org.au/node/3473) and then reading all three platforms individually.

Politics and Platforms.
The three platforms are by definition brief statements of political positions drawn up by three different groups. As such they can be defined by what they fail to mention as much as by what they do include and how it is included. Such platforms cannot afford to be overly lengthy and expect to be read by even moderate numbers of people. However, in drawing up ‘left’ platforms, the essential elements chosen for inclusion still require a sufficiently clear description so as to be unambiguous to those reading them. Otherwise the ‘left’ political communicators will be no different in form than the ‘liberal’ and the ‘right-wing’ political communicators. All of whom are deliberately and consistently ambiguous in order to attract the widest electoral support but leave them able to compromise their promises and free to pursue different, undisclosed agendas.

Unfortunately, in this case, all three of these Left Unity platforms are not sufficiently clear on a number of the points they do include. Concepts such as ‘socialism’, ‘public ownership’, ‘democratisation’, ‘social gains’, ‘replacement of state institutions’ ‘common ownership’, ‘women’s liberation’, ‘the working class’, ‘the interests of the majority’, ‘win political power to end capitalism’ ‘defend all past gains’, ‘the organisation of a general strike’; are used repeatedly, but only as meaningless abstractions. This is a serious fault because all of these terms have been used in the past to describe practices that either catastrophically failed, were reversed later or have just remained meaningless clichés. If for reasons of brevity, these generalities could not be tackled sufficiently in these platforms, then at least that fact should have been mentioned. It could have been stated that – as they stand – these concepts are abstract, problematic and in need of much further qualification.

Some of these previously noted abstract generalisations invite a question as to what is also completely left out of these platforms. For example, left out of all these platforms is even brief indications of the episodic and structural nature of the present five-fold current crisis of the capitalist mode of production. Missing also is a recognition of the changes in the socio-economic structure of the working class which has matured in the 21st century. In particular no mention is made of the change in proportions under capitalism between the productive workers generating surplus-value and those not generating surplus-value. In other words, between those employed by capital and those employed by realised surplus-value transformed into revenue.

These latter transformations cannot be ignored for these proportions have a direct relevance and importance for the continuation of a welfare ‘state’ under the capitalist mode of production as well as for the suggested ‘states’ existence under any supposedly post-capitalist economic organisation. What is also left out of these platforms – where the question of women in society is mentioned – is a recognition of the firm hold of patriarchal economic, social and political forms within male dominated society as a whole – and the symptoms of this within the ‘left’ itself. What is also a further glaring omission is a recognition of the problem of politics and the politic problems attached to large-scale institutionalised organisations within modern, mass social communities. As Marx long ago noted;

“The political mind is a political mind precisely because it thinks within the framework of politics. The keener and more lively it is, the more incapable is it of understanding social ills.” (Marx. Marx/Engels Collected Works. Volume 3 page 199. emphasis added. RR)

The political mind-set.
The shortcomings of these platforms arise primarily from the fact that they are written from positions firmly anchored in what Marx described as the ‘political mind set’. For every generic issue the three platforms mention, the solution is viewed as being the realm of politics and require political solutions – even though these ‘political solutions’ differ slightly in detail across all three ‘platforms’. For this reason, the contemporary economic situation, the social situation, environmental problems, patriarchy, racism and internationalism are all seen as being solvable by the application of appropriate political solutions. In this case, these solutions in turn needing to be implemented by the state under the control of a new group of politicians – who will remain faithful and reliable leaders guiding the masses!!! Masses who are required to energetically, consistently and tirelessly campaign on behalf of these new ‘Left Unity’ politicians and themselves – once called upon to do so by the new party!

Because it is the political mind-set which is informing each of the platforms, the platforms have much in common and, as noted above, comprise mainly of abstract ‘generalisations’. Some of them sweeping generalisations at that. There is no attempt to make clear what needs to be made absolutely clear if their proposals are to ever gain credibility and get beyond wishful thinking. ‘Socialism’ and ‘Public Ownership’, for example are prominently mentioned without any reference to the previous catalogue of failed examples of precisely these so-called ‘solutions’ to the problems posed by the capitalist mode of production. No recognition that the term ‘socialism’ for example has been used to describe the states governed by Mao, Stalin, Gaddafi, elsewhere and the post-war Labour Government in the UK. No mention of any difference or of past ‘left’ mistakes nor any indication of how to avoid a repetition of previous ‘left’ errors in attempting to overcoming capitalism.

The three platforms also appear to have been formulated as if the economic analysis of the capitalist mode of production by Marx has either had no existence or has no serious relevance to the present crisis of capitalism. The platforms authors have similarly disregarded even mentioning in passing, the following; the totalitarian development of Bolshevik anti-capitalism and its full crystallisation into the horrors of Stalinist socialism; the Maoist trajectory of socialism leading to a combination of morbid back-street capitalism and ruthless state industrialisation. In addition all the platforms seem to have been written with no real regard to the implications of structural changes the capitalist industrial, commercial and financial system has undergone during the 20th and 21st centuries. The self-destructive contradictions in the application of technology, automation and computerisation, to these spheres of the present economic system are not even flagged up as problems needing urgent solution.

A Parliamentary road to Socialism?
All three platforms make clear their wish to create a party which seeks election to Parliament with sufficient electoral support to block future implementations of austerity measures or to advance reforms beneficial to the working and oppressed sections of society. Yet a further failure of the platforms is to recognise and make clear to readers what exactly this will involve. Huge amounts of money will have to be obtained, for example, to run an electoral machine with any chance of returning sufficient numbers of voters to make any noticeable effect. Where is that money to come from? Dodgy sources, with the influence that will openly or covertly come with that – or membership subscriptions – or both? Also not only money but large numbers of leafleting activists and thousands of membership meetings will be required, where are these dedicated activists to come from?

And are the poor and oppressed to be eventually asked to curb their future militant actions and defensive struggles so as not to damage some future electoral potential? And just as importantly, are the masses going to allow themselves, to be directed by the pro-bourgeois and liberal ‘left’ into an impossible electoral project which only wants to restore a 1950’s version of capitalism by calling it 21st century ‘socialism’? And are we to imagine that the controllers of a powerful capitalist state such as Britain allow any reforms not in their own interests – if such Left Unity‘ electoral day dreams did come true?

Highly unlikely! The pro-capitalist Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1968 and again in 1974 triggered elite talk of a secret military-state coup when he temporarily adopted a morsel of ‘left’ sounding rhetoric. Would things be any different today? In any part of the world? Is the example of anti-elite electoral success any different than in Egypt – where the military have decided to brutally overrule it? Or do the originators of the platforms know this project of a new party being swept into Parliament to achieve what they think is real ‘socialism’ is unrealisable – but don’t want to say so openly?

Is their main undisclosed object to just simply gather recruits for their own particular sectarian group project? Either way encouraging others to pursue such electoral based platforms will possibly only serve to confuse and dis-empower the masses self-activity, whilst claiming – as some of the platforms do – to be in favour of clarity and empowerment. And it must be said that the parliamentary roads to socialism in the past as well as the present, involve a large measure of political self-delusion for being active in politics presupposes an unfolding of its own internal logic.

“Where political parties exist, each party sees the root of every evil in the fact that instead of itself an opposing party stands at the helm of the state. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the root of the evil not in the essential nature of the state, but in the definite state form, which they wish to replace by a different state form. (Marx. ibid page 197.)

The suggestion of a replacement of the existing state form by another state form administered by a different political party, is what is common to all three platforms.

Support struggles but oppose illusions.
It is perhaps inevitable that the UK political left would come up with a political programme seeking to solve the socio-economic and environmental crisis of the capitalist mode of production, by the creation of a vehicle (the party) for their own elevation to power. It is perhaps also inevitable that they will need to use the working class (and possibly their trade union funds) as their sources of gifts, cheap loans and cheap labour in order to attempt a restoration of that worn out corroded vehicle. Just as in fact the originators and activists of the Labour Party did before them. Many of whom only later became aware of the unintended or intended consequences of the parliamentary road to socialism – the inevitable creation of a party elite and its equally inevitable incorporation and corruption. To paraphrase an often used saying; to keep doing the same thing and expecting a completely different result is the stuff of religion and prayer, not rational modes of thought and action.

In my opinion, it is not possible for revolutionary-humanist anti-capitalists to subscribe to such reformist and illusory platforms or to stay mute in the face of such outmoded and self-defeating ideas and programmes. Nor is it sensible to turn a blind eye to serious omissions nor the studied programmatic avoidance of problematic issues. This does not mean, however, that we should stay aloof from the practical struggles against the state, the employers and the pro-capitalist political class, which supporters of these platforms will hopefully engage in. It is the same with regard to religious ideologies and the oppressed believers in them, Christians, Jews or Muslims etc. We struggle alongside them against their oppression and exploitation as human beings, but we do not collude or stay silent in relationship to the religious ideologies which also serve to enslave them – particularly in the case of women.

Adopting what I suggest is a revolutionary-humanist position means engaging in solidarity and support for all the practical struggles of the working and oppressed classes – providing they are not against or at the expense of another section of the oppressed and exploited classes. The latter being an important proviso. However, we should defend vigorously those intellectual and practical understandings – which have retained their validity – and expose and criticise ideas and practices which seek to undermine or counteract these gains. Bourgeois and liberal forms of ‘socialism‘, illusions in religion and parliamentary democracy being three of the latter.

For most people, if not all of us, it is experience which is the great teacher. Experience is also the corrector of invalid ideas and practices, providing of course we are open to be so corrected. In other words, providing our ideas are not fixed for eternity like those of religion. This will be the case for many of those now convinced of the need and practicality for creating a new party and currently attached to one or other of the three platforms. It cannot be ruled out that many activists hoping for electoral success over the next months and years will be able to critically evaluate the reality of this project as it unfolds – or fails to unfold.

One of many gains attained by Marx and which I suggest is still relevant and valid in 21st century social and scientific life is the following sentence from the 11 Theses on Feuerbach, which reads;

“All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.”

Of course comprehension of our practice needs to be open, honest and thorough, something the entrenched political mind-set, with its eyes firmly fixed on parliamentary election and power, is more often than not extremely loath to do. Lets hope that the activists in and around the Left Unity initiative are willing to do this and share the experience with others.

Roy Ratcliffe. (August 2013.)

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EGYPT: CONFLICTING NARRATIVES.

Posted on August 19, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The purpose of narratives.

It is clear that the first casualty of conflict, war and politics is the truth. What happens is that the parties to any serious struggle construct a narrative of events which serves to support their particular side and is put forward as the truth. These narratives present a one-sided picture in which the side producing them have right on their side, have done nothing wrong and that the other side has done bad things and even committed crimes. However, just because both sides are at it, does not mean that one side is not more guilty than another or that both sides are equally guilty.

The difficulty for those who are not directly involved in a serious dispute or war is to try to assemble from the evidence available to their eyes and ears and based on experience which of the competing narratives is closest to the truth and which side, if any, bears the bulk of any offences or crimes. This is the actual case in any civilian dispute, whether or not it arrives at a tribunal or court. If it does then it is up to those who sit on the tribunal or the judge/jury in a court case – if they are honest – to weigh the evidence and decide which narrative is most trustworthy before reaching any conclusion.

In the case of uprisings, civil wars and revolutions the stakes are even higher, the narratives are even more forcefully made and the situation becomes even more complex. In such cases, it should be remembered that states facing unrest have the greatest resources and power to create their own narratives and to ensure as far as possible that these dominate mainstream dialogue. It can do this by banning alternative media outlets, flooding existing media outlets and controlling the streets. The state has also the power, the resources and the ability to conduct what are known as black ops. That is to say they can employ people as agent provocateurs, carry out covert actions and blame these on the opposition.

Anyone who thinks that some official sections of state organisations do not get up to such Machiavellian and nefarious acts is naive. But so to do some sections of religious and political groupings. However, the latter are usually less powerful and capable of conducting extensive black ops and provocations. Take for example, the US and UK states narratives on the war on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Take the domestic narratives of the British state over inner city riots in 2011 or the US states domestic narrative over the ’Occupy’ activists, compared to that of the rioters or the occupiers. There are countless other examples – to numerous to list. The Egyptian state is no different and in many cases has been worse in creating negative narratives for those opposed to it and positive ones for its own conduct.

The narratives in Egypt.

In the case of Egypt, the current narrative of the state is broadly that the Muslim Brotherhood are undemocratic, sectarian, weapon-bearing activists and terrorists wishing to destabilise the Egyptian Government and economy. They therefore deserve all they get – including a brutal massacre of their supporters. Those who support this narrative also point to the fact that some Muslim Brotherhood activists do carry guns and other weapons. There is also a publicised suspicion that some Brotherhood activist are guilty of burning churches and of brutalising people not belonging to their religious denomination. The latter also point out that the Muslim Brotherhood, elected to power used that power to pursue its own agenda and was not inclusive. Other charges have been made concerning corruption and unconstitutional economic investments.

The Muslim Brotherhoods pro-Mursi narrative is different. It is that there has been an unconstitutional coup and a return to brutal military rule. Their narrative includes the assertion that a massacre of protestors against this alleged coup occurred and that further outrages have been conducted against unarmed protestors. Further they insist that they are all peaceful, democratic and desirous of social and political inclusion for all Egyptian people. More than that, Brotherhood representatives assert that their previous election to governance was legitimate, constitutional and beneficial for the future welfare of Egyptian society.

It is clear that there are many problems with both narratives. Both are partial and one-sided. However, concerning recent events there is also an asymmetric imbalance. Even if one accepts completely, as I do, that the Morsi government was one-sided and not beneficial for the general population of Egypt; even if one accepts that some of their members are gun toting activists – even terrorists – and that some or even all of their leaders are corrupt and self-serving; even if one accepts that all the churches burned down were set alight by Islamists and not pro-government agents; and even if one objects to the imposition of Shariah law and any future restrictions for women and non-Muslims, again as I do, there is still a problem with what transpired on August 13th and since. With this in mind, the following pertinent questions arise.

Important questions.

Do these transgressions, some as yet unproven, deserve the indiscriminate punishments which were inflicted upon protestors – most of whom may well have been innocent of such crimes? Was not the correct procedure to investigate the church burnings and bring to justice those who perpetrated these acts. Was the correct procedure not to arrest and prosecute those who carried weapons in pro-Morsi sit-ins and demonstrations? Was not the correct procedure to investigate and impeach any corrupt Muslim government officials? Furthermore was it correct for the military to allow a gathering of stick and other weapon-bearing individuals to surround a mosque and stay there threatening the inhabitants of the mosque?

If one is truly against demonstrators being armed would the correct procedure not have been to, disarm these opposing activists and disperse them? If those in the mosque were armed with guns why was no-one outside taking cover? Why were some unarmed besiegers keen to get in to use their fists and sticks against those inside if those inside had guns? Why are government supporters assaulting western press reporters for carrying the possibility of an alternative narrative?

Whilst there is much to criticise, campaign against and even condemn concerning many Islamist supporters, the massacre and group demonisation of vast numbers of Egyptians is absolutely inhumane and counter-productive. Indiscriminate individual brutality only begets individual retaliatory brutality. Mass indiscriminate brutality, invites mass retaliatory brutality. The indiscriminate war on terror elsewhere as been the most fertile ground for incubating terrorist cells. Since the Bush and Blair state war on terror is there not more sectarian terror? Is the situation in Egypt likely to be different than elsewhere in the middle east? Lets hope so.

One needn’t take the religious or political side of the Muslim Brotherhood or extremist Islamists to take a position of opposition to the brutality of the military regime. One needn’t defend the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic vision for Egypt to condemn the recent massacres. Humanist values trump political posturing. If one wishes to campaign for and promote a more humane form of society, than a theocratic Islamist one, one doesn’t forward that desire or project by perpetrating or supporting brutality against those who wish for a theocracy. One leads by example, and the example set by the military is to mercilessly crush those who disagree with them or challenge their right to power. Its an example no one really wishing peace, bread and justice in Egypt should support physically or intellectually.

Secondary narratives.

In any big issue such as this in which sides become polarised and which existential concerns drive the two sides to desperate measures, it is inevitable that onlookers also take sides. This often creates a secondary tier of narratives which on the basis of accepting some sources of evidence over other sources, justifies support for one side or the other – or even justifies a distancing from both sides. Conserving this initial position can also have a momentum of its own. Once more facts are revealed and one primary narrative seems more problematic than the other, then a face-saving, or credibility-saving supplementary narrative is often constructed. This is likely to occur in Egypt as it has in other similar tragic events in other regime changes.

The main culprits in these retrospective secondary narrative rationalisations are the bourgeois media and state media outlets themselves. But the left often falls into this trap also. Rushing into accepting evidence, which has not been sufficiently verified, can lead to positions which later become potentially embarrassing and problematic. Attempts can then be urgently made to cover up or rationalise the position earlier adopted in order to save face or credibility. The most notorious anti-capitalist example of this phenomena was the disastrous classification of social democrats in 1930’s Germany as ‘social fascists’ by Stalinists only to reverse this position in the Spanish Civil War a few years later. However, were this occurs it reveals the bankruptcy of those, who like every other consummate politician, wriggle and squirm at being caught out in this way.

In uprisings, civil wars and revolutions this potential to naively or prematurely adopt a narrative or choose a side is frequently an invitation too tempting for many to resist. But the lessons of history for those opposed to the capitalist mode of production and the state, is to be extremely cautious and careful before accepting narratives promoted by the official organisational representatives of political parties or a state, particularly when that state authority is being seriously challenged as is the case in Egypt.

Hedging bets by sitting on the fence when states massacre citizens with whom we disagree is not really a revolutionary or a humanist position, let alone a revolutionary-humanist one. The primary litmus test of adopting a revolutionary working class position in such conflicts is the question of safe-guarding all human rights – not just those of the bourgeoisie. If there is ever to be a workers revolution against the capitalist mode of production, workers will have to overcome, religious, gender, age, ethnicity and other differences, not make these lesser ‘identities’ a basis for indifference or what amounts to total disdain for the massacre of others. We need to begin as we intend to continue.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013.)

[see Egypt: The gloves are off – Again!]

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Egypt | Tagged | Leave a comment

EGYPT: THE GLOVES ARE OFF – AGAIN!

Posted on August 16, 2013 by stutteringsteps

A massacre in the morning!

The military decision on August 14 2013 to brutally clear the anti-military and pro-Morsi forces from their peaceful demonstrations in Cairo and elsewhere has finally ended the charade of progress to democracy in Egypt. The brutal actions of snipers and other state armed men killing un-armed men women and children has also exploded the myth of the military machine being a defender and a champion of the Egyptian ‘people’. The exact number of injuries and deaths will probably never be known, but what is known is that men in control of states who conduct terror against their own citizens find it absolutely necessary to hide the true facts and under estimate the exact numbers.

We also know that those effected by such brutal attacks may tend to over-estimate the numbers assassinated by the state armed bodies of men. So the government figure of over 600 will undoubtedly be far too low, whilst the pro-Morso figures of many thousands killed may be somewhat exaggerated. However, a true figure of probably well over a thousand, together with the horrific means chosen to execute these peaceful demonstrators, amount to an enormous catalogue of domestically committed war crimes. For this reason, there can be no peace and no justice in Egypt – even in a bourgeois sense – whilst the military elite are able perpetrate such large-scale nihilistic outrages against their own civilian population.

Of course we know how this outcome was justified to the troops and the general ‘public’ before ‘operation innocent slaughter’ or whatever innocuous term was chosen to designate this vicious and despicable action. Using the states PR agents, and pro-capitalist elements such as private media outlets, time and resources were used to mis-label and demonise the majority of protestors. A negative stereotype was steadily manufactured during the lead up to the military incursion, by which it became possible both before and after the slaughter to ‘blame the victims’. We know from experience how it was done.

Blaming the victims.

A link between sectarian Islamic terrorism and the ordinary Muslim Brotherhood members, was made and the presence of non-Islamic anti-coup protestors at the various camps was ignored. This way the protest against the previous military coup overthrowing an elected but unpopular government, was transformed into a threat to national security. Also in this way the peaceful protestors, men, women and children, were transformed into terrorists and disrupters of peace and constitutional governance by those who had overthrown a constitutionally elected government .

Then either before, during and after this process, they undoubtedly planted weapons, inserted agent provocateurs among the opposition, created false-flag operations (committing atrocities dressed as Morsi supporters)  they moved in to clear the sit-ins with as much lethal force as was necessary to terrorise them into fleeing – in the almost certain knowledge that these non-armed victims will in actual fact continue to be blamed as the perpetrators.

We know this is the most likely process because it is the way all modern states operate and we know that the Egyptian state forces have operated in that way before. Blaming the victim is the way all elites create a climate of support for, or indifference toward, those they choose as their targets for inhuman treatment. And this process was made easier because there are some Muslim extremists in Egypt as elsewhere, who are sectarian terrorists who commit atrocities and wish to introduce oppressive Islamic law.

However, the majority of pro-Morsi and anti-military forces camped out in the various sit-ins were not Islamic extremists, but peaceful defenders of bourgeois democracy. Yet it was these who were brutally targeted. The lessons this outrage will teach the Egyptian people cannot not fail to be drawn. They have now been drawn in blood – again! Bourgeois democracy is a sham! Unless it produces the results the elites in power wish for themselves, it will be destroyed mercilessly. Food, justice and dignity can never be achieved in Egypt or elsewhere by the means of bourgeois elections and parliaments. The military machine controlled by the Egyptian elite is their tool of terror, as it is elsewhere, to be used against the economic and social aspirations of the citizens of Egypt, but it is also a tool with strong links to the USA.

The military machine.

The military machine in Egypt has a long history of political and economic involvement within Egypt and the Middle East. All the previous unelected leaders of Egypt during the 20th century have been from the military and many senior governmental figures are from a military background. The military have been the backbone of the Egyptian state and remain so. It should be understood that for many years, the Egyptian military elite has been trained and its armaments supplied by the United States of America.

For decades, the Egyptian military have been in receipt of billions of dollars of advanced armaments yearly from the USA government. However, that is not the only aspect of close relationship between with the upper echelons of the military and the north American elite. For decades the upper echelons of the Egyptian military have been graduates of the American military colleges and training courses. During their military training they have made close reciprocal relationships with the military elite in the USA. They will have been taught ‘black-ops’ tactics as well as crowd control by the US military ‘experts’.

However, the Egyptian Governmental elite in general receive substantial ‘aid’ from Saudi Arabia and other gulf state sources. The military elite cannot fail to be beneficiaries of much of this inward ‘investment’. In this way the military in Egypt has military, social, economic and financial strings to a variety of other external actors. All of whom in one way or another will be securing their hold on these strings if not exactly tugging firmly upon them. When politicians in other countries, such as the USA and other countries feign neutrality and distance from the events in Egypt, that is of course just the usual political spin. All these external players have provided, training, equipment, intelligence, tactics, perspectives and opinions.

The weakness in the military machine is at the same time its strength. This strength and weakness lies in its rank and file base. Rank and file soldiers are essentially working class citizens recruited on the basis of offering secure employment for the defence of the ’nation’. However, they are low-paid workers who are treated badly and forced to do all the dirty work of the military elite. Many, if not most of the rank and file soldiers, despite the demonising of the ‘victims’ will not be proud of their days work on 14 August 2013 – a day of infamy! Nor will they be happy that the communities from which they are drawn and the general population over the next weeks, will view them as neo-fascists and consider them the enemy within Egypt, rather than the champions of their communities.

The immediate implications.

The situation now has reached an impasse. The States armed men must defeat the street or the street must defeat the states armed men. If the Egyptian people allow the military elite to split the population and win, the state of emergency will be upheld and extended and any protest by whoever, will be violently put down. In addition many thousands will be imprisoned, tortured and murdered. If possible the military elite after a period of time, will put forward a figurehead to take part in future biased elections.

The military elite know that if they lose this struggle now many of them will be put on trial for crimes against humanity and crimes against a constitutional government and elected officials. For this reason the military leaders will do all they can to divide and rule the Egyptian people and they will press on regardless urging the police and special troops on to further atrocities. The crimes of the militarised crack-down should be used to cause splits in the military ranks themselves. A truth and honesty inquiry covering the events, should be proposed along with support and an amnesty offered to those soldiers refusing to continue this internecine destruction.

Yet after the many deaths by sniper fire and massacres by other weapons, there can be no early forgiveness by those effected and there can be nothing but outraged condemnations by all humane thinking people. There is now no chance of reconciliation between a substantial section of the Egyptian people and the military elite and its supporters. This means that for the immediate future there is now no possibility of peaceful resolution or development within Egypt. It is now war – a civil war – between the people and the state.

The implications are clear. The situation will continue to deteriorate fuelled by anger and desperation against the economic conditions and now by the outrage at the recent atrocities. There are now only two possibilities. The first is a descent into a debilitating and unequal sectarian civil war in which, like Syria, the population will be split into those against the present state and those for it. The second is that the anti-military secularists and the Muslim Brotherhood will both meet this challenge by making serious and sustained overtures to each other. The Egyptian people – as a whole – need to subvert, resist and overcome the imposition of this naked military rule.

First in the form of a defensive pact and calling for mass civil disobedience and subversion – a regular Intifada a ‘shaking off’ of this internal occupation. Next, if the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters can abandon their goal of Shariah law and any other sectarian restrictive practices and with the secularists draw up an economic and social programme, then a degree of unity could eventually be achieved. It would need to be a programme which would address the needs of the overwhelming majority of the population; Muslim, Christian, secular and others such as the rank and file soldiers. This would transform the uprisings and protests from mass opposition against what is not wanted toward mass organisation for what people actually need and want.

The revolutionary implications.

Given the general economic crisis and the sovereign dept crisis of the Egyptian state, the pay and job security of the rank and file soldier, will sooner rather than later, be downgraded and for many their services terminated. The disintegrating economic condition of Egypt will now accelerate further after this and subsequent events. Even without such a deterioration, there is a task to be undertaken which is to immediately conduct a campaign aimed at the rank and file soldier. They should be made to face the shame and horror of what they have done or has been done in their name. A split between the rank and file soldiers and the military elite should be sought in as many ways as possible. The situation in Egypt is now about much more than the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood in power it is about the military verses civil society. It is now a descent into civil war or moving forward to revolution.

The size and determination of those on the Egyptian street can be such that nothing, not even the army can prevail against it – if it is successfully unified and mobilised now or later. A new consciousness and determination to struggle for basic human rights has been born throughout the region. The fear of the beatings, torture and killings has finally surmounted as the pressure of the need for jobs, food and justice built up to bursting point. Now outrage and anger at the recent fascist style shock-troop intervention will hopefully fuel some much needed non-sectarian solidarity. Undoubtedly the greater War crimes have been committed by Egypt’s military forces. Those who ordered this action and those who carried it out must be held accountable for these atrocities, by all who have the power to do so both in Egypt and internationally.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2003.)

[See also ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’.]

Posted in Arab Spring, Critique, Politics | Tagged , | 6 Comments

PATRIARCHY AND TERROR.

Posted on August 14, 2013 by stutteringsteps

It is clear that in the 20th and 21st centuries, terror has taken many forms. The most frequently publicised forms of terrorism in the western media are those in which guns and bombs are used by against civilian and military targets. However, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, armed attacks upon defenceless victims by organised male-dominated gangs, groups or sects are but one kind of mechanised form of terror inflicted upon numerous communities throughout the world. But we should not overlook the fact there is undoubtedly another form of organised terror which is far more sophisticated and widespread and is equally as ruthless as the former.

This second form is state organised terror. Using special state-funded armed bodies of men (overt and covert) and wielding the most sophisticated armaments available, the men in charge of state forces – of practically every modern state in existence – routinely conduct acts of terror. They do so on all those (internally or externally) who they define as being against the states (ie their own elite ) interests. This constitutes a huge global industry of terror. Then there is a third form of terror which is not necessarily an organised form, but of course it can be. This latter is the personal terror socially or domestically inflicted – mainly upon women – by individual men or groups of men.

It is clear that if we critically consider all three sources and forms of terror we find they all emanate from men in positions of power or seeking to achieve power over others. In other words, all three sources of terror are simply the ultimate demonstration of embedded patriarchal cultural forms and the associated assumptions emanating from these. Viewed holistically it is clear that male ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ is not just a peripheral or exceptional manifestation on the fringes of modern society, as many like to claim.

On the contrary, patriarchal oppression and terror still permeate the entire fabric of the modern world. Inflicting acts of terror are merely the extreme manifestations of the patriarchal mode of social control inherited from earlier modes of production. Yet strangely, patriarchy – as a whole – and its attendant assumptions and actions (the actual source of terror) remains largely unchallenged by men and sadly – as yet – by the majority of women. The last challenge against patriarchy, the feminist movement of the 20th century, was marginalised and rejected by the left and mainly restricted itself to equal opportunities reforms.

1. State organisational forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

It is a recorded fact that all states past and present, have been dominated by men, even when the occasional female figurehead has been selected by the ‘king-making’ or ‘president choosing’ male oligarchs. The occasional Queen or female Prime Minister, has not so much as ruffled a miniscule feather on the elite patriarchal birds of prey which circle a wide range of communities in search of their next victims. In order to maintain this ‘unnatural’ state of affairs, these elite men have been forced to recruit and employ specialist armed bodies of men in order to protect their lives and their systems.

An integral part of the job description of these armed bodies of men is to threaten to inflict physical harm upon those individuals and communities who say they will not conform and to actually inflict it when they do not. In extreme cases the harm they inflict is intentionally disproportional to any infringement committed, so as to be a vivid and horrifying ‘lesson’ to obey in future. History is littered with garrotting, crucifying, impaling, burning, drowning, chopping off heads and limbs. Modernity has its own new forms of terror.

Public and private forms of extreme torture have all been used by elite males to inflict terror upon their communities – and against non-conforming women in particular. Hence these forms along with large-scale wars and massacres dating from the Persian and Greek periods of antiquity, have continued throughout the ages. Continuing through the Empires of Rome and Islam, the Crusades of the Middle Ages, and on to the colonialist and Imperialist wars, and invasions of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, patriarchy has wielded the sword and the stick.

All such acts of war and terror were motivated and conducted by oligarchies of elite men and all had as their purpose, domination in order to acquire wealth and privilege. The modern invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan motivated and organised by modern elite males and conducted largely by armed men are just continuations of that centuries old cultural invention of patriarchy – physical domination by a hierarchy composed of men.

Whether invading countries with ‘boots’, assassination teams, aircraft or now by ‘drones’, the instructions and implementations of these activities are conducted by men and the intended or collateral victims always include innocent males, females and children. This is terror on an industrial scale. Yet the inflicting of terror by a state is not confined to foreign people and their lands, but extends to the internal civilian population of their own countries, especially if these should publicise (or directly challenge) the ruling elites nefarious activities.

Hence the 21st century pepper-spraying and incarceration of ‘Occupy’ activists and many other opposition activists; the inhuman treatment of Bradley Manning and the inmates of Guantanamo, or the hounding of whistle-blowers such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. [As I write this the military elite in Egypt have ordered the brutal dispersal of peaceful protestors against what they see as the recent military coup.] At the same time deaths in police custody are no rarity in every country of the world and torture continues to be an instrument of male elite sanctioned terror – wherever there is a state.

And it makes no difference which kind of state the male hierarchy controls. It can be capitalist (too many to mention) or non-capitalist states such as the former Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, East Germany, North Korea etc. The ’state’ can be led by left-leaning, liberal or right-leaning men, it makes little difference to the existence of terror. This recurring and wide-spread patriarchal reality serves to demonstrate the full spectrum range of male conducted state terror and oppression. Not surprisingly, it is also manifested in the new theocratic states such as Iran and neo theocracies such as Saudi Arabia.

It is a common mistake for those on the left to assume that it is the capitalist mode of production which generates such deforming characteristics as patriarchal state oppression and terror, but it is clearly not only capitalist states which do so. It is an undeniable fact that the capitalist mode of production has come to dominate the entire globe and therefore there are more secular capitalist states than theocratic and even fewer with self-proclaimed pretensions to being anti-capitalist. But even in the latter, patriarchy (ie hierarchies with men sat at the summit and dominating the higher slopes of economic and political life) are the universal patterns adopted. But neither is patriarchy simply a product of state formation, it merely manifests itself there more vigorously, organisationally and powerfully. In fact if we look carefully enough, patriarchy penetrates everything.

2. Non-state organisational forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

When we consider non-state forms of organised patriarchal oppression and terror we find that there two main types of group. The first are religious groups such as the many religious fundamentalist sects predominantly within the Abrahamic religious fold. Islamic terrorist groups are the most focussed upon in the western media, but there are also Jewish Zionist terrorist groups and Christian Zionist cells. These are all not only male dominated and oppressive to women but also to those of the competing religions (and none) and those of their ‘own’ who they consider traitors. Zionist terrorism, both state and none-state is conducted most visibly in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, but it exists within North America and elsewhere in various forms.

Interestingly and alarmingly, the state organised forms of terror can and does initiate and perpetuate the non-state forms. The continued use of state organised terror can stimulate anger and resentment in targeted communities which breed cells of resistance and retaliation. It is these extremely disaffected and radicalised individuals who organise and then also begin their own reign of terror aimed not only at the direct oppressors but on those innocent of such activities. They even begin to terrorise their own communities when they consider these are not conforming to the wishes of those so recently radicalised.

The range of terror and oppression exhibited by these organised groups of men stretches along a continuum, from grooming for child sexual labour, through shooting (ie Malala Yousafzai), deforming (including the recent teenage acid attacks in Zanzibar), bombing and assassination of families and family members (at offices, schools, markets, funerals, weddings, churches and mosques – in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere). These attacks are not only against the invaders, but also against those indigenous people not conforming to their wishes.

It should be remembered that not all such groups of men are religiously based or inspired, for there are secular versions of group organised terror. Almost exclusively such groups of men have justified their activities by reference to some form of ideology. Religious sects and other such groups obviously base and justify their action upon some allegedly sacred texts associated to their particular denomination, but secular groups also like to justify their existence by means of a chosen ideology.

Frequently, non-religious groups of males inflicting oppression and terror have claimed to be acting in accordance with the following higher causes; Nationalism, Fascism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism. Maoism or some other set of ideas. These secular ideas, as with religious, have an instrumental purpose, for they are used to justify whatever the organisations wish to do and whatever, terror they intend to perpetrate.

Male dominated groups from these type of non-religious groupings have all, at one time or another, killed, tortured and maimed. These being the extreme end of the spectrum of male-dominated oppression. At the less extreme end of the patriarchal spectrum, such groups have also routinely used, abused, groomed and sexually and domestically exploited women and men from the lower ranks of their particular group hierarchy.

Even on the anti-capitalist left, patriarchal oppression and exploitation is a practice of recent as well as past public knowledge. It should be obvious from these generic examples – the specifics of which can be supplemented by the readers own knowledge or research – that patriarchy is a constant within all these state, sectarian group or other organised forms of oppression and terror. And of course, patriarchy permeates even more levels of society – even down to the most atomised and intimate levels of individuality and family.

3. Social and domestic forms of patriarchal oppression and terror.

At the un-organised levels of society such as social and family relationships patriarchy with its oppressive and terror inducing characteristics are also endemic and universal. The relationships between men and women are overwhelmingly warped and distorted by the inherited cultural manifestations of patriarchy. Rape, sexual harassment, threats, beatings, abductions, torture and killing are the extreme ends of the un-organised societal spectrum of patriarchy, but the visible spectrum of this cultural pattern, extends far beyond that extreme to the more subtle forms of exploitation and oppression. Women are marginalised and viewed as domestic slaves, providers cheap labour and sexual gratification, by the majority of men.

Despite the fact that in a few places the formation of equal rights for women has provided a restricted legal basis for equality, women are not really treated as equal anywhere – period!. Such laws, where they exist, are resented, largely ignored or subverted everywhere in the advanced capitalist countries. And, importantly, outside of these so-called ’advanced’ countries women remain in a condition little better than outright chattel slavery.

In such cases, they are not allowed to determine what happens to their own bodies, with regard to pregnancies, the retention of sexual organs or which male shall take over ownership of their entire being. This patriarchal practice reaches down right into childhood where in some places even a female child’s very existence can be threatened with termination and ownership of those allowed to live can be bought and sold – just like any other disposable commodity.

But the patriarchal right of men to assert their attitudes and power over others extends beyond the family kitchen, living room and bedroom. It extends to other women and children in society in the form of grooming, abduction into prostitution, harassment, innuendo, verbal abuse, intimidation and indecent assault – and also to other men. Fascistic levels of physical harassment and assault by men against non-conforming men, particularly gay men, are manifested in all countries.

So too are discrimination, intimidation, racial innuendo, verbal abuse and threats against non-indigenous (non-white in Europe and the west) males by patriarchal supremacists. Just how widespread the underlying cultural aspects of males attempting to assert their power over others (another aspect of patriarchy) is revealed by the frequent clashes between rival football fans in which severe injury is the minimum level required to obtain satisfaction.

4. Revolutionary-humanism and the struggle against Patriarchy.

Of course even where patriarchy cloaks its terrorist face and assumes a more benign expression for extended levels of time this does not mean that this mask will not be cast aside when and where male dominance is threatened. And even in its less aggressive expressions the problem of patriarchy still exists. Male attitudes of dominance still oppress and threaten the well-being of all those not of the male gender or not of a dominant or dominating disposition. Male power and the attendant attitudes and threats – open or hidden – are a seamless continuum in politics, religion, finance, industry, commerce, education, media, entertainment, sport and family life.

Fascism was the 20th centuries un-nuanced reassertion of extreme Patriarchy under the extended Fuehrer principle. It was a systematic reassertion of extreme male domination in which women by state ‘dictat’ would be firmly under the control of men – at all levels of the social and family hierarchy. In Nazi Germany, this patriarchal control was exerted even to the extent of ’selected’ women being the state organised breeders of the next generation of the so-called Aryan ’master race’. Fascism eventually became the state organised face of a 20th century militant tribal patriarchy bent on world supremacy and the totalitarian domination of society by powerful elite males.

The other 20th century secular face of militant patriarchy – with similar world domination pretensions – came in the form of Stalinism. Stalinism replicated practically all the horrors of Fascism, from state-organised terror of its citizens to the assassination of rivals among the elite. An all-male, sectarian elite coercively and unquestionably dominated all aspects of soviet life from the period of Lenin and Trotsky through to that of Stalin and his successors. All soviet citizens, during the early period, were persuaded or induced to have a reverential regard for, if not to an attitude of worship for the ‘leader’. Fascist and Stalinist, concentration camps, work-camps and ‘death camps’ were the patriarchal mirror image of each other – even whilst both patriarchies were locked in mortal combat during the Second World War – itself the most organised form of patriarchal barbarism of the 20th century.

With the almost total death of these two extreme forms of secular patriarchy – Bolshevism and Fascism – the baton, or rather the cudgel – has been taken over by neo-liberalism on the one-hand, and a renewed religious form of extreme patriarchy – Islamism, on the other. The supporters of neo-liberal capitalism and Islamism represent the 21st century faces of extreme patriarchy all of whom are more than happy to dominate and oppress women in the home, the workplace and throughout social life. The respective hierarchical forms they champion also seek to dominate and control all those below them and to oppress all non-conforming men, whether religious or secular. Modern Islamism, like its ancient forerunners and like the neo-liberal capitalist mode of production, openly seeks to dominate the world.

For this reason the struggle against Capitalism runs parallel with the struggle against Islamism, because both are deeply entrenched forms of patriarchy. The struggle against the domination of the capitalist mode of production is in itself – simultaneously – a struggle against patriarchy. There can be no equality or justice for anyone unless there is simultaneously real equality and justice for women and all self-organising communities.

The struggle against patriarchy – as with the struggle against all hierarchy – is not something which must wait until the capitalist mode of production is superseded, and then be granted by some future (imaginary) beneficent male elites. It is part of the everyday struggle against that entire mode. If it hasn’t started already, then the struggle against patriarchy should start now in our everyday practice and ideas. It is part and parcel of the revolutionary struggle.

So it should be clear that state terror, sectarian terror and domestic terror are not completely different species, even though they may manifest themselves somewhat variably. They are all manifestations of patriarchy – the actions of men ruling over communities and asserting or defending that rule – in the ways they choose. The creation of a humane humanity, the only general and sustainable inspiration for a revolutionary transformation of the present mode of production, means overcoming patriarchy in all its forms; religious, secular and yes in revolutionary organisation too.

Patriarchy is organically woven into the structure of the capitalist mode of production. To be fully revolutionary and anti-capitalist, therefore, means being thoroughly against patriarchy in theory and practice – at the same time! To be really revolutionary in action and not just in words, during the 20th and 21st centuries means rejecting this accumulated and still accumulating ‘muck of ages’ wherever it continues to flourish and wherever it still lurks.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013.)

[See ‘Clinging onto Patriarchy’ and ‘Religion versus Women’s rights’. at http://www.critical-mass.net. See also Femen at http://femen.org/en]

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THE STATE OR REVOLUTION. (Introduction)

Posted on August 5, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The State and Revolution, (Lenin’s pamphlet – a polemic against Kautsky, Plekhanov and the Anarchists) was an apt title in the light of his view of the relationship between a revolution and the nature of a post-capitalist society. He and the Bolsheviks undoubtedly believed in Revolution, at least up to the overthrow of the Duma, the rejection of Constituent Assembly idea and achieving ‘all power to the soviets’. However, they also firmly believed in the need for a strong State.

The workers, soldiers and peasants, from 1905 to 1917, progressively initiated uprisings and revolutionary episodes and then, riding an exceptionally high wave of activity and protest in October 1917, the Bolsheviks convinced workers, soldiers and peasants that for their own good, it was necessary to create a strong state apparatus. They created a state institution which they protected and strengthened by employing special bodies of (predominantly) armed men. As the effective head of that state, Lenin in 1919 declared the following;

“This new state organisation is being born in travail …” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 29. page 375.)

Later he added;

“The dictatorship of the proletariat does not fear any resort to compulsion and to the most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion by the state.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 31. page 497.)

Later still:

“We took over the old machinery of the state, and that was our misfortune. Very often this machinery operates against us…here at the top, where we exercise political power, the machine functions somehow…Down below, however, there are hundreds of thousands of old officials whom we got from the Tsar and from bourgeois society, and who partly deliberately and partly unwittingly, work against us.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 33 page 428/429.)

This institution of ‘ruthless coercion’ (Lenin’s own words) was progressively directed against workers and peasants and anyone else who disagreed with the Bolsheviks sectarian project. However, well before the workers, peasants and soldiers could be convinced of the need for such a separate institution over and above them, the ranks of the Bolsheviks had first to be convinced – for it was by no means the opinion of all anti-capitalists at the time.

As the dominant political figure within the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, it was down to Lenin to provide sufficient evidence for his belief in the necessity of a strong post-capitalist state. This task was crucially important in order to persuade the party and its supporters that those who opposed a post-capitalist state were entirely wrong. The evidence was carefully gathered, collated and then later presented to the party members in the above-noted pamphlet ‘State and Revolution’. Lenin, in writing this document, selected and assembled a comprehensive series of extracts from Marx and Engels, to support and back up his firm belief in the ‘instrumentality’ of a state after a workers’ revolution.

Lenin was able to interpret and mediate the thoughts and writings of these two revolutionary-humanists in order to confirm conclusions he already held. It is my contention that these were conclusions that – had they been alive – both Marx and Engels, would have disassociated themselves from. I have also no doubt they would have also been vigorously scathing about the reality of the post-capitalist social and economic forms promoted and defended by all Bolsheviks, and subsequent communists. For Marx it was; ‘State or Revolution; whilst for Lenin it really was ‘State and Revolution’. The material the latter used in that pamphlet and how he used it to justify his position is examined in the extended version of this article at ‘State or Revolution’.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2013)

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EGYPT: A MANDATE TO KILL!

Posted on July 29, 2013 by stutteringsteps

The recent request by Army General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for Egyptian people to assemble in their masses on the Streets of Cairo and elsewhere is in one sense a 180 degree turn. Previously army regimes have at best been neutral on such mass street demonstrations or have more often than not tried to disperse them. This time however, the army leadership urged people to take to the streets in order to give them a mandate to prosecute what they classed as a ‘war against terror’.

Now where have we heard that rationale used before? Oh yes Bush and Blair; Netanyahu and Assad; Mubarak and Putin; Obama and Cameron, etc., etc. In other words if an authoritarian regime – of any political complexion – wishes to ruthlessly defend its elite self-interests against opposition, then starting a ‘war against terror’ provides an excellent form of camouflage. Since the vast majority of people are against terrorism it easy to gain popular assent to tough action against this phenomena, leaving the elites to decide just who it needs to defend itself from.

After such a level popular assent anyone who opposes that elite and its system – in any way – needs only to be labelled a threat to ‘stability’ or ‘security’ and evidence (fabricated or real) suggested, for the regime to swing into action. Ruthless measures then become routine. Not only people peacefully opposed to a system can be targeted by the states forces, framed, incarcerated and tortured, but people innocent of any anti-regime crime, opinion or activity can be drawn into the clutches of a lethal state organisation with license to kill – and one with no accountability. Isn’t that how many people finished up in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and millions killed in Iraq etc.?

In this particular case of obtaining a popular mandate to pursue, arrest, torture and kill, in the name of a ‘war against terror’ and ‘stability’ the Egyptian state and its military controllers have gained the ’streets’ permission to defend itself and its own vested interests. That – despite a variety of motives of those on the ‘street’ demonstrating – is the real content of the mandate given. In future only a united population will be able to counter the newly ‘mandated’ military machine and that potential unity has now been severely jeopardised if not completely sabotaged. At the moment the elite military and the ex Mubarak supporters consider they need to defend themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood and the encroaching Islamist ideology in the Middle East.

It is true the danger of Islamism to liberal, secular, women and left elements is very real and they should be opposed by these forces. But in this way? It will be highly improbable that these anti-Morsi sectors will be protected by this state orchestrated attack upon those ordinary Muslim’s still attached to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This course of action is more likely to create retaliation by Muslim extremists against all and sundry. Additionally, consent given now to the military elite will have its own momentum. It will be undoubtedly be used against the left, secularists and women sooner or later. When the military feel threatened from this latter quarter – as they must if workers and the poor are to pursue their original demands – it is then the military elite will invoke this popular mandate and use it as they see fit.

So reaction gains ground.

This request for a mandate against ‘terror’ and ‘instability’ by the militarised state is yet another clear indicator that what is taking place in Egypt is not a revolution – at least not yet. Instead of a concerted insurrectionary war against poverty, discrimination and injustice by a united people against the business, military, judiciary, police, and political elites – which would prepare the ground for a real revolution – there is preparation for a reactionary war to defend precisely these same elites. This creates yet another substantive distraction and deflection from focussing on the fundamental needs of ordinary people. Almost from its inception, the Egyptian Uprising was turned aside from its initial demands and directed into a political cul-de-sac.

So after mass unity in Tahir Square in pursuit of jobs, food, housing and justice, the Egyptian people are faced with (and split between) scores of political parties all seeking their own place at the feeding trough of the state. And all of which seek followers and financial subscribers in order to get there. The Muslim Brotherhood having gained a firm hand on the trough were not really addressing the streets basic concerns – hence the demonstrations. These mass uprisings, after becoming bogged down in this political blind alley for a year or so, have not got one step nearer to removing privileged access to the fruits of their various forms of labour. Instead they have opened a probable path for the return of military rule – disguised or naked – which will again become the gate-keepers of who gets to feed at the states banquet table.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that the apparent failure of the left in Egypt to stand against this state orchestrated sectarian violence is a product of Egypt alone. Any left failure to make a difference in Egypt is a consequence of the general failure of the left throughout the world. The reformist left everywhere has been successfully seduced into becoming a political support mechanism for the capitalist system. To expect anything from these activists and posers is wishful thinking in Egypt as elsewhere. But the fact that there is not a sufficiently strong anti-capitalist left to make a serious impact on the situation in Egypt is a direct consequence of the global crisis condition of this sector.

People in glass houses….!

It is no accident that the world-wide – five-fold – crisis of the capitalist mode of production is at the same time serving to reveal the fifty-year old global crisis in the anti-capitalist movement itself. Discredited, communist style state-capitalist modes of production have mutated into rampant neo-liberal capitalist forms as in China and Russia and their rank and file ‘party’ champions have all but disappeared. For the rest of the anti-capitalist left, they are split into disrespectful, feuding and competing sects. The Trotskyist and Leninist left now greets the impending collapse of the capitalist mode of production still atomised, issuing conflicting advice and exhibiting a penchant for sowing divisions between workers.

The arrogance of anti-capitalist revolutionary groups in Europe and North America recently criticising the failures of the left in Egypt is just another facet of the remaining Orientalist cultural mentality of Europe. In Europe and North America, the anti-capitalist left cannot haul themselves out of the sectarian ruts they have been digging away in for the last 50 years. They have failed to challenge their own patriarchal assumptions with regard to women in the movement and they have failed to honestly evaluate their own historical tradition. Against the onslaught of neo-liberalism, they have failed to create anything themselves within their own spheres of influence except several competing anti-austerity movements.

The real reason there is not a strong healthy anti-capitalist movement in Egypt, the Middle East and elsewhere is a product of the failure of the anti-capitalist movement globally. This is a fault particularly reprehensible and open to self-critical discussion in Europe and North America. For in these countries, there has been a standard of living and education which created the time, the resources and means for a remedy which were lacking in many other countries. To criticise those involved in Egypt and the Arab Spring countries, whilst bogged down in our own massive contradictions, inconsistencies and divisions, is just another form of white European male arrogance.

A Global crisis needs a global resistance.

It is true that there is a need for a more organised anti-capitalist left in Egypt with a revolutionary-humanist economic and social programme which will attract support from across many layers of Egyptian Society. But that same need goes for Europe and the rest of the world also. The best thing for the rest of the world’s anti-capitalists to do in order to assist those in Egypt and elsewhere is to provide a practical example themselves of a healthy, non-sectarian anti-capitalist movement and anti-austerity movement.

Of course, it is much easier for some to hunker down in the comfort and absolute certainty of their own sectarian tradition and pour forth, as Marx noted, “platitudes and sectarian crochets in the oracular tone of scientific infallibility”. Indeed, criticising others is much easier than critically engaging with the distorted reality of our own intellectual tradition and changing our practice for the better. Yet the latter is vitally necessary if anti-capitalism is to be a positive, rather than a negative influence within the struggle against the capitalist mode of production.

The uprisings in Egypt, the middle east are the more advanced tremors of the coming inter-continental social earthquake as the global foundations of the capitalist mode of production continue to crumble and collapse. There is much to study from attention to these events and the twists and turns of activity and its reflection in consciousness. But similar processes are also at work in Europe, North America and elsewhere. As such working people everywhere, white-collar and blue have much to learn from each other and at the moment the left in general has very little to teach.

This also applies to us on the revolutionary anti-capitalist left as much as anybody else. It is time to learn from events and to act in accordance with proven principles not simply engage in rhetorical platitudes and defend sectarian positions. Revolutionary sounding phrases are very easy to compile against the defenders of capital, but concerted non-sectarian action is also what is needed. As Marx noted concerning revolutionaries of the phrase;

“They forget, however, that they are opposing nothing but phrases to these phrases, and they are in no way combating the real existing world when they are merely combating phrases.” (Marx. German Ideology. Section 1 Feuerbach.)

Roy Ratcliffe. (July 2013.)

[See also ‘The Five Fold Crisis of Capitalism’ ; ‘Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism (parts 1, 2 and 3.)’; ‘Clinging onto Patriarchy’. ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’ and ‘Egypt: Insurrection or Interregnum’ ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MARX AND REVOLUTIONARY-HUMANISM

Posted on July 25, 2013 by stutteringsteps

All kinds of inhumanity and violence have been perpetrated by people calling themselves ‘Marxists’. Perhaps the most extreme expression of this inhumane disrespect and sectarian violence in the name of ‘Marxism’ was manifest in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. But that was not the only instance. Many other socialists and communists who have acknowledged an intellectual debt to Marx, have also committed numerous acts of inhumanity.

The combined effects of these atrocities and general unpleasantness have been to unfairly discredit Marx and obscure the real humanist essence of his revolutionary ideas. This humanist essence flowed from his concern to understand the alienating and deforming social and cultural varieties developed in the long economic evolution of social forms of labour. By his own industrious efforts – research, writing and activism – he sought to reveal the source of this self-alienation and in doing so, point to the way the human species can transcend it.

Marx on Humanism.

In most of Marx’s writing it is possible to detect a humanist wrath against the exploitation and injustices of the capitalist mode of production and the bourgeoisie who benefit from it. Even in the midst of the detailed economic analysis in his major publication ’Das Kapital’ we can read striking views such as the following;

“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” (Marx. Capital Volume 1. Chapter 10.)

And in another work;

“The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly arisen small-holding and manured it with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks out its blood and brains and throws them into the alchemist’s cauldron of capital.” (Marx. Eighteenth Brumaire… Section 7)

Although the abstract economic categories of labour and capital are often being used in his extensive works, Marx still has the human being and the nature of the relationship between human beings clearly in mind. However, the most comprehensive outline of Marx’s thought on the essence of humanity and humanism is contained in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In these notebooks, Marx considered the estrangement of humanity from its natural social and productive essence. That is to say social forms of production have been developed during which the products of labour no longer belong to those who produce them. In such class-based societies, a ruling class, exploits the labour of a working population and accumulates all the wealth.

In this way human labour and the products of labour are alienated or ‘estranged’ from those who produce. The workers become virtual strangers to their work processes and what they produce. They no longer organise and produce for themselves but are organised by (and produce for) others. Marx designates this development within humanity as a form of ‘self-estrangement’. After dealing with the alienating character of wage-labour under the capitalist mode of production, Marx turns to the question of how to transcend the self-estrangement of all previous distorted forms of social labour. It is at this point he drives straight to the root of the natural/social essence of humanity. He writes:

“In the relationship with woman, as the prey and handmaid of communal lust, is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself — for the secret of this relationship has its unambiguous, decisive, open and revealed expression in the relationship of man to woman and in the manner in which the direct, natural species- relationship is conceived. The immediate, natural, necessary relation of human being to human being is the relationship of man to woman.”

And;

“It is possible to judge from this relationship the entire level of development of mankind.”

It is no accident that Marx in tearing away the accumulated layers of socio-economic forms introduces the issue of gender and the way the female part of the species is treated. The species and each community whatever their socio-economic mode of production relies for its future existence upon the relationship between the sexes. Marx suggests that the nature of that relationship between man and woman can be a sort of litmus test for judging the general developmental level of mankind. In other words, where women are the domestic slaves (wives) or subordinate citizens to men, the humanist level of humanity has been driven below its original natural essence.

Over long periods of time, humanities natural and original essence has become distorted and not just in the case of male and female relationships, but also in male/male relationships. Marx makes the point that capitalism makes wage-slaves out of a subordinate labouring class (male and female) and zero-wage slaves out of women. He comments that both in different ways have to prostitute themselves – ie sell their bodily labour for a period – in exchange for money.

A female or male, forced into prostitution by needs, sell the use of their bodies on the street. Workers forced to work by needs sell the use of their bodies at the factory or shop. He also noted in 1844 that marriage under the domination of bourgeois culture amounts to a form of domestic slavery for the female gender. The nature of this essential gender relationship, he continues;

“.. therefore demonstrates the extent to which man’s natural behavior has become human or the extent to which his human essence has become a natural essence for him, the extent to which his human nature has become nature for him. This relationship also demonstrates the extent to which man’s needs have become human needs, hence the extent to which the other, as a human being, has become a need for him, the extent to which in his most individual existence he is at the same time a communal being.”

Within class-based societies, the extent to which behaviour has become human or overwhelmingly humane is sadly not very far. Under such estranged forms of social interaction, the ‘other’ ceases to be viewed as a human being with whom we are connected by many (often invisible) strands, and assumes the form of a subject or object. For example; other human beings become a subject or object of desire (a sexual conquest); a subject or object which fulfils useful work (a worker or slave); a subject or object which consumes a product or service (a consumer or punter). As such the actual needs of the ‘other’ become largely irrelevant for us. Only ‘our’ own needs are recognised as having full legitimacy, frantic urgency or special priority. Even on the left, this still occurs!!!

So as workers (white or blue-collar) we are estranged, not only from our own labour and the products of that labour, but estranged from the whole network of workers upon whom we ultimately depend. Class, race and religious ideology has also served to split humanity into further non-inclusive segments. The black worker who picks our bananas is too often perceived as a distant despicable, lazy, or even devious heathen; the utilities worker who provides our water, gas, electricity has for all intents and purposes ceased to exist for us except when in dispute he or she inconveniences us; the immigrant displaced from his or her homeland and replaced by European capital and technology instead of a victim becomes perceived as a hated and much abused immigrant intruder or potential perpetrator.

This de-humanisation of the ‘other’ takes on its most extreme form during periods of colonial and imperial war or economic crisis, but in essence it is the same de-humanisation as that which takes place in the home. There, since the onset of patriarchy, the wife has been a chattel and she and the children belong – body and soul – to the patriarch – owned like a piece of property. In modernity, too often the female partner is used and abused as a cleaner, cook and personal sex worker. The historic processes set in motion by class-based modes of production allow and promote societies in which a denial of the full humanity of the ‘other’ becomes the default position in their cultures. This is despite the obvious fact that societies – no matter how badly distorted – at root, are also an expression of the essence of humanity. Marx again;

“Society is therefore the perfected unity in essence of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.”

Individuality and social being.

Given that these 1844 notebooks and the extracts used here were Marx’s own notes to himself, the sentences may not always be easy for us modern readers to assimilate. Nevertheless, it is clear that in the above extract Marx is saying that human society – however, currently deformed – represents the unity of humanity with nature and that this is ‘the realized humanism of nature’. Humanity is a conscious product of nature – a product of nature which has become ‘humanised’ by its consciousness and collective forms of labour. Stressing this collective essence he goes on to write; “Man’s individual and species-life are not two distinct things”. Further;

“It is, above all, necessary to avoid once more establishing “society” as an abstraction over against the individual. The individual is the social being.”

In other words the common dualistic notion that there is society on the one hand and the individual on the other is an illusion created by the division of labour and its modern complexity. In reality they are inseparable. To repeat: The individual is a social being. Marx gives himself as an example;

“But also when I am active scientifically, etc. – an activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then my activity is social, because I perform it as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being.”

In other words there is no real individuality except the social individual who owes his or her being to the current and past social form of existence. The exaggerated claim of unique individuality expressed as achieved – in spite of society – is a distorted bourgeois view. It is a view that wishes to discount all the human beings who contribute to this or that individual social being. The artist or actor, for example, could not become so if thousands of others did not labour in teaching, creating the artistic instruments, supplying the electricity, disposing the rubbish, making clothes to wear, transporting them around, providing the means to eat, sleep and enjoy life. Similarly the uniquely wealthy could not become wealthy without the exploited labour of thousands of others.

On top of this it is the community which provides the workforce and audience – without which there could be no production, performance, no exhibition and no reason to embark upon a career leading toward such a privileged statuses. Then of course – in addition – there is the whole historical contribution of any particular branch of human activity which went before and upon which foundation the current practices are based. The whole egotistical self-indulgence of the entrepreneur, artist, sport and celebrity elite – aren’t I great – is in so many self-serving ways a denial of the total human support team past and present. All of whom enabled this or that individual to produce or perform to their current level of ability.

It is a clear recognition of this complete social dependence and inter-dependence of humanity which corrects the distorting lens of bourgeois individualism, its cultural assumptions and reveals the real social essence of all humanity. And of course, this complete social essence and dependence pivots around the fundamental natural relationship between men and women. The female of the species not only carries each new individual in her womb, but gives to that developing neonate important elements of DNA as well as nutrients until its birth. Even after that, nurture, protection and nutritional sustenance are predominantly administered by the female.

We need to ask what sort of human societies and ideologies keep women as second class, subservient and doubly oppressed people for thousands of years? The answer is societies split into classes and dominated by patriarchal ideologies – the latter most thoroughly embodied in the Abrahamic religions. What sort of societies and ideologies for thousands of years relegate one section of humanity into workhorses in the form of slaves or wage-slaves, whilst an elite appropriates all the wealth and leisure? More recently: What kind of societies dump their unwanted workers on the scrap heap and starve them by austerity, while they gorge themselves on the very best? The answer is the same. It could only happen in societies split into classes and dominated by patriarchal ideologies. Yet it was the transformation of these conditions, that Marx proposed could and should follow an anti-capitalist revolution brought about by its own internal crisis.

Marx the Revolutionary.

All Marx’s work is infused with the need for an anti-capitalist revolution to solve the dire economic inequalities and the rampant over-production for profit. However what he was suggesting was a revolution which would go well beyond economic factors. The post-capitalist mode of production introduced after a successful anti-capitalist revolution would need and want to abolish economic classes and accelerate the conditions for a return to social equality in regard to gender, race, ethnicity and religion – ‘the muck of ages’ – as he elsewhere described it. He noted that such ideas were already nascent in various types of suggested socialism or communism. An early form was the radical proposal to level everybody down to the status of wage worker.

In this crude model (Marx’s term) there would be no economically derived class divisions and the state would act as the communal capitalist. Work would still not be self-determined or self-directed. It would still be wage-labour and people would still be living in order to work. In a second more refined version the state would have been abolished but people would still be dominated by the desire to work in order to ‘possess’ things – a muted continuation of commodity fetishism. Only ownership of some form of private property would perhaps inspire them to work and make them feel secure. In this way an exaggerated dependence on ‘things‘ would continue. The transcendence of the former self-estrangement would still be incomplete.

Writing of a more developed form of communal organisation, Marx argued that the real wealth of a person and a community would be in the full realisation and recognition of the social bonds of humanity. Humanity would cease to live in order to work and work only as much as is necessary in order to live. The human need would be for the enjoyment of treasured relationships and fully rounded experiences, rather than enjoyment of treasured and fetishised objects. In other words a reliance upon the quantity and quality of social bonds would replace dependence upon the quantity and quality of material possessions. This would be the real re-appropriation of ‘the human essence’ – a complete return of people to themselves as fully ‘social’ beings. Of this kind of socio-economic community Marx commented;

“This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence…..Communism is the riddle of history solved.”

Of course the language is somewhat dated with the term ‘man’ being used to include all of humanity. Dated also is the term ‘communism’ since that term is now indelibly linked with the Soviet Union, The People’s Republic of China and other hierarchical and brutal state-capitalist forms. The instigators of these modes of production didn’t even put Marx’s suggestions on their agendas, let alone in any of their practices. However, this only negates the term we use, not the content of the meaning originally assigned to them.

The purpose of revolution against the capitalist mode of production and the creation of a communal alternative, according to Marx, would be to institute a ‘fully developed humanism’ – a humanity at peace with itself and at peace with nature – which would be ‘the riddle of history solved‘. For this reason I suggest if a descriptive label needs to be attached to Marx, then Marx was a revolutionary-humanist. That is also the first reason why I have adopted the term to describe myself.

In view of the extracts above, it is perhaps not surprising that in the ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844’ by Marx, the term ‘human’ appears 250 times, ‘nature’ 224 times and ‘essence’ on 84 occasions – often linked together. Since any transcendence of humanities self-estrangement, requires ‘a fully developed humanism’ it will also require a revolution in the mode of production. It makes logical sense, therefore to describe the intellectual recognition of the means and purpose of this entire process as – revolutionary-humanism.

There have of course been many humanists before Marx and also many revolutionaries since, but few have linked the two aspects so meticulously and thoroughly as Karl Marx. The essence of Marx’s ideas is therefore best described as Revolutionary-Humanism, not Marxism. The term ‘Marxist’ as with ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’, has been used and systematically abused by sectarians and opportunist politicians to justify inhumanity, barbarity and sectarian divisions. These terms are all well past their sell-by-date for they no longer describe sufficient positive content. In my view they are no longer fit for purpose. That is the second reason why I  continue to call myself a Revolutionary-Humanist.

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Marx, Politics, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , | 8 Comments

ZERO-HOUR CONTRACTS!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Beware! A zero-hour contract is coming to job near you. A zero-hour contract is a contract to be ‘on-call’ to work for an employer at the employers discretion. No actual work – no actual pay! No matter what the reason! The employer does not need to stipulate or guarantee any hours of work and can demand as few or as many hours as he or she requires. The recent increased use of zero hour contracts has been heralded by the business class as a new and important development in the present crisis. Even Trade union leaders have appeared on TV to discuss the benefits of such ‘flexible’ modes of employment. But how new is it?

This so-called ‘innovation’ has led to workers turning up at premises and having to wait (unpaid) outside of the shop until customers arrive, or outside the factory until a delivery arrives – or sent home if neither appear. The worker on a zero-hour contract waits until something to do arrives and then works as long as the employer needs him or her. This could mean very long shifts some days and no shifts on others. Zero-hour contracts unsurprisingly have none of the usual requirements for sick-pay, pensions, meal breaks, training, maternity leave and a host of other basic human rights at work.

More recently zero-hour contracts have crept into skilled occupations such as teaching and social work and no doubt into many other forms of occupation before too long – because it is a logical expression of the capitalist mode of production. Under the capitalist mode of production an employer only ‘needs’ a worker in order to exploit their labour so as to extract a profit from them. And workers can only be exploited as long as they are productively employed either making commodities or fulfilling services.

Any ‘down-time’ or waiting time, for whatever reason, (accident, management cock-ups, machine breakages etc.) is therefore not ‘productive’ for the employer. So pay for such non-working time amounts to a deduction from the profits of the employer, a deduction they are no longer prepared to tolerate. Yet in fact zero-hour contracts are nothing really new, they represent a return to the original ‘casual’ conditions of labour when the capitalist mode of production first began to dominate societies.

So its ‘Back to the Future‘.

In order for the capitalist mode of production to dominate over the feudal mode of production its representatives had to remove existing rights of the ordinary people in Europe and elsewhere. For example in the UK an original right of 4 acres to each cottage and free access to the common-land had to be permanently removed – for as long as this right existed it made the labouring population too independent and choosy. Ordinary people invariable chose not to work in factories or for capitalist farmers. Since they could live off their own labour and resources, they more often than not preferred to do so.

The English enclosure movements were used to confiscate both these traditions of self-sufficiency. That process together with the confiscation of state land allowed economies of scale and thus capitalism to be developed in agriculture. The people who had been robbed of their livelihoods therefore became known as vagabonds, sturdy beggars and voluntary criminals. At this point it should be remembered that this development created the need for charity and poor rates – the old terms for unemployment and housing benefits. The forced removal of all self-sufficiency required that alternatives had to be introduced or riot might ensue. Poor rates, the notorious workhouse and various forms of state aid were therefore the capitalist fore-runners of the present benefits system.

Another solution, introduced by the early capitalists, was to pass governmental laws enforced by the bourgeois state compelling people to work almost as slaves. During the capitalist period of Colonialism and Imperialism in particular, this allowed and condoned whipping, cutting off body parts and branding. Slavery and zero-wage slavery were the engineered norm. All this was for the purpose of forcing people to work at any rate of payment offered and at any form of work demanded. (ala modern Workfare!) It was also accompanied by using the state to outlaw high wages and authorise low-pay and industriousness – as defined by the elite – to be established.

Religious education and later state education were cleverly used during these periods to inculcate a belief that working for ‘others’ for low pay was a ’normal’, even ’natural’ state of affairs, not one socially engineered by the rising capitalist class. UK education in the 19th century was created in order for British capital to ‘compete’ internationally. The term ‘competition’ in this case should be interpreted as ‘education to work for the huge profits of the capitalist class’. Essentially the same message was delivered to the workers of Europe, North America and wherever capitalism took hold. Not surprisingly the same message is still being delivered in the 21st century.

So casual, unregulated, zero-hour wage-labour was the original form of employment under the early period of the capitalist mode of production. Commencing in capitalist agriculture with workers taken on at harvest time working 12 + hour shifts and then let go to fend for themselves when the harvest finished, it spread to other industrial and commercial occupations. It took titanic struggles by workers for well over a hundred years to gain the employment rights taken for granted over the last 60 years in the west.

They were rights which were reluctantly increased by the capitalist class in Europe after the Second World War (1939-45). The recurrent crises over the last 30 years, culminating in the financial crisis of 2008, has been progressively used by the pro-capitalist establishment to erode every one of the hard-won employment and social gains granted to workers in Europe and North America. The zero-hour contract is just the latest buzz-word dressing up – and hoping to hide – a return to the original form of capitalist work – the casualisation of labour.

The zero-hour Industrial reserve army.

It has long been the case that the capitalist mode of production has removed the means of production from ownership and control of those who work them. It has also been the case that as that means of production has increased in efficiency, the capitalist employers have sought to rationalise the number of workers employed by them. The active proportion of workers has decreased with the increase in complexity, efficiency and productivity of the means of production. Therefore a constant transformation of a section of workers into unemployed or semi-employed has occurred. This rationalisation has led to a permanent state of unemployment for large numbers of working people and lower wages. Or as Marx put it;

“…..that monstrosity, an industrial reserve army, kept in misery in order to be always at the disposal of capital;” (Marx. Capital Volume 1.)

The resulting surplus population – the reserve army – acts as a reservoir of labour to be siphoned off when business is brisk or booming and returning it to the labour-market when a downturn occurs. Unemployment and precarious employment also act as a threat to those in work and creates a vulnerability to pressure to work harder, longer and for less pay. In this way under capitalism workers are unwittingly being forced to create the conditions for other workers to be made redundant.

For example: The harder one group of workers in an industry work the less need there is for other workers in that industry. Similarly, the less pay workers get in one sector, the less they have to spend on purchases of products and services provided by other workers. So future redundancies in that sector also. The complexity of the capitalist mode of production and the number of inter-dependent transitions and dislocations of these mean that ‘effects’ become ’causes’ and ’causes’ can become effects. A downward spiral then ensues – as it is doing now.

In general, the greater the social wealth of a capitalist country and thus the size of its capital accumulation, the greater the number of workers. This together with their productiveness gradually increases the industrial reserve army. However, in times of relative over-production and crisis (as now) that greater number of once employed are suddenly propelled into the reserve army which consequently grows even greater. It is now growing at such a rate that in Europe, for example, concentration camps for poor workers, are about to appear in Greece and no doubt similar plans are afoot elsewhere.

According to the bloggers at the ‘Scriptonite Daily’ blog (www.http://scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com) the present Greek parliament is considering legislation to turn a military camp into a prison for poor Greeks.  They report;

“Since last February, any Greek falling more that €5000 in debt to the state can be imprisoned to work off their debt. The government is now planning to roll this out more systematically, with a specific prison camp dedicated to holding poor Greeks while they work for free for the state.  This would conventionally be referred to as a Labour Camp – the tool of many a totalitarian state, including Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.”

So not just zero-hour but zero-freedom approaches for capitalisms victims in Greece! The connection with unemployment, poverty, authoritarianism and totalitarianism is well spotted and it is no accident. The last great periods of a collapse of the capitalist mode of production after the 1929 financial crash, produced huge quantities of workers rejected and ejected from factories and workplaces. Mass unemployment ensued and was only ‘mopped up’ by the destruction of millions of human beings and means of production in the Second World War – a real zero-hour for over 6 million people. Concentration camps and work-camps prior to that human destruction were large-scale modern versions of earlier ‘workhouses’ and are the last desperate resort of a system which puts wealth above humanity. Soon there may be work-camp near you!

The past and present zero-hour victims.

The relative surplus-population – the industrial reserve army – the zero-hour victims created by the accumulation of capital consists of 4 basic forms.

1. Floating. (casual or precarious): Those workers who are generally in and out of work depending upon the state of the economy, growing or contracting, booming or collapsing.

2. Migrant: (itinerant) Those workers made unemployed in their own communities or countries, who in order to seek employment migrate or emigrate.

3. Latent. (embryonic): Those workers who are being or about to be shed due to changes in one industry or another. (agricultural workers, cotton, coal miners, engineers, ship-builders, teachers, soldiers, police, social workers etc)

4. Stagnant. (permanent). Those who never find work. (originally paupers, now often called the long-term unemployed or the under-class.)

Under the present crisis of 21st century capital, all these casualties of the present mode of production are increasing. All the above categories are under direct or indirect attack by employers, or one or other sections of the capitalist state. Under pressure from the deteriorating capitalist economic situation, the pro-capitalists and their agents in the proto-fascist movements hope that these four categories can be urged to scapegoat each other. These victims of the system are being persuaded to turn on each other by politicians and press alike.

If this insidious process is successful it will allow further authoritarian measures to be taken. They hope that those still in work (Floating and Latent victims) through fear of job loss will blame those out of work – migrant and stagnant worker victims – for the systems problems, rather than the system itself. This type of policy was made to work in the 1930’s in Europe – with the poor Jews used as scapegoats in Germany and elsewhere. They hope it will work again! This time it will be non-whites and those from eastern Europe who will be offered up as sacrificial victims to those who fail to see the big-picture and the crisis in the entire system.

Zero-hour for humanity.

For millions of years of evolution the adults of human communities have woken up each the morning with a days work in front of them by which to feed, cloth and house themselves. No one stood in their way, whether they hunted, gathered, fished or farmed. If the local resources were insufficient, all or a part of the community, could move on and find food, shelter and clothing in a new suitable environment. That possibility no longer exists for the poor and unemployed. But an alternative does exist.

Instead of changing location humanity needs to change its mode of production. The mode of production developed during the last 100 years has created the ‘means’ by which everyone could be fed, clothed, housed and educated at a relatively high standard. What stands in the way is the ownership and control of that means. The present control by a relatively small capitalist and pro-capitalist elite allows them to use those means not for the general good, but for their own wealth accumulation – and that wealth is now obscenely huge.

This for them means production for profits above all else. And the greed for profits mean the mass production of soon-outdated commodities and weapons of war along with the mass production of waste products, pollution and ecological degradation. The planet and its species in one sense is crying out for the capitalist mode of production to be ended; and for its sustained exploitation to be given a substantial rest in order to recover. Over 4 million years of evolution humanity has lived and worked and caused little environmental damage which could not be quickly recovered.

For that amount of time, humanity has fed, clothed, housed and educated itself without causing irreparable damage to the entire planet. The capitalist mode of production has changed all that. It now not only severely damages the planet but the vast majority of living members of the human family, through engineered poverty, wars, pollution and ecological destruction. It is time for more people to understand the wider picture of a system in multiple crisis and also cry out and organise for a wholesale change to the mode of production. Zero-hour contracts represent an approaching zero hour for humanity if they do not herald a zero-hour for the capitalist mode of production.

[See also ‘The Five-Fold Crisis of Capitalism‘ ; ‘Austerity: Its another word for War!

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

Posted in Critique, Economics, Politics, Reformism | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

EGYPT: INSURRECTION or INTERREGNUM?

Posted on July 7, 2013 by stutteringsteps

Bourgeois hypocrisy.

The champions of bourgeois democracy everywhere have been quick to denounce the toppling of President Morsi in Egypt as a blow against democracy. This cannot be surprising. Manipulation and control of the party political, electoral process is something they have long perfected. This form of electoral democracy renders the masses passive and leaves the political representatives open to direct and indirect influence. Their fear of mass street participation to determine what happens in society is therefore palpable. Accordingly they have invariably described the events of 2-3 July 2013 in Egypt, as an unconstitutional ‘coup d’ etat‘. The Muslim Brotherhood have also claimed this is so and the action as unconstitutional. It is a familiar cry of every ruling elite who are overthrown by mass uprisings or insurrections. Indeed, Mubarak made exactly the same criticism before his ouster.

These various condemnations by heads of state, are also a most hypocritical form of denunciation. The bourgeois governments of all European and North American states regularly do unconstitutional things; spying of innocent citizens, pepper spraying demonstrators, arrest and incarceration of innocents, deaths in custody, torture, invasions of foreign countries, falsifying expenses – forcing down diplomatic planes!; even a much abbreviated list could fill this entire page. Be this as it may, superficial talk of coup’s and unconstitutional actions does not get us any clearer to understand the complex situation currently taking place in Egypt.

Very few mainstream commentators have bothered to study the way pre-revolutionary situations develop and pass through various developmental stages, including reversals, mood swings and political detours. But given the depth and breadth of the world economic crisis – initiated by neo-liberal capitalism – ‘normal’ politics has outlived its ability to control either the economic, the social or political spheres of life. For this reason there is growing discontent and unrest throughout the world. And given the elitist and corrupt nature of politics, this popular unrest has nowhere else to go to express itself but on the street.

The street.

It should now be absolutely clear that the ‘street’ has been ‘the’ determining factor in Egyptian politics since the uprising of 2010. It was not the Military and it was not the Brotherhood but the popular masses who eventually turned up in Tahir Square. It was therefore the emergence of mass participation in a concerted uprising which led to the overthrow of Mubarak. It is a further instance of mass assembly and participation in the recent second uprising on June 30th in which people campaigned and assembled to call for Morsi to resign. Instead of accepting the previous months of criticism and modifying the brotherhood stance, Morsi and his colleagues decided to carry on regardless and  to hide behind their so-called democratic election.

What they and the bourgeois elsewhere, have failed to adequately grasp is that the mass movement in Egypt – as it is everywhere – is not entirely powered by political disagreement or constitutional discourse. Despite the corruption and incompetence of the political class, ordinary people are more interested in their future welfare than simply waiting for politics to ‘clean’ itself up. The turn out of such huge numbers is driven by the deteriorating socio-economic condition of the mass of working class humanity. To those removed from the direct experiences of blue and white-collar humanity and the poor, the protests may appear to be just a question of disappointment with Muslim Brotherhood politics and a search for an alternative, but of course it is much more than this.

Historically, when masses of people have suffered hardship and oppression for long enough they frequently explode and go beyond any constitution, particularly when the constitution stands in their way. Indeed, that is how all potential revolutions commence. In periods of systemic crisis, the broad (but uneven) process is as follows. First, popular mass uprisings; second, unifying demands are created; third, military support sides with the insurgents; fourth, the masses become armed; fifth a dual seat of power is established; sixth the oppressors are overthrown, their state dismantled; seventh, a new and developing socio-economic system is released or created.

And in the 21st century, uprisings and precursors of revolutions are occurring on practically every continent. A few obvious questions make the reasons clear! Is it not the case that everywhere the capitalist mode of production is dominant, the class divide between the wealthy beneficiaries and the working poor has increased astronomically? Is it not the case that vast numbers of blue and white-collar workers are being pushed toward and some held below the level of relative poverty? Is it not the case that the poor and working people in country after country are stirring?

The common underlying problem.

Since before 2010 workers had become so desperate in Egypt that they regularly took to the streets calling for jobs, food and an end to regime oppression. This developing unrest led to the mass demonstrations that eventually persuaded the military to assist in bringing down Mubarak. Elected with the task of improving economic and social conditions, the new government of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, were clearly not pursuing policies to make Egypt more equal or fairer.

Nor was he or his ministers beginning to tackle the major social and economic problems facing the population. Indeed, they were preparing to get the Egyptian people into further debt by negotiating IMF loans and accepting the conditions attached to these loans. Also the Brotherhood were appointing religious representatives to regional political posts, irrespective of their ability or suitability.

It may not yet be obvious to some that the future for Egypt – as for humanity in general – does not lie in more capitalism and IMF domination along with restrictions to the rights of women and young people. The future for Egypt as with the rest of humanity does not lie in large-scale unemployment, long hours and low pay for those who manage to obtain a job and Shariah law.

During these current and coming struggles, more and more people will become aware that it is not just a question of appropriate politics and suitable figureheads but a question of who owns and controls the main means of production. Only social control of the means of production can solve the question of large-scale unemployment, equitable economic distribution, tolerance and ecological sustainability.

An insurrection-urged coup?

As yet the situation in Egypt is fluid and complex but the latest events are clearly best described initially as a mass insurrection or further uprising against the elected political regime, which then urged a military-led coup. The insurrectionists were aware that the elections returning the Brotherhood, were both premature and flawed, as was the formation of the new constitution. A coup, on the other hand, is normally conducted by a tiny group who on their own initiative topples a clique at the head of a government. In fact that is exactly what occurred when the ‘Association of Free Officers’ led by Gamel Abdel Nasser toppled a previous British supported regime. That was in the nature of a definitive coup d etat. This latest event, although sharing some characteristics, is not entirely of that type.

Let us be clear about the process which took place. Fuelled by continued unemployment and poverty along with little action except unfulfilled promises and restrictions from their government, discontent reached another high. After weeks of activist campaigning with petitions and street demonstrations the masses – for various reasons – turned out once again in huge numbers to protest and insist that Morsi resign. Once again Morsi and the Brotherhood ignored this mass protest and later requests by the military establishment. Instead, they fell back on their dubiously formed constitutional rights. So an apparent impasse was reached.

The anti-Morsi forces with patience worn out and still with illusions in a bourgeois democratic process, had to accept what was going on or look to the military to solve the problem of throwing out the government and instituting new elections. Yet, the request to the military to oust Morsi and the Brotherhood, has all the makings of a double-edged sword. Pre-emptive arrests and closing organisations down are as draconian as anything the previous Mubarak regime sanctioned and can in due time be turned elsewhere. From now on if the anti-Morsi activists do not do all they can to attract the ordinary soldiers firmly to their side and make overtures to the Muslim rank and file, this repeated relying on the US influenced military elite is a policy they may eventually come to regret.

The three prime movers in Egypt.

It needs to be recognised that there are at least three prime movers or active forces for change in the post – Mubarak Egyptian situation. The first is the loose coalition of left-secular and working class anti-establishment forces. What motivates these activists and their supporters, from before 2010 and on, are food, employment and freedom from military and religious oppression. The second force is the military establishment and the previous regime supporters. What motivates these is to retain or regain their present or previous positions and status.

The third is the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters. What motivates them in addition to their bourgeois form of economic development is a return to Shariah law and religious conservatism. The rest of the Egyptian people are either neutral or allied with one or other of these strong social forces within Egyptian society. At the current state of the developing situation none of these three sectors – on their own – can obtain a settlement satisfactory to their needs and none are ready or able to compromise.

The Muslim Brotherhood could clearly not take the rest of the countries population with them in order to govern. Indeed, by their sectarian actions in government they helped to divide the working class as well as others. The military, tainted as it is from collusion with the Mubarak era governance and with many strings attached to the USA, are not able at this stage to assume a form of popular governance. Another factor of utmost impoertance is that neither of these two conservative (pro-neo/liberal) forces can solve the economic and financial problems facing Egypt. The left secular forces, although numerous are themselves not yet organised or unified around a platform of economic and social demands capable of taking a majority of the population with them. For this reason the current divisions and unrest will continue.

The evening of the 5th July saw the pro-Morsi forces march through Cairo and later fought pitched battles with those anti-Morsi activists assembled in Tahir square. In other words, sadly, large numbers of religiously motivated working people and large numbers of secular motivated working people were trying to beat each other into submission or ignominious retreat. This clash if continued represents a set-back for a class-based movement and does not bode well for solving the crisis in favour of the working masses and poor. Indeed, the pitched battles took on the character of a small-scale, self-destructive civil war.

The future.

It is in the senior military leaders and the remnant of the previous regime interests to allow the pro-Morsi and anti-Morsi to fight themselves to a standstill. This way once both sides are so exhausted and discredited it may become possible for the military to take power once again and push forward an acceptable puppet leader. Alternatively they may side with the anti-Morsi forces until the Muslim Brotherhood and their working class supporters are totally defeated and then later deal with the left secularists and liberals when they have become fully isolated. Either outcome would suit the military elite and neo-liberal west.

For this reason the left and secularists among the anti-Morsi forces should not automatically treat all Muslim Brotherhood workers as Islamist extremists. Indeed to do so will drive many into the arms of extremists. Instead, of unilateral condemnation, a clear platform of economic and social demands for the employment and security of the poor, white and blue-collar workers, men and women should be created and support for it championed among all sections of the workers, Muslim, Christian, secular, liberal and rank and file soldier. The workers of Egypt are the only sector that can fully champion the rights of all the poor and oppressed of their country.

Such a platform should be counter-posed to the purely political/constitutional and religious sectarian arrangements and arguments of the political and military elites of all persuasions. The situation of hunger, exploitation, unemployment and oppression is not going to be improved by the current focus on politics, nor by an Islamic, military or bourgeois government. In Egypt as elsewhere, a crucial question still remains: Are the mass uprisings to become part of an ongoing insurrection, leading to a real revolution, or merely part of a vicious  interregnum in a process leading to the establishment of yet another form of bourgeois government? Alternatively are the masses to be divided and drawn into what could become destructive episodes of yet another internicine civil-war? Time will tell.

[See ‘Egypt: Workers and Soldiers’. ]

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

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EGYPT: WORKERS AND SOLDIERS.

Posted on July 3, 2013 by stutteringsteps

At a time when the military are once again being drawn into the conflict in Egypt, it is worth considering the socio-economic situation of the ordinary soldier in times of internal crisis – particularly during periods involving historically profound contradictions. The uprisings that became popularly known as the ‘Arab Spring’ were triggered by serious economic problems in the Middle East and North Africa, as the systemic economic crisis of capital rippled around the world. All the five elements of the current crisis; economic, financial, political, moral and environmental are being played out in Egypt and the Middle East as they are elsewhere in the globe. However, in Egypt some aspects (economic and political) are perhaps more clearly distinguishable than elsewhere.

The current contest in July 2013 is between bourgeois democracy and mass street democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood, as is predictable, are standing up for a bourgeois form of democracy, which is always corrupt and never represents more than a small percentage of the population who are unduly influenced by TV adverts, dubious sources of funding and back-stairs deals etc. Standing against this are the masses who are still attempting to pursue bread, jobs and freedom. The majority massing in the streets evidently do not want a religious form of dictatorial governance any more than they wanted a secular Mubarak form of dictatorship. They want a solution to their fundamental problems and these are not being addressed by Morsi and the Brotherhood.

In the past the military have frequently played a prominent role in Egyptian affairs, both for the good and the bad. In the 1950’s struggle against European and US colonial oppression a group in the Egyptian army adopted the name ‘Association of Free Officers’ and aimed at ‘freedom’ from western control and the restoration of their countries dignity. When former army colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser assumed control a series of major welfare measures were eventually promoted. Useful reforms in education, family law, universal health care, women’s rights and housing provision were then introduced. It was a top-down but popular and progressive overthrow of the previous regime.

This time, however, the senior military figures are tied to the American political and military establishment to the extent of billions of dollars per year. So this time in Egypt, as the situation develops, tensions will probably develop between the ordinary soldier and the senior command. It should be obvious that the ordinary Egyptian soldiers future lies not with American neo-liberal elite and its collaborators in their own officer class, but with the ordinary people of Egypt. And in order to be a pole of attraction for the ordinary soldier the ordinary people need to rise above religious and other forms of sectarianism and work toward realising basic human rights of employment, housing, women’s rights and justice for all Egypt’s citizens.

What follows applies to rank and file soldiers in most countries of the world, but applies particularly clearly to the armed forces of Egypt. These soldiers and soldiers elsewhere, will not have heard the following points from their senior commanders or officers for it is in the military, political and economic elites interests everywhere to hide the real facts about the soldiers true position. They will have been told that their duty is to their ‘regiment’, their ‘officers’ or their ‘nation’. Their real class position is hidden behind such deceptive abstractions in order for them to be used as a versatile tool of the reactionary ruling elite in each country. Yet if we consider the ordinary soldiers real economic and social position we cannot avoid concluding and explaining to them the following.

The actual socio-economic position of soldiers.

1. They are predominantly recruited from the working class often because the economic system is so unjust and distorted that they would be unemployed or under-employed if they did not join up.

2. They are trained to a high level of skill in various trades including wounding and killing people – and are paid various skill-level wages or salaries.

3. Even though they to not make a profit for their employer, (their labour is unproductive of capital) economically speaking they are in fact a special case of the category of skilled, public-sector worker.

4. What is more, their skills, training, wages and equipment are paid out of the taxes (monetised surplus-value) extracted from the majority of the population – who just happen to be – the working people of their country.

5. Just as other workers they are often humiliated, abused and brutalised by their immediate managers (officers) – particularly during training – and sent to work into situations that are dangerous – often for dubious and/or illegal reasons.

6. Just like other workers they have no say in what operations they are required to carry out or how these actions are to be conducted. And like many other workers they are often required to work long hours in atrocious conditions.

7. However, unlike ordinary workers they are not allowed to belong to a trade union and are sometimes required to be exceptionally brutal against unarmed protestors in their own country – ie those who pay their wages and salaries.

8. Just like other workers, when they are injured at work and can no longer function effectively they are frequently sacked and find themselves back among the working class, from which they came.

9. Unlike other workers they are often treated as guinea pigs for new medicines and equipment and cannot refuse to carry out orders that may not be well thought out. These orders may also involve acts of deliberate brutality and abuse of human-rights.

10. When they return from such ill-thought out (often illegal) high command ’actions’ they may have faced hatred and suffered such trauma that their peace of mind or health is permanently effected.

11. Indeed, many soldiers returning from military assignments suffer nightmares, sleep loss, relationship breakdown and much else. Many become reliant on alcohol, drugs and many commit suicide. These along with severed limbs are among the many occupational hazards of this destructive line of work.

12. Just like other workers, the loyalty to the elite – which they are required to commit, too – is not returned. When considerations of finance come up for review among the elite, like many other workers, they are not only issued with sub-standard equipment but many will have their services terminated.

Historical splits within military forces.

In the history of their battalions ordinary soldiers will only have been told about specific battles and heroism, they will never be told about any atrocities their battalions have been previously ordered to commit. Nor, in the case of western armies, the real reason they were sent to invade foreign lands. In general, (Egypt being perhaps one of a few exceptions) they will not be informed of the instances when soldiers have joined the working people and assisted in the overthrow of reactionary regimes.

Whilst it is true that any armed force will attract those easily influenced, by pomp, ceremony and bullsh–t, along with those needing an outlet for aggressive tendencies, not all can be tarred with these same brushes. For in every clearly progressive revolutionary development of societies throughout history, at a crucial juncture, many thousands of ordinary soldiers and sailors have sided with revolutionary forces working to improve the socio-economic situation for the majority.

Of course, soldiers in such revolutionary circumstances, have needed to be sure that the cause which appealed to them for support was transparently for the benefit of the majority and not just some elite clique. This possibility – based upon the obvious facts noted in the previous twelve points – constantly haunts the minds of the ruling military and political elites. For this reason they take all possible measures to separate this special category of skilled worker, physically and emotionally from their roots in their respective communities.

However, as the crisis deepens and popular unrest increases in country after country, as it has again in Egypt, once again soldiers will, sooner or later, be invited to consider the question of who to ultimately obey – the elite via their officers – or those who pay their wages. In a revolutionary crisis, they will also be faced with either taking the side of an outmoded system, which is fuelled by greed, impoverishing the majority of people and is terminally polluting the planet – or taking the side of working class communities in order to create a better future.

It is obvious that the present capitalist system exploits soldiers as it does all workers and after using them as dispensable ‘cannon fodder’, casts them aside when they are no longer needed. The pro-capitalist elite callously use them to maintain their wealth and they hope to use them to prevent the changes necessary for the future of humanity. This issue of ‘who and what is an ordinary soldier’ has again become immediately important for the activists in Egypt and elsewhere. It will also become an important one for other anti-capitalist to consider, the more critical the crisis becomes and as protests continue to escalate in scale and intensity.

A future without armed aggression.

Of course, in any post-capitalist society informed by revolutionary-humanist views, there would be no ‘special forces’ divorced from their communities and controlled only by an elite. All adult community members would be able to bear arms but only in defence of their communities. And unlike most capitalist-formed armed forces this defence would be informed and tempered by humanitarian concerns and strictly uphold the human rights of friends and any future foes alike. As Engels noted with regard to the revolutionary circumstances of the 1871 Paris Commune;

“From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must on the one hand, do away with all the old oppressive machinery used against itself, and on the other safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment.” (Introduction to Marx’s ‘Civil War in France’. Peking edition. Page 15.)

And Marx:

The communal organisation once firmly established on a national scale, the catastrophes it might still have to undergo would be sporadic slaveholders insurrections, which, while for a moment interrupting the work of peaceful progress, would only accelerate the movement, by putting the sword into the hand of social revolution. (Marx. First Draft ‘Civil War in France’. in First International and After. Penguin. Page 253.)

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2013.)

[See also ‘Egypt and Tunisia: The failure of reforms’ ; ‘The Egyptian Elections’; ‘Military control in Egypt’ and ‘The Five-Fold Crisis of Capitalism’..]

 

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