GAZA-WAR CEASE FIRE: SO WHO WON?

Posted on November 24, 2012 by stutteringsteps

a) Who won?

At a superficial level it may seem as if the Zionist-based colonialist entity called Israel won the just over a week-long war. After all with their superior weaponry and expertise funded and informed by North American and European military sources, they had incessantly pulverised Gaza from the air, from land and from sea – all in order to subdue them. The Nazis tried to do the same to London during the Second World War and also failed. It is a historical fact that you cannot easily subdue a people and their culture by aggressive and belligerent military destruction. In contrast to this latest incessant Israeli barrage only a very few of the Palestinian resistance forces rockets were able to avoid interception and do damage. For this reason, the military mentality of the Zionists and those who identify with them imagine they have won. But struggles are not always or entirely won by military means. There are other factors at work in the modern world.

One is the fact that the Palestinian David in Gaza, despite this month’s battle with the Goliath of Israel, continues to exist. For sixty years the Palestinians have resisted being entirely cleared off their land even though the Zionists have re-drawn their maps to remove the name ‘Palestine’ from the colonised territory. Through armed struggle and two Intifada’s, Palestinians have continually struggled to assert the moral and legal rights to exist and to their land. They have not been beaten into submission. Indeed, they continue to fight back in the only way they can with the only weapons they have – civil disobedience, peaceful demonstration and now rockets and guns. Of course, just to exist is to resist; but to resist with whatever weapons are available is to resist positively. In this sense the Palestinians have continued to win against the Zionist struggle to obliterate them – and this time in Gaza they have won that battle again.

But in an even greater sense the Zionist have lost! In fact they have been loosing the moral, intellectual and legal ground ever since the world awoke to what was really going on in former Palestine. When the Nakba became internationally recognised as the Zionist putsch instigating the colonialist land grab in 1948, the ‘facts on the ground‘ were matched by the ‘facts in peoples heads’ and printed in the historical records. The last two bombardments of Gaza, operation ‘Cast Lead’ in 2009 and operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ in 2012 have demonstrated to the world the complete and utter inhumanity of the ideology of Zionism and the inhumanity of those Jewish nationalists who have failed to break decisively and completely with all it stands for. Israel is increasingly seen as a rogue nation and the majority of its people an anathema to all who do not directly benefit from its existence. As with all such elitist ideologies, humanity has nothing positive at all to learn from the example of Israel and the ideology of Zionism.

b) Who else won?

It was claimed by many commentators that Mohammed Morsi role as intermediary won him a spectacular level of respect from the world’s leaders. He was feted by Obama and his political coterie. But did he and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood really win much by this action? The best the newly elected Brotherhood leadership in Egypt could do to openly and practically support the people of Gaza, was to broker a cease fire. No other form of publicly declared practical help appeared to be given to those suffering the bombardment in Gaza. Were the borders opened to allow support to go in and non-combattants to escape destruction? And are eulogies from Obama, Clinton and any of the other European and North American political pirates of capital any form of useful endorsement for Morsi? I think not. Quite the opposite! And of course the resistance of Gaza was not only the work of Hamas, who played a considerable role, but of all non-betraying Palestinians, Christian, secular and Muslim.

If a gang of thugs were holding you down, squeezing your throat and punching you in the face you may well be glad when they stop hitting you in the face. You would nonetheless still want the thugs to stop strangling you. And you would hope that any sufficiently strong bystanders or so-called friends, would not only help you but would intervene and insist the thugs did exactly that. You would certainly not expect bystanders to urge you to stop struggling or to stand idly by and watch as did the western international community of Senior Politicians. Yet this may be exactly how many Palestinians in Gaza feel now the week-long bombardment from high-tech weaponry directed from land, air and sea by the armed Zionist state has ended. Punching Gaza in the face may have stopped for the moment, but the economic stranglehold on the lives of the people of Gaza remains as the despicable blockade initiated by Israel continues. So there still remains much to be done.

c) So who are the other losers?

It is obvious that the very many dead Palestinians in Gaza, the injured and the survivors who have lost their families and their homes are the losers in this tragic and brutal demonstration of Zionist inhumanity. In a direct physical sense this – and those blinded by Zionist loyalty and killed or injured in the struggle against the occupation of Palestinian land – is the greatest loss. Buildings can be replaced, at least if and when the Zionists allow building materials and machinery to be imported to Gaza. Human beings can not be replaced as easily. But of course deaths and missing limbs, are not the only losses in this latest battle. Further related non-physical losses have been demonstrated over this latest period of Zionist blitzkrieg. They are different from the loss of life, and have been losses we need not mourn. There has been a visible loss of respect, trust and integrity in the international political classes – of all political and religious denominations.

Apart from occasional hot-air rhetoric, and the odd visit, what have the Arab and Muslim leaders throughout the world done in a practical way to aid their co-religious counter-parts in Gaza or the West Bank? They have definitively not grabbed the chance to publicly do more during the bombing and shelling. And the recent self-elevation of Morsi to status of effective dictator in Egypt demonstrates that the ideology of Islam as with Judaism and Christianity is an ideology suitable and necessary to the respective governing classes. It is not enough for them to allow people to choose to be self-governed by the ‘book’, whether this is the Old Testament, the New Testament or the Qur’an. The people must be ruled by them and they mean to enforce their interpretation of social conformity through the coercion of the state. All the US  war-mongering presidents have been devout Christians and the vast majority of European political leaders are similarly ‘guided’ including the war criminal Tony Blair.

The best the so-called liberal-democratic elite political bystanders such as those in America, Europe and Britain, could do during the time powerful Israel was raining high explosive blows on defenceless Gaza, was to urge them (as Obama did) not to retaliate in any way. The same people who have supplied military equipment, intelligence and personnel to Israel – knowing it will be used against Palestinians – unsurprisingly stood on the sidelines and did little or nothing positive. They are definitely the losers – even if they don‘t know it yet. The same politicians are being further exposed as such as they implement austerity measures to ensure that ordinary people in Europe and North America pay for the financial crisis created by their counter-parts in the public and shadow banking sector.

Finally, in the absence of direct support and through its continued collusion with the Zionist entity, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, following the ’Palestine Papers’ revelations, are also poised to be the losers. One can hardly see how they come out of recent events with anything other than serious loss of standing in the eyes of Palestinians. So for anyone freed from one-sided partisan blindness, or sectarian prejudice – with the exception of those solidarity groups and individuals who spoke out and demonstrated, – there have been no other winners except the Palestinian people themselves. Their complete victory is not as yet assured but the justice of their cause certainly is. And if we succeed in creating a truly positive humanity out of the coming turmoil’s, their homeland will eventually be re-instated.

Roy Ratcliffe. (November 2012.)

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GAZA: THE LITMUS TEST – AGAIN!

Posted on November 16, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Once again the brutal onslaught of the hi-tech Goliath against the Palestinian David in Gaza demonstrates the studied inhumanity of the Zionist colonial entity of Israel. As in the case of ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2008/9, the most advanced weapons of destruction are being poured down mercilessly on innocent citizens in Gaza by the Zionist states armed bodies of men and women. The complete inequality of the two sides in this colonialist enterprise; one side an impoverished, oppressed, colonised people and the other side one of the most militarily well equipped and wealthy nation states in the world, once again is ignored by all international capitalist elites, most of the people of Israel and the international media. This new bombardment follows quickly after further colonial expansion in the west bank settlement building and the decade long calculated starvation of Gaza.

Once again the capitalist and pro-capitalist elites in powerful positions around the world not only stay largely indifferent to the sixty plus years of human suffering in Palestine since the Nakba, but also fail to condemn the recurring blitzkrieg mentality of the Israeli Zionists. The silence of the international ‘elite’ and their lack of action against the ongoing genocide and land-grabbing perpetrated against the Palestinians can only be understood from the perspective of this elites self-interests. The primary purpose of their capitalist system is the reproduction of capital on a global scale. This reproduction relies upon a reliable global system of raw material supplies and markets, which in turn relies upon a reliable governing elite in each nation state. All else, including any concerns for the poor, the exploited and the oppressed, are secondary or even further down the priority list.

Their silence and complicity with Zionism is not a mystery of intellectual confusion. It is simply not in the political and economic interests of global elites to condemn or take economic action against Israel. Their electoral support or economic activity would suffer from such critical positioning. Similarly it is not in the interests of the global elites to bankrupt the bond-holders and banksters in the present crisis, for this would impede their economic, social and political position or advancement. However, it is in their interests to continue to sell Israel weapons with which to destroy Palestinian homes. It is also in their present and future interests to bankrupt the lives of their own citizens, through austerity. For this reason, the global elites indifference to the plight of those in Gaza, is matched by the indifference of the same global elites to the increasingly impoverished plight of their own citizens in the current crisis.

The system’s structural economic crisis is being managed by this same global economic and political elite by measures which protect the future of capital and the lives of rich and impoverish the mass of ordinary citizens. The humanity of all economic and political elites, whether Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist, is compromised by their connection to and complicity in the global economic system of capitalism. Hence their silence and inaction or at best mealy-mouthed statements of support and occasional rhetorical posturing for Palestine and their continued implementation of policies suggested and directed by the dominant institutions of global capital.

However, so enormous and so barbaric is the current and past treatment of those Palestinians trapped in Gaza, that it does represent a litmus test for the moral health of all people. Nothing any of the people in Gaza could possibly do would justify such treatment.  Their situation is the modern equivalent of the treatment meted out to the Native American Indians by the American colonists; the treatment meted out to the African native populations by all European colonists; and the Australian and Hobart native peoples by the British colonist elite. This was a treatment which was part of the global development of the capitalist mode of production in its scramble for raw material resources and market outlets for its production.

We can only read about those human tragedies of the past and retrospectively denounce them, but Palestine is different. It is a contemporary high-point manifestation of the brutality of the capitalist and colonialist oppression and expansion. In a world that has adopted a universal approach to human rights, Palestine reveals that for the global elite this adoption is no more than rhetoric. It demonstrates, along with the rest of the world’s problems, that the global capitalist elite and their system have no place in the future development of an egalitarian humanity. They and their system are ‘the’ barrier to be overcome. It also demonstrates the way that the domination of specific religious and cultural identities, can blind ordinary working class human beings to the plight and suffering of other human beings who do not belong to that specific cultural or religious ideology and identity.

Although the leadership of the Palestinian people only wish to establish a political state based upon the capitalist mode of production, this does not remove the necessity for anti-capitalists to support the struggle of the working and oppressed classes in Palestine. Nor does it remove our need to support the campaign for them to be freed of the Zionist onslaught against their very existence as human beings. The boycott and divestment campaign, as it was in the case of South Africa many years ago, is an important device for engaging people in this support along with other forms of solidarity activity such as the International Solidarity Movement and Palestine solidarity groups. Step up the campaign, speak out and act now when and where this is possible.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2012.)

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THE SUBTLE CHARACTERISTICS OF SECTARIANISM.

Posted on November 9, 2012 by stutteringsteps

In a previous article (‘Sectarianism and the question of a general strike) I identified ten characteristics of sectarianism obtained from the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. Despite my severe reservations concerning the Leninist and Trotskyist positions and traditions, on the question of sectarianism, they made important observations. However, my own experience during the past 50 years of anti-capitalist involvement, revealed two additional ones.  The first was the absolute denial by sectarians of being sectarian, whist not even being aware of, or considering, the full range of the characteristics of sectarianism. The second was the characteristic of being dishonest with each other and with the working class.

These are two characteristics shared by all political groupings who are in competition with each other for leadership of populations including those seeking to lead the working and oppressed.  This is because elite forms of leadership require influence over those who can be influenced and manoeuvres against any rival leadership bids. Within the anti-capitalist struggle this sectarian characteristic of dishonesty takes the following forms. Sectarians;

1. Often exaggerate or inflate the numbers (or active members) they have in their group. (In order to appear stronger and more influential than they actually are.)

2. Often exaggerate or embellish their actual influence among their chosen target audiences. (Usually for the same reasons as point one.)

3. Often claim that decisions made essentially by individuals represent the decisions of the group. (As point one, but also to give the appearance of genuine, active, democratic practices.)

4. Often hide their true intentions to other participants while offering a substitute intention and working toward their witheld intention and in the process undermine unity. (Because the true intentions may be rejected by potential participants.)

5. Often hide or deny problematic situations or dubious practices within their own ranks. (Since potential recruits would be more likely to refrain from joining or associating with them.)

6. Often violently attack those who expose, sectarianism, hypocrisy or deviousness in their group whether this exposure comes from within or without. This often takes the form of a clandestine character assasination of individual or group critics. (In order to defend their self-promoted, superior image.)

7. Often vigorously defend their own allies, irrespective of any transgressions they may have carried out. (Because they are more committed to group results than principles.)

All the above practices are  the stuff of politics in general and is the stuff of sectarian traditions within the anti-capitalist struggle. It would be difficult if not impossible to find a group on the left that hasn’t practiced one or more of the above and many of the additional characteristics in the previously noted article. However, it is obvious, that when such thinly disguised characteristics and practices come to light – as eventually they must – it causes disgust and repulsion among those who are genuinely committed to unity and trust.

Such revelations often result in a loss of individuals to the anti-capitalist struggle. For so many left groups are sectarian that many view these characteristics as fundamental to anti-capitalism in general, instead of the sectarian mentality in particular. This loss to the anti-capitalist struggle represents not just the numbers involved but the talents, skills and energy these individuals take with them.

This drain on the anti-capitalist movement has taken place over several decades and it cannot be surprising.  Solidarity and trust are essential features to develop the anti-capitalist struggle. If they are lacking, then all positive development is lost, and only suspicion and a fractured, splintered disunity remains. Which is fundamentally what I hope we – and others – are trying to overcome.

If we are to genuinely succeed in creating a different tradition within the anti-capitalist left, than that of past generations, then certain things follow. I suggest adherence to at least the following six principles would begin to create a different non-sectarian culture among anti-capitalists which could only have positive results.

1. Opposition to Capitalism in all its economic, social and economic forms.

2. Opposition to dogmatism and sectarianism.

3. Opposition to polemical distortion in disagreements.

4. Opposition to disrespect, sarcasm, and intimidation.

5. A commitment to sharing information and understanding.

6. A refusal to allow theoretical differences to impede or prevent joint action.

For the 10 characterisitics of sectarianism see Sectarianism and the question of a General Strike.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2012)

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CRISIS! SO WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?

Posted on October 29, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Among the anti-capitalist left there has been much debate of what is an appropriate course of action in the present circumstances of developing capitalist crisis. A great deal of conflict exists together with considerable impatience. Discussions and debates among the ‘left’ are tending to orientate around assisting and initiating class or population wide actions, and this via competing forms of organisation. Such attempts are largely by either invigorating existing ones, such as trade-unions and political parties, (eg the Labour-Party in the UK) or initiating new ones such as Occupy and Syriza in Greece.

However, some of these initiatives stem from a mistaken view, that small groups, with the correct orientation and ideas can stimulate  significant and sustained actions, involving large numbers of people – before the vast majority of the population are ready to do so. In this case, such attempts are bound to fail. And of course, simply turning out in large numbers to demonstrate (as the cases of Greece and Spain indicate) or vote will be insufficient to solve this present structural crisis. A parallel problem is that promoters of these initiatives generally appear to have insufficient understand of the dynamics and evolution of protest, uprisings and revolutions.

In particular, a number of ‘left’ initiatives also suffer from an overly subjective and bourgeois view of history. They tend to exaggerate the importance of leadership and talented individuals as key motive forces of changes in economic, social and political affairs. Bourgeois historical methodology predominantly focuses upon the great figures in history – kings, statesmen, military leaders – and imagines it is these characters that galvanise, stimulate or create the development of important events and historic transformations. From this elevated individualist viewpoint, the ordinary people, the microscopic incremental social changes, the day to day processes of production, the moods of the population are inevitably held in the background whilst these figure-heads, reflecting hero worship (or aspirations in that direction) are posted in sharp focus and placed upon various historic pedestals.

This same phenomena is manifest within some sections of the anti-capitalist movement as former ’leaders’ (such as Lenin and Trotsky) are treated to the same bourgeois form of elevation to hero or guru status, while the real dramatis personnel – the workers and oppressed others – are absent or appear only in blurred grey streaks across the historical record. One of the rare personalities in the anti-capitalist movement, who did not follow (or aspire) to this tradition was Karl Marx. He rarely credited any individual – including himself – with any such pivotal position of importance. Although occasionally recognising some outstanding contributions by individuals, in all his researches, he concentrated upon classes, economic categories and historical processes, as being the real motors and engines of economic, social and political developments.

Accordingly, when informed of the contents of a planned workers congress in Zurich he responded critically in a letter. He considered its organisers had their ‘heads in the clouds‘, and were contemplating ‘phantom problems’ when he wrote the following;

“What should be done at any definite moment in the future, and done immediately, depends of course entirely on the given historical conditions in which one has to act…….The doctrinaire and inevitably fantastic anticipation of the programme of action for a revolution of the future only diverts one from the struggle of the present.” (Marx to Nieuwenhuis. February 1881.)

This letter contained useful advice which still has contemporary relevance. The letter clearly warns against adopting doctrinaire positions and ‘fantastic’ anticipations of programmes of action and revolution. It also suggests formulating proposals after giving serious thought to the given historical conditions. For revolutionary anti-capitalists, those conditions involved a realistic appraisal of the economic, social and political elements of contemporary life at the time, not one or other variety of wishful thinking or anticipation of an impending revolution. [see for example ‘Uprisings and Revolutions’] If we consider these historic conditions today we cannot avoid including the following.

A) A fundamental, structural and episodic, economic and financial crisis.

B) The complete abandonment of any serious anti-capitalist positions among all the major political parties in Europe and North America along with the modern trade union movements.

C) The spectre of Stalinist sectarianism and its post-capitalist form in the Soviet Union, China and elsewhere which continues to damage and inhibit the post-capitalist project.

D) A divisive and debilitating residue of Leninist and Trotskyist sectarianism and vanguard elitism within the revolutionary anti-capitalist tradition, which further distorts the anti-capitalist and post-capitalist viewpoint.

E) The almost virtual absence of any serious anti-capitalist economic theory among the vast majority of the population, including that proportion organised within the trade union movement.

For those anti-capitalists who accept that the above five aspects of the current historical conditions are of key importance, certain things should follow. If we also accept that the capitalist mode of production is one which is destructive of the welfare of large numbers of humanity and the planet’s ecological balance, then certain responsibilities also attend that understanding. The first task, I suggest, is that of widening the understanding of the fundamental nature of the current crisis. Without this understanding only varieties of Keynesian and neo-liberal policies are likely to be proposed and pursued. I suggest that this economic understanding is best guided by the forensic economic analysis of Karl Marx, in Das Capital and other of his associated documents.

A study of the history of the anti-capitalist movement suggests that Das Capital was not well understood even by various 19th and 20th century intellectuals within the anti-capitalist movement, let alone those workers who at the time could barely read or write. Given the neglect of Marx after the sectarian distortion of anti-capitalist theory and practice, an economic vacuum of radical criticism exists. It is not surprising therefore, that Keynesian and other bourgeois doctrines persist among the organised and unorganised working class for many workers today do not understand the real and fundamental nature of the capitalist system and its current crisis. All mainstream economic, financial and political observations and suggestions are therefore dealing primarily with the symptoms rather than causes and workers are left considering and pursuing solutions to the ‘appearances‘ presented to them by those among the elite, who oppose to their interests.

This in turn is leading to workers, workers organisations and suffering interest groups only making defensive proposals to deal with one or other symptoms of the crisis, rather than the cause. A degree of that misunderstanding is inevitable, but it is logical that that degree should be reduced where possible. Only a revolutionary anti-capitalist perspective can begin to counter this form of ideological confusion and to counter it – it needs to exist in larger numbers than at present.

Although a minutely detailed economic understanding of capital is not necessary for all those involved in anti-capitalist activity, the basic principles do require a wide level of understanding among all anti-capitalists. Dissemination of such a critical understanding of economic production under the capitalist mode, is being hampered by the fact of sectarian divisions among the left. It is further hampered by the impatience of those on the left who wish to leap over this step and prioritise the immediate building of defensive organisations. It need not be a case of either/or; but both.

For the history of revolutions demonstrates that masses do not move into large-scale protest movements until their situation becomes extremely desperate. Even then the general perspective of the masses for a definite period of time is one of challenging the existing economic and political system to change its direction, modify its programme and ameliorate their worsening situations. Whilst this period exists, revolutionary transformations do not automatically occur under the impetuous of even large-scale demonstrations, general strikes or even mass uprisings.

The latter, where they occur, are merely akin to the seismic trembling of the earths crust – which may or may not result in a large-scale volcanic eruption or serious tectonic plate shift. This noted initial trend of workers and others making demands upon the existing system has been repeated in the 21st century by the examples of Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia and Syria in the middle east and North Africa, along with Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal in Europe and to a lesser extent in the UK. Nowhere has this tendency been exhausted. The mis-labelling of middle-eastern uprisings and demands upon the existing system, as ‘revolutions’ indicates this confusion exist among the bourgeois as well as many left commentators.

The fact that the majority of the citizens are as yet only stirring into sectional activity and subject to at least some democratic illusions concerning the economic and political system they live under, makes it a mistake to focus predominantly or only upon agitation to organise large-scale sectional actions. When workers and others are ready, they will stir themselves and begin to act on mass. When they do so they will be better equipped for the struggle if they (or at least many among them) have absorbed an understanding of the economic essence of the capitalist mode of production and the need to champion and defend all oppressed sectors of society – not just their own!

To my mind the task of revolutionary anti-capitalists is to work alongside such workers and convince them by discussion and by the results of their defensive and reformist struggles that the capitalist system holds no future well-being for themselves, their neighbours, their offspring or the planet. That task of convincing others cannot be done unless those anti-capitalists are capable of understanding the system itself and of being able to work positively (in a non-sectarian fashion) alongside workers and non-workers.

Of course, part of that society-wide learning will be by their own direct experience, but another part should be played by being informed of the history of class struggle against capital along with the lessons learned. The responsibility for the dissemination of that history and the lessons learned during it lies at the moment with those anti-capitalists who are part of a non-sectarian, non-elitist milieu. It would be of considerable assistance to workers if a milieu developed who see their task, not as authoritarian leaders with the solutions already in their pockets, but as egalitarian facilitators of the self-activity of working people and the oppressed. In addition to the above need to understand and disseminate more fully the economic contradictions of the capitalist system, the further tasks of such individuals and groups I suggest should be;

2. To fully understand, explain and overcome in practice, the sectarian heritage of the anti-capitalist tradition.

3. To help facilitate, extend and develop an international, non-sectarian network of anti-capitalists and workers.

4. Where possible, to assist and support anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation and anti-ecological-destruction issues and campaigns.

5. To share with all those in anti-capitalist, anti-austerity,  anti-cuts, and other defensive struggles those above-noted understandings and critical re-appraisals to begin to positively reassert the humanist possibilities of a post-capitalist form of economic society which produces for need rather than greed.

That task has begun in a number of places around the world, but as yet it is sporadic and few in numbers. It would be useful over the coming months if a network of internet sites and contacts, could be created among those who share this or a similar perspective. In this way the pooling of knowledge and sharing good practice could be developed. If one already exists – all the better – please let me know! It is to be hoped that others will soon join in and assist in creating a critical-mass which will in various ways be able to make an effective contribution to clarifying the struggle against the champions of capital and resurrect the struggle for a post-capitalist society. One which fully understands how to avoid replicating the disasters of previous attempts.

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2012)

Additional points to those above are made in ‘The Revolutionary Party; Help or Hindrance‘; ‘Marxists against Marx’; and ‘The Five-fold Crisis of Capitalism‘.

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SNAKE-OIL REMEDIES FOR CAPITALISM.

Posted on October 18, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Quack doctors selling snake-oil and other supposedly effective remedies were popularised in US Cowboy adventures on the silver screen when I was a youngster. They rolled into town and offered bottles of the stuff to naïve citizens claiming it had qualities which would cure any ill that the human condition might suffer. Now we have a similar situation with regard to so-called contemporary ‘experts’ in curing the economic woes of capitalism. Each expert has his or her own brand of economic snake-oil and show up on our TV screens offering remedies that they insist are sure to be part of the cure for the sick system of capitalism. Some of these prescriptions have been covered in previous articles, particularly ‘Q3: Bailouts and Banks; and ‘Bonds and Bubbles’. This article will outline some more of them touted in the media as means of solving the ‘five-fold crisis. It will hopefully become clear from analysing them that the system cannot be saved by reforming various aspects of it.

1. Saving Capitalism by boosting spending.

As a way of trying to create economic growth, there have been a few suggestions recently by so-called economic experts that the government should not just print more money and give it to the banks, but give every adult a few hundred pounds to spend. The suggestion includes conditions which should be placed upon it; to be spent on sensible commodity items and within a set period of time – for example one or two months. The idea is that people will spend the money, shops will take on more staff, sell their stocks and re-order from manufacturers who will take on more staff and increase production. Whilst it ‘appears’ on the surface to make sense and have its attractions, economically it is a nonsense proposal for the following reasons.

Let us assume, for example, that the UK government gives out £200 to 40 million adults (a total handout of £8 billion) with the above conditions stipulated. In the first months shops are busy, take on temporary staff, have a bonanza and order more goods. The manufacturers, increase production, through overtime and/or temporary staff. Are new factories going to be built? No! Are high levels of permanent jobs going to appear? No! After the months are over, trade drops back at least to previous levels, shops order less, manufacturers cut-back production again. Temporary staff are laid off and the situation is back to its previous condition.

Or is it? Of course not – for at least 3 reasons! 1. Forty million people do not have to buy the things they have just purchased. 2. Retails capitalists have gained a share of the £8 billion. 3.Manufacturing capitalists have got a share. 4. The government is now £8 billion (minus the VAT they get back) further in debt. And so in the months after, the economic level may go further down than before and the government must raise taxes or cut expenditure. And all the above is assuming the very best scenario, for it is by no means certain that all the retail shops will increase the orders from UK based manufacturers. It is more likely the case that they will find ways to purchase cheaper supplies from the global market.

It only sounds a good idea if you don’t stop to think about it, but now more than ever we need to stop to think about things the elite are suggesting. This is not to suggest that giving people some of the money back which the capitalists and government have previously extracted from their labour, is not a good thing in itself, but it is not a cure (or even a partial cure) for the massive contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. And of course as a policy objective it would act as a distraction. A similar process would occur with any country which adopted such a suggestion and that is exactly why it is unlikely to be adopted anywhere.

Another allied scheme for saving the system by boosting spending, is the idea of payment of a ‘living-wage’. The idea that a certain level of wage is necessary to live and that the government-set minimum-wage is insufficient, pre-supposes wage-slavery and the continuation of capitalism. Of course a higher-wage, whilst the system persists is something to campaign for, but the idea of certain local authorities and private companies paying a ‘living-wage’, on a voluntary basis, leaves out of consideration those who are not so employed and those who are unemployed. Since under austerity, the former are getting less numerous and the latter more so, this will do nothing to seriously stimulate the economic activities of a country or region. Nor will it solve the problem of a satisfactory existence for the bulk of society – those who will not get a ‘living-wage‘.

For the sake of brevity, this is an extract from a longer analysis of six ‘remedies’ suggested by various schools of political and economic thought. The other snake-oil remedies are as follows.

2. Saving Capitalism by increased taxation.

3. Saving Capitalism by more/better regulation.

4. Saving Capitalism by increasing competitiveness.

5. Saving Capitalism by economic growth.

6. Saving Capitalism by further privatisations.

The full article discussing the five above suggestions appears with the title ‘Snake-oil for Capitalism’ in the black strip below the picture banner at the head of this page, or by clicking on the following link.

https://criticalmassdotnet.wordpress.com/snake-oil-remedies-for-capitalism

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2012.0

 

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BONDS AND BUBBLES.

Posted on October 5, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Bonds.

Bonds are pieces of paper which are offered to the financial sector for investment purposes by two types of institution. First is the private company who, if they cannot or do not want to raise money in any other way, offer a paper promise (the bond). The promise is to return a certain amount (the bond value) at a future date in return for some cash. In order for bonds to be bought, there must be large quantities of liquidity within the overall financial sector otherwise there would be no point in offering one to the bond-market. This cash the bond issuers can use in two ways. They can use it (as with any spare internal revenue they have on their books), to develop production or they can use it to speculate. In the case of government bonds (sovereign bonds) it is generally used for revenue.

One element of the existing crisis arose because bonds were issued by firms in the past and the funds used to speculate. Many, if not most of those speculations, went sour during different phases of the crash. In other words many of those companies and financial institutions now still have high levels of debt. As argued in a previous post (Bailouts and Banks) those companies are hardly likely in the present circumstances to issue more bonds for either purpose. On the other hand most of those companies which did not speculate and are still financially sound, are also unlikely to issue bonds for the reasons mentioned above. They are hanging on to their large positive balance sheet entries. A lack of present demand, and given a promised future of austerity, a probable lack of future demand, is highly unlikely to tempt these and other firms to increase production. But these are not the only source of bonds.

A second source of bonds are those issued by governments. These have been much in the media’s attention of late. The tax income of 20th and 21st century governments, from all sources, is insufficient to sustain their expenditures. The debt of governments has increased to such a level, that there is now a genuine possibility of a future series of sovereign debt defaults (ie a governmental failures to pay). For this reason, those who purchase them are insisting on the interest they effectively receive on these bonds, from governments deemed most likely to default, is high. In this way those governments most in debt, are getting even more in debt. Some governments are having to issue bonds just to pay the interest on previous and current bonds. Even the so-called strong Governments such as the USA, the UK and Germany, are heavily reliant on bond income for their survival.

An interesting fact about bonds is that those who purchase them in effect are giving very little money away. This is because in exchange for their money-capital, they are given a certificate (the bond) which can be – and is – traded and exchanged like any other asset or money. So in normal times buying a government bond for a capitalist or capitalist consortium is almost like doubling the quantity of money invested. It’s ’substance’ enables the bond to be sold and a second investment to be made with a asset value not much less than the first. All this without risking any further money. In this way at least two investment vehicles can be operating with the one advancement of finance-capital. Also because the government bonds are issued by the state and the ultimate payees of the bond are all the tax-payers, then every tax-payer, who cannot ‘dodge’ their tax is in debt to the bond-holders without ever having entered into that debt themselves. This is the bond-holders trump card, with pro-capitalist politicians in charge, sovereign bonds are financial instruments of mass destruction for communities.

This new twist has been designated as ‘collateral transformation’. One of the definitions of ‘transformation’ is ‘alter out of recognition’ which is apt in this case for this is exactly what is intended. Note here that this ‘transformation’ just continues previous business as usual and as before merely hides the flimsy nature of the paper-backed assets along with the considerable risk of default. At the same time it should be noted that these so-called ‘high-grade’ collateral assets which are to be ‘rented out’ in this way are nothing more than government bonds. Bonds, which we have seen are nothing more than paper promises to pay – issued by governments who have no possible way to repay them! How sensible is that? Guess who are already gearing up for this new ‘transformative’ trading? JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank! Does this list ring any bells? Clearly nothing has been learned from the previous crash and the feeble efforts to hinder this practice have already been crudely subverted.

So much for the USA. Meanwhile across the pond! In Europe a so-called solution has been contrived by the political and economic elite, whereby the European central bank (ECB) will buy up the bonds, or guarantee them, providing the sign up to certain conditions (conditionality). It is hoped by this measure that the bond-market will continue to lend to government at more reasonable interest rates. ECB conditionality effectively dictates central-bank policies to governments. It is an attempt to overthrow European democracy by financial dictatorship. The conditions which will be demanded of course will comprise of cut-backs in government expenditure and the selling off of state (peoples collective) assets. These cut-backs, as those elsewhere, will of course not solve the underlying problem. They will as they are implemented, cause the destruction of working peoples standards of living and in some cases their lives, and of course, fight-backs. But austerity programmes also have further economic effects.

Cut-backs in government spending will also take further demand out of the market and so undermine any government activity trying to stimulate growth. But also note here the overall surreal nature of this crazy circuit. The central government prints money, via its central bank (ECB in Europe) and gives it to the banks. The banks lend it to financial investors and institutions, who give it back to governments in exchange for government bonds. The governments then spend it on their salaries and favoured war projects etc., but of course they are supposed to pay the value of the bonds to the investors. Just in case they cannot, the central banks guarantee to buy the bonds back if the individual governments can’t honour them. Think about it! Central Banks representing governments are printing money, practically giving it away in order to get it back again via the financial sector and paying interest for the privilege. In the process making the bond-holders, their ilk and their brokers even richer.

If it weren’t for keeping their buddies among the financial elite happy, it would make more capitalist sense to just print money and give it directly to the investors and cut out the middle-men? The full stupidity of this solution to the sovereign debt crisis is revealed by the fact that at no stage does this any phase of this money-printing circuit involve stimulating fundamental economic activity. But of course printing shed-loads of money tokens and handing them out to the rich individuals and institutions will enable some things and stimulate others. It will enable members of the political class to get jobs in the City of London and Wall Street (the revolving door between governments posts and jobs in the finance sector.) and importantly the extra financial assets will stimulate more bubbles.

Bubbles.

The publicity around the toxic mortgage crisis of 2007 also revealed the tip of an iceberg of what are generally called ‘financial bubbles’. These bubbles are more frequent than is often assumed and they occur when large amounts of finance capital chase what is seen as sure thing, ’value-enhancing’ investments. In such cases, there is an expectation that the investment opportunity targeted will continue to rise in value and so more and more money chases assets tied to the target. This initially has all the symptoms of a self-fulfilling prophesy, for the sequence of purchases boost the price of the asset and therefore it seems indeed to be increasing in value by the ‘obvious’ fact of its increasing price.

However, price and value are not always the same thing. Indeed, they rarely are. Prices always fluctuate, for a variety of reasons, above or below the value of anything. In the case of bubbles the price is pushed up by chasing demand and is based upon hopes far more than reality. It continues until a point is reached when some investors, start to sell because they recognise this and fear a downward trend. This too becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. As more people sell, the price continues to drop and eventually a virtual downward stampede occurs and the price drops catastrophically. As it did in the dot-com bubble of the 1990’s and again in the more recent housing bubble. When bubbles burst, as they always do, some of the rich investors lose all or substantial amounts of their investments.

So if the previously noted further printing of money will not stimulate economic growth in general, it will almost certainly stimulate further bubbles. How can it not do otherwise? With huge dollops of money available at low interest are the speculators, now accustomed to big returns and the brokers used to huge fees, simply going to stop at home and watch TV? No! Sooner or later, they are going to search frantically for something or somewhere to ‘put’ their money for safety or enrichment. Just watch Bloomberg TV for an afternoon, to see the amount of effort being put into the search. But even looking for safety is a form of competition which has the potential to produce its own bubbles as it has partially done in the case of gold and other metals.

According to some economic statisticians, the dollar value of Gold has increased by 460% from $250 per ounce in 2000, to almost £2,000 dollars per oz, in 2012. Over the same 12 year period, silver has increased by 650%, Copper by 450%, Iron by 760%, zinc by 169%, nickel by 170% and Uranium by 370%. These calculated percentage rises, accurate or not, are not all to do with the costs of production increases, for in some cases costs have come down or stayed the same. One part of this rise is due to the depreciation of money as a measure of value, but another is due to this abundant money supply as finance-capital chasing the relative safe harbours of essential raw materials. These increases are not all certain bubbles, but they are the thick froth of speculation fermented by the invasive spores of finance-capital greed.

As noted, when the bubbles pop, the bubble chasers lose, but these are not the only casualties, because those at the bottom of the capitalist pyramid, are dependent, – whilst it exists – upon the capitalist mode of production. The bubble losses, cause further contractions and dislocations in the value and surplus-value creating circuit of capitalist production, which only employs labour for the purpose of creating surplus-value and thus profits. If credit shrinks, debt increases and profits fall drastically, as they do in a financial crisis, then practically everyone is effected. If this triggers a general crisis, then production is also additionally curtailed, with further knock-on losses of jobs and income. But not everyone suffers. Even in a downturn or crisis, some of the super-rich can and will get richer.

With the callous commitment to austerity throughout Europe and North America, the last remnants of shame and conscience among the rich and their colleagues in politics has finally disappeared. The imposition of measures to reduce welfare expenditure for the average citizen comes at the very moment when the rich are at their richest for generations and who have made a profession of avoiding their tax obligations. Having previously tightened their belts through the gradual austerity period leading up to the capitalist crisis, the workers existence is now being further depleted by a general collapse across most segments of economic activity. Crucially, the indebtedness and contraction of capitalist private industry is in now in sync with governmental indebtedness. The two interrelated debt inspired contractions are already making the crisis a general one and it will continue to deepen.

All the policies so far suggested or recommended are aimed at dealing with symptoms, for that reason they will be to no avail. The underlying cause of the symptoms lies in the fundamental circuit of the production and augmentation of industrial capital and the accumulation and capitalisation of surplus-value. Poor tax collection, a popular symptom targeted by some, is only a part of the problem. It merely exacerbates the fundamental problem caused by the nature of large-scale surplus-value extraction and its augmentation into industrial capital. Taxation is a deduction from the surplus value created annually by the efforts of workers as they engage with the means of production. All the policies promoted and activated by all the pro-capitalist political parties, whether Conservative, Republican, Liberal, Democratic, or bourgeois pretend-socialist are dealing with symptoms. With these policies, there is no escape from the eventuality of a general and long-lasting crisis as occurred between the 1840-50’s, the 1920-30’s and 2008-14?

Sooner or later the mass of the people will have to engage with transforming the capitalist system or the capitalist system will continue to engage in transforming their standards of living. It will do so to a level much below the ones obtained during the 1960’s to 1980’s and even the depressed ones currently in existence. Sooner or later people will have to engage with the ideas and practices of anti-capitalism with a human face or they will be presented with the inhuman face of capitalist promoted nationalism, racism and neo-fascism. To paraphrase Marx; ’It is not enough that theory seeks people, people need to seek theory‘. It is not enough for educated people to use that education to intelligently moan or intellectually criticise the struggle of others. If they do not become part of the solution, they may become part of the problem. Or alternatively find themselves on the sidelines whilst the economic crisis is transformed into a political and social one. And it will be a crisis capable of ripping what is left of the heart out of even more defenceless communities

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2012.)

 

 

 

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Q3: BAILOUTS AND BANKS.

Posted on September 27, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Bailouts.

The recent announcement of Q3 (further Quantitive Easing), by Ben Bernanke of the US Federal Reserve, indicated that at least his part of the US establishment saw the solution in the same way. They think sorting out the current crisis can be achieved by printing more paper money and distributing it via various financial institutions. This announcement in the US came only weeks after a similar statement had been made in Europe by Mario Draghi. Both, in slightly different words, are prepared to ‘do as much as it takes’ in this direction.

Measures such as these are being collectively proposed and implemented because the top political and financial players do not fully understand their system and therefore have no other solution but to deal with appearances. Such is their ignorance of the basic structure of the capitalist mode of production, that they mistake appearances for the underlying reality. It ‘appears’ to them that the problem on the one hand is lack of ’animal spirits’ among investors (according to Mervyn King Governor of the Bank of England) and on the other hand (various pundits) insufficient demand. For this reason it also ‘appears’ to them that the solution is to print more money so as to increase demand. But extra money can only increase demand if it gets into consumers hands and if access to this is via interest-bearing loans then given the current economic crisis, very few consumers want extra loans.

In reality, beneath the appearances, the present situation of low economic activity, is the result of a previous situation in which a general level of insolvency emerged as the main problem, following the collapse of a housing bubble. Financial institutions and businesses, were caught out holding too much debt and when the sub-prime housing debacle finally burst in 2007, a long chain of due payments could not be made. A further knock-on effect of this collapse was the chain of banking failures and near failures in 2008 which in turn saw these institutions being bailed-out by various governments. In the USA much of this was done under Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In the UK the Long term Refinancing Operation (LTRO). For example; in just one case only, the US government bailed out American International Group to the tune of $182.3 billion.

Now it should be obvious that too much debt is only the other side of the balance sheet to too much lending. No one can borrow (ie acquire debt) without some body else lending (or extending credit) the amounts borrowed. A crisis of high levels of debt is therefore the result (the other side of the coin so to speak) of previous high levels of lending. And, of course, no one could have lent for the eventual risky purposes if there was not plenty of spare money looking for an investment opportunity. In this regard, there are still trillions of £’s, $’s and euros of outstanding loans – so why would these debtors want to borrow more and take on more debt?

High levels of lending, borrowing and debt indicate that the underlying problem was not at all caused by a lack of liquidity. There had been so much money (liquidity in all its forms) swilling around the financial institutions in the lead-up to the crisis, that after all the ‘safe’ investment opportunities had been taken up, much of the surplus spilled over into dodgy forms of speculation. To soak up this vast pool of finance capital, special financial instruments were concocted out of every possible association with value, (Derivatives) no matter how limited or how far removed it was from its originating asset source. Then these instruments were leveraged scores of times over, creating vast amounts of fictitious capital. All of which was swilling around and among the savings, loans, insurance and pension schemes who became caught up in them. Immediately after the solvency crisis, these various institutions, the ones too big to fail, were bailed out by writing off debt, re-scheduling it and printing even more money. The others went to the wall.

But banks and manufacturers were not the only institutions who were continuing business by spending more than the income they received. Capitalist state institutions were also following a similar financial model to some of the participants active in the financial markets. They too were borrowing large amounts of money on the promise to pay it back in the future. This is exactly what financial speculators do only there is an essential difference in how these borrowings are used. Speculators bet on the future value of financial instruments in the hope that they will be either worth more or less than their current value. If they get it right, they repay the loan and pocket any surplus. If wrong, they lose all or a part of their bet.

Government agencies rarely speculate in this fashion, but they do continually borrow large amounts which they are not able to fully repay and must raise taxes in order to meet the repayments as they become due. A majority of western governments are now so much in debt that if they were a business they would be declared bankrupt and those in charge not allowed to run anything in the future. However, capitalist governments and their elites, are able to avoid such outcomes and by their control of government, raise taxes, print more money and hope in this way to reduce their borrowing. In the European Common Market, they can also agree to bail-out each others government by again printing money and guaranteeing government bonds.

But as should be obvious in all sectors, liquidity is not the answer to insolvency. If the extra money does not get to all those in debt then many will continue to be in debt and thus be insolvent or potentially insolvent. Nor is printing money the answer to economic recovery. If the extra cash does not get taken up by the manufacturing sector, – under capitalism, the drivers of economic production, – then there can be no more value created to enter into the supply or demand parts of the capitalist economy. Equally obvious is the fact that extra printed money will not be taken up by capitalist manufacturing capacity, if they do not see the market will sooner rather than later, be able to absorb their extra production. But will the new money stay in the banks?

Banks.

The extra printed money, noted above, will be delivered by the government managed central banks to the banking sector at a very low interest rate. The banks, at least for the short term, will be even more reluctant to lend it for economic production, or financial speculation. This reluctance will be motivated by the toxic nature of the financial instruments available and the rise in unemployment and the fall off in demand. Similarly those businesses, dependent upon buoyant demand will be reluctant to increase production using borrowed funds. Even those businesses who have good current balances and don’t need to borrow will be reluctant, under austerity to increase production and may reduce productive capacity, rather than increase it.

The finance capital sector are perhaps the main ones most likely to take advantage of the cheap cash made available by quantitative easing, but their use of it will not necessarily create economic growth, since the markets they frequent feed off surplus value created in the productive realms of the capitalist system. Their investments are more likely to continue to be bets on the paper increases and decreases (shorting) in financial instruments, bets on share prices, currency exchange differences and on future prices of commodities. It is what they have done in the past and are doing in the present. The likelihood is they will continue to do so in the future.

The printing of money and pumping it into the banks is based upon a mistaken view that the crisis is one of insufficient demand rather than the results of a crisis of relative over-production of commodities, fixed capital and surplus value. The banks have already been bailed out several times and huge tranches of money have been lent to them by central banks at close to zero interest. They have had plenty of liquidity in the past but this monetary priming did not result in any sustained economic activity. How could it? Nor will it in the immediate future. Money is only borrowed by the economic elite for two purposes. The first is to invest in financial instruments and the second is to invest directly or indirectly in businesses for development or expansion purposes. Investment for business expansion, however, will in general only be undertaken during buoyant market conditions.

Since there is no such buoyancy or sufficient general market demand this quantitive easing will not result in further investment in productive capacity, but the opposite. There is currently a scaling down of productive capacity in many places and in many countries. Where new production is instigated in certain niches it will add to the relative over-production in two ways. First it will create more competition in a shrinking market situation and second; new production facilities are generally more productive than previously levels. New production, in general, therefore uses relatively less labour than older forms of production. Less labour employed means less purchasing power via wages entering the markets, than has been displaced elsewhere, by closures as austerity measures are implemented.

As noted earlier, some of the new cheap money made available to banks may find its way into the financial sectors, but even here the financial market is depressed where it is not already in crisis. Finance capital is increasingly looking for safe places to preserve its existing value, and has largely given up searching for places to expand the existing value of their holdings. Some of the safe places will continue to be in staple raw materials, such as food-stuffs, metals, essential infrastructure projects, energy sources and delivery systems. The consequent frantic search for safe places in these categories is already forcing up the costs of basic requirements and thus taking more demand out of all other categories of commodity production. Since food, transport, light, heat and housing, however, cheaply they are reduced, are the first requirements of survival so the purchase of other items will be progressively given up.

The announcement of a new UK business bank by the Con/Lib coalition is a belated recognition that the existing banking system is not fulfilling the purpose of economic development. We can see from the above economic conditions why this is so. However, on a UK coalition wing and a prayer, £1 billion of UK tax-payer money plus an undisclosed amount of private capital is to be collected together in a new institution. The money however, in this case will not be given directly to the banks. Although it will take some time to become operational it is worth considering its proposed pattern for it reveals the sterile and counter-productive nature of the proposal. And of course, it will not increase productive economic activity.

The existing banks will be encouraged to lend money to businesses and these loans will be underwritten or purchased by the Business Bank, which will then package these into parcels (ie more derivative instruments) and sell them off to private investors. In other words the whole basis of leveraged derivatives will be pump-primed again, this time by direct Government initiative, rather than the private sector, malpractice. In other words it will be sucked up into the already over-bloated finance sector with all that that entails. Which will be another twist in a downward spiral. Of course, some of it will find its way into the bond-market and some will fuel further financial bubbles – both of which are the subject of the next posting in a weeks time.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2012)

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RELIGION AND VIOLENCE.

Posted on September 19, 2012 by stutteringsteps

In a previous article I argued that not all of the motives, behind the recent and past attacks upon western embassies and other economic, social or cultural artefacts, have sprung from religious sensibility to criticism. I have suggested [in the blog ‘Spring turns to Autumn’] that the hatred of the west in former colonised and imperially oppressed countries, has much to do with centuries of exploitation and oppression and the contemporary manifestations of this residual problem. However, there is undoubtedly a religious element which is used as focus and justification among some of the 20th and 21st century combatants. This religious justification reveals much about the intimate and fundamental connection between religion and violence.

It is well documented that religion and violence are not strangers, but are profound members of the same family of intolerance. The history of all religions catalogues frequent outbursts of violence. If we only consider the events documented from the European middle ages, we have vicious internal and external crusades by Christians and internal violence and counter violence by Muslim forces. We have the pre and post colonial periods in which European Catholics and Protestants having fought among themselves for at least thirty years, gun-boated themselves around the known world pillaging and confiscating in the name of ’saving’ lost souls for Jesus.

The USA, itself now the target for much Islamic anger, was itself formed by assertive and aggressive Christians, displacing and engaged in genocide against native peoples. African native people and religions were often forcibly captured, sold and suppressed by military forces accompanied by missionaries of considerable religious zeal. And even in modern times we had born again Christians in the guise of Tony Blair and George Bush Junior, leading another crusade against those they considered modern day ‘infidels’ in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Christian President Obama, regularly issues instructions (or sanctions them) to assassinate suspects, without any pretence of due process. A Mormon Christian, Mitt Romney, is running against him in the coming US presidential elections – would he be any different?.

So religion and killing in the name of God, (or blessed after the event by God’s representatives) still plays a considerable part in justifying, rationalising, promoting and perpetuating violence against the other. Let us not be hypocritical in the West – it does so not only in the East, but also here in Europe and North America. Considering the fact that most religions (including all those listed above) have some articles of faith which speak of love, peace, justice, equality etc., it is hard not to conclude that there are severe and irreconcilable contradictions in the concepts and beliefs of those who adhere to religion. These problems are further revealed in the contradictions in the concept of God – or however the higher power is conceived.

Contradictions in the concept of a higher power.

The concept of a higher power, however, conceptualised or personified, is a common historical recurrence amongst all peoples throughout the ages. Whether it is conceptualised as ‘spirits’ in Zoroastrianism, ‘Nirvana’ in Buddhism, ‘Dao’ in Taoism, ‘Brahman’ in Hinduism or personified in the form of ‘Yahweh‘, ‘God’ or ‘Allah‘ in the case of the Abrahamic religions, a higher, super-human power is a recurring idea. It is perhaps remarkable that all these ‘higher power’ forms are conceptualised as having not only the ultimate power of creation in general, but in particular are viewed as embodying all those characteristics that are beneficial and good – according to the finest human sensibilities.

This is incrementally true, for those religions who consider there is an emissary from, or someone ‘chosen’ who intercedes with this higher power. Thus Jesus, in Christian theology is the embodiment of all that is best in the human personality. Wisdom, justice, love, peace, the alleged qualities of Jesus, are all the best attributes of human beings but made consistent in Jesus, in contrast to their inconsistency in humanity. Essentially the same is true of Mohammad, for Muslims. He too embodies all that is just, humane, loving, respectful, supportive etc. This commonly held view among most religious people has led to the hypothesis, that it is human beings who have projected what is best in humanity onto the notion of a mystical entity who is imagined to be consistent in this regard, rather than this mystical entity creating inconsistent human beings.

On the surface, alternative explanations such as these appear as simple matters of opinion as to the origins of good, community spirit, love, justice, peace etc. The problem arises, however, from the following. In the name of this essentially benign, loving higher spirit or God, (by various names), many of the followers of religions (the Abrahamic ones in particular) feel they are justified in killing in the name of their God. Or alternatively in the name of his son or his prophet. This represents a massive contradiction in the notion of a benign and beneficial higher power. People imagine that ‘goodness’ is what their version of a ‘higher power’ wishes them to do and it is what they want themselves, but then many of them are prepared to do the most ‘bad’ things imaginable in promoting this religious view or in preventing criticism of it.

This phenomena is not only an individual psychosis, restricted to a few, but it is embedded in the collective scriptures of each Abrahamic religion. The pages of the Torah (Old Testament), the New Testament and the Qur’an contain numerous passages (scores of them in fact) advocating violence against non-believers, alternative believers and those who choose to think differently about what is required for humanity to get along peacefully. By not rejecting these violent scriptural verses in each religion and accepting the assertions they are promoted by the higher power, followers of these religions – even those of a peaceful disposition – provide those with violent temperaments a convenient scriptural  justification for their violence.

This textual justification, along with self-interest, is perhaps why some – or even many – religious believers stay quiet about, or look the other way, when atrocities are carried out by the members of their own denominations. Is it not the case that many professed Christians do not protest against, or look the other way, in face of the West’s initiated wars of invasion and killing in the middle east and elsewhere? Is it also not the case that many peaceful Muslims stay quiet or look the other way at the killing and atrocities carried out by their own religious brethren?

Further. Is it not the case that many Zionist Jews are justifying their brutal treatment of Palestinians since 1948 by reference to the biblical promised land? Predictably, is it not also true that the Christian Zionists of the USA are the most vigorous advocates and supporters of this Israeli oppression? It would seem from these facts and those above that religion continues to be part of the problem for humanity, not part of the solution. For this reason among others, religions of all denominations need to be seriously criticised openly and frequently.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2012.)

 

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SPRING TURNS TO AUTUMN.

Posted on September 15, 2012 by stutteringsteps

Can it really be surprising that the Arab Spring has turned into an Anti-west Autumn? Are the recent violent attacks on US and European Embassies and their staff, along with assorted western commercial targets, really something that was provoked by a largely unseen film? Alternatively were these attacks merely events which only needed an opportunity to occur and an appropriate trigger? I suggest the latter. The recent overthrow of despotic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa has provided the opportunity, the internet publication of the recent anti-Islam film has provided the most recent trigger.

Anyone who has critically observed the West’s interventions, in the Middle East and elsewhere, over a number of years, will hardly be surprised, that the West‘s consistent violence will be reflected back upon them at any opportunity. The support for numerous puppet regimes, the funding of Israel‘s war against the Palestinian‘s, the illegal war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the indiscriminate bombing of Libya along with countless targeted (and mis-targeted) drone assassinations in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, has built up a massive reservoir of resentment in many lands.

During the Arab Spring this long-suppressed, smouldering anger and resentment was focussed upon the military-supplied regimes in the middle east. They were regimes who kept their citizens in check and supported the West’s negative economic, financial, political and military interventions throughout the region. The chosen ideological framework of the aggressive penetration by the west’s capitalist inspired economic interests has been by ideas of secular liberal democracy, but importantly, it’s economic and political interests are led by practicing Christians.

It can hardly be surprising that those who are strongly opposed to the West’s oppression and exploitation are also obliged to use the most appropriate ideological constructs that are available to them. What set of ideas are available to them? Since the historical betrayal of anti-capitalist ideas perpetrated by the Stalinists, it is not surprising that the ideological construct directed against the 20th and 21st century imperialist-style onslaught of the Christian-led capitalist West, now frequently orbits around the ideology of Islam.

For this reason the activist vanguard of those opposed to western intrusion and hegemony in the Middle East, North Africa, are often those most closely associated with Islam. But not always and not for ever. This Islamic leadership role, where it emerges, has been further gifted to the Islamists, by the aggressive, exploitative antics of the West along with its Imperial, racist heritage and its contemporary institutionalised development. A further twist endorsing this outcome has been an inconsistent and self-serving response by the pro-capitalist political elite to the phenomena of religion.

At one level in the West, there has been an accommodation to patriarchal religious ideology (particularly with regard to questions of female subordination) where this has furthered the elite’s economic and political interests. At another level there has been a surreptitious and proxy attack upon foreign labour disguised as a form of intolerance to their religious or cultural norms. This accommodation to patriarchal religious governance, has served to strengthen the status of religious activist leaders and by the same measure weakened the alternative status of secular activists among these communities.

It is also predictable, that the American political and economic elite will be in complete denial concerning the fundamental opposition to the West’s foreign polices. Accordingly, they have fixed the blame upon the publication of the film and will continue to do so. Their focus in negotiating any future outcomes will therefore be on the religious issue and in this way will play into the hands of religious extremists. However, it should be understood that the anger and violent opposition to the west within many Arab countries, is not entirely about religion, even if for some Islamists this is completely the case.

A great deal of the opposition, is to the economic and social conditions resulting from the hegemony of western militarised Capitalism. The original catalyst for Arab Spring Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, was the poverty, unemployment and lack of political freedoms delivered by the West‘s puppet regimes. Despite any collusion with the West’s elite’s, these economic and social issues are of such magnitude that the Islamist leaders and other religious elites cannot solve them. At root, they are essentially the same issues which the pro-capitalists of the West also cannot solve. The class tensions, partly masked in the east by religious ideology, will sooner or later re-emerge as they are doing here in the west with the increasing breakdown and unmasking of consensus politics.

The various Middle East uprisings and now anti-West retaliation, distressing and confusing as they are, are also indicators that epoch of the West’s neo-liberal domination of the world is coming to an agonising end. The post-Second-World-War, Anglo-Saxon empire is gradually crumbling at the edges. Like the earlier decline and fall of the Roman Empire and that of the later British Empire, this unfolding fragmentation and dislocation is taking place at its periphery and will continue to do so for a further period.

Meanwhile, at the core of the West’s inter-connected heartlands lies a massive economic and financial crisis, which is also causing similar problems of unemployment, poverty and social unrest to those in the East. This same crisis is simultaneously undermining the economic strength of the political and financial elite in the US and Europe. Already the elite in many European capitalist countries are faced with handing over effective economic and political sovereignty of their countries to the IMF and World Bank in exchange for financial bailouts. Irrespective of any potential radical political changes in the US and Europe, this developing economic crisis will progressively limit the ability of the elite to impose their will upon those in former colonised and subjected countries.

Nevertheless, a further burst of militarised response interventions by the US and the West elites, is to be expected. Relatively low-cost drones will be part of this response, but all such responses will exacerbate their problems and increase the opposition to them in former subjugated countries. The capitalist West has just done far too much harm and continues to do so, for this to be forgotten or forgiven by the peoples of subjected nations. Only an alternative socio-economic system in the West, could invite peace and reconciliation with the rest of the world‘s ordinary people – including those in the now volatile East.

Until then, the anti-capitalist left position should of course be solidarity with struggles against the West’s interventions and impositions, but solidarity combined with a resolute critical dimension. It should be a critical dimension which refuses to accept (and campaigns against) cultural or religious traditions which oppress, women, disabled, gay and promote other forms of discrimination. If for many individuals, religion is still ‘the opium of the people‘, then we should argue and campaign for them to cease using this drug of choice, whilst campaigning for real changes in their circumstances which presently engender, or require, such an opiate.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2012.)

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WHAT TRIGGERED THE CRISIS?

Posted on September 10, 2012 by stutteringsteps

It is generally recognised that there is an ongoing economic crisis taking place within the 21st century capitalist system. However, its causes and what has triggered it – which are not necessarily the same – are the subject of considerable dispute. This dispute takes place not only within the pro-capitalist camp but also within the anti-capitalist ranks. The pro-capitalists, viewing as they do, the capitalist system as the most advanced and desirable system, rarely if ever delve below the ’appearances’ of the economic categories of their system. They try to make sense of it and suggest remedies based upon these surfaces appearances. From the standpoint of anti-capitalism, however, it is important to understand the underlying phenomena which gives rise to these appearances and recognise the complexity involved. The following is a contribution to such an understanding.

Belief in economic appearances are the economic equivalent of the everyday fact that from our various places upon the planet it ‘appears’ that the sun goes round the earth, when in fact it is the opposite. This fact did not prevent the vast majority of people ‘believing’ that this was so for thousands of years, despite it being challenged, particularly by Copernicus and later observers of celestial reality. In delving beneath appearances, Marx, did for economics, what these early mathematicians and observers had done for astronomical and other sciences. Marx formulated the general possibility of capitalist crisis as emanating from the separation in time and space between purchase and sale of commodities. This together with the pursuit of profit leading to relative over-production (producing more than could be sold at a profit) could compound the general possibility and turn a limited crisis into a general one.

During the 20th century such a period of relative over-production, was off-set to some degree by the extension of multiple forms of credit. Indeed, such an off-setting, extended credit factor itself, can create an over-production of credit along with the increased possibility of defaults. This occurred roughly during the period of 1970 – 2000. In many ways the relative over-production of commodities and thus the overproduction of productive capital was revealed in Europe when wine lakes, butter mountains and set aside agrarian policies were brought to popular notice. Such EEC measures where not taken because all these commodities and future land-produced commodities, could be sold on the open market at their value and the capital invested realised, but the opposite. They were purchased and stockpiled (or dumped) because the capital (and thus surplus labour) locked up in them, could not be realised without government intervention, utilising borrowing and tax revenue to purchase them.

At this point it should be obvious, as in other walks of life, that due to complexity, the immediate trigger releasing an acute crisis may not always occur at the point were the crisis is maturing, but at a weaker connected juncture. And the system of capitalist production has many such junctures. The circulation process of capital, requires many intermediate stages between initial purchase of raw materials, means of production, the production, distribution and sale of the finished commodities. Between each of these numerous phases, money or credit or a combination of the two, must link all the elements of production and circulation.

What is true of each particular industrial or commercial factory, is also true at a national and international level. The whole system of modern capitalism requires a complex international interconnection and continuous reliable production, transportation and consumption process. A significant or substantial breakdown in any one of the linked but separate stages or between stages can trigger or be triggered by a particular crisis and in certain circumstances – subsequently develop into a general crisis. The following are just a number of the more probable locations for such possibilities of crisis emerging and re-emerging.

1. Significant quantities of commodities remaining unsold.

Relative over-production. This could occur for any number of reasons – saturation of the market, downturns in consumer spending, collapses in currency – but any such significant relative over-production of commodities, would result in the failure of money capital to return to the producer. Depending upon the financial reserves held by the producer (or availability of sufficient credit) this could in turn lead to failure to pay for further materials or labour, leading to cancellation of orders and sacking of workers. Any such failure in one place could pass down the line of suppliers and producers causing multiple failures there also.

2. Non-fulfilment of payments.

Defaults. This could occur for the above noted reasons, but also because of swindles, thefts, speculative purchases, miscalculations, a down-grading or lack of credit, increased costs of credit, a rise in the costs of materials or labour etc. Again any such significant occurrence in one company or industry could have a knock-on effect on others along the full length of the chain of supply, distribution and consumption. Each one relying, sooner or later, on receiving payments in order to pay their creditors.

3. Unavailability of credit.

Credit squeeze. The complexity and diversity of the modern system of capitalism requires an extensive credit system. Credit avoids, any interruptions in the process of production and consumption, caused by delays in the realisation of surplus value or an insufficient supply of interest bearing capital. Credit itself could dry up or be refused, not because of any problems with production or distribution of commodities, but because of problems or changes occurring in the credit granting institutions. Crises in this realm of capitalism can react upon the essential production processes and cause a crisis. Because any such refusal in one place could have a domino effect on the payments and transactions of industrial or commercial businesses.

4. Speculative bubbles and collapses.

Leveraged and fictitious capital. An extensive credit system and the supply of surplus value in the form of interest bearing capital, leads to the creation of ‘leverage’ and fictitious capital. Speculative surges of money capital seeking interest on its investments in favourable avenues, can create bubbles of activity in one sphere of activity, leading to shortages of money capital available for general productive activity. Such bubbles can accelerate the creation of fictitious capital (paper ‘financial instruments’ and after distorting the cost of credit and the replenishment of productive capital, the bubble can suddenly burst. A bursting bubble, as was seen by the housing sub-prime bubble which collapsed in the USA in 2008, leads to a contraction and dislocation of credit and banking solvency. This in turn can lead to a crisis elsewhere in the system.

5. Interrupted material supplies.

Exhausted resources. It is obvious that supplies of materials can be interrupted for any number of reasons, including being triggered by any of the above four reasons and those to follow. However, materials supply can be interrupted by circumstances outside of the production or circulation processes, such as wars, disasters, and increasingly exhausted primary sources (mines, forests, wells, seas etc.). Also an interruption could occur due to reduction in the quality of materials. Such interruptions can trigger a production crisis in which commodities can no longer be produced or produced in the same qualities, quantities or at the same price. For example a crisis in the supply in the pivotal energy producing material of crude oil or refined petrol would cause a general crisis of production in all spheres of life.

6. Labour withdrawal or insufficiencies. 

Strikes or occupations. Since labour is an essential requirement for all kinds of production, an insufficiency of labour, for any reason, can cause an interruption to production even if all the other factors needed for production are available and in the places were they are required. Labour is the necessary ‘active’ value-increasing ingredient in production as all other values are consumed by the activity of labour during production and become embedded or embodied in the final product. Labour-withdrawals in the form of strikes, sit-ins and work-to-rules, interrupt the production processes and delay the circulation of capital as well as possibly cause the deterioration of other elements of production. Industry-wide strikes can cause a series of crises, which ripple outward. A general strike is more likely to occur as the result of a general crisis, but it to can accentuate such a crisis.

7. Transportation interruptions or failures. 

Infrastructure collapse or denial. Since the circuit of productive capital requires completion between the initial investment for purchase of means of production, the production process itself, and the subsequent marketing and sale of the final products, transport becomes vital. With the development of global economic interactions there are numerous parts to the transport of; raw materials, means of production, and delivery to markets. Any serious or long-lasting interruptions to these phases of transport can cause a crisis within a factory, an industry or even in certain circumstances an entire country. Indeed, in the Second World War one of the major means employed by both sides to bring an industry or country to its knees, was to deny each other the means of transport of essential supplies of consumer goods, raw material goods and means of production.

8. Government economic contractions or failures.

Sovereign debt. The state, under the system of capital, is a multiple tool for the capitalist and pro-capitalist elites. It is the Swiss Army Knife of social control and support for the capitalist system in general. The state is used for producing things considered necessary or desirable, but are not immediately profitable for the individual or collective forms of capital. In some periods it is also used for producing things for which the combined investment of private capital is insufficient – a modern Army, Navy and Air force, for example. Governmental purchases are often the way certain capitalist concerns are guaranteed high returns on invested capital.

Many modern governments have also become insurers and assurors of welfare benefits, employing large numbers of workers, whose wages and salaries purchase commodities and services. Additionally, the state is also the instrument for holding down the population, should large numbers or a majority of the population want to challenge the existing mode of production or instigate changes detrimental to the rule of capital. Government failures in any of these aspects, particularly in the early 21st century, those attached to the honouring of interest payments and capital repayments obtained from the international bond-markets, can cause repercussions and crises within the system as a whole.

All these eight broad categories and their own numerous internal possibilities of disconnection, interruption or failure can trigger a crisis or series of crises. These in turn can create an actual domino effect on other elements which are separated in time and space, but are necessary parts of the ‘unity’ of the whole mode of production based upon the circulation and augmentation of capital. Due to the complexity this interdependence; “Effects in their turn become causes.” as Marx pointed out in Capital Volume 1.

For this reason, under certain circumstances, a particular crisis or a sequence of particular crises can trigger a general crisis. It may not always be clear which caused which. However, it is clear that the bursting of the speculative housing bubble in the US and elsewhere, triggered a crisis of credit in the banking system in 2008. This in turn reacted upon the production processes within capitalist industry and commerce. It is also clear that building up over a number of years, a sovereign debt crisis was brewing and this surfaced in 2011 and 2012.

It is clear that crises have occurred and are occurring in all but three of the above aspects of the capitalist mode of production. Only 5 (interrupted material supplies), 6, (insufficient labour) and transportation (infrastructure problems) have been devoid of serious problems so far. Crises in the areas of relative over-production (1), speculation (4) and sovereign debt (8) are still unresolved and Defaults (2) as well as Credit squeeze (3) are as yet only partly resolved. All this means that the probabilities of any further serious problems in any of these areas will possibly trigger a full-blown general crisis, such as last occurred in 1920 – 1930‘s. Of course there can be no absolute certainty of any such general collapse, but should one occur it is highly probable that it will be triggered by a further serious dislocation or dislocations in one (or more) of the above areas.

In advance of this, however, is the question of the response of the 99% to the measures currently being implemented by the elite in an attempt to save the system from itself. Clearly a sustained general strike in any country, will cause serious disruptions to production and reproduction in the economic cycle and will undoubtedly introduce a political dimension into the economic, financial and social upheavals. Any such developments will face those engaged in a struggle to maintain decent living standards, with the choice of going beyond capitalism or resigning themselves to the fate dished out to them. Revolutionary anti-capitalists, it goes without saying will continue to argue to go beyond. To what, remains a separate question and is considered in other articles. [See for example; ’The Riddle of History Solved’; ‘Capital and Crisis’ and ’Marxists against Marx’]

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2012)

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