THE FIVE-FOLD CRISIS OF CAPITALISM.

Posted on July 23, 2012 by stutteringsteps

It should be obvious to anyone not completely in denial, that 21st century capitalism is currently mired in the most severe problems for over 80 years. This particular crisis is quite evidently a multiple one. It comprises of economic, financial, social, ecological and moral elements – each of substantial magnitude. It is the co-incidence of these fundamental parts of the current crisis of capitalism, which gives it its particular significance. If this current set of intractable problems does not exactly herald the actual death agony of the capitalist mode of production, then it is certainly the case that the systems supporters are being forced to fight to the death for its continued existence.

Any one of the above noted elements would be sufficient to create a groundswell of opposition against the capitalist system. However, the correlation of all five aspects of this crisis, and the consequent depths to which they will drive it, should ensure the most profound and widespread questioning of the system of capitalism. The consequent development of a critical questioning attitude among different layers of society presents a substantial opportunity for the anti-capitalist movement to engage once more with a mass audience.  This engagement should take the form of a widespread dissemination of the five elements, which are briefly examined below.

1.    The economic crisis.

The economic aspect of the current crisis takes the form of an overproduction of commodities and an overproduction of capital invested in commodity production. The capitalist mode of production based as it is on the pursuit of profit, actively promotes ‘commodity fetishism’. It also routinely produces more commodities and services than can be sold at a profit. Each increase in technology, and in the number and diversity of capitalist enterprises employing masses of workers’, constantly re-creates this problem of relative overproduction. This process leads to stagnation, slumps and eventual crisis. ‘Growth’ is the underlying primary cause of the current economic, financial, social and ecological problems, not the solution to them.

A further associated feature leading up to the present economic crisis had been a general fall in the rate of industrial and commercial profit. This ‘fall’ resulted in many capitalist production facilities and investments being transferred from the advanced countries of Europe and North America, to those in the east and south. These regions were chosen because of their lower labour costs.  This fall in the rate of profit, due to competitive improvements in technology, is an integral product of the capitalist system and has re-occurred with predictable results. This pattern cannot be reversed or transcended without transcending the capitalist system itself.

The capital ‘outflows’ from the advanced countries led to three further symptoms related to current financial, economic and social problems. First it left unemployment behind as factories closed and workers were laid off, thus increasing the social costs of compensating for the loss of wages. Second and closely related, it reduced government revenue from direct and indirect taxes. Third, this reduced income increased government ‘borrowing’ and in this way placed the ordinary citizens of numerous countries into the grasping hands of the capitalist bond-market.

Simultaneously, the export of private capital to low-wage economies in Asia and South America, over the last several decades, resulted in a relative increase in both the rate of corporate profit and in the mass of profits available to the rich – primarily in the advanced capitalist countries. Since not all of this massive increase of profits was needed for re-investing in industry and commerce, a great deal of this surplus capital was siphoned off into the financial sector of the capitalist system. It was a deluge of surplus capital which kick-started and fuelled and current the financial crisis.

2.    The financial crisis.

a) Leverage and fictitious capital.
Recent events have demonstrated that the finance-capital market has expanded so rapidly and exponentially that it has become the tail that wags the dog so to speak. This sector comprises of banks, investment firms, brokers, accountants, specialist legal firms, other related businesses and trading venues such as Wall Street and the City of London. With more spare capital available than the industrial and commercial capitalists needed, its owners sought alternative sources of investment and it is these ‘financial’ institutions and firms that have provided the dubious channels and instruments to enable this to take place.  Not surprisingly, a recent government report (the Kay Review) was so appalled that it concluded that the City of London was ‘not fit for purpose’.

One of the ‘not fit for purpose’ sources of instability within the financial sector is the extent to which banks and other financial institutions, can extend credit many times beyond the amounts of assets they actually own. This difference between what they retain and what they lend, is called ‘leverage’. If a bank has 1 million ($, £, Euro’s) in currency deposits, for example, and it sets its leverage at 20, it can extend credit up to 20 million. It is obvious from this that if the depositors all wanted their money back, the bank would not be able to pay. This credit source, since it comprises only of ‘promises to pay’, amounts to a fictitious form of capital. And of course, credit lent out which does not get repaid, causes the chain of bank defaults we are now partly witnessing.

Banks are not the only issuers of fictitious capital and the leverage can go well beyond the supposed level of 20, with some banks leveraging up to 60 times. It is here that we should remember the financial crisis publicly emerging in 2008 and still continuing. It was then described in terms of ‘toxic loans’ and ‘credit defaults‘. We need only recall, the internet speculative ‘bubble’ of the late 20th century and the 21st century, collapse of the housing mortgage ’sub-prime’ mortgage packages in the USA, to see what an extended chain of liabilities and defaults can bring about. This is the inevitable outcome of the ‘vibrant’ financial sector supported and still promoted by politicians of left, right and centre, throughout the capitalist countries.

Because the financial system is an integral part of the capitalist system, this extension of leverage, credit and speculation effects not just the financial sectors, but all members of society. The most effected being the poor, the unemployed and the working classes. This is because, a breakdown at any link in the increasingly complex chain of leveraged credit circulation throws the whole essential economic process of production and exchange into chaos, confusion and crisis. Yet this is not the only problem bearing down on working people, because the financial sector is also the source of the now crushing levels of sovereign, or governmental debt.

b) Sovereign Debt.
As noted, a part of the finance capital market lends money and credit to governments and in this way, services government debt.  From very early on in their development capitalist governments have borrowed money by issuing government bonds and repaying them with their income from taxation and the other duties.  With the huge reductions in government revenue, due to reduced direct taxation from workers, firms and tax-dodgers, capitalist governments have increasingly relied upon massive borrowing from this source.  In the present circumstances of capitalist initiated structural change and crisis, this level of borrowing can no longer be repaid by future taxation. Under the present pro-capitalist regimes, governments and their citizens are now subject to the whims, needs and dictates of the bond-holders.

The transformation in the technical composition of industry and commerce (computer controlled automation etc.) and the consequent change social composition of working classes are both irreversible symptoms. The modern capitalist system of industrial and commercial production no longer needs as many paid workers as previous generations. As a consequence the capitalist states can no longer afford to support as many unemployed and public service workers as they have previously. Hence, the current and future efforts to reduce welfare expenditure and the numbers of governmental and public-sector employees. The logic of this entire process has now created a serious social crisis.

3.    The social crisis.

The modern technical developments of the capitalist mode of production have produced two substantial and contradictory changes to the economic and social structure of capitalist countries. The first change is in the proportion of money capital required to set up, or develop, the fixed means of production (factories, machinery etc.) and that paid to the flexible elements of production (employees).

a) The ratio of constant capital to variable capital.
As already noted, this aspect refers to the relationship between the means of production (constant capital) and the numbers of people employed in them (variable capital). The number of industrial, agricultural and commercial workers, required for a given amount of production has been massively reduced. This, in capitalist economic terms, has resulted in the creation of an increasing surplus labour capacity or in social terms – relative and permanent levels of unemployment. However, in the advanced capitalist countries, the development of jobs in the welfare state, was (for a time) able to absorb some displaced members of the working and salaried population and their offspring. The second change is to the proportion of workers producing surplus value to those workers providing services.

b) The ratio of productive labour to un-productive labour.
So the same development of industry and commerce which altered the ratio of fixed capital to variable, has resulted in a vast reduction in the number of working people required to maintain the basic levels of existence necessary for the average person. Hence, during the late 20th century, a reverse shift occurred in the numbers of workers employed in industry and commerce, compared with those employed in the public sector occupations such as, education, social services, health, local government and other public services. These 20th century developments, (along with the co-operative movement) in essence represent a shift away from the capitalist mode of production whilst remaining dominated by the capitalist mode. They are organisations producing for need, not greed, within the existing capitalist mode but with an alien controlling hierarchy which is parasitic upon them.

It is important to understand that under the capitalist system the surplus value produced by those who work in the production of goods and their related services is the source of the income required by other sectors of society.  Under the capitalist mode of production the income, in monetary terms, generated by the sale of these goods and services, provides the profits and the various taxes from which government employees wages and salaries are paid. It is not that occupations in the public services are unproductive in general, it is that they are not directly productive of surplus value, which the capitalist mode of production is based upon.

That is another development which the supporters of capitalism must now try to reverse. In order for the governments and the rich to hang onto the bulk of the surplus production, they must now ensure that even less goes to the ordinary citizen. Pursuit of this policy, dressed up as austerity, will radically ramp up the class struggle in each of the advanced capitalist countries, with similar repercussions within countries less advanced.

Another important change in the social structure of advanced capitalism concerns age. Life expectancy in the advanced capitalist countries has advanced well beyond the previous retirement age.  In the UK, for example, it is estimated that there are over 400,000 citizens over 90 and over 3 million over 60. These figures, replicated in other advanced capitalist countries, should be something to celebrate.  However, under capitalism they are a problem. This is because under capitalism the retirement age signals the onset of a period in which wage-labour ceases and along with it, a wage income from which to live.

Because of the relatively low levels of pay, and high levels of taxation, during their working life, many workers have had to rely upon the state for their retirement pensions. In this way, the extended 20th and 21st century development of capitalism has created a mass of employment-aged workers, who are no longer needed by capitalist industry and commerce, together with another mass of older workers who have retired. Under capitalism, both categories are now too ‘expensive’ to support, particularly when capitalist governments want to spend, spend, spend on sophisticated armament programmes. The capitalist system will need to discard many of the present, public service workers, unemployed and retired workers, unless the workers discard capitalism. The future really is as stark as that.

4.    The ecological crisis.

a) Pollution.
The manufacture of commodities generates by-products which in the vast majority of cases, are treated merely as waste.  In the majority of cases these waste products are not profitable and the safe disposal of them would require a deduction from the profits, so they are simply dumped at the nearest and/or least costly place. This leads to the ruthless extraction and exhaustion of raw materials provided by nature and to the negligent dumping of waste.  Many of these unwanted waste products of industry and agriculture are highly toxic.

It is reliably estimated that the existing process of production and transport now mixes into the air 15 million tons of soot and dust per year. In addition, two hundred hazardous chemicals are also regularly vented by industry into the atmosphere. Many of these chemical pollutants are cancer causing carcinogens, which permeate the air and wait to be sucked into our lungs with each breath.  According to the World Almanac of 2011, over 3 billion lb. of toxic chemicals are allowed to escape into the air each year in America. America is only one of many advanced industrialised countries of the world which daily add their respective contributions to this huge amount.

Water is another essential of life that is constantly and increasingly being polluted as a by-product of the capitalist system of production. It is not just the chemical rain which finishes up in rivers and the sea.  Many of the chemicals used in food production (pesticides herbicides and fertilisers) are drained from agricultural land by rain, and finish up in the rivers, groundwater, and the sea. There they join the billions of tons of crude oil which are regularly dumped into the sea and the billions of tons of solid waste from the kitchens and toilets of the worlds seaside towns and cities.

b) Ecological destruction.
The capitalist mode of production requires large consignments of raw materials, which are obtained as quickly and profitably as possible. Trees are sawn down for timber in large quantities irrespective of the short and long-term effect upon the environment such as species loss, soil erosion and depletion of the oxygen-generating nitrogen cycle. 170,00 square kilometres of forest and woodland is eliminated annually and 150,000 of arable land is lost to desertification. Minerals are extracted from the ground in the quickest and cheapest, often open-cast way, again irrespective of the detrimental effects upon the immediate and surrounding environment.

Land fill dumping, because it is cheapest in the short term, is also the preferred method for storing the hundreds upon hundreds of tons of nuclear waste products, some of which will take thousands of years to decay to a point at which they are no longer dangerous. Rising rivers, hurricanes and alternative droughts and heavy rainfall occurring at times when they are not normal, or in places where they do not normally occur, cause damage to villages, towns and cities by floods or fires.  Many low-lying human communities throughout the world are in real danger of repeated floods making their lives miserable and dangerous. There are currently a further 1,667 species endangered or threatened ranging from mammals through birds and reptiles, to fish, insects, conifers and ferns.

Forests are cleared to create short-lived profit-led capitalist plantations, which soon exhaust the land and where the soil, lacking the previous binding power of tree roots, is soon washed away. Soil erosion of 5 – 10 tonnes per year is taking place in Europe, Africa and Australia and to a larger extent elsewhere. Thousands upon thousands of small, and large, ecosystems are being destroyed annually and their wildlife robbed of their habitat and food sources as global capitalism searches every nook and cranny – even the deep sea trenches – to exploit the planet’s resources in order to turn in a quick profit. Capitalist production, based as it is on the profit motive, cannot end pollution and ecological destruction.  In a very real sense the planet cannot sustain a further epoch of capitalist industrial production and exploitation.

5. The moral crisis.

Any socio-economic system based upon exploitation has at least one foot in a moral quagmire. The system of capitalism, however, has both feet firmly planted in a veritable cess-pit of corruption and moral degeneration. The elite economic, political, military, state, medical and even religious actors in capitalist society are embroiled either indirectly or directly in the immorality stemming from the capitalist mode of production.  Here are just a few examples.
The financial elite actively assist the miss-selling of financial services, and are involved in extensive financial manipulation. As recent evidence regarding HSBC suggests, this extends to substantial money laundering. Politicians are directly and indirectly bribed by businesses and routinely fiddle their expenses. They, along with practically the whole of the well-paid capitalist elite, enter into tax avoidance schemes. Indeed, it has been estimated that the rich throughout the capitalist world have managed to hide up to 13 trillion dollars in offshore tax havens. In this way, even though they are the most exceptionally rewarded, they still try to avoid paying a significant share toward, the social welfare and infrastructure provisions from which they benefit.

The media, is another active supporter of the capitalist system and its elite will stoop to the lowest depths and commit the grossest distortions for profit or advantage. The Levison enquiry in the UK, has recently exposed, what many people already knew, that the owners and senior staff are part of the ‘establishment’ elite and in pursuit of profit, behave accordingly.  But also by biased reporting and distortion, they often hide malpractice and present a view of the world which is beneficial to them and detrimental to any serious criticism of, or opposition to, the system as a whole.

The police record on deaths in custody is appalling and the recent acquittal of a police officer who had previous form with regard to violence, is typical. This example is merely the most recent exposure of an institution with almost unlimited power combined with almost no respect for and accountability to, those (the public) who finance it with their tax payments. Even the elite members of the medical profession are not immune to improving their already comfortable earnings, by private fees from ‘vanity’ surgery such as ‘tucks’ and inserting unsafe breast implants. Worse still some in the UK, for example, make money from the genital mutilation (clitoral amputation) of very young girls. The rationale of respecting patriarchal ‘traditions’ in the latter case is a thin camouflage that displays no respect for a female’s rights to decisions effecting her own body.

The military carry out the most horrific crimes against humanity if ordered to do so by their political and military superiors. Killing on a large scale, without any pretence of due process, is now a routine procedure for the armed forces of the advanced countries of the world. The most recent blatant case concerns the interface between the USA political elite and the ‘military industrial complex’ which has developed a ‘drone’ assassination culture. The US president, without any substantial evidence or due process, can now order the assassination of anyone it suspects of activities against how he sees the ‘national’ interests.

The religious elite’s not only turn a blind eye to this form of killing but in some cases bless the military perpetrators and conduct services in their honour. For centuries, religious elite’s have been an ideological prop to whatever ruling elite was in power. This has not altered under the capitalist system and they remain firmly hand in hand with the elite’s of politics and the state. All three religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, also perpetuate a hierarchical and patriarchal form of ideology. It is a system of ideas which fits comfortably with capitalism, to the detriment of the poor and in particular women.

6. Resistance to the crisis.

Resistance to this five-fold crisis is as yet sporadic and varied, but it is continually growing. Those occupying the lower socio-economic positions, under the capitalist mode of production; workers, students, unemployed, disabled and working class pensioners are the ones suffering the most at the moment. However, those salaried workers employed in the public sector, nurses, teachers, social workers, local authority and central government workers are also facing immediate and future losses of income and job security. There is therefore the potential for a great deal of solidarity and some degree of unity.

The forms of organisation created under previous stages (and earlier economic cycles) of capitalism, are no longer capable of effective resistance to this multiple crisis. Trade unions are heavily bureaucratised, single-issue campaigns are being sidelined, political parties are elitist as well as being part of the problem. The need for across sector unity and solidarity has spawned new forms of non-hierarchical organisation such as ‘Occupy’, Uncut and others. New generations of activists do not share the illusions in politics that previous generations suffered from. There is growing awareness, internationally that politics is the problem, not the solution.

The large sustained demonstrations, which have featured so much in the Middle East and North African protests, are now close to being replicated in Europe. Already Greece and particularly Spain, both of whom are at the head of the capitalist inspired austerity queue, have witnessed numerous and growing numbers of citizens, demonstrating, protesting and demanding. So far the dominant protests everywhere are no more than polite requests or impolite demands to the economic and political elite to change or stop what they are doing. This ingrained deferential habit is something that will sooner or later have to change.

Placing demands on a pro-capitalist elite to curb capitalism, is unlikely to succeed and sooner or later working people will be faced with either having to accept the fate handed out to them or they will have to find more positive ways to fight back. Historically, placing demands upon any state has been to accept and adopt a subordinate posture. In the 21st century, to place them on states in such present dysfunctional conditions is also an act of complete folly.  Politics and the state are the problem, not the solution. Indeed, the state is already being used to suppress protest and will be used in future to prevent solutions emanating from the ordinary working class citizens.

For this reason, self-organisation, self-activity and community co-operation, are the only sustainable solutions for the future of humanity. These are the necessary organisation forms not only to defend communities, but to become the embryo for present and future economic and social formations. They are also the only forms that will enable people to break out of the deforming and destructive capitalist ‘mode’ of production, and introduce a mode of production based upon social need, rather than private greed.

Roy Ratcliffe. (July 2012.)

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ITS OFFICIAL! CAPITALISM IS BANKRUPT.

Posted on July 13, 2012 by stutteringsteps

The announcement this week (July 9 – 14th) that the state of California has filed for bankruptcy demonstrates one clear example of what should be increasingly obvious to everyone. It is that the system of capitalism is bankrupt. Every advanced capitalist country on the globe is technically bankrupt – it just hasn’t been fully recognised and declared everywhere yet.

Declaring bankruptcy makes sense. Filing for bankruptcy when income consistently falls below expenditure and loans are no longer rational or available, (ie the basic condition of all current nation states) is the obvious and logical solution under the economic logic of capitalism. Bankruptcy reduces, or eliminates entirely, the debts entered into by the directors of a company or in this case, the ‘officials’ of a state or country.

Of course it is not only outmoded or unrealistic enterprises that can become bankrupt. Even a basically sound relevant project can be ruined by corrupt or negligent owners or managers. It is also the case that if the basic economic structure of the business is sound a bankrupt project can be bought by others at a rock-bottom price and be back in business, immediately – or at least in a very short time.

That process already takes place on a regular, if somewhat erratic basis, in the world of business and commerce. Bankruptcies among businesses are increasing exponentially as the crisis develops. However, it rarely occurs in the realm of states and countries. California demonstrates, however, not only the possibility, but perhaps also the increasing probability of such an outcome. And from the standpoint of the working and oppressed classes, if properly handled, declaring a capitalist country bankrupt, and starting afresh is not an undesirable possibility.

The reason being that for states and countries, (unlike unrealistic or speculative profit-based businesses) the basic economic structure is always sound. The citizens of a state or country, even a sparsely populated one, are overwhelmingly productive in the economic and public service sectors of their respective communities. The only reason a state or country becomes so much in debt, that it faces bankruptcy and tries to saddle the citizens with this debt, is because those in charge (politicians and senior civil servants) have spent more than the income from the various taxes paid by the citizens.

In the absence of famines, wars or foreign occupations, states and countries are fundamentally always sound. Only under capitalism and the subsequent corruption and extravagance of the elites, groomed by the system, can states and countries be systematically ruined. It is the senior political, economic, military, state and private enterprise elite, not the ordinary people, who are the ones who have been bankrupting the various nation states of the capitalist world.

At least since 2008 it cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that corruption has occurred in Parliamentary politics (cash for questions, expense abuses, tax avoidance). The same period has witnessed senior (and lower) police corruption, newspaper phone hacking, military requisitioning malpractice, sub-prime mortgage miss-selling, interest rate manipulation and corruption in the private equity interface with government. Members of the board of the department of taxation, in the UK for example have been getting second jobs as tax-avoidance consultants. They are currently drawing salaries from our tax payments and drawing further salaries from the wealthy for helping them to avoid paying their share.

Corruption is everywhere. The recent revelations of GlaxoSmithKline the drugs company bribing Doctors to prescribe unsuitable drugs to children and Bankers (Libor) fixing are just the tip of an extensive iceberg of corruption, negligence, profiteering and incompetence which extends, not just through middle eastern elites, but also through those in Europe and the west.

Politicians claim they are running things for their populations benefit, but in fact are busily ruining states, countries and communities throughout the globe. The current austerity packages they insist are necessary, are only designed to postpone the inevitable – bankruptcy. Such measures will ruin people’s lives, the civil infrastructure and basic economic fundamentals necessary for life in modern society – all in a vain attempt to save they system they feed off.  That it if we let them.

Consider some basic facts. Over the past several decades, the levels of taxation levied on working people (the ones who can’t dodge paying taxes) has been of the following magnitude. Income tax is set at around an average of 20% of income. National Insurance is set around 12% and VAT is now currently at 20%. If we add the employers contribution to the national insurance contribution of workers, the rate of government income from this source is roughly 40%.

So, in the UK we have all contributed some 40% or so direct taxation from our wages and salaries and for many years similar substantial amounts. Also since the introduction of VAT we have paid VAT on practically everything else from what is left of our earnings after taxation. How can a country of millions not be sound on the basis of giving to its government up to half of everything its citizens have earned?

At one level the answer is simple. It shouldn’t! A state or country can only get in such an atrocious condition by consistent and persistent mismanagement over long periods of time. How that mismanagement operates through different political elites and state institutions is a complex question, but the bottom line is glaringly simple. The previous noted complexity goes for the political/managerial elites interface with the other forms of elite players in each country. Collectively they are what used to be called the ‘establishment’.

The main agreement between the economic and financial elite has been resulted in the following cosy ‘establishment’ relationship. The political and civil service elite interfere as little as possible (light or zero touch regulation/legislation) with the economic and financial elites activities. In return the economic and financial elite support the political class, by political donations, paid consultancies and future jobs.

The case of the light financial regulation which has resulted in the runaway speculation and the packaging of various spurious investment instruments (derivatives etc.) is just one of many examples which has now come to light. This particular one is part of the reason for the near bankruptcy of many countries as well as the bankruptcy of the state of California. The California state pension bill, for example, was increased from 300,000 dollars to 3.5 billion dollars, by the purchase of such unregulated financial instruments.

In yet another important area of life, the lack of political regulation of industry has also been largely responsibility for the increased incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes among the populations of Europe and the west. The campaign to eat healthy to improve the quality of life and lessen the strain on the health service in the UK and elsewhere, has been usurped by the combined effortsof the food industry.

This industry now packages and advertises supposedly healthy foods, which in fact are not. Instead of creating healthy foods, they have in the main kept the fat, salt, sugar and bulking content of foods high and added a sprinkling of vegetable matter, fruit or nuts. They then re-focussed their packaging and advertising on the added elements.

So under capitalist food production,  trying to eat ‘healthy’ means people can still get significantly overweight! The food industry in the EEC, for example, spent 1 billion Euro’s on campaigning against legislation on clearer packaging information.

As well as taking peoples, jobs, houses, reducing their pensions and benefits, the capitalist system is simultaneously reducing ordinary people’s health and longevity – all in the pursuit of profit. In this way capitalism shows itself as not only economically bankrupt it is also morally, not to mention ecologically bankrupt.

Finally, it is worth remembering, as California demonstrates, that it is possible to declare a state or a country bankrupt. By doing this it is possible to refuse to pay the onerous and odious debts incurred by the political management who incurred them. So when things get bad enough and a government representing the interests of the bulk of the population, rather than the 1%, finally comes to power, (in whatever capitalist country) then this option should be quickly implemented.

The next day, if not the day before, the speculative financial sector should be closed down and the previous politicians banned from holding office again. That way the main people who will suffer from this drastic action will be those who caused the problem in the first place.

The above actions would make a good starting point before removing economic activity from the control of the rich and placing it in the hands of those who operate its various sectors. This would also allow decisions on what and how things should be produced and serviced to be based on decisions other than profit for the few. Radically reducing the hours of work would allow those not employed to take their place in the economic and social activity of the population.

Before all that can happen however, ordinary people’s existence will have to get sufficiently arduous for enough of them to not want to (or be able to) continue in the same old way and to start to consider alternatives to the current system. Another world is possible, but not until the present one is overthrown. In the meantime, it is the defensive struggle which face most of us, but even in these we should be pointing out –

‘capitalism is bankrupt – but our communities remain sound!’

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2012.)

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BANKERS AND THEIR BUDDIES!

Posted on July 6, 2012 by stutteringsteps

The latest revelations concerning the deceitful manipulation of the inter-bank (Libor) interest rates and the miss-selling of onerous interest-hedging policies to small businesses, comes in the wake of a list of other dodgy practices by Barclays International Bank.

But aggressive tax avoidance, outrageous bonuses and unwarranted high salaries are not exclusive to the institutional ’culture’ of Barclays. It extends throughout the whole of the banking system and on into the financial institutions in the ’City of London’ and the spiders web of global financial Markets emanating from the joint Anglo-Saxon finance network of the City of London and Wall Street.

The junior partners of this network in Europe and the other financial districts of the global network of capitalism are also up to their elbows in similar graft. Currently over 20 other institutions are under investigation and even this high number represents only the tip of the total finance-capital malpractice ice-berg.

Much of the speculation and losses – yet to surface – are currently hidden below the murky waters of ‘off-books’ and ‘under the counter’ transactions, which are glossed over by their institutional accountants and publicity departments.

It is this murky world which is unlikely to be revealed by the current – and future – governmental sponsored enquiries into the banking and financial sector. For it is well known that politicians receive substantial campaign donations from their pals in the banking and financial sector. Most right-wing and other politicians in Europe, the UK and the US are akin to ’pimps’ of the economic and financial elites. It is perhaps a little exaggeration to say that any investigation by politicians into banking practices is the social equivalent of drug overlords being investigated by their street dealers. Hyperbole yes – but not too far off I suggest.

Politicians start the blame game.

So now that it has become impossible for the political and financial elite to deny that the entire economic, financial and political system – on a global scale – is rapidly unravelling, we are now witnessing the blame game in full swing. Blaming the victims – the average mortgage holders and credit card owners – has been tried and has largely failed. It is now the turn of a few so-called ‘rogue traders’ and senior managers to have the spotlight turned on them.

In the hope that the public will swallow the flimsy logic that a few greedy or careless individuals can bring the whole global financial system crashing about our ears, these scapegoats are now being sequentially identified. It is true a number of individuals have behaved recklessly and greedily but they could only do so as long as greed and recklessness in banking was possible and that there were (and are) sufficient incentives to fuel greed and take risks.

Even so this particular fact cannot explain the near total ‘collapse’ of the entire global economic and financial system. There are significant structural changes to capitalism that are being ignored. [See ‘Capital and Crisis’ above and ‘Workers and others in the 21st century‘ at Greater Manchester anti-capitalists blog]

Within political circles the blame game is being fought out on the terrain of who was in government during 2005 – 2008 – the earlier period of this intensifying crisis. Yet it is clear that governments – of all political persuasions – during that period and before, were complicit in allowing the situation to develop as it did. Of course, the real economic, financial problem lies in the capitalist mode of production which has a cycle of over-production – crisis – stagnation – before starting the whole cycle again.

However, the size and extent of the regular systemic crisis can be amplified by the actions of those in the financial and political elite. In the case of the current derivative-driven financial crisis the root cause can be traced to the de-regulation policies of the 1970’s under the dynamic duo of Margaret Thatcher (elected 1979) in the UK and Ronald Reagan (elected 1980) in the US.

Spurred on by right-wing intellectuals such as Friedrick Hayak, Milton Fiedman, Arthur Laffer in the US and Sir Keith Joseph in the UK, they introduced a neo-liberal programme of sustained de-regulation. This became the new mantra and de-regulation was continued by Bill Clinton’s administration in the US and the Blairite Labour politicians in the UK.

The Gramm-Leech-Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernisation Act) led the way in the US with similar de-regulation activities in the UK. In retrospect, the Commodities Futures Modernisation Act (CFMA) in the US and the Financial Services Act in the UK, can be viewed as further signposts along the path to speculation and eventual collapse. But this view was available not only in retrospect. Among many commentators, the alarm bells were already ringing at the time of such ‘innovations’.

The military-industrial system has a rotten heart.

In some rare critical words, the UK Financial Times editorial of June 29 (2012) said this whole episode exposes; “…the rotten heart of the financial system.” Indeed it does! The same editorial thought that such ‘confidence tricks’ were ‘damaging the reputation of capitalism‘. They neglected to add that ‘sovereign debt‘, illegal wars, ecological destruction, poverty and a host of other symptoms caused by capitalism were damaging its image. This outburst by the Financial Times explains the anger of one section of the capitalist class against another.

The capitalist class and their supporters are only against exploitation and deceitful dodgy practices, in two particular sets of circumstances. The first is if those practices effect their own parasitic share of the intense exploitation which is the basis of capitalism. The second instance is when the normally hidden dodgy practices come to light and embarrass them or as the Financial Times expresses it ‘damages the reputation’ of their system.

The US, UK and European elite are now deep into damage limitation mode. The capitalist and pro-capitalists are trying to pin the blame on a few scapegoats rather than the system itself. Another victim of the blame game is a lax system of oversight and regulation of the bankers.

Both targets avoid an examination and the questioning of the entire systemic nature of finance capital risk-taking and speculation. However, in one sense the ‘lax regulation’ unwittingly hints at the systemic nature of the crisis.. This is because blaming the regulators is a de-facto admission that the system is so corrupt that it needs regulation – and further strong regulation at that.

It should come as no surprise that this blame avoidance strategy and the symptom of being in denial is the preferred response of the pro-capitalist economic, political and intellectual elites, for they all benefit in one way or another from the existing system. So there will be much debate and discussion on how and in what manner to sacrifice these scapegoats and improve regulation in order to then carry on with business as usual.

It has moved on from wagging fingers and tut-tutting and now carefully controlled and staged ‘enquiries’ along with a few ‘retirements’ and dismissals are the new stop-gap responses. In the UK, criminal investigations are also creaking into low gear as a way of neutralising or appeasing public anger.

Taking responsibility.

Representing the conservative political elite in the UK, Cameron declared recently (June 25 – 29) that “people have to take responsibility for their actions“. Indeed, they should and effective punishment should follow that. But this statement, and other similar ones across the political spectrum, conveniently avoid the question of taking responsibility for one’s – inactions. If warnings are repeatedly given and ignored with damaging consequences, then a serious responsibility would fall on those in responsible positions who ignored the warnings.

The political and educated class, particularly the elite of all political parties, Labour, Conservative and Liberal in the UK, Democratic and Republican in the US have been given repeated warnings of the nature of the capitalist system and in particular the finance capital sector. Any sensible university economics course, which most of them will have taken at one time or another, will have covered Adam Smith, Ricardo and Karl Marx.

All of the above political economists warned of the cyclical nature, the structural crisis and fraudulent practices of the economic system driven by capital. Any political or economic course, designed for future ’leaders’ who chose to ignore the above three radical economists could have hardly avoided Keynes, the ‘moderate’ economist who stated;

“Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes the by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.“ (John Maynard Keynes. ‘The General Theory of Interest and Money’. Page 159.)

Of course they could have forgotten or ignored such pertinent observations by a pro-capitalist economist of the 1930’s who had seen first hand the results of the last great structural crisis after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. But then how can we explain why the warning given all through the 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000’s by high-profile people – and others – in the wake of the speculative collapses of American, Japanese and Irish Banks of those decades, was ignored?

Or how can the fact of ignoring even the more recent and numerous academic warnings in the wake of the Northern Rock, Lehman Bros and assorted other banks collapses in 2008 be explained? These were collapses in the system, which the political class chose to ’rescue’ after these banks had indulged in even more uncontrolled bouts of speculation. To be kind there can only be one conclusion – disaster myopia! More bluntly – it clearly benefited them for a time to turn a wilful blind eye.

The fact is the political class, along with the national and local state officials, the Bankers and the financial speculators are all culpable in one form or another. Predictably all will find some excuse to minimise the blame and place it elsewhere than where it really belongs. The Leveson enquiry in the UK recently demonstrated how the political class are never able to remember doing anything which might implicate them personally in any clearly indicated wrong-doing.

However, the rapidly accumulating record suggests that the International political class and the capitalist financial elite can only escape their own complicity and responsibility for the mess we are in, as long as the rest of us, by support, naivety or indifference, allow ourselves to be fobbed off and then distracted by one means or another.

Saving the system or changing it.

Meanwhile it should be obvious that any rational capitalist government in this crisis situation would fully nationalise the banks, refuse to honour the accumulated speculative debts, sack and prosecute all the senior staff, close down the ‘casino’ banking sector and bonus culture, which drives speculation and put the new ‘managers’ under strict regulatory control.

This will not happen in the short term however, since as the expenses scandal in the UK indicated, the pro-capitalist politicians are as corrupt and fraudulent as their ‘buddies’ in banking. However, some further forms of ‘nationalisation’ may yet have to be done as the bond-holders interests serve to deepen the crisis. If the ATM’s are eventually shut down and the banks close as they did in Argentina in 2000 to save the system from itself, this may prove a necessary stabilising step.

In contrast, any anti-capitalist inclined governmental power would have to go much further than this bourgeois solution and ‘socialise’ the banks, close down all speculative investment activities, place bank functions under the ‘direct’ control of ordinary bank staff and local customers with elected supervisory staff on ‘reasonable’ salaries. Only such a course of action, along with other revolutionary transformations, such as rejecting the ‘odious debts‘, taking production out of the control of private capital and taking democracy out of the hands of a professional elite, would create a serious improvement for humanity on the existing lying, cheating, ecology-destroying capitalist ‘rip-off’ system.

Roy Ratcliffe. (July 2012)

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MARX AND ‘THE MUCK OF AGES’

Posted on July 3, 2012 by stutteringsteps

This article is another in the series which is aimed a encouraging modern anti-capitalists to engage with the authentic revolutionary-humanist understandings of Karl Marx. Simply accepting the abstractions and assertions of the numerous varieties of so-called ’Marxists‘ at their face value, will not provide a reliable guide, to either the tradition initiated by Marx, nor to a correct anti-capitalist orientation in the coming class struggles. [For further remarks on the discrepancy between Marxism and Marx, see ‘Marxism versus Marx’ or by clicking on that title on the above black banner.]

The ‘muck of ages’ in the title of this article relates to a passage from one of Marx’s early works in the 19th century. It is a extract which if seriously considered clearly identifies the difference between Marx and many other revolutionary anti-capitalists of that important period. It also contains a proposition of general importance and of increasing relevance as the 21st century crisis of capitalism deepens. It is contained within a section of the German Ideology.

“..the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution: the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” (Marx. German Ideology. Coll. Wks Vol. 5 page 53.)

It is tempting to focus on the second proposition within that sentence relating to the necessity of revolution; i.e. the part which includes – ‘because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way’. This proposition has been proven by the last 100 years or so during which people have repeatedly attempted to reform capitalism and appealed to the humanity of the capitalist class to end their war against the oppressed – to no avail!

However, the two propositions which follow; “the alteration of men” and “because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of the muck of ages and become fit to found society anew.” are the ones which should now be carefully considered.

It is important to understand what Marx really getting at in those second and third, crucially important propositions. I suggest this is best tackled by reflecting on what kind of ‘alteration’ and what the ‘muck of ages’ he might have been referring to. We could, also ask ourselves what kind of ‘alteration‘ and ‘muck’ would a class need to undergo and be rid of in order to be ‘fit to found society anew’?

These questions can be approached from a number of angles, but a good one to start with would be to consider at least one of Marx’s fundamental starting points. As he stated also in the German Ideology;

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.” (Marx. German Ideology)

Note that Marx’s starting premise for his various studies is not tribes, classes, genders, races, nations, religions, political sects or any other form of partial or local identity. Marx commences with regard to the problems facing humanity as a whole. Very early on he concluded that the economic logic of capitalism was to connect up the world – economically – and therefore, to some extent socially. When he arrived at the conclusion that a post-capitalist form of society was necessary, he saw it as necessary – for the species as a whole! Thus using the vocabulary of the 19th century he noted;

“This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism, equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and man and man. – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence….between the individual and the species.” (Marx. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.)

Despite the now sinister association of the term ‘communism‘, what Marx is concerned with, every humane person should be at one with. Unlike the authoritarian Bolsheviks and others, he considered a post-capitalist society would allow a genuine and humane resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between the various historic divisions of humanity.

Marx’s revolutionary-humanism looked forward to the return of humanity ‘from religion, family, state etc., to his human, ie social existence‘ (ibid). In the 19th century, Marx brought to the economic, social and political spheres of study, the biological understanding that – above all else – humanity is one species. And unlike utopian and religious views he gave this perspective a firm material basis.

An important part of the muck of ages Marx refers to are, I suggest, all those racist, sexist, ageist, nationalist, and sectarian sub-species identities and their attendant animosities, currently distorting our actual and potential social existence. These inherited identities reflect past prejudices and are more often than not, deliberately manipulated to increase the strife between individual members of our species.

Throughout history there has developed a division between our ‘essence’ as human beings and the identities adopted. Divisions have occurred which have distorted this essence, into historically determined tribal, national, religious and other forms of contemporary existence – with their aggressive antagonisms.

Recognising this resolution could not be fully possible, whilst the world and its resources was divided up and controlled by ruling elites, Marx nevertheless argued that in order to reconstitute a society of the future, the modern class which represents that future will need to rid itself of this accumulated muck.

However, whilst that may not be fully possible under the present alienated and distorted social existence of capitalism, getting rid of this ‘muck’ it is at least partially possible. I further suggest this process is essential for those who, in advance of a revolutionary transformation, adopt a revolutionary-humanist position and seek to assist this development.

Yet it is a fact that since the 19th century, the divisive identities have continued. Indeed, the accelerated human alienation brought about by the development of neo-liberal global capital during the 20th and 21st centuries has caused a general reactionary search for earlier or even new forms of specific identity which serve to hide, disguise or negate the essence of the human species.

Despite an abstract recognition at a rhetorical level, of equality for all, there has been a search for and adoption of primary identities in nation, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, politics and even localised football teams. Each of these introspective identities carries within it assertive and even aggressive forms of ideology and conduct which asserts not just primary rights in competition with other identities but superior rights in pursuit of which atrocities of all kinds are perpetrated.

In representing the future, it is generally accepted – within the ranks of revolutionary anti-capitalist workers – that there should be a consistent challenging and erosion of sexism and racism. But in truly representing the future there should also be much more. The revolutionary-humanist perspective of Marx suggests that any elevation of tribal, national, gender, religious, age, sectarian or other forms of identity, over that of human being is reactionary.

If the call for ‘workers of the world to unite’, is not to remain a sterile abstraction, it means workers overcoming this particular ‘muck of ages’ in their revolutionary practice. And if this is the case for workers in general, how much more so should it be within the ranks of those revolutionary anti-capitalists who seek now to play a positive role in that process

Yet as we know, within those anti-capitalist ranks, the most aggressive (occasionally violent), competitive forms of sectarian divisions have taken place and continue to be effective barriers to solidarity. These divisions have not been primarily created around ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender etc., but around ideology.

Most, if not all anti-capitalist sects, have a set of principles and an interpretation of these principles, which they use to distinguish themselves, not only from the working and oppressed classes, but from each other. This practice started, whilst Marx was alive, but really became accelerated and solidified under the later impact of Bolshevism, before becoming an embedded part of the now atrophying heritage industry of the Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyists and Maoists.

Having different understandings and views is part of being human. For many people, so too is having principles. However, in general, non-sectarian working people will support each other when possible even though they have different views. Not so the sectarians. Sectarian anti-capitalists will not only refuse to help other disagreeing anti-capitalists, but will disrespect them, positively stand in their way, character assassinate them and even in the past have physically assassinated them.

Most, if not all, of the above noted sectarian anti-capitalists take their ‘principles’ to the masses and other anti-capitalists. These principles and views are presented to them in the hope of their acceptance. If the workers or other anti-capitalists reject them they are considered backward, ignorant or deluded, with all this implies. This occurs despite Marx’s suggestion in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere, that this sectarian posturing is a sterile, useless and counter-productive activity.

Among revolutionary-humanists in the tradition of Karl Marx, however, principles are not taken to the class struggle and life, but derived from it. Solidarity is also extended to all those in struggle against capital and its symptoms even if they differ in opinions or tactics. Engels, Marx’s friend and collaborator made the first point clearly and succinctly.

“…the principles are not the starting point of the investigation, but its final result; they are not applied to Nature and human history, but abstracted from them; it is not Nature and the realm of humanity which conform to these principles, but the principles are only valid in so far as they are in conformity with Nature and history. (Engels Anti-Duhring. )

The last phrase has particular relevance with regard to the state of the revolutionary, anti-capitalist left in the 21st century. Their principles are only valid insofar as they are in conformity with nature and history. The main principles by which sectarians operate are embodied in their dogma and elitism, and are neither in conformity with nature nor history. Indeed, seen from outside their ranks and from the standpoint of Marx, sectarianism is clearly a part of the ‘muck of ages’ and needs to be got rid of among those who wish to assist the struggle against capital.

[see also ‘Sectarianism and the question of a General Strike’  and ‘Clinging onto Patriarchy’ ]

]Roy Ratcliffe (June 2012)

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THE EGYPTIAN ELECTIONS.

Posted on June 26, 2012 by stutteringsteps

In many ways the election of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamad Morsi as President of Egypt, marks something of a symbolic change in Egyptian politics. He is certainly the first ‘elected’ and also the first ‘non-military’ president since the military coup of Gamel Nasser and the ‘Free Officer’ Corp in July 1952. However, due to that fifty year plus history of military entrenched power, now exercised by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAFA), he will also be the weakest in conventional political terms. This is because prior to the election announcement on Sunday (24/6/12), SCAFA had already removed any powers previous Military figureheads had wielded and they had also disbanded the Egyptian Parliament.

The political defeat of the only other candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, who had been part of the previous Mubarak regime, was by fairly narrow margins. The thirteen million or so votes for Mursi and the 12 million for Shafiq taken at face value, would seem to present a picture of a country split down the middle. However, the real situation is not revealed by considering only these few bare statistics. The situation in Egypt is far more complex and fluid that that. First of all nearly 1 million voters spoiled their ballot papers – possibly in protest at such a restricted choice. Second, millions boycotted the elections because they wanted neither a military nor an Islamic President and felt the whole process was a charade.

Third, some voted for the military, so as to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of Presidential power. Others voted for the Muslim Brotherhood so as to keep the military from regaining Presidential power. If we also recognise that out of a population of 85 plus million, only some 26 million or so visited the polling stations, that leaves a lot of people (tens of millions) with an opinion, which did not find an expression in this round of elections. These citizens also have pressing needs. Also if we choose to recall, the initial impetuous of the Arab Spring Uprisings,  was not for democratic elections, but for better living conditions and employment. Indeed, the precursor of the 2011 Egyptian events were the 2008 labour movement unrest, supported by the April the 6th activists.

The April the 6th activists also played a part in the 2011 uprising and bread, civil liberty and social justice are the concepts which best sum up the dominant motives of those who joined the uprisings in their thousands and then millions. These economic and social needs and requirements were at first directed at the existing military backed figure-head regimes. It was only when the regimes quickly proved to be an impenetrable barrier to obtaining these basic human rights, did the emphasis switch to getting rid of Ben Ali and Mubarak in Tunisia and Egypt. The election of Muhamad Mursi – even if he were your own preferred candidate – has not altered these underlying needs and demands. They have still to be either given up or achieved.

Some – but not all – among the working and oppressed may be content to continue to suffer a little longer whilst their own choice of candidate is in an elevated position – but not indefinitely. The class struggle will continue with very little substantive political change even though the small changes – in view of the past – seem proportionally large. What appears to be the biggest positive change is in the attitude of the ordinary citizens, who have lost their fear of the repressive actions of the Egyptian militarised state. And in view of the current global crisis of capital, the chances of them being bought off by economic concessions are slight.

From what can be ascertained it would seem that Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood wish to attract foreign funds to enable Egypt to implement an economic development plan. The hope being that sufficient economic activity can be stimulated to create increased levels of employment for workers and sufficient profits to satisfy the middle-class and professionals. In a boom period for capitalism, that aspiration might have had a slim chance, but capitalism is in a period of severe structural and fiscal crisis. Economic development on a capitalist basis now requires few workers on low wages competing against other capitalist enterprises, also using low wages along with advanced technologies to increase levels of production and thus lower unit costs.

The more powerful financial and political elite in the advanced economies of Europe, Asia and North America cannot even solve the sovereign debt problem which arises from the structural changes to 21st century capitalism. Neither do they seem to understand the socio-economic implications of the underlying fundamental changes introduced by capital’s mass production techniques. Using less labour and low-waged labour adds a further twist to the structural imbalance between the production of commodities and services and the required levels of taxation and consumption. This structural change in the capitalist mode of production is a factor operating in all countries in the global economic system and is therefore is an inescapable outcome in Egypt as well as the rest of North Africa and the middle east.

If the Muslim Brotherhood, or any other governing party, place themselves in the hands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this will simply be a recipe for further levels of exploitation and poverty among the working poor and oppressed in Egypt. So given the almost universal lack of knowledge (in the east as well as the west) of how capitalism functions as a whole, it is likely that the Brotherhood and their supporters will sooner, rather than later, try this recipe. To do so they will require social stability and state guarantees to foreign private investors and such international parasitic entities such as the World Bank and the (IMF). However, any solution, such as this, which does not allow the active participation of the masses in their own ‘salvation’, will require the iron heel of the military to keep order while an experiment in introducing a neo-liberal capitalist democracy is attempted.

It would seem that the Muslim Brotherhood could be faced with a choice of being with the people to contain the military, or with the military to contain the people. Yet it is unlikely that the Egyptian military will be able to quickly co-opt the Muslim Brotherhood, into their fold, for the military are tied technically and financially to the USA, receiving as they do at least $1.3 billion per year in subsidies. Despite some collusion, their ideological position, which views the USA elite as the wicked and ungodly, should be sufficient barrier for this possibility to arise.

It is also unlikely that without a substantial break with the USA, that the Muslim Brotherhood, will be able to co-opt the military elite to their cause. Of course if either of these possibilities occurred there will be an end to the ‘old corruption’ but only to be replaced by a ‘new corruption’. There would also undoubtedly be further uprisings. There is however, another more positive possibility, providing the foresight and will is present.

If pressure for an initial alliance between elements opposed to military involvement and or control in Egypt, can be put on the Muslim Brotherhood leadership by their rank and file members, then the military elite could be quickly isolated. An alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood, secularists, Christians and the left, politically and on the street, could begin that process as well as providing and attractive alternative to the military rank and file. Such an alliance should use any leverage or direct possibilities to open the books and the secret archives of the previous and present state finances, including the nature and source of past and present government debts.

An alliance of this nature should abolish the secret police and have its archives publicised. The previous graft and illegal financial handouts should be publicly investigated and also widely publicised. Any sovereign debts should be examined, rejected and immediately cancelled. A grass-roots controlled programme of extensive non-profit making public works for housing and infrastructure should be initiated without delay. A social wedge should be driven between the military elite and the rank and file soldiers by a public enquiry addressing and supporting the justified grievances of the ordinary soldiers. It should be explained to them that during a developing global crisis their future situation and welfare would be best served if it were tied to the mass of the workers and oppressed, rather than being used as reactionary tools against the ordinary people.

It should be widely publicised that the economic, social and ecological problems caused by the capitalist mode of production cannot be solved by the capitalist system itself without threatening the present and future of all humanity. Only a post-capitalist economic and social system, in which production is determined by need and ecological sustainability rather than profit, makes rational sense. Only a post-capitalist system, where every citizen contributes to social production and takes from production a proportional rather than a disproportional amount, is sustainable. The facts and processes confirming this assertion should be popularised and made clear to all citizens of Egypt as they should elsewhere.

The mainstream media along with the reformist left are in no mood nor are they intellectually capable of doing this and so the task falls to the anti-capitalist left, particularly its revolutionary-humanist elements. This section of society should also advise and take part in the above noted anti-regime alliance and encourage the formation of local non-sectarian forms of self-organisation, self-determination and self defence. It is highly unlikely that there will be an immediate united revolutionary challenge to the existing system, but there will be battles and stages, through which masses of people in Egypt will be forced to traverse. It is during these stages that the understanding of what is needed will be developed and can be promoted among the masses. A non-sectarian anti-capitalist milieu can play a positive part in this development, a sectarian one, in contrast, can only play a negative and divisive one.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2012.) [ See also ‘Military control in Egypt’ at Greater Manchester Anti-Capitalists blog.]

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THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN GREECE.

Posted on June 21, 2012 by stutteringsteps

The June 2012 election.
It is clear that the current unrest in Europe is directly in response to the structural and fiscal crisis of capitalism. Last weekends voting in Greece hinged around what economic, social and fiscal measures are to be taken by the political and economic elites. Measures calculated in order to overcome the fundamental crisis of capital. As such these elections have relevance for all European workers. The voting pattern and the subsequent coalition government of ‘national unity‘, headed by the ‘conservative’ New Democracy Party, marks a further stage in the developing class struggle within Greece and the rest of Europe. Crucially, the close results of the election in Greece indicate a split between the more radical among the Greek population and the more cautious.

On the other hand, the votes for the ‘left’ reform party, Syriza, indicate and confirm that a large section of the population are ready to promote a radical defence of their rights.  With careful tactics by the left this constituency will grow, precisely because the economic and fiscal situation in Greece remains the same. Votes, for the New Democracy Party (and those such as Pasok, in coalition with them) by the cautious, will undoubtedly fall away as this group of politicians do not have the policies to prevent further job losses and future financial collapse. For this reason a more united and direct confrontation by workers with the capitalist system as a whole will be the more probable future result. But in this regard, it has already become clear, that the forms of class struggle (demonstrations and strikes) maintained in the post-Second World War period are no longer sufficient.

Success against a ruling class with control of state power – particularly when they recognise that the system they uphold is in severe crisis – will not be solved by the existing form of politics or the existing sectional forms of class struggle. To think so and to continue to advocate such repetative and un-imaginative strategies to workers and the oppressed is to suffer from, and promote, dangerous and self-defeating illusions. Just how the opposing class forces will respond to this still developing crisis can only be predicted in very general terms, as the precise ways will be dependent upon many factors which will need to be monitored closely.

Overcoming political divisions.
Nevertheless, it is possible to understand the main outlines and the general orientation necessary for the anti-capitalist left throughout Europe and elsewhere. It is important to recognise, that in the lead up to any future revolutionary situations, large numbers of workers and others will go through various stages of understanding. There will be divisions of opinion and different levels of involvement among them. Some will move from opposition to substantial change, through pessimism and neutrality, to enthusiastic support for radical change. Some will resort to violence. Not all will move in the same direction or at the same time.

Currently, and for some time yet in the struggle, divisions will continue to occur around what political party to elect to the democratic forums of society. The dominant ideology of bourgeois societies promotes the illusion that the power in Capitalist society is exclusively focussed in the democratic arenas of Parliaments and Congresses. For this reason many, if not most workers, despite their cynicism toward politicians in general, for some time to come, will look towards a parliamentary solution to the crisis.

These political divisions, will be actively promoted and manipulated by the ruling elites and their agents in the press and elsewhere. The task of revolutionary anti-capitalists is not to exacerbate or cause these divisions themselves. Where they exist and/or develop, they should work positively to help overcome them.  The tactics of genuine united fronts or solidarity committees should be the ones promoted, not for sectarian or party advantage, but for promoting the unity and solidarity of the working and oppressed sections of society.

Nor is the role of revolutionary anti-capitalists to distance themselves from reformist tendencies or condemn them out of hand.  The workers and oppressed, like any other section of society, do not always learn from history or theory, but from their own direct experiences. For some, illusions in Parliamentary solutions will only be dispelled by experiencing actual events. At all stages, revolutionary anti-capitalists, should of course, explain the lessons of history to those who do not know them but at the same time be patient with those who do not immediately accept them. At each stage of the struggle, active solidarity with other workers in their various struggles should be the positively promoted aim – even if unity of purpose cannot be achieved immediately.

Lessons from previous transformative struggles.
Only when faced with extreme circumstances do the masses openly risk their lives in challenging a system which has considerable power over them.  In past revolutions, only through a combination of desperateness, experience of divisions, along with betrayal by a succession of  ‘leaders’, did it finally dawn on the masses, that they would have been better to trust only themselves. Such past realisations came about by the exposure of the real motives of those who abused their efforts, sacrifices and used their support to elevate themselves to power.  For many in past revolutions, this realisation came to too late and the circumstances were not such as to allow them a second chance.

After the exertions, losses and injuries during past revolutionary contests, the poor and oppressed were returned to a life of toil and hardship under  a new form of ruling elite. This was true of the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as well as the supposedly working class revolutions of the 20th.  Revolutions, involve large-scale class forces, and these large forces do not necessarily follow the advice and recommendations of political groups or organisations. Neither do revolutionary situations unfold in ways that even the most perceptive observers and participants envisage.

Any careful study of the transformative revolutions of the past, the English, the French, the American and the Russian, will confirm that these epoch-changing revolutions did not follow a general pattern, nor were the high-profile participants always in control of events or aware of how things were unfolding. Indeed, even where there were acknowledged ’leaders’ these individuals were more often than not swept along and were following events rather than leading them. [See for example ‘The Revolutionary Party; Help or Hindrance’] Indeed, such ‘leaders’ were only allowed to fulfil such popular roles as long as they fulfilled the expectations of the dominant active forces. And yet all too frequently one periods ’revolutionary leaders’ became the next periods dictators – Cromwell, Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Mao. [See Marxism versus Marx‘]

Present and future tasks.
The intellectual and theoretical tasks of revolutionary anti-capitalists are to communicate the lessons of past struggles to the new generations of workers and oppressed. The practical tasks are to work with these class forces to promote solidarity for their various struggles, and where relevant and possible, achieve unity in purpose. However, the impossibility of achieving a unity of purpose during one period should not preclude immediate comradely solidarity and thus leave the door open to future unity of action. Only sectarians would demand a singleness of ideas and purposes, corresponding to their own viewpoint, in order to be involved in, or express, solidarity with other struggling workers.

Despite recent attempts to challenge sectarianism and dogma, both are still prevalent characteristics among the anti-capitalist ranks. This milieu, comprising of many competing sects, has in the main adopted arrogant assumptions about its own groups abilities and importance.  Each such sect still seem to think it has the capability to understand and lead workers in struggle up to and including the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into a post-capitalist society. So confident are some in their ideological ‘correctness’ that they will stand aside from the real struggles of workers if the workers choose not to follow their lead. [See ‘Sectarianism and the General Strike’.]

In contrast, the non-sectarian type of orientation can be stated in the following very general terms. Any group of people (even a large group) being targeted for attack would be foolish to engage a much larger hostile group, while millions of their potential supporters, had not yet prepared themselves or were engaged in other actions.  Nor would a sensible group alienate groups of potential supporters simply because at a certain moment in time these potential supporters did not see the situation in an identical way.  Indeed, in such circumstances, all manner of friendly interactions should be pursued which kept open the present and/or future possibilities of defensive collaboration, including support for their struggles, even when these are viewed as less important.

Grass roots forms of self-organisation.
The generalised principle above can be translated into the specifics of Greece, any other European country, in the Middle East, North Africa or elsewhere in the Capitalist world.  For revolutionary anti-capitalists in Greece, it currently translates into adopting appropriate forms of solidarity with those workers currently voting for left reformist policies, whilst reminding (not haranguing or berating) them of the dangers this poses and the need for creating their own forms of organisation and solidarity. These forms will be necessary because the real power of the capitalist class, is in the economic and financial spheres of society, backed up by the bourgeois legal system and the armed military power of the state.

Any success, in gaining Parliamentary type control by a party or parties seriously dedicated to a radical or anti-capitalist position, will be met not only with Machiavellian intrigues and physical opposition, but also with the force of the real power of the capitalist class and its state.  So, as already noted, a task for revolutionary anti-capitalists is to advocate and actively support the formation of appropriate forms of grass-roots organisational solidarity and unity wherever possible. [See ‘Form and Essence’ in the Anti-capitalist Struggle’] Our task also involves exposing the machinations of the economic, financial and political elite. In addition it means being receptive to innovative forms of struggle by workers and others. And finally it involves suggesting such non-sectarian and non-dogmatic practices to those anti-capitalists who are currently trapped in their historically determined sectarian habits.

For there is something incredibly bizarre in the outpourings of the divided, dogmatic and sectarian anti-capitalist left offering their often conflicting advice to workers in struggle, when they cannot seriously address their own shortcomings. Their inherited vanguardist ambitions and elitist traditions too often result in the elevation of their sectarian ideas over the needs and the actual course of the class struggle.  This invariably means they measure reality of the class struggle by how much it adheres to their ideas, rather than evaluating their ideas by how much they adhere to the complex needs of solidarity and the unfolding reality of class struggle.

The 19th century motto of internationalism was;

‘Workers (now white collar and blue) of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains’  

If this is still relevant, and I suggest it is, then revolutionary anti-capitalists should continue to promote it and add to it another;

‘Anti-capitalist sectarians of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your dogma and irrelevance.’

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2012)

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REVOLUTION!

Posted on May 31, 2012 by stutteringsteps

(The Locomotive of History.)

In a notable expression, Marx described revolutions as the ‘locomotives of history‘. His point was that a substantial build up of power was necessary to drive, or sometimes drag, socio-economic changes forward – anything less powerful would fail. To keep with the analogy, Marx considered, the steam, or fuel, which would energise the engines working parts, would be provided by the anger, desperation and determination of the working class. Marx and Engels jointly came to this conclusion by considering the social conditions and labour process developed by capital by the19th century. They did this in two seminal works, the Economic and Philosophic notebooks of 1844 by Marx, and the ‘Conditions of the Working Class’ of 1845,  by Engels.

The results of their research led them to conclude that the industrial working classes, because of their working and living condition, would be the ones to rise up and challenge the capitalist system.  Their reasoning is summed up in the following extracts from the two works previously mentioned. First Marx. After discussing the exploited and precarious position of workers within the capitalist system, and the pouring of surplus capital into the production process, he noted that;

“This leads to overproduction and ends up either by putting a large number of workers out of work or by reducing their wages to a pittance….Eventually wages, which have already been reduced to a minimum, must be reduced even further in order to meet the new competition, This then leads necessarily to revolution.” (Marx 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts.)

In this early work, Marx had identified and examined, the overall tendency of capitalism to overproduction through competition and mechanisation along with its alienating effects upon the lives of working people.  It was a tendency, which if not offset, by some other factors (such as further world expansion) could, and would produce such epoch changing results. Engels examining conditions in England, the most advanced capitalist country at the time, concluded that the middle classes, were largely indifferent to the conditions experienced by workers.

“Hence also the deep wrath of the whole working-class, from Glasgow to London, against the rich, by whom they are systematically plundered and mercilessly left to their fate, a wrath which before too long a time goes by, a time almost within the power of man to predict, must break out into a Revolution..” (Engels. Condition of the Working Class in England.)

The working classes at that period in time were largely employed in mass-production industries. Huge labour-intensive textile and metal-working factories; mining and extraction industries; docks and shipping, shipbuilding, railways etc. It was the pattern of capitalist labour process for at least a hundred years, during which wages were relatively low, working conditions grim and living circumstances dire.  Marx and Engels, considering these conditions, similar throughout Europe, reckoned that the poverty, long hours, fatiguing repetitive work, low pay and regular unassisted unemployment would drive workers to rebel. Further, if this rebellion occurred at a particular acute stage of crisis, a revolution could occur. But revolution for what?

Marx and Engels, did not see themselves as the grand planners of future society. They considered that would be the creative work of the working classes themselves together with their allies.  For this reason, they did not indulge in projecting fantasy solutions onto the future. Marx in particular sought to arm the working and oppressed classes with nothing more than very sharp and durable weapons of criticism. Accordingly, most of his writings are analytical critiques of philosophy, economics, politics and history, with only occasional logical, but sketchy, possibilities of what might unfold in the future. The main problem, for the working classes was to overcome the contradictions of capitalism and solve the alienation of the bulk of humanity from the process of production and from each other.

Nevertheless, there was at the time a wide-spread and popular idea of a future post-capitalist society, termed ‘socialism’. Among hundreds of thousands of workers in trade unions, political groups and the 1st International the concept of socialism, although somewhat vaguely imagined, was considered workable, achievable and desirable. It also became a popular idea among many middle-class intellectuals at the time, who did project their fantasy systems into the future and persuade workers to accept them. Marx often ridiculed these ‘utopian’ grand system planners and builders, eventually discarding the term socialism as being too tainted and confusing. He and Engels adopted the term Communism instead.  This too was left as a somewhat vague concept for future determination and development by associated communities once the capitalist system had been overthrown.

So to sum up. The overall perspective of 19th century European anti-capitalism was that the contradictions of capitalism, sooner or later, would mature sufficiently to create irreconcilable tensions between capitalists and workers. This would lead to serious and prolonged class confrontations. During a crisis, the industrial workers, with no other option than to fight for their very existence, armed with a highly developed anti-capitalist criticism, and with the legitimate goal of socialism in mind, would fight both against capitalism and for something better. Of course we know that this didn‘t happen in the UK or Europe. Capitalist crises of overproduction did occur there, but were successfully diverted and brutally resolved by two world wars. Contradictions, crises and war occurred in the east also, but with very different results.

In Russia and China internal revolutions did occur, ostensibly for the benefit of the working and oppressed classes and the leaders deceptively used the terminology of Marx. The disastrous experiences and results of these two oligarchy-led revolutions effectively distanced many workers from both the desirability of a post-capitalist form of society and from the analytical tools developed by Marx.  New generations of post-Second World War workers were born into an atmosphere of increasing hostility to Stalinism and Bolshevism and into the new forms of labour processes, developed by 20th century capitalism. These new production techniques gradually replaced labour-intensive factories and workshops, with highly mechanised, automated production techniques – producing larger quantities and needing less blue-collar industrial workers.

So now, in the 21st century, the 19th and 20th century labour-intensive aggregations of textile, metal-working, mining, docks, shipbuilding and railways etc. have all gone or been drastically reduced. The socio-economic composition of the working classes has been changed by the economic and social dynamics of capitalist society.  Capitalism has not eliminated its systemic contradictions and crises of overproduction, but these now mature in a different class composition and situation than they did 100 years ago. The social composition and workplace locations of the working class in the advanced countries has altered considerably. The working class is now predominantly white-collar, further or higher educated than previous generations and is largely employed, when not unemployed, by central or local governments. (See ‘Workers and others, in the 21st century’ at www.gmanticapitalists.)

Yet once again, the economic contradictions of capitalism have matured and along with them in the 21st century, a highly unstable finance capital crisis has developed. Class conflict over how this crisis will be resolved is already occurring and will only increase as the crisis deepens. The working and oppressed classes will have to fight against the system or go under. So the revolutionary tasks facing the working class remain broadly the same as they were when the anti-capitalists, Marx and Engels were alive. Yet the working class defensive struggle against capital will inevitably give rise to unresolved questions of what can replace it.  For this reason, the tasks facing present day anti-capitalists are only slightly different than previous generations. I suggest they can be encapsulated in the following four connected areas.

1. The ideas concerning a post-capitalist form of society need to be freed from the ideological pollution of Stalinism and Bolshevik authoritarianism.  The distortions of Marx’s revolutionary-humanism, need to be publicly acknowledged and rejected in theory and practice.  With large number of F.E., and university educated workers and unemployed this and the following tasks should not be overly difficult to achieve.

2. The systemic crisis-riddled economic nature of capitalism needs widespread public explanation and dissemination. The weapon of criticism sharpened by Marx, needs to be unsheathed and shared out to wide sections of the anti-capitalist working class and their allies.

3. The ecological and environmental implications of capitalist expansionary impetus need to be explained in terms of their systemic origins in the capitalist mode of production. Ecology is an anti-capitalist issue, not simply an environmentalist reform issue.

4. The form of anti-capitalist organisation, needs to acknowledge and correct the past (and present) mistakes and sectarian posturing of previous party-building ideologies. The form of a new anti-capitalist organisation needs to reflect both the needs of participants and be consistent with its future as well as its present tasks.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2012.)

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CAPITAL AND THE STATE.

Posted on May 23, 2012 by stutteringsteps

1. Introduction.

Recent events have revealed significant changes in the relationship between heads of western governments and their populations. Almost the first Presidential act of ‘socialist’ Francois Hollande after his election in France, was to rush to meet Germany’s Angela Merkel, a politician who most clearly reflects the needs of international capital. This spectacle came only months after electoral practice in Greece and Italy was ignored and democracy bypassed in favour of appointment to national power of civil servants. It was an imposition in the form of  senior civil-servants loyal to the centralised power of finance capital in the EEC. Such prompt responses are simply the latest development in the changing historic partnership between capital and the state.

The development of capitalism, from its European origin within the preceding Feudal economy, to the present, has seen many changes. From pre-industrial forms of production, to the industrial; from water-powered production, to steam and later electrical power; from mechanisation to automation. The scale of production and its technical development has revolutionised not only the economic spheres of life, but also the social, political educational and psychological spheres. Alongside that have come changes in the nature and direction of the state and its institutions. The present generation of anti-capitalist face a situation which is different in many respects to that existing, when anti-capitalist theories and tactics were first developed.  Three such differences are of considerable importance.

First. In the advanced countries the economic location of the mass of workers has changed, from private industries and commercial outlets to public sector occupations.  There are now also large numbers of non-workers (unemployed, pensioners, students, etc.,) who have become dependents of state benefits. Second. The major capitalist organisations are no longer national but international and after 50 or so years of growth, the ones who have prospered are now enormous.  Third. The nation state no longer dominates, corporate industry and finance, but is instead dominated by both these international aspects of capital. Hence, the dependence on, and subordination of the European and North American states and their political leaders, to the international financial bond-markets and their counter-parts in the IMF,  the World Bank and the European Central Bank.

Discussions concerning the uses and abuses of the state have a long history among anti-capitalists, dating back to Marx and the anarchists within the 1st International. The future of the relationship of capital to the globe and the nation states was again debated by V. Lenin and K. Kautsky in the early 20th century. In his ‘The collapse of the Second International’, Lenin thought that international agreements would be temporary and that national interests in the end would prevail. Kautsky on the other hand argued that;

“..a new ultra imperialist policy, which will introduce the joint exploitation of the world by united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capital.” (Kautsky. quoted by Lenin.)

In our own late 20th and early 21st  century experience we can see that the neo-liberal global developments of finance capital and the multi-national production of commodities and services, that Kautsky was onto something.  Of course nothing is final or fixed within a system so contradictory and crisis prone.  Until the present system is superseded, many things can change or be reversed. Meanwhile it is worth considering in outline, the changes which have happened, over the period of capitalist hegemony, to the relationship between owners of capital and the state.

2. Capital captures the state.

The national (and often localised) roots of capitalist production and accumulation allowed the capitalist class to first challenge and then seize hold of the national form of government in certain countries. The bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. This seizure of national governments and state institutions, from the feudal aristocracy, gave overwhelming power to the capitalist class and their supporters. This enabled them to ensure economic and social developments suitable, and remove impediments detrimental, to capital’s expansion. It also allowed them to use the states financial power to institute public infrastructure measures, necessary, but too expensive for individual capitalists to develop.

A strong state was needed by the capitalist class for both collective defence and to prevent the excessive domination of some national private capitals against other national ones. Thus the capitalists needed the state to guarantee their own; political supremacy; property rights; land tenure; law; commercial and industrial liberalisation; business protocol regulation; labour availability; common utilities; currency production and regulation; collective capital accumulation; education; infrastructure; social order; armed forces; and diplomacy. Some of these needs, were less important than others and of course the emphasis on one or other of them was to change over time.

The control of national statehood, by the capitalist class, in certain advanced countries, led to the rapid development of both commercial and then industrial capital on a scale which overwhelmed the national and existing foreign markets.  Faced with either scaling down production or finding external markets and sources of raw materials, the latter was chosen and the era of European colonial expansion opened up or in some cases exploded. An international capitalistic division of labour, based upon slavery and colonial possessions developed. This insatiable expansion of trade eventually brought those early capitalist countries into conflict with each other over markets and sources of raw materials.

3. Capital utilises the state.

The state was then used by the capitalist class and its supporters to defend and extend existing international markets and colonies. It did this by funding armies and navies, leading to the successive stages commonly designated as Colonialism and Imperialism. During those periods capital (with some exceptions) was overwhelmingly nationally based.  For a long period, the needs of nationally based aggregated capital dominated the individual companies and corporations.  As such the nation state wielded the supreme power of each country. It was a power which rested in the hands of whichever representative faction of the capitalist class, (Industrial, commercial or financial) managed to dominate politics and the government.

Such was the economic logic of the self-expansion of capital with its ever increasing  capacity and productivity, that local and regional skirmishes between the capitalist maritime powers, became more frequent, leading to serious, large-scale wars between contending capitalist countries of Europe, during the 19th century. The nation-state during this period, became the fully armed, collective expression of the assertively grasping, capitalist class in each country. This belligerent competitive greed led eventually to the two ‘great’ (sic) wars, the First World War (1914 – 18) and the Second (1938 – 45.). Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War the rising technical level of capitalist inspired production in general had even by that time had resulted in a crisis of overproduction and slump. This economically inspired social and political crisis, resulted in two important and radical developments with regard to state formations under systems dominated by capital.

4. The state controls capital.  

One adaptation was with regard to Europe. National irritations with the increasing failure and collapse of the capitalist mode of production and the incompetence of its political elite, led to corporatist developments in some countries, culminating in the spectre of Fascism. Under Fascism, the state took direct control of the economic direction and pace of capitalist development. It did not eliminate private ownership of capital or profit. Workers remained workers and capitalists remained capitalists. The state elite, under this political form, attempted to harness and control both sides of this unequal relationship for what were perceived by them as the best interests of the nation state. The state and the nation was everything, individuals in some cases nothing. Fascism in slightly different corporatist forms was introduced in Italy, Germany and Spain but proved disastrous to the working and oppressed classes.

Another example of adaptation of state control, took place first in Russia and later in China. In both these cases, the state and its institutions took control of everything. The capitalists had their capital (in all its major forms, land, property, money, shares, etc.) annexed to the state. From that point, decisions on what to invest, how much to invest and where to invest, were taken by the political elite organised in the orgburo or politburo of the ’Party’.  This was the ultimate form of total state organisation and planning. The workers remained workers and were employed by one or other of the states productive projects or institutions.

The terms and conditions of workers, their wages or salaries along with their civil rights and responsibilities were all decided by the party elite.  In this development the state had become the stern guardian and controller of social capital, and its elite, the recipient and controllers of the surplus value extracted from the workforce. This was a monolithic economic, social and political stewardship of the social capital. It was an oligarchic control  which was to last for the duration of the state’s existence.

However, this form of centralised political and economic organisation could not wither away, the state and its employees had a momentum and interests of their own. In this sense the characterisation of these societies as ’State Capitalist’ as Lenin and others concluded about the economic nature of the soviet state, is essentially correct. The characterisation by Leon Trotsky of the soviet state in Russia being a ’deformed workers state‘, was therefore something of wishful thinking rather than a serious socio-economic analysis.  The state did not in any sense of the word – or at any time – belong to the workers, but at all times to the party elite.

It certainly became a bureaucratically ‘deformed’ state but the deformation was not from a previous condition of workers self-organisation and control of the production of commodities and services. As Lenin admitted in 1922 (Col. Wks. Vol. 33 page 428/429) , it was a deformed, adaptation of the previous Czarist state, increasingly modified to meet the needs of a sectarian political tendency. Its eventual 20th century collapse allowed large portions of the accumulated state-capital, physical and intellectual, to be released into private hands. The same was true  – and still is – of the Chinese form of state-capitalism, which under the guidance of its oligarchic political elite, has now allowed private capital to flourish alongside state capital, and the workers have remained wage-slaves throughout, with no control over production or their own surplus value creation.

5. The state saves capital.

After the Second World War, the state in the UK and elsewhere, was used by the supporters of capital, to revive capitalism, in several important ways. The first was by a process of nationalisation. This rescued war-depleted capital in two ways. An extensive nationalisation programme, relieved the capitalist owners from the need to replace or renew worn-out or destroyed capital equipment and buildings. The state using tax-payers money began to this mammoth task for them. The high levels of compensation granted to the previous owners was also instrumental in injecting fresh capital in to new enterprises and into the finance-capital sector.  European states also began to prod reluctant capitalists into rationalisations and amalgamations.

The second way the state was used by pro-capitalists, in Europe, was to inhibit and control income levels for workers (in the UK under Wilson etc.) and later, (under Thatcher), to effectively destroy the strength of the trade union movement. Taking one section of workers at a time, the trade union and shop-stewards movement was defeated in various struggles.  This state orchestrated class war, left the way open for the reduction of wages, salaries and living standards – a downward process which is still with us. The subsequent government de-nationalisation (privatisation) programme allowed these industries to be re-purchased at knock down prices and to become once again a source of profit for the share-holders of capital stocks.

The technical level and sophistication of production in general, during the 20th century, was paralleled in the field of military affairs. The result of this technical development was two prolonged and costly wars in which resources commandeered by the state (financial, material and human), were squandered and destroyed to an unprecedented degree. It became obvious, that an alternative, to such self-defeating aggression between the advanced capitalist countries, needed to be devised. The previous attempt in the form of the League of Nations, had failed, so a new attempt was needed. The meetings at Yalta and later at Bretton Woods in 1945, between the political leaders of USA, Britain and Russia, were the initial stages of a post-war process, by which a new international situation, with new institutions, would be created.

The agreement at Bretton Woods, in particular, signalled the end of military warfare as a means of preventing capitalist expansions or settling territorial and trade disputes, between the allied countries of the capitalist west and the axis forces of Europe and the east. Henceforth, aggressive military wars would only be pursued against non-advanced countries, through two new collective institutional means (dominated by the allied powers) – the United Nations and NATO. Of course, the expansion of capital, in its state form or its original private manifestation, was still seen as absolutely necessary by all participants. For this reason in the west, international economic institutions were given a new form. Supra-national agreements such as GATT and supra-national entities such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were the new mechanisms for peaceful competition.

During the 20th century, the technical level of production advanced so rapidly, that the previous levels of worker involvement was drastically reduced.  Automation and machine tool sophistication developed, in engineering, transport, goods handling etc., so far that more could be produced with fewer workers, than at any time previously.  The application of automated and later computerised methods led to parallel changes in the commercial and clerical fields.  As noted in the introduction, the resulting levels of unemployment, were mitigated to some degree by the states role in the post-war development of the welfare state.  Using the state as a tool of social control, welfare provision required increasing levels of employment in education, civil services, social services and health services. The ratio of industrial workers to state workers reversed dramatically, until in Europe and the UK, the state has become the largest employer of waged and salaried labour.

The new form of international production was by the development of multi-national companies, whilst the new form of international finance, initially took the form in Europe of Euro-dollars and Euro-bonds. Despite the existence of large temporary post-war nationalisation programmes in European countries, each of these developments weakened the national states control of commodity production, distribution and capital flows. By the 1970’s and 80’s capitalist activity in the UK and Europe was already dominated by multi-national companies and international financial arrangements. The treaty of Rome and the emergence of the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA), the EEC, the EU and a single currency were the logical development of the needs of an expanding capitalism predicated upon peace between advanced capitalist countries.

6. Capital overwhelms the state.

So modern capitalism at the levels of production, commerce and finance, is now predominantly an international phenomena and is intertwined and inter-dependent. Its scale is so large it can overwhelm any national attempt to control or restrict its activities, within the present national system of politics. The massively inflated financial sector is particularly internationally fluid, has no physical borders to cross and thus is beyond the reach of national governments. For this reason, nationality no longer makes economic or financial sense for large-scale capital nor for labour. The division of labour created by capitalism is also international and workers in one country have for a long time been entirely dependent upon workers in other countries for their everyday needs. Nationalism and patriotism, continues to be promoted as an idea, but it is one which is reactionary and retrograde.

The owners and controllers of capital in each nation, therefore, no longer needed the nation-state for the full defence of their wealth accumulation against other national capitals. Henceforth their national armed forces represented just subordinate battalions of the International military regime of NATO, stimulated by the powerful military-industrial complex in the USA. National elites, however, need the nation state as a repressive means of control over their own citizens in defence of their wealth against the demands of their workers.  Hence the global relaxation of national controls on the movement of goods and finance and at the same time a tightening of national control upon the citizens of each country. Under the pretext of anti-terror, the governing elites of all capitalist countries have massively strengthened the states policing of communities and severely restricted the possibilities of protest and demonstration. Hence the shift in state emphasis from a degree of post-war paternalistic citizen protection to a stress on discipline and repression – a process which started in the UK as far back as 1964.

Nevertheless, the very economic, political and military mechanisms which have allowed the massive expansion of international capitalism, has also allowed the systemic contradictions of the capitalist mode of production to also expand and explode.  The previous period of rapid capitalist neo-liberal expansion has led to a further overproduction of commodities and capital, which has sought markets and investment opportunities.  The creation of the EEC and later the EU, in particular has resulted, in the 21st century ability of all EU governmental elites to preferentially dip into the bountiful trough of interest-seeking finance capital to fund whatever took their inflated fancies. Those in charge of the nation states, borrowed massively and repeatedly!  Some borrowed to fund and annually parade, unnecessarily large armed forces, others to indulge in ostentatious public works and all to progressively enhance their own privileged life-styles.

The corruption of the national political and governing classes and their cosy interface with international capital was revealed by how they managed to avoid their own agreed rules and to mask the extent of their borrowing. Within the EU, there was an official agreement among the patronising heads of state to adhere to a ‘stability pact‘, which would limit each states borrowing to a small percentage of GDP. Serious, even sombre agreements were entered into. There was an sober commitment to reduce any levels of national borrowing which were above this allegedly safe limit. Yet almost from the start, there was a nod and a wink, to subvert this covenant solemnly entered into between their lavish banquets. In 2003, the nod and the wink was made official as the French and German political and state elites officially agreed to ignore or rescind the offending obstacle.

But of course, lurking in the wings of this Brussels orchestrated political charade, were the international financial institutions, always looking for a quick billion Euro’s, dollar’s or pounds – or two!  Armed with their latest complex financial invention, the now notorious ‘derivatives’ packages, they colluded with government agencies to use these to hide the real debt and the excessive amount of borrowing. They got billions of extra currency to add to their debt in those years, in exchange for complex derivatives and the promise to pay back – in an imaginary rose-spectacled future – the growing mountains of old and new debt.  However, the future did not arrive attired in a comforting shade of pink. It came blood red, with the over-extended failure of Lehman Brothers and the rapid degeneration of the banking system in 2008.  Nevertheless, the modern capitalist state remains mortgaged to international finance capital at astronomical levels and its agents continue to dictate its own terms.

7. Capital now controls many states.

Here’s an important update. Having bailed out the international banking system in 2008, by generous donations of nationally based public money, (without the permission of the public), the states political elite have allowed the financial and banking systems to continue as before. Such was the size of the debt, both publicly admitted and those hidden away, that this huge nationalised bailout did not sufficiently solve the problem. So in 2011 the supra-national European Central Bank (ECB) released trillions of Euro’s to the still dysfunctional international banks to help them become solvent. So guess what? The clever technicians of banking and the gurus of finance could think of no better use of this money than to lend it to bankrupt governments. They did this by buying more of their bonds – thus increasing each sovereign government debt further!!! International finance, metaphorically speaking, now holds the mortgage deeds to the home and workplace of every citizen of Europe and North America.

This is a huge level of politically-inspired debt, which ordinary citizens are expected – under the present system – to pay for by austerity measures, lower standards of living, lower wages, lower pensions and lower life-spans. Every moment this 1% elite remain in power, and the capitalist system remains in existence, the matter grows steadily worse. The governments of Europe and the UK could not pay their previous debts before the crisis, so they can in no way pay the additional amounts now entered into since 2011. They will, therefore, carry out the instructions of the international financial and commercial elites, until the whole economic system goes into a rapid spiral descent, like an out of control aircraft and crashes into the ground. At that point it will shatter the lives and welfare of even more millions of helpless passengers trapped in this erratic and dysfunctional economic system.

The current see-sawing antics of a political elite, left, right and centre, who outside of vote canvassing, don’t really care a jot about the socio-economic situation of the bulk of the 99% of the population, is pathetic. The televised pronouncements of an economic elite which hasn’t as yet fully grasped the economic logic of capitalism, are remarkable only for their banality. All this bodes ill for those who currently lie at the bottom of the economic and social pyramid. Both these sets of so-called ‘experts’, can be increasingly seen with the glazed expression of those who don’t understand and cannot comprehend what is happening around them. Their explanations do not even sound convincing to themselves or their interviewers, never mind anyone who has bothered to study the problem for themselves.

Yet, all of them, the right-wing conservatives, the liberal do-gooders, and the left wing socialist democrats, will all buttress the state and turn to its armed bodies of men, for protection, when the system predictably implodes. At that point, the armed bodies of the state will be once again used to confront the justified anger of the populations of Europe and elsewhere, who rise up and protest. The possibilities of martial law and the brutal treatment meted out to terrorists being applied to protestors, loom ever larger. Since that will not solve, the underlying problems caused by the system, those who suffer will be confronted by the fact, that if they and future generations of working people are to ensure justice and fair play, they will have to unite in solidarity and overcome the state and capital.

Roy Ratcliffe (May 2012.)

[See also  ‘Currencies are not the Problem’ and ‘The Riddle of History Solved’]

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‘THE RIDDLE OF HISTORY SOLVED.’

Posted on April 30, 2012 by stutteringsteps

A) A bit of history.

This is the second article urging anti-capitalists, to study Marx as a basis, for a critical understanding of the international revolutionary tradition associated with his name. It has become necessary because the term Marxism, has often been used to appropriate his name, but this use (or abuse) has too often served to neglect or distort, some of his essential analyses and ideas. The result of such neglect and distortion has led to many important views remaining half-forgotten or obscured by interpretation and misinterpretation.

For this reason it is often overlooked that the anti-capitalist and post-capitalist perspective, radiating from the tradition associated with Karl Marx, is not concerned simply with creating better conditions for the working class and the oppressed, but with the emancipation of the whole of humanity. This perspective argues that the development of previous civilisations, and capitalism in particular, has distorted the natural essence of human relations and for the mass of human beings has stunted their individual human development.

Whether as direct slaves, serfs, or wage-slaves, ordinary working people have, throughout recorded history, been subject to the exploitation and control of various ruling elites. The historic divisions caused by this socio-economic bifurcation, has created huge discrepancies in wealth and well-being between the owners or controllers of the predominant means of production and those employed to work them. The historic cleavage of societies into two extreme classes of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ has thus been the prevalent situation over huge periods of time and has produced an extended history of class struggles, stretching from antiquity to the present day.

Furthermore, due to these oppressive conditions, increasing numbers of people, over successive period’s, have also become alienated from the product of their own economic activity and from each other. How to overcome this seemingly eternal human alienation (also much debated by religions) became something of the historical riddle referenced in the title. Taking what at the time represented a radical and non-religious long view, encompassing the past as well as the future, Marx asked the following searching and revealing questions;

“1. What in the evolution of mankind is the meaning of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labour?” 2. What are the mistakes committed by the piecemeal reformers who either want to raise wages and in this way to improve the situation of the working class or regard equality of wages as the goal of social revolution.” (Marx. ‘1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts‘. Collected Works Vol. 3 p. 241.)

These two questions represent the two contrasting focal points of Marx’s concerns and serve to indicate the full scope of his research. Marx argued that only by the removal of oppressive and exploitative economic and social conditions along with being freed from want, would human beings be able to overcome their alienation as well as develop their full individual and collective humanity.

Marx concluded this could only be done by bringing the means of production under the direct control of the producers. Achieving this grass-roots relationship and democratic control of production could also allow rational and democratic decisions be made as to what is produced and in what quantities. Describing the alienating forms of work under capitalist production, Marx noted that the worker;

“…does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labour is not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour..” (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Collected Works. Vol 3 p 274.)

This explains why when freed of the need for a wage or salary, work of the capitalist form – with a few exceptions – is shunned like the plague. In such circumstances most people absent themselves from wage or salary-slavery not in order to simply laze around, but choose alternative forms of activity, whether recreational, voluntary or DIY. From Marx’s revolutionary-humanist perspective the future solution to the relative poverty of working people was not to achieve full employment under an exploitative capitalist system, or any other, but to attain voluntary employment under a non-exploitative, self-governing post-capitalist system.

The propensity of capitalism for creating obscene wealth for a minority whilst creating poverty, slump, crisis, colonial expansion and predatory wars, on the other, had long been denounced by many commentators. Marx, however, recognised not only a moral objection (the exploitation, alienation and oppression at the heart of the capitalist system) but by analysing in detail the economic logic and internal mechanisms he successfully predicted periodic and catastrophic levels of crisis which would create political instability and social unrest.

The economic collapses and social dislocation in Europe and elsewhere during the 1930’s, did in fact trigger large-scale social and political unrest on an international scale. In the UK, the Triple Alliance, threatened a General Strike and in 1926 a failed one occurred. The period also saw the Spanish Civil War, uprisings in Chile, and other South American countries. Protests of Gandhi-led masses broke out in India and European Fascism took power in a number of countries. This period also convinced the capitalist class to introduce reforms along with Keynesian economics and the New Deal in the USA.

Capitalism, however, cannot be reformed on a permanent basis. The system generates enough power and influence to subvert, by-pass or remove any impediments to its pursuit of profit. In the 21st century, we can now add to capitalisms contradictory operations and tendencies, a fuller understanding of its impact upon the ecological balance of the planet. It is increasingly recognised that capitalist societies are already over-developed. Capitalism is in need of reigning in, rather than unleashing further. Capitalist societies are producing far too much and far too fast and in the process creating ecological destruction on the one hand and a debilitating form of commodity fetishism on the other.

B) More on the Riddle.

The problem (the riddle) to be solved was, and still is, when and how could the suffering majority population of societies effect a transition between the present capitalist system, which benefit’s only a minority and a future post-capitalist one which would benefit the vast majority. An allied question in the 19th century was also which class would take a lead in organising that transition when the opportunity arose. It was soon realised that it would be the working classes – those engaged directly in producing useful items and services – who would play the most pivotal part.

It had also become clear by the 19th century, that the capitalist class would not give up its control of the means of production voluntarily. Accordingly, it was generally accepted that a revolution against the power and privilege of the capitalist class would be necessary. Under the capitalist system, that meant that the working and oppressed classes would indeed be in the front line of that revolution.

However, revolutions cannot be simply be created at will. Few, (if any) actual revolutions, as distinct from some types of uprising, are undertaken for some clear vision of the future. The English revolution, for example, was prompted by opposition to, aristocratic tax demands. To some extent so was the North American. Opposition to the unlimited power of the French King kicked-started the French revolution and both the 1905 uprising and the1917 revolution in Russia were initially protests against the Czar’s war-mongering and the resulting socio-economic hardship. For protests or uprisings to become revolutions, the following elements need to come together.

First, an economic system, must have developed which through the maturing of its contradictions, is both insufferable yet capable of being transformed. Second, a class must have developed which can initiate and sustain civil opposition, uprisings and the subsequent revolutionary transformation. Third, the understanding of some of that class needs to be such that they recognise, at least to some degree, the requirement to go beyond the situation they find themselves in. Fourth, the dominant class must itself be severely weakened by divisions over how to solve the developing crisis as it unfolds. Fifth, any crisis which occurs must be of sufficient magnitude to weaken the traditional support it formerly had among the general population.

So this solved the ‘when’ part of the riddle of history. However, Marx also suggested that;

“..the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” (Marx. German Ideology. Coll. Wks Vol. 5 page 53.)

The revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system and the return of the means of social production into the control of the producers, would also end the class system. This is because the class system under capitalism is based upon the separation of the producers from the means of production. With production in the hands of the producers the age-long economic basis for classes would no longer exist. In the article, ‘The Poverty of Philosophy‘, Marx posed a rhetorical question (and answered it) about what follows a successful challenge to the capitalist system.

“Does this mean that after the fall of the old society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power? No. The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of all classes…The working class in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.” (Marx ’The Poverty of Philosophy’ Collected Works Vol. 6 page 211-212.)

It is clear that from the context in which this point is made that the stress is on the doing away with the class of ‘worker‘, tied as it is to the fact of wage-labour. Marx was not advocating a form of economic equality where everyone, including a political elite, become wage or salary slaves for some abstract or even concrete future state formation. The state operating as the ultimate capitalist was not what Marx had in mind. We can see, that for Marx, there would be no state, no political parties, no class domination and no ‘workers‘, or ‘capitalists’, only citizens (organised in their ‘associations‘) who contribute to social and economic production.

This multi-dimensional understanding was what Marx considered allowed ‘the riddle of history’ to be ‘solved’ – at least – in theory! However, for a time, it was still not absolutely clear what means or ‘form’ of workers association, in practice, could be the instrument of ‘association’ and become a transitional substitute for the old civil power wielded by the state. In Marx’s opinion, a final and adequate answer to that question was delivered not by theoreticians but by the citizens of Paris.

C) The solution – in practice.

During much of the 19th century, there was general agreement among a wide range of anti-capitalists about the nature of post-capitalist social forms. There was general agreement it should be made up of self-organising communities of producers. There was also agreement that the system of classes should be overturned and the fantastic differences in wealth abolished. Nevertheless, there were divisions among the radicals during the period of the 1st international and among its members.

The anarchist members of the 1st International Working Men’s organisation, for example, considered that politics itself was a hierarchical practice and could never deliver an equal society, no matter what the avowed rhetorical or ideological position of its members. They wanted nothing to do with political solutions or political forms of organisation. Marx and those around him at the time, although also accepting the one-sided, reactionary and elitist nature of politics, considered that in the period leading up to a revolutionary situation, workers would and should engage in political struggles to advance their wages and conditions.

Accordingly, around that time (a time of extreme aggression from the capitalist classes to those opposed to their system – which included deportations and judicial killings), those around Marx advocated the setting up of working class political parties to pursue – within the bourgeois political system – such reforms as the 8 hour day, health and safety issues, limitations in female and child labour exploitation, unemployment benefits and free education. Of course at that period the social conditions were extreme and of the 20 million inhabitants of the UK only a million had the vote, whilst trade union membership did not reach 2 million until 1900 – thirty years after the Paris Commune.

Therefore, for Marx, engagement with and involvement in bourgeois political forms (political parties and trade unions) were a means to improve the workers lot and to make them better equipped for the inevitable struggle against capital. However, the practical form of organisation which would assist the transformation of a revolutionary crisis into a popular revolution leading to the overthrow of capitalism, was not immediately clear to him nor to anyone else at the time it seems. The theory seemed clear, but the form of association was still obscured by generalisations and abstractions, usually along the line of ‘workers-government’ or ‘workers-state’. The unfolding struggle had not as yet revealed the solution.

However, for Marx, the formation of the Paris Commune in 1870 did. This worker-led initiative, had solved in practice the problem of what political form was suitable for a revolutionary transformation between capital and a post-capital form of society. After studying the Paris events, Marx argued that the ‘greatest measure of the commune was its own existence’. He noted that the solution was simple – as all great things. It provided ‘the rational medium’, ‘the political form of social emancipation’, it allowed the return of the powers usurped by the state to the ‘living forces’ of the ‘popular masses’.

This new creation by workers and ordinary citizens, would seem to have bridged an important gap between the anarchists and those workers organised around Marx. For here was a form, which during its development had included two types of anarchists, the Proudhonists and Blanquists among the activists. The Paris Commune, in practice, apart from electing revocable, short term delegates to any necessary positions – had no other political or governmental function.

Yet some of the anarchists of that period rejected Marx’s report (contained in ‘The Civil War in France’). They were not convinced by his re-assurances that the post-capitalist society, based upon the example of the Paris Commune, would not create a new ruling or governing class. Indeed, they accused him personally of authoritarian actions within the 1st International, and he certainly accused them of dogmatic ideology and sectarian splitting.

So the anarchists (in and out of the 1st International) continued to argue that politics would be the undoing of any proposed revolutionary developments which clung onto that fatally diseased form – even if it were workers that occupied these political positions. Bakunin, for example insisted that;

“..the election of people’s representatives and rulers of the state – is a lie, behind which is concealed, the despotism of the governing minority, and only the more dangerous in so far as it appears as expression of the so-called people’s will….They will no longer represent the people, but themselves…” (quoted by Marx from Bakunin’s ‘Statism and Anarchy.)

If we soberly consider the development of the Russian Revolution once it was in the hands of the Bolshevik Party and their so-called ‘workers state‘, it becomes clear that the Anarchists around Bakunin, in particular, were absolutely correct on the ease with which so-called ‘workers’ representatives, usually drawn from the most able, or the most devious, can become a new ruling elite. If we, therefore, insist that the Bolsheviks were carrying out Marx’s interpretation of the political form for a post-capitalist re-construction, then it would be correct to say – as others have done – that Marx’s position on this matter was fundamentally flawed.

However, a close and careful reading of Marx on this question establishes that the Bolshevik’s were not following Marx on this vitally important issue. For the Bolsheviks their political views and party organisation had not only to dominate, but dictate, and control everything – economically, socially and intellectually. If we trawl through Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, Bukharin, Zinoviev etc., hierarchical, political domination clearly appears as a recurring given! On the other hand, for Marx after the Paris Commune, political forms were to be reduced to the democratic election of representatives, (were they are required, at ordinary levels of remuneration and subject to recall) to the communal bodies. For, as he argued;

“..as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no governmental function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character.” (Marx. Conspectus of Bukharin’s Statism and Anarchy‘.)

But who else apart from Marx, Engels and a few others was watching and listening, and prepared to consistently promote such a practice? Certainly not the Bolsheviks! The Bolshevik practice after the formation of the soviets, and the seizure of power by the workers, soldiers and peasant soviets, was one of elevating and perpetuating their own dictatorial political power over the soviets. They deliberately created a governmental and bureaucratic functional state out of members of (and directed by) their own political party. As Lenin robustly asserted a number of times, against certain internal and external critics of Bolshevik political domination at the time;

“Yes it is a dictatorship of one Party! This is what we stand for and shall not shift from that position.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Vol. 29 page 535.)

For Marx, the Paris Commune presented a glimpse into the future form of workers revolutionary struggle, brought about by the exceptional circumstances around the siege of Paris. Since those exceptional circumstances were not replicated elsewhere at the time, he continued to advocate reformist political activity for workers within capitalist countries to secure fundamental changes within the system in order to strengthen the workers movement. But this advocacy was a contextual, or historically specific consideration by him, not an abandonment of the achievements of the Paris workers and citizens.

Marx, therefore did not discard, either his earlier profound criticism of political forms in general, (see his Critical Marginal notes on an article by a Prussian.) or his advocacy of the commune type form of revolutionary association inspired by the Paris Commune. Indeed, continuing the argument with the anarchists and replying to their accusation directed against Marx and others of wishing a form of government over the workers, he replied among other similar points , ‘Non, mon cher‘ ;

“..the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune….”.(Marx. Conspectus of Bukharin’s Statism and Anarchy‘.)

To sum up. For Marx, a workers and citizens associative self-government, based upon the Commune, was the ultimate form of defensive association, and in its continuance, the beginning of the revolutionary post-capitalist transformation. Self-government was to be the immediate lever of change, not a future result granted to them by a so-called worker-friendly government or a political party elite after a period of time. This crucial contribution by the Communards of Paris and written up by Marx in his report, was something the Bolsheviks had apparently, not seen, overlooked or chose to ignore.

That this form was epoch making and essentially correct, was confirmed by the workers of Russia in the 20th century when they created the workers and soldiers soviets. For these bottom up associations were also created by the masses and replicated the communal form on a wider and more comprehensive scale. Before, that is, they became, or were allowed to become, transformed by the Bolsheviks into subordinate mechanisms serving their own centralist, oligarchic and sectarian rule. So sadly, in Russia, China and elsewhere, the riddle of history, was not solved in practice. Also sadly, Marx’s name was used to create an ideology termed ’Marxism’ which justified the dominance of a political elite in charge of ‘the party’ and a totalitarian state.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2012.)

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A simple proposal for a new anticapitalist left.

Posted on April 14, 2012 by stutteringsteps


by Simon Hardy

I along with a number of other members of Workers Power in Britain, Austria and the Czech Republic have resigned from the organisation. The global capitalist crisis has posed tremendous questions for the radical left about how to go forward. We have increasingly drawn the conclusion that the historical legacy of the post-war left, in particular the Leninist-Trotskyist left, needs to be subjected to far-reaching critique and re-evaluation in light of the contemporary challenges.

The organised left is dogged by sectarianism and opportunism. There there are quite literally hundreds of competing orthodoxies, with each sect promoting and defending its own, typically very narrow, conception of revolutionary theory and practice without subjecting their ideas to the critical re-evaluation which we believe is necessary if Marxism is to reach out to far wider layers.

We came to the conclusion that a method of organising exclusively focused on building specifically Leninist-Trotskyist groups prevents the socialist left from creating the kind of broad anticapitalist organisations, which can present a credible alternative to the mainstream parties.

The post 1991 world presents new challenges to the left and the workers’ movement. Marxism is no longer the natural ‘go-to politics’ of radical activists coming into the movement today. The dramatic shift to the right by social democracy and the business unionism of the trade union movement all took their toll on the capacity of the workers to fight. Now the task of regenerating a movement that can overthrow capitalism is serious one, but in a sense the left has barely begun this task.

As a step forward, in recent months we launched a call for a new anticapitalist initiative in Britain as a way of uniting sections of the left around a strategic perspective whilst emphasising the creation of a democratic space that is so urgently needed to debate and test out our slogans and tactics. We did not want to simply declare a new organisation, but to carry out patient and serious discussions with broader forces about what such an organisation should look like.

We launched this initiative whilst we were in Workers Power, and although there was agreement that such an organisation was needed, there was growing disagreement on the role of groups like Workers Power within it. This boiled down to whether we saw it as a tactic to achieve a larger Workers Power, or whether the anticapitalist organisation that came out of it would look very different; more plural, more open, much looser, but still clear on the strategic questions.

As part of this perspective we drew the conclusion that there needed to be an open, ‘blue skies’ discussion on the radical left, involving matters of theory and history, drawing on the new as well as the old, but trying to come to practical conclusions on how we might go forward today. So, we increasingly rejected the model of democratic centralism that states revolutionary organisations should conduct their debates in private and only present their conclusions to the class. While, we don’t reject democratic centralism, our conception of it is unity in action around democratically determined goals, and free and open discussion. We showed in the course of the debate that this was the norm in the revolutionary movement in the decades prior to 1917.

Another problem we encountered was the attitude – far from a problem of Workers Power alone on the post-war left – to how Marxist ideas came to be engaged with. It is to Workers Power’s credit that from its foundation it has sought to address the problems of the post-war Trotskyist left in political and ‘programmatic’ terms; the critique had power in identifying a loss of revolutionary continuity in the pre and post war years. But the way that Marxism came to be conceived as a result led to a narrowness; thinkers outside of the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Trotsky (and partially Luxembourg) axis tended to be subjected to a form of black and white critique that undermined the kind of engagement necessary for a living and evolving body of thought to develop. This naturally places constraints on critical thinking as the concern to “get it right” tends to undermine the development of an attitude that recognises that a degree of plurality in the evolution of ideas is necessary to try and uncover objective truth, something which is needed for Marxism to develop. (Paul LeBlanc makes similar points in relation to the American SWP http://links.org.au/node/2817)

Ultimately, we felt there was a conservative intransigence on a part of the majority leadership to alter course on fundamentals, so a parting of the ways became necessary.

We are committed to taking steps towards an anticapitalist organisation that is opposed to austerity, privatisation, racism, sexism, imperialist war and supports the Palestinians. We believe that mass strikes and demonstrations are needed to bring down the government. We support the building of a rank and file movement across the unions, an essential goal in the context of the pensions sell out by sections of the union movement.  We are committed to working towards unity in the anticuts movement and overcoming unnecessary divisions which hinder our movement. We still believe that the working class is a crucial agent of revolutionary change, though we want to explore new and more creative ways of fusing socialist ideas with the kind of struggles that are going on today.

We have no illusions that unity can be created by simple decree, and we are aware that divisions built up over decades can be hard to break down. But we think it is necessary to build a new kind of left, one that overcomes our fragmentation, that unites the best of the (though we seek to critique these labels) new left with the old left.

As part of our commitment to the founding of a new plural and broader anticapitalist organisation we are not establishing yet another group on the left or establish a new orthodoxy in the sense of a new narrowly conceived appraisal of ‘what went wrong’ in the 20th century. While we need to think about historical questions, discuss and debate where we think the mistakes were made, this needs to inform the strategy we choose today, rather than imagining we can simply repeat the past.

Ultimately, the whole left needs to look forwards, not back. To the organisations still around today that were created in the 1950s, 1970s and more recently, all the many splits and splinters, we ask a simple question. Do you think your organisation is up to the challenges and tasks posed by the current crisis of capitalism? We do not think that any left group can honestly answer that in the affirmative which is why we all need a radical rethink.

Although we know we need mass forces to launch a new party, we are not content to merely wait for a new party to be formed by the trade unions – there is a pressing need for the radical left to take steps towards unity in the hear and now. We need an energetic and active campaign to build the kind of organisation that can bring the left into the mainstream. This anticapitalist initiative we see as being a stepping stone for something greater and not an end in itself. Galloway’s success shows what is possible, as does the support for Melenchon in France. Will the Marxists and radical left seize the initiative and prove itself capable of a radical rethink, or will we get more of the same?

We have no bad feelings towards the comrades in Workers Power. We want to work with them and other groups and individuals to build a united, plural organisation in which splits can be avoided and the inevitable differences are factored into the day to day practice of the organisation; we recognise there will be debate, see this as a good thing, and have a practical unity where we agree.

The experiences that we have from our time in Workers Power are invaluable. We were in the antiwar movement, in solidarity visits to Palestine, active in the student movement and reported from Tahrir Square during the early days of the Egyptian revolution. We have taken strike action in defence of pensions and campaigned in defence of the NHS. We learnt the foundation of our Marxist ideas. In particular, the group has played an important role in recent years in emphasising the need for a rank and file movement in the unions, when few socialist organisations took seriously the need for one, nor took practical steps in that direction.

All these experiences help to inform our current views. We believe that there is common ground for large parts of our movement, and that there is tremendous potential in the fightback against austerity to go beyond resistance to discuss new strategies. Any socialists, anticapitalists, radical trade unionists or social movement activists who are interested in discussing these ideas should get in touch and begin a dialogue with us at thisissimonhardy@gmail.com. We hope these discussions can inform the building of a healthier radical left.

There is a meeting at University London Union at 1pm on 28 April for anyone who is interested in a new anticapitalist project. We will not be establishing a new group overnight, we know it will take time and a long process of building up trust. But we need to start that process sooner rather than later. If you want to contact the new initiative then email anticapitalistalternative@gmail.com

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