Thoughts on the discussion on populism at the ICC’s international online public meeting in July

ICC introduction

The international online public meeting called by the ICC in July in the wake of the elections on Britain and France gave rise to a very animated discussion between comrades from several continents. The discussion showed that it is extremely important for revolutionaries to have a clear grasp of the phenomenon of populism (and the rise of the far right) which has become a major element in the growing political disarray of the ruling class. Inevitably, the debate gave rise to different interpretations of the populist phenomenon and its significance. We are publishing here two contributions from close sympathisers, written after the meeting. In our view, they provide a very clear defence of the ICC’s analysis of the phenomenon.

 

Contribution by KT

1. The ruling class’s reaction to the accelerated decay of its system, its decomposition, has been to give rise, from within itself, movements and parties which focus on blaming ‘the elites’, the traditional parties and governments, for the degraded state of affairs, experienced and expressed as a ‘national problem’. They arise in the total absence of any bourgeois or any immediate proletarian perspective for society. They arise to answer the question ‘who is to blame?’, ‘whose fault is it?’, because it’s not possible any longer to hide the true state of affairs, to pretend that ‘it’ is not getting worse and worse. In performing their function, these movements further destabilise and become an active factor in the chaos they seek to address.  
2. It is important to note that this populism is an organic, spontaneous evolution within bourgeois society at a certain stage in its development (its decomposition), which the more traditional sectors of the state – the armed forces, the civil service, the ‘secret’ services, the traditional and established parties – have not deliberately conjured up. On the contrary, they are opposed to this new manifestation. Where they try to neutralise it by adopting its political clothing, they have been rent asunder (the Tory Party in Britain) or captured almost completely by the force they seek to control (the Republican Party in the US). This is the background to the destablisation of bourgeois affairs witnessed in Europe, North and South America. In France, Macron’s successful manoeuvre to thwart the RN has resulted in … legislative paralysis: out of the frying pan and into the fire. 
3. There accrues no advantage to the proletariat in this situation. On the contrary:
   - sections of it can be prey to the lies, scapegoating and nationalist rhetoric of the populists;
   - sections of it can be temporarily dragooned into support for ‘democracy’ against the ‘new fascists’ as seen in the new Front Populaire in France or the tactical voting in GB (manoeuvres to thwart the Farage clan or to ensure the downfall of Tory candidates). The electoral terrain in France, the US, GB or anywhere is not a field of expression for the proletariat, unlike its recent struggles in defence of its living standards.   

Contribution by Baboon

During the early part of the discussion on the presentation there were three positions put forward on populism that demand a defence from the ICC’s position on that subject…

Two of the positions seemed to be broadly similar, with one of them saying that populism was an expression of the bourgeoisie which was kept in check by the power of the state, alongside a similar position that populism was controlled by the bourgeoisie. There was also a third position that populism was a diversion manufactured by the bourgeoisie aimed at confronting the class struggle of the proletariat.

On the first two positions: populism, such as it affects many states in the world, including the most powerful ones, is fundamentally an expression of the accelerating decay of all the major aspects of capitalism, i.e., its decomposition. The increasing difficulties in managing the political life of the ruling class is one example, along with others like environmental destruction and the spread of military barbarism, that are superstructural symptoms of a dying economic infrastructure, the representatives of which (the bourgeoisie) are less and less able to control. Rather than the “control” suggested by the positions of these comrades, the situation very clearly expresses a serious loss of control. This was laid out in the 1990 “Theses on Decomposition” where there is “a society devoid of the slightest project or perspective, even in the short term, and however illusory.” The Theses go on to stress that: “Amongst the major characteristics of capitalist society’s decomposition, we should emphasise the bourgeoisie’s growing difficulty in controlling the evolution of the political situation” and further “at the same time the fact that the proletariat does not yet threaten its own survival, creates within the ruling class, and especially within its political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and an attitude of ‘every man for himself’” (Points 8 and 9).

Populism is a global and general expression of the decomposition of capitalism which, similar to all the expressions, “responses” and “solutions” of the ruling class, can only incite and invite further crises, loss of control and instability to the national and international arenas. One such expression is the ascension of Trump and all that he stands for to the Presidency of mighty America.  Certainly Trump’s “excesses” were largely kept in check during his term in office but Trump’s “deal-making” approach to international relations is entirely unsuitable for the looming confrontation with China, which also necessitates the bleeding of Russian imperialism. In this respect, Trump’s goading and abuse of US “allies”, tearing up protocols and ignoring diplomatic channels is also counter-productive to the short and longer-term demands of American imperialism. And Trump is threatening much more of the same in his second term. This is not populism controlled or engineered by the state but a loss of control with the potential for further loss of control and chaos in international relations. Trump wasn’t “kept in check” by the US state when he rejected the result of the 2020 election process, openly threatened his political enemies, stoked up divisions as populism does everywhere, whipping up a phoney “unity” based on the fear and hatred of the “other” and unleashed his mob on the Capitol.

In Great Britain, the infection of populism has almost destroyed the Conservative Party, the oldest and most stable political party of the bourgeoisie anywhere in the world. The ruling class referendum for Brexit – the argument for which was largely based on extreme nationalism and racism - showed a total loss of control and indiscipline from this, the most stable and able bourgeoisie on the world stage. This loss of control by the bourgeoisie resulted in a severe self-inflicted wound to the national economy and the standing of Britain throughout the world. More was to follow as the British government was further gangrened by populism with the election of chancer Boris Johnson to Prime Minister, and when he and his clique showed themselves spectacularly inept, the even more spectacularly inept Liz Truss, whose populist economic measures led to an unprecedented economic war within the British state, was elected Prime Minister. Over three days of her short reign of just over a month the British Treasury, under orders from the Truss clique, did battle with the Bank of England, which was backed by a concerned Biden administration. Truss limped off the political stage like a wet lettuce leaving a further unnecessary hit on the British economy (and coming dangerously close to its entire pension funds wiped out) and Britain’s international standing and political class was reduced to a joke across the world.

Thus, in the last few years, the most powerful and the oldest political economies of capitalism have, in the face of crises, shown not “control” of the situation but a complete loss of control, political indiscipline and an opening up to chaos.

The other position that goes along similar lines as the bourgeoisie controlling and directing populism is that it is a deliberate tactic of the ruling class being used as a diversion or counter against the class struggle of the proletariat.

Any serious campaign undertaken by the ruling class to counter the struggle of the proletariat is not of the ilk of populism, a phenomenon which, while it can rake in some workers, is a political expression whose strength lies within the petty bourgeoisie, the citizen, the fear and hatred of the others. It’s a scream of despair from the petty bourgeoisie. A strategy of the bourgeoisie against the class struggle has much more substance than this.

The election of the Labour Party in the UK was not a result of a significant leftward turn of the bourgeoisie to counter the workers’ struggles, but a general ballot box response to the growing inanities of populist conservatism. In this election (as with Trump in the US) some workers would have voted for populist tropes along the lines of race, immigration and “woke” elites, but many more workers voted against such expressions. At any rate it was something of a victory for the bourgeoisie because, as in any election, workers voted alongside the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie as citizens, individuals; populism and anti-populism are just two sides of the same coin as far as rallies, elections and democracy are concerned. It would be odd indeed if the bourgeoisie were to use populism as a diversion against class struggle when its racism, xenophobia and totally irrational economic policies have their far greatest echoes and resonance in the realms of the petty bourgeoisie.

There’s no doubt that the ruling class use the many expressions of decomposition against the workers, hammering their consciousness on a daily basis. But this is different from a deliberate class struggle strategy by the bourgeoisie because populism is such an undisciplined and irrational mish-mash that has no perspective for the national economy or international relations, let alone one that has the strength to “divert” or counter the working class. In the last few years we have seen a clear de-facto rejection of populism by the working class (whose fundamental interests are international) in the greatest and broadest range of workers’ struggle for four decades, and which took place during the upsurge of the populist phenomenon.

The 2022/3 eruption of workers’ struggle did not come out of clear blue sky. The ICC article “After the rupture...” (International Review 171) correctly points to tendencies of struggles breaking out internationally from 2018/19. Significant strikes were breaking out in the US in 2019, during the Trump administration; and in Britain strikes began during Johnson’s reign and further deepened and spread during the Truss debacle and the into the reign of the populist-gangrened Conservative Party. The global development of workers’ struggle developed during the heights of populism (and just before, during and after the Covid pandemic – see After the rupture in the class struggle, the necessity for politicisation, International Review 171)

“which clearly demonstrates that if it was a weapon against the working class then it was totally ineffectual. But, by using the same faulty method which sees populism as a diversion against class struggle, one could conclude that populism accelerated the class struggle. Neither was the case, and the obvious synthesis is that populism represents a loss of control by the political class of capitalism.

This is not to deny the persisting power of populism and the use that it has made of democracy in order to pursue its obscure aims. Already in some countries populists in power are having to curb their “excesses” and adjust to the needs of the national interest and global imperialism – similar to the way the Greens had to where they had some electoral clout, on a smaller scale.

The recent wave of international class struggle, the most profound for four decades, is a riposte to the question of populism by a proletariat that is tentatively putting forward its own priorities and its own perspective which are distinct from that of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. It is also a riposte to capitalist decomposition in that while the proletariat can’t stem the tide of decomposition, it can offer a different perspective, a working class perspective, which it has opened up and given a glimpse of a different future.

Baboon, 24.7.24