In the days following the massacre, world leaders have been rushing to express their 'solidarity with the Russian people' and with their 'strong leader' Mr Putin. At the Republican Convention in New York, Bush did not hesitate to include the Russian state's war against Chechen separatism in the global 'war on terrorism' spearheaded by the USA. In Moscow tens of thousands took part in an official anti-terrorist march under banners declaring 'Putin, we are with you'.
But solidarity with the victims of Beslan is one thing. Support for the Russian state is another. Because the Russian state is just as much to blame for this nightmare as the terrorists who seized the school.
For a start, because a large number of the deaths and injuries were almost certainly caused by the actions of the Russian troops surrounding the school, using automatic fire, flamethrowers and grenade launchers in a completely chaotic manner. These brutal methods cannot fail to raise memories of the way the Moscow theatre siege was ended in October 2002, and yet Putin has refused to sanction the slightest questioning of the army's role in the affair. But more important than this is the fact that, just as the US 'war on terrorism' has plunged Afghanistan and Iraq into ideal hunting grounds for home-grown and international terrorist gangs, so Chechen terrorism is the by-product of Russian imperialism's devastating war in the Caucasus.
Faced with demands for an independent Chechnya after the collapse of the USSR, Russia reacted with a murderous offensive in which at least 100,000 people died. In 1999, following a lull in the conflict, Putin stepped it up to even more barbaric levels, virtually flattening the Chechen capital of Grozny. The pretext given for this renewed offensive was the blowing up of apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk, in which 300 people were killed. Although Chechen terrorists were accused, there are strong grounds for thinking that this was the work of the Russian secret service. Since then, Russia has remained absolutely intransigent in its refusal of any demands for Chechen independence. This is because the loss of Chechnya would be a huge blow to Russia's imperialist interests. For one thing because of Chechnya's strategic position with regard to the Caucasian oil fields and pipelines; but, more importantly, because of the danger that if Chechnya secedes from the Russian Federation, it would give the signal for the break-up of the Federation and Russia would lose its last pretences to be a player on the world arena.
There have been no limits to the crimes committed by the Russian army in the Caucasus. They are well-documented by any number of 'human rights' organisations. Human Rights Watch, for example, talks about Putin's "failure to establish a meaningful accountability process for crimes committed by Russian soldiers and police forces�enforced disappearances, summary executions and torture have grossly undermined trust in Russian state institutions among ordinary Chechens" (cited in The Guardian, September 2 2004).
These ravages are equal to anything perpetrated by 'official' tyrants like Saddam or Milosevic. And yet throughout these years of misery in the Caucasus, the leaders of 'western democracy', the advocates of 'humanitarian intervention' in Kosovo or Iraq, have supported Putin to the hilt. Blair even invited him to tea with the Queen. This is because behind all their 'moral' rhetoric, Bush, Blair and the rest are interested only in the imperialist needs of the capitalist states they represent. Today these needs demand that Russia � though a rival in many respects, as it showed with its opposition to the Iraq war � must be preserved as a national unit and not allowed to collapse into chaos. Russia is a vast stockpile of nuclear weapons and a global energy giant. The consequences of the Russian Federation shattering like the old USSR are too dangerous for the bourgeoisies of the west. This doesn't mean that, tomorrow (or in some cases, already) the great powers won't try to take advantage of Russia's internal difficulties in order to advance their own pawns in the region. But for now, all of them, including the USA's main rivals, France and Germany, have approached the Russian question with extreme caution. President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schröder of Germany visited Putin recently, expressed their entire support for his Chechen policy, and endorsed the utterly fraudulent election of the new pro-Russian Chechen president Alu Alkharov, who succeeds his assassinated predecessor Kadryov.
It also suits the US and Russia to proclaim that they are both fighting a 'war on terrorism'. In exchange for turning a blind eye to Russia's barbaric military occupation of Chechnya and its support for petty warlords elsewhere in the Caucasus, Washington gets a certain degree of Russian acquiescence for its policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Because Russian state barbarism in Chechnya has spawned the barbarism of the terrorist gangs, there are those critics of the excesses of the Russian state who ask us to 'understand' the actions of the terrorists, just as they ask us to 'understand' the suicide bombers organised by Hamas and similar groups in Palestine, or even to 'understand' the al-Qaida attacks of 9/11. And, yes, we 'understand' that those whose families have been slaughtered and raped by Russian troops, or bombed by Israeli or American planes and tanks, should be driven towards violent revenge and suicidal acts of despair. But we also 'understand' why terrified Russian conscripts in Chechnya should be goaded into acts of insane brutality against the civilian population. This understanding does not lead us to support the Russian army, and neither does it lead us to support the nationalist and fundamentalist bosses-in-waiting who exploit the despair of the poor and the oppressed to push them into carrying out terrorist attacks on the poor and oppressed of other nations. Faced with the choice between Russian state terror and Chechen terrorism, between the Israeli army of occupation and Hamas, or between US imperialism and al-Qaida, we say: enough false choices! We will not be tricked into supporting one faction of capitalism against another, into looking for the 'lesser evil' in any of the imperialist wars ravaging the planet today.
We understand the roots of national and racial hatred, and this is precisely why we oppose all its possible expressions. The fanatical nationalism of the Beslan hostage-takers led them to consider their victims as less than human; and now a powerful sentiment of revenge for their inhuman acts is swelling up not only in Ossetia but in Russia as a whole. The Russian state will use these sentiments to justify new acts of aggression in Chechnya and elsewhere: already its military leaders have threatened 'pre-emptive strikes' anywhere in the world. This will give rise to further terrorist reprisals and so the endless spiral of death will continue, just as it does in Israel and Iraq.
Against national and religious divisions of all kinds, we stand for the solidarity of the exploited regardless of race, nationality or religion. Against all appeals for solidarity with 'our' state or 'our' national leaders, we stand for the class solidarity of the proletariat in all countries.
This solidarity, this unity of all the exploited, can only be forged in the struggle against exploitation. It has nothing in common with appeals for charity, with the illusion that solidarity can be reduced to sending money or blankets to the victims of war and terror. The wars and massacres spreading around the world are products of the terminal decay of capitalist society; they can only be opposed and ended through the common fight for a new society, where human solidarity is the only law.
One of the grieving parents of Beslan was quoted as saying that the inhumanity of the siege made her think that this was "the beginning of the end of the world". The collapse of all human decency, of the most basic social ties, exemplified by the slaughter of children, does indeed show us that the capitalist world is coming to an end, one way or another. One way is the capitalist way, leading to the extermination of humanity; the other is the proletarian way, leading to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a communist society without classes or exploitation, states, national frontiers or wars.
ICC, 10th September 2004
In mid-July Daimler-Chrysler in Germany posed an ultimatum to 41,000 workers in Sindelfingen (Stuttgart) to agree to wage cuts and changes in working conditions or have production of a new Mercedes transferred to South Africa. This lead to strikes and demonstrations by 60,000 (out of 160,00) Daimler workers across Germany, with great expressions of anger and solidarity from other workers. The IG Metall union and Daimler soon stitched up a deal which provoked further anger from workers shouting that the union had no right to sign such a deal in their name. This was a defeat for the workers, but they do know that the union was involved. This article is from Welt Revolution 125, the ICC's publication in Germany, and was distributed as a leaflet when company/union negotiations were still going on. The ICC in Germany has never had such an enthusiastic reception to a leaflet, which confirmed that the question of militant solidarity is really being posed in the working class.
The employers seem to have got what they were aiming for. Millions of wage labourers have been sent off on holidays with the news that Europe's biggest industrial company, at the main Mercedes plant at Stuttgart-Sindelfingen, is soon going to be 'saving' production costs of half a billion Euro yearly at the expense of its employees. They want to let us all know that even where companies are still making a profit, workers have become extremely liable to being blackmailed through the threat of transferring production elsewhere, and of massive lay-offs. During the holiday period we are supposed to resign ourselves to the fact that we will soon all have to work longer for less money. Precisely at the moment when the workforce disperses for the major summer break when, in isolation, the feeling of powerlessness is particularly strongly felt, they want to force down our throats the recognition that a breach has been made. A breach at the expense of the workers which effects not only the work force at Daimler-Chrysler but all wage slaves. The market economy offers nothing but pauperisation, insecurity and endless drudgery
Only a few weeks after the staff of the Siemens plants in Bocholt and Kamp-Lintfort were blackmailed into accepting a return to the 40 hour week without any wage compensation; after Bavaria had taken the lead in extending the working day, also in the public sector, again without any pay compensation, the employers have now begun to clamour - depending on their situation - for a 40, a 42, or even for a 50 hour week. At Karstadt for instance (a department store chain) the workers were told: either you work a 42 hour week or 4000 jobs will be eliminated. Whether in the construction sector, at MAN or at Bosch - everywhere similar demands are being raised.
The experience of the past weeks thus confirms what more and more wage labourers are beginning to feel: that the much praised 'market economy' (with or without the predicate 'social') has nothing else in store for us but pauperisation, insecurity and endless drudgery.
But in addition to this bitter but necessary recognition there are other lessons of the conflicts of the past weeks which have to be drawn and assimilated. The ruling class wants us to draw from the struggle at Daimler-Chrysler the conclusion that there is no point in putting up resistance; that the logic of capitalist competition will impose itself one way or the other, so that it would be better to submit from the onset; that after all the exploiters and the exploited all sit in the same boat in "maintaining employment in Germany".
But from the point of view of the working population there are quite different conclusions to be drawn. More than 60,000 employees of Daimler-Chrysler throughout Germany have participated in the past few days in strikes and protest actions. Workers from Siemens, Porsche, Bosch and Alcatel have participated in demonstrations in Sindelfingen. This struggle has shown that the workers have begun to return to the path of struggle. Taking into consideration the suffering and misery held in store for the workers of the whole world in the coming years, we can understand that the most important thing now is not the fact that, once again, the capitalists have managed to impose their will. More importantly, this time, the attacks were not passively accepted.
The most important thing of all is the following: when Daimler-Chrysler threatened the employees at Sindelfingen, Untert�rkheim and Mannheim with the transfer of the production of the new S-class model to Bremen from 2007 on, it consciously aimed at playing off the workers of the different plants against each other. The fact that the employees in Bremen participated in the protest actions against wage cuts, longer working hours and the elimination of breaks in Baden-W�rttemberg, thwarted this strategy of the employers. This at least began to make clear that our answer to the crisis of capitalism can only lie in workers' solidarity. This solidarity is the force which makes our struggle possible, and which gives it its meaning.
The ruling class wants to give us the impression that the struggle at Mercedes was a pointless exercise which did not impress it in the least. But if you examine the events more closely, all the indications suggest that the ruling class is indeed worried about the commencement of working class resistance. It fears above all that the dispossessed will recognise that solidarity is not only the most effective weapon in the defence of their own interests, but in addition contains the fundamental principle of an alternative, higher form of social order.
It was anything but a coincidence that the return to a 40 hour week at Siemens in the Ruhr area was immediately followed by the massive public challenge to the work force of Daimler-Chrysler. The case of Siemens was meant to serve as a demonstration that, whenever there is the threat of the closure of a plant, the workers will not only have to put up with worsened working and pay conditions, but also with longer working hours. At Mercedes in Stuttgart, on the contrary, there is - for the moment - no question of closing down the plant. This plant is still considered to be particularly efficient and profitable. Mercedes was chosen to put over a second message: that the boundless extension of the regime of exploitation applies not only where the company or the plant has its back up against the wall. It must apply everywhere. That was why Daimler was deliberately chosen, precisely because it is the flagship of German industry, the biggest concentration of the industrial working class in Germany, in the heart of Baden-W�rttemberg, with its many hundreds of thousands of engineering workers. In this way, the message of the capitalists was to come over loud and clear. This message is that if even such a strong group of workers, well known for their experience of struggle and their combativity, are not able to avert such attacks, than the other wage earners will certainly have to submit to them.
It's not for nothing that the employers combine their forces in so-called employers' confederations. They do so in order to co-ordinate their efforts against the working class. In addition, these confederations are fused with the whole of the state apparatus. This means that the strategy of the employers is embedded in a global strategy directed by the government at the national and provincial levels, and thus also by Social Democracy. In this process a kind of division of labour between the government and industry arises. Most of the 'reforms' decided on by the federal government and directly enforced by the state are scheduled during the first half of a term of office. These have, in the past two years, included the most incredible attacks against the living standards of the working population: the 'health reform', the 'Hartz' legislation against the unemployed, the 'relaxation' of employment protection laws etc. Now, on the other hand, the SPD is happy, in the period leading up to the next general elections, to let the employers take centre stage - in the hope that people will thus continue to identify with the state, go and vote, and not completely lose confidence in the SPD.
We should therefore not allow ourselves to be misled by the SPD when it now declares that its sympathies lie with the workers of Daimler-Chrysler. In reality, the present attacks in the enterprises are directly linked to the 'reforms' by the federal government. It was probably no coincidence that the much publicised sending of the new questionnaire to the unemployed (aimed at finding out about and mobilising all the financial resources of the unemployed and their families as a means of cutting benefits) took place at the same moment as the imposition of the attacks at Daimler. The lowering of unemployment benefits to the level of the social aid minimum and the enforced surveillance and control of the unemployed serves not only to "unburden" the state budget at the expense of the poorest of the poor. It also serves to intensify the effectiveness of all the available means of blackmail against the still employed. To them it is to be made clear that if they do not shut up and accept everything, they will themselves be plunged into a bottomless poverty.
But the fact that the attacks of capital are not going to be accepted without a fight is proven not only by the protests at Daimler, but also by the way the ruling class reacted to them. It soon became clear that the politicians, the trade unions, the factory union councils and also the employers had realised that the conflict at Daimler ought to be resolved as quickly as possible. The capitalist strategy was originally orientated towards playing off Stuttgart and Bremen against each other. The resistance of the workers most immediately under attack in the south-east of Germany was to be expected. But what apparently came as a surprise was the enthusiasm with which other workers above all in Bremen, participated in the movement. The spectre of workers' solidarity, long considered dead and buried, threatened a comeback. In the face of this, the representatives of the capitalists began to get visibly nervous.
Thus, spokesmen of all the political parties represented in parliament - including the Liberals of the FDP, the self-declared party of the rich - began to call on the management of Daimler-Chrysler to offer to renounce part of its earnings. Of course, such a measure is nothing but a hoax. Since the board of directors itself decides its salary, it always has the power to compensate for this 'renunciation'. Moreover, it does not help workers who can no longer afford education for their children, or the mortgage on their flat, to know that someone like J�rgen Schrempp (Daimler's CEO) may eventually be pocketing a million more or less.
It is more interesting to consider the question as to why the political leadership is presently calling for this gesture from the board of directors. They are calling for it in order to prop up the ideology of social partnership, which threatens to suffer when a bitter labour conflict is underway.
That is also why the politicians lashed the arrogance of the Daimler bosses. The problem of the present situation, where the employers have taken the initiative as the attackers, whereas the state has tried to stay in the background, disguising itself as a neutral force, becomes visible. A manager like Schrempp or Hubbert does not have the sensibility of an experienced Social Democrat when it is a matter of demonstratively inflicting a defeat on the workers, while on the other hand avoiding provoking them too much. Above all, the ruling class is afraid that the workers might start thinking too much about their own struggle and about the perspective of their lives under capitalism. In this context, the criticism made by Chancellor Schr�der is significant: "My advice is to settle these matters in the enterprises, and talk about them as little as possible" (our emphasis).
Since the collapse of Stalinism - a particularly inefficient, rigid, over- regimented form of state capitalism - in 1989, it has been repeated ad nauseam that there is no longer any perspective of socialism, and that class struggle and the working class no longer exist. But nothing is more likely than widespread workers' struggles to prove to the world that neither the working class itself nor the class struggle are things of the past.
We do not want to overestimate the struggles at Daimler. These struggles were not at all sufficient to prevent the capitalist "breach". One reason for this is because the conflict essentially remained limited to the Daimler workers. The whole of history proves that only the extension of the struggle to other parts of the working class is able to even temporarily make the ruling class back down. Another problem was that at no time did the workers even begin to contest or put in doubt trade union control. The IG Metall and the local factory council once again proved themselves adept masters at placing at the centre of attention everything which distinguishes the situation at Mercedes from that of other wage labourers: the profitability of one's 'own' concern, the full order books of one's 'own' plant, the much praised efficiency of the Baden-W�rttemberg metal workers. In this way, a far-reaching, more active solidarity with the rest of the working class was blocked off. The media, for their part, also took up the same theme from the other end, tying to spread envy against the Daimler workers who were presented as being particularly priveleged. It was striking that, for instance, the media reported daily from Sindelfingen (where the zebra crossings made of carrara marble rarely failed to be mentioned) whereas the situation in Bremen (where the element of solidarity had most strongly come to the fore) was blacked out.
Even before management had gone public with its demand for yearly savings of half a billion, the general works council of Daimler had already itself proposed an austerity package to the tune of 180 million Euro per annum. And as soon as management had agreed to the hoax of also making sacrifices, IG Metall and the factory council presented their agreement to a "global package" which in all points fulfilled the original demands of the company, and then presented this as a victory for the workers, which allegedly achieved a "job guarantee" for all.
It is not because they are evil that the unions divide up the workers and defend the interests of the employers at the expense of the employees, but because they themselves have long since become part and parcel of capitalism and its logic. This means that workers' solidarity and the extension of struggles can only be achieved by the workers themselves. This in turn requires sovereign mass assemblies and a method of struggle directed towards different sectors of the employed and the unemployed coming together. This can only be achieved independently and against the resistance of the unions.
We are still very far removed from such an autonomous mode of struggle based on active solidarity. Nevertheless, today we can already find the seeds of such future struggles. The Daimler workers themselves were quite conscious that they were fighting not only for themselves, but for the interests of all workers. It is also incontestable that their struggle - despite all the hate campaigns about the alleged privileges in Sindelfingen - has met with the sympathy of the working population as a whole, such as has not been witnessed in Germany since the struggles of Krupp Rheinhausen in 1987.
At that time, the "Kruppianer" at least began to pose the question of the active extension of the struggle to other sectors, as well as beginning to think about contesting the trade union control of the struggle. The fact that today these questions are not yet really posed shows how much ground the working class has lost in the past 15 years, not only in Germany, but world-wide. But on the other hand struggles such as at Krupp, or that of the British miners, represented the end of a series of workers' struggles which lasted from 1968 to 1989, but were then followed by a long period of reflux. The present struggles, on the contrary - whether in the public sector in France and Austria last year, or now at Daimler - are merely the beginning of a new series of important social struggles. These struggles will develop in a much slower and more difficult manner than in the past. Today, the crisis of capitalism is much more advanced, the general barbarism of the system much more visible, the threatening calamity of unemployment much more omnipresent.
But today, much more than was the case with Krupp-Rheinhausen, the great sympathy of the wage-earning population with the workers in struggle is more directly linked to the slowly dawning recognition of the seriousness of the situation. The ruling class - and its unions - are busy presenting the presently imposed lengthening of the working day as a temporary measure in order to hold onto jobs until the economy has "regained competivity". But the workers are beginning to guess that what is happening is more and more fundamental than that. Indeed! What is happening is that the acquisitions, not only of decades, but of two centuries of workers' struggles, are threatened with being thrown overboard. What is happening is that the working day, like in the early days of capitalism, is being lengthened more and more - but in the context of the working conditions of modern capitalism with its hellish intensity of labour. What is happening is that, more and more, human labour power, as a source of the wealth of society, is being exhausted and in the long term worked to death. In contrast to early capitalism this is not the birth pangs of a new system, but is the expression of a moribund capitalism which today has become the obstacle to the progress of humanity. In the long term, today's uncertain efforts towards workers' resistance, towards the revival of solidarity, go hand in hand with a deeper reflection. This can and must lead to putting this barbaric system into question and to the perspective of a higher, socialist world system.
Welt Revolution, 22/7/04.
Under the direction of US imperialism, the political and religious leaders of Iraq met on August 15 in Baghdad in order to hold the first session of a national conference whose official aim was to organise national elections for 2005. According to the New York Times, "the Americans and the present Iraqi government sought to show, through this conference, that the electoral process is on course despite the violence sweeping the country". This electoral perspective is doomed to total failure. The same New York Times article provided the proof: "the opening day of the conference was more marked by appeals to end the fighting in Najaf than by the future elections". Hardly had the conference begun when two shells fell nearby and forced the proceedings to be suspended. From August 5 on, there has been a clear acceleration of violence all across the country. This was the day that the radical Shia cleric Moqtada-al-Sadr declared holy war against the Americans and British after the latter had arrested four of his followers. Subsequently the US army lay siege to Najaf with the approval of its governor al Zorfi. For several weeks Moqtada's gunmen held out in the mausoleum of Imam Ali, the holiest site for Shiite Muslims the world over. This prompted Sheikh Jawad al-Khalessi, imam of the grand mosque of Kadimiya to announce that "neither this pseudo-governor, a former interpreter to the US army chosen for his ability to obey the maddest of orders, nor the highest religious authorities, have the right to authorise infidels to enter Ali's mausoleum". Fighting then spread to Kut, Amara, Dwaniyah, Nassariyah and Bassorah, as well as Sadr City in Baghdad, with hundreds of casualties, mainly among the Shia militia. Eventually the supreme Shia religious leader al-Sistani negotiated a ceasefire, but it can only be provisional. Iraq is a state in chaos and has no prospect of overcoming it.
Whether it likes it or not, the USA has blundered into a military impasse. Aware that resistance against US authority can only increase, Colin Powell has proposed that other Muslim states get involved in the situation; there is no chance of this happening. The Egyptian minister of foreign affairs didn't take long to insist that Egypt would not be sending any troops. What's more the siege of Najaf can only make things worse for the US throughout the Muslim world, especially in countries which have a large Shia population.
In a world where everyone is out to defend their own imperialist interests, there's no doubt that Iran is implicated both politically and militarily in the Shia revolt in Iraq. This is why we have seen a series of threats from Washington against the Tehran regime. On 1 August Colin Powell himself accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs. The war in Iraq is also having an impact in Turkey; in fact the whole region is caught up in a process of destabilisation. The situation in Iraq is demonstrating to the whole world that the USA's worldwide authority is weakening. The anti-Iran campaign waged by the US also involves the nuclear question and it has been taken up by Israel. At a press conference in August, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that "Iran was on the list of terrorist states for years and one of the world's great anxieties concerns the links between a terrorist state which possesses weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist networks. It is understandable that the nations not only of the region but of the whole world feel deeply troubled by this". We cannot exclude the possibility that America's next step in its headlong flight into war will be towards Iran. It could even be dragged in behind the increasingly barbaric and suicidal policies of Israel. On 15 July the Sunday Times cited "Israeli sources" who said that "Israel has carried out rehearsals for a strike against Iran" and "would in no case allow Iranian reactors, notably the one at Bushehr, under construction with the aid of the Russians, to reach the critical point�in the worst case, if international efforts fail, we are quite confident that with a single blow we could demolish the nuclear ambitions of the Ayatollahs".
The course towards military chaos in the Middle East is also bringing about the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. This body was set up in the wake of the Oslo accords of 1993, and was supposed to be the embryo of a Palestinian state, to be formed after five years. This was part of the illusory perspective of stabilisation in the Middle East. We have seen the exact opposite: a proliferation of massacres, murders and bombings. The decomposition of this part of the world, pushed forward by the expansionist policies of Israel, has deprived the Palestinian Authority of its last vestiges of power. Even if Arafat is still fighting to keep his position as president of the PA, his acolytes have been squabbling with increasing violence over the attributes of power. The PA is rife with corruption and these disputes are a clear expression of the total impotence of the Palestinian bourgeoisie. And even if the clash between Arafat and his current prime minister Ahmed Qureia has been resolved for now, none of this will halt the course towards the breakdown of the PA and the growing influence of all kinds of armed gangs taking advantage of the despair of the Palestinian population to launch more and more blind and suicidal terrorist attacks, the latest to date being the bombing of two buses in Beersheba which left 16 dead and hundreds wounded. The Israeli state, for its part, has every intention of continuing its policy of crushing all Palestinian resistance and colonising the West Bank of the Jordan. To this end it is going ahead with the construction of the 'anti-terrorist wall' which is turning the entire area into a vast concentration camp. And neither the fact that Sharon is encountering opposition from his own Likud party over his plan to evacuate the Gaza strip, nor his efforts to get the Israeli left around Peres on board - even if they express the weakening of the Israeli political structure - imply any lessening of Israel's war-like policies. At the same time, the altercations between president Chirac and Sharon over the dangers facing the Jewish community in France shows that the rise in imperialist tensions is having a serious impact on relations between Israel and France. This in turn corresponds to growing tensions between France and the US.
All the ingredients for further instability in the Middle East are coming together. The increasing number of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia is only one of them; similar tensions can be felt in Egypt, Lebanon, and the other Gulf states.
The accelerating weakness of the USA as the world's leading power can only encourage the other powers, in particular France and Germany, but also secondary powers like Russia and China, to take full advantage and strengthen their own hand on the world arena. The sharpening of conflicts between the great powers can only aggravate the general slide towards chaos and war, and none of it can be prevented by changing the governing teams in Israel, the USA, or anywhere else. It will certainly make little difference if Bush is replaced by Kerry. As we argued in our article on the Middle East in International Review 118, capitalism's flight into war is not the choice of individual politicians: "To lay the responsibility for war at the door of this or that head of state's incompetence, allows the ruling class to hide the reality, to hide the appalling responsibility of capitalism and with it the whole ruling class world wide".
Tino, 22/8/04.
The following is part of correspondence that has been continuing for some years.
Dear ICC,
I am perplexed by what seems to be a contradiction in your politics. On the one hand Marxists argue that only communism can release the full potentials of production to meet the needs of the working class of the world, yet argue that there is a glut of markets following capitalist over-production. Of course there is overproduction of some things and under-production of others, but even so, has capitalism already reached its giddy limit of possible production or not? If greater production is still possible within all the evils of capitalism, would it be more persuasive to argue for equitable distribution of the current over-production, to get back by and to the working class what is being withheld from it?
I have been reading from your website the 'Debate with Red and Black Notes: The irrationality of capitalist war', from Internationalism 130, where it is said that in its period of decadence "capitalist relations of production come to serve as a brake on the development of the productive forces, in which capitalism has become a fully regressive mode of production", whereas the article goes on to tell of "decadence - marked by a permanent global crisis of overproduction".
This apparent contradiction between restrained productive capacity and current overproduction under capitalism persists in puzzling me, and maybe others too. I am not saying that what you say is mistaken, but would appreciate an explanation on this for the working class.
Regards, D
Our Reply
Dear D,
Thank you for your question, which we will try to answer succinctly. We would like, with your permission, to publish your letter and our reply in World Revolution.
The tendency toward overproduction in capitalism does indeed lead to the squandering and destruction of the productive forces.
Why? In the capitalist system, contrary to previous modes of production, supply precedes demand. Its productive capacities and output are driven forward by the competitive drive for profit inherent in generalised commodity production, rather than by the growth of, and capacity for, consumption. As a result modern capitalism has led to 'plethoric' crises since its inception, regularly overflowing the limits of the market for its products, and leading to bankruptcies, unemployment, unsold goods, stagnation and decline in production. "Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce". Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto.
Up to a certain point in capitalism's historical trajectory the periodic destruction of the productive forces was nevertheless a stimulus to revolutionising technology, the better exploitation of existing markets and the search for new ones, in other words to the long term advancement of the productive forces of mankind. However the periodic wastage of production could only intensify over time and eventually become a chronic problem during capitalism's decadent period when the growth of world production has become burdened by colossal debt, massive military expenditure, and the enormous costs of bloated state machines, which over the past 80 years has lead to repeated devastation on a catastrophic scale. Capitalism continues to augment production but the latter is more and more oriented toward waste and destruction, thus posing the alternative: socialism or barbarism.
But you ask why it is not possible for capitalism to be forced (or persuaded) to redistribute its surplus to the working class, presumably for nothing or for next to nothing. If that were to happen capitalism would be finished, since such philanthropy would lead to a collapse in prices and then profits. That's why capitalism prefers to throw unsold products away rather than give them away. It would rather destroy food than feed the starving millions, even though it has more than enough means to assuage human hunger on a world scale.
Capitalism is only interested in hungry mouths if they are connected to deep pockets - and most of them aren't. It lacks solvent buyers to realise the profit contained in its products. Giving them away free or selling them at prices below their value would not in any away resolve its crises of realisation or overproduction.
This brings us to an aspect of the original problem of overproduction: the working class can't buy back all that it produces because it is only paid the price of its labour power: capitalism 'withholds' - as you put it - the surplus value that workers create.
Capitalism therefore can't redistribute the fruits of workers' labour - as the left and leftists would have us believe. It is increasingly forced to waste them. The liberation of the productive forces demands capitalism be overthrown.
Hope this helps your understanding; we would also suggest studying our pamphlet The Decadence of Capitalism and related articles in the International Review.
Fraternally, ICC.
Anarchy as an essential characteristic of capitalism
In Weltrevolution 124 [9] we reported on the first of a series of public meetings of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP) in Berlin. The second meeting took place on May 15th. There, the causes of imperialist war were debated. A representative of Battaglia Comunista, the IBRP's section in Italy, made the presentation which dealt with the background to the Iraq War and the contemporary foreign policy of the USA. The comrade put forward the analysis of the IBRP, according to which the American "crusade against terrorism" mainly serves economic goals: the tightening of American control over the oil reserves of the world, in order to bolster the hegemony of the Dollar over the world economy, and thus to assure itself the cream of an additional "oil rent" profit. As a result of its waning capacity to compete, the USA has to rely on the parasitic appropriation of the surplus value produced world wide to keep its own economy afloat. In addition it was said that strategic considerations do also play a role, often in connection with the control of oil reserves, aimed at cutting off Russia and China from each other and from important oil fields, and at keeping the European Union weak and divided.
This analysis provoked different reactions on the part of the participants at the public meeting. Whereas a comrade of the Friends of a Classless Society (FKG) - formerly an initiator of the group Aufbrechen -praised the capacity of the IBRP to identify the concrete economic causes of war, the speaker of the group GIS (Gruppe Internationale Sozialisten) expressed doubts concerning this analysis. He pointed out that the act of acquiring international finance liquidity on the part of the USA is first and foremost the expression and continuation of a classical policy of indebtedness. Moreover, he repeated the point of view which he had already defended at the previous IBRP meeting, according to which the effort to militarily dominate oil resources serves military more than economic goals. A member of the Group of International Communists (GIK), for his part, pointed out that not only the USA, but also the other leading imperialist powers, and in the first instance the European states, are presently fighting for world domination. He put forward the thesis that, whereas in this struggle the USA mainly throws its military might onto the weighing scales, Europe banks mainly on its economic power.
In its first contribution to the discussion the ICC dealt with the argumentation of the IBRP. According to this argumentation, the US has to a large extent lost its competitive edge on the world market. In order to compensate for the consequences of this development - gigantic balance of trade and payment deficits, the growing public debt - America wages war in the four corners of the world, in order, through the control over oil and the hegemony of the Dollar, to attract capital.
From the point of view of the ICC this analysis is politically very dangerous, since it looks for the causes of imperialist war in the particular situation of a given state, instead of in the stage of development and the ripeness of the contradictions of the capitalist system as a whole. No wonder, therefore, that this analysis is very similar to the line of argumentation of the pro-European anti-globalisation camp, or of German left Social Democrats such as Oskar Lafontaine, who explain the sharpening of imperialist tensions through the allegedly particularly parasitic character of the US economy.
Secondly, this analysis fails to answer two questions:
In reality, the International Bureau is here confusing cause and effect. America is not arming itself to the teeth because it has lost its competitive edge. Rather, to the extent that it really has lost its competitive advantages, it is to a large extent the result of its efforts in the armaments race. This development, moreover, is not specific to US imperialism. The previous long-standing major rival of America, the USSR, collapsed mainly through having armed itself to death. The truth is that the bloating of the military budget, at the expense of the development of the productive forces, and the progressive subjugation of the economy to militarism, are essential characteristics of decaying capitalism.
Thirdly, it is true that there is an inseparable connection between crisis and war in capitalism. But this connection is not that of the simplistic thesis of a war for oil or for the hegemony of the Dollar. The real connection between the two is revealed, for instance, by the historic circumstances which led to World War I. At that time there was no world economic depression comparable to that which broke out later, in 1929. The crisis of 1913 still had a basically cyclical character and was actually a relatively mild one. There was no commercial, state budget, or balance of payments crisis in Great Britain, Germany, or any of the other main protagonists, in any way comparable to those of today, and no particular monetary turbulence (at that time the gold standard was still universally recognised). But nonetheless the first imperialist world conflagration broke out. Why? What is the general law of imperialism at the roots of modern warfare?
The more developed a capitalist state is the mightier the concentration of its capital, the greater its dependence on the world market; all the more therefore does it depend on access to, and domination of, the resources of the globe. Therefore, in the epoch of imperialism, every state is obliged to attempt to establish a zone of influence around itself. As for the great powers, they necessarily consider the whole world as their zone of influence - nothing less is enough in order to secure the basis of their existence. The stronger the economic crisis is, and the harder the battle for the world market, the more imperious this need must be felt.
Germany declared war on Great Britain in 1914, not because of its immediate economic situation, but because for such a power, for whom world economy has become its fate, it could no longer be tolerated that its access to the world market depended for the most part on the good will of Great Britain, the ruler of the world's oceans and of a large share of the colonies. This meant that the German bourgeoisie did not need to wait until 1929 until, in the face of world wide depression, it was really excluded from the world market by the old colonial powers. Rather, it chose to act beforehand, in order to try to change its situation before it came to the worst. This explains why, at the beginning of the 20th century, the world war came before the world economic crisis.
The fact that the capitalist powers more and more brutally collide with each other means that imperialist war leads increasingly to the mutual ruin of the participating states. Rosa Luxemburg already pointed this out in 1916 in her Junius Pamphlet. But the recent war in Iraq also confirms this. Iraq was once one of the most important sources, on the periphery of capitalism, of lucrative major contracts for European and American industry. Today not only the capitalist economic crisis, but even more so the wars against Iran and America, have completely ruined Iraq. But also the American economy is being additionally bled by the costs of the Iraq campaigns. Behind the idea that the present war has been waged over a monetary speculation or an alleged "oil rent", lurks the assumption that war is still lucrative, that capitalism is still an expanding system. Not only the policy of the USA, but also the terrorism of the likes of Bin Laden was interpreted by the representative of Battaglia in this sense; presenting the latter as the expression of the attempt of "200 Saudi Arabian families" to acquire a greater share of the profits from their own oil production.
After both the IBRP and the ICC had presented their own view of the causes of war, there ensued an interesting and lively debate. It was noticeable that the participants at the meeting were very concerned to get to know better the positions of the two left communist organisations present, insisting that the two groups answer each other. Nor did these comrades limit themselves to posing questions, but themselves brought forward objections and made criticisms.
For example, a comrade of the FKG accused the ICC of a "cheap polemic" on account of our comparison of the analysis of the IBRP with that of the anti-globalisation movement. He argued that underlining the aggressor role of the USA today has nothing in common with playing down the role of European imperialism by its bourgeois sympathisers. And he correctly pointed out that, in the past also, proletarian internationalists have analysed the role of particular states in the triggering off of imperialist wars, without thus making themselves guilty of any concessions towards the rivals of such states.
However, the criticism made by the ICC did not concern the identification of the USA as the main initiator of present day wars, but concerned the fact that in the IBRP's analysis the causes of these wars is not found in the situation of imperialism as a whole, but is reduced to the specific situation of the United States.
The speaker of Battaglia, for his part, did not at all deny the similarity of the analysis made by his organisation with that of different bourgeois currents. He argued, however, that this analysis, in the hands of the Bureau, is anchored within a quite different proletarian world view. This is thankfully still the case. But we maintain that such an analysis can only weaken the effectiveness of our struggle against the ideology of the class enemy, and ultimately it could undermine the firmness of one's own proletarian standpoint.
In our opinion, the similarity between the analysis of the IBRP and the commonplace bourgeois point of view is the result of the fact that the comrades have themselves adopted a bourgeois approach. This approach we called empiricism, by which we mean the basic tendency of bourgeois thought to be misled by certain particularly noticeable facts instead of discovering, through a more profound theoretical approach, the real inter-connection between the different facts. This tendency of the Bureau was exemplified through the way the IBRP presented the argument that the American economy would collapse without the constant inflow of foreign capital as the proof that the Iraq war served to oblige the other bourgeoisies to lend their money to America. In reply to this we recalled that the certitude that without these loans and investments the US economy would fold up is itself already obligation enough to make European and Japanese capitalism continue to buy American bonds and shares - they themselves would not survive a collapse of the United States [1].
In particular during this part of the discussion critical questions were addressed to the ICC from different sides. The comrades questioned the stress placed on the significance of strategic issues in our analysis of imperialist rivalries. The comrade of the FKG raised a criticism that - in his opinion - the ICC explains imperialist tensions through military rivalries, without connecting them to the economic crisis and apparently excluding economic motives. He pointed to the example of the economic war goals of Germany in World War II, in order to insist that imperialist states, through war, search for a solution to their economic crises. A comrade from Austria, once a founding member of the GIK(see above), wanted to know from us if the ICC gives any consideration at all to the role of oil, or if we consider it to be a mere coincidence that the focus of the "struggle against terrorism" lies precisely in an area where the biggest resources of oil in the world are to be found. And the representative of the GIS also asked for a precision on our statement that modern war is not the solution, but itself the expression, indeed the explosion of the crisis.
The ICC delegation replied that, from our point of view, marxism, far from denying the connection between crisis and war, is able to explain it in a much more profound manner. For the ICC imperialist war is not the expression of the cyclical crises which were typical of the 19th century, but the product of the permanent crisis of decadent capitalism. As such, it is the result of the rebellion of the productive forces against the relations of production of bourgeois society which have become too narrow for it. In his book Anti-Dühring Friedrich Engels affirms that the central contradiction in capitalist society is that between a mode of production which is already becoming socialised, and the appropriation of the fruits of this production, which remains private and anarchic. In the epoch of imperialism, one of the principle expressions of this contradiction is that between the world wide character of the productive process and the nation state as the most important instrument of capitalist private appropriation. The crisis of decadent capitalism is a crisis of the whole of bourgeois society. It finds its strictly economic expression in economic depression, mass unemployment etc. But it also expresses itself at the political, the military level i.e. through ever more destructive military conflicts. Characteristic of this systemic crisis is the permanent accentuation of competition between nation states, both at the economic and military level. This is why we spoke out at the meeting against the hypothesis of the representative of the GIK, according to whom the American bourgeoisie uses military muscle, and the European bourgeoisie economic means, in the struggle for world hegemony. In reality this struggle is waged using all available means. The commercial war is being fanned no less than the military one.
It is indeed true that the bourgeoisie, through war, still searches for a way out of the crisis. But because the world, since the beginning of the 20th century, has already been divided up, this 'solution' can only be sought at the expense of other, generally neighbouring capitalist states. In the case of the great powers, this 'solution' can only lie in world domination and as such requires the exclusion or radical subordination of other great powers. This signifies that this search for a way out of the crisis increasingly assumes a more and more utopian or unrealistic character. The ICC is talking here about the growing irrationality of war.
In the course of capitalist decadence, it has regularly been the case that the initiator of a war emerges at the end as the loser: Germany in two world wars, for instance. This reveals the increasingly irrational and uncontrollable nature of modern warfare.
What we criticise in the war analysis of the IBRP is not the affirmation that war has economic causes, but the confounding of economic causes with economic profitability. In addition, we criticise what, in our opinion, constitutes a vulgar materialist tendency to explain each step in the imperialist constellation through an immediate economic cause. This is revealed precisely regarding the oil question. It goes without saying that the presence of sources of oil in the Middle East plays a considerable role. However, the industrial powers - first and foremost the United States - do not need to militarily occupy these sources in order to establish their economic predominance over these and other raw materials. What is at stake is above all the military and strategic hegemony over potentially decisive energy sources in the event of war.
The IBRP vehemently rejected the affirmation of the ICC that modern warfare is the expression of the dead end of capitalism. The representative of Battaglia did admit that the destructive nature of capitalism would sooner or later lead to the destruction of humanity. But as long as this final calamity has not taken place capitalism can expand without limits. According to the BC comrade, it was not through the present wars imposed by the USA, but the "real imperialist wars" of the future, for instance between America and Europe, that capitalism would be able to expand, since a generalised destruction would open the way for a new phase of accumulation..
We agreed that capitalism is capable of wiping out humanity. However, the destruction of excess production, considered historically, did not even suffice to overcome the cyclical crises of ascendant 19th century capitalism. For this, according to Marx and Engels, the opening of new markets was also necessary. Whereas, within the framework of natural economy, overproduction could only appear as an excess over and beyond the maximum physical limit of human consumption, under the regime of commodity production, and above all under capitalism, overproduction is always expressed in relation to the existing solvent demand, i.e. buying power. It is an economic rather than a physiological category. But this means that the destruction of war does not in itself solve the basic problem of lack of solvent demand.
Above all, the viewpoint defended here by the IBRP, concerning the possible expansion of capitalism up until the moment of physical destruction, is not compatible with the vision of the decadence of capitalism - a vision which the IBRP seems more and more to be abandoning. According to the marxist point of view, the decline of a given mode of production is always accompanied by a growing fettering of the productive forces through the existing production and property relations. From the point of view of Battaglia, it would seem, war still seems to play the role of being a motor of economic expansion as it did during the 19th century.
When the representative of BC spoke, at the meeting about the coming "truly imperialist wars", this only confirmed our impression that the IBRP considers the present-day wars as merely the continuation of the economic policy of the United States by other means, and not as imperialist conflicts. For our part, we insisted that these wars are also imperialist wars, and that the major imperialist powers thereby enter into conflict with each other - at present not directly, but for instance via proxy wars. The series of wars in ex-Yugoslavia moreover, which were originally triggered off by Germany, confirm that in this process the United States is far from being the only aggressor.
In his conclusion to the discussion, the spokesman of the Bureau defended the point of view that the discussion had shown that debate between the IBRP and the ICC is "useless". This is because for decades the Bureau has been accusing the ICC of "idealism", and the ICC has been accusing the IBRP of "vulgar materialism" without either of the two organisations having altered their points of view.
In our opinion, that is a rather dismissive judgement of a discussion in which, not only the two organisations, but also quite a variety of different groups and persons participated in such an engaged manner. It is obvious that the new generation of politically interested militants in the German-speaking area have a considerable interest in getting to know the positions of the existing internationalist organisations, in becoming much more acquainted with the points of agreement and disagreement between them. What could better serve this need than public debate?
As far as we know no serious revolutionary to date has ever thought, for instance, of doubting the usefulness of the debate between Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg on the national question, simply because neither of the two sides ever altered their basic position on the question. On the contrary: the contemporary left communist position on so-called national liberation movements is to a large extent based on the results of this debate.
The ICC, for its part, remains entirely committed to public debate, and will continue to call for it and participate in it. All such debate is an indispensable part of the process of the coming to consciousness of the proletariat. Weltrevolution, 19/8/04.
1. We might add here that, despite their rivalry with the USA, its rivals will continue to place their capital in the most stable economy, since that country, in the foreseeable future, will remain, militarily and economically, the strongest country in the world.
In May the media was full of stories about the success of 10 years of 'democracy' in South Africa. The pictures of tens of thousands of workers queuing up to vote for the first time in May 1994 were dragged out the vaults to remind us of what a benefit democracy is for humanity. The reality for the working class has been worsening living and working conditions: 76% of households in South Africa live below the poverty line, an increase of 15% since 1996; unemployment has doubled since 1994; income in black households fell by 19% between 1995 and 2000 (Insights, issue 46). All of this presided over by the 'liberators' of the African National Congress.
The sight of the 'revolutionaries' of yesteryear implementing the type of attacks on the working class and oppressed that the old regime could only dream of has led to a certain amount of reflection within the working class. Amid the media circus around the tenth anniversary there were stories about disillusionment amongst the black working class and the poor with the ANC and democracy. This was presented as being reflected in apathy about the elections. However, we have recently come across a more developed expression of this effort to reflect upon the meaning of the role of the ANC: the Zabalaza (Zulu and Xhosa for struggle) website of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation [11]. It contains several texts which denounce the ANC as capitalist. Given the weight of illusions about the ANC and democracy, as well as the threat of repression by the 'democratic' state, such denunciations express a proletarian response.
As with many other bourgeoisies around the world, the South African ruling class has dressed up massive attacks on the working class in the clothes of privatisation. In this way they hope to confuse any class response to such attacks with ideas about state ownership being better than private. The ZACF makes clear in its leaflet against the privatisations that "Privatisation is the process of turning government services and government companies into profit-making activities. This means a few simple things:
...It makes no real difference, in practice, if these companies remain owned by the government or become owned by big business. The basic problem already exists: the drive by government, led by the ANC, to turn government companies and government services into sources of profit. ESKOM is 100% government owned. Yet it cuts off nearly 15,000 people a month in Soweto alone. Government is co-owner of Servcon, the company that enforces evictions on the East Rand. TELKOM is 70% government-owned, yet it has raised telephone charges over 30% over the last 5 years. The point is simple. When we fight privatisation, we do NOT think that government ownership of these companies and services is a solution. On the contrary, there is NO difference anymore whatsoever between government-owned companies and privately-owned companies. Both are profit-driven, anti-worker and anti-union in nature. This means our struggle is a struggle against BOTH big business AND the government". ('Evict the bosses and politicians. Stop privatisation now'.)
The denunciation of the ANC in this text and others is based on a very serious theoretical effort to understand the real meaning of 'national liberation'. In their text 'Anti-imperialism and national liberation' this group tries to place the role of the ANC within the national and historical context of imperialism. This text rejects the leftist idea of national liberation and shows that all of the so-called socialist national liberation governments have been capitalist and, depending on their economic strength, try to impose their domination on their region. On the basis of this they reject support for any of the third world ruling elites against intervention by the imperialist powers. Very importantly the ZACF also firmly denounces the idea of the workers in the first world benefiting from imperialism, an idea very popular amongst the leftists.
These are very important points which allow them to see the role of the ANC. However, this clarity on such important question is in spite, not because of, the group's commitment to anarchism. This is not the place to go into the marxist critique of anarchism. Nevertheless, it is essential to see the contradictions and problems that anarchist ideology causes for the very real process of reflection that is taking place. The ZACF reject marxism and base their analysis on metaphysical 'principles' about autonomy, rejection of authority, etc. Thus, along with clear rejections of nationalism, national liberation and third worldism, we find a defence of the "freedom" and "right" of the "people" of Tibet, Burma and elsewhere to independence. Whilst showing how the national elites are part of the imperialist system they talk about how the struggles against colonialism could be defended when they give rise to "progressive" measures.
The text on imperialism was written by one of the groups that helped to form the ZACF in May 2003 and since then there has been an increasingly more evident loss of clarity in the ZACF's ability to confront the real nature of the ANC. For example, in the second issue of the journal Zabalaza (2002) the ANC is called counter-revolutionary. But in Zabalaza no. 5, which has a front page headline, "Ten years of ' freedom and democracy' - where?', there is no analysis of 10 years of rule by the ANC. Instead there is a serious regression on the potential clarity of the previous analysis of national liberation. In an article on the New Partnership for African Development there is a sad lament for a time when the African bourgeoisie had some backbone "Gone are the days when the African ruling classes at least struggled - under the thick haze of revolutionary cant - to develop their own capitalisms". "The radical nationalists of the 1950's and 1960's, men of the ilk of Nkrumah and Kaunda, men who hated colonialism (and loved capitalism), are gone from the stage. The old nationalists played, at least, a small role in challenging colonialism, and shaking the old Empire" (Zabalaza no. 5 pages 2 and 3). Now they are described as spineless and as carrying out neo-liberal policies.
This growing loss of clarity is also seen in the two communiques they made in response to 9/11 and the Madrid bombings. In response to the Twin Towers, the communique 'No war but the class war: Against capitalism -against the US government -against state and fundamentalist terror', issued by a "South African anarchist" and endorsed by the Bilisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Action Group, makes a powerful rejection of the attack, the US response and the role of fundamentalism. There are confusions in this text about democracy, Palestine and so on, but fundamentally it expressed a proletarian response to this massacre. By contrast the statement on Madrid is more like a liberal lament.
These expressions of regression in ZACF's initially strongest aspects demonstrate the pernicious weight of anarchism and its tendency to slide off into straightforward liberalism. Their rejection of marxism means that their efforts to develop a class analysis of the situation facing the working class in South Africa is struggling to stay afloat in a sea of anarchist confusion. The comrades of the ZACF above all need to discuss the fundamental marxist concept of the decadence of capitalism if they are to gain a real understanding of why the ANC and all other national liberation movements are anti-working class. It is only on the basis of this historical materialist approach that their healthy rejection of the ANC, nationalism and national liberation can be placed on a solid foundation.
Phil, 4/9/04.
The following article first appeared in Revolution Internationale, the publication of the ICC's section in France. Although many of the references are to specifically French phenomena, the basic points made in the article apply equally to the creation of the National Health Service in Britain as well as other systems of social welfare put in place after the Second World War. The ruling class wanted to justify the carnage of the conflict and to prepare workers for the ferocious exploitation of the reconstruction period. In the same way, the current moves towards dismantling the National Health Service and other aspects of the 'Welfare State' are by no means a particular policy of Blair's New Labour or a wish-fulfilment for Howard's Tories. As the introduction to the article in RI puts it, "with its new plan to 'safeguard social security', the Raffarin government is once again preparing to reduce the social wage. It's the turn of health to be cut in this new plan of austerity, after the significant attacks on retirement pensions last spring and on unemployment pay last January. Far from being a national specificity, these attacks are developing and generalising to all capitalist countries which set up the Welfare State at the end of the Second World War because they needed reasonably healthy workers to undertake the reconstruction of the economy. The present attack on the welfare system in France, as in Germany some months ago, and as in Britain for some years now, means the end of the Welfare State and explodes the myth of 'social gains'. This attack reveals that, faced with the deepening of the economic crisis and the development of massive unemployment, the bourgeoisie cannot continue to maintain the majority of the workforce. The survival of capitalism demands an intensification of the productivity of labour, the hiring of the cheapest workforce possible, while reducing the cost of its maintenance. For the great majority of proletarians, it is uncertainty and misery that faces them now - in some cases even death, as we saw at the time of the heat wave last summer in France".
These attacks demand a massive and united response by the whole of the working class (workers in work, unemployed and retired workers); but the unions and their Trotskyist and alternative-worldist accomplices are trying to turn workers' reflection away from the failure of capitalism and towards illusory measures to 'save social security' (or 'save the NHS' as the leftists clamour in Britain).
The defenders of state-funded social security lie to us that: "Social security is a conquest of the workers' struggle, acquired at the end of the Second World War, in continuity with the Popular Front of 1936". Faced with this falsification of history by the left, leftists and unions, it is necessary to re-establish the truth, basing ourselves on a brief historical outline of social security. Only a lucid marxist analysis will allow us to understand that the bourgeoisie is trying to hide the historic bankruptcy of the capitalist system with the fool's gold of social security.
During the second half of the 19th century, in the phase of capitalism's ascendancy, the proletariat established its own strike and assistance funds, its own mutual organisations in case of sickness or job loss, in order to attain its economic demands (reduction of the working day, the ban on the exploitation of children, night work for women, etc.). Most often it was the workers' unions who managed this economic solidarity within the working class. But such solidarity also had a political dimension, because through these struggles for improvements in its conditions, the proletariat constituted itself as a class with the long-term perspective of taking political power and establishing a communist society.
With the bloody outbreak of the First World War, capitalism signalled the end of its economic expansion and the entry into its phase of decadence. This phase is characterised by the absorption of civil society by the state. The bourgeoisie must impose its class domination on the whole of economic, social and political life and it's the state that fulfils that role. Faced with the change in period, the unions became a force for corralling the working class in the service of capital.
"The state maintains the forms of workers' organisation in order to better control and mystify the working class. The unions become a cog in the state and as such are keen to develop productivity, that's to say increase the exploitation of labour. The unions were the organs of the workers' defence when the economic struggle had a historic sense. Emptied of this old content, the unions became, without changing form, an instrument of the ideological repression of state capitalism and of control over the labour force." ('On State Capitalism', Internationalisme 1952, reprinted in the International Review 21, 1980).
Thus the state directly appropriated, through the union police, the different mutual and assistance funds, and emptied the very notion of workers' solidarity of its political content.
"The bourgeoisie has taken political solidarity away form the hands of the proletariat in order to transfer it into economic solidarity in the hands of the state. By splitting up wages into a direct payment from the boss and an indirect payment by the state, the bourgeoisie has powerfully consolidated the mystification consisting of presenting the state as an organ above classes, the guarantor of the common interest and the guarantor of social security for the working class. The bourgeoisie has succeeded in linking the working class, materially and ideologically, to the state" (IR 115).
From the very beginning, attempts to set up social security systems had the aim of boxing in the proletariat. In the 1920s, the proposals for social security were part of an attempt to establish social peace through the participation of the workers in the running of the country, as the Cerinda Report underlined: "In the administration councils of the social security we will establish the rapprochement and fraternal collaboration of classes; wage earners and employers will not defend antagonistic interests here. There will be unity in the same aim: combating the two great scourges of the workers, sickness and poverty. This permanent contact will prepare for the closer and closer association of capital and labour." (Quote in Governing Social Security, Bruno Palier).
Despite the political will of the state and the unions to implement this plan of compulsory social obligations, it was only during the Second World War that the National Council for the Resistance focussed on the organisation of a general regime of social security.
It was during World War II that the bourgeoisie, conscious of the millions of victims that the military conflict would provoke, of the inevitable destruction and ravaging of the world economy, rushed to justify its barbarity: "In a solemn message to the Congress pronounced on January 6 1941, President Roosevelt gave the first moral justification to the conflict by assigning to it the objective of a 'liberation from want' for the masses. This movement culminated in May 1944 with the Philadelphia Declaration of the International Labour Organisation, through which the member countries would make a priority objective of setting up a real social security after the war. Consequently, social security figured high in the aims of the war defined by the Allies" (History of Social Security 1945-1967, Bruno Valat).
In Britain in 1942 the Beveridge Report, in its attack on disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness, the obstacles "on the road of reconstruction", laid the basis for a system of family allowances and national insurance. This was accepted by the Churchill government and implemented by the subsequent Labour regime. In 1944, Belgium set up an obligatory system of collective social security under the control of the state.
In France, while a part of the bourgeoisie was in Vichy, the other part in exile, with General de Gaulle at its head, took up this preoccupation. He declared in April 1942, in a solemn message to the Resistance: "National security and social security are for us imperative and inter-connected aims". Also, it's not surprising that the programme of March 1944 of the National Council of the Resistance, where the Stalinists had a majority, called for a complete plan of social security aiming to guarantee every citizen the means of existence.
So, far from being a workers' victory, the origin of the systems of social welfare came from the capacity of the international bourgeoisie to foresee the need to fence in the proletariat at the end of the war, and thus to ensure the success of economic reconstruction. The years after the war were terrible for the living conditions of the proletariat. In France, wages were frozen, there was galloping inflation and a still flourishing black market; rationing, which had existed since the occupation, was maintained up to 1950, including electricity and petrol. The bread ration, which was 200g in the summer of 1947, was only 250g in June 1948. GNP in 1948 was still lower by 4% than in 1938. To meagre wages and food shortages can be added appalling standards of health. Infant mortality was more than 84 in a thousand and the adolescent population suffered from rickets. Faced with this situation, the bourgeoisie knew that it wouldn't be able to increase national capital with such a weakened working class. This was all the more true when you take the human losses of the war that reduced the number of available workers. The creation of social security, the nationalisation of health services, was thus the bourgeoisie's way of giving itself a workforce capable of carrying out the tasks of reconstruction. In exchange for super-exploitation (the length of the working day in 1946 was 44 hours and 45 in 1947), the proletariat had access to a social security cover that allowed it to reconstitute its labour power. Pierre Laroque, an official charged in October 1945 with setting up the social security system, was explicit in these objectives, even if he wrapped up the goods with fine words: "The aim was to assure the mass of workers, and to begin with wage-earners, of a real security for tomorrow. That went along with a social and even economic transformation; the effort that one was demanding from them to get the economy working had to have a counter-part."
The comment of Bruno Palier is also illuminating: "In 1945, it was also an immediate political investment, which had to allow the participation of wage-earners in the work of reconstruction (�) This dimension of the French social security plan was a counter-part to the efforts of reconstruction (and to the moderation of direct wage increases), which appeared as a sort of social contract of the Liberation." (Ibid).
Faced with the criticisms of some parliamentarians, who considered the cost of social security to be excessively high, the Socialist Minister of Labour, Daniel Mayer, responded: "Every industrialist considers it normal and necessary to deduct from his returns the indispensable amounts to maintain his material. Social security, in large measure, represents the maintenance of the human capital of the country, which is as necessary to industrialists as machines. Inasmuch as social security contributes to conserving human capital, to developing capital, it brings an aid to the economy that shouldn't be underestimated" (Bruno Valat, idem.).
It is for that reason that, initially, social security was reserved for wage earners because the bourgeoisie counted on them to put the country back on its feet. It later applied the welfare regime to the non-salaried population. One can thus measure the lie of the left and the unions that the creation of the Welfare State was a workers' victory: this 'concession' was given at the price of unprecedented super-exploitation. Thus, in 1950, French industry had almost recovered the level of production of 1929. As in 1936, it was the Stalinists, thanks to their engagement in the Resistance, who went on to play a decisive role in dragooning the proletariat for the reconstruction. Several Communist ministers were present in the government of General de Gaulle, calling on the proletariat, through the voice of its leader, Thorez, to "roll up its sleeves" for reconstructing the country and denouncing strikes as "an arm of the trusts". At the same time the CGT had a monopoly in presiding over the social security funds up to 1947. Subsequently, other unions succeeded the CGT.
In the years which followed the war social security spread to the whole of the population; but from the beginning of the 1970s came the first signs that the economic crisis was ringing time for these social policies. Social security itself could only function when capitalism could guarantee full employment. The development of unemployment meant that social costs increased more quickly than GDP. Faced with this situation, the bourgeoisie responded with Keynsian measures to re-launch consumption, particularly by creating and increasing new family allowances. From the point of view of the management of capitalism, these measures increased public deficits considerably. Henceforth, from 1975 up to today, the bourgeoisie hasn't stopped running after deficits, with a social security hole which looks like a bottomless pit, despite the permanent increases in social costs and the constant lowering of social allowances. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, successive governments of the right and the left came up with all kinds of ingenious ways of inventing new taxes, of making the sick pay for their treatment and medicines, of cutting unemployment benefits�. Not only have workers still in employment seen an ever-growing part of their pay tapped in order to finance deficits and other complementary mutual funds; on top of this, the care system is being constantly degraded by the reduction of workers in the health sector and endless austerity plans.
Thus, far from being a victory for the workers, social security is on the contrary a real organ of state imprisonment. Thanks to the participation of the unions in managing sickness, retirement and unemployment funds in company with the boss, this system of management merely provides the illusion that a policy is in place which defends the interests of the workers.
More than ever, the new attacks on healthcare signify the bankruptcy of the capitalist system, the end of the Welfare State and of the myth of social welfare "from the cradle to the grave". If revolutionaries show solidarity with their class faced with attacks on both direct and social wages, at the same time we denounce the myth of a system of state social security which is supposed to be above classes and for the wellbeing of the workers. The preoccupation of capitalism in 1945 was to have workers in good health in order for its reconstruction efforts to succeed. In 2004 capitalism sacrifices a growing number of proletarians in order to maintain the workforce at the lowest cost and leave the rest to rot.
"There's no need to underline that if socialist society defends the individual against illness or the risks of existence, its objectives are not those of capitalist social security. The latter only has sense in the framework of the exploitation of human labour and in terms of this framework. It is only an appendix of the system." (Internationalisme 1952, reprinted in International Review 21).
Donald 20/6/04.
Floodwaters are ravaging through many parts of India and Bangladesh. Floods, cyclonic storms in some parts of these countries and drought in other parts have become almost annual catastrophes. The fury of the floodwaters rages unhampered through villages, towns and cities, through agricultural lands and industrial centers. Thousands of people die and many more are injured and millions are rendered homeless. The working class and the exploited masses are the principal victims of these disasters.
About one thousand people have already died this year in the floods affecting parts of India and Bangladesh . There is every possibility that many more will fall victim to the spread of epidemics which generally accompany and follow every such disaster. Hundreds of thousands have been rendered not only homeless but also jobless having no wherewithal to live, confronting all sorts of humiliations and hardships.
According to a report in the Statesman, 'Bangladesh bows to the flood fury', 35 million people out of a total of 140 million have been hit by the floods. The death figure has already crossed the 600 mark. According to the estimate of the Bangladesh government and the officials of the UNO, 28 million people will have to be fed free up to the next harvesting season at the end of the year. The total loss of crops and other products amounts to 7 billion dollars. The flood has disrupted the 4 billion dollar textile industry of Bangladesh which accounts for 80% of its export earnings. Nearly half the city of Dhaka, its capital, has been swamped by high water mixed with sewage systems, creating a hellish situation. This has been partly due to the fact that 26 major drainage canals have been taken over by 'illegal' land grabbers. The dreadful menace of the spread of epidemics is staring at the people there.
The bourgeoisie is shedding crocodile tears for the hapless victims of floods in both India and Bangladesh. Top political leaders of both the government and the opposition are making ritual aerial surveys of the flood-affected areas. Political leaders in the government are making tall claims about the rescue and relief work done by them. The opposition leaders of both the right and left of capital are trying to extract the maximum possible political mileage by criticizing the insufficiency of the relief and rehabilitation measures of the government (criticisms which cannot fail to be one hundred per cent correct). But the roles are generally reversed when today's opposition parties are tomorrow's governmental parties. Thus they keep debate about the floods and other natural calamities on the capitalist terrain, in which lies their fundamental, unbreakable unity. Many commissions are created to investigate into the root causes of the recurrent floods and to suggest short and long term measures to deal with them. Many solutions have been proposed, but these solutions are either partial, or shelved forever or not implemented due to lack of adequate funds. But these bourgeois commissions and their political masters can never say that the decadent capitalist system is the root cause behind the uncontrolled fury of the floods and other natural calamities causing immense death and devastation in almost every year. Capitalism in decline can no longer protect humanity
When capitalism was in its ascendant phase, when it was expanding across the globe and had a real interest in protecting its productive investments and developing a coherent infrastructure, it won many victories against the destructive power of nature. This was not because the capitalists were bothered much about the plight of the working class and the exploited masses of people affected by various natural calamities; but capitalism could then use the available technology, skill, labor power and other productive resources to the fullest possible extent. It could provide and manage the money needed for the proper execution of projects to control the fury of the natural forces. This in turn ensured a better return for the whole national capital.
But today the situation is fundamentally different. The system has now sunk into permanent crisis due to the unavailability of the indispensable market for all the capitalist countries all over the world. So the conflict among all the national fractions of capital is intensifying with each passing day; and every capitalist country has been compelled by the material conditions to be imperialist if it is to survive. This has resulted in unprecedented amounts of military expenditure by each capitalist state, big or small, weak or strong, developed or backward. Every country is arming itself to the teeth, exposing the irrationality of all the national fractions of the decadent world bourgeoisie. The phase of decomposition of the capitalist system, heralded definitively by the collapse of the eastern imperialist bloc in 1989, has further worsened the conditions of this intensifying imperialist conflict.
In such a situation a large proportion of the total government expenditure in every capitalist country is being devoted to military purposes. Even in 1929 the capitalist government of the USA spent only one per cent of the total national revenue for military purposes, but in the fifties the same USA spent more than 10% of its GNP for its immensely expanding military machinery. More or less similar is the case with the other developed capitalist countries of the world. Thus little money is left for the projects for controlling the fury of the natural forces like floods, cyclonic storms and droughts.
This striking imbalance between the military expenditure and the expenditure for controlling the fury of natural calamities is bound to be much more marked in the backward countries. We can have a very clear idea of this from the budget allotments of the present left-supported United 'Progressive' Alliance government of India. 14 per cent of the total government expenditure for the 2004-2005 financial year has been earmarked for the armed forces, modernisation of armaments and military equipment, while only 0.28 per cent of the total government expenditure is meant for flood control and irrigation. 17,112 million dollars has been allotted for the military while only about 102 million dollars has been put aside for flood control and irrigation. What a glaring imbalance! According to the estimate of the Irrigation Commission of Bihar, an important province of North India, 350,000 to 400,000 million rupees or about 8.9 billion dollars (according to the existing exchange rate ) will be needed to control the fury of the flood waters of one major river flowing into that province from Nepal. This river is responsible to a significant extent for the almost annually recurring devastating floods in the northern part of that province. Thus we can easily have an idea of the huge amount of money that will be needed to control the devastating power of the flood waters of all the rivers not only of Bihar but also of all other provinces of India. This will very likely amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. This is simply beyond the capacity of the Indian capitalist state, which has to devote its meager resources to the fulfillment of the strategic goal of attaining the status of a major regional imperialist nuclear power! It has to arrange for money for its prestigious space programme (which is also a military programme ) and even think about manned space missions if it is to gain due status in the 'international community'. How can it raise the money necessary for the permanent solution to the recurrent problems of floods and cyclonic storms! The situation is even worse in Bangladesh.
Many important rivers which are responsible to a great extent for floods are international. Internationally coordinated planning and provision of resources are indispensable for putting an end to problem of recurrent floods. But this is simply impossible for the bourgeoisie, particularly in the imperialist free for all that has grown more and more chaotic since the collapse of the old bloc system. In recent times there has been a serious threat of flash floods from the rivers in a province of India in the Himalayan region, due to the lake burst in Tibet. But the Indian team of experts has not been allowed by the Chinese authorities to go the site of the lake burst and make an objective assessment of the seriousness of the threat and the necessary practical steps. The Indian authorities have expressed their unhappiness and their media are calling for pressure on China from the 'international community' to force it allow Indian experts to the site of the lake burst. Rivers flowing into Bangladesh from India are primarily responsible for the floods there. Here also there is no way out of this annual natural disaster other than collective coordinated efforts. But the intensifying imperialist conflict is the insurmountable stumbling block in the way of international efforts to control the problems of flooding.
When humanity has evolved the technical means to protect itself from natural disasters, and yet these means are not used, the disasters are no longer natural but social. When the principal victims of these disasters are the poor and the exploited, the disasters are not natural but social. And on top of this it has become increasingly evident that the extreme weather conditions striking every continent (this summer alone we have had raging forest fires in the USA and Europe, drought and hurricanes in the US, floods in the UK as well as the Indian sub-continent, to name but a few) are also the product of social and not merely natural conditions. Choking for lack of markets, capitalism in decay is more and more driven to seek profit in the short term exploitation of each country's natural resources: thus, for example, logging the forests of Indonesia or Brazil or replacing them with cash crops such as soya allows these countries to compete more effectively on the world market, regardless of the consequences for the local and global environment. It is well known that deforestation leads to the erosion of the soil and greatly increases the danger of flooding. In the Indian sub-continent, deforestation of distant mountains washes topsoil downhill and silts up rivers that would otherwise channel floodwaters into the Bay of Bengal. More generally, frenzied efforts at economic 'growth' in the context of capitalism's decline accelerates global warming, which in turn lies behind much of the extreme weather we are now witnessing.
The relentless demands of capital accumulation, the desperate search for profit by each competing national unit, is leading not only to a growing number of imperialist wars but to the disruption of the whole planetary environment, threatening more and more 'natural' disasters whose victims will be first and foremost the poor and oppressed. Capitalism has become a disaster for humanity, which will not live in harmony with nature until this social scourge is removed by the communist revolution.
CI, 4/9/04.
The victory of Hugo Chavez in the referendum on his presidency was not a triumphant for the proletariat and poor masses in Venezuela. Rather, as this Appeal to the workers of Venezuela and the world by the ICC's section demonstrates, it represents a powerful blow against the working class. The Appeal, whilst being written on the eve of the referendum, shows that no matter who won the vote the perspective for the working class was one of increasing ideological and economic attacks, along with an acceleration of the profound political crisis rocking the Venezuela bourgeoisie. Chavez's victory will allow him and his henchmen to continue their campaign to mobilise the non-exploiting strata and the working class behind their life and death struggle with the other sections of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie opposing them. Faced with this, the opposition will be forced into ever more desperate efforts to defend itself by overthrowing Chavez. As the Appeal demonstrates parts of the working class are already lining up behind one or other of the fractions. And the prospects for the coming period can only be the very real possibility of the explosion of a barbaric civil war. The proletariat's only response to this chaos is the defence of its autonomy; refusing to line up behind the 'revolutionary' Chavez or the opposition of the 'elite', and instead defending their class interests against both of these faces of the capitalist state in Venezuela.
WR, 20/8/04.
Once again, the Chavista and opposition bourgeois factions are calling upon us to go to the ballot box. They have used all of the media, spent a fortune on a deafening campaign, telling us to be good citizens and vote either for or against revoking President Hugo Chavez. They want us to choose between two bourgeois options, to decide whether it's going to be the Chavista or the opposition fraction that will continue to exploit us. Marxist revolutionaries call on the working class in Venezuela, and all workers, not to have illusion about Chavez remaining in government or his replacement by the opposition, about any let up in the attacks on working class living conditions, or about the worsening of pauperisation that the bourgeoisie dumps on our shoulders in response to the terrible economic and political crisis shaking the national capital.
The 15th August Referendum is not a plebiscite like the other elections called by the ruling class. This referendum, besides being an opportunity for the bourgeoisie to breathe new life into its democratic dictatorship, is the product of the profound political crisis in the ranks of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie that has been developing since Chavez came to power in 1999. It has led to the polarisation of the different cliques that form the national capital into two factions: the official one formed around Chavez and the other, opposition one grouped around the Coordinadora Democratica. The exacerbation of the confrontation between these two has led to an intense campaign that has divided a good part of the population between the "Chavistas" and the "anti-Chavistas". The proletariat, obviously, has not escaped this monstrous campaign, which has divided various sectors of the class, leading to many workers supporting one or other of these options, and has even lead to some being wounded or losing their lives in the violent confrontations, defending causes that only benefit the enemies of our class.
The 15th August Referendum poses a great danger for the working class. There is already a high level of uncertainty about the results and whether the leaders of one or the other gangs will accept them [1]. This could lead to important violent confrontations, where again the blood of the proletariat will be spilt. The Venezuelan and world proletariat must be conscious of the grave danger for the class if its remains trapped in this confrontation. Not only will this led to the loss of proletarian lives, but it will weaken class consciousness. The proletariat must avoid acting as canon fodder for any of the struggling bourgeois gangs.
The present political confrontation and its fanaticism and polarisation are the direct result of the social decomposition within the ranks of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, itself the expression of the decomposition of the capitalist system at an international level: global society is at an impasse. This is because, on the one hand, the world bourgeoisie has not been able to give its 'answer' to the capitalist crisis that has been developing over the past 30 years: generalised world war (as happened last century with the two world wars); and on the other hand, the proletariat has not been able to raise the perspective of the overthrow of capitalism. This decomposition had its clearest expression at the international level with the falling apart of the system of blocs that existed after World War Two. The collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 brought in its wake not peace or progress as the bourgeoisie said it would, but the proliferation of localised wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, etc.). It brought starvation, terrorism, the pauperisation of whole sections of society. At the level of each country, decomposition has been expressed at a political level by the implosion of the traditional bourgeois parties, as much on the left as the right, by the increase in tensions between factions of the national bourgeoisie, resulting in convulsions and ungovernable political situations [2]. The newly political forces, needed to control the working class and society so that the bourgeoisie can continue its economic survival, are compelled to operate in a context of major crisis and world chaos.
It is in this context that the leftist and populist government of Chavez arose. Above all upon the ruin of the parties of the "Fixed Point Pact", principally the Social Democratic Accion Demoratica and the Christian Social COPEI, which had been rotted by internal struggles, corruption, political cronyism and their virtual abandonment of the basic necessities of society. The ex-solider, Chavez, one of the leaders of the coup against the Social Democrat Carlos Andres Perez, helped by his charisma and popular origins, was able to use this social discontent and the prevailing poverty to come to power in December 1998. Once in power, surrounded by those in the military that supported his initial coup attempt, and elements of the old left (amongst these the Venezuelan PC), along with leftist organisations and individuals (many of them ex-guerrillas from the 60s and 70s), he defeated the former governing factions and excluded them from the apparatus of power. Taking advantage of his widespread popularity he took on the institutions and powers of the state with the central aim of: developing a "real nationalist bourgeoisie", the old goal of the left of capital and the leftist petty-bourgeoisie.
With this objective in mind, the Chavista project proclaimed that these attacks against the sectors of the bourgeoisie that had benefited from the previous governments amounted to a "Bolivarian revolution". The response and organisation of these sections of the bourgeoisie threatened by Chavism over the last 6years, has led us to the worst political crisis in Venezuela since the beginning of the last century. In fact, the opposition factions (with the clear support of the USA) [3] have carried out a whole serious of attempts to throw Chavez out of power: the business strike of December 2001, the coup in April 2002, which only removed him from power for 48 hours, the oil strike in December 2002-January 2003. With the failure of these attempts, there was a change in strategy, appealing to the idea of presidential revocation as stipulated in the new Constitution adopted in 1999 by Chavism in order to give judicial substance to its 'revolution'.
Despite all the obstacles put in its way by officialdom (given the predominance of the Chavez's officials in all the organs and institutions of power), the opposition gained the necessary number of signatures to call a referendum. As we can see, the so-called "Bolivarian revolution" is nothing more than the cover for a capitalist project promoted by a sector of national capital and has nothing at all to do with the interests of the working class, much less with proletarian revolution, which is only way out of the barbarity which we are living through in Venezuela and the rest of the world.
As we draw close to the culmination of this phase of the political crisis in Venezuela, marxists have to make clear to the Venezuelan and world proletariat: that this political crisis has taken place against a backcloth of the most brutal attacks on the living conditions and class consciousness of the Venezuelan proletariat.
More than any anything else Chavism is a pure product of decomposition. Pressured by the opposition and by the USA, Chavez has made use of the ideological arsenal of the old left and has given a great boost to leftist theories (along with anti-Americanism, he has become the standard bearer of anti-globalisation in Latin America). He has also used all the ideological eclecticism that characterises the present phase of decomposition: fundamentalism (expressed in Bolivarianism), messianism, mysticism etc. He has also had no scruples about using the classic methods of the bourgeoisie since capitalism entered its decadence at the beginning of the last century: state terrorism, pogroms, intimidation, blackmail, etc - against the opposition and even against the working class. In this way, Chavez has learnt very well from the sections of the bourgeoisie that now make up the opposition, from those who pretend to be pristine and without guilt, when in reality the monster that they now want to control is a caricature created in their own image.
The first answer to this question is that it is necessary to look at the horrendous campaign about the 'death of communism' and the "end of marxism' unleashed by the bourgeoisie after the collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989. This campaign argued that the only option for any social movement was the perfecting of democracy, making the class struggle look like an historical anachronism and diluting the working class into the mass of citizens. In this sense, it has been a very important attack against the communist perspective, against the historical identity of the working class, and has applied a tremendous brake on its combativity and consciousness.
This campaign has contributed as much to the opposition as to Chavism. The first proclaims itself radically 'anti-communist', and uses theories about the 'end of history' and the superiority of democracy as the only option for the future of humanity. Chavism, although it says it is not communist, makes use of the ideas of the left of capital in order to argue for a 'humanist capitalism' and a movement towards socialism by successive stages, starting from the present reformism based on 'participatory and better democracy'. In this way, both approaches aim to rub out the consciousness of the proletariat, which is the only means by which capitalist barbarity can really be overcome. The opposition bases its anti-communism on the fact that the government has tried to copy the state capitalist model put forwards by Cuba. But Castro's regime, installed by the so-called Cuban 'revolution', also has nothing to do with the marxist legacy of the proletarian revolution. The new bourgeoisie that took over following the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista has maintained almost 45 years of exploitation, repression and ideological control over the Cuban proletariat and population. Similarly, Chavism tries to develop the mechanisms of social and ideological control of the population and the working class by means of the so-called Missions [4] in order to perpetuate itself in power. Just as Fidel Castro and his henchmen use the economic blockade imposed by the USA (which does not stop millions of Dollars going into the pockets of the Cuban bourgeoisie) to justify the poverty of the population, Chavism justifies itself by blaming the previous governments, when it says that in 5 years it is impossible to correct a situation caused by more than 40 years of "oligarchic government".
The most pernicious effect of this political crisis for the working class has been that many workers have become trapped in the confrontation between bourgeois factions. In fact, within a few months of the beginning of the Chavez government, the sections of the bourgeoisie confronting each other in this life and death struggle for the control of the Venezuelan state launched a strategy initially centred on the petty bourgeoisie of one side or the other. Later on this included sections of the working class, creating divisions within it. The Chavists and the opposition have concentrated their activity on the oil industry, the main source of national income: both of them have brought about a progressive weakening of the unity and solidarity that was expressed in the first months of the Chavez's government, when oil workers in 2000 paralysed production in protest at attacks on their social benefits. The National Guard (the Praetorian Guard of Chavismo) used the opportunity to unleash a powerful repression which led to the death of two workers and several injuries. The unions controlled by the opposition gained a better control, while the government developed a disgusting campaign about the oil workers being a 'workers' aristocracy' on the side of the oil elite. This work of division and erosion of workers' solidarity was taken further with the clearly bourgeois oil stoppage at the end of 2002, when we saw some workers lining up behind the petty-bourgeois oil elites regrouped around the "oil gentlemen", and many others were paralysed by the government's blackmail and repression. With the failure of the stoppage, the government summarily sacked 20,000 oil workers, half of the workers and administrative personal. Although there were solidarity demonstrations with the sacked oil workers, the divisions within the heart of the class stopped this movement gathering enough strength to oppose the jobs massacre.
The media campaigns by sections of the bourgeoisie have led to a situation where many workers are bewildered, confused and trapped in the confrontation between Chavismo and anti-Chavismo. This is a straitjacket that impedes reflection or makes it much more difficult. The few expressions of the workers' struggle that have tried to resist the attacks against their living conditions have been suffocated by the magnitude and virulence of the inter-bourgeois confrontation, or have been trapped in inter-classism. This situation shows, on the one hand the ideological weight of the right and left of capital on the class, and also the weakness of the proletariat in Venezuela. In this situation workers' solidarity is undermined.
Pauperisation is the only thing that capitalism has to offer the exploited of the world, and Venezuela is no exception. The capitalist crisis is irreversible, and therefore also the level of pauperisation to which capital subjects the working class: the bourgeoisie has no option but to re-distribute poverty, despite all its talk abut the re-distribution of wealth. Throughout the decades of capitalism's decadence we have seen a growing gap between the poor and the richest minority in society (amongst whom now we have to count the "new rich" of Chavismo) [5]. This tendency has accentuated during the "Bolivarian revolution".
The Chavez capitalist government, that is to say one which maintains the extraction of surplus value from the working class, independently of its 'revolutionary' verbiage, has followed the same road as the Caldera and Carlos Andres Perez governments: the systematic and unrestrained attack on the living conditions of the working class:
· the great majority of the public employees' collective contracts have been frozen during the period of the Chavist government;
· the pay rises that have been ordered have not matched the accelerating growth in prices;
· the level of open unemployment has reached 22-25% of the workforce of around 12 million, of which 57%, i.e., nearly 7 million live by means of semi-employment and in the so-called 'informal economy';
· the tax on bank debt and VAT (16%);
· the highest rate of inflation in Latin America (30% for this last year) which is devaluing workers' wages;
· nearly 85% of the population live in conditions of poverty;
· the official minimum wage is 321.235 Bolivars (around $160 according to official figures) does not cover the cost of the basic basket of food of about 545.361;
· the deterioration of public services: health, education, transport etc., cannot be hidden, despite the government's media campaigns;
· the levels of delinquency are producing weekly figures of more than 100 killings;
· the pauperisation of society is expressed through the growth in child begging, malnutrition and prostitution.
This is the crude reality that Chavismo, which shamelessly calls it the "beautiful revolution", and the whole of the opposition bourgeoisie in its struggle for power, daily subjects us to.
No matter who wins the perspective is the worsening of conditions for the class. Chavez will continue to do what he has done until now in order to sustain his 'revolution', not only through the ideological attacks against the class, but through attacks on its living conditions; a victory will give carte blanche to a accentuation of the attacks against the workers, principally the public employees [6]. If the opposition wins this will also mean belt tightening, with the attractive excuse that Chavismo has wounded the economy and has robbed the public treasury, when in reality the capitalist crisis was a constant long before Chavez came to power. In this sense, there can be no illusions about the siren calls of the opposition: about employment and conditions of life improving: any growth in the levels of employment will inevitably be based on casualisation, greater attacks on social security and greater taxes on the workers.
It is not a moral problem, of choosing which part of the bourgeoisie is worse than the other, or which government administers the nations resources the best, since one or the other, independently of the form of government that they take, democratic or dictatorial, have to be guided by the laws of capitalism which are based on the exploitation of labour by capital.
The proletariat is the only social class that can put an end to capitalist barbarism. However, in order to be able to do this it has to recuperate its independence, solidarity and class identity. Therefore, it must prevent itself from being trapped in the inter-classism of 'people's' and 'citizens' struggles.
The working class cannot avoid confrontation with the bourgeois state, whether it is led by Chavez or the opposition. The working class is an exploited class and has a unique mission in the struggle against capitalism, since it plays a central role in the productive process and is capable of developing a consciousness of its historical objectives. When it fights on its class terrain, the proletariat can give a direction to the struggles and demonstrations of the other non-exploiting strata of society.
This is the challenge that is today being posed to the world proletariat and in particular to its detachment in Venezuela, in order to stop itself being pulled in by the siren calls of the bourgeoisie. The present situation also poses a historical challenge to the most politicised minorities of the class: today more than ever it is vital to intervene in order to promote reflection and discussion within the working class, showing the dangers that bourgeois ideology brings in its wake, in particular the leftist ideology which has such poisonous consequences for the working class, as we can see from what is now happening in Venezuela.
CHAVISMO AND THE OPPOSITION ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN.
CHAVISMO, THE LEFT OF CAPITAL AND THE LEFTISTS ARE AS MUCH ENEMIES OF THE WORKING CLASS AS THE PARTIES OF THE RIGHT.
NO TO CONFRONTATIONS AND DIVISIONS WITHIN THE PROLETARIAT.
THE ONLY ANSWER TO THE BARBARITY FACING VENEZUELA AND THE WORLD IS THE PROLETARIAN REVOLTUION.
Internacialismo,
section of the International Communist Current in Venezuela,
13.8.04
E-mail: venezuela(at)internationalism.org
[1] In recent weeks there has been a real war of the polls: some have placed the No vote (i.e., supporting Chavez) 10 points ahead of the Yes, whilst others have given the Yes vote a similar lead. For the last two weeks the pollsters have talked of a turn of the tide in favour of opposition of more or less 4%, whilst others have talked about a very narrow margin between voting intentions.
[2] The convulsions that took place in Peru with Fujimori, in Ecuador with Bucaram and recently in Haiti, Argentina and Bolivia, are all expressions of this situation of chaos created by the effects of decomposition in Latin America and the Caribbean.
[3] From the beginning the Bush government did not condemn the coup against Chavez in April 2002. For the USA Chavez is a factor of destabilisation in the Caribbean and South American region. The spearhead of its intervention has been the OAE, the Carter Centre and also the Southern Command. The USA's declarations since the beginning of the electoral process are transparent and in recent weeks they have become more frequent: last week, the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate, strongly denounced the government's actions against Sumate, a highly technical NGO that has organised the electoral aspects of the opposition and that receives funds from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED); in the last few days the security advisor Condoleezza Rice has also criticised the government for the same reasons. The Chavez government tried to use the Bush-Kerry confrontation, demonising the first and maintaining hopes that a Democratic government would being about changes. However, declarations by Kerry and his advisors have come out strongly against the Chavez government, showing the continuity of US policy towards the region.
[4] In order to counter-act the actions of the opposition, a year ago the government initiated the so-called Missions: populist campaigns which have been named after leaders and battles in the struggle for independence from Spain, through which the resources of the state (principally from exporting oil) are used to deal with questions of health, education, employment, credits etc. They have really been transformed into an ideological medium for government policy and indoctrination, and to supply funds to the followers of the "Bolivarian project". The means assigned to these Missions, which this year amounts to more than $2000 million more than was assigned in the budget, is one of the principle means for the 'new bourgeoisie' to enrich itself. According to pollsters sympathetic to the opposition these resources only reach 15% of the poor in the country, whilst 80% of population lives in poverty.
[5] We are referring to the new private capitalists who have supported Chavismo, those who are forming the new importing bourgeoisie that has displaced or is trying to displace the old 'importing oligarchy' that has opposed Chavismo. This sector of the bourgeoisie has benefited from the unrestricted importing of the food and goods that are sustaining the government's social plans. Also forming part of this 'new bourgeoisie' are the state functionaries, parliamentarians, military and union bureaucrats who have given their unconditional support to the "Chavist project". All of whom take their share of state income and are paid salaries amounting to more than 20 to 60 times the monthly minimum wage.
[6] The political crisis has accelerated unemployment: the government sacked 20.000 oil workers, and has been laying off public employees opposed to its regime. The channelling of resources into financing the Missions has practically led to the freezing of the wages of public employees, and a major deterioration in public services.
The Republican Party has just held its Convention in New York to the accompaniment of daily demonstrations and 1700 arrests in a week of protest. Bush & Co have been hailed as a uniquely nasty faction of the American ruling class. In fact, as the following article from Internationalism, the ICC's publication in the US, shows, John Kerry and the Democrats offer no alternative to the current regime.
For four days in July the Democratic Convention occupied the center ring in this year's electoral circus. Political conventions for the ruling class in America are media events par excellence, as was demonstrated by the fact that media personnel outnumbered delegates 15,000 to 3,000. It was all part and parcel of the bourgeoisie's efforts to revive the electoral mystification that was so badly tarnished in the debacle of 2000.
Media pundits made it clear that they agreed with Democratic candidate John Kerry that "this is the most important election of our lifetime. The stakes are high", as he put it in his acceptance speech. The incessant propaganda message is that this election offers voters a stark choice about the future of America, and humanity, and it would be irresponsible to sit this one out. However, when you push aside all the hype and empty rhetoric, it's quite clear that this election, like all capitalist elections, is an ideological swindle, a charade designed to make the working class falsely believe that democracy works and that government is controlled by the will of the people. Quite the contrary is true: no matter who wins the election in November, the policies of the American government will be substantially the same: the bourgeoisie will still send young workers to fight and die for the interests of American imperialism around the world, especially in Iraq, and the economic crisis will continue to erode the standard of living.
Despite the fury of the criticisms heaped against Bush, the differences between Kerry and Bush on foreign policy are largely secondary, confined to questions of style in the implementation of the same imperialist strategy. All major factions of the American ruling class share the same strategic imperialist goal - assure that the US maintains its imperialist hegemony as the only remaining superpower by preventing the emergence of any rival power or rival bloc. Kerry's criticism of Bush focuses on three main points: the botched ideological and propaganda campaign to justify the war; the failure to pressure the major European powers to acquiesce in the war; and the failure to plan an effective occupation of Iraq.
The Bush administration's ideological and propaganda justifications for the war (WMD, Iraq's alleged ties to al Qaida and implied links to 9/11) have all been thoroughly discredited. This seriously undermines the ability of the US to mobilize the population for more wars and military interventions, which is a weakness for American imperialism since the continuing challenges to its dominance require ever more military interventions. It's not that Kerry rejects Bush's ideological justifications; his criticism is that Bush's mistakes have squandered the gains made after 9/11 in whipping up patriotism and war fever. Despite the fact that all of Bush's rationalizations for the invasion have proven to be outright lies, Kerry still supports the invasion and defends his vote in favor of authorizing the war. Under pressure from barbs from President Bush, Kerry stated that even knowing what he knows today about the situation in Iraq, he would still have voted in favor of the war authorization, but if he were president he would have used the authorization differently, to take the time to secure international support for the war and reconstruction. Since all the arguments used by Bush were lies, presumably Kerry would have told the same lies more effectively or would have conjured up a different batch of more plausible lies.
The capitalist media portrays the foreign policy debate as a clash between Bush's unilateralism and Kerry's multilateralism, but this is a gross distortion. Ever since World War II, US imperialism has always acted unilaterally in the defense of its imperialist interests as a superpower. Even during the Cold War, when the western bloc was intact, the US always acted on its own initiative and in its own interests, whether it was in intervening in Korea, or in chastising Britain and France for supporting Israel in the invasion of the Sinai in 1956, or the Cuban Missile Crisis , or in Vietnam, or in the decision taken by Carter in the late 1970s, and implemented by Reagan in the early 1980s, to deploy intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe. As the head of the bloc, the US was easily able to oblige its subordinates in the bloc to go along with their decisions (with the occasional exception of the French bourgeoisie which sometimes acted out its own delusions of independence in resisting American policies).
With the collapse of the bloc system at the end of the 1980s, the cement that held the western bloc together dissolved, the tendency for each nation to try to play its own imperialist card emerged, and the discipline that obliged each member of the bloc to accept American diktats evaporated. It became more difficult for American imperialism to force its will on the other states. The first Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 was more designed to remind its former allies that the US was the only superpower in the world and that it was necessary to follow its leadership, than it was to contain Iraqi imperialist appetites. (After all, the American ambassador had purposely misled Saddam Hussein into believing that the US had given Iraq the green light to invade Kuwait in their border dispute when he was told that the US 'would not take sides' in a dispute between Arab brothers.) Throughout the 1990s, even during the Clinton years, American imperialism acted increasingly alone in the international arena when it exercised military force, as it became more and more difficult to pressure the European powers to accept American diktats. So, the extreme unilateralism of the Bush administration in the Iraq invasion is consistent with the evolution of American policy over the past 15 years and not an abrupt break in policy, even if it is a bit heavy handed and clumsily implemented.
Kerry's promise that he will bring other nations back into the fold is simply a proposal to be more patient and more effective in the efforts to get them to accept American policy, not a promise to abandon unilateralism. In his acceptance speech, Kerry said, "I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." So, like Bush, he wouldn't let the United Nations Security Council block the US from waging a war, when the US government decides it is necessary to do so. In the final analysis, no matter who is president, American imperialism will continue to act unilaterally.
Anyone who thinks this election is a clash between hawks and doves needs to have their head examined. Kerry may have been briefly involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement in the early 1970s after his two tours of duty in Vietnam, but he and the Democrats made it abundantly clear at the convention that they are just as blood-thirsty and dedicated to waging imperialist war as their Republican counterparts. It was no accident that the Democrats paraded 12 retired generals and admirals on the stage at the convention, and produced a special film in which these military giants explained how the strategic and diplomatic errors of the Bush administration in implementing American strategic goals were weakening America in the world. Kerry and his generals made a bid to show that it is the Democrats who are better able to mobilize the population for war, challenging the right's claim to a monopoly on patriotism. Retired General Wesley Clark said "This flag is ours! And nobody will take it from us." Kerry said, "For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.
That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people." Kerry criticized Bush for squandering all the unity and patriotic fervor that gripped the population in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He promises to regain that unity in support of American imperialism by making patriotism palatable again for workers and all those disenchanted with the war in Iraq and putting forth believable arguments for war. Kerry also promises to "build a stronger American military" by increasing the armed forces by 40,000, doubling "our special forces to conduct antiterrorist operations" and developing new weapons and technology. Not exactly a peace candidate.
In the final analysis, the "most important election of our lifetime" boils down to a choice between two candidates who offer differ styles in mobilizing the population for and unleashing imperialist war. This surely is the hallmark of freedom in capitalist democracy, a system that offers death, destruction, terror, and repression, no matter who wins the election.
JG, August 16, 2004
When Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, visited Sudan to make humanitarian speeches this was not met with universal acclaim. "After two and a half years of rule by Mr Straw and his allies, Iraq and Afghanistan were declared the two most lawless places on earth by a risk-assessment company. And Mr Straw lectures Khartoum on keeping order in Darfur!" commented Simon Jenkins (The Times 25.8.04), illustrating the irritation felt by the British ruling class at both the paucity of the benefits it has gained from its 'special relationship' with the US and the performance of its government.
The difficulty experienced by the British bourgeoisie in pursuing its interests on the world stage is highlighted by a series of scandals, particularly those around the entry into the Iraq war alongside the USA: the dodgy dossier, the false claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, the death of David Kelly and the subsequent Hutton enquiry. That obvious whitewash had to be followed up by the Butler Report to maintain any semblance of the search for the truth. Then the scandal about torture and degradation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib by US soldiers, and the efforts made to dissociate Britain from this. Lastly, we have seen a new scandal exposing Mark Thatcher, son of a former Prime Minister, for his role in funding a botched coup. While we do not know what Machiavellian forces within the bourgeoisies of Britain, USA or Spain led to the plug being pulled on an operation well known to the CIA and MI6, it clearly illustrates the uncomfortable situation faced by the Blair government.
The bourgeoisie are very good at using their difficulties and divisions to bolster the democratic myth that governments can be held to account, as the coverage of the Butler Report shows. After Hutton we said "calls for new inquiries feed the illusion that somehow there are figures capable of conducting investigations with their only goal being the disinterested uncovering of the truth. In reality, all the inquiries are entirely within the framework of bourgeois politics. Or take the example of the intelligence services. Critics of Blair say that intelligence was perverted for political ends, as if the secret state wasn't an integral part of the bourgeoisie's apparatus of repression, which only exists to serve the needs of the ruling class" (WR 272). We did not expect Butler to discover that Britain was engaged in an imperialist attack on Iraq for reasons of national interest with no humanitarian concerns, nor that such wanton destruction will only end with the overthrow of capitalism.
The results of the Butler Report were summed up in The Independent as "The intelligence: flawed. The dossier: dodgy. The 45-minute claim: wrong. Dr Brian Jones: vindicated. Iraq's link to al-Qa'ida: unproven. The public: misled. The case for war: exaggerated. And who was to blame? No one." The Butler Inquiry was set up to exonerate, to the extent that the opposition parties refused to participate, but that is not the whole story. Buried deep within it and in the annexe was some very serious criticism of the Blair government, particularly its kitchen style of cabinet away from the normal controlling and stabilising effects of the civil service. It is quite clear that there was enough in all this to force resignations, if the ruling class felt they had an alternative. The reason they are sticking with this Labour government is not lack of ability in the other parties. The problem Britain faces is this: it is a declining second rate power trying to defend its national interest around the globe; and in doing so it has to maintain as much independence as it can from the world's one remaining superpower, without falling into the orbit of its traditional rival, Germany, and its French ally. To have its troops on the ground, to avoid exclusion from Afghanistan and Iraq, it has to maintain its 'special relationship' with the US, but this is a very one-sided relationship in which all Britain's suggestions on the Middle East and the Palestinians, on using the UN, and so on, have been politely ignored. Yet the alternative of falling in with European anti-Americanism to gain independence from the USA is not an option since this would mean it could no longer oppose a German dominated Europe. If Labour cannot successfully maintain Britain's independence from these two stronger powers, the Tories would face greater difficulties due to the greater weight in their ranks of pro-American factions (such as Thatcher). That, not the 'good faith' of government and secret services, is why Butler found no-one to blame.
Alex 4/9/04.
For decades the British state has shown both determination and skill in the management of a declining economy. Britain has gone from being the strongest capitalist power in the world, able to penetrate every market across the globe with the products of its manufaecturing industry, and impose economic policies on all its rivals, to a second rate position where it relies on the financial and service sectors to stave off economic catastrophe. In response to the perpetual problems of the economy the ruling class has been able to impose repeated measures of austerity on the working class, attacking its conditions of life and work and make workers pay the price for the crisis of their exploiters' system. And when workers in Britain have fought against capitalism's attacks the ruling class has generally succeeded in limiting the working class' response by disorientating and dividing it. In short, the British bourgeoisie has mastered the art of crisis management. However, it remains the management of the crisis, not its resolution. The ruling class undermine workers' struggles; but it has not been able to impose a decisive defeat. The crisis continues. The class struggle continues. Managing the crisis
The government claims to have turned the economy round. Figures for inflation, unemployment and growth of GDP are routinely cited. Public spending has increased by about 5% per year in real terms since 2000, with substantial proportions going to health and education. The level of debt is growing, but it is still lower than many other European countries. In 2003 the European Commission declared that "The British economy has weathered the global weakness rather well" (Guardian 9/04/03).
However, the 'health' of the economy is only relative. The European Commission report identified four weaknesses "Low productivity, the large number of working age people claiming sickness and disability benefits, poor quality public services and regional and socio-economic unemployment blackspots" (ibid). The first is very deep-rooted: in 1870 real GDP per worker in Britain stood ahead of both the US and Germany; in 1938 it was still just ahead of Germany but substantially behind the US; in 1992 it not only lagged behind the other two but was below the average of the OECD as a whole. Today it is slightly ahead of the OECD average but still substantially behind America and Germany. The decline in the productivity of British capitalism is over a century old and the increase in the rate of growth in recent years is not a result of increasing productivity but, fundamentally, of greater exploitation of the working class.
"Through the 1960s and 1970s, unemployment and inflation crept up steadily�By the late 1970s, it had become widely recognised that the United Kingdom's wage and price fixing institutions were too insulated from market forces, and the outmoded industrial relations and vocational training systems were handicaps to achieving better economic performance. A radical change in policy orientation was introduced by the new government in the early 1980s. The UK government's new policy approach to durably raising human resource utilisation and living standards emphasised a stable macroeconomic environment and well-functioning markets. Within this broad orientation, significant reforms have been implemented to improve the efficiency of markets, was well as to enhance the skill, knowledge base and innovative capacity of the economy" (OECD survey, 1996). In practice "raising human resource utilisation" has meant longer hours, lower pay, greater job insecurity and cuts in benefits to force workers to accept unacceptable jobs. The OECD report said that: "the United Kingdom has seen a very marked widening in wage inequality, a growth in temporary jobs, a sentiment of less job security and a growing divide between 'work rich' and 'work poor' households". The Labour party has continued on the same path. "Academic institutions and think tanks have produced considerable evidence showing that inequality has grown during Blair's seven years in office�the top half of the population now owns 95 per cent of marketable assets, compared with 93% in 1997. The richest 1 per cent has seen its share of national income double from 6.5 to 13 per cent over the past two decades. And, most astonishing of all, the top fifth in the earning scale pay a smaller proportion of their income in tax (34 per cent) than the bottom fifth (42 per cent)" (The Observer, 29/8/04). "�Poverty has grown significantly over recent years and by 1999/2000, between 13 and 14.5 million people in the United Kingdom - around a quarter of our society - were living in poverty" (Poverty: the Facts, Child Poverty Action Group, 2000). The health of the economy rests on the greater poverty of the working class. Today's situation is not the same as that of capitalism's ascendance in the 19th century, despite all the arguments about the similarity of the growth rates, since in the 19th century the working class benefited from the growth of the economy.
Back in the 1970s and 80s the working class in Britain tried to defend itself against capitalist attacks, playing its part in struggles waged by the working class around the world. But the ruling class made its attacks gradually and against particular parts of the working class. In the eighties the Tories went on the offensive while Labour and the unions protested against Thatcher's 'heartlessness', and claimed they would be different in government. Workers' struggles were isolated with a fog of phoney sympathy and empty rhetoric. Back in power in 1997, Labour picked up where the Tories had left off. Because they no longer even pretended to talk of socialism or the working class, Labour was perfectly in tune with the ruling class's main themes after the collapse of the USSR and its domination over eastern Europe. This was used to prove capitalism as the final form of human society, and to feed the development of the ideology of 'look after number one' that undermined the very idea of collective struggle and even of the existence of the working class.
Today the official figures for the class struggle are at an all time low. And, while there has been an increase in the number of strikes and the number of workers taking action in the first part of 2004, there is no comparison with the 1970s and 80s. And, despite media warnings of chaos and disruption, in particular with the recent threats of action by fire fighters and BA staff, the bosses seem unperturbed, ending those two disputes without any strikes.
However, the ruling class is far from complacent. Internationally there are signs of the working class feeling its strength once more through large-scale actions, such as those in France and Austria in the spring of last year (see the 'Report on the Class Struggle' in IR 117). In Britain the evolution has been far less obvious, but in actions such as the unofficial strikes by the fire fighters earlier in the year there is a sense of the working class beginning to probe the defences of the bourgeoisie. This puts the recent disputes in a new light. Both the fire fighters and the BA workers have taken unofficial action in the last year and have demonstrated a sense of class solidarity - for example, fire fighters in one part of the country came out in support of those in another. Such an example, even though very small, worries the ruling class. By stage managing a new dispute it has reinforced the grip of the unions and demoralised those workers who were prepared to strike. The same sense of solidarity was expressed at the end of August. Workers employed in building the new Wembley stadium mounted a picket in support of 200 workers who had been sacked when they fought attempts to force them to work longer hours and weekends..
Such struggles show that the working class remains a force within capitalism that the ruling class must take account of. Most importantly, the working class still has the potential to end capitalism.
North, 1/9/04.
In 50 facts that should change the world journalist and BBC television producer Jessica Williams has written a book that hints at the scale of suffering across the planet. The proliferation of wars, poverty, hunger, disease, repression and the threats to the environment are evidence of the state of the world in the early 21st century. Any alert reader, concerned about the picture painted in this book, will be disappointed by the means proposed for changing the situation. The approach of 'alternative worldism' is served up here, another variation of the 'anti-globalisation' activism that is no challenge to the capitalist order of things.
The author tells us about the mess the world's in. There are short essays on the proportion of the world at war, the widespread use of landmines, the size of military budgets, and the number of countries that use torture, executions, imprisonment and CCTV surveillance. Women appear as victims of domestic violence, genital mutilation, prostitution and eating disorders. There are child soldiers, children forced to work, children in poverty and children expelled from school. Cars kill; oil's running out; and billions of plastic bottles are discarded without any thought for the consequences. Meanwhile, drugs, pornography, mental illness and suicide show how people cope with modern life.
In an introduction Williams tells us that the facts "are not immutable truths. It's not too late to change the way the world acts. But we need to act soon. Some of the facts need major shifts in thinking, while others require governments to start taking their responsibilities to the international community seriously". This is a book for 'activists' and pressure groups that live in a world where governments and corporations will change their ways if only consumers "keep in mind the idea of thinking globally, acting locally". It "doesn't have to be about big gestures" because a commitment to recycling, to shopping for Fairtrade products and investing ethically might be "small things", but "they do make a difference".
It's not startling to be told that there are dozens of wars going on in the world that affect the lives of millions of people. But for war to stimulate a questioning about the state of the world it is necessary to look at the real causes of armed conflict.
50 facts partly blames the struggle for natural resources for wars, but otherwise takes them for granted. It says that it's "vital to ensure that both states and NSAs [non-state actors] are aware of their responsibilities". After wars there should be disarmament and criminal courts that will "remove the perception that combatants can carry out crimes against civilians with impunity". Also "because rebel groups will try to infiltrate civilian groups" it is "crucial that fighters and bystanders are kept clearly separated". But while "the big military powers have little idea of how to deal with these new adversaries" they should try "to protect civilians as much as possible".
Given the overwhelming evidence of modern warfare's indiscriminate mass brutality it's tempting to reject such remarks as laughable. Yet what have the 'anti-war' demonstrations of recent years over Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine/Israel amounted to? They have pleaded for capitalist governments to alter their imperialist policies; to opt for conventional weapons rather than nuclear, chemical or biological means; or for resources to be turned from 'warfare to welfare'.
Capitalism doesn't 'fight fair'. The ruling class of every state will use every weapon at its disposal to defend its interests. Criminal courts will dispense the justice of the victor. The UN is not an impartial body but an arena that's an integral part of imperialist conflicts. The idea of carefully separating "fighters and bystanders" is as absurd as expecting capitalism to disarm without a revolution.
This book sows the illusion that governments can act in the interests of the exploited and oppressed, that the worst aspects of war can be curtailed, that for poverty to be reduced it's only a matter of will.
Williams suggests that for the policies of governments or corporations to change it's just a matter of exerting pressure. Governments are supposed to respond to the popular will, companies to market forces unleashed by 'ethical consumers'. However, one of the problems posed in 50 facts is that there's decreasing interest in the electoral process, especially from the young.
Williams thinks it necessary to "make politics seem relevant and worthwhile". She's convinced that there's a potential for political involvement because younger people boycott products, take part in events to raise money for charity and especially embrace mass activities (runs, bike rides) where they can see themselves as part of group "making a difference". If people don't trust politicians then the parties must make sure that "young voters ... receive all the information they need to understand the issues".
If people don't trust politicians or bother to vote it's because they've worked out that politicians lie and that elections don't change anything except the colour of the government. Young people have fewer illusions in the power of the ballot box, but not yet any real appreciation of what can change the world.
The view of the book, far from being inspiring, is potentially very depressing. There are all-powerful states 'opposed' by small groups that might possibly influence them. There is no history of past struggles to show what is possible. There is no perspective for what human society could actually be like.
The most obvious omission from the 50 facts view of the world is the working class. There is slavery, forced labour, bonded labour, child labour, but no reference to the working class, the class that sells its labour power for wages. While we're treated to the vision of a ruling class defending its position, and the degradations of capitalist society, there's not a hint of what it means for the working class to defend its interests.
50 facts adopts the 'think global, act local' slogan. But the local actions of individual voters or consumers are completely incorporated in the mechanisms of capitalist society. There is only one force that can think globally and that is the working class, an international class with the same interests across every national frontier that can only defend its interests in an international struggle. It's the only force that can take on capitalism, a system that exists across the globe. That is a perspective for the future struggle of the working class.
Many people are worried about the state of the world, but because there have not been any major working class struggles in more than a decade are not entirely convinced of a class analysis of society. Marxism doesn't depend on immediate events but on the whole history of the class struggle. Understanding the real forces at work in capitalist society is part of that struggle. Against pleas to put pressure on implacable governments the case for a working class revolution is overwhelming.
Car, 1/9/04.
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/russia-caucasus-central-asia
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/terrorism
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/germany
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/56/middle-east-and-caucasus
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-iraq
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/readers-letters
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/15/decadence-capitalism
[9] https://de.internationalism.org/content/894/diskussionsveranstaltung-des-ibrp-berlin-fuer-die-offene-debatte-unter-revolutionaeren
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/international-bureau-revolutionary-party
[11] https://zabalaza.net/
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/south-africa
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/22/national-question
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/internationalist-anarchism
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/61/india
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/venezuela
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/17/189/us-presidential-elections-2004
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/14/proletarian-revolution