Capitalism today requires an arsenal of ideological mystifications to survive. As a historically bankrupt social and economic system, capitalism has nothing to offer humanity except a future of misery, decay, and war. The ruling class finds it necessary to obscure this reality to keep the working class from recognising and acting upon its revolutionary, historic responsibilities. The latest mystification the world bourgeoisie has rolled out from the arsenal is the green economy. Media pundits, politicians, economists and business leaders increasingly envision green industry expansion as a significant component of economic recovery. Some compare the green economy to the biotech and computer technologies in terms of its transformative potential for the American economy. It's almost funny to see all the corporations jumping on the green bandwagon, now that environmentalism is "in." Even the biggest polluters are now advocates for the green movement, like the home heating oil industry television commercial in the US that claims that oil heat is energy efficient and environmentally friendly!
Like all ideological swindles, the green economy has a certain link to reality. There is indeed a genuine and widespread concern about the despoliation of the environment and the very real threat of climate change with potentially catastrophic social impact. And there is undeniably a disastrous global economic downturn that is destroying jobs by the millions throughout the world, worsening poverty and deprivation. This link to reality makes the green economy myth even more pernicious than your typical run-of-the-mill, trumped up propaganda campaign.
The world bourgeoisie advances the preposterous claim that it has a policy alternative to save the day in order to short-circuit the development of class consciousness and the recognition that the environmental disaster and economic crisis graphically expose capitalism as an anachronistic system and poses the necessity for its overthrow in no uncertain terms. In so doing the bourgeoisie denies the fact that the current crisis is a systemic problem and pitches the notion that it is a policy problem that can be dealt with. The green economy, they tell us, will revolutionise the economy and bring back prosperity.
The scientific evidence about the seriousness of the environmental crisis is voluminous. According to a report released by Barack Obama's White House scientific advisers, global warming has already caused significant changes in weather patterns in the United States, including more heavy downpours, rising temperatures and sea levels, rapidly retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons and altered river flow.[1] This report anticipates that average temperatures in the US could rise by 11o Fahrenheit or approximately 6o C by end of the century. The International Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in March, 2009, reported that "temperature rises above 2o C will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century." And the last time we checked, 6o is three times greater than 2o!
One of the key conclusions of the March Copenhagen Conference was that:
"Recent observations confirm that given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrives. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climactic shifts."[2]
Regarding the economic situation, there is hardly a need to present evidence here of the seriousness of the current recession. The bourgeois media itself acknowledges this as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Since the current recession has occurred, despite the myriad state capitalist safeguards and palliatives put in place after the Great Depression in the 1930s supposedly to make sure that such economic devastation never happened again, one could argue that this recession is even worse than 1929. It has certainly brought the world's biggest and most powerful economy, the United States, to its knees, requiring the virtual nationalisation of the banking industry, the propping up of the entire finance industry and the bankruptcy of General Motors, the largest corporation in the world. They used to say "what's good for General Motors is good for the USA."
The Obama administration first predicted that US unemployment would rise to only 8 percent before stabilising. Reality has already outstripped this overly optimistic prediction, as official unemployment has risen to 9.4 percent and Obama himself now openly acknowledges the unemployment rate will hit double digits before things start to improve. Even these bleak numbers seriously underestimate reality. In the US a person is considered unemployed only if he or she has no job and has applied for a job in the previous 30 days. Unemployed workers who have not applied for a job during this period or who have become so demoralised looking for jobs that don't exist and have given up applying for positions are, by bureaucratic fiat, considered to have withdrawn from the workforce. According to the American state, these "discouraged workers" are no longer workers and are therefore not unemployed!
Workers who have lost their jobs and can't find new full time positions, but scramble to find menial part-time jobs just to survive - called "involuntary part-time workers" - are not considered unemployed or even underemployed. Provided they have a part-time job of at least 10 hours per week, they are considered "employed" and what's more each and every one of their part-time jobs counts as a "job" in the statistics that record the number of jobs in the economy. Thus for example, a laid off 59-year old special-education teacher's aide who lost her job nine months ago, now works four part-time jobs. Not only is she not unemployed according to the government, she alone accounts for four new jobs in the economy. Working as a fitness instructor teaching five classes a week, a day-care worker, a personal care attendant to a patient with Down's syndrome, and as a personal fitness trainer for private clients, she manages to pull in a grand total of $750 per month, which doesn't help very much since her monthly mortgage payment is $1,000.[3]
The US Labor Department acknowledges that there were 9.1 million such "involuntary part-time workers" in May and that if discouraged workers and involuntary part-time were included in unemployment calculations, unemployment would stand at 16.4 percent, not 9.4. Even the most optimistic prognosticators predict that "full" employment (defined as 6 percent unemployment) can't possibly return until 2013 or 2014 in the US
The green economy mystification was a key element in the Obama presidential campaign. In the second presidential debate in October, 2008, Obama said, "if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily." More specifically his campaign web site promised to "create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyse private efforts to build a clean energy future."[4] Programmatically, the Obama/Biden green economy proposal includes the following:
within 10 years saving more oil than is currently imported from the Middle East and Venezuela;
putting 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015;
ensuring that 10 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, 25 percent by 2025;
implementing economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.[5]
In February 2009, Congress passed Obama's economic recovery plan which earmarked $80 million in stimulus spending for developing alternative fuel sources and other eco-conscious initiatives, which was widely touted among environmental groups as a down payment on the green economy. However, despite the triumphalism of the environmental groups, this paltry $80 million mathematically means that Obama will now have to "strategically" spend $149.926 billion dollars in nine years to fulfil his green economy pledge.
The green economy mystification is not simply an American phenomenon. According to a European environmental activist, "the clean economy is about to take off."7 The European Union is actively promoting green industry investment. European countries introduced their own carbon dioxide cap-and-trade programs in 2005. Germany has enacted the German Renewable Energy Act and introduced a feed-in tariffs (FITs)8 program providing incentives for clean energy investment. In Canada, Ontario Province has adopted a measure modelled on the German FITs. In Britain, efforts to promote environmentally friendly investments are a central element in economic recovery plans. Australia seeks to increase green jobs by 3,000 percent over the next several decades. Germany, Spain and Denmark have been promoting wind power programs. Germany and Spain have also been supporting solar power ventures.
The green economy is hardly the magic bullet that will save capitalism from itself. The comparisons of the green economy to the so-called "computer technology revolution" are spurious. This is no new technological revolution that will transform society the way the industrial revolution was able do when it transcended natural production and permitted the development of modern manufacturing, which decreased costs and increased production and helped raise the standard of living. When capitalism was a historically progressive system, capable of expanding the forces of production, when new technologies and new industries arose, they produced millions of new jobs, even as they may have destroyed old jobs and industries. So for example, the rise of the automobile industry, though it largely destroyed such industries as blacksmithing and buggy manufacturing, created millions more jobs in the auto, rubber, steel, aluminium, petroleum and allied industries. However today, in a crisis of global overproduction, insofar as it was able to reduce production costs and increase productivity, computer technology didn't revolutionise the economy, didn't enable the system to overcome its economic crisis, but on the contrary actually aggravated the crisis of overproduction.
The notion that fixing the mess that capitalism has created over the past century is the basis for economic progress is a complete fallacy. It's like saying that Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2004 was good for the economy because it created thousands of new construction jobs and makes possible economic growth. This kind of ideological sleight of hand only works if you leave out of the equation all the human suffering (death, dislocation, poverty) and destruction of productive forces, housing, schools, hospitals, etc. that was caused by Katrina. Fixing something that's broken is not "revolutionising" the economy.
In any case, all the hype about how the green economy will produce new jobs is rubbish. A study commissioned by the US Conference of Mayors projects an increase in green jobs in the US from about 750,000 today to 2.5 million in 2018, an increase of 1,750,000 jobs - much more modest than Obama's prediction of 5 million jobs. However, academic researchers from such universities as York College in Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois and University of Texas Arlington have challenged the Mayors' projections as wildly inflated, because they pad the job numbers with clerical and administrative support positions that have no direct involvement with clean energy production. In any case, even if Obama's inflated claims were accurate, five million new green jobs over ten years would be a drop in the bucket in this economy. Since the current recession began in December 2007, the American economy has lost nearly 6 million jobs to lay-offs and the economy needs 125,000 to 150,000 new jobs a month, or 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 jobs per year, just to absorb new workers coming of age and entering the workforce and keep unemployment stable. Thus, the alleged five million new jobs that will be created "easily" over a period of ten years will not even compensate for all the jobs destroyed in the last 18 months of the current recession!
Nor would the new green jobs compensate for the jobs lost in the oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and automobile industries that would result from the wholesale shift away from fossil fuels in what they call the "black" economy. The highly promoted cap-and-trade program which allows polluting companies to trade allowances to pollute which has already been in place in Europe for four years has yet to have any positive benefits, as emissions levels have increased in the those countries.
Capitalist enterprises will only switch to environmentally friendly practices and investments if there are profits to be made. Since these new technologies require tremendous start up and research and development costs, they have to be very profitable. The only way that governments can promote the green economy is to introduce disincentives for continued use of fossil fuels and incentives to push companies towards green economy investments. So-called "free market" forces will never make this happen; it requires vigorous state capitalist policy intervention. This means increased taxes on the use of fossil fuel technologies, driving up costs for commodities produced by traditional manufacturing processes, and hence prices for consumers. And at the same time, it means government subsidies and tax breaks to green technology companies. All of this will of course be financed out of the hide of the working class, who will pay higher prices for "clean" consumer goods and higher taxes to finance subsidies and compensate for lost revenues due to corporate tax breaks. In the end the green economy that will supposedly "revolutionise" the economy and save the world from ecological disaster is ultimately just another way to foist austerity on the working class and erode even further its standard of living.
World capitalism is totally incapable of the degree of international co-operation necessary to address the ecological threat. Especially in the period of social decomposition, with the disappearance of economic blocs, and a growing tendency for each nation to play its own card on the international arena, in the competition of each against all, such co-operation is impossible. While the US has been attacked for its refusal to participate in the Kyoto Protocols guidelines for curtailing carbon emissions, the nations who were enthusiastic participants in the treaty accomplished nothing in terms of reducing greenhouse gases in the past decade. Even when capitalism "tries" to implement solutions to the environmental crisis, the profit motive works irrationally to undermine social well being. The disastrous example of what happened with the profit-driven switch to produce ethanol from corn as an alternative fuel, which prompted many agribusinesses to switch from food production to producing corn-for-ethanol and contributed to global food shortages and hunger rioting, offers just a taste of what a capitalist green economy has in store for humanity.
The green economy is nothing but a smokescreen, an ideological campaign to give capitalism a human face. In its quest for profits, capitalism has debased the environment. The environmental calamity that capitalism has produced is yet another proof of the fact that it has outlived its usefulness, that it must be cast aside. But the green economy is a cynical response by the ruling class. They say they can fix the problem that flows directly from the very nature of their system. The distance between the promise of the green economy and reality is so enormous as to be laughable. The jobs it will create over the next decade won't even compensate for the jobs lost in the current "recession." They market ecologically friendly foodstuffs, that are supposedly more natural and more organic, but are often priced beyond the reach of the average worker. To conserve energy, they tell us to switch from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent lights, which contain mercury, which is disastrous for the environment, unless disposed of in controlled manner.
No matter how you package it ideologically, capitalism works for profit, not for the fulfilment of human need.
There is no way for capitalism to extricate itself from the economic crisis, no way for a system based on the profit motive to save the environment. Only the proletariat has the capacity to salvage humanity's future - to destroy this rapacious system of capitalist exploitation of man by man based on a relentless drive for profits and replace it with a society in which the fulfilment of social need is the paramount principle in economic and social life. All this talk about green and black economies is nonsense. Only a red economy will offer humanity a future.
J. Grevin 31/7/9
[1]. By law, the White House is required to issue a report on the impact of global warming, but no such report had been issued since 2000, when the Clinton/Gore administration was still in power. The Bush administration with its strong links to the energy industry and ties to anti-regulation rightwing cronies, refused to issue such a report in the entire eight years of its tenure. Until the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its report affirming the existence of global warming as incontrovertible fact, the Bush administration considered the matter an "open" scientific question, much to the dismay of professional scientists on the staff at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who found their reports censored or suppressed during the Bush years.
[2]. "Key Messages from the Congress" climatecongress.ku.dk/newsroom/congress_key_messages
[3]. DePass, Dee, "More Workers Fall Back on Part-Time ‘Survival' Jobs," Star Tribune, (Minneapolis, MN), June 21, 2009. p1D
[4]. barackobama.com [1]
[5]. ibid
6. The 150 billion promised at the time of the electoral debate from which the 80 million already allocated in February 2009 is subtracted.
7. WWF: Green Economy Creates Jobs. en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=1555.
8. Tariffs imposed on businesses for the purchase of electricity from renewable sources.
Not since 1929 has an economic crisis struck with such violence against the world proletariat. Everywhere, unemployment and poverty are exploding. This dramatic situation can only provoke a strong feeling of anger among workers. But to transform this anger into combativity is very difficult today. What do you do when your factory closes? How do you fight back? What type of strikes or actions do you undertake? And for those that still have a job, how do you resist wage cuts, unpaid supplementary hours and the increases in productivity and flexibility when the boss uses the odious blackmail of "There's the door, if you don't like it there's millions more to take your place"? The brutality of this recession is a source of terrible, sometimes paralysing anxiety for workers' families.
However, in these last months important strikes have broken out:
But it's in Britain that the clearest advance of consciousness within the working class has been expressed. At the beginning of the year, workers at the Lindsey refinery were at the heart of a wave of wildcat strikes. This struggle, at its beginning, was held back by the weight of nationalism, symbolised by the slogan "British jobs for British workers". The ruling class used these nationalist ideas to the full by presenting this strike as being against Italian and Portuguese workers employed on the site. However, the bourgeoisie suddenly put an end to this strike when banners begun to appear calling on Portuguese and Italian workers to join the struggle, affirming "Workers of the World, Unite!", and when construction workers from Poland joined in wildcat strikes in Plymouth. Instead of a workers' defeat, with growing tensions between workers of different countries, the workers at Lindsey obtained the creation of 101 supplementary jobs (the Italian and Portuguese workers keeping theirs), gained assurances that no worker would be sacked and, above all, returned to work united. When, in June, Total announced the sacking of 51 then of 640 employees, the workers based their reaction on this recent experience. The new wave of struggle broke out straightaway on a much clearer basis: solidarity with the sacked workers. And quickly, wildcat strikes broke out throughout the country. "Workers from power stations, refineries, factories in Cheshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxford, South Wales and Teesside stopped work to show their solidarity".[3] "There were also signs that the strike was spreading to the nuclear industry; then EDF Energy said that the contractors at the nuclear reactor of Hinckley Point in Somerset had stopped work".[4] The oldest fraction of the world proletariat showed on this occasion that the strength of the working class above all resides in its capacity for unity and solidarity.
All these struggles can seem little in comparison with the gravity of the situation. And, effectively, the future of humanity will necessarily demand proletarian combats of quite another breadth and scale. But if the present economic crisis has left the proletariat somewhat stupefied up to now, it nevertheless remains the most fertile ground for the future development of workers' combativity and consciousness. In this sense, these examples of struggles, that carry within them the germ of unity, solidarity and human dignity, are promises for the future.
Mehdi 8/7/9
[1]. Source: "News from the front" (https://dndf.org/?p=4049 [5]).
[2]. For more information on this struggle, read our article in Spanish "Vigo: Los metados sinidicales conducen a la derrota" (https://es.internationalism.org/node/2585 [6])
[3]. The Independent, June 20th.
[4]. The Times.
The article we are publishing below is the second part of Anton Pannekoek's pamphlet, Marxism and Darwinism, the first chapters of which we published in the preceding issue of the International Review [8] . This text explains the evolution of man as a social species. With good cause, Pannekoek looks to the second great work of Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871) and clearly shows that the mechanism of the struggle for existence through natural selection, developed in The Origin of Species, cannot be applied schematically to the human species, as Darwin himself demonstrated. Among all the social animals, and more still in man, co-operation and mutual aid are the condition for the collective survival of the group, within which the weakest are not eliminated, but, on the contrary, protected. The motor of evolution of the human species is thus not the competitive struggle for existence and the advantage conferred to those living beings who are most adapted to the conditions of the environment, but the development of their social instincts.
Pannekoek's pamphlet shows that Darwin's book, The Descent of Man, offers a striking rebuttal to the reactionary ideology of "social Darwinism", notably advocated by Herbert Spencer (also distorted into the ideas of eugenics by Francis Galton), which based itself on the mechanism of natural selection, described in The Origins of the Species, in order to give a pseudo-scientific seal of approval to the logic of capitalism based upon competition, the law of the strongest and the elimination of the "weakest". To all the "social Darwinists" of yesterday and today (whom he designates as "bourgeois Darwinists"), Pannekoek responds very clearly, basing himself upon Darwin, that: "This throws an entirely new light on the point of view of the bourgeois Darwinists. They proclaim that only the elimination of the weak is natural and that this is necessary to prevent the corruption of the race. On the other hand, the protection provided to the weak is against nature and contributes to the decline of the race. But what do we see? In nature itself, in the animal world, we can establish that the weak are protected, that they don't hold out thanks to their own personal strength, and they are not eliminated due to their individual weakness. These arrangements don't weaken the group, but confer on it a new strength. The animal group in which mutual aid is better developed is better adapted to look after itself in conflicts. What, according to the narrow conception of these Darwinists, appears as a factor of weakness becomes exactly the opposite, a factor of strength, against which strong individuals who undertake struggle individually are not up to the job."
In this second part of the pamphlet, Pannekoek also examines, with great dialectical rigour, how the evolution of Man permitted him to free himself from his animality and of certain contingencies of nature, thanks to the conjoint development of language, thought and tools. Nevertheless, in taking up the analysis developed by Engels in his uncompleted article "The Role of Labour in the Transition of Ape to Man" (published in The Dialectics of Nature), he tends to underestimate the fundamental role of language in the development of the social life of our species.
This article of Pannekoek was drawn up a century ago and he couldn't thus integrate the latest scientific discoveries, notably in primatology. Recent studies on the social behaviour of anthropoid apes allow us to affirm that human language wasn't chosen in the first place for the making of tools (as Pannekoek seems to think, following Engels) but first of all for the consolidation of social links (without which the first humans wouldn't have been able to communicate to construct shelter, protect themselves from predators and the hostile forces of nature and then transmit their knowledge from one generation to the other). Although the text of Pannekoek makes a very well argued description of the process of the development of the productive forces since the first tools were made, he tends to reduce these solely to the satisfaction of the biological needs of man (notably the need to overcome hunger) and thus loses sight of the fact that the emergence of art (which made its appearance very early in the history of humanity) equally constituted a fundamental stage in the disengagement of the human species from the animal kingdom.
Moreover, although as we've seen, Pannekoek explains in a very synthetic way, but with a remarkable clarity and simplicity, the Darwinian theory of the evolution of man, in our opinion he doesn't go far enough in understanding the anthropology of Darwin. In particular, he doesn't show that with the natural selection of the social instincts, the struggle for existence has chosen anti-eliminatory behaviours that have given birth to morality[1]. By effecting a rupture between natural and social morality, between nature and culture, Pannekoek has not sufficiently understood the evolutionary continuity between the selection of social instincts and the protection of the weak through mutual aid, which allowed man to take up the road to civilisation. It is really this enlargement of solidarity and of the consciousness of belonging to the same species that permitted humanity, at a certain stage of its development under the Roman Empire (as underlined elsewhere in Pannekoek's text), to declare the Christian formula: "All men are brothers".
ICC, July 2009.
[1]. This idea is also presented in Kautsky's book Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History, which Pannekoek refers to and approves, as the following quote shows: "An animal impulse and nothing else is the moral law. Thence comes its mysterious nature, this voice in us which has no connection with any external impulse, or any apparent interest... Because the moral law is the universal instinct, of equal force to the instinct of self preservation and reproduction, thence its force, thence its power which we obey without thought, thence our rapid decisions, in particular cases, whether an action is good or bad, virtuous or vicious: thence the energy and decision of our moral judgement, and thence the difficulty to prove it when reason begins to analyse its grounds." (Ethics and the materialist conception of history, Chapter IV "The ethics of Darwinism."; section 4 "The social instinct" [9] . English edition published by Charles H Kerr and Company, 1914).
Furthermore, Darwin's anthropology is very clearly explained in the theory of the "reverse effect of evolution" developed by Patrick Tort, notably in his book The Darwin Effect: Natural Selection and the Birth of Civilisation (Editions du Seuil). Our readers can find a presentation of this work in an article on our website "On Patrick Tort's book The Darwin Effect: a materialist conception of the origins of morality and civilisation. [10] "
The false conclusions reached by Haeckel and Spencer on socialism are no surprise. Darwinism and marxism are two distinct theories, one of which applies to the animal world, the other to society. They complete each other in the sense that the animal world develops according to the laws of Darwinian theory up to the stage of man and, starting from the moment where he is elevated from the animal world, it is marxism which constitutes the subsequent law of development. When one wishes to carry a theory from one domain to the other, where different laws apply, one can only make wrong deductions.
Such is the case when we wish to discover, starting from the law of nature, which social form is natural and more in conformity with nature, and this is just what the bourgeois Darwinists have done. They deduced from the laws which govern the animal world, where Darwinian theory applies, that the capitalist social order, which is in conformity with this theory, is a natural order, which must endure forever. On the other hand, there have also been some socialists who wanted to prove in the same way that the socialist system is the natural system. These socialists said,
"Under capitalism men do not carry on the struggle for existence with identical weapons, but with artificially unequal weapons. The natural superiority of those who are healthier, stronger, more intelligent or morally better, cannot predominate so long as birth, class, or above all the possession of money control this struggle. Socialism, in abolishing all these artificial inequalities, will make the conditions as favourable for all, and only then will the real struggle for existence prevail, in which personal excellence constitutes the decisive factor. Following Darwinian principles, the socialist mode of production will therefore be truly natural and logical."
As a critique of the conceptions of the bourgeois Darwinists, these arguments are not bad, but they are still ultimately erroneous. Both opposing sets of arguments are equally false because they both start from the long disproved premise that there exists a single natural or logical social system.
Marxism has taught us that there is no such thing as a natural social system, and that there can be none, or, to put it another way, every social system is natural, because every social system is necessary and natural in given conditions. There is not a single definitive social system that can claim to be natural; the different social systems succeed each other as a result of the development of the productive forces. Each system is therefore the natural one for its particular epoch, as the following one will be for a subsequent epoch. Capitalism is not the only natural order, as the bourgeoisie believes, and no world socialist system is the only natural system, as some socialists try to prove. Capitalism was natural in the conditions of the 19th Century, just as feudalism was in the Middle Ages, and just as socialism will be at a future stage of the development of the productive forces. The attempt to promote a given system as the only natural system is as futile as if we were to take an animal and say that this animal is the most perfect of all animals. Darwinism teaches us that every animal is equally adapted and equally perfect in its form to adapt to its particular environment. In the same manner, marxism teaches us that each social system is particularly adapted to its conditions, and that, in this sense, it can be called good and perfect.
Herein lies the main reason why the attempts of the bourgeois Darwinists to defend the decadent capitalist system are bound to fail. Arguments based on natural science, when applied to social questions, must almost always lead to wrong conclusions. In effect, while nature does not change significantly in the course of human history, human society, on the other hand, undergoes rapid and continuous changes. In order to understand the motor force and the cause of social development, we must study society itself. Marxism and Darwinism must remain in their proper domains; they are independent of each other and there is no direct connection between them.
Here arises a very important question. Can we stop at the conclusion that marxism applies only to society and that Darwinism applies only to the organic world, and that neither of these theories is applicable in the other domain? From a practical point of view it is very convenient to have one principle for the human world and another one for the animal world. In adopting this point of view, however, we forget that man is also an animal. Man has developed from the animals, and the laws that apply to the animal world cannot suddenly lose their applicability to man. It is true that man is a very peculiar animal, but if that is the case it is necessary to find from these very peculiarities why the principles applicable to all animals do not apply to men, or why they assume a different form.
Here we come to another problem. The bourgeois Darwinists do not have this problem; they simply declare that man is an animal, and without further ado they set about applying Darwinian principles to men. We have seen to what erroneous conclusions they come. To us this question is not so simple; we must first have a clear vision of the differences which exist between men and animals, then, from these differences, must flow why, in the human world, Darwinian principles are transformed into different ones, namely, into marxism.
The first peculiarity that we observe in man is that he is a social being. In this he does not differ from all animals, for even among the latter there are many species that live in a social way. But man differs from all the animals that we have observed until now in dealing with Darwinian theory; those animals that live separately, each for themselves, and struggle against all the others to survive. It is not with the rapacious animals that live separately and which are the model animals for the bourgeois Darwinians, that man must be compared, but with those that live socially. Sociability is a new force that we have not yet taken into account; a force that calls forth new relations and new qualities among animals.
It is an error to regard the struggle for existence as the unique and omnipotent force giving shape to the organic world. The struggle for existence is the principal force that is the origin of new species, but Darwin himself knew full well that other forces co-operate, which give shape to the forms, habits, and particularities of the organic world. In his later work, The Descent of Man, Darwin minutely examined sexual selection and showed that the competition of males for females gave rise to the gaudy colours of the birds and butterflies and, equally, to the melodious songs of the birds. There he also devoted a chapter to social living. One can also find many examples on this question in Kropotkin's book, Mutual Aid as a Factor in Evolution. The best exposé of the effects of sociability is given in Kautsky's Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History.
When a certain number of animals live in a group, herd or flock, they lead a common struggle for existence against the outside world; within such a group the struggle for existence ceases. The animals that live socially no longer wage a struggle against each other, wherein the weak succumb, it's just the reverse; the weak enjoy the same advantages as the strong. When some animals have an advantage by means of sharper smell, greater strength, or experience which allows them to find the best pasture or to evade the enemy, this advantage benefits not only themselves, but equally the entire group, which comprises less advantaged individuals. The combining of the less advantaged individuals with the more advantaged allows the former to overcome to a certain extent the consequences of their less favourable properties.
This combining of the animals' separate strengths into one unit gives to the group a new and greater strength than any one individual possessed, even the strongest. It is owing to this united strength that herbivores can ward off rapacious animals. It is only by means of this unity that some animals are able to protect their young. Social life therefore enormously profits all of the members.
A second advantage of sociability arises from the fact that where animals live socially, there is a possibility of the division of labour. Such animals send out scouts or place sentries whose task is to look after the safety of all, while the others are safely eating or gathering, relying on their guards to warn them of danger.
Such an animal society becomes, in some respects, a unity, a single organism. Naturally, relations remain much looser than the cells of a single animal body; and the members remain equal between themselves - it is only among the ants, bees and several other insects that an organic distinction develops - and they are capable in certain unfavourable conditions of living alone. Nevertheless, the group becomes a coherent body, and there must be some force that holds the individual members together.
This force constitutes the social motives, the instinct that holds the animals together and thus permits the perpetuation of the group. Every animal must place the interest of the entire group above its own; it must always act instinctively for the benefit of the group without consideration for itself. If every weak herbivore thinks only of itself and runs away when attacked by a wild animal, the united herd is scattered anew. Only when the strong motive of self-preservation is suppressed by a stronger motive of union, and each animal risks its life for the protection of all, only then does the herd remain and enjoy the advantages of sticking together. Self-sacrifice, bravery, devotion, discipline and loyalty must arise in the same way, for where these do not exist, cohesion dissolves; society can only exist where these exist.
These instincts, while they have their origin in habit and necessity, are strengthened by the struggle for existence. Every animal herd still stands in a competitive struggle against the same animals of a different herd; the herds that are best fitted to withstand the enemy will survive, while those that are less well equipped will perish. The groups in which the social instinct is better developed will be better able to hold their ground, while the groups in which social instinct is low will either fall easy prey to their enemies or will not be able to find favourable pastures. These social instincts become therefore the most important and decisive factors that determine who shall survive in the struggle for existence. It is owing to this that social instincts have been raised to the position of predominant factors in the struggle for survival.
This throws an entirely new light on the point of view of the bourgeois Darwinists. They proclaim that only the elimination of the weak is natural and that this is necessary to prevent the corruption of the race. On the other hand, the protection provided to the weak is against nature and contributes to the decline of the race. But what do we see? In nature itself, in the animal world, we can establish that the weak are protected, that they don't hold out thanks to their own personal strength, and they are not eliminated due to their individual weakness. These arrangements don't weaken the group, but confer on it a new strength. The animal group in which mutual aid is better developed is better adapted to look after itself in conflicts. What, according to the narrow conception of these Darwinists, appears as a factor of weakness becomes exactly the opposite, a factor of strength, against which strong individuals who undertake struggle individually are not up to the job.
This supposedly degenerating and deteriorating race carries off the victory and proves itself in practice the smartest and best.
Here we first see clearly how near-sighted, narrow and unscientific are the claims and arguments of the bourgeois Darwinists. They have derived their natural laws and their conceptions of what is natural from a part of the animal world which man resembles least, the solitary animals, while leaving unobserved those animals that live practically in the same circumstances as man. The reason for this can be found in their own conditions of life; they themselves belong to a class where each competes individually against the other. Therefore, they see among animals only that form of the struggle for existence which corresponds to the bourgeois competitive struggle. It is for this reason that they overlook those forms of the struggle that are of greatest importance to men.
It is true that these bourgeois Darwinists are aware of the fact that everything in the animal world as in the human cannot be reduced to pure egoism. The bourgeois scientists say very often that every man is possessed of two feelings; egoism or self-love, and altruism or love of others. But as they do not know the social origin of this altruism, they cannot understand its limits or conditions. Altruism in their mouths becomes a very vague idea which they don't know how to handle.
Everything that applies to social animals applies also to man. Our ape-like ancestors and the primitive men that developed from them were all defenceless weak animals who, as almost all apes do, lived in tribes. Here the same social motives and instincts emerged which later, with man, developed into moral feelings. That our customs and morals are nothing other than social feelings, feelings that we find among animals, is known to all; even Darwin spoke about "the habits of animals related to their social attitudes, which would be called moral among men." The difference is only in the measure of consciousness; as soon as these social feelings become clearly conscious to men, they assume the character of moral feelings. Here we see that the moral conception - which bourgeois authors considered as the main distinction between men and animals - is not peculiar to men, but is a direct product of conditions existing in the animal world.
The reason why moral feelings do not spread further than the social group to which the animal or the man belongs is found in the nature of their origin. These feelings serve the practical object of keeping the group together; beyond this they are useless. In the animal world, the range and nature of the social group is determined by circumstances of life, and therefore the group almost always remains the same. Among men, however, the groups, these social units, are ever changing in accordance with economic development, and this also changes the extent of the validity of social instincts.
Ancient groups, at the origins of the savage and barbarian peoples, were more strongly united than the animal groups, not only because they were in competition, but also because they directly made war. Family relationships and a common language strengthened this union further. Every individual depended entirely on the support of the tribe. Under such conditions, social instincts, moral feelings, the subordination of the individual to the whole, had to be developed to the utmost. With the further development of society, the tribes are dissolved into larger economic entities and reunited in towns and peoples.
New societies take the place of the old ones, and the members of these entities carry on the struggle for existence in common against other peoples. In equal ratio to economic development, the size of these entities increases, the struggle of each against the other decreases, and social feelings spread. At the end of antiquity we find that all the known people around the Mediterranean formed one unit, the Roman Empire. At that time there also arose the doctrine which extended moral feelings to the whole of humanity and formulated the maxim that all men are brothers.
When we regard our own times, we see that economically all the people more and more form one unit, even if this is a weak one. Consequently, the feeling prevails - it's true relatively abstract - of a brotherhood that encompasses all civilised people. Even stronger is nationalist feeling, above all in the bourgeoisie, because nations are the entities in the bourgeoisie's constant struggle. Social feelings are strongest towards members of the same class, because classes are the essential social units embodying the convergent interests of their members. Thus we see that social entities and social feelings change in human society with the progress of economic development. [1]
Sociability, with its consequent moral instincts, is a peculiarity which distinguishes man from some, but not all, animals. There are, however, some peculiarities which belong to man only, and which separate him from the entire animal world. These, in the first instance, are language, then reason. Man is also the only animal that makes use of self-made tools.
Animals show a slight propensity for these, but among men they have developed specific new characteristics. Many animals have some kind of voice and can, by means of sounds, communicate their intentions, but only men can emit sounds which serve as a medium for naming things and actions. Animals also have brains with which they think, but the human mind shows, as we shall see later, an entirely new departure, which we designate as rational or abstract thinking. Animals, too, make use of inanimate things which they use for certain purposes; for instance, the building of nests. Monkeys sometimes use sticks or stones, but only man uses tools which he makes himself deliberately for particular purposes. These primitive tendencies among animals convince us that the peculiarities possessed by man came to him, not by means of a miracle of creation, but by a slow development. To understand how these first traces of language, thought and use of tools developed new properties and their first early importance with man involves considering the problem of the humanisation of the animal.
Only human beings as social animals have been capable of this evolution. Animals living in isolation cannot arrive at such a stage of development. Outside society, language is just as useless as an eye in darkness, and is bound to die. Language is possible only in society, and only there is it necessary as a means of discussion between its members. All social animals possess some means of expressing their intentions, otherwise they would not be able to act together on a collective plan. The sounds that were necessary as a means of understanding during collective labour for primitive man, must have developed slowly into names of activities, and then into names of things.
The use of tools also presupposes a society, for it is only through society that attainments can be preserved. In a state of isolated life everyone must discover this use for themselves, and with the death of the inventor the discovery will also become extinct, and each will have to start anew from the very beginning. It is only through society that the experience and knowledge of former generations can be preserved, perpetuated, and developed. In a group or tribe a few may die, but the group itself is in a way immortal. It survives. Knowledge in the use of tools is not innate, it is acquired later. This is why an intellectual tradition is indispensable, which is only possible in society.
While these special characteristics of man are inseparable from his social life, they also stand in strong relation to each other. These characteristics have not been developed separately, but have all progressed in common. That thought and language can exist and develop only in common is known to everyone who has tried to describe the nature of their own thoughts. When we think or consider, we, in fact, talk to ourselves; we observe then that it is impossible for us to think clearly without using words. Where we do not think with words our thoughts remain indistinct and we cannot grasp specific thoughts. Everyone can realize this from their own experience. This is because so-called abstract reason is perceptive thought and can take place only by means of concepts. So we can only designate and master concepts by means of words. Every attempt to broaden our minds, every attempt to advance our knowledge, must begin by distinguishing and classifying by means of names or by giving to the old ones a more precise meaning. Language is the body of thought, the only material with which all human science is built.
The difference between the human mind and the animal mind was very aptly shown by Schopenhauer in a citation which is also quoted by Kautsky in his Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History (pages 139-40, English translation). "The animal's actions are dependent upon visual motives, on what it can see, hear, sense or observe. We can nearly always see and say what induced the animal to do this or the other act, for we, too, can see it if we pay attention. With man, however, it is entirely different. We cannot foretell what he will do, for we do not know the motives that induce him to act; they are thoughts in his head. Man considers, and in so doing, all his knowledge, the result of former experience, comes into play, and it is then that he decides how to act. The acts of an animal depend upon immediate impression, while those of man depend upon abstract conceptions, upon his thoughts and concepts. Man is in some way driven by invisible and subtle threads. Thus all his movements give the impression of being guided by principles and intentions which give them the appearance of independence and obviously distinguishes them from those of animals."[2]
Because they have bodily needs, men and animals are forced to seek to satisfy them in surrounding nature. Sensory perception is the impulse and immediate motive, the satisfaction of the needs is the aim and end of the appropriate act. With the animal, action follows immediately after impression. It sees its prey or food and immediately it jumps, grasps, eats, or does that which is necessary to grasp it, and this is inherited as an instinct. The animal hears some hostile sound, and immediately it runs away if its legs are so developed to run quickly, or lies down and plays dead so as not to be seen if its colour serves as protection. Between man's perceptions and acts, however, there comes into his head a long chain of thoughts and considerations. His actions will depend upon the result of these considerations.
Whence comes this difference? It is not hard to see that it is closely associated with the use of tools. In the same manner that thought comes in between man's perceptions and his actions, the tool comes in between man and the object he seeks to grasp. Furthermore, because the tool comes between man and outside objects, this is also why thought must arise between the perception and the execution. Man does not start out on his objective empty-handed, whether it's against his enemy or to pick fruit, but goes about it in a roundabout manner; he takes a tool, a weapon (weapons are also tools) which he uses with the fruit or against the hostile animal; this is why in his head sensory perception cannot be followed immediately by the act, his mind must make a detour: he must first think of the tools and then follow through to the objective. The material detour causes the mental detour; the additional thought is the result of the additional tool.
Here we took a very simple case of primitive tools and the first stages of mental development. The more complicated technique becomes, the greater is the material detour, and as a result the mind has to make greater detours. When each made his own tools, the memory of hunger and struggle must have directed the human mind to the making of tools. Here we have a longer chain of thoughts between perceptions and the ultimate satisfaction of human needs. When we come down to our own times, we find that this chain is very long and complicated. The worker who is discharged foresees the hunger that is bound to come; he buys a newspaper in order to see whether there are any offers of work; he goes to look for work, offering himself for a wage, which he will not see until much later, with which he can buy food and thus protect himself from starvation. All this will be first thought through in his head before being put into practice. What a long circuitous chain the mind must make before it reaches its goal! But it conforms with the complex development of our society, in which man can satisfy his wants only by means of a highly developed technique.
It is to the above that Schopenhauer draws our attention, the unfolding in the mind of the threads of reflection, which anticipate action and which must be understood as the necessary product of the use of tools. But we have still not come to the most essential point. Man is not the master of one tool only, but of many, which he uses for different purposes, and from which he can choose. Man, because of these tools, is not like the animal. The animal never advances beyond the tools and weapons with which it was born, while man can change artificial tools. This is the fundamental difference between men and animals. Man is a kind of animal with changeable organs and this is why he must have the capacity to choose between his tools. In his head various thoughts come and go, his mind considers all the tools and the consequences of their application, and his actions depend upon this reflection. He also combines one thought with another, and holds fast to the idea that fits in with his purpose. This deliberation, this free comparison of a series of sequences of selected individual reflections, this property which fundamentally distinguishes human thought from animal thought, must be directly connected to the use of tools chosen at will.
Animals do not have this capacity; it would be useless to them for they would not know what to do with it. On account of their bodily form, their actions are constrained. The lion can only jump upon his prey, but cannot think of catching it by running after it. The hare is so formed that it can run away; it has no other means of defence even if it would like to have. These animals have nothing to consider except the moment of jumping or running, the moment where impressions gain sufficient power to release action. Every animal is so formed as to fit into some definite mode of life. Their actions become and are handed down as habits, instincts. These habits are obviously not unchangeable. Animals are not machines, when subject to different circumstances they may acquire different habits. Physiologically and as far as their aptitudes are concerned, the functioning of their brain is no different from ours. It is uniquely practical at the level of results. It is not in the quality of their brains, but in the formation of their bodies that animal restrictions lie. The animal's action is limited by its bodily form and surroundings, which leave it little latitude for reflection. Human reasoning would, for the animal, be a totally useless faculty without any purpose, because it could not use it and would do it more harm than good.
Man, on the other hand, must possess this ability because he exercises discretion in the use of tools and weapons, which he chooses according to particular requirements. If he wants to kill the swift stag, he takes the bow and arrow; if he meets the bear, he uses the axe, and if he wants to break open a certain fruit he takes a hammer. When threatened by danger, man must consider whether he shall run away or defend himself by fighting with weapons. This ability to think and to consider is indispensable to man in his use of artificial tools, just as the awakening of the mind in general is connected to the free mobility of the animal world.
This strong connection between thoughts, language, and tools, each of which is impossible without the other, shows that they must have developed at the same time. How this development took place, we can only conjecture.
Undoubtedly it was a change in the circumstances of life that made an ape-like animal the ancestor of man. Having migrated from the forests, the original habitat of apes, to the plain, man had to undergo an entire change of life. The difference between hands to grasp and feet to run must have developed then. This was the origin of the two basic conditions for development to a superior level: sociability and the ape-like hand, well adapted for grasping objects. The first rough objects, such as stones or sticks, episodically used in collective labour, came to hand unsought, and were then thrown away. This must have been repeated instinctively and unconsciously so often that it must have left an imprint on the minds of those primitive men.
To the animal, surrounding nature is a single unit, of the details of which it is unconscious. It cannot distinguish between various objects because it lacks the names of the distinct parts and objects that allow it to differentiate. Certainly this environment is not unchanging. To changes which signify "hunger" or "danger", the animal reacts in an appropriate manner, with specific actions. Globally, nevertheless, nature remains a single unit and our primitive man, at his lowest stage, must have been at the same level of consciousness. From the great mass surrounding him, some objects (tools) come into his hands which he used in procuring his existence.
These tools, which are important aids, were given some name, were designated by a sound which at the same time named the particular activity. With this designation, the tool stands out as a particular thing from the rest of the surroundings. Man thus begins to analyse the world by way of concepts and names, self-consciousness appears, artificial objects are purposely sought and consciously made use of while labouring.
This process - for it is a very slow process - marks the beginning of our becoming men. As soon as men deliberately seek and apply certain tools, we can say that these have been ‘produced'; from this stage to the manufacturing of tools, there is only one step. With the first name and the first abstract thought, fundamentally man is born. Much still remains to be accomplished: the first crude tools already differ according to use; from the sharp stone we get the knife, the bolt, the drill, and the spear; from the stick we get the hatchet. Thus, man is qualified to face the wild animal and the forest and already shows himself as the future king of the earth. With the further differentiation of tools, which later served the division of labour, language and thought develop into richer and newer forms, while thought leads man to use the tools in a better way, to improve old ones and invent new ones.
So we see that one thing brings on the other. The practice of sociability and labour are the springs from which technique, thought, tools and science have their origin and continually develop. By his labour, primitive ape-like man has risen to real manhood. The use of tools marks the great departure that ever more widens between men and animals.
It is on this point that we have the main difference between men and animals. The animal obtains its food and subdues its enemies with its own bodily organs; man does the same thing with the aid of artificial tools. Organ (organon) is a Greek word which also means tools. Organs are natural tools, connected to the body, of the animal. Tools are the artificial organs of men. Better still, what the organ is to the animal, the hand and tool is to man. The hands and tools perform the functions that the animal organ must perform alone. Owing to its structure, the hand, specialised to hold and direct various tools, becomes a general organ adapted to all kinds of work; tools are the dead things which are grasped by the hand to perform a role and which make the hand a changeable organ that can perform a variety of functions.
With the division of these functions, a broad field of development is opened up for men which animals do not know. Because the human hand can use various tools, it can combine the functions of all possible organs possessed by animals. Every animal is built and adapted to a definite environment and mode of life. Man, with his tools, is adapted to all circumstances and equipped for all surroundings. The horse is built for the prairie, and the monkey is built for the forest. In the forest, the horse would be just as helpless as the monkey would be if brought to the prairie. Man, on the other hand, uses the axe in the forest, and the spade on the prairie. With his tools, man can force his way in all parts of the world and establish himself all over. While almost all animals can only live in particular regions, which supply their needs, and cannot live elsewhere, man has conquered the whole world. Every animal has, as a zoologist expressed it once, its strong points by which it maintains itself in the struggle for existence, and its weaknesses, which make it a prey to others and prevent it from multiplying itself. In this sense, man has only strength and no weakness. Owing to his having tools, man is the equal of all animals. As these tools do not remain stationary, but continually improve, man grows above every animal. His tools make him master of all creation, the king of the earth.
In the animal world there is also a continuous development and perfection of organs. This development, however, is connected with the changes of the animal's body, which makes the development of the organs infinitely slow, as dictated by biological laws. In the development of the organic world, thousands of years amount to nothing. Man, however, by transferring his organic development upon external objects has been able to free himself from the chain of biological law. Tools can be transformed quickly, and technique makes such rapid strides that, in comparison with the development of animal organs, it can only be called amazing. Owing to this new road, man has been able, within the short period of a few thousand years, to rise above the most evolved of the animals, so much that the latter surpass the less evolved. With the invention of artificial tools, animal evolution in a way is ended. The child of the apes has developed at a phenomenal speed towards divine power, and he takes possession of the earth as his exclusive dominion. The peaceful and hitherto unhindered development of the organic world ceases to develop according to Darwinian theory. It is man that acts in the plant and animal world as breeder, tamer, cultivator; and it is man that does the weeding. He changes the entire environment, making the further forms of plants and animals suit his aim and will.
This also explains why, with the origin of tools, further changes in the human body cease. The human organs remain what they were, with the always notable exception of the brain. The human brain had to develop together with tools; and, in fact, we see that the difference between the higher and lower races of mankind consists mainly in the contents of their brains. But even the development of this organ had to stop at a certain stage. Since the beginning of civilisation, the functions of the brain are ever more taken away by some artificial means; science is treasured up in the storehouses that are books. Our reasoning faculty of today is not much better than the one possessed by the Greeks, Romans or even the Teutons, but our knowledge has grown immensely, and this is greatly due to the fact that the mental organ was unburdened by its substitutes, books.
Having learned the difference between men and animals, let us now again consider how the two groups are affected by the struggle for existence. That this struggle is the cause of perfection to the extent that the imperfect is eliminated, cannot be denied. In this struggle the animals become ever more perfect. Here, however, it is necessary to be more precise in expression and in observation of what perfection consists. In being so, we can no longer say that it is the animals as a whole that struggle and become perfected. Animals struggle and compete by means of particular organs, which are decisive in the struggle for survival. Lions do not carry on the struggle by means of their tails; hares do not rely on their eyes; nor do the falcons succeed by means of their beaks. Lions carry on the struggle by means of their muscles (for springing) and their teeth; hares rely upon their paws and ears, and falcons succeed on account of their eyes and wings. If now we ask what is it that struggles and what competes, the answer is, the organs struggle, and in this way they become more and more perfect. The muscles and teeth of the lion, the paws and ears of the hare, and the eyes and wings of the falcon carry on the struggle. It is in this struggle that the organs become perfected. The animal as a whole depends upon these organs and shares their fate, in which the strengths will be victorious or the weaknesses will be vanquished.
Let us now ask the same question about the human world. Men do not struggle by means of their natural organs, but by means of artificial organs, by means of tools (and weapons we must understand as tools). Here, too, the principle of perfection and the weeding out of the imperfect, through struggle, holds true. The tools struggle, and this leads to the ever greater perfection of tools. Those groups of tribes that use better tools and weapons can better secure their survival, and when it comes to a direct struggle with another race, the race that is better equipped with artificial tools will win and will exterminate the weaker one. The great improvements in technique and methods of work at the origins of humanity, such as the introduction of agriculture and of stock rearing, make men a physically stronger race that suffers less from the harshness of the elements. Those races whose technical aids are better developed, can drive out or subdue those whose artificial aids are not developed, can secure the better land. The domination of the European race is based on its technical supremacy.[3]
Here we see that the principle of the struggle for existence, formulated by Darwin and emphasised by Spencer, has a different effect on men than on animals. The principle that struggle leads to the perfection of the weapons used in the strife, leads to different results between men and animals. In the animal, it leads to a continuous development of natural organs; that is the foundation of the theory of descent, the essence of Darwinism. In men, it leads to a continuous development of tools, of the techniques of the means of production. And this is the foundation of marxism.
It appears therefore that marxism and Darwinism are not two independent theories, each of which applies to its special domain, without having anything in common with the other. In reality, the same principle underlies both theories. They form a unity. The new course taken with the appearance of man, the substitution of tools for natural organs, causes this fundamental principle to manifest itself differently in the two domains; that of the animal world to develop according to the Darwinian principle, while among mankind it is marxism which determines the law of development. When men freed themselves from the animal world, the development of tools, productive methods, the division of labour and knowledge became the propelling force in social development. It is these that brought about the various economic systems, such as primitive communism, the peasant system, the beginnings of commodity production, feudalism, and now modern capitalism. It only remains for us to place the current mode of production and its passing within this suggested framework and correctly apply to them the basic position of Darwinism.
The particular form that the Darwinian struggle for existence assumes as the motor force of development in the human world, is determined by men's sociability and their use of tools. Men struggle collectively in groups. The struggle for existence, while it is still carried on among members of different groups, nevertheless ceases among members of the same group, and its place is taken by mutual aid and social feeling. In the struggle between groups, technical equipment decides who shall be the victor; this results in the progress of technique. These two circumstances lead to different effects under different social systems. Let us see in what manner they show themselves under capitalism.
When the bourgeoisie gained political power and made the capitalist mode of production the dominant one, it began by breaking feudal bonds and making the people free. It was essential for capitalism that each producer should be able to take part freely in the competitive struggle; without anything hindering their freedom of movement, and without their activities being paralysed or curbed by guild duties or fettered by legal statutes, for only thus was it possible for production to develop its full capacity. The workers must have free command over themselves and not be hindered by feudal or guild duties, for only as free workers can they sell their labour-power to the capitalists as a whole commodity, and only as free labourers can the capitalists fully use them. It is for this reason that the bourgeoisie has done away with all the old ties and duties. It made people entirely free, but at the same time left them entirely isolated and unprotected. Formerly people were not isolated; they belonged to some guild; they were under the protection of some lord or commune, and in this they found strength. They were a part of a social group to which they owed duties and from which they received protection. These duties the bourgeoisie abolished; it destroyed the guilds and abolished feudal relations. The freeing of labour also meant that man could no longer find refuge anywhere or rely upon others.
Everyone had to rely upon himself. Alone against all, he must struggle, free of all bonds but also of all protection.
It is for this reason that, under capitalism, the human world more resembles the world of rapacious animals and it is for this very reason that the bourgeois Darwinists looked for the prototype of human society among the solitary animals. To this they were led by their own experience. Their mistake, however, consisted in considering capitalist conditions as eternal human conditions. The relation between our capitalist competitive system and the solitary animals was expressed by Engels in his book, Anti-Dühring (p.293, English edition. This may also be found on p.59 of Socialism, Utopian and Scientific) as follows:
"Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world-market made the struggle universal, and at the same time gave it an unheard-of virulence. Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists, as well as of whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of human development." [4]
What is in struggle in this capitalist competition, the perfection of which will decide the victory?
First come technical tools, machines. Here again applies the law that struggle leads to perfection. The machine that is more improved outstrips the less improved, poor quality and low output machines are eliminated and industrial technique develops with gigantic strides to ever greater productivity. This is the real application of Darwinism to human society. The particular thing about it is that under capitalism there is private property, and behind every machine there is a man. Behind the gigantic machine there is a big capitalist and behind the small machine there is a small capitalist. With the defeat of the small machine, the small capitalist perishes with all his illusions and his hopes. At the same time the struggle is a race between capitals. Large capital is better equipped; large capital conquers the small, and thus grows even larger. This concentration of capital undermines capital itself, for it reduces the bourgeoisie whose interest it is to maintain capitalism, and it increases that mass which seeks to abolish it. In this development, one of the characteristics of capitalism is gradually abolished. In the world where each struggles against all and all against each, the working class develops a new association, the class organisation. The working class organisations begin by ending the competition existing between workers and combine their separate powers into one great power in their struggle with the outside world. Everything that applies to social groups also applies to this new class organisation, born in external conditions. In the ranks of this class organisation, social motives, moral feelings, self-sacrifice and devotion for the entire body develop in a most remarkable way. This solid organisation gives to the working class that great strength which it needs in order to conquer the capitalist class. The class struggle which is not a struggle with tools but for the possession of tools, a struggle for the possession of the technical equipment of humanity, will be determined by the organised action, by the strength of the new rising class organisation. Through the organised working class an element of socialist society is already revealed.
Let us now look at the future system of production as it will exist in socialism. The struggle leading to the perfection of the tools, which has marked the whole history of humanity, does not cease. As before under capitalism, the inferior machine will be overtaken and rejected by the one that is superior. As before, this process will lead to greater productivity of labour. But private ownership of the means of production having been abolished, there will no longer be a man behind each machine calling it his own and sharing its fate.
With the abolition of classes the entire civilised world will become one great productive community. What applies to it applies to any real collective. Within this community mutual struggle among members ceases and will be carried on uniquely with the outside world. But in the place of small communities, we will see a world community. This signifies that the struggle for existence in the human world is ended. The fight against the external world will no longer be a struggle against our own kind, but a struggle for subsistence, a struggle against nature.[5] But owing to development of technique and science, this can hardly be called a struggle. Nature is subject to man and with very little effort on his side, she supplies him with abundance. Here a new life's work opens for humanity: the rise of man from the animal world and his fight for existence by the use of tools, ceases. The human form of the struggle for existence ends, and a new chapter of the history of humanity begins.
Anton Pannekoek
[1]. We should note that the growing importance of feelings of solidarity within the human race does not escape Darwin when he writes:
"As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures". (The Descent of Man, chapter IV) (ICC note).
[2]. This translation differs from that in the 1912 English translation of Marxism and Darwinism as it has been checked against the Dutch original. However, both translations differ from the English translation of Kautsky's work referred to in the text. This reads "The animal has only visual presentations and consequently only motives which it can visualise. The dependence of its acts of will from the motives is thus clear. In men this is no less the case and they are impelled (always taking the individual character into account) by the motive with the strictest necessity: only these are not for the most part visual but abstract presentations, that is conceptions, thoughts which are nevertheless the result of previous views thus of impression from without. That gives him a certain freedom, in comparison namely with the animals. Because he is not like the animal determined by the visual surroundings present before him but by his thoughts drawn from previous experiences or transmitted to him through teaching. Hence the motive which necessarily moves him is not at once clear to the observer with the deed, but he carries it about with him in his head. That gives not only to his actions taken as a whole, but to all his movements an obviously different character from those of the animal; he is at the same time drawn by finer invisible ones. Thus all his movements bear the impress of being guided by principles and intentions, which gives the appearance of independence and obviously distinguishes them from those of the animal. All these great distinctions depend however entirely from the capacity for abstract presentations, conceptions". Kautsky, Ethics and Materialist Conception of History, p139-40. Charles H. Kerr and Company.
[3]. Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as a European race. This said, the fact that Pannekoek uses the term race to distinguish one grouping of human beings from another does not at all amount to a concession to racism on his part. On this level as well, he is in continuity with Darwin who clearly demarcated himself from the racist theories of the scientists of his day such as Eugene Dally. Furthermore, we should recall that, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the term race did not have the same connotations it has today, as can be seen from the fact that certain writings of the workers' movement even spoke (inappropriately, it's true) about the workers as a race (ICC note) .
[4]. Anti-Duhring. Part III; Socialism, Chapter II Theoretical (ICC note).
[5]. The expression "struggle against nature" is inappropriate. It's a question of the struggle for the mastery of nature: the establishment of a world human community presupposes that it is capable of living in total harmony with nature (ICC note).
At the end of May, the ICC held its 18th international congress. As we have always done, and as is the tradition in the workers' movement, we are presenting readers with the main elements of this congress, since they are not just internal matters but concern the working class as a whole.
The resolution on the ICC's activities adopted by the congress says:
"The acceleration of the historic situation, unprecedented in the history of the workers' movement, is characterised by the conjunction of the two following aspects:
This acceleration takes the political responsibility of the ICC to a new level, making the highest demands in terms of theoretical/political analysis and intervention in the class struggle, and work towards the searching elements."
The balance sheet that we can draw from the 18th international congress of our organisation must therefore be based on its capacity to live up to these responsibilities.
For a really serious communist organisation, it is always a delicate thing to proclaim that this or that aspect of its activities have been a success. For several reasons.
In the first place, because the capacity of an organisation that struggles for the communist revolution to be up to its responsibilities can't be judged in the short term but only in the long term. Its role, while always anchored in the historical reality of its day, for the most part consists not so much of influencing this immediate reality, at least not on a large scale, but of preparing for the events of the future.
In the second place, because for the members of such an organisation there is always the danger of painting things in rosy colours, or being excessively indulgent towards the weakness of a collective body to which they have devoted so much energy and which they have the permanent duty of defending from the attacks levelled at it by all the defenders of capitalist society, open or disguised. History provides us with numerous examples of militants devoted to the communist cause who, because of a "patriotism of the party", have not been able to see the weaknesses, the slidings, even the betrayals of their organisation. Today, among those who defend the perspective of communism, you can find quite a few who consider that their group, whose members can often be counted on the finger of one hand, is the one and only "international communist party", the organisation which one day in the future the masses will rally round, and which, deaf to all debate and criticism, considers other groups of the proletarian milieu to be fraudsters.
Conscious of the danger of these kinds of illusions, and with the prudence that necessarily goes with this, we can still affirm without fear that the 18th Congress of the ICC was indeed up to the responsibilities announced above, and created the conditions for us to continue in the right direction.
We can't here go into all the reasons supporting this affirmation. We will only underline the most important ones:
Our press has already given an account of the integration of the new ICC sections in the Philippines and Turkey (the responsibility of the congress was to validate the decision to integrate them taken by our central organ at the beginning of 2009).[1] As we wrote then: "The integration of these two new sections into our organisation thus considerably broadens the ICC's geographical extension." We also made two points about these integrations:
The integration of two new sections is not something that happens frequently for our organisation. The last integration of a new section took place in 1995 with the section in Switzerland. This is why the arrival of these two sections (which took place shortly after the constitution of a nucleus in Brazil in 2007) was felt to be very important and positive by all the militants of the ICC. It confirms both the analysis our organisation has been putting forward for several years with regard to the potential contained in the development of class consciousness in the current historic situation, and the validity of the policies we have adopted towards the groups and elements moving towards revolutionary positions. And this was all the more the case in that delegations from four groups of the internationalist milieu were present at the congress.
In the balance sheet we drew up for our previous international congress, we underlined the importance of the presence, for the first time in decades, of four groups from the internationalist milieu, from Brazil, Korea, the Philippines and Turkey. This time again there were also four groups present. But this wasn't a simple rerun since two of the groups who had been at the previous congress have since become sections of the ICC, and we now had the pleasure of welcoming two new groups: a second group from Korea and a group from Central America (Nicaragua and Costa Rica), the LECO (Liga por la Emancipacion de la Clase Obrera), which had taken part at the "meeting of internationalist communists" in Latin America, called on the initiative of the ICC and the OPOP, the internationalist group from Brazil with whom we have maintained fraternal and very positive relations for a number of years.[2] This group was again present at our congress. Other groups who took part in the meeting in Latin America were also invited to our congress but were not able to send delegates because Europe is now more and more becoming a fortress towards people not born in the very narrow circle of the "rich countries".
The presence of groups of the internationalist milieu was a very important element in the success of the congress and in particular in the ambience in which the discussions took place. These comrades showed a good deal of warmth towards the militants of our organisation and raised a number of questions, notably with regard to the economic crisis, in ways which we are not so familiar with in our own debates, something which could only help to stimulate reflection within our organisation.
Finally, the presence of these comrades was an added element in the whole process of opening out which the ICC has taken up as one of its key objectives over the last few years - opening both towards other proletarian groups and towards individual elements moving towards communist positions. In particular, when you have people from outside the organisation present at a meeting, it is very difficult to fall into the trap of reassuring ourselves with nice stories. This opening out also manifests itself in our reflections and preoccupations, notably with regard to research and discovery in the realm of science.[3] This was made concrete by the fact that a member of the scientific community was invited to one of the sessions of the congress.
To celebrate "Darwin Year" in our own way, and to give voice to the development within the ICC of a growing interest in scientific questions, we asked a researcher who specialises in the evolution of language (the author of a book entitled Why we talk: the evolutionary origins of language, published by OUP) to make a presentation of his work to the congress, which are obviously based on a Darwinian approach. The original reflections of Jean-Louis Desalles[4] on language, its role in the development of social ties and of solidarity in the human species are connected to the discussions we have been having in the ICC, and which are still going on, on the subject of ethics and the culture of debate. The presentation by this researcher was followed by a debate which we had to limit in time because of the constraints of the agenda, but which could have gone on for hours since the questions raised evoked a passionate interest on the part of the comrades present.
We would like to thank Jean-Louis Desalles who, while not sharing our political ideas, very cordially agreed to give up some of his time to enriching reflection inside our organisation. We also want to welcome the very warm and convivial responses which he made to the questions and objections raised by ICC militants.
The work of the congress examined the classic points always treated by our international congresses:
The resolution on the international situation which we are publishing in this issue of the International Review is a sort of synthesis of the discussions at the congress about the present state of the world. Obviously it cannot take into account all the aspects looked at in these discussions (either at the congress or in the preparatory reports). It has three main aims:
On the first aspect, understanding what's at stake in the present crisis of capitalism, we need to underline the following aspects:
"The present crisis is the most serious the system has been through since the great depression which began in 1929...Thus, it is not the financial crisis which is at the origin of the current recession. On the contrary, the financial crisis merely illustrates the fact that the flight into debt, which made it possible to overcome overproduction, could not carry on indefinitely... In reality, even though the capitalist system is not going to collapse like pack of cards, the perspective is one of sinking deeper and deeper into a historical impasse, of plunging more and more into the convulsions that affect it today".
Obviously this congress could not make a definitive response to all the questions raised by the present crisis of capitalism. On the one hand, because with every day that passes we are faced with new ramifications of the crisis, obliging revolutionaries to follow the situation very closely and to carry on discussing the significance of these new elements. On the other hand, because our organisation is not homogenous on certain aspects of the analysis of the crisis. This is not at all in our view the sign of a weakness in the ICC. In the whole history of the workers' movement, there have been debates within a marxist framework on the question of the crises of the capitalist system. The ICC has recently been publishing some aspects of its internal debates on this question,[5] seeing that these debates are not the private property of our organisation but belong to the working class as a whole. Furthermore, the resolution on the perspectives for our organisation's activities adopted by the congress explicitly calls for the development of debate on other aspects of the analysis of the crisis, so that the ICC can be as well armed as possible to provide clear answers to the questions posed to the working class and to the elements who have committed themselves to the fight to overthrow capitalism.
Regarding the "new element" provided by the election of Obama, the resolution replies very clearly that:
"the perspective facing the planet after the election of Obama to the head of the world's leading power is not fundamentally different to the situation which has prevailed up till now: continuing confrontations between powers of the first or second order, continuation of barbaric wars with ever more tragic consequences (famines, epidemics, massive displacements) for the populations living in the disputed areas".
Finally, with regards to the perspective for the class struggle, the resolution, like the debates at the congress, tried to evaluate the impact of the brutal aggravation of the crisis:
"The considerable aggravation of the crisis of capitalism today obviously represents a very important element in the development of workers' struggles. At this very moment, in all countries of the world, workers are being faced with massive lay-offs, with an irresistible rise in unemployment. In an extremely concrete manner, in its flesh and bones, the proletariat is experiencing the incapacity of the capitalist system to ensure the basics of a decent life for the workers it exploits. What's more, it is more and more incapable of offering any future to the new generations of the working class, which represents a factor of anxiety and despair not only for them but also for their parents. Thus the conditions are maturing for the idea of overthrowing this system to develop on a significant scale within the proletariat. However, it is not enough for the working class to perceive that the capitalist system is at a dead-end, that it has to give way to another society, for it to be able to take up a revolutionary perspective. It also needs to have the conviction that such a perspective is possible and that it has the strength to carry it out...For consciousness of the possibility of the communist revolution to gain a significant echo within the working class, the latter has to gain confidence in its own strength, and this takes place through the development of massive struggles. The huge attacks which it is now facing on an international scale provides the objective basis for such struggles. However, the main form this attack is taking today, that of massive lay-offs, does not initially favour the emergence of such movements... This is why, in the coming period, the fact that we do not see a wide-scale response from the working class to the attacks should not lead us to consider that it has given up the struggle for the defence of its interests. It is in a second period... when we are more likely to see the development of broad struggles by the workers".
A report was presented on the main positions put forward in the discussions going on in the ICC. An important focus of these discussions over the past two years has been the economic question - this article has already referred to the divergences that this question has raised.
Another focal point for our discussions has been the question of human nature, which has given rise to an animated debate, fuelled by numerous and rich contributions, This debate, which is far from being complete, has shown an overall agreement with the orientation texts published in the International Review - "Confidence and solidarity in the struggle of the proletariat" (111), "Marxism and ethics" (127) and "The culture of debate: a weapon of the class struggle" (131). As soon as they are ready, these discussions will be published to the outside, in conformity with the traditions of the workers' movement. We should note the recent expression of a profound disagreement with these three texts on the part of a comrade of the Belgian/Dutch section ("recent" relative to the publications of these texts which have been around for a while now), who considers that they are not marxist (see below).
Concerning the activities and life of the organisation, the congress drew up a positive balance sheet for the preceding period despite a number of weaknesses:
"The balance sheet of the last two years' activities shows the political vitality of the ICC, its capacity to be in phase with the historic situation, to be open and to be an active factor in the development of class consciousness, its will to involve itself in initiatives for common work with other revolutionaries... On the level of the organisation's internal life the balance sheet of the activities is also positive, despite the real difficulties which exist mainly at the organisational level and, to a lesser extent, on the level of centralisation" (Resolution on activities).
The congress devoted part of its discussions to examining the organisational weaknesses that persist in the ICC. These are not specific to our organisation but are the lot of all organisations of the workers' movement, which are permanently faced with the weight of the dominant bourgeois ideology. The real strength of these organisations has always been to confront these pressures in a lucid manner in order to fight against them, as was the case in particular with the Bolshevik party. This was the spirit that animated the congress debates on this question.
One of the points discussed in particular was the weaknesses which affected our section in Belgium/Holland, where a small number of militants resigned recently, largely in the wake of accusations made by comrade M. For some time, this comrade has been accusing our organisation, and particularly the permanent commission of its central organ, of turning its back on the culture of debate, a question which was discussed at some length in the previous congress[6] and which we see as a necessity for any revolutionary organisation to be able to live up to its responsibilities. Comrade M, who defended a minority position on the analysis of the economic crisis, considered himself to be the victim of "ostracism" and felt that his positions were being deliberately discredited by the ICC which was unable to discuss them. Given these accusations, the central organ of the ICC decided to set up a special commission, whose three members were chosen by comrade M himself, and which, after several months of interviews and examining several hundred pages of documents, came to the conclusion that this was not the case, The congress could only regret that comrade M as well as some other comrades who followed him did not wait for this commission to reach its conclusions before deciding to leave the ICC.
In fact the congress was able to see, notably in the discussion about our internal debates, that there is a real concern in our organisation to develop a culture of debate. And this was noted not only by the militants of the ICC, but also the delegates of the other organisations:
"The culture of debate in the ICC and its militants is very impressive. When I return to Korea, I will share my experience with my comrades" (one of the Korean groups)
"The congress has been a good opportunity for clarifying my positions; in many of the discussions, I encountered a real culture of debate. I think I must do a lot to develop relations between my group and the ICC and I have the intention of doing so. I hope that in the future we will be able to work together for a communist society" (the other Korean group).[7]
The ICC does not practice the culture of debate once every two years on the occasion of its international congress. As the intervention of the OPOP delegation put it in the discussion on the economic crisis, it's part of the continuing relationship between our two organisations, This relationship is capable of getting stronger despite divergences on various questions, such as the analysis of the economic crisis: "In the name of OPOP I want to mark the importance of this congress. For OPOP, the ICC is a sister organisation, like the party of Lenin and the party of Luxemburg. That is to say that there are a whole series of divergent opinions and theoretical conceptions, but above all there is a programmatic unity as regards the necessity for the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and of capital".
The other difficulty mentioned in the activities resolution concerns the question of centralisation, It is with the aim of overcoming these difficulties that the congress discussed a more general text on the question of centralisation. This discussion, while being useful to the "old guard" of our organisation in reaffirming the communist conception of this question and making it more precise, was particularly important for the new comrades and sections which have recently joined the ICC.
One of the significant aspects of the 18th congress was the presence, noted by the "old" comrades with a certain surprise, of a number of "new faces", among which the younger generation was particularly well represented.
The presence of a good number of young people at the congress was a factor making for dynamism and enthusiasm. Contrary to the bourgeois media, the ICC does not indulge in a the cult of youth, but the arrival of a new generation to our organisation - along with the fact that most of the delegates from the other participating groups were also young people - is extremely important for the perspective of the proletarian revolution. Like icebergs, they are the emerging tip of a deep process of developing consciousness inside the world working class. At the same time this makes it possible for bringing reinforcements to the existing communist forces. As the resolution on the international situation adopted by the congress put it:
"The road towards revolutionary struggles and the overthrow of capitalism is a long and difficult one... but this should in no way serve to discourage revolutionaries or paralyse their commitment, on the contrary!"
Even if the "old" militants of the ICC retain all their commitment and dedication, it's this new generation which will be called upon to make a decisive contribution to the revolutionary struggles of the future. And right now, the fraternal spirit, the desire to come together, to cooperate in exposing the traps laid by the bourgeoisie, the sense of responsibility - all these qualities, possessed in spades by the elements of the new generation at the congress - whether militants of the ICC or of the invited groups - augur well for the capacity of the new generation to live up to its responsibilities. This is something that was expressed by the young delegate from LECO, talking about the internationalist meeting in Latin America last spring: "The debate that is beginning to develop is bringing together groups and individuals who are seeking unity on a proletarian basis. This requires spaces for internationalist debate, contacts between delegates of the communist left. The radicalisation of youth and of minorities in Latin America, in Asia is making it possible for this pole of reference to be made up of a number of groups who are growing both numerically and politically. This gives us weapons to intervene, to confront the issues raised by leftism, ‘21st century socialism', Sandinismo, etc, The position adopted by the meeting in Latin America is already a proletarian weapon. I salute the interventions of the comrades which express a real internationalism, a concern for the political and numerical advance of the communist left on a world scale".
ICC 12/7/9
[1]. See "Welcome to the new ICC sections in Philippines and Turkey", ICC online and World Revolution n° 322.
[2]. See the article about this meeting on our website and in World Revolution n° 324.
[3]. As we have already shown in the various articles we have published recently on Darwin and Darwinism.
[4]. The reader who wants to get a better idea of his work can refer to his website https://perso.telecom-paristech.fr/jld/ [14]
[5]. See in particular in this issue of International Review the discussion article "In defence of the thesis of Keynesio-Fordist state capitalism".
[6] See "17th congress of the ICC, the proletarian camp reinforced worldwide" in International Review n° 130 and "The culture of debate, a weapon of the class struggle" in International Review n° 131.
[7]. This impression of the quality of the culture of debate at the congress was also noted by the scientist we invited, who sent us the following message: "Thanks again for the excellent interaction I had with the Marx community. I really experienced a very good moment"
1) In March 1991, following the collapse of the eastern bloc and the victory of the coalition in Iraq, President George Bush Senior announced to the US Congress the birth of a "New World Order" based on respect for international law. This new order was going to bring peace and prosperity to the planet. The "end of communism" meant the definitive triumph of liberal capitalism. Some people, like the "philosopher" Francis Fukayama, even predicted the "end of history". But history, the real one and not the propaganda version, soon made these fraudulent claims look ridiculous. Instead of peace, the year 1991 saw the beginning of the war in ex-Yugoslavia, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in the very heart of Europe, a continent which had been spared the scourge of war for nearly half a century. Similarly, the recession of 1993, then the collapse of the Asian "tigers" and "dragons" in 1997, then the new recession in 2002, which put an end to the Internet bubble, visibly dented illusions in the prosperity announced by Bush Senior. But it is typical of the bourgeoisie to forget today what it was saying yesterday. Between 2003 and 2007 the official speeches of the main sectors of the bourgeoisie again had a euphoric tone, celebrating the success of the "Anglo-Saxon model" which was providing exemplary profits, vigorous growth rates and even a significant reduction in unemployment. There were not enough words to sing the praises of the "liberal economy" and the benefits of "deregulation". But since the summer of 2007 and above all since the summer of 2008 this fine optimism has melted away like a snowball in the sun. All of a sudden, words and phrases like "prosperity", "growth", "triumph of liberalism" were discretely dropped. At the grand banqueting table of the capitalist economy there now sat a guest they thought they had banished forever: the crisis, the spectre of a new great depression comparable to the one in the 1930s.
2) In the words of the most responsible representatives of the bourgeoisie, of all the economic specialists, including the most unconditional torchbearers for capitalism, the present crisis is the most serious the system has been through since the great depression which began in 1929. According to the OECD, "The world economy is in the midst of its deepest and most synchronised recession in our lifetimes".[1] Some have no hesitation in saying that it is even more serious than that, arguing that the reason why its effects are not as catastrophic as in the 1930s is that, since that time, the world leaders, strengthened by experience, have learned to face up to this kind of situation, notably by avoiding a general rush towards "every man for himself": "While some have dubbed this severe global downturn a ‘great recession', it will remain far from turning into a repeat of the 1930s ‘Great Depression', thanks to the quality and intensity of government policies that are currently being undertaken. The Great Depression was deepened by terrible policy mistakes, ranging from contractionary monetary policy to beggar-thy-neighbour policies in the form of trade protection and competitive devaluations. In contrast, this recession has broadly elicited the right policy."[2]
However, even if all the sectors of the bourgeoisie admit the gravity of the present convulsions of the capitalist economy, the explanations they give, even though they often diverge among themselves, are obviously incapable of grasping the real significance of these convulsions and the perspective they announce for the whole of society. For some, the responsibility for capitalism's acute difficulties lies in "financial madness", in the fact that since the beginning of the 2000s we have seen the development of a whole series of "toxic financial products" which have permitted an explosion of credits without any guarantee that they could be repaid. Others say that capitalism is suffering from an excess of "deregulation" on an international scale, an orientation that was at the core of the "Reaganomics" which was set in motion at the beginning of 1980s. Still others, in particular the representatives of the left wing of capital, consider that the underlying cause of the crisis lies in the fact that income from wages is insufficient, obliging working people to get into debt to meet their most basic needs. But whatever their differences, what characterises all these interpretations is that they consider that it is not capitalism as a mode of production which is at fault, but this or that form of the system. And it is precisely this premise which prevents all these interpretations from going to the roots of the real causes of the present crisis.
3) In fact, only a global and historical view of the capitalist mode of production allows us to understand the present crisis and the perspectives that flow from it. Today, and this is what is hidden by all the economic "specialists", the reality of the contradictions which assail capitalism is coming out into the open: the crisis of overproduction, the system's inability to sell the mass of commodities which it produces. This is not overproduction in relation to the real needs of humanity, which are very far from being satisfied, but overproduction in relation to solvent demand, demand backed by the ability to pay. The official speeches, as with the measures adopted by most governments, have focused on the financial crisis, on the failure of the banks, but in reality what the commentators call the "real economy" (in contrast to the "fictitious economy") is in the process of illustrating this fact: not a day passes without the announcement of factory closures, massive lay-offs and bankruptcies of industrial enterprises. The fact that General Motors, which for decades was the biggest company in the world, can only survive thanks to massive support from the American state, while Chrysler had to openly declare bankruptcy and has come under the control of the Italian firm FIAT, is a significant sign of the deep problems affecting the capitalist economy. Similarly the fall in world trade, the first since the Second World War, evaluated by the OECD at -13.2% for 2009, shows the difficulty companies have in finding buyers for their products.
This crisis of overproduction, so evident today, is not a mere consequence of the financial crisis as most of the "experts" would have us believe. It resides in the very mechanisms of the capitalist economy, as marxism has shown for a century and a half. As long as the capitalist metropoles were conquering the globe, the new markets obtained in this way made it possible to overcome the temporary crises of overproduction. When this conquest was completed, at the beginning of the 20th century, these metropoles, particularly the one which had arrived late at the concert of colonisation, Germany, had no other recourse than to attack the spheres of influence of the other powers, provoking the First World War even before the crisis of overproduction had fully manifested itself. The latter was actually expressed in a clear way by the 1929 crash and the great depression of the 1930s, which pushed the main capitalist countries into a headlong flight into militarism and a Second World War which easily outdid the first when it came to massacres and barbarism. All of the measures adopted by the great powers in the wake of the Second World War, in particular the organisation of the main components of the capitalist economy, in the area of currency (Bretton Woods) and in the adoption of neo-Keynesian policies, as well as the positive benefits that decolonisation brought in terms of markets, enabled world capitalism for nearly three decades to give the illusion that it had finally overcome its contradictions. But this illusion suffered a major blow in 1974 with the outbreak of a violent recession, especially in the world's leading economy. This recession was not the beginning of the difficulties facing capitalism because it came after those in 1967 and the successive crises of the pound and the dollar, two key international currencies in the Bretton Woods system. In fact, it was towards the end of the 1960s that neo-Keynesianism was proving its historical bankruptcy, a point underlined at the time by the groups that were to constitute the ICC. This said, for all the bourgeois commentators and for the majority of the working class, it was the year 1974 which marked the beginning of a new period in the life of post-war capitalism, notably with the re-appearance of a phenomenon which many believed had been definitely eliminated in the developed countries: mass unemployment. It was at this point that the phenomenon of the flight into debt accelerated very noticeably: at that time it was the countries of the Third World which were at the forefront of the flight into debt and for a time acted as the "locomotive" of the recovery. This situation came to an end at the beginning of the 1980s with the debt crisis, the inability of the countries of the Third World to repay the loans they had been given so that they could act as an outlet for the production of the big industrial countries. But this did not at all halt the flight into debt. The USA began to take up the baton as the "locomotive" but at the price of a considerable increase in its trade deficit and, above all, of its budget deficit, a policy which they were able to undertake thanks to the privileged role of its currency as a world currency. Although Reagan's slogan at the time was "the state is not the solution, its the problem", in order to justify the liquidation of neo-Keynesianism, the American Federal state, through its huge budget deficits, continued to act as the essential agent in national and international economic life. However, "Reaganomics", initially inspired by Margaret Thatcher in Britain, basically represented the dismantling of the "welfare state", i.e. an unprecedented attack on the working class which helped to overcome the galloping inflation which had affected capitalism since the 1970s.
During the 1990s, one of the locomotives of the world economy had been the Asian "tigers" and "dragons", which had experienced spectacular rates of growth but at the price of considerable debts, leading to major convulsions in 1997. At the same moment, the "new" and "democratic" Russia also found itself in a situation of cessation of payments, cruelly disappointing those who had been counting on the "end of communism" to get the world economy going in a lasting way. In turn, the Internet bubble at the end of the 1990s, in fact a form of frenzied speculation on "hi-tech" companies, burst in 2001-2, ending the dream of a revival of the world economy through the development of new information and communication technologies. It was then that debt went through a new phase of acceleration, thanks to the astronomical loans doled out in the sphere of construction in a number of countries, in particular the USA. The latter had accentuated its role as "locomotive of the world economy", but at the price of a colossal rise in debt, especially in the American population, based on all sorts of "financial products" which were supposed to avoid the risk of loans not being repaid. In reality, the broad extension of dubious loans in no way changed their nature as a Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the American and world economy. On the contrary, it resulted in "toxic debts" accumulating in the capital of the banks and was at the origin of their collapse after 2007.
4) Thus, it is not the financial crisis which is at the origin of the current recession. On the contrary, the financial crisis merely illustrates the fact that the flight into debt, which made it possible to overcome overproduction, could not carry on indefinitely. Sooner or later, the "real economy" would take its revenge In other words, what was at the basis of the contradictions of capitalism, overproduction, the incapacity of the markets to absorb the totality of the commodities produced, had come back onto the scene.
In this sense the measures which were decided in March 2009 at the G20 in London, a doubling of the reserves of the International Monetary Fund, massive support by the states for a banking system in perdition, an encouragement to the latter to put in motion active policies of stimulating the economy at the cost of a spectacular leap in budget deficits, can in no way solve the basic problem. The only "solution" the bourgeoisie can come up with is... a new flight into debt. The G20 could not invent a solution to the crisis for the good reason that there is no solution. Its main task was to avoid a descent into "every man for himself" like the 1930s. It thus aimed at restoring a minimum of confidence among the main economic agencies, knowing that in capitalism this is an essential factor in the operation of credit, which is at the very heart of the system. Having said this, the insistence on the importance of the factor of "psychology" in economic convulsions, the focus on talk and theatrical gestures in the face of material realities, illustrates the fundamentally illusory character of the measures available to capitalism in the face of its historic crisis. In reality, even though the capitalist system is not going to collapse like a pack of cards, the perspective is one of sinking deeper and deeper into a historical impasse, of plunging more and more into the convulsions that affect it today. For more than four decades, the bourgeoisie has not been able to prevent the continual aggravation of the crisis. Today it is facing a situation which is far more degraded than the one it faced in the 60s. In spite of all the experience it has gained in these decades, it can only do worse, not better. In particular, the neo-Keynesian measures put forward at the G20 in London (going as far as nationalising the banks in trouble) have no chance of restoring any "health" to capitalism, since the beginning of its major difficulties at the end of the 1960s were precisely the result of the definitive failure of the neo-Keynesian measures adopted at the end of the Second World War.
5) Although the brutal aggravation of the crisis was quite a surprise for the ruling class, it was not a surprise for revolutionaries. As we said in the resolution on the international situation from our last congress, even before the beginning of the panic of the summer of 2007: "Right now, the threat to the housing boom in the US, which has been one of the motors of the US economy, and which raises the danger of catastrophic bank failures, is causing considerable disquiet amongst the economist." (point four).[3]
This same resolution also threw some cold water on the great hopes being placed in the "Chinese miracle":
"far from representing a breath of air for the capitalist economy, the 'miracle' in China and a certain number of other third world countries is yet another embodiment of the decadence of capitalism. Furthermore, the extreme dependence of the Chinese economy on its exports is a source of considerable vulnerability to any retraction of demand among its present clients, something which can hardly fail to happen seeing that the American economy is going to be obliged to do something about the colossal debts which currently allow it to play the role of locomotive for global demand. Thus, just as the 'miracle' of the double figure growth of the Asian tigers and dragons came to a sorry end in 1997, the current Chinese miracle, even if it does not have identical origins and has far greater assets at its disposal, will sooner or later be confronted with the harsh reality of the historic impasse of the capitalist mode of production." (point 6).
The fall in the growth rate of the Chinese economy, the explosion of unemployment that this has provoked, with the return to their villages of millions of peasants who had been enrolled into the industrial centres but who are now being forced back by unbearable misery, is fully confirming this vision.
In fact, the ICC's capacity to predict what was going to happen does not lie in any particular merit of our organisation. Its only "merit" lies in its faithfulness to the marxist method, in its will to permanently put it into practice in its analysis of the world situation, in its capacity to resist firmly the sirens proclaiming the "definitive failure of marxism".
6) The confirmation of the validity of marxism does not only apply to the question of the economic life of society. At the heart of the mystifications that were being peddled at the beginning of the 90s was the idea that a new age of world peace was dawning. The end of the Cold War, the disappearance of the eastern bloc, which Reagan had presented as the "Evil Empire", were supposed to put an end to the different military conflicts brought about by the confrontation between the two imperialist blocs since 1947. Faced with this mystification about the possibility of peace under capitalism, marxism has always underlined the impossibility for bourgeois states to go beyond their economic and military rivalries, especially in the period of decadence. This is why we were able to write back in January 1990 that "The disappearance of the Russian imperialist gendarme, and the coming disappearance of the bloc between the American gendarme and its former 'partners', is going to open the door to a whole series of more local rivalries. These rivalries and confrontations cannot, in the present circumstances, degenerate into a world conflict...On the other hand, because of the disappearance of the discipline imposed by the presence of the blocs, these conflicts threaten to become more violent and more numerous, in particular, of course, in zones where the proletariat is weakest".[4] The world scene soon confirmed this analysis, notably with the first Gulf war in January 1991 and the war in ex-Yugoslavia in the autumn of the same year. Since then, there has been no let up in bloody and barbaric conflicts. We cannot enumerate all of them but we can note in particular:
The direction and implications of US policy have long been analysed by the ICC:
"the spectre of world war no longer haunts the planet, but at the same time, we have seen the unchaining of imperialist antagonisms and local wars directly implicating the great powers, in particular the most powerful of them all, the USA. The USA, which for decades has been the 'world cop', has had to try to carry on and strengthen this role in the face of the ‘new world disorder' which came out of the end of the Cold War. But while it has certainly taken this role to heart, it hasn't at all been done with the aim of contributing to the stability of the planet but fundamentally to conserve its global leadership, which has been more and more put into question by the fact that there is no longer the cement which held each of the two imperialist blocs together - the threat from the rival bloc. In the definitive absence of the 'Soviet threat', the only way the American power could impose its discipline was to rely on its main strength, its huge superiority at the military level. But in doing so, the imperialist policy of the USA has become one of the main factors in global instability."[5]
7) The arrival of the Democrat Barak Obama to the head of the world's leading power has given rise to all kinds of illusions about a possible change in the strategic orientations of the USA, a change opening up an "era of peace". One of the bases for these illusions resides in the fact that Obama was one of the few US senators to vote against the military intervention in Iraq in 2003, and that unlike his Republican rival McCain he has committed himself to a withdrawal of US armed forces from Iraq. However, these illusions have quickly come up against reality. In particular, if Obama has envisaged a US withdrawal from Iraq, it is in order to reinforce its involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Furthermore, the continuity in US military policy is well illustrated by the fact that the new administration brought Gates, who had been nominated by Bush, back to the post of Secretary of Defence.
In reality, the new orientation of American diplomacy in no way calls into question the framework outlined above. Its objective is still the reconquest of US global leadership through its military superiority. Thus Obama's overtures towards increased diplomacy are to a significant degree designed to buy time and thereby space out the need for inevitable future imperialist interventions by its military, which is currently spaced too thinly and is too exhausted to sustain yet another theatre of war simultaneously with Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, as the ICC has often underlined, there are two different options within the bourgeoisie for pursuing this goal:
The first option was taken up by Clinton at the end of the 90s in ex-Yugoslavia, where the US managed to get the main powers of western Europe, in particular Germany and France, to cooperate in the NATO bombing of Serbia to force it to abandon Kosovo.
The second option was typically the one used in unleashing the Iraq war in 2003, which took place against the very determined opposition of Germany and France, this time in conjunction with Russia within the UN Security Council.
However, neither of these options has been capable of reversing the weakening of US leadership. The policy of forcing things through, illustrated during the two terms of Bush Junior, has resulted not only in the chaos in Iraq, which is nowhere near being overcome, but also to the growing isolation of American diplomacy, illustrated in particular by the fact that certain countries who supported the US in 2003, such as Spain and Italy, have jumped ship from the Iraq adventure (not to mention the more discreet way Gordon Brown and the British government have taken their distance from the unconditional support that Tony Blair gave to the Iraq adventure). For its part, the policy of "co-operation" favoured by the Democrats does not really ensure the loyalty of the powers that the US is trying to associate with its military enterprises, particularly because it gives these powers a wider margin of manoeuvre to push forward their own interests
Today, for example, the Obama administration has decided to adopt a more conciliatory policy towards Iran and a firmer one towards Israel, two orientations which go in the same direction as most of the states of the European Union, especially Germany and France, two countries who are aiming to recover some of their former influence in Iraq and Iran. That said, this orientation will not make it possible to prevent the emergence of major conflicts of interest between these two countries and the US, notably in the sphere of eastern Europe (where Germany is trying to preserve its "privileged" relations with Russia) or Africa (where the two factions subjecting Congo to a reign of blood and fire have the support of the US and France respectively).
More generally, the disappearance of the division of the world into two great blocs has opened the door to the ambitions of second level imperialisms who are serving to further destabilise the international situation. This is the case, for example, with Iran whose aim is to gain a dominant position in the Middle East under the banner of resistance to the American "Great Satan" and of the fight against Israel. With much more considerable means, China aims to extend its influence to other continents, particularly in Africa where its growing economic presence is the basis for a diplomatic and military presence, as is already the case in the war in Sudan.
Thus the perspective facing the planet after the election of Obama to the head of the world's leading power is not fundamentally different to the situation which has prevailed up till now: continuing confrontations between powers of the first or second order, continuation of barbaric wars with ever more tragic consequences (famines, epidemics, massive displacements) for the populations living in the disputed areas. We also have to consider whether the instability provoked by the considerable aggravation of the crisis in a whole series of countries in the periphery will not result in an intensification of confrontations between military cliques within these countries, with, as ever, the participation of different imperialist powers. Faced with this situation, Obama and his administration will not be able to avoid continuing the warlike policies of their predecessors, as we can see in Afghanistan for example, a policy which is synonymous with growing military barbarism.
8) Just as the good intentions advertised by Obama on the diplomatic level will not stop military chaos from continuing and aggravating across the world, nor will it prevent the USA from being an active factor in this chaos; similarly the reorientation of US policy which he has announced in the area of protecting the environment will not stop its degradation from continuing. This is not a matter of the good or bad intentions of governments, however powerful they may be. Every day that passes demonstrates more and more the real environmental catastrophe menacing the planet: increasingly violent storms in countries which have hitherto been spared by them; droughts and heatwaves; floods and the bursting of flood barriers; countries threatened with sinking into the sea... the perspectives are increasingly sombre. This degradation of the environment also bears with it the threat of an aggravation of military confrontations, particularly with the exhaustion of supplies of drinking water, which is going to be one of the stakes in future conflicts.
As the resolution adopted by the previous international congress put it: "Thus, as the ICC has shown for over 15 years, the decomposition of capitalism brings with it a major threat to humanity's existence. The alternative announced by Engels at the end of the 19th century, socialism or barbarism, has been a sinister reality throughout the 20th century. What the 21st century offers us as a perspective is quite simply socialism or the destruction of humanity. These are the real stakes facing the only force in society capable of overthrowing capitalism: the world working class."[6]
9) This capacity of the working class to put an end to the barbarism engendered by capitalism in decomposition, to bring humanity out of its prehistory and into the "realm of freedom", to use Engels' expression, is being forged right now in its daily struggles against capitalist exploitation. With the collapse of the eastern bloc and the so-called "socialist" regimes, the deafening campaigns about the "end of communism", and even the "end of the class struggle" dealt a severe blow to the consciousness and combativity of the working class; The proletariat suffered a profound retreat on these two levels, a retreat which lasted for over ten years. It was not until 2003, as the ICC has pointed out on a number of occasions, that the world working class returned to the path of struggle against the attacks of capital. Since then, this tendency has been further confirmed and in the two years since the last congress we have seen the development of significant struggles all over the world. At certain moments we have even seen a remarkable simultaneity of workers' struggles on a world scale. Thus at the beginning of 2008 the following countries were hit by workers' struggles at the same time: Russia, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Rumania, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, Swaziland, Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Canada and China.
At the same time, we have seen some very significant workers' struggles over the past two years. Without trying to be exhaustive, we can cite the following examples:
10) The considerable aggravation of the crisis of capitalism today obviously represents a very important element in the development of workers' struggles. At this very moment, in all countries of the world, workers are being faced with massive lay-offs, with an irresistible rise in unemployment. In an extremely concrete manner, in its flesh and bones, the proletariat is experiencing the incapacity of the capitalist system to ensure the basics of a decent life for the workers it exploits. What's more, it is more and more incapable of offering any future to the new generations of the working class, which represents a factor of anxiety and despair not only for them but also for their parents. Thus the conditions are maturing for the idea of overthrowing this system to develop on a significant scale within the proletariat. However, it is not enough for the working class to perceive that the capitalist system is at a dead-end, that it has to give way to another society, for it to be able to take up a revolutionary perspective. It also needs to have the conviction that such a perspective is possible and that it has the strength to carry it out. And it is precisely on this level that the bourgeoisie succeeded in scoring some very important points against the working class at the time of the collapse of "really existing socialism". On the one hand, it managed to get across the idea that the perspective of communism is an empty dream: "communism doesn't work. The proof is that it was abandoned in favour of capitalism by the populations who lived in such a system". At the same time, it managed to create a strong feeling of powerlessness within the working class because it was unable to wage any massive struggles. In this sense, the situation today is very different from the one that prevailed at the time of the historic resurgence of the class at the end of the 60s. At that time, the massive character of workers' struggles, especially with the immense strike of May 68 in France and the Italian "hot autumn" of 69, showed that the working class can constitute a major force in the life of society and that the idea it could one day overthrow capitalism was not an unrealisable dream. However, to the extent that the crisis of capitalism was only just beginning, a consciousness of the imperious necessity to overturn this system did not yet have the material base to spread among the workers. We can summarise this situation in the following way: at the end of the 1960s, the idea that the revolution was possible could be relatively widely accepted, but the idea that it was indispensable was far less easy to understand. Today, on the other hand, the idea that the revolution is necessary can meet with an echo that is not negligible, but the idea that it is possible is far less widespread.
11) For consciousness of the possibility of the communist revolution to gain a significant echo within the working class, the latter has to gain confidence in its own strength, and this takes place through the development of massive struggles. The huge attacks which it is now facing on an international scale provides the objective basis for such struggles. However, the main form this attack is taking today, that of massive lay-offs, does not initially favour the emergence of such movements; in general, and this has been verified frequently over the past 40 years, moments of sharply rising unemployment are not the theatre of the most important struggles. Unemployment, massive lay-offs, have a tendency to provoke a temporary feeling of paralysis in the class, which is subjected to the bosses' blackmail: "if you're not happy, lots of other workers are ready to take your place". The bourgeoisie can use this situation to provoke divisions and even outright conflict between those who are losing their jobs and those who have the "privilege" of keeping theirs. On top of this, the bosses and the governments can then fall back on their "decisive" argument: "it's not our fault that unemployment is rising or that you're getting laid off. It's down to the crisis". Finally, when enterprises are being shut down, the strike weapon becomes ineffective, which accentuates the workers' feelings of powerlessness. In a historic situation where the proletariat has not suffered from a historic defeat as it had in the 1930s, massive lay-offs, which have already started, could provoke very hard combats, even explosions of violence. But these would probably, in an initial moment, be desperate and relatively isolated struggles, even if they may win real sympathy from other sectors of the working class. This is why, in the coming period, the fact that we do not see a widescale response from the working class to the attacks should not lead us to consider that it has given up the struggle for the defence of its interests. It is in a second period, when it is less vulnerable to the bourgeoisie's blackmail, that workers will tend to turn to the idea that a united and solid struggle can push back the attacks of the ruling class, especially when the latter tries to make the whole working class pay for the huge budget deficits accumulating today with all the plans for saving the banks and stimulating the economy. This is when we are more likely to see the development of broad struggles by the workers. This does not mean that revolutionaries should be absent from the present struggles. They are part of the experiences which the proletariat has to go through in order to be able to take the next step in its combat against capitalism. And it is up to communist organisations to put forward, inside these struggles, the general perspectives for the proletarian movement and the steps it has to take in this direction.
12) The road towards revolutionary struggles and the overthrow of capitalism is a long one. Every day that passes shows the necessity for the system to be overturned, but the working class still needs to take a number of essential steps before it can achieve this:
This step is obviously the most difficult to take, above all because of:
In fact, the politicisation of the proletarian struggle is linked to the presence of a communist minority within its ranks. The fact that the internationalist milieu is still very weak indicates the distance the working class still has to travel in order to engage in revolutionary struggles and give birth to its world class party, an essential organ without which the victory of the revolution is impossible;
The road is long and difficult, but this should in no way serve to discourage revolutionaries or paralyse their commitment. Quite the contrary!
ICC 5/9
[1]. World Economic Outlook, Interim Report, March 2009, p.5.
[2]. Ibid., p.7.
[3]. See International Review n° 130 for this and subsequent quotes from the resolution.
[4]. International Review n° 61, "After the collapse of the eastern bloc, destabilisation and chaos".
[5]. International Review n° 130, "Resolution on the international situation", 17th Congress of the ICC, point 7.
[6]. Ibid, point 10.
For the fourth time since we began to publish elements of our internal debate in the International Review n°133 [17] , we reproduce below a text on the explanation of the period of prosperity that followed World War II.[1]
The article below defends the thesis of "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism", which considers that the prosperity of the 1950-60s was based on the bourgeoisie's development of various Keynesian measures. It replies to two articles published in International Review n°136 which defended respectively, the idea that this prosperity was fundamentally the result of the exploitation of the last, but extensive, extra-capitalist markets and of the beginning of a rising level of debt (the "Extra-capitalist markets and debt" thesis),[2] and the idea that it was made possible by the weight of the war economy and state capitalism within society. [3]
In the introduction to these two previous articles, we gave an overview of the evolution of the discussions in the organisation, noting that the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis "now clearly calls into question some of the ICC's positions". The comrades responsible for the article below disagree with this evaluation, and explain why.[4]
We are continuing here the debate begun in the International Review n°133 [17] on the explanation of the period of prosperity during the 1950-60s, which was an exception in capitalism's history since World War I. We intend to reply both to the arguments put forward by comrades Silvio and Jens in International Review n°136 [18] , and to the presentation of these two articles which seems to us to contain several misunderstandings.
The disagreements currently under discussion in our organisation are all set within the framework of the positions defended by revolutionaries in the Second and Third Internationals and within the communist lefts, notably in the contributions of Luxemburg, Bukharin, Trotsky, Pannekoek, Bilan, Mattick and others. We are aware that these contributions cannot simply be combined since they contradict each other on a number of points. But none of them by themselves explain the development of the post-war Reconstruction, for the simple reason that their authors did not live through this period (with the exception of Paul Mattick). We think nonetheless that all of them have something to contribute to the discussion that concerns us today. Revolutionaries today have the responsibility to continue the discussion opened in the revolutionary movement the better to understand the mechanisms that encourage or hold back capitalism's development, especially during its period of decadence.
The authors of the present article defend the thesis known as "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism". This thesis has already been presented in more detail by C.Mcl, in International Review n°135. The latter has decided to abandon the debate and has broken off relations with us. As a result, we do not know if the position that we defend is absolutely identical to his.
What facts are we concerned with?
To continue the debate, we want first of all to point out certain historical facts on which up to now there has been no disagreement among the three different positions:
1) Between 1945 and 1975, at least within the sphere of the industrialised countries belonging to the bloc dominated by the USA, not only did GDP per inhabitant grow as never before in the history of capitalism,[5] but there was also an increase in the real wages of the working class.[6]
2) During the same period and in the same sphere, there was also a constant increase in labour productivity, "Gains in productivity never seen in the whole history of capitalism, gains which were founded on the generalisation and maintenance of assembly line production (Fordism)".[7]
3) The rate of profit (ie the profit realised relative to the total invested capital) was very high throughout this period, but once again tended to fall from 1969 onwards. All the comrades involved in the debate refer to the same statistics in this respect.[8]
4) At least up until 1971, there was a hitherto unheard of degree of co-ordination between all the states of the US bloc (bloc discipline, Bretton Woods system).
As far as the first three aspects are concerned, one's arguments must be consistent. If we all agree on these facts, then we cannot take a step backwards to insist that: "(...) the real prosperity of the 1950-60s was not all that the bourgeoisie made it out to be, when they proudly display the GDP of the main industrialised countries during this period".[9] The bourgeoisie may very well distort the reality of the period, but we cannot solve the problem simply by saying that it does not exist, because this growth did not exist in reality. Our aim in continuing this debate should be to clarify for ourselves, and for the other workers who have no interest in hiding from reality, what were the mechanisms which made it possible to maintain simultaneously:
If we exaggerate this or that aspect, or if we underestimate certain difficulties, then these are only relative arguments (more or less quantity), whereas what concerns us is a qualitative argument: how was it possible for decadent capitalism to undergo a twenty-year phase of prosperity during which wages rose and profits were high?
This is the question we must answer.
How far is the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis compatible with the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg?
The "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis is criticised above all because it rejects a part of Rosa Luxemburg's argumentation (see the article that presents this thesis in International Review n°135 [19] ). There seems to be some confusion as to how far we agree with Luxemburg. Thus comrade Jens, in his article in International Review n°136 [20] , thinks that C.Mcl has changed opinion since his article in International Review n°127 [21] . This article explained (for the ICC, in a polemic with the CWO) that the reduction of the solvent market compared with the needs of capital "is obviously not the only factor analysed by Marx in the appearance of (...) crises", and pointed out that it is also necessary to take account of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and the disequilibrium in the rhythm of accumulation of the major sectors of production.
For us, the realisation of surplus value is indeed a fundamental problem for capitalism. It offers not only an explanation of the capitalist crisis, but also of two of its essential causes (we will leave aside for the moment the problem of proportionality). Not only is there the problem of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, as a result of the increase in capital's organic composition, there is also (after the act of production and appropriation of surplus value) the problem of selling the product and so realising the surplus value. It is one of Luxemburg's merits that she localised the difficulty of realising the product in the inadequacy of solvent markets.
Capitalism is a system that is forced to develop. Accumulation is based not on simple but on expanded reproduction. In each cycle, capital must expand its foundation, in other words constant and variable capital. Capitalism developed in a feudal environment, in an extra-capitalist milieu with which it established relations in the first place to obtain the material means of its accumulation: raw materials, labour power, etc.
Another of Luxemburg's merits was to analyse the relations between the capitalist sphere and the extra-capitalist milieu. We do not agree with all the economic arguments of the this analysis (as we will explain later), but we share its central ideas: capitalism continually destroys the other modes of production in its environment, the internal contradiction seeking a solution in the extension of its external domain, there is a qualitative change in the development of capitalism once the latter has conquered the whole planet, in other words once capitalism has created the world market. At this point capitalism has fulfilled its progressive function and enters into its decadent phase. As C.Mcl points out in International Review n°127, "as well as analysing the inseparable historic link between capitalist relations of production and imperialism, showing that the system could not live without expanding, without being imperialist in essence, Rosa Luxemburg also demonstrated at what moment and in what manner the capitalist system entered its phase of decadence (...) The system's entry into decadence was thus characterised not by the disappearance of the extra-capitalist markets (Marx's 'demand exterior to the labourer') but by their insufficiency with regard to the needs for enlarged accumulation".[10]
During capitalism's ascendant phase, it is true that the markets situated outside the capitalist sphere provided the latter with an outlet for the sale of its commodities in a time of overproduction. Capitalism was able temporarily to overcome its internal crises on the one hand through periodic crises and on the other through the sale of products that could not be sold in the purely capitalist sphere, on the extra-capitalist market. In the cyclical crises provoked by the fall in the rate of profit, some capitals are devalued, thus making it possible to re-establish an organic composition sufficiently low for a new cycle of accumulation to begin. Moreover, during the ascendant phase the extra-capitalist market provides capitalism with "an outlet for the sale of commodities suffering from overproduction",[11] thus attenuating the problem of the lack of solvent markets.
Luxemburg's mistake is that she makes these extra-capitalist markets and the surplus value realised there, a vital element in capital's enlarged reproduction. The capitalist produces to sell and not just to produce. Commodities must find buyers. And every capitalist is above all a seller: he only buys in order to invest again, after selling his product at a profit. In short, capital must pass through a money phase, and commodities must be converted into money in order to be realised, but neither in their totality, nor at a given moment, nor annually as Luxemburg imagines: one part may remain in its material form, while another may evolve through multiple commercial transactions during which the same quantity of money serves several times to convert commodities into money, and money into commodities.
If there were no credit, and if it were necessary to realise the whole of each year's production in money form then yes, an outside purchaser would be necessary for capitalist production.
But this is not the case. It is obvious that barriers may appear in the way of this cycle (purchase ® production/extraction of surplus value ® sale ® new purchase). There are several difficulties. But the sale to an extra-capitalist buyer is not a condition sine qua non of accumulation in "normal" conditions. This is only one possible way out if there is overproduction or a disproportion between the production of means of production and the production of means of consumption, and such problems do not appear all the time.
This weak point in Luxemburg's argument has also been criticised by "Luxemburgists" like Fritz Sternberg, who refers to "fundamental errors which it is hard to understand".[12] If these errors of Rosa Luxemburg are "hard to understand" for the partisans of "pure Luxemburgism", this is precisely because they do not take account of Sternberg's critique. Since the beginning of the debates in the ICC on the question of decadence, in the 1970s, Sternberg has been considered a highly important reference precisely because he is also considered to be a Luxemburgist.
Comrade Jens disagrees with the idea put forward, according to him, by the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis, that "the extra-capitalist market is nothing but a sort of overflow pipe for the capitalist market when it gets too full".[13] To avoid any misunderstandings, we think that it is precisely on this point that Sternberg's Luxemburgism differs from the "pure Luxemburgism" of Jens (and Silvio). On this point, we are in agreement with Sternberg.
For us, the mystery of the Reconstruction boom cannot be explained by the remaining extra-capitalist markets, since these have been insufficient for the requirements of expanded capital accumulation ever since World War I.
For the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis, the prosperity following World War II results from the combination of three essential factors:
In International Review n°136 [22] , comrade Silvio finds himself in some perplexity: "What does it mean to increase the production of profit? It means producing commodities and selling them, but to satisfy what demand? That of the workers?".
We would like to answer the comrade's concerns: if labour productivity rises throughout industry, then the workers' means of consumption are reduced. The capitalist pays his workers less money for the same labour time. The worker's unpaid labour time increases, in other words the surplus value increases. In other words, the rate of surplus value (which is nothing other than the rate of exploitation) rises. Marx called this process the production of relative surplus value. If other factors remain the same (or if constant capital itself falls), an increase in surplus value also means an increase in the rate of profit. If this profit is high enough, then the capitalists can increase wages without losing all the increase in extracted surplus value.
The second question is that of the market. If the workers' wages rise, then they can consume more. As Marx pointed out, labour power must be reproduced. This is the reproduction of variable capital (v), which is just as necessary as the reproduction of constant capital (c). Consequently, variable capital is part of the capitalist market. A general rise in wages also means an increase in the size of the market.
One might reply that such an increase in the size of the market is not enough to realise the whole of the surplus value necessary for accumulation. This is true in general and in the long term. Those of us who defend the "Keynesian-Fordist" thesis do not think that we have discovered a solution to capitalism's inherent contradictions, which could be endlessly repeated. Our analysis is not a new theory, but a prolongation of the critique of the capitalist economy begun by Marx, and continued by those other revolutionaries that we have cited.
But it cannot be denied that such an increase in the size of the market reduces the problem of inadequate demand, in the conditions created after World War II. Perhaps comrade Silvio is still wondering where the demand might come from? Demand in capitalism presupposes two factors: a need (the desire to consume), and solvency (possession of money). The first factor is almost never a problem; there is always a lack of means of consumption. The second factor is on the contrary a permanent problem for capitalism - a problem which it managed to attenuate precisely thanks to the growth in wages during the Reconstruction boom.
But the expansion of the market formed by wage labourers is not the only factor that attenuated the scarcity of markets during this period: we also need to take account of the increase in the costs of the Keynesian state (for example, investment in infrastructure projects, armaments, and so forth). In fact there is a threefold division of the increase in profit: distribution of increased profits thanks to rising productivity among the capitalists (profit), the workers (wages) and the state (taxes). Comrade Silvio seems to agree with this idea when he says: "It is true that workers' consumption and state spending make it possible to sell the product of an increase in production" However, he sees another problem here: "but as we have seen this results in a sterilisation of the wealth produced since it is unable to be usefully employed to valorise capital" He refers here to the idea that "increasing wages beyond what is necessary for the reproduction of labour power is - from the capitalist standpoint - nothing other than a pure waste of surplus value which cannot become a part of the accumulation process".
The comrade is confusing here two spheres, which need to be distinguished before we analyse the general dynamic that brings them together:
One problem (in the sphere of circulation, the market) is the realisation of the product. On this level Silvio seems to agree with us if he means that the workers' consumption (like state spending) makes it possible to provide an outlet to increasing production.
Another problem (in the sphere of production) is the valorisation of capital such that accumulation is possible not only with profit, but with an increasing profit.
Obviously, the comrade's objection about the "waste of surplus value" concerns the second level, that of production. Let us then follow him to the factory (after remarking that he agrees with us at least in part at the level of the markets), where the worker is exploited for an increasing wage. What happens if the surplus value increases thanks to a major increase in labour productivity (leaving aside the threefold division of profits, in other words taxes, which are transformed into state spending. The twofold share-out between worker and capitalist is enough to explain the basic mechanism)? The total product of a capitalist entity (be it a company, a country, or the entire capitalist sphere) over a certain period of time, for example one year, can be divided into three parts: constant capital c, variable capital v, and surplus value sv. In the process of accumulation, the capitalist does not consume the whole surplus value, since a part of it must be invested in expanded production. The surplus value is therefore divided into the part consumed by the capitalist (the interest on his investment: I), and the part destined for accumulation (a) so that sv = i + a. We can in turn divide a into the part invested in constant capital (ac) and that which goes to increase variable capital (av) in the next production cycle, so that a = ac + av. The total product of this capitalist entity can therefore be expressed as:
c + v + sv, or:
c + v + (i + a), or:
c + v + (i + ac + av).
If, thanks to a major increase in productivity, the capitalist obtains a sufficiently large surplus value, then the part represented by ac can continue to grow, even if the av grows "beyond what is necessary". If for example, the costs of the means of consumption fall by 50% while unpaid labour time increases from 3 to 5 hours of an 8-hour day, thanks to the effect of the production of relative surplus value, then the rate of surplus value increases from 3/8 to 5/8, for example from $375 to $625, even though the worker has had a 20% increase in his real wages (his wage which originally represented 5 hours labour, but with a doubling of productivity it represents the product of 3 hours instead of 6 hours as previously). The same thing happens if the capitalist increases his consumption (because the cost of his products of consumption also decrease by 50%): the share of surplus value devoted to accumulation can nonetheless grow. And the amount ac can also grow year on year even if av grows "beyond what is necessary", as long as labour productivity continues to increase at the same rhythm. The only "damaging" effect of this "waste of surplus value" is that the increase in capital's organic composition is less frenetic than it would otherwise have been. The growth in organic composition implies that ac grows faster than av: if av grows "beyond what is necessary" then this tendency may be suppressed or even inverted), but we cannot assert that this "waste of surplus value" plays no part in the process of accumulation. On the contrary this distribution of profit obtained through the increase in productivity plays a complete part in accumulation. Not only that, it attenuates the problem identified by Luxemburg in Chapter 25 of The accumulation of capital, where she insists that with a tendency towards an ever-increasing organic composition of capital, the exchange between the two main sectors of capitalist production (production of the means of production on the one hand, and of the means of consumption on the other) becomes impossible in the long term.[14] After only a few cycles, an unsaleable remainder is already left in the second sector of the capitalist economy, that of the production of the means of consumption. The combination of Fordism (increasing productivity) and Keynesianism (increasing wages and state spending) helps to hold back this tendency, attenuating the problem of overproduction in Sector II and that of the disproportion between the two main branches of production. The leaders of the Western economy could not prevent the return of the crisis at the end of the 1960s, but they could delay it.
Before leaving this subject, we have to say that Silvio leaves us perplexed. He seems to have understood at the theoretical level what we have just explained, that is to say the mechanism of the production of relative surplus value as an ideal basis for an accumulation which is as internal as possible, and as little dependent on external factors as possible, when he says that "as long as there are gains in productivity sufficient for consumption to increase at the same rhythm as labour productivity, the problem of overproduction can be resolved without preventing accumulation since profits, which are also increasing, are enough to ensure accumulation".[15] We presume that Silvio knows what he is saying, or at least that he understands what he is saying, since these are his own words which conclude a quotation from Marx's Theories of Surplus Value (a quotation which of course proves nothing in itself). But Silvio fails to answer at this theoretical level, or at least fails to follow the logic of the argument, preferring to change the subject and to object: "During his lifetime, Marx never witnessed an increase in wages at the same rhythm as the productivity of labour, and moreover thought that this was impossible. Nonetheless, this has happened at certain moments in the life of capitalism; however this fact in no way allows us to deduce that it could resolve, even temporarily, the fundamental problem of overproduction that Marx highlighted". What a reply! We are about to come to a conclusion on the basis of a line of reasoning - but instead of verifying or contradicting the conclusion on the basis of a series of facts, we continue to speak of its empirical probability or improbability. As if he feels that this is inadequate, the comrade counters in advance that "Marxism does not reduce this contradiction of overproduction simply to the proportion between increasing wages and increasing productivity". Since the authority of Marx is not enough, we need that of "marxism". An appeal to orthodoxy! But which one?
Let us have more coherent reasoning, more open and daring conclusions!
In the second volume of Capital, Marx presents the problem of expanded reproduction (ie accumulation) by using schemas, for example:
Sector I: 4000c + 1000v + 1000sv = 6000
Sector II: 1500c + 750v + 750sv = 3000
We ask the reader's indulgence and patience if reading and understanding these schemas is heavy going. But we don't think that there is any reason to be afraid of them.
Sector I is the branch of the economy that produces the means of production, Sector II the branch that produces the means of consumption. 4000c is the quantity of value produced in Sector I one for the reproduction of constant capital c; 1000v is the sum of wages paid in Sector I; 1000sv is the surplus value extracted from the workers in Sector I - and the same reasoning is true for Sector II. For expanded reproduction to take place, it is essential to respect the proportions between the different parts of the two sectors. The workers of Sector I produce, for example, machines, but for their own reproduction need means of consumption produced in the other branch. Exchange takes place between the two sectors according to certain rules. If for example, half the surplus value of Sector I is used to expand production while the organic composition of capital remains the same, then of the 500sv reinvested, 400 are devoted to the increase of constant capital and only 100 to the increase of total wages in this Sector. Marx thus gave the following example of the second cycle:
Sector I: 4400c + 1100v + 1100sv = 6600
Sector II: 1600c + 800v + 800sv = 3200
He continued with possible schemas for various cycles of accumulation. These schemas have since been enlarged, criticised, and refined by Luxemburg, Bauer, Bukharin, Sternberg, Grossmann and others. From all this we can draw a certain law which can be summarised as follows:
If we have
Sector I with c1 + v1 + i1 + ac1 + av1
Sector II with c2 + v2 + i2 + ac2 + av2
then expanded reproduction demands that:
c2 + av2 = v1 + i1 + av1. [16]
In other words, the value of constant capital in Sector II (c2) plus the share of surplus value in the same sector devoted to the increase of constant capital (ac2)[17] must be exchanged with the value of the variable capital of Sector I (total wages, v1) plus the consumption of the capitalists of the same Sector (i1) plus the share of surplus value of this sector devoted to the employment of new workers (v1).[18]
These schemas do not take account of certain factors, for example:
1) The fact that the economy needs certain conditions for its "permanent" expansion; it demands ever more workers and raw materials.
2) The fact that there is no direct exchange between the entities, but an exchange of transactions by the intermediary of money, the universal commodity. For example, the products materialised in the value ac1 must be exchanged within the sector: these are means of production necessary in the same sector, they must be sold and then bought if before they can be used.
At the same time, these schemas have some relatively awkward consequences, for example the fact that Sector II has no autonomy relative to Sector I. The rhythm of growth of the sector of the production of the means of consumption, as well as its organic composition, depend entirely on the proportions in the accumulation of Sector I.[19]
We cannot force the partisans of the necessity of capitalist markets to see a certain problem, in other words what Marx was looking for in his schemas of capitalist accumulation. Instead of looking at the different problems and placing each one in its context, they prefer to mix up the different contradictions by constantly insisting on one aspect of the problem: who in the final analysis buys the commodities necessary for the extension of production? This fixation blinds them. But if we follow the logic of the schemas presented by Marx, then we cannot avoid the following conclusion: if the conditions are such as those assumed in the schemas, and if we accept the consequences (conditions and consequences which can be analysed separately), then a government which controls the entire economy can theoretically organise it in such a way that accumulation functions according to the schema: c2 + av2 = v1 + i1 + av1. At this level there is no need for extra-capitalist markets. If we accept this conclusion then we can analyse separately (ie differentiate) the other problems, for example:
1) How can an economy grow permanently in a necessarily limited world?
2) What are the conditions for the use of money? How can money work effectively in the different acts of transformation of one element of global capital into another?
3) What are the effects of a growing organic composition (when constant capital grows more quickly than variable capital)?
4) What are the effects of increases in wages "beyond what is necessary"?
Clearly, as Luxemburg said, mathematical schemas prove nothing in themselves, neither the possibility nor the impossibility of accumulation. But if we know precisely what they say (and of what they are an abstraction) then we can distinguish between the different problems. Luxemburg also studied the first three of the problems enumerated here. She contributed above all to analysing questions (1) and (3). But as far as problem (2) is concerned, she mixed up certain contradictions and reduced them to a single difficulty, that of realising the share of surplus value devoted to expanded reproduction: the transformation into money is a problem not only for this part of the global product (ac1, av1, ac2, av2) but for all the elements of production (c1, v1, c2, v2) and even of the product itself: the owner of a chocolate factory cannot live on chocolate. The transformation of product into money and then into new material elements of production can fail. Every seller must find a buyer, every sale is a challenge - this is a distinct problem which can be separated theoretically from problem (1): the necessary growth of the sphere of capitalist production, which contains within it the necessity of the growth of the market. Such a growth must necessarily take place at the expense of the extra-capitalist sphere.[20] This growth presupposes only that capitalism has available all the material elements necessary for expanded reproduction (labour power, raw materials, etc.); this problem has nothing to do with the sale of a part of capitalist production to the producers of non-capitalist commodities. As we have said already: the sale to extra-capitalist markets may ease problems of overproduction, but is not necessary for accumulation.
The editorial commission's presentation to the discussion on International Review n°136 tried to demonstrate an opposition between certain positions of the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis and the positions of the ICC, and notably with our Platform. This was motivated by certain notes included by C.Mcl in the complete version of his article published in International Review n°135 (only available on our French web site [23] ; see notes 16, 22, 39, 41). C.Mcl has criticised certain formulations of the Platform's Point 3, but from a theoretical point of view without proposing any alternatives. We do not know C.Mcl's present attitude to the Platform since he has abandoned the discussion. We are not able to speak in his place. But we ourselves are in agreement with our Platform which was conceived from the outset to integrate all those who agree with the analysis that capitalism entered into its decadent phase with World War I. The Platform's Point 3 was in no way intended to exclude those who explain decadence by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, although the formulation of this Point has a certain "Luxemburgist" tonality. If we consider the Platform's Point 3 as a common denominator between revolutionary marxists who explain decadence by the inadequacy of extra-capitalist markets, and those who explain it by the falling rate of profit, then we see no reason to quit this framework since we defend not just one but both of these ideas. In this sense, we have no reason in excluding one or other of the explanations for capitalism's decadence from our Platform. The present formulation is preferable, although with the advance in the discussion on the Reconstruction boom one might be able to find a different formulation that more consciously reflects the different analyses of capitalism's decadence.
We thus want to clarify our position with regard to the presentation in International Review n°136 on the "calling into question of some of the ICC's positions" by the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis. We want to clarify three supposed contradictions between the Platform and the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis presented under the heading "The evolution of the positions in the debate".
1) "[According to the 'Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism' thesis], Capitalism 'generates a growing social demand through the employment of new workers and reinvestment in extra means of production and consumption' whereas for the ICC 'Contrary to what the idolaters of capital claim, capitalist production does not create automatically and at will the markets necessary for its growth' (ICC Platform)". Although the idea that "Capitalism generates a growing social demand through the employment of new workers and reinvestment in extra means of production and consumption" is indeed to be found in International Review n°135, we cannot isolate it from its context. As we have seen in the previous part of the present text, capitalism (for us, but also for those who explain decadence solely through the tendency of the rate of profit to fall) has a built-in dynamic of extension of its market. But none of the defenders of the "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis has claimed that these markets are sufficient. They may offer a temporary way out, but there is no escape from the elementary contradiction that the market grows more slowly than production.
2) "Capitalism's apogee corresponds to 'a certain stage [of] the extension of wage labour and its domination through the formation of the world market', whereas for the ICC on the contrary its apogee corresponds to the world's division between the major powers and the fact that 'capitalism reached a point where the outlets which allowed it to grow so powerfully in the nineteenth century became saturated' (ICC Platform)". This second point of our supposed disagreement with the ICC's positions concerns capitalism's entry into its decadent phase. The "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" thesis is totally in agreement that capitalism's apogee is reached when the major imperialist powers have shared out the world between them. The only difference between the "Luxemburgism" of the Platform and ourselves lies in the role of the extra-capitalist market. However this difference is much less than that with the defenders of the falling rate of profit as the sole factor in capital's entry into decadence (Grossmann, Mattick).
3) "The evolution of the rate of profit and the size of the market are completely independent, whereas for the ICC 'the growing difficulty encountered by capital in finding a market for the realisation of surplus value accentuates the fall in the rate of profit, which results from the constant widening of the ratio between the value of the means of production and the value of the labour power which sets them in motion' (ICC Platform)". With regard to this last point, we can say that overall we agree with the presentation, although we did not speak of a "total" but only a "theoretical" independence. We have always said that the rate of profit influences the market and vice versa, but are "not linked theoretically".
At first sight, it must be said, none.
We obviously have a different interpretation of certain dynamics of the capitalist economy. These can also lead to disagreement on other issues, for example the analysis of the present crisis and capitalism's perspectives in the short term. The evaluation of the role played by credit in the present crisis, the explanation of inflation and the role of the class struggle appear to us to be subjects that may be analysed differently depending on the various positions in the debate on the Reconstruction boom.
Despite the disagreements put forward in this debate, during both the 17th and the 18th Congresses, we discuss the present economic crisis together, and have voted together for the same resolutions on the International Situation. Even if different analyses on the fundamental mechanisms of the capitalist economy coexist in the organisation, we can still reach very similar conclusions as to our immediate perspectives and the tasks of revolutionaries. This does not mean that debate is not necessary, but on the contrary that it demands patience and the ability to listen to each other with an open mind.
Salome and Ferdinand (4 June 2009)
[1]. We invite our readers who want to follow the whole debate to consult the articles published in International Review n°133, 135, and 136.
[2]. See "The bases of capitalist accumulation".
[3]. See "War economy and state capitalism".
[4]. In the article that follows ("Reply to Silvio and Jens", co-signed by Salome and Ferdinand), the authors point out that some of the notes in C.Mcl's article "The origins, dynamics, and limits of Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism" are missing from the Spanish and English versions. We will correct this on our web site in order to make the terms of the debate as clear as possible, in particular since, as Salome and Ferdinand point out, C.Mcl "criticises certain formulations in Point 3 of the Platform", "from a theoretical point of view, but without proposing any alternatives".
[5]. See note 2 in the introduction to the debate in International Review n°133.
[6]. See Silvio's article in International Review n°136, citing Mattick.
[7]. International Review n°133, introductory article, in the section on "Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism".
[8]. See International Review n°121, "Economic crisis: the descent into the abyss".
[9]. Silvio in International Review n°136.
[10]. International Review n°127, "War in the decadent phase of capitalism".
[11]. International Review n° 135, "The origins, dynamics, and limits of Keynesian-Fordist state capitalism".
[12]. Fritz Sternberg, El imperialismo, ed. Siglo XXI, p75.
[13]. International Review n°136.
[14]. Sternberg considers that this point made by Luxemburg is the most important "of all those that have been carefully avoided by those who criticise Luxemburg" (see El imperialismo, p70).
[15]. See International Review n°136.
[16]. See for example Nicholas Bukharin, Imperialism and the accumulation of capital, his reply to Rosa Luxemburg, Chapter III.
[17]. These two elements were produced in Sector II, in other words appear in the form of means of consumption.
[18]. These three elements appear in the form of means of production, and must be bought in one way or another by the capitalists of Sector II ("transformed" into c2 + ac2).
[19]. In our view this is the economic reason for the suffering of the workers exploited under Stalinism (or Maoism): a rigid state capitalism forced a maximum of industrialisation by giving the priority to Sector I, which reduced the Sector of the production of the means of consumption to a minimum.
[20]. A sphere is not necessarily a market: washing laundry at home is an activity outside the capitalist sphere. This sphere can be conquered by capitalism if wages are high enough for the worker to take his dirty clothes to the laundry. But there is no extra-capitalist market in this example.
Links
[1] https://barackobama.com
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/ecological-crisis
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/green-economy
[5] https://dndf.org/?p=4049
[6] https://es.internationalism.org/node/2585
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/137/pannekoek-darwinism-01
[9] https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1906/ethics/ch04.htm#s4
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2009/04/darwin-and-the-descent-of-man
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/268/pre-capitalist-societies
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/anton-pannekoek
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/charles-darwin
[14] https://perso.telecom-paristech.fr/jld/
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/congress-reports
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/international-situation
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/133/economic_debate_decadence
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/136
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/135/economic-debate-postwar-prosperity
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/136/war-economy
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/127/war
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/2009/136/bases-of-accumulation
[23] https://fr.internationalism.org/content/3514/debat-interne-au-cci-causes-prosperite-consecutive-a-seconde-guerre-mondiale-ii
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/28/1242/reconstruction-boom-post-1945
[25] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/30/economics