Internationalist Communist Tendency's blog

Not only is “human nature” not unchangeable, it is also not the default nature of human beings to be greedy and selfish. We can now see that fundamental to human nature, more fundamental than the debaucheries thrown up by capitalism in its imperialist phase, is in fact, the tendency towards communism.

The rulers of all the major capitalist states have no solution to a world economic crisis which in various forms has now dragged on for decades. In the last few years chronic insoluble economic crisis has increasingly translated into political crisis. This has produced not just changes in government but questions about the institutions of these supposedly democratic regimes.

It should be common sense that workers can only use their collective strength if united in some body which includes them all. But that assumes that the unions today are representative of the workers. Under modern capitalist conditions the union exists to mediate wage labour on behalf of the state. The unions’ existence as permanent bodies means they have to comply with the rules of the capitalist game. They have become another layer of management within the system.

Capitalist class rule sits atop a mountain of corpses. Syria continues to be a battleground for imperialist interests scrambling to gain a foothold in the region, as well as a potential site for the start of a Third World War. In response to this deepening crisis, June will see a series of meetings to launch a revolutionary alternative to the bosses’ war drive. The meetings will mark the re-emergence of a platform for struggle under the slogan of “No War But The Class War” (NWBCW).

The following article is, like several we have already translated, from the left communist blog, Nuevo Curso. The background is that after 5 years of austerity the government of President Maurizio Macri has fallen foul of the global economic crisis and its latest fallout. A year ago he was hailed as the saviour of Argentina when, despite Argentina’s multiple defaults in the last century he launched a 100 year bond offering an interest rate of over 7%.

In the late 19th century, the Congo was ripped open for its large rubber resources to satisfy capitalism’s new found demand for tires, leading to the death of millions of Africans. The horrors of the Congo are well known. Pictures of mutilation and death appear frequently in the lectures of academics who demand the need to create a more humanitarian capitalism. Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ appears on many school syllabuses. But despite literary suggestions of a problem found within the human heart, the truth is the problem was to be found in a new epoch of history that continues to this day: the epoch of imperialist capitalism.

After years of falling wages and worsening working conditions are we now seeing a new shape to the working class?

Day and night, as the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran approaches, its leaders arrogantly harp on about their imperialist achievements and shout about the "Islamic-Iranian model of progress" and "Islamic Civilisation" ... At the same time, while the multi-coloured opposition to this regime pursues its reformist and nationalist goals, by bargaining and begging for their share, the working class is entering the scene.

The Windrush scandal may be slipping off the front pages but the uncertainty and harassment of 21,000 ex-Commonwealth-born British citizens, who have no passport from any country, is an ongoing fact of life. About a quarter of those who have no passport and who suddenly find their status as legal British citizens questioned are from the Caribbean.

Karl Marx – political philosopher, historical materialist, economic analyst of capitalism and its class society; above all, revolutionary fighter – was born in Trier, Germany on 5 May 1818. For anyone today fighting for an end to capitalism his life is cause for celebration.

May Day 2018 Statement of the Internationalist Communist Tendency.

This is translated from the website of the Spanish blogging collective Nuevo Curso whose work we frequently translate for the English reading audience. The reference to elephants arises from a recent accident involving these animals. The London Evening Standard of 3rd April described it thus; “An elephant was killed and two others were injured when a circus truck carrying five of the huge animals overturned in south-eastern Spain. The vehicle toppled over when overtaking a slow lorry on the A-30 near Pozo Canada in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha on Monday.”

Do not be misled by this almost "harmless" American bombardment, of which the Russians and thus Assad himself were fully prepared in advance. This show of strength is to justify, not only the continuation of the war, but its future extension. For the moment they have avoided the conditions for direct confrontation. However, there will always be time and opportunity to trigger them, regardless of whether the premises are true or false.

UBI is gaining traction amongst the capitalist class because it presents a last-ditch ploy to maintain ‘social peace’ and undermine a collective working class fight back in the economic turbulence to come. Not so much a “utopia for realists” as a dystopian reformist panacea in the face of declining ‘economic growth’, wages, services and general quality of life.

There are two ways to read Inventing the Future. One is a fairly innocent critique of the “post-68 left”, and an outline of how to build a desirable post-capitalist future through a flawed Gramscian framework. The other is a critique of working class self-activity, and a call for a benevolent class of technocrats who can gradually reform capitalism for the masses.

Those who see the need to eliminate anti-Semitism should involve themselves in the struggle for a classless and nationless world. The current media circus about Parliamentary factions is totally removed from the necessary struggle to root out anti-Semitism through the struggle to destroy capitalism.

Exactly a week after Putin’s “landslide” victory in the Russian Presidential election (March 18) a terrible fire broke out in the “Winter Cherry” shopping and entertainment centre of the Siberian city of Kemerovo. It killed more than 80 people, at least 40 of whom are children. Some are still missing. Appalling though Kemerovo was, it was not an isolated incident.

On Sunday March 25 the CWO held a meeting in Newcastle focussing on the recent educational strikes across the world. It was attended by students, academics and other university workers (some in the CWO, some not) who had participated in the recent pickets of Newcastle, York and Durham universities. A CWO comrade gave the following introduction.

Given the current programmatic poverty of the bourgeoisie, not voting is a duty. However, today, that isn’t enough.

The Irish-UK stand-off is not the only dispute over borders following Brexit.