ICC day of discussion, London, June22

A timely question for all of us which might however be followed by a question as to what the potential for communism might be, even if the current limited anti-austerity struggles were to widen and deepen. The discussion following the recomended introductory text on the ICC website has some further more fundamental questions posed by a number of presumably non-ICC members, with mention of alternative explanations from the 'rival' ICT and even a mention of 'Nihilist Communism', though it seems to eventually deteriorate into a more familiar issues around 'the Party'.

A more sober questioning can be found in two short texts from Nesic and Dauve here:

http://libcom.org/library/what-next-troploin

And some very inconclusive points are made here:

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_53_class-consciousness.html

Alf,

I have sent you a PM about this.

Is capitalism in terminal decline? Where is the working class?

Economic Crisis

Decades ago the ICC talked about the economic crisis of capitalism in terms of there being no light at the end of the tunnel, no economic recovery of any material substance, no positive result from "belt-tightening" (austerity) and nothing for the working class except more misery and, overall, a descent into an even greater level of economic crisis and, from that, deeper attacks on the working class and the whole of the oppressed of society. If, from decades ago, there was a certain view of the imminent collapse of capitalism, along with an immediatism towards the proletarian revolution (shared by both the ICC and the IBRP), then there's not many left communists, with some secondary differences, who would argue against the above in general.

At a recent point of a nosedive in the world economic system of 2007/8, the libertarian group Aufheben, what could be described as the theoretical wing of libertarian communism, put forward the position that capitalism was on the cusp of an "upswing". There are strong tendencies within this libertarian/anarchist milieu to see capitalism as constantly able to surmount its crises and shows that the 50s/60s vision of Marcuse (which one maybe could understand at the time) persists today and this I think is reflected, despite providing analyses to the contrary, in the life that this milieu in general continue to breathe into the trade union structures of the capitalist state. There are also some who share the idea that a unified capitalism can cooperate on an economic level to solve the ecological problems that this profit-driven system has itself created and that this will provide a means to overcome its crises.

The text in International Review number 148, "The economic crisis is a never-ending story. It announces the end of the system and the struggle for another world" is a good point in which to situate the discussion and the opening paragraph is clear: "Capitalism is being hit by the most acute crisis in its history" and this is expressive of the complete impasse facing the bourgeoisie. We've seen concretely how the development of the economic crisis has fostered divisions within the ruling class and even if some of these expressions are tinged with a little madness - representative of a doomed class from the decomposition of its economic system - the bourgeoisie can only provide limited, ineffective solutions while, as the text says, maintaining its sacred union against the proletariat. The wearing out of debt as a spur to production, as a replacement for a real market for the sale of commodities, was shown in force in the collapse of the Asian Tigers and Dragons in 1997/8. It evidenced, in an entire geographical area of "boom", that the credit bubble was reaching its limits and the deadline had come these debts to be repaid - even if in dribs and drabs as long as something was paid off whatever devastation it caused. This is even more so today as the same situation becomes generalised to all the national economies. Will there be a sudden collapse? I don't think that the bourgeoisie will allow it and I think that this is the position of the ICC. Its various "rescue plans" have brought it little relief at great expense and its further credits, which it is increasingly unable to extend, have brought it some breathing space. Nothing has changed in that the world economy shows slow to non-existent growth in a minefield of potential financial explosions. Public debt is being cut and this necessitates massive attacks on the working class and private debt is being paid off at a minimum and this will continue to be the objective of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie cannot keep going into debt - it cannot cope with the debt it has now which it's just about managing to pay the interest on - and this is one of the reasons why negative interest rates are once again on the cards. Many serious economic commentators are pointing to the present crisis as being worse than the 1930's and we all aware of the outcome of that.

The text notes the relief of the bourgeoisie when, after the 2007/8 "banking crisis", the whole economic pack of cards didn't collapse in a heap. What saved the economy was a huge, unprecedented state capitalist intervention - the virtual nationalisation of every bank - that, with some differences, were effected by a certain agreement across national divides. But this "cooperation" immediately weakened over four or five years with the growing development of protectionism, competitive devaluations and the centrifugal tendency of each for themselves. Japan for example has recently thrown the kitchen sink at its persisting economic problems in a desperate $1.2 trillion gamble that it's bet on itself against all-comers. So far Britain and the United States has "invested" around $7 trillion in Quantatative Easing the vast majority of which is not going into production but into paying off debts and further speculation. In a previous IR the figure of $8 is used just to generate one dollar of "real" production. Another massive bubble. Germany for its part, can't use such mechanisms because of its relationship to the euro and the crisis is expressed in a different way - a "crisis" incidentally that French leader Hollande declared on June 9 was over and the EU was now stronger. Estimates for the Chinese economic "miracle" (note the religious term used by the economic hacks) now say that if its pollution was accounted for on its balance-books, then it would show none or very little growth. The bourgeoisie is caught in the austerity/recovery cleft, neither of which contain the least perspective for overcoming the crisis - indeed both make it worse - with its major bodies, OECD, etc., contradicting themselves from one day to the next and further exacerbating tensions between nation states. Unknown unknowns of course remain unknown regarding the economy and if the bourgeoisie thought everything was coming together after 2007/8 then events have contradicted it - notwithstanding Hollande's fantasies. But a sudden collapse, a sudden implosion like that of the Soviet Union generalised to the whole system, does not look to be the perspective for now at any rate.

Imperialist War

Another factor that has to be addressed by internationalists when talking about the shelf-life of capitalism is that of imperialist war. If the capitalist economy is bankrupt then another significant factor that underlines the obsolescence of its mode of production is imperialist war. Imperialism and its wars are factors in and from the insoluble economic crisis, from its inner contradictions, contradictions that end up undermining the whole of capitalism. The "imperialist imperative" as Paul Mattick described decadent capitalism's drive to war, is one of the material drives of capital that is part of the foundation of the proletarian revolution. World War One (the hundredth anniversary of which will soon be celebrated by the bourgeoisie) expressed the decay of the system, "the epoch of disintegration" as the Communist International called it in 1919, some time before the economic collapse of the 1930's. The development of global imperialism preceded the open expression of the economic crisis of capitalism but it was itself an expression of this same crisis. The same fundamental problems which triggered the first global holocaust are still very much at the root of the present crisis. And similarly, the militarisation and repression of society, the creeping, destructive irrationality of militarisation and war must become a factor in the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat.

The development of imperialism expresses the dead-end of capitalist society. Military rivalry between states for raw materials, influence, strategic considerations and simply feeding chaos against rivals is the ultimate in capitalist competition. Military force and war more and more becomes capitalism's answer to economic crisis. As the Gauche Comuniste Francais said of the question in 1945, the drive towards war leads to the destruction "of huge quantities of values built up over decades, centuries of social labour". The bourgeoisie can't go on destroying production and generating new cycles of accumulation with calculated and finessed warfare - that's the problem with war, the situation escapes their control. Even a limited nuclear exchange today - which is becoming more and more a possibility - could wipe out not just "enough" value but the whole of humanity. On the "conventional" level Syria today, amongst others, shows the innate tendency of capitalism to destroy itself as this irrational imperialist conflagration spreads throughout the Middle East. In its great part, across the globe, imperialist war is totally irrational and expresses the bankruptcy of the system. All the major areas and "flash-points" involved in the destruction and spread of war from World War I, remain running imperialist sores, hubs of capitalist destruction and imperialist chaos at even deeper and more barbaric levels while drawing larger areas into the orbit of capitalist barbarity - particularly where the proletariat is weakest.
Massive proportions of national economic budgets are now being spent on the forces of repression, intelligence (co-opting organisations valued by libertarians such as Google, Facebook, etc.), militarisation and war providing further drains on the economy and paid for by the working class. Presently there are new arms races across the Middle East, Asia/Pacific and every national capital from the smallest to the largest, is spending more and more on militarisation at all levels. There's also a new, wider nuclear arms race with more potentially destructive forces along with developments on delivery systems. Added to this are the developments of the major powers into "space warfare". While imperialist war is a factor in the development of class consciousness today, contrary to the 1917 revolutionary wave, it is the worsening economic crisis that is today at the forefront of the concerns of the working class.

The article on decadence in IR 148 fully brings the ecological destruction wrought by capitalism into the framework of the threat that capitalism and its search for profit at any cost poses to the continued existence of humanity. The idea that capitalism, which is based on rivalry and competition, can rationally co-exist and work as a whole to counter the threat of ecological disaster is fanciful to say the least.

Where is the working class and why hasn't it responded with more urgency to the depth of the crisis and the attacks upon it?

While the analysis of the ICC of a tendency towards major class confrontations seems to me intact, there is nothing at all fateful, nothing inevitable about a proletarian revolution and there is at least a perspective of the "mutual ruin of contending classes". While the working class, because of its situation in production and its collective nature, remains the only force capable of taking on the bourgeoisie, establishing its dictatorship and liberating the rest of humanity towards a communist society, this massive task can't be willed into existence no matter how weak or strong its revolutionary minority - though the stronger the latter one would imagine the better. Only the mass action of the class itself can allow humanity to move forward and shake off the fetters of the past.

There are certainly responses from the proletariat as a global class to the attacks: strikes all over the world from South Africa to China, central and southern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Social movements, mostly involving workers as individuals have hit every continent and give the appearance of the unity of the oppressed of all ages, sex and religions and this shows, in embryo, an international response to the crisis, misery and oppression of capitalism. Whatever the weaknesses and fragmented nature of this phenomenon, these are signs of a global resistance. But it is a long road we are facing and it will definitely not be a linear stage by stage process. It demands, from the weak revolutionary forces, a theoretical effort at every level - along with what practical efforts can be made - and we should remind ourselves that the level of attacks on the working class are nowhere near the level required by the depth of the crisis and by the bourgeoisie. The attacks are only just beginning.

In International Review number 147, the decadence article talks about the "biological reaction to impoverishment". I don't understand what this is trying to say but the sheer scale, venom and apparent suddenness of such a dramatic turn in capitalism's crisis has been enough to intimidate the proletariat in the first instance - although it is a prerequisite to the development of a more profound struggle. Certain important parts of the bourgeoisie are, at the moment, very much aware of the stakes of the situation, much more so than the proletariat, and everything is done through its ubiquitous and relentless media campaigns to ram home the disorientation within the workers and stimulate divisions within their ranks - racism, immigration, public/private, employed./unemployed, religious differences and so on, all to reinforce the disorientation and lack of confidence within the class. In short to prevent it from seeing itself as a class in itself. But overcoming this is another function of open, self-organised proletarian struggle which is the greatest "example", the greatest teacher that the class can have.

The collapse of the eastern bloc, the end of the "socialist" regimes and the concomitant "victory of capitalism" still provides an enormous service to the bourgeoisie. The latter even has the luxury of admitting that the capitalist system is far from perfect, but says that we must make the best of it because it is the only system possible. While we must be open to sudden developments, the elements of struggle that we see at the moment are not at all sufficient to overcome present weaknesses and develop class consciousness and where workers do begin to organise and act as a class then this is a vehicle which carries within it the beginnings of what to replace capitalism with.
The struggle for communism is still amalgamated with Stalinism within the working class and the bourgeoisie reinforce this idea with the concept that the working class has disappeared and this itself reinforces the apoliticism and lack of confidence that exists in the proletariat. One important factor that has helped in stopping the workers reacting as a class has been the way the bourgeoisie has carefully timed and implemented its attacks here and there. But its room for manoeuvre, its ability to do this is rapidly running out.

One part of its political apparatus, a very important part from the bourgeoisie's point of view, has been enormously strengthened by the "collapse of communism" and the victory of democracy, and that is the trade unions. The role of the unions is much stronger and more important than the simple policing of the workplace: discipline, implementing wage and job cuts, effecting "flexibility" and so on. They have a much wider ideological and divisive function and this has been favourised by the collapse of the eastern bloc and the ideology that there is nothing else outside of capitalism. The trade unions fit perfectly into "let's get the best we can within capitalism because that's all there is". This widespread reformist ideology, particularly among the advanced powers of capital, further alienates the working class from class politics and helps to hide the class identity and mystify the latent power of the proletariat. A power that in reality remains entirely undiminished and full of revolutionary potential.

baboon, June 10, 2013.

Suprisingly there is actually a contribution to this on the 'When will a revolution happen' discussion thread though they all seem more certain it will than I.

I think this debate (which is far from resolved in my mind) between Internationalist Perspective and Blaumachen is possibly relevant to the proposed discussion.

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_55_working-class.html

IP in this particular text don't define their meaning of ''the global point of production'' and there is much which can be argued about in their comment that ''..we are part of the process.'' (what part and how significant?) even if we take that to include the whole of the current communist milieu. Underlying these differences there remain some significantly different views on the relationship between the evolving 'objective' and 'subjective' conditions that might open up a 'ruptrure' in the reproduction of capitalist social relations.

And just to add that some of the themes addressed in the IP/Blaumachen debate I refer to above are also part of the resurected discussion here on the 'Is reform possible' thread.

Here's one account of the day of discussion yesterday:

http://disillusionedmarxist.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/icc-meeting-on-why-is-it-so-hard-to-struggle-against-capitalism/