decadence again

Joseph K wrote:

In fact the tendency for the state to intervene more and more in civil life is a characteristic of most major class societies in their decadent epoch, IMO. And no, it's not the only signifier of "irreversible desecent", just one important indicator of it, along with tendencies towards wars between factions of the ruling class; intensification of struggles between classes and decay of the old ideological forms (which, admitedly, covers a rather wide range).

Jaycee wrote: a lot of stuff I agree with.

i don't think the analogy to past 'decadent societies' i.e. imperial rome is necessarily a good one. that would seem more analogous to the decline of the british empire in the face of america, and the possible decline of america in the face of china, as opposed to the decline of capitalist social relations per se.

and i really struggle to see "tendencies towards wars between factions of the ruling class" as more prevalent post-1914, obviously we've had the world wars which followed the fine tradition of intra-european slaughter at a more industrial scale, but since then look at europe/the EU, barely a conflict in sight - after the balkans the nearest thing probably being the IRA/Eta which were hardly slaughters on the scale of the napoleonic wars. there's hardly an unambiguous trend

again, has class struggle generally intensified post-1914? it certainly seemed to in 1917-36, but what about since then, surely by your schema we should now be witnessing far more intense struggles than in the period 1917-36, so far into captial's 'decline'?

Yup. Which is why Marxism is bollocks. Marx had some ace ideas but his reliance on economic crisis was nothing short of disasterous. Crisis theory is a lot of what divides anarchism and "libertarian Marxism" - the other big difference being that except for the council communists (who were ace) "libertarian Marxism" and "left communism" were and are totally irelevant overly academic tiny little sectlets with no impact on the world outside of their paper. Meanwhile anarchists have been getting down and dirty, as they say, despite all problems and imperfections.

Although I have known an anarchist with a soft spot for decadence theory, it seems pretty absurd. Part of the great, lofty historical scheme of abstract events which means Marxists can build totalitarian police states and murder millions and still think its fine and good cos of "historical necessity" or some bollocks. The idea of historical necessity is a load of cobblers.

Also, I believe decadence theory says capitalism cannot be "progressive." It was never progressive for the working class so I assume this means technologically progressive. Well my old chinas they didn't have computers back in 1914 or whenever the cut-off date is! The economy is expanding, getting more complex, society is changing, new forms of production (I think thats the Marxist word) have arisen such as automated production where workers are secondary, etc. etc.

- cheers

Joseph K: "i don't think the analogy to past 'decadent societies' i.e. imperial rome is necessarily a good one. that would seem more analogous to the decline of the british empire in the face of america, and the possible decline of america in the face of china, as opposed to the decline of capitalist social relations per se".

Except that the decline of Rome was the decline of an entire mode of production - slavery, not simply of one power within a wider system. For the marxists of the period around the first world war and the revolutionary wave, the collapse of Rome was a powerful precedent for what they saw as the beginnings of the decline of capitalism as an entire civilisation. As Rosa Luxemburg put it in the Junius pamphlet:

"Friedrich Engels once said: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism." What does "regression into barbarism" mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration - a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales"

Note that Luxemburg doesn't say that the first world war meant the immediate collapse of civilisation - but that it would open a period of increasingly devastating wars that in the absence of proletarian revolution could have no other ultimate result.. Where do you think she went wrong. Joseph?

Agree with jaycee about the ecology question. Unless you agree with Sainsbury's and Jonathan Porritt about how saving the environment can be good for business, what possible grounds are there for believing that capitalism can solve this problem?

Nah. It wasn’t slavery what did for ‘em. It was the difference between the interests of the bureaucracy as individuals versus the interests of the Empire as a group.

What problem?

Joseph K wrote:

I disagree. I think you may be mixing up the rise and fall of different nations and their empires within one mode of production - capitalism - to the decay of modes of production themselves: slavery, asiatic, feudalism, capitalism, etc. Maybe my poor formulations led you there. It has been known.

I'm not saying the decadence of capitalism is the same as the decadence of other modes of production (and I'm not talking about an absence of i-Pods in medieval France) - just that there are some traits strongly common to all, IMO.

Joseph K wrote:

Two world wars (and a packet of crisps) not enough in less than 100 years, then? Or the slaughters involved in the 'Cold War' period. Or since then? I don't think the pre WW1 European clashes - and I include the 100-year war - were anything like on the same scale, didn't directly touch the civilian population in anything like the same way; didn't demand the same, almost global mobilisation of the means of production for the means of destruction. Christ, even the bourgeoisie was shocked by the depth and extent of WW1.

I could waffle on for reams about post WW2 tendencies vis-a-vis your point about Europe - perhaps citing the tendency for capital to push both its conflicts and the effects of its crisis onto the 'peripheries'. , or the slow return of combat towards the European heartlands (the Balkans, the bombing of Belgrade).

Similarly with the depth and extent of the clas struggle. Certainly there's been nothing to match 1917-36 (Polish mass strike of 1980 being the most 'spectacular' in my lifetime). But again, that would entail a rather lengthy discussion of the movements that have taken place, their significance, and the conditions (decadence) under which they were/are waged. Suffice it to say, in the relatively brief span (talking historically) of 100 years, we've seen profound attempts by the working class to overthrow capitalism. I'll leave it at that for brevity's sake.

Cos it seems jaycee is calling for a different sort of discussion. I think his last post posed things in a slightly different way. Any answers?

i tend to confine my involvement in eschatological controversies to the boss' time, so until tomorrow i'll just ask, given as the decadence theorists are willing to produce charts to support their thesis, is there any evidence which could falsify it? apparently growth in china was decadent because there was class struggle and deaths from preventable diseases alongside it (a better answer was to look at global growth rates). i ask because it seems that everything from asbo kids to reality tv to war to recreational drugs is a symptom of decadence, which sounds a bit to theological for my liking, a doctrine finding its confirmation everywhere it looks ...

Ecological crisis is very real and a strong case can be made that captialism will not be able to 'manage' it, that there is not an 'environmental Keynesianism' around the corner. Particularly when you consider that at a certain point, with feed back mechanisms, climate chaos becomes self perpetuating. The relationship between this and decadence theory is not at all apparent to me though. For one the concept of an ecological crisis is about continual expanding economic growth meeting natural limits. Whereas decadence theory, from the above thread anyways, seems to involve a decline in economic growth.
What are the relevant parts of Marx on crisis. Can't say I have read much about this.

Is it? The main question is, I think you’ll find, "How can I get more hot girls / boys to go with all this cheap food?" (This is a serious point put in a certain way, not a "joke").

I do wonder how the ecological crisis fits into Luxembourg's analysis. It isn't economic. If we look at the decline of Rome, it wasn't just economic either, even if that is the easiest to graph. How many times was Rome sacked? And then Christianity, which began as a religion of slaves, became the state religion. Almost like "Marxism" becoming the state ideology in a third of the world at one point. And then there was indeed and ecological aspect to Rome's decline (Jared Diamond talks about it)

Echo.

Plus those charts on US debt are absolutely ridiculous. Is capitalism decadent or is the US decadent? Jesus, fucking page one of any accounting book is for any net creditor there is a net debtor, and vice versa. (Also yes I know that due to statistical inaccuracies the world is actually in Net Debt, but seeing as martians are not lending to us that is by definition merely a statistical inaccuracy).

I don't see why not. Capitalism didn't become the dominant economic system the world over by being run by morons.

Certainly you're going to get conflict between one set of bosses (who value a more sustainable capitalism over short term profit) and another (who prefer it the way it is now), but ultimately, conflict between bosses is nothing new. It's pretty much essential for a market economy to sustain itself.

I think that is is possible for capitalism to become more enviromentally friendly. But Terry's right an 'environmental Keynesianism' is not around the corner. Keynesianism and the state structures that developed out of it arose due to a crisis in the accumlation of capital. The market wasn't working. This problem doesn't exist due to enviromental degradation. Enviromental collapse is not a problem for the operation of the market.

i don't think it's that simple. iirc fractional reserve banking creates money as loans, which given as they bear interest tend to create greater debt than credit, cumulatively leading to the exponential debt charts for basically every country. i don't think this actually means capitalism is insolvent though, obviously, i think it's more of a weird accounting convention.

Madashell if by bosses you mean people running companies you will find they do not and cannot value a more sustainable capitalism (an oxymoron) over short term profit, their purpose is to turn a profit, less profit = less investment, you start loosing in market competition. It is the state which would have to do this management. As someone pointed out above a problem is that this would have to be done by all states, or at least all industrialised or industrialising ones, collectively, to matter, which is, given the competitive nature of capitalism, something we might consider not to be a given.

Moreover where as dealing with say the Depression you have an immediate problem there and then, climate change is, to at least some degree, an inter-generational problem and most likely to impact first and hardest in the global South (indeed some would argue it already is impacting). Inter-generational in that payment for today's decisions are to be collected in the later part of this centaury.

Furthermore human induced climate change has been pretty much a 'mainstream' concept for 20 years now, the fact it hasn't been seriously addressed at all up to this point would suggest to me that perhaps the 'burden of proof' is on the heads of people who think capitalism can deal with it.

Throw into the pot the fact that at a certain point feedback mechanism's kick in - I don't think we really know when, and climate change becomes self-perpetuating, then frankly I wouldn't bet on capitalism's ability to manage this at all. Unless ‘management’ means a rise in the price of land at a high elevation in the more northerly parts of the northern hemisphere.

Or supposing we grant that there are capitalist ‘solutions’, we also have to consider the sustainability of the ’solutions’.

There is more that can be said on it. I’m not 100% convinced either way, but suffice to say the claim capitalism can manage* requires a case to be made for it.

* Manage meaning without wholesale destruction being visited upon a large slice of humanity and the ‘natural world‘. I’m sure some will do just fine, e.g. there is a crisis in Darfur, but I read the Sudanese and Chinese rulers are happy doing business.

Well ecology is being successfully sold as a lifestyle. Organic food sells at a premium, products like ecover, solar cells are starting to get popular, LPG cars. There's a lot of money to be made in all these things, especially as there's beginning to be real economies of scale.

Obviously these aren't going to fix anything, but there's plenty of profit margin and potential growth in being ethical/environmental/sustainable, and both companies and the state are successfully passing these costs onto consumers..

Well, I think when people reckon capital will deal with/survive/manage global warming, they mean it will do so at massive cost to the working class. The point is that as a social system it may well continue despite all that carnage. Look at all the money being made out of New Orleans for example.

None of which as we both know bears any relation to addressing environmental problems. Incidentally for some light relief a mate of mine works in an organic food store - one customer came in looking for organic veal.

Well yeah that I agree with. I don't think it is what madashell was arguing though, but it is unclear. For sure a 'collapse of civilisation' scenario would by no means necessarily be a post-capitalist scenario.

Alibadani, I agree that there is a need to understand how the ecological question connects with Luxemburg's theory. To some extent it is an unforeseen problem for marxism, largely because the 'classical' marxists almost certainly didn't think capitalism would survive as long as it has. Luxemburg announced the opening of an epoch of catastrophe, but she could not foresee all the mechanisms and manipulations through which capitalism would continue growing even when it had become obsolete. Above all, she hoped that the proletarian revolution would overthrow the system well before it reached the stage of becoming literally impossible.

It is really time to finish with the notion that capitalism does not go through a process which Marx identified in the Grundrisse as growth in decay.

"Considered ideally, the dissolution of a given form of consciousness sufficed to kill a whole epoch. In reality, this barrier to consciousness corresponds to a definite degree of development of the forces of material production and hence of wealth. True, there was not only a development on the old basis, but also a development of this basis itself. The highest development of this basis itself (the flower into which it transforms itself; but it is always this basis, this plant as flower; hence wilting after the flowering and as a consequence of the flowering) is the point at which it is itself worked out, developed, into the form in which it is compatible with the highest development of the forces of production, hence also the richest development of individuals. As soon as this point is reached, the further development appears as decay, and the new development begins from a new basis" (p 541).

To a large extent capitalism in decay has obeyed the Moses and the Prophets, its fundamental law - "accumulate, accumulate!" - by flouting all the other manifestations of this law and adopting, in a hideously caricatured form, the appearance of the "new basis". In other words, capitalism (as the Radical Chains people once glimpsed it) "anticipates communism" by trying to substitute conscious control for the free flow of the market. And at the same time, it remains a slave to the market. These are the absurd contradictions of an increasingly irrational system.

Within this context it can heat up economic growth to dizzying levels, like in the west after the second world war, or as in China today. But the more it does this, the more it piles up the combustible material for even more explosive catastrophes. And even before the purely economic consequences of growth financed more and more by debt and other forms of fictional capital reach their natural conclusion (i.e. an overt, unmistakeable crisis of overproduction), the very heating up of the economy also serves to heat up the planet. The very continuation of accumulation undermines not only the economy, but the ecology, the natural basis on which all production is predicated.

Just a few thoughts before turning in for the night.

For fuck sake. Did you hear about what happened to V. from sweden and exWSM C. when they worked in an ethical veggie restaurant in cork? They were put washing dishes using a industrial cleaning product without gloves and both of them came out with their skin all fucked up. They both ended up having to go to hospital I think. Fusking unbelieveable.

Or did you hear about Cieran Cuffe the TC who had shares in an oil company. When he was found out. Oh yeah sorry, I just acquired that portfolio and hadn't informed my investment broker than I want all my shares invested ethically.

I agree with this to. I mean suppose things get really bad, 5.9 billion people die, the 100,000 reamaining could still be living in a capitalist society.

on these figures. I'm not sure where these are coming from, but every source of data I've seen estimates Chinese growth at about 10% per annum (not the 30% that's in JoeBlack2's graph), and world growth at about 5% (largely driven by China and India, in that order). Growth is slowing (or, rather, has stagnated at around 2-3%, in the developed world), but is currently buoyed by China(/India). These figures are from the IMF for 2006:

World 5.4% growth
Advanced economies 3.1%
Euro Area 2.6%

http://www.helenbrowningorganics.co.uk/php/products.php?id=24

It's also worth noting that percentage growth doesn't tell the full story. 200% of five is ten. 10% of 100 is ten. Absolute growth per annum is massive compared to 100 years ago.

That's a really good point.

It's not such a good point if you're restricting discussion to "rate of profit", but in general it seemed to have been missed entirely from this thread.

Like GDP per capita not taking into account the extra capitas around the world over 100 years.

Jesus fuckin wept - I recommend that some people stop mistaking shifts and potential shifts in who are the prime movers in global capitalism for decadence of capitalism. Its all a bit well Euro/US-centric.

Capitalist management of or ability to cope with ecological disaster is relevant here to, it is extremely unlikely that China is going to jepordise its economic growth by deciding to sell its consumers a more environmentally friendly capitalism now is it? Hence, oh yeah, we lucky western consumers might get some dodgy meat substitute, bicicles and even solar panelled heating systems sold to us (or told to get the fuck outta our cars to stand in the pishin rain waiting on a bus) in order to reduce the old carbon footprint but given the nature of capitalism that won't make any difference.

I recommend a bit of criticl reading of some world-systems theory, not perfect but it outstrips decandence theory any day of the week.

I dunno why people are even mentioning ‘ethical consumerism’ - it bears no relationship to the issue what so ever, it is little more than a marketing strategy and ’environmentally friendly’ or otherwise is inherently the opposite of sustainability.

A state strategy for addressing climate chaos would look something like this carbon taxation, and subsidy for alternatives to fossil fuels, technical fixes like carbon sequestration, and a switch over to public transport. You can prefix all of those with massive, and none of that is sustainable either.

I see no evidence of any of this being seriously embarked on except perhaps in eccentric Scandinavian countries. In fact the exact policies which contribute to climate chaos are being implemented, eg new roads, subsidises for the airline industry, planning permission being granted to new fossil fuel extraction.

The only serious reduction in greenhouse gas emissions came about because of the economic collapse in the former Soviet Union.

A positive scenario would be that climate chaos itself causes such a social and economic impact as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions considerably before the feedback mechanisms become active and we have so-called run away climate change.

If some putative collapse happens after major feedback starts then well yeah actually that is a scenario capitalism cannot manage, in the sense that this does bring about a post-capitalist situation, there being no capitalism if earth is rendered inhospitable to human life.

Which is the scenario we forgot about above when saying that capitalism could continue even if there was some Mad Max ‘collapse of civilisation’ situation, cause all the cars in the world rusting into nothing, and all the coal burning power stations in the world falling silent, doesn’t matter so much if significant amounts of the carbon and methane stored in the Earth’s surface and oceans are released.
That kinda buggers things up for the survivors.

....and the other thing to bear in mind is that this isn't just a problem which is only being dealt with by cosmetic exercises, this is a problem which is being added to day after day after day.

I'm a communist and think the Marxist critique of political economy essential, but think decadence is nonsense. In it's original formulation it meant that capitalism was no longer capeable of developing the means of production. This seems to me crazy to claim. Especially when one thinks of all the technological advancements that have come about since WWI. Then there's the question of whether or not there is more "barbarism" today than there was back when capitalism was progressive. I don't see how you can quantify this. Certainly there are genocides, wars, famines, epidemics and deaths at work today, but these didn't start post WWI. And how can decadence have to do with the suffering capitalism causes, because even capitalism in its progressive phase causes miseries of all kinds. It's not as though being a prole used to be great. Lastly if decadence is the idea that capitalism is going to destroy the world, then I don't really see how WWI had anything to do with it. If it's because of greenhouse gasses and global warming than that can be traced back to the beginnings of industry. If it's about nuclear war, then that came about after WW2 not 1. In any case, what does the possibility that capitalism will destroy the world mean other than a nice propaganda phrase? How does it bring us one step closer to communism? Faced with massive destruction or devastation, the working class might flee into the hands of some eco-fascist strongman, imposing primitive living on people, or support dead end reformism or might do nothing at all. Disasters and collapse don't necessarily lead to anything but suffering and more capitalism. As pannekoek once wrote, "The self-emancipation of the proletariat is the collapse of capitalism."

Obviously business of it's own accord isn't going to solve, say the climate change problem. But that's never how reforms in capitalism have happened. They have happened as a response to pressure. Under pressure from working class militancy, progressive tendencies within capitalism sometimes gain the upperhand as against regressive ones. This is not something that happened once in history. The progressive and regressive tendencies exist side by side.

Jaycee, capitalism can only offer barbarism and that is the essential point of the revolutionary perspective. The problems of capitalism are insurmountable at all major levels. Underneath the anti-decadence arguments are attempts (more or less) to point out the ability of capitalism to overcome its problems. It cannot and in order to underline this it is necessary to look at the developments of revolutionary theory.
The mechanical, economic deterministic view of the collapse of capitalism belongs to the IBRP with its defence of the Grossman/Mattick theory of the falling rate of profit. In fact, in recent decades the rate of profit has been increasing.
Economic figures, stats, graphs, etc are empirical observations of the state of capitalism - no more, no less. The rate of profit and world trade rose constantly from 1800 to 1913. The first imperialist war did not have deep roots in the rate of profit but in the saturation of the markets. That is what the imperialist blocs were fighting over and that signalled the definitive decay of a system that would henceforth be primarily geared to war and preparation for war. Workers fighting wars for national capitals, for imperialism, for a lost and hopeless cause; that is the reality of decadence. Not only were young workers dying in their millions for a cause that is historically reactionary but the strong potential of such a system continuing, poses the eventual destruction of the working class itself -clearly not in the interests of the working class. "Socialism or barbarism" was clear enough to millions of class conscious workers at the time.of the revolutionary wave As some on here seem to argue (they skirt around it a bit) the economic function of war is not something that can save capitalism (part of the IBRP's analysis with the falling rate of profit). On the contrary it exacerbates the economic crisis with its all pervasive military spending and the physical destruction of capital. Capitalism can't keep going on the basis of destruction - no political economy can (not for any length of time). Generalised and permanent warfare cannot replace the extraction of surplus value as motor force for capitalism - destruction and devaluations can be positive for individual national capitals here and there, but for capitalism overall they are nothing but a drain.
The general tendency of warfare during the 20th and 21st centures has been to become more widespread, more destructive, more extensive and more long-lasting sucking in wider layers of non-combatants. That much is evident.
The rate of profit in the major capitals was rising before WWI and WWII showing that war didn't break out according to mechanical relations with economic indices but pointing to other reasons.
Since the 1980s, the rate of profit has been rising constantly and vigourously, while the economic crisis, particularly unemployment, is getting worse.
The fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the necessary limited consumption of the masses, ie, overproduction, reached a new, decisive limit c.1900, with the relative saturation of the market and the internicine competition and the permanent war that results from it.
Those that argue againist decadence still see hope for the system or want to argue endlessly about figure here, there and everywhere. As you say about the environmental consequences of capitalism (exactly what you would expect from a decaying social system) this brings home the finite and dangerous nature of this moribund system.
A note to Joseph K: Primitive accumulation in pre-1914 Europe had all the things that are evident in China today. In fact they existed in Europe from the 1800s. But in contradiction to China today the tendency was for both action and reformist activity to relieve those problems for the working class, ie: integration of the unemployed, increased safety at work, the development of health care (for whatever reasons), the abolition of child labour, an increase in sanitary conditions, reduction of the working day, reductions of killer diseases, development of education, general increase in the overall condition of the working class. Look at China today Joseph, it's a metaphor for decomposing capitalism.

so if the next decades see an upsurge in class struggle in china, leading to a reduction in working hours, better health and safety, a "general increase in the overall condition of the working class" etc, will that falsify decadence theory?

(also, it's probably more a microcosm than a metaphor, from your pov )