The major problems are, by now, well-entrenched, and seem to make successful revolutionary activities impossible.
It is over a century since the Russian Revolution - the only successful one of its type - and that was, surprisingly, in a relatively backward, predominantly peasant country, spread over two continents! And, it occurred in the midst of a World War, having effects absolutely everywhere, and one in which millions of ordinary people were extensively involved in combat - to supposedly "Defend Their Country". And, Surprise Surprise! - occasionally, the masses-in-arms sometimes kill their oppressors at home, rather than the "identified enemies" abroad!
Red Guard during the July Days
They were dangerous times - all-round!
Indeed, subsequently, within a defeated Germany, there still were the most developed Working Class Political Parties in the World: BUT inter-rivalries between them, along with the major injustices of the Imposed Peace via The Treaty of Versailles, convinced sections of that affected population, and particularly the Ruling Class, to turn dramatically to the Extreme Right - leading to the rise of a major Fascist Party in the form of Nazis, and the German Working Class Parties were systematically dismantled!
And Red Menace Hysteria converted most Working Class Parties into mere agitators for a better deal under Capitalism. And Revolutionary aspirations faded from continuing to move significant sections into any sorts of effective political action.
Indeed, it appears as if The Working Class requires Major and Devastating Crises for them to even begin to consider such actions: but, perhaps the current Covid Crisis, the inappropriate actions of the Ruling Class to deal with it, and the consequent upheavals in Employment, could indeed finally produce enough growing deprivation to precipitate constantly increasing action on the streets.
So, vitally, any remaining Revolutionaries simply MUST be both clearly-and-loudly predicting the Coming Inevitable Trajectory of Future Events, AND be ready to rejuvenate the only kind of radical Politics that will ever deal with such a Mounting Avalanche of Crises, which had been clearly building up for some time! And, these must be both well prepared for - and consisting mainly of Working Class Youth, organised from Working Class Areas - to prepare a major and noise-assisted Massive Set of Socialist Demands, alongside extensive Action to aid the most Deprived with Vital Help and Collections of what they will most certainly desperately need.
And perhaps the most devastating area will be in Housing, which will rocket well beyond the means of the Deprived Poor! Places must be found and taken over for them - AND DEFENDED TOO!
We must get the Working Class doing what they are best at, using their skills directly for Their Own Class! So, how do we do it?
We fight fot Local District Collectives, where all who want to help, AND, indeed those who Need Help, can attend and make their suggestions! Organise collections, and prepare to help the increasing numbers of Homeless, as the Crisis develops too!
This may seem premature - but it isn't!
Starting Now, with Class Help, will show who really cares!
Begin now in all ways possible to build our own version of Social Responsibility and Support!
Beating the Pandemic, Economic Depression and Climate Change - only Socialism and Nuclear Fusion can do it!
Deep down, everyone now knows that Capitalism and its Ruling Oligarchs will definitely never beat the combined threat of the Current Slump and the Global Covid19 Pandemic, because to do it would have to end their Worldwide Dominance. Look at the almost incessant Wars in the last couple of centuries - absolutely ALL OF THEM to maintain, extend or transfer that particular mode of wealth and power.
NO - All the usual past "solutions" cannot possibly solve it - and Capitalism is fundamentally opposed to what is necessary to reverse catastrophic climate change.
The current multiple crises facing humanity are too devastating to be addressed in the old ways (scientific, social or economic), for many of these crises are now becoming existential - the continuance of the Human Race now solidly embarked upon a series of terminal swoops towards a guaranteed oblivion!
We need both
The Rule of the People
&
Nuclear Fusion
to totally reorient things and finally break forever the malignant Power of a Ruling Capitalist Class.
Nothing else can do it!
AND, for the first time in human history, this is now clearly possible. The pieces of the puzzle exist, at least.
However the Super Rich will never cede The World to its Working Classes. They have proved that they will go to World War to maintain their wealth, position and privilege. Remember it wasn't the Nazis that dropped Two Atomic Bombs upon civilians, but the United States of America, who dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war had already been won - primarily as a warning to the communists.
But for many decades the various committed activists and political organisations, on different fronts, have insisted upon their perceived Crisis as the Primary Danger, and have refused to join forces with the many other movements, but with the present devastating simultaneous many-sided Crises all coming together at once, the insistence upon separate struggles is quite obviously self-defeating and WRONG.
For now, the very best of the Nuclear Fusion Scientists has joined the fray in earnest, with the leading Focus Fusion Group, around Eric Lerner, coming out with a new video linking Energy Generation and the Fight for Socialism as crucial allies in the Overall Struggle!
A United Front of all the Fighting Organisations must be forged to remove the Common Enemy - the Ruling Billionaires.
And the means to remove ALL the causes of the Existential Crises is now clearly imminent and Led by One of Us!
The world must be reclaimed and saved for the majority of the population. Look at the mess The Ruling Class are making of Fighting Covid 19 and the Slump!
Eric Lerner is quickly becoming one of our favourite thinkers at SHAPE Journal. Not only is he pioneering holist materialist science with his research into Nuclear Fusion and green energy solutions, his political and economic analysis is equally on point!
In spite of several major Crises, such as the decade-long slump in the 1930s, and the similar and still continuing Depression commencing in 2008, the problems which caused them have not, and indeed cannot, be solved, whilever we live within a Capitalist Economic System.
For, it is primarily driven by maximising Profit for the Few, while directly extracting the wherewithall to maintain and extend the System from the the work and the pockets majority of the People - the Many!
And, the consequences throughout the last century have been totally horrendolus -
TWO World Wars with literally Tens of Millions of Deaths - entirely due to rival Capitalist powers wanting bigger shares.
And, also, there have been Revolutions in TWO of the biggest Countries in the World, whose stated purpose was to build Socialism and bury Capitalism for ever!
So, how has Capitalism survived?
While the evidence for its necessary termination is both everywhere and profuse: why have The People not rebelled and overturned this exploitative and unequal System?
It is primarily because literally ALL the means of disseminating and framing Information are in the biased hands of the Wealthy, and even the apparently Democratic Political Systems, worldwide, have been bought to both speak and act always in a pro-capitalist way.
Yet, even so, it has all been insufficient, and we are now living within a period of literally constant wars - either to suppress any divergence from the pro Capitalist Bloc, or to suppress any challenge to the dominance of the current hegemony of the Leading Capitalist Power - the USA. And, no matter what setbacks the war-mongers get, they simply redouble their efforts, to maintain the status quo - one way or another!
It is becoming an existential Crisis for Capitalism, and as they have NO solutions - they still carry on with the vast increases in Debt, which precipitated the continuing Crisis of 2008! It hasn't been a solution to that, so stepping it up again to even higher levels won't solve things now.
So, how can the People break out of their currently powerless position?
They have to FIRST bypass the usual means, and take to the streets!
And, then they must strive to build new Socialist Political Parties with the Theory necessary to inform their actions.
And that MUST be Marxist - BUT NOT the distorted versions of the Stalinist / Communist Parties, and even the Trotskyist aberrations of the 20th century, but a NEW and Genuine Marxism, based upon the philosophical and political contributions of Karl Marx - but brought up to date and fully extended into Science, where it is currently exposing the myths of Modern Sub Atomic Physics, as well as rejecting the many Damaging Revisions, in the name of Marxism, which are no such thing!
There is no shortage of Issues... Get out there and DEMONSTRATE!
Edward Burtynsky documents the effects of Globalised Capitalism on the landscape
Harvey's Import of Geography into The Development of Capitalism
I feel I must strongly recommend David Harvey's two part contribution upon the geographic dynamics of Capitalism's totally unavoidable expansionist Development in his Anti Capitalist Chronicles on Youtube.
For, as a Geographer himself, he is ideally placed to wed his professional studies and expertise in this area, to his current fruitful and empowering involvement with his critical studies within his modern Marxist stance - via his historically long series of lectures upon Marx's Das Kapital. along with his subsequent-and-crucial treatment of Marx's earlier work upon Grundrisse.
But, though both essential and valuable in revealing that important, and sure to be on-going aspect, it is in an area which has thus far solely been limited to the entirely Pro-Capitalist lobby. So, as such, it delivers to Harvey yet another exclusively Pro-Capitalist body of Research, very similar to that which confronted Marx in his lifelong studies in Economics, as literally all his sources were from Pro-Capitalist apologists for that Emerging System also.
And, of course many of the chosen answers to address Crises in the Capitalist System were often of a Global Nature, with Imperialism extending Capitalism's reach into previously independent countries to secure them as protected sources of necessary resources, and even as more profitable sites for Productive Enterprises, because of the low cost of indigenous Labour.
So, Harvey will certainly have a similar onerous task in extracting as much Truth, and damning as much Falsity, as he can from those committed sources.
For example, without that vital critique, his revelation of the Global Dimension of the Geographical aspect of Capitalism, is certainly NOT where the forces aiming for Socialism can derive the required Understanding and consequent extra energy for the battle to come. Taken alone, without a demolishing exposure of both its own and all other involved contradictions, it would certainly seem to deliver an overpoweringly negative set of possibilities, to any so-derived political perspectives.
Yet, if there is one thing that a drivingly-positive Socialist Campaign both could-and-should contain, it is such a Global perspective, to guide its necessary adjustments to cope with such contradictions driving all attempted solutions via geographic relocations of one kind or another - something which is less and less evident, especially now, with the Coronavirus Pandemic focussing everything solely into the Family Home.
Yet, of course, the current unresolved contradictions of Capitalism are precisely what have turned this Event into a Global calamity.
While, the reactions of a country like Cuba show what could, and indeed should be being done, as they offer to send Medical Teams to wherever in the world they are needed! The most pressing question within this current Crisis, has to be what Socialists can do, when they are not only limited to their own homes, but also exist in a time in which the Labour Organisations (particularly of Trades Unions), are no longer able to act within physical factories, offices and schools, but also with the difficulty of concerted action on the streets.
And, there are undoubtedly aspects of these restrictions that are political too: for the Global calamity of the Coronavirus that will press the right-wing governments in Britain and the USA, to change things to make the Working Class PAY for the Crisis - as they always do! And, as restrictions are eased, will elicit action on the streets as the Governments do what we expect them to do!
For example the crisis in the USA could be truly colossal, as they have NO National Health Service, and the obvious solutions possible in a Socialist State will never be allowed in a staunchly Capitalism Regime! Look at the Black Lives Matter protests for a taste of where things might be heading...
Any action we undertake later will have to have been prepared for NOW, both theoretically and organisationally!
But how do organisations get built, in such circumstances, and what possible economic actions can thereby be effectively organised, and then implemented upon Social Media? For, it has also effectively been a shutdown, of all of these possibilities too!
Now, all the constraints are NOT totally determined by the extended Corona Crisis, for China (where it all began) has already turned the corner of a complete shutdown, which proves that some of the extensions elsewhere definitely due to the political counter-measures (and their tempos of implementation) both of which were decided-upon-and-implemented, for other so-far unadmitted reasons, apart from the Pandemic itself.
The real revelations of their intentions, will only start to become obvious, by the way Governments plan the emergence from those measures: for example, how China, and then everyone else, perhaps very differently, organise things via the threat of a second wave of the virus, due to the nature of the prior conditions for its Emergence and thereafter, the actions put in place to constrain its further progress.
Indeed, the crucial one will be the USA, for its over 300 million inhabitants, the almost total lack of a National Health Service, the Health Consciousness that such a lack of relevant policies engenders, and the exorbitant cost of their Private Health Companies, and the very high prices of pharmaceuticals, that seem to threaten chaos in that increasingly benighted Country!
And to-cap-it-all, most of the poorer countries on Earth will have literally nothing to protect them when the Crisis hits, and even the newly developing nations like Brazil and India, seem destined for chaos too: for the military have ousted their neo-fascist dictatorship in Brazil, for a purely military alternative, and the Hindu leader of India could easily precipitate a Hindu/Moslem series of pogroms, if not an all-out Civil War.
The Left-worldwide must start now before the more reactionary constraints are implemented from-the-top-down, in using the means they still have - The Internet, and their new capabilities, to prepare for all they will need in the next phase planned by Capitalist Governments.
And the political responses, from a still immobilised population, will have to be what can be organised on Social Media, and with the won-over-support of the National Health workers, and will involve financial arrangements over the Internet!
You can watch David Harvey's series on the Geopolitics of Capitalism, below:
Surely, in a dangerous pandemic, the number one priority has to be a vast increase in the provision of PPE, both to protect the as yet uninfected, and to isolate the infected, to prevent ever more general contagion?
Why didn't that happen in the UK?
Well it wasn't for the reasons given at all!
Imagine if large amounts of such PPE had been made widely available. All NHS staff would be suitably equipped. As would all those care workers looking after the elderly and infirm in Care Homes. All those still having to be involved in all forms of Public Transport would also be equipped and protected! Any lockdown would only need to be temporary as small local areas could be provided with the right Protection, to allow a local raising of the Lockdown.
And a sequence of short term Lockdowns - followed by fully PPE-equipped free movement areas could have been instituted! The worldwide Pandemic could have been controlled and even greatly minimised in its most disastrous effects!
So why was it not quickly established as The Priority Policy from the Start?
It is obvious why didn't it happen! It was because the ideal place to lock up the entire population was in their own homes ON PAIN OF DEATH!
Otherwise safe behind appropriate PPE, The People could be ON THE STREETS DEMONSTRATING - and that, for the Powers that be would be the Worst Case Scenario!
Even the avalanche of deaths, particularly of the old (and even if a majority of those are reliable Tory voters) would be a better outcome for them than armies of masked and angry citizens taking to the streets.
Instead of being isolated from each other and limited to their own homes, they would be meeting outside their places of work, or demonstrating in enormous joint actions demanding the safety of workers be put first.
Low paid key workers would finally realise their power and number.
They would walk out of places of work which were dangerous to their health! New organisations and groups would spring up out of Trades Unions and Political Parties.
NO! There are far too many of them! Such a crisis as this could be what triggers a World-Wide REVOLUTION, and the Many could finally replace the Few!
It could be the End of Capitalism!
Better to keep the lockdowns and restrict PPE than risk that...
What are governments putting first, the health of key workers, or the health of the economy?
What the COVID19 crisis tells us about the Capitalist State
and The People - and how the response could be conducted differently...
THE ESSENTIAL PREMISE:
Remember, the UK is a Capitalist State, run by a right-wing, strongly pro-capitalist Tory Government. A vast crisis, such as this current Coronavirus Pandemic, cannot but increasingly reveal their priorities in running things primarily in their own interests - the interests of the capitalist class.
And that isn't in the interests of the majority of the People!
Their primary motivation is ALWAYS keeping their own wealth and Power.
The major issue in this serious Pandemic boils down to the main key roles of the State, the Crisis and maintaining the status quo. There can be no doubt whatsoever that State controls will be necessary in fighting the pandemic: but it really depends upon what kind of a State is involved in making those decisions.
For depending upon the Economic System currently instituted in an affected country, government policies pursued can be very different indeed, for they will depend exclusively upon what the role of the State is considered to be by those in charge. And a Capitalist State will have very different objectives from those of a Socialist State. And in a bureaucratic Stalinist State, like China, it will react very differently to a Socialist State with real Democracy.
For, as the Pandemic is certain to be limited in duration, those policies, on the one hand, will most certainly be to protect the people from the Pandemic, but they will also, most certainly, on the other hand, be very differently determined, depending on what kind of State will emerge "after the deluge"! Will the State relinquish emergency powers as quickly as it adopted them? What about during a subsequent economic crisis??
A State's primary purpose will always be determined by exactly what, and therefore also, who, in that society, it is primarily designed to serve! If it is Capitalism - or even Stalinism - and therefore, its directing practitioners, who consider themselves primary, it will pursue very different set of policies, in addressing the Pandemic, to the exactly opposite situation that which would pertain, if it were, instead, addressing the circumstances of the vast majority of the population, and hence the Working Class.
For, such a crisis could clearly expose both gross inequality and the purposes of the Capitalist State all too overtly, and if not managed strictly in ways to purposely-hide its directing intentions. So, any policies about testing for the Virus, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) will be vital!
Getting proper protective equipment out to all key workers should be the number one priority of any State working in the interests of the people
Who will get tested and when?
And, who will receive the necessary PPEs?
And will they be isolating or protective PPEs?
And crucially are the PPEs intended for the detected-infected or for the as-yet-uninfected?
But, with the insistence upon hand-washing, where are they getting infected from?
For some countries seem to be spraying possible sites, where the virus could settle! What then would be used in those circumstances?
Now clearly, there are other ways of combating the Pandemic by using the above means in very different and better ways! We have to ask why did they choose the ones that they did?
Were their reasons medical or political?
Why have right wing populist governments such as USA and Brazil (and the UK if we're honest), dragged their feet and been so much more reluctant to lock down than their equivalents in Social Democratic countries?
The former are obviously NOT currently terminating the Pandemic: in fact they are purposely extending its duration! And, with the very clear pressures for early partial or temporary reductions in the extents of the Shutdown, could not this elicit second or even more waves of the Pandemic!?
How many of the old and infirm will survive these waves?
For, the biggest collections of deaths are in populations within care homes.
Why is that considered to be a good policy? And why are those figures not published home by home?
For answers, you only have to look at the political advantages for the powers-that-be!
Why wasn't a testing of the population organised, with those having the Pandemic being isolated, at home but with isolating facemasks until they were clear (this would in the end effectively deal with 80% of the detected infections who get a 'mild' version of the disease). They would then be monitored, and if it intensified in any they would be immediately transfered to Hospital. All others tested and found to be OK, would get a protective face mask and be released.
All travel, particularly from aboard, but also, initially, at home travel would still be banned as they are now! So, extractable zones would be systematically sectioned off and treated in these ways, gradually clearing increasing areas, within which tested clear individuals would be allowed free movement, and could meet and socialise with others similarly OK'd, but must wear their protective aids.
Workplaces could be targeted, particularly those directly serving the public, such as shops.
Everyone else would be under similar conditions to now, but would get their turn as their zone was arrived at via constant extensions.
A General Shutdown would be gradually and systematically lifted.
From restriction to our homes, areas of locally restored free movement would be gradually be increased, until well-defined and increasing areas would allow gradually re-instituted local travel!
Instead of the total shutdown of all free and unmonitored social protest: such would be made available in all the released areas. And these MUST always start in the most highly populated districts in towns and cities, and only last-of-all in the sparsely-populated estates of the privileged!
THE VITAL POSTSCRIPT:
And, how should the system, described above be organised?
Should it be by the police or army?
NO!
It should be by the People themselves, within the successively released enclaves, each of which should elect their own Area Council to do the organising, and whose meetings should be open to the public! For, as has been shown by the discipline of the majority of the People in the Shutdown, by their are highly responsible and evident clapping-and-helpful support of the NHS, and who, along with the appropriate resources, will do an infinitely much better job than any Tory Government of Billionaires could even imagine!
For, unlike a top-down rigorously imposed control, the maximally democratic monitoring by everyone, and immediately-responsive actions of the local People's Councils will straight-forwardly implement the maximally fair outcomes, with the energetic and guaranteed support of their People.
As culture shifts across the globe workers are beginning to realise their importance and power again - but can this be harnessed against the Capitalist class which exploit them?
Building an effective opposition within the Neo-Con, post-industrial societies
David Harvey, in a recent Democracy-at-Work offering, once again, with his usual eminently Marxist analysis, and profound cultural understanding, finds it necessary to dramatically switch the emphasis that the Left must take, in order to effectively combat the results of 40 years of Neo-Con Capitalism, which have clearly effectively de-unionised and de-politicised the Working Class Movements in Countries like the UK and the USA.
Now, there is a lot wrong with the TV series The Sixties (currently broadcasting on Sky in the UK), BUT, nevertheless, it does reveal much of that crucial tumultuous decade which prepared the ground for the later Neo-Con transformation of World Capitalism, which by the 1980s, with Thatcher and Reagan, was beginning to dismantle the traditional Working Class oppositional politics with the systematic destruction of its historical strengths within organised Labour. and, in the USA, the Cold War effective annihilation of all the Political Parties of the Left!
Yet France, with its Gilet Jaune Left Populism, and the current joint action with the still existing Unions' own General Strike, is demonstrating what can be done in favoured areas. And a single major crack in the Neo-Con System, still not recovered from the 2008 Economic Collapse, could this time precipitate an unrecoverable Crisis from the Capitalists point of view!
(Editor: the current worldwide health / economic crisis, for example)
The Socialist Agenda
But, the usual separation of major campaigns of "The Sixties", and the lack of a Socialist Party backing them all, guaranteed failure in spite of the remarkable numbers often involved.
BUT with a Common Socialist Agenda, and a combined fight, and, a concerted effort to prevent the always agitated-for separation of campaigns, which will always and inevitably oppose this necessary aim, and the "Please Everybody" demand from them.
It must be countered, by making the disenfranchised ex-Working Class the only reliable source for Real Change on every single front.
(Editor: they can no longer hide from the vital role 'key workers' play in keeping the whole system going)
And, within that sector, the major Class Objective will be in providing a Young Socialist Movement for the discarded Youth - just as we did successfully in the 1960s with the Labour Party's Young Socialists. That youth will thrill their de-classed elders, and energise the whole undertaking, as the introduction of the Youth did in the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties in the USA!
The Left needs a Socialist Party committed to literally all campaigns, but always unified by socialist solutions, and energised by a commitment to Working Class youth, with activities and facilities concentrated upon where those Youth are, yet mobilising them as the spearhead!
And, contradictably, NOT seeking the support of the Educated or the Middle Class, while at the same time delivering the very best informed and well explained Theory. But allowing NO exclusions of our generalist demands, and the very best organisation when under attack!
Without such a unifying participation, individual campaigns will quickly rise, and just as quickly fall. So, every single action or strike must be immediately supported, not just with individual participators. but with banners expressing both support and Socialist demands.
And, demonstrations, no matter how small, and a march directly to support the fight, with food, and collections of money arranged for the fighters, from Working Class Estates, accompanied with the most vigorous chants and energy!
Having attended well to all the Critics of Capitalism, and been a committed activist against it all my life, I can only conclude that it will indeed totally collapse.
But, NOT with a Socialist Revolution!
For the task commenced by Karl Marx to theoretically equip the World Working Class to overthrow the bosses and establish Socialism, has all too often been betrayed by both the movement's leaders, and, most especially, their total abandonment of the essential development of empowering Theory required, along with political organisation, which could, and indeed should, by now, be embodied in the Dialectical Materialism, originated by Karl Marx, and initially developed in his critique of the status quo of Capitalist Economics in his revolutionary book, Das Kapital.
The trajectory of struggles since the publication of the Communist Manefesto (1848), have been betrayed sufficiently to leave the global Working Class totally bereft of either the Theory or the Organisations necessary to turn this terminal crisis of Capitalism into a successful Socialist Revolution.
Indeed, as has happened before, the decline has not produced any perspective or any confidence within the Class to see that as a solution, leaving them prone to populist rhetoric and Fascist-Nationalist "solutions" to their woes.
And, make no mistake, that would also be terminal for the planet!
Recall what fascist rulers like Hitler did, and think what such monsters could do now!
Remember, Nuclear Weapons were used by the USA against Japan - TWICE! Would they be used in this inevitable almighty disaster? What do you think?
At the very best, the World will be catapulted into a terrible Dark Age, even if we are not all terminated by such a cataclysm.
There must be no steady decline to oblivion.
Organise to Change things NOW!
END CAPITALISM!
Don't merely wait for it to end you.
More on these themes in our forthcoming film Natural Revolution
With the major Financial Crisis of 2008, its still-present consequences, and the clearly evident incapability of the current system to address them - the also still-remaining inadequacies of current Marxism just have to be addressed and resolved too, if this slump, like the last one, is not also to inexorably lead into another World War.
For, the evident crises in the USA, the UK and even a once seemingly buoyant China, along with the continuing Middle East wars, which all appear irresolvable - merely replacing one conflict with another, while continuing to concentrate ever more Wealth and Power into extremely small sets of Capitalist Elites.
Yet, the essential theoretical re-equipping of the World Working Class falls currently far short of what is necessary to address these situations. For, in spite of the recent long-delayed extentions of Marxism into the now enormous role of Debt worldwide, the absolutely crucial further development of Marxism to effectively deal with Science in general, has still not even been adequately addressed, never mind achieved!
The proof of this is very clearly demonstrated in the still undefeated Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Sub Atomic Physics, along with the ever wilder speculations in Cosmology, and even the drifting of the Life Sciences away from the standard established by Charles Darwin, and towards an importing of the wrong turnings in Physics into Genetics, and many other areas, and away from any possibility of a true Dialectical Approach into the common dead ends of the current totally pluralist approaches.
Indeed, the most debilitating decline has established itself, most damagingly, in Marxist Philosophy, wherein, not only have theorists abandoned applying Marx's methods to the Sciences, but have also even rejected that task conclusively, with a conscious, and openly-admitted return to Hegelian Idealist Dialectics.
It is yet another repetition of an oft-resorted-to retreat, wherein the still unconquered areas in Science, are assumed to be impossible in their current state, so the return to Idealism is considered the only way to an absolutely necessary re-equipment of The Method. That, most certainly, is NOT the way to do it!
But, consider how long it took Marx himself to deal with Capitalist Economics. How much more enormous do you think the full range of Sciences are to completely recast from the situation, after over two millennia of Greek Plurality, and into an as yet still far from complete Dialectical Materialist Revolution in scientific method?
Indeed, what Marxism has always required, in order to deal effectively with that enormous range, has been the successful dedication-to, and adequate developments-of that approach, to also re-equip it generally for the problems we face today.
I have been a professional physicist for almost 60 years, but it took extensive excursions into Mathematics, Computing and even a long period of inter-disciplinary researches into subjects as far apart of Dance and Engineering, Biology and computer controlled test-rigs, followed by a decade of intensive study of Philosophy to finally be in a position to deal effectively with Copenhagen.
It wasn't a return to Idealist Dialectics that was needed, but a real Revolution in Materialist Dialectics.
Billionaires. Whether we blame them directly, or the system that creates them, they still have to go....
Who do we immediately identify as the perpetrators for our despair?
On studying the evolution of Capitalist Economics today - some 140 years after Karl Marx's magnificent effort to explain it ended with his death - the many major crises, the World Wars and the increasing acceleration of mounting state and personal debt, have elicited various (although always temporary) "solutions", that simply defer, but never solve, the ever-mounting problems with the economy. And these "solutions" constantly construct innumerable extra barriers to ordinary Workers being able to see any kind of solution of their own!
And, the protectors of that System, have compounded the felony, with their Divide-and-Rule policies, involving their loudly apportioning blame to some different, and hence easily-identified, section of the population, as well as diverting the problem, again purely temporarily, by facilitating a vast increase in the Debt Mountain, to finance some kind of apparent alleviation.
In consequence, the real causes of these crises become ever more opaque and impenetrable, and an increasingly worried population begins to look round for identifiable culprits, which, in addition, to the everywhere identified "foreigners" which are blamed (use Brexit and Trump as case studies, if you must), they were also directed to other targets, much-closer-to-home, such as their own personal inadequaces, for example, or those of their spouses! For, a brief check upon the men of their extended family, by financially-harassed wives, could reveal the severely curtailed abilities of them all to provide what is needed for their respective families: "they become the problem, and are told so in no uncertain terms!"
Families are decomposing everywhere! But, in doing so, it only compounds the difficulties, multiplies the problems, and hides the real causes ever more effectively.
These problems are not due to the personal failings of workers. Ordinary people are not to blame.
In the past, the immediate causes-and-consequences used to be much more easily identified, and the solutions were equally obvious: workers were organised in Unions, and could act together in a Strike. In some circumstances a whole Industry could be involved, or even a nation-wide General Strike of all workers.
But successively, every Capitalist downturn was cleverly used by employers and their political allies, to dismantle, bit-by-bit, the power of the Unions, by both exporting jobs abroad, as well as bringing in various Anti-Union Laws, so that today, what jobs are available are low-paid and usually un-organisable by Unions.
The situation is rapidly becoming insurmountable economically.
And, the old ways of fighting against this exploitation no longer work.
Even the British Labour Party, in spite of its current Left Wing Leadership (AND Party Membership) is being dismantled by the pro-Capitalist Labour MPs in Parliament, who increasingly side with the Tories against their own movement.
The only old way left is agitation in the streets!
Bring the People out in Mass Demonstrations - BUT crucially they must be well-armed with an understanding of what is really wrong, along with a supported programme to end it!
The pro-capitalist economists, when asked about the current worsening situation, are up-in-arms - they just don't know what has to be done!
Some are even referring-back to the result of the Great Depression of 1929-1941, a World War, as the only way to stop the alternative: Social Revolution!
Yet, the First World War didn't stop the Revolution in Russia! It probably enabled it.
The consensus among the group of economists involved in this set of interviews, varied from making the People pay for it all by a "new kind of inflation", to a cancelling of State Debts via a World War with creditor nations!
But, of course, no-one asked the People.
And where is the solution of the Left?
What is delivered currently the UK is a long, slow rebuilding to what they already have in Europe, with Socialist and Communist Parties and a Trades Union Movement. But, that is certainly no better than the current reaction directly from the People, which has been the Yellow Vest Protests in France.
But nothing yet from Revolutionaries!
Capitalism is finished: and if we don't bury-it-deep, it will pull us all down with it, into another Dark Age, if not something worse.
The rulers of the Capitalist powers have Nuclear Weapons, and the means to deliver them. And they are the only people to have ever used them before - in Japan!
Much as I am in favour of democracy in the workplace, I'm afraid Worker Co-ops are nowhere near enough to counter Capital's downward spiral. The Super-rich will have to be separated from their Wealth-and-Power! And, any threat of that, will cause them to turn, once again, to Fascism to restore the situation. This is what Fascism is for.
Do you doubt it?
Mass actions will be necessary - BUT of the order of The Yellow Jackets TIMES 100!
New political parties will be necessary, for the likes of the Blairites in the British Labour Party cannot be trusted. And both the Republicans and the Democrats in the USA are hopelessly tied to their funding by the Rich who are causing this mess.
The Left must organise into political Parties committed to terminating Capitalism and establishing Socialism by Revolutionary Means.
Be prepared to defend your streets, your families and your comrades against the mounting forces of the Right! For they will come.
Contradictions in current attitudes to the European Union
Both the supporters and opponents of the EU, and the arguments they have pressed on to the crucially uninformed populace, have long profoundly misled the latter into a false dichotomy of options, which could never enable a real understanding of the actual issues, because the real imperatives were and are never revealed.
Both sides of the original Brexit argument came from different wings of the Ruling Capitalist Class, internal struggles in the Tory party, and sadly most of the current leaders in the Working Class took sides in that argument without establishing any thought-through Class position at all!
Just a few, on the Left, long ago, realised that the European Union was essentially a pro-Capitalist Organisation, and that it would be used to undermine the usually nationally-arrived-at policies of most Working Class organisations, Trades Unions and even Parties. But, the most common reaction was that Tariff-free Trade would help workers as goods would be cheaper.
Now, contrasting strongly with these ideas were those of the Ruling Class, who had split into two warring factions.
The pro-Europe wing saw the advantages of switching production to cheaper or less well-organised areas of the large economic area, and that the free movement of labour and goods would benefit the profit margins of businesses and corporations.
The opposite wing of the Tories didn't relish the possibility of a Europe-wide organisation of the Working Class, and the possibility of worker protection legislations (and other regulations designed to keep business in-check) getting through the European Parliament, via the preponderance of Social Democratic Parties common all over Europe.
The Left case for Remain is that the Tories will have a regulation bonfire after leaving the EU
damaging workers rights further, and emboldening the far right.
And, of course, the major and enduring economic slump of 2008, pressed the Nationalist wing much further to the right - just as had happened with the great depression of the 1930s.
We see a new rise of the Far Right across the globe.
The Ruling Class had immediately used the current economic difficulties to drive down wages and conditions, and desired to turn-back-the-clock even further - with a no-deal Brexit they could push austerity without possible restraint from Europe-wide Labour and social democratic parties via the European Parliament.
But, the "social democratic left" in Britain had major problems!
There are pro-Labour laws and protections in place in Europe that are now threatened, but all the policies outlined for the next Labour Government in Britain, for extensive Nationalisation, are currently prevented in the EU.
Now the situation is serious because Leaving Europe has long been the chosen ground for the Right Wing in the Tory Party: it isn't their main purpose at all - which is for the Right Wing to take control of the Party - to become its leadership and frame its policies! And the increase in both refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, along with Free Movement throughout Europe, gave the Right its usual chance of both exploiting and fanning prejudice as a means of mobilising the yobs and pushing the Overton window rightwards.
Believe it or not, the Labour leadership have the correct policy for the British Working Class - namely, to remain in a Tariff-Free Trade relationship with Europe without being a full member and having to abide by anti-socialist laws and policy!
The case for Lexit.
Outside Europe, a Labour Government could begin its policy of re-nationalisation, and this time, as their policies seem to reflect, with a measure of Worker Control, as in their stated policy of Workers Co-operative Companies.
It isn't either obvious or automatic, but the Labour Party as a whole could be moved further to the Left, and the fight for Socialism really set in motion with real "momentum"! For, in spite of its evident Labour militancy in certain parts of Europe, the only generally-agreed policy seems to be limited to getting worker-friendly laws through the European Parliament, and NOT the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of a Socialist Europe.
And, this isn't just an alternative to the Social Democratic objective: for that has NEVER worked. It is an alternative to extreme Right Wing, or even Fascist solutions, and as was the solution in 1939, World War!
Ralph Nader, in a recent public meeting in Washington D.C, including, among his audience, a surprising number of very similar-to-himself past agitators, started his contribution with a liberal criticism of the current American political and corporate systems, basically from the standpoint of the US Constitution, and the Rights with which it had "endowed The People", and, by means of which, only a tiny fraction of the population could (and, indeed, in the past did) right the wrongs, first by concerted agitation, and, thereafter, via the usual legal systems of democracy, to get laws changed to complete the job.
It was an echo from the past, and an inaccurate one too! For, it effectively gave all the credit to small groups of people, like himself, who stood up and fought politically for Justice. But, that wasn't the full story at all!
He never mentioned the Socialist and Communist parties, who, along with the vastly growing Trade Unions, had forced Roosevelt to concede to their demands "OR ELSE!"in the depth of the 1930s Depression. That alone set the tone in which the small groups of liberal "do gooders" could then, for a time, effectively "act for the people". It had never before been the case, before that near-revolution, nor was it the case since that justified "Fear-of-the-People" had subsided, following the Second World War, and the gradual re-establishment of the total dominance of Corporate Capitalism.
Nader didn't mention Capitalism once!
No, it was never liberals like Nader who re-established our rights, but the Working Class in conscious political action, and with a Socialist leadership who knew what they had to do and why! And, it was that leadership that had been attacked and destroyed in the McCarthyite Witch-Hunts that had deprived the Working Class of that vital guidance, and which instead allowed the re-establishment of their own dominance, as of old.
So, Nader's admonishment of the Middle Class liberals for their reticence in fighting injustices was a sure revelation that he would never fight the real enemy and cause of both inequality and environmental destruction - The Capitalist System - in its unavoidable lunge to the Right in response to the major and still unresolved recession of 2008.
Once again it could only be addressed by a dedicated Socialist and genuinely anti-Capitalist leadership of an increasingly rebellious Working Class.
The wealthy are running 'democracy' like never before
Is Real Democracy now totally impossible?
Substantial, irrefutable evidence, finally makes it clear, that absolutely NO Democratic mechanisms still exist which can effectively counter the Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class! Primarily, this is due to the decisions of the People having to be made without being supplied the necessary wherewithal to make them.
Indeed, as the Media are firmly in the powerful hands of the Enemy Class (or certainly those who can see no alternatives to the status quo), neither the Truth, nor any detailed alternatives are ever being made available to the majority of people.
In fact, the people are assailed on all sides with what only can be called severely biased accounts, along with blatant lies and even deliberately orchestrated incidents, intended to mislead.
And, as always with the Right, the identification of scapegoats abound!
Every distinct minority group, within Society, as long as they are suitably powerless, are targeted as the causers of the current situation. In particular, those migrants escaping from the wars - actually perpetrated by the very same wealthy amd powerful leaders of the Capitalist Powers - are daily identified as the real enemy, and the real solution being said to be their expulsion from the country.
Refugee camp in Calais
Why is all this true NOW?
It is because the long trek by those in power to discredit Socialist oppositions to Capitalism, was assisted greatly by the major recession of 2008, for it allowed a major re-casting of Employment among the Working Class, from Factories and Offices, with Trade Unions and political organisation, and into what we call the "Gig Economy", with more and more self-employed workers eeking-out a far inferior living, and, literally NO working class organisations able to reach them, inform them and organise them.
The pattern is most clearly evident in the USA.
Real wages for the Workers have stopped rising. Jobs have been exported to other countries where wages are much smaller, while immigrants were encouraged for the poorer-paid jobs - while also delivering ideal scapegoats to blame for the increasingly desperate situations facing the resident working class. This is to blame for the increased racial tensions we see, all over the western world. And these tensions are exploited by the wealthy and powerful for their own political gains.
The old Social Democratic parties, having lost their support among the People, by vying with the parties of the Right, upon literally the very same ticket, now have absolutely nothing to offer. The odd exceptions appear to be leftwards-moving Parties, like the British Labour Party, who could indeed win the next General Election.
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is one of the few to counter the right-ward trend
But if they do win, will the now prodigious Wealth and Power of the Capitalist Class ever allow then to succeed?
I'm afraid a left-leaning Labour Government alone won't be enough!
The Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class has to be terminated.
So, for a Labour Government - YES! But, as a step to a Socialist State run in the real interests of The People.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the former leader of Ukip, has been criticised for inviting far-right "activist" Tommy Robinson to the Palace of Westminster.
What fuels the rise of the far-right?
And where does it lead?
Listening to the Radio, or watching TV News, may indicate what is happening currently, in the still extant aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis - and by far and away the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, yet no real reasons are ever given, or likely outcomes revealed.
Yet, the best indicators are very clearly available in History!
But, you have to focus on the final, dissociating crises of played-out, dying systems, as the once seemingly unassailable Ruling Classes desperately and violently struggled then, as they do now, to survive.
They were then, and are now, a tiny minority of the World's population, but they had then, and have now, both the power and the money to "run-the-show" their way. But, as that show begins to fall-apart beneath their well-shod feet, so the old performances now increasingly cease to enwrap their audiences. New ways and new alliances become imperative!
And, even the scarcely-effective organisations of the Working Class have to be emasculated and their leaders besmirched with invented lies!
Do you doubt this scenario?
Look around you!
As the Roman Empire began to crumble, the rich retired into well-defended and well-equipped Latifundia - walled enclaves, mirrored today by gated communities.
And, alliances with backward, prejudiced communities were, and still are, both fostered and financed to supply the paraphernalia, slogans, and easily-identified "targets" to be blamed for their difficulties!
What was the general solution for most Ruling Classes in the 1930s?
It was Fascism and War!
Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Japan and many other Ruling Classes not only established Fascism at home, but extended it vastly by conquest, in a truly World War!
Can you foresee a possible World War 3?
The inappropriate issues focussed upon by the Media (owned, of course, by the Ruling Class) must be cast aside!
The problem is Capitalism - an economic system which is dying - and the solution is Socialism!
We have to understand what is happening, and who are enemies are: the Rich are the instigators, but we must be ready for the Yobs, who they will recruit to attempt to destroy us! If they march in our streets, as they did in Cable Street in London in the 1930s, they must be defeated NOW as we defeated them then!
Tories OUT!
Socialism IN!
Organise at every level for the coming struggle! Be like the heroic Grenfell survivors - Organise and Fight Back!
Dormitories at an abandoned Apple factory in China
There is a persisting and perplexing problem in attempting to explain the historical trajectory of Capitalism over its fairly short life!
It concerns the swift growth of human populations in the towns and cities, which infers that they must have come for a better life than they had endured previously, and also that they must have, initially at least, experienced one, in order to both stay and grow in such numbers. It therefore appears that work in the factories of the employers was indeed delivering an improvement in living conditions, at the time.
Yet, the most evident state of many of those city populations, was that they always seemed to be barely surviving, and in the direst poverty. Why on earth did leave their existences in the countryside to commit themselves to descend into the hell of such cities? And, why did they not return to their countryside jobs, when life in the city hit rock bottom for them?
The trouble was their old jobs were long gone!
The farmers were mechanising, and no longer needed the vast army of labourers of the past. And some farms found sheep far more profitable than arable farming - again requiring less labour. And, in the Highlands the villages were being cleared to deliver ever more "pastures and playgrounds-for-the-rich". There were no jobs, and also no homes there any more.
It is, therefore, less of a contradiction, when the major driving forces are exposed. But, nevertheless, for along time there seemed to be a shining light which still appeared to deliver the promise of a better life.
In what later became the USA, such situations were rarely as bad: indeed, such workers, who generally were immigrants, escaping from desperate conditions in Europe, entertained an ever rising standard of living, pretty well constantly for over 150 years! What was going on?
Workers in the USA were afforded a better quality of life
The new economic system did both promise a better life, but simultaneously put every single worker onto the unavoidable task of enriching their employers. And, these are contradictory objectives!
Whilever things were going well for the employer, the life of the worker also was better. But any setbacks for the employer always changed things dramatically for the workers. The employer would sack workers, and maybe employ others at lower wages, gradually forcing down the quality of life of all those employed. And, if the company failed and couldn't sell what it made, it would be shut down, throwing all the workers out without any means of subsistence.
Indeed, such failures were common, so there was ever the threat of unemployment to aid employers in keeping wages as low as possible.
Workers at Apple factory which has now been shut down
In addition, this system of Capitalism was inherently unstable, and every few years had Depressions when many were thrown out of work, and Booms when things picked up again - but never in exactly the same forms.
Many firms vanished in the slumps, and new ones were created in the booms, but these ups and downs acted most strongly against workers, so even within a steady situation there would always be unemployed workers, who by their presence as such, were enabling the effective control of those still employed. Any trouble from a worker and he or she could be replaced by one of the unemployed!
Now, though conditions vary at an amazing rate, the contradictory state of the Capitalist Economic System has remained essentially the same - it has accelerated and globalised if anything.
Though workers organised into Trade Unions and even developed their own political parties, these contradictions were never removed, and every change benefiting the ruling Capitalists would be energetically pursued until it too ran out of steam.
Occasionally, there would be a Revolution which dispossessed the Capitalist class, but as the dominant Capitalist system became truly global, it could both effectively and severely limit those "socialist" countries from any real success, and by war, boycotts and eventual assimilation, even those attempts were reversed.
Clearly, unless and until the working classes, on a World scale implement many successful revolutions, they will remain both dispossessed and disposable to their capitalist enemies, ever more powerfully in charge!
