Comment on "Workers Who Benefit From the Exploitation of Other Workers" by Marcel van der Linden

 

Working-class internationalism is needed more than ever today, and this attempt to try and understand why it has been so hard to achieve is very welcome.

Capitalism is inherently global; the imperative to ‘accumulate, accumulate!’ pushes it to expand into every corner of the world in search of new sources of raw materials, land, markets and labour power. What has been characterised as ‘the first international division of labour’ emerged out of the imperialist phase of capitalist expansion, when capital depended heavily on state intervention to support its expansion around the world. Inevitably, this led to inter-imperialist competition and conflict, as each imperial power tried to assert control over more territory, either directly, by establishing its own rule in the countries it colonised, or by less direct methods, such as installing local leaders whose interests were so entwined with those of the imperial elite that they could be partners in exploiting the working people of their country.      

In this period it is possible to identify both direct and indirect benefits accruing to workers in the imperialist countries from the exploitation of colonised working people, as listed in the paper. In general, then, it is true that imperialism in this period eventually provides benefits for workers in the imperialist countries which are enabled by the exploitation of working people in the colonies, but with three caveats:

Rolling Back the Global Advance of the Far Right

 

In recent years, there have been many articles by socialists and left-liberals noting with alarm the advance of far-right regimes and parties in the United States (Donald Trump), Europe (the National Front/Rally in France, UKIP and the Brexit Party in the UK, the League in Italy, Vox in Spain, the Law and Justice Party in Poland, AfD in Germany, Freedom Party in Austria, Viktor Orban in Hungary) and indeed throughout the world: Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jin-ping in China, Narendra Modi in India, Recep Tayyep Erdogan in Turkey, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines – the list goes on and on.[1] If we add regimes that were already extremely authoritarian, like the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Gulf Arab monarchies, the picture looks bleak indeed.

One common explanation for the growth of the far right and simultaneous decline of centre-right and centre-left parties is the espousal by the latter of neoliberal policies which have led to job losses, widespread poverty, and growing inequality. In many instances, they have also pandered to anti-immigrant sentiment instead of combating it. Since they are seen as the mainstream or ‘the establishment’, it becomes understandable that people hurt by these policies should turn to other parties which have previously been less popular.

There is some truth in this explanation, but it begs the question why the number of people turning further to the left has been so much smaller than the number turning further to the right. One reason why this could be the case is that the left has been badly divided, with a section of it converging with the far right on many issues. For example, the supporters of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria include former KKK leader David Duke, the white supremacists demonstrating at Charlottesville, British National Party leader Nick Griffin, Greek fascists of Golden Dawn, the French National Front, the Belgian Vlaams Belang – all neo-fascists who see their own politics reflected in Assad’s ruthless totalitarian regime. Yet at the same time there are people who are seen to be on the left – figures like Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk, David North and Alex Lantier of WSWS and Max Blumenthal – supporting Assad by spreading his propaganda. Again, Putin invited observers from European neo-fascist parties like the French National Front, Italian League, and Freedom Party of Austria to endorse a widely-boycotted referendum preceding the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, yet this annexation was also endorsed by people seen to be on the left like John Pilger. [2] A third example is Brexit in the UK, fronted by far-right ideologue Nigel Farage, whose campaign poster picturing a long queue of refugees bore a striking resemblence to a Nazi poster.[3] Yet some MPs in the Labour Party as well as sections of the extra-parliamentary left also supported Brexit.

The Covid-19 Lockdown in India: A Predictable Catastrophe for Informal Labour

The first case of Covid-19 in India was detected in Kerala on 30 January 2020, with two more on 2 and 3 February. All three were students who had returned from Wuhan. By then it was common knowledge that the virus was spreading around the world. The World Health Organisation had declared a global health emergency, but the Indian government made no move to restrict international travel, test arrivals for Covid, or ensure that the infection did not spread. On the contrary, the main preoccupation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was hosting Donald Trump, and especially organising the ‘Namaste Trump’ event in Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad in the PM’s home state of Gujarat, ensuring that more than 100,000 people attended the event and lined the streets from the airport to the stadium.

By 4 March, 26 more people had tested positive: one who had travelled in the United Arab Emirates, others who were either Italian tourists or had returned from Italy, and those who had come into contact with them, including family members. More people who had travelled to Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Oman, the United States, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Greece, Qatar, Spain, Russia, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Indonesia, Germany, Ireland and the Philippines tested positive in the first three weeks of March. By this time, local transmission was taking place.    

The first response to the crisis from the government was Modi’s address to the nation on 18 March announcing a ‘Janata curfew’ on Sunday 22 March from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., during which only essential workers would be allowed to leave their homes; at 5 p.m., people were asked to come out on their doorsteps or balconies and clap or ring bells to express gratitude to frontline staff. Then, at 8 p.m. on 24 March, he announced a three-week total lockdown beginning at midnight, in just four hours. There was panic buying as people rushed to the shops to stock up on essentials, throwing social distancing to the winds. But the worst impact was on informal workers, especially inter-state or intra-state migrants. As transport shut down and they lost their livelihoods and were evicted from their accommodation, tens of millions of them trecked back to their villages on foot, on bicycles, or in any way they could: desperate journeys over hundreds of miles. The sheer scale of the exodus and the heart-breaking scenes, including of hundreds dying of exhaustion, dehydration, starvation, accidents and police brutality, compelled the mainstream media (apart from BJP propaganda outlets) to cover what was happening.

Marx and Engels on Socialism and How to Achieve It: A Critical Evaluation

 

Introduction

The writings of Marx and Engels on a socialist society and the revolution that would achieve it are somewhat fragmentary; they were more concerned with a critique of capitalist society and the bourgeois state than in predicting what would replace them or how it would do so. Furthermore, capitalism and the world have changed immensely since their time, and their vision would have to be updated substantially. Yet it is still worth tracking down what they wrote in order to understand the general principles of what they meant by socialism before we proceed to evaluate it and update the details.

There are two important reasons why this is necessary. First, for those of us who want to create a socialist society, it is vital to know the general direction in which we ought to be heading, even if all the twists and turns in the pathway cannot be anticipated. And second, so many followers of Marx and Engels have distorted their vision, resulting in a definition of socialism completely at odds with what they themselves outlined, that it is necessary to set the record straight. 

What are the Lessons of the UK Election?

There have been many articles attempting to explain the crushing defeat of the Labour Party in the UK election of 12 December 2019. Some of them are very insightful, and list reasons that undoubtedly played a part in that defeat. However I have not come across any which highlight two factors that are important, namely insufficient internationalism and a failure to uphold democracy strongly enough. Let me explain – but first, a brief summary of other viewpoints.

The Struggle for Democracy in Sri Lanka

 

Introduction

The terms ‘bourgeois democracy’ and ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ have often been confused by socialists, because they seem to imply that democracy is a gift of the bourgeoisie, is inseparable from capitalism, and has nothing to do with socialism. It is true that in many revolutions against feudalism, absolutism and imperialism, the mass of working people rise up and inscribe their agenda of freedom, equality and solidarity on the struggle. But once the bourgeosie is in power, it sooner or later seeks to roll back these gains, sometimes in extremely brutal ways, and capitalism can survive for long periods without democracy: there is no intrinsic link between the two. Solidarity in particular is a threat to an insecure bourgeoisie, which therefore encourages divisions, relationships of domination and subordination, and discrimination, exclusion and persecution targeting particular communities.  

In stark contrast with the view that democracy has nothing to do with socialism, Marx and Engels declared in The Communist Manifesto that ‘the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy’ (1); and Engels later confirmed, ‘The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat’ (2). Since they believed that the emancipation of the working class would be carried out by the class as a whole, it made sense to affirm that freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, equality before the law and equal protection of the law, and the right to elect representatives of your choice in free and fair elections were needed to prepare the proletariat to take over government and production.

Given this hostility to democracy on the part of the bourgeoisie as well as sections of the petty bourgeoisie, it would be more useful to see the bourgeois and democratic revolutions as two separate revolutions, with the bourgeois revolution being accomplished fairly quickly while the democratic revolution may drag on for decades. Indeed, even when a democratic republic has been established, it can be demolished and replaced by a fascist state. This ongoing struggle between authoritarianism and democracy is evident in Sri Lanka, with the presidential election of 16 November 2019 being the latest episode.

Syria: Freedom and Solidarity versus Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism

(This presentation was made at the eighth biennial International Herbert Marcuse Society conference ‘Critical Theory in Dark Times: The Prospects for Liberation in the Shadow of the Radical Right’ held at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) from October 10–12 2019. It was one of four presentations at a panel entitled ‘Syria, the Eros Effect, and Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism’. All four presentations can be found at https://transnationalsolidarity.net/syria-the-eros-effect-and-pseudo-anti-imperialism/ ) 

As Javier pointed out, many leftists failed to support the Syrian revolution and some even backed Assad’s brutal counter-revolution. Unfortunately, the Syrian case is not the first instance where self-professed socialists have supported despotic regimes and imperialist powers; in fact, sections of the left have an inglorious history of doing just this, and it is instructive to look back on this history in order to understand why the Syrian revolutionaries have received so little solidarity from the international left.

A revolution can be defined as a mass uprising to overthrow an oppressive regime, in which the majority of actors seek to replace it with a regime that is, at the very least, less oppressive, and ideally with a society in which there is no oppression. According to this definition, anti-imperialist struggles for national liberation and independence from foreign rule can be seen as revolutionary uprisings, along with struggles against feudal regimes and authoritarian states. By their nature, such uprisings are dominated by the demand for freedom and by expressions of solidarity between different sections of the oppressed population.

However, all revolutions face opposition. First, and most obviously, the old regime fights back with all the resources at its disposal, including, in some cases, imperialist allies. But often the uprising includes actors who are fighting against the old oppressive state, but with the goal of installing their own oppressive regime. In some cases there is the possibility of a compromise, as when the new ruling class – for example the bourgeoisie – allows working people to establish a democratic republic, which Marx and Engels saw as the first step in a proletarian revolution. In other cases, as in the case of Al Qaeda and ISIS, there are new would-be rulers who are as oppressive as the old regime, and working people are forced into a multi-pronged battle against more than one enemy. In such circumstances, it is essential for socialists worldwide to stand in solidarity with the working people who are fighting for liberation from oppression, but unfortunately there are cases where a section of socialists sides with the oppressors. This is what has happened in Syria, but it has happened before.