The Rule of Unelected Ruling Class Judges - Part 4 - Reaction v Conservative Social-Democracy (4)

Reaction v Conservative Social-Democracy (4) 

Every moment in time comprises a past, present and future. That is fundamental to understanding any process of change, because every such process has a potential not only of moving forwards but of moving backwards. Capitalism, in its infancy, not only bore within itself forces driving it forward, but it also had to contend with forces trying to hold it back, and to revert back to feudalism. The present condition of capitalism, as social-democracy, not only has progressive forces acting upon it driving it forwards towards a more progressive social-democracy, and socialism, but it also has conservative forces, trying to hold back further progress in that direction, as well as reactionary forces trying to drive it backwards, to overthrow the current social-democratic status quo, and to revert capitalism to a more primitive form, based upon unrestricted free market competition between millions of small private capitals, on a laissez-faire removal of the state from any involvement in the market, or other aspects of life, other than to ensure that these free market rules are allowed to play out, unfettered by the existence of monopolies, and, most importantly, monopolies of workers in the supply of their labour-power, via trades unions. It is a return to small private capital, the small state, and thereby also to the nation state. It is the programme of the Austrian School Libertarians like Rees-Mogg. 

Viewed in the long-term, backward movements are not sustainable, because the laws of nature drives the arrow of time, and history forwards. The same is true in relation to capitalism. The natural laws identified by Marx that drive forwards social development, in the same way that natural laws drive forward the evolution of species, mean that this natural process continues behind Men's backs. If all of the existing monopolies were broken up, in Britain, then British capital would find itself grotesquely uncompetitive with large-scale, socialised industrial capital overseas. Unless Britain wished to turn itself into some kind of autarkic, free market equivalent of North Korea, Libertarianism In One Country, the reality is that British capital must operate in a global economy, and global market. The consequent lack of competitiveness would mean that the British economy would sink inexorably, the Pound would drop relentlessly, and UK living standards would plunge. The very operation of the laws of capital that led to small private capitals becoming big private capitals, which then had to become even bigger socialised capitals would reassert itself, and we would end up back where we are now, having simply endured a long painful excursus. 

But, that is the condition we find ourselves in. We have reactionary forces behind Brexit, trying to turn the clock backwards; we have conservative social-democratic forces opposing Brexit, but trying to prevent any forward movement towards progressive social-democracy, based upon an extension of industrial democracy and greater planning and regulation; we have progressive social-democratic forces, pushing forward in that direction, along with socialist forces that seek to move even beyond that, beyond the bounds of socialised capital, as a transitional form of property, and towards the re-conversion of capital into merely means of production, utilised to meet human needs not to produce profit. 

But, these latter forces are weak. For more than a century, the forces of socialism have, in fact, been nothing more than forces of progressive social-democracy. Even this progressive social democracy was confused and contradictory. It was Lassallean and Fabian in nature, and so from the beginning statist, and thereby nationalist, the most obvious manifestation of which is its crowning demand for nationalisation. Demanding that the capitalist state simply undertakes the function that is the historic function of the working-class, via such nationalisation, is the corollary of the idea that the capitalist state, via its courts, should take on the historic function of the working-class in fighting its own class and political battles. A further extension of it is the bastardised interpretation of internationalism as meaning that this capitalist (imperialist) state should take on the historic function of the working-class in fighting for the liberation of our class on a global scale, in supposed wars of intervention (See: Trotsky against the interventionists). 

Nationalised capital is also socialised capital, like that of the cooperative, or the joint stock company. But, all that this nationalised capital does is to replace the role of the money-lending capitalist (shareholders/bondholders) in lending money to the company, with the capitalist state, as money lender, though, in reality, this simply inserts an intermediary, because the capitalist state itself borrows this money-capital from the big money-capitalists, in the bond markets. Similarly, it replaces the “nominal directors” appointed by shareholders to look after their interests, with literally the same “nominal directors” now appointed by the capitalist state to look after its interests as money lender! So, we have people like Michael Edwardes moving seamlessly from a job as a CEO of a large corporation to being CEO of British Leyland, and we have Ian MacGregor moving from being CEO of a large corporation to being CEO of the NCB, and in both cases, there is no difference in their actions, and in both cases, the effect is devastating for the workers. 

As Kautsky put it, in the Erfurt Programme, 

“If the modern state nationalises certain industries, it does not do so for the purpose of restricting capitalist exploitation, but for the purpose of protecting the capitalist system and establishing it upon a firmer basis, or for the purpose of itself taking a hand in the exploitation of labour, increasing its own revenues, and thereby reducing the contributions for its own support which it would otherwise have to impose upon the capitalist class. As an exploiter of labour, the state is superior to any private capitalist. Besides the economic power of the capitalists, it can also bring to bear upon the exploited classes the political power which it already wields.

The state has never carried on the nationalising of industries further than the interests of the ruling classes demanded, nor will it ever go further than that. So long as the property-holding classes are the ruling ones, the nationalisation of industries and capitalist functions will never be carried so far as to injure the capitalists and landlords or to restrict their opportunities for exploiting the proletariat.” 

The fact that progressive social-democracy, along with the majority of those that call themselves socialists, Marxists, or revolutionary socialists, in fact, rises no higher than this Lassallean/Fabian level of understanding, and thereby places its faith in the capitalist state to bring about socialist transformation from above, is the measure of how far the labour movement is from the ideas set out by Marx and Engels 150 years ago, or even Kautsky a century ago. The so called Marxists and revolutionary socialists attempt to cover their statism and reformism with calls that, having nationalised companies, this capitalist state should then simply hand over control of this capital to the workers, an absurdity that Kautsky describes above, and that Pannakoek as well as Trotsky describes. 

As Marx says in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, 

“From the remnants of a sense of shame, "state aid" has been put -- under the democratic control of the "toiling people". 

In the first place, the majority of the "toiling people" in Germany consists of peasants, not proletarians. 

Second, "democratic" means in German "Volksherrschaftlich" [by the rule of the people]. But what does "control by the rule of the people of the toiling people" mean? And particularly in the case of a toiling people which, through these demands that it puts to the state, expresses its full consciousness that it neither rules nor is ripe for ruling! (Part III) 

“The German Workers' party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases... 

But the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.” (Part IV) 

Of course, the capitalist state is not going to concede democratic control over nationalised industries, unless the working-class forces it upon it, and that is only possible in a revolutionary situation, in which case we would not be talking about the nationalisation of this or that capital, but workers demanding control of all capital, a measure that does not require nationalisation, but which only requires that a Workers Government change company law to prevent shareholders exercising control, and instead makes boards of directors fully elected by workers. 

This latter demand is not, of itself, a socialist demand, but merely a progressive social-democratic demand. It does not demand that capital cease being capital, only that this capital, as socialised capital, the capital of the associated producers, be controlled by those associated producers, and not by shareholders. It is merely the application of consistent democracy, and bourgeois property law, within the context of progressive social-democracy. Of course, to achieve it, a political revolution is itself required, because it will require a Workers Government to legislate accordingly, legislation that will be fought tooth and claw by the owners of fictitious capital, who will not give up their control willingly. Their first line of defence will indeed, be their courts and their judges, who will attempt to strike down any such legislation, as ultra vires, in the same way that the Supreme Court has just struck down the action of Johnson's government in proroguing parliament. It will be a first test of whether, those courts truly do believe that parliament is sovereign after all. 

It will require that such a government be prepared to take on the power of the ruling class judges, a first step to which means that we require a continuation of the bourgeois revolution itself, by having all judges elected, so that we can begin to have judges in place that come from, and represent the interests of workers and not the ruling class. But, to the extent to which the ruling class find they cannot frustrate the will of the working-class, by utilising their courts, they will use all of the other powers of their state against us, which is why such a Workers Government could only function if it was supplemented by a mass extra-parliamentary movement of the working-class, which was already, via its own self-organisation, self-activity and self-government, moving to take over and exert direct democratic control over the means of production, and creating its own forms of direct democracy, and organs of a workers state, standing in direct opposition to the capitalist state. As Marx also says, in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, in the Lassallean view, 

“Instead of arising from the revolutionary process of transformation of society, the "socialist organization of the total labour" "arises" from the "state aid" that the state gives to the producers' co-operative societies and which the state, not the workers, "calls into being".” 

Whereas, 

“That the workers desire to establish the conditions for co-operative production on a social scale, and first of all on a national scale, in their own country, only means that they are working to revolutionize the present conditions of production, and it has nothing in common with the foundation of co-operative societies with state aid. But as far as the present co-operative societies are concerned, they are of value only insofar as they are the independent creations of the workers and not protégés either of the governments or of the bourgeois.” 

For all these reasons, the forces of progressive social-democracy, and of socialism are weak and confused. It enables the forces of conservative social-democracy to take the lead in opposing the forces of reaction, a fact that is seen by the fact that it is these conservative forces that were the ones behind the People's Vote campaign. But, these forces themselves will fail to defeat the forces of reaction within constitutional limits. Boris Johnson is uniting the forces of reaction behind him, whilst the forces of social-democracy are divided against each other, representing conflicting class interests. Unless the working-class steps up to the plate to undertake its historic role, we are likely to see this undeclared civil war unfold as a conflict between two Bonapartisms, a reactionary Bonapartism and a conservative Bonapartism, much as occurred in Egypt. The dominant section of the ruling class will not allow its interests to be undermined by the forces of reaction.

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