The Political Situation (5/14)
The real forces of reaction are not the fascists, but those who want to “hold back”, or even “turn back” the current development of the productive forces, brought about by capitalism. They are the forces that represent the interests of the small capitalists, who now have to be distinguished from the petty-bourgeoisie as a whole, because much of the latter occupies a position within the social-democratic bureaucratic stratum, and should, to distinguish it, perhaps, be called the middle-class. As such, it too is, generally, conservative, rather than reactionary. The reactionaries are those that represent these interests of the small capitalists, in the way described by Marx in relation to Sismondi and Proudhon. They are the Narodniks, as described by Lenin, and, today, they are the “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists”, who similarly want to hold back or even turn back capitalist productive relations, as manifest in the form of big capital, and multinational capital. As with Sismondi, Proudhon and the Narodniks, these elements proclaim their “anti-capitalism/imperialism” in the name of the oppressed, but, in the absence of any existing or immediate socialist alternative to those relations, the effect of their “anti-capitalism/imperialism”, is simply Utopianism, a pious wish for reality to be different, so that the only practical outcome of their “anti-capitalism/imperialism”, is not to push development forward but to turn it back. It is reactionary. An example of it is presented by Yanis Varoufakis in his new novel, which describes a society based upon commodity production and exchange without capital. In other words, exactly the impossible Utopia, put forward by Proudhon 150 years ago, and ridiculed by Marx.
Although the Narodniks presented themselves as advocates of the ordinary working people, the working-people they meant were these independent small producers, the equivalent of today's “white van man”, or the Gilets Jaunes. And, for these small producers, the organised industrial proletariat, able to use its organisation to win higher wages, is as much an enemy as is big capital. The petty-bourgeoisie lack the leverage to do that, and as employers of labour themselves, these higher wages squeeze their profits. That is why the heterogeneous rabble of the petty-bourgeoisie has always been the source of the footsoldiers of reaction. The Bonapartists and fascists have always been able to mobilise it, pointing it at big capital in one direction, and at organised labour in the other, and, because this petty-bourgeois rabble has no homogeneity of class interest within it, it can only be organised from above by some charismatic leader that provides it with the direction it lacks itself as a class. But, the fascists and Bonapartists that mobilise it, for their ends, of course, have no intention of actually carrying through any of the anti-capitalist measures the petty-bourgeoisie seek, which are, in fact, only measures against big capital.
Fascism represents the interests of the money-lending class, the financial oligarchy. It represents the interests of that tiny class of shareholders who exert control over the majority of shares, and through which they exercise control over the real capital – socialised capital – they do not own. But, fascism becomes the actual representative of those interests only at specific times. They do not like resorting to fascism, because it means they have to give up the more direct control over the political regime they exercise via bourgeois democracy. Generally, the normal functioning of social-democracy protects the interests of shareholders as ruling class. During those periods when the demand for money-capital, relative to supply, is strong, interest rates, and, thereby, dividend and bond yields, are high and/or rising. The money lenders wealth and power flows from these large revenues. During such periods, the strong economic growth and rising capital accumulation produces the increasing profits out of which these rising revenues from interest are paid. To finance the expansion, more bonds and shares are issued, and this increased supply reduces the prices of financial assets. In periods when economic growth is slower, and the demand for money-capital falls relative to supply, as for example happened from the 1980's onwards, interest rates fall, and with it dividend and bond yields, but with these falling yields goes a concomitant rise in asset prices. Now, this section of the ruling class obtains its wealth and power from these rising asset prices that inflate its paper wealth. When it has become dependent on these high asset prices, as in the 1990's and 2000's, whenever they fall, the state intervenes with QE to boost them again, even if it has to damage the real economy to do so.
So, generally, progressive and conservative social democracy in alternating periods of the long wave cycle, acts to protect the dominant section of the ruling class, which now owns its wealth almost exclusively in the form of fictitious capital. But, the danger to this ruling class comes when it can depend on neither rising revenues from rising interest rates, nor rising asset prices from falling interest rates, but when it also faces the potential of workers challenging its control over the socialised capital itself. Such was the condition in the 1920's and 30's. Its at this point that fascism becomes the active representatives of this class of money-lending capitalists.
However, this class is tiny. They represent less than 0.01% of the population. To mobilise in their interests a much wider mass is required. So, the fascists mobilise the petty-bourgeoisie, and, in doing so, they mobilise all of that other social rabble that is in close proximity to them, those whose small business dealings shade over from the unethical to the illegal, the outright criminals, and other anti-social elements. They mobilise around attacks on big-capital, often combining those attacks, as on the attack on organised workers, with conspiracy theories about foreign control and influence, which also, thereby, utilises appeals not only to nationalism, but also to outright racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and so on.
But, the real aim of the fascists is the destruction of the organised labour movement, which threatens the control over the socialised capital by shareholders. As soon as that goal is achieved, the true nature of fascism is exposed as the anti-capitalist elements within it are exterminated, as Hitler did in the night of the long knives. And, that has to be the case, because the fascists themselves know that the modern economy is one based upon large-scale socialised capital. Fascism, like Stalinism, rests upon this large-scale, socialised capital, as a transitional form of property. It is social-democracy sans democracy. The fate of the state itself depends upon the fortunes of that capital. The idea that such a state could revert to an economy in which the large-scale socialised capital could be subordinated to the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, and its small scale capital, is simply a reactionary delusion. That is why fascism should properly be described as conservative rather than reactionary. In Britain, today, the Libertarians/Anarcho-capitalists, like Rees-Mogg, the followers of Mises and Hayek, who truly do want to go back to the days of the mythical past, in which small scale capital, and all out competition reigned, are the reactionaries. Those that have used them as foot soldiers, in the Brexit campaign, but who seek a more authoritarian means of promoting large-scale capital, and, thereby the interests of shareholders, are conservatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment