The Political Situation (14/14)
The problem today, is not that of the 1920's/30's, of high wages squeezing profits as a result of an over-accumulation of capital, but of any rapid expansion of capital causing interest rates to rise from unsustainably low levels, so that even a tiny absolute rise, represents a huge proportional rise, which brings about a crash in asset prices, and, thereby, of the wealth and power of the owners of those assets, i.e. the top 0.01%. The owners of this fictitious capital, who represent the dominant section of the ruling class, thereby, find themselves in a dilemma. In the 1980's and 90's, they and their political representatives allied themselves with the forces of reaction, i.e. the petty-bourgeoisie and its political representatives. The former start out as the dominant element of this alliance, but as a consequence of its logic, they become weaker and weaker, until the latter overhaul them. The latter after all, comprises the owners of around 5 million small businesses in Britain, and their families, or around 15 million people in total, constituting about a third of the adult population, and electorate. Similar proportions apply in Europe and North America, and Asia.
This class is amorphous and disorganised, but when it comes to electoral politics that does not matter. It is able to exert its reactionary interests within the conservative parties, as it has done in Britain and Europe, and in North America, as well as in parts of Asia, where similar reactionary nationalist tendencies have been seen as, for example, in India. The owners of fictitious capital currently need fascism/Bonapartism like a hole in the head. They certainly do not need the kinds of associated ultra-nationalism that is often associated with it. The owners of fictitious capital, other than for the usual isolated mavericks, are opponents of Brexit, of Trumpism, of Orban, Erdogan and so on. Bonapartism – and fascism is merely a specific form of Bonapartism – arises when there is a stand-off between different social classes. That is essentially what exists today.
Cromwell arose as the nascent bourgeoisie was not yet strong enough to defeat the old landed aristocracy, the same is true with Napoleon I and III, and with Bismark. Stalin arises as the Russian workers liquidated the social base of the old landed aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, but were too weak to exercise political power in their own name. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco arise, because the working-class is able to challenge the capitalist class, but is not strong enough to defeat it, whilst the capitalist class is not strong enough to defeat the workers. But, the current stalemate is not one between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, it is one in which there is a stalemate between different sections of the capitalist class – on the one side the reactionary forces of small private capital (the petty-bourgeoisie) and on the other the owners of fictitious capital, and the middle class representatives of big socialised capital. Its this battle that plays out in the US, UK, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
The obvious thing for the owners of fictitious capital, and their political representatives to do would be to ally with the working-class, behind the interests of large scale socialised capital. But, they can't do that, because an expansion of that real socialised capital, means a rise in interest rates and crash in asset prices. Moreover, any such mobilisation involves the risk that once set in motion, the working-class may seek to go beyond the limits of progressive social-democracy, and assert its own class interests. The owners of fictitious-capital are still the dominant section of the ruling class. It is to their interests that the state addresses itself. The supporters of Trump are right to talk about the role of “the deep state”, as was Mogg in Britain, talking about the role of the permanent state, the courts etc., in attempting to frustrate Brexit.
As I wrote a while ago, the result is a conflict between two opposing Bonapartes. On the one hand, the representatives of the owners of fictitious capital, who have dominance within the state, use its mechanisms to try to bureaucratically frustrate Brexit, as they similarly try to frustrate Trump, and others like him, across the globe. As holders of state power that gives them considerable power, despite the small numbers that the top 0.01%, along with the middle class, constitute. But, against them stands the petty-bourgeoisie, much larger in numbers, now entrenched within conservative parties that have had considerable experience in exercising governmental office, and which has created for itself a shadow state apparatus, not only at a national but at an international level. It uses government office, wherever it obtains it, to undermine the capitalist state itself. The most obvious illustrations are of Orban in Hungary with his attacks on the judiciary and so on, as well as of Erdogan in Turkey, who locked up thousands of state officials, whilst in the US, Trump has tried at every step to undermine the state, and to place his own officials in opposition to it. In Britain, the challenges remain muted by comparison, represented by the pronouncements of Cummings, and the breaches of the Constitution by the government, whilst it has been forced to comply when defeated in the Courts.
In short, these are different conditions to those of the 1920's and 30's, both economically and politically.
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