Prediction 3 – Populism Is Put In Retreat
The predictions in this post have been wholly borne out, along with the arguments set out as their basis. The day after the post, I reflected on the pathetic attempt at a coup, by Trump and his supporters. In the days and weeks that have followed, the various fascistic organisations involved have been subject to action by the US state that is breaking them apart. The state, through the civil courts, is pulling apart at Trump's property and financial empire, preparing the ground for legal actions against him, as well as combing through his tax affairs, and so on, which will provide the material for criminal charges against him. Investigation into all those around him, and their links to others, to Putin et al, continues to go on apace, and Congress, itself, is systematically investigating the January 6th coup attempt, to provide the basis of legal action, including charges of treason. Trump's long-time ideological mentor, and guiding light of global populism, Steve Bannon, has been indicted. In Britain, the threads of this web, are at an early stage of being unwound, but the release of papers by former MI6 operative, Christopher Steele, is indicative of the way that the state is beginning to move against the populists, and the petty-bourgeois interests they serve.
Populism is often described as being Left or Right, which is a fallacy, based upon idealism and subjectivism, wholly dependent upon the self-description of those involved. It comes down to the particular populists own verbiage, and the superficial targets of their ire, used to mobilise masses behind them. Left populists direct their ire at large-scale capital, the rich, and “imperialism”, whilst right-wing populists direct their ire at “foreigners”, organised labour and so on. Both replace class analysis with easy answers designed to unite a petty-bourgeois mass. The easy answers of both Left and Right Populists are both reactionary in nature, and the supporters of one can easily move to the other - the material basis of Red-Brown Fronts.
Lenin writing about the programme and ideology of the Russian Populists (Narodniks) described this reactionary nature, in relation to the Russian bourgeois-democrats (Narodnoye Pravo), let alone the Russian Marxists. Lenin argues that a recognition by the group of its liberal-idealist nature and aims, in the process of breaking away from its heritage in Russian peasant socialism, was a step forward, because it brought a degree of honesty and clarity. I have argued a similar thing in relation to the fact that the petty-bourgeois, liberal idealists of the AWL, appear also to be now on the verge of formally renouncing the Marxism within which they try to reconcile those actual politics, and which is the basis of their turmoil, and need to resort to dishonest, bureaucratic, and vulgar methods of responding to criticism both from within and from without.
Lenin discusses the unity drive launched by the bourgeois democrats of the Narodnoye Pravo group, to form an alliance to fight for political liberty against absolutism. But, this appeal had no foundation, because it ignored all the other questions, which defined the various organisations. Something similar can be seen in the way various petty-bourgeois groups have made similar appeals for the creation of organisations such as the Anti-Nazi League, Stop The War Coalition, and so on. These organisations are sometimes referred to as Popular Fronts, which is an inaccurate description, because a Popular Front actually exercises political power through government. These organisations are more properly defined as cross-class alliances, and as such they fall apart on contact with reality, when the question of political programme has to be addressed, or else to prevent that, the socialists have to subordinate their principles, so as to avoid the discussion of programme.
“But what is characteristic is that this “amalgamation” trend represents one of the last stages in the process of transformation of militant, revolutionary Narodism into politically radical democracy, a process which I have tried to outline above.”
(Lenin – What The Friends of The People Are, p 292)
The Marxists would welcome the development of a non-socialist, bourgeois-democratic party, Lenin says, but such a party would only be possible “when a durable programme of democratic demands has been drawn up that will put an end to the prejudices of the old Russian exceptionalism.” (p 292) This would, of course, facilitate the clarification of political lines, reflecting the division of society into two great class camps, because, whilst the bourgeoisie would form itself into such a democratic party, the workers would be organised under the banner of Marxism.
“The Social-Democrats, who consider essential the independent organisation of the workers into a separate workers’ party, could not, of course, “amalgamate” with such a party, but the workers would most strongly support any struggle waged by the democrats against reactionary institutions.” (p 293)
The Populists, however, were defenders of those reactionary institutions, which they saw as representing the traditional interests of “the people”, of the small producers, and barriers to capitalist development. Populists whether they describe themselves as Left or Right, seek to hold back the development of large-scale capital, in favour of small scale capital, because they are representatives of the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie.
Brexit was a classic example of that. Even when they claim to be representatives of workers, as was the case with the Sismondists and Narodniks, and today is seen with the Lexiters, the “anti-imperialists”, and “anti-capitalists”, in their ideology, they never get beyond the ideas of the petty-bourgeoisie. And, because the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie are themselves contradictory, reflecting the fact that it is a transitional class, continually in the process of differentiation, it is impossible to present a clear programme based upon class interest. It necessitates vagueness, and the prominent role of some charismatic leader, with the prime means of change coming from the top, from the state, with the masses brought on only as foot soldiers.
Populism thrives when the two main classes are weak, but as Marx describes in Wage Labour and Capital, and elsewhere, the condition for the working-class being strong is that capital is also strong, that capital is accumulating rapidly, and driving up the demand for labour-power. The populists, and the idealists and subjectivists see things standing on their head. They believe that workers condition improves as a result of workers becoming more organised in trades unions, etc., and becoming more militant. But, that requires that this change in consciousness comes about by some switch simply being turned on in their heads, unrelated to the material conditions surrounding them. Its this which leads them to the crude belief that any form of economic crisis, leads workers into such a response, whereas, the opposite is the case.
As Marx and Engels describe, it is the more rapid accumulation of capital that lessens the competition between the workers, enables their wages to rise, and so facilitates their own educational, cultural and political development, as well as facilitating their ability to combine to further their interests, which they now see more clearly. The same process, by contrast, increases the competition between different capitals. As Trotsky put it,
“It means a growing demand for goods, expanded production, shrinking unemployment, rising prices and the possibility of higher wages. And, in the given historical circumstances, the boom will not dampen but sharpen the revolutionary struggle of the working class. This flows from all of the foregoing. In all capitalist countries the working-class movement after the war reached its peak and then ended, as we have seen, in a more or less pronounced failure and retreat, and in disunity within the working class itself. With such political and psychological premises, a prolonged crisis, although it would doubtless act to heighten the embitterment of the working masses (especially the unemployed and semi-employed), would nevertheless simultaneously tend to weaken their activity because this activity is intimately bound up with the workers’ consciousness of their irreplaceable role in production.
Prolonged unemployment following an epoch of revolutionary political assaults and retreats does not at all work in favour of the Communist Party. On the contrary the longer the crisis lasts the more it threatens to nourish anarchist moods on one wing and reformist moods on the other. This fact found its expression in the split of the anarcho-syndicalist groupings from the Third International, in a certain consolidation of the Amsterdam International and the Two-and-a-Half International, in the temporary conglomeration of the Serrati-ites, the split of Levi’s group, and so on. In contrast, the industrial revival is bound, first of all, to raise the self-confidence of the working class, undermined by failures and by the disunity in its own ranks; it is bound to fuse the working class together in the factories and plants and heighten the desire for unanimity in militant actions.”
(Flood Tide)
In other words, workers higher living standards are not a consequence of their increased militancy and trades union organisation, but the increased organisation and militancy is itself the consequence of their higher living standards, which themselves result from the economic expansion, and demand for labour. The economic revival that got underway in 2021, was the material basis for such a change, and the further undermining of populism. But, the same limitations of that economic revival, resulting from the physical constraints on economies, brought about by lockouts and lockdowns, has necessarily limited that process also.
The main challenge for the ruling-class (the main owners of fictitious-capital) comes today not from the working-class, but from that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie whose economic and social weight has been significantly increased over the last 40 years, and whose political reflection is found in their control over traditional conservative parties such as the Tories in Britain, and Republicans in the US. Its in that sphere that the danger of fascism resides, but it is a fascism aimed directly at the ruling class, in the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, not on behalf of the ruling class directed at workers.
But, here, too, the ruling class faces a dilemma, because, as set out in yesterday's post, the potential for the ruling class to avoid a cataclysmic crash in asset prices has run its course. The best it might hope for is that it minimises such a crash, by having central banks buy up even more worthless paper, and also having workers pension schemes buy up worthless assets, with large numbers of gullible retail speculators picking up other assets before their prices crash. The development of phone apps, and commission free platforms, and proliferation of meme stocks, cryptocurrency etc. is the front runner of that.
It would then focus on driving up the rate of profit, and capital accumulation, so as to finance its interest payments and rents, but could only do so as a result of a high level of inflation, whilst wages were held down, causing a sharp fall in living standards. For the reasons set out above, in conditions of a rapidly expanding economy that could only be achieved by the use of draconian measures by a Bonapartist National Government of the kind that is being de facto created by Johnson and Starmer. Covid restrictions have been a good preparation for such an eventuality.
The comparison of the responses to COVID with the measures during war is apt. In 1939, when war broke out, my father was just 20, and working as an engineer at Rolls Royce in Crewe, making engines for Spitfires. In the next five years, he worked at nearly every other car factory in the Midlands, and the reason was that he was continually moved from one to another as a result of him acting to organise and represent the grievances of his fellow workers. In the end, he had his cards literally filled with black ink, so that he could not get another job, at which point he went into the army. In fact, during the war, all such opposition was made almost impossible, even without resort to the use of the bodies of armed men to prevent it.
The Stalinists, who had originally opposed the war, during the Hitler-Stalin Pact, came out to argue that it was now the class conscious worker who would strike-break in favour of the war effort. Labour, which had made Churchill Prime Minister, in the face of opposition from many on his own Tory benches, formed a National Government, with him, and so prevented any effective political challenge, via parliament. When elections did take place, it was National candidates that fought the election, thereby, removing any competition between Tory and Labour. Only the candidates from the Commonwealth Party of Tom Whittingham and J.B. Priestley offered workers a socialist alternative.
Today, we are seeing Covid used in a similar manner to create a National Government, backed by totalitarian methods of propaganda, by a 24 hour, war to wall, media that bombards homes directly sending the views of an elite, unchallengeable into the heads of the masses. Undoubtedly, this apparatus is going to be central to the requirements of the ruling class in rescuing itself from the inevitable financial crash to come.
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