In discussing Brexit and Trump, I have described how what is really going on is a conflict of material interest between two class camps. On the one hand, there is the camp of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and on the other hand there is the camp of social-democracy, of large-scale socialised capital, which combines the interests of the working-class, which is the real owner of that capital, and of the big bourgeoisie, the ruling class, which is the owner of fictitious capital, through which it exercises actual control over that socialised capital, and the state. The same conflict is being fought out, by similar means, in relation to COVID and vaccines.
From the 1980's onwards, the development of industrial capital was held back, most notable in the process described as “deindustrialisation”, in which many large-scale industries, in developed economies, disappeared, being relocated into developing economies that had large amounts of exploitable cheap labour-power. This process greatly increased the relative size and social weight of the petty-bourgeoisie across the globe. In developed economies, whilst large-scale capital accumulation was held back, as the ruling class focused its attention on building its wealth in the form of fictitious-capital (shares, bonds, property and their derivatives), large numbers of workers who lost their jobs, were turned into petty-bourgeois, living precariously from self-employment. In developing economies, the more rapid development of large scale industrial capital, also brought with it, increased domestic markets, and the growth of their own petty-bourgeoisie, which sprang up to meet the needs of this growing domestic market.
It was the growth of this petty-bourgeoisie, which is the material foundation of the growth of reactionary ideas, in the true sense of the word, i.e. ideas that seek, at least, to hold back capitalist development (let alone socialist development), and, if possible, to turn the clock backwards to a less developed form of capitalism, based upon small scale production. It is what provided the social forces that dominated existing conservative parties, both in terms of their core voters, and their membership, as well as the parties to the right of those conservative parties, such as the BNP and UKIP in Britain, and which acted as a goad to the existing conservative parties driving them ever rightwards on to the ground of these reactionaries.
As I have described before, we have two competing Bonapartisms. The reactionaries of the petty-bourgeoisie represent a minority, though, now a sizeable minority. Having captured existing conservative parties, and, opposed by feeble social-democratic forces, the reactionaries have been able to form governments, and attempt to pursue their agenda on that basis. But, this petty-bourgeoisie is not the ruling class, and the ruling class continues to control the state. The state, therefore, becomes the vehicle by which the ruling class seeks to thwart the reactionary agenda of the petty-bourgeoisie and its governments. The more it does so, by using various legalistic and bureaucratic mechanisms, the more this enrages the petty-bourgeois, who point to the undemocratic nature of these methods. The lack of democracy of the EU, and the way decisions were seen to have been taken over the heads of electorates, was one favourite means of the petty-bourgeois reactionaries stirring up opposition to it, for example, of course, exaggerated greatly, but, at least in part, based upon a real lack of democracy.
The ruling class, of course, has to rely on Bonapartism to counter the petty-bourgeoisie, because, in terms of numbers, it is phenomenally weak. It is the 0.01% of society that owns the large majority of fictitious-capital. It is bolstered by the existence of a sizeable middle class of day to day professional managers, whose interests lie in the growth of real industrial capital, and their equivalents within the state bureaucracy, the layers of trades union bureaucrats, and social-democratic politicians, whose social function is to manage society like a machine, and perpetuate the myth that the interests of capital and labour can be met harmoniously. Its whole ethos is that of statism and bureaucracy, and of fudge, rather than outright political class struggle against the offensive of the petty-bourgeoisie. To do the latter, would lead to the working-class, itself, being drawn into that struggle, and, as the largest class in society, but one that is kept in a condition of passivity and docility, by social-democracy, limited more or less to placing a cross on a ballot every few years, any mobilisation of that class risks it going beyond the bounds that the ruling class, and its social-democratic lackeys seek to keep it confined within.
The ruling class, therefore, uses its most effective weapon – the state – to defeat the petty-bourgeoisie, but, the more it does so, by means that increasingly must be seen as undemocratic, the more it acts to recruit forces to the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie itself, and the more that petty-bourgeoisie seeks to respond in like manner, to use its sources of strength, the numbers of the petty-bourgeoisie as a class, and its ability to form governments. And, these latter factors lead the petty-bourgeois reaction to also resort to undemocratic methods too, even though it has the advantage of being able to legitimise them via its control of government office. So, Boris Johnson, facing obfuscation over Brexit, used parliamentary procedure to close down parliament. In Hungary, the government has used its power to undermine the judiciary and so on. All the while, the leaders of these petty-bourgeois forces become more and more of the type of the charismatic leader, the politics increasingly that of the populist.
The social-democrats whose modus operandi always runs through the necessity for the state to act, rather than the class, is incapable of seeing that the more they use these methods, that increasingly then become seen as authoritarian, as well as just bureaucratic and undemocratic, simply pours fuel on to the flames of this growing populist revolt, a revolt that, as it develops, necessarily draws in not just the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, but also all of those layers of the proletariat that feels itself abandoned and without hope, as social-democracy has failed to provide it with any way forward.
As Trotsky put it,
"Fascism is a form of despair in the petit-bourgeois masses, who carry away with them over the precipice a part of the proletariat as well. Despair as is known, takes hold when all roads of salvation are cut off. The triple bankruptcy of democracy, Social Democracy and the Comintern was the prerequisite for fascism. All three have tied their fate to the fate of imperialism. All three bring nothing to the masses but despair and by this assure the triumph of fascism."
All of these layers are those which, in other times, provide the foot soldiers of fascism. Indeed, fascism seen as a petty-bourgeois movement that uses violent means to defeat its political opponents is pretty much what can be seen to be developing, as the political expression of the class interests of that petty-bourgeoisie. But, there is a difference between fascism, and national socialism. Fascism defines the political method of this petty-bourgeoisie, whereas national socialism, defines the class content of the political regime, which, during the 1920's and 30's, was established using fascism as the means of achieving it. The fascists always believe that what they are fighting to create is a political regime that will represent their interests as petty-bourgeois. Its what the Strasserites thought they were doing, in Germany, before Hitler liquidated them in The Night of the Long Knives.
In the 1920's and 30's, National Socialism and fascism were united, because the ruling class needed the fascists to subdue a large, class conscious proletariat, organised in mass working-class organisations that were able to win elections, as well as to organise direct action to take control of factories and so on, thereby, removing the basis of power of the ruling class – its ability to exercise control over industrial capital, and so over society. Having used the fascists for that purpose, it then largely disposed of them, and would have disposed of them even more had it been able to do so. The Strasserites were liquidated, and along with them their “anti-capitalist” agenda. In its place came an openly social-democratic agenda, geared to the needs of large-scale socialised capital.
In the late 1920's, the then Labour Minister, and Fabian Society member Oswald Mosely drew up his Mosely Memorandum, designed to deal with the problem of unemployment in Britain, and of the decayed condition of British capitalism. It was a basically Keynesian programme of state intervention to stimulate aggregate demand, and to encourage capital investment, built up behind tariff walls and other import controls. In content, it was very similar to the Alternative Economic Strategy put forward by Tony Benn, The Communist Party, and other social democrats in the 1970's. Supporters of Mosely's plan included that darling of the reformist Left, Nye Bevan. The later Labour Minister Richard Crossman described it as decades ahead of its time.
When Labour declined to take up Mosely's plans, he left to form the New Party, for which the Memorandum formed the basis of its economic strategy, and which he carried forward to the British Union of Fascists. But, the same agenda was to be found amongst all of the national socialists from the former socialist, Mussolini to Hitler, to Franco, as well as being essentially the agenda of Stalin, except that, in the USSR, it was the state itself which acted as state capitalist, rather than a ruling class of owners of fictitious capital fulfilling that function. National Socialism is the logical end point of social-democracy, itself based upon large-scale socialised capital, at that point when it reaches such mammoth proportions that it must become fused with the state itself, and planning and regulation by that state. It is social-democracy without the democracy, a democracy that could only rationally now take the form of a workers democracy, and control over the means of production, and the state.
As Lenin describes it,
"To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany. Here we have “the last word” in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organisation, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place of the militarist, Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state, but of a different social type, of a different class content—a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism."
(Left-wing Childishness)
And, that can be seen in relation to the response to COVID too. When it came to COVID, these two opposing class camps lined up behind, and tied themselves to two opposing lies. The reactionary petty-bourgeois camp lined up behind the lie that COVID was not real, and was all some kind of conspiracy. That played into the ideology of the petty-bourgeois of individualism, and individual liberty. If COVID did not really exist, as Trump and the other representatives of this reactionary petty-bourgeoisie were claiming, then, of course, there was no need for any actions to counter it, and, of course, no need for vaccines or vaccination. Indeed, if COVID did not exist, then the vaccines must have some other sinister purpose, which, for the extreme conspiracy theorists of this camp, becomes attempts at mind control and so on by the state. Once you have gone down that rabbit-hole, its hard to find your way back.
But, social-democracy lined up behind, and tied itself into, an opposing lie that not only was COVID real, but it posed an existential threat to all, which could only be confronted by the state acting via blanket bans and proscriptions to limit the rights and freedoms of all, in an unprecedented manner, since the inception of bourgeois democracy. It was clearly a lie, because COVID did not pose any such threat. Contrary to such claims, it posed a serious threat only to those aged over 60, or with seriously compromised immune systems. As Professor Mark Woolhouse says in his book, ‘The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir’. As Sraid Marx has commented,
“The day Britain went mad is reported as when ‘the No 10 briefing in March 2020, cabinet minister Michael Gove warned the virus did not discriminate. “Everyone is at risk,” he announced.’ To which Woodhouse responds: “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true. In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.”
“We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt. All this to protect the NHS from a disease that is a far, far greater threat to the elderly, frail and infirm than to the young and healthy.”
“We were mesmerised by the once-in-a-century scale of the emergency and succeeded only in making a crisis even worse. In short, we panicked. This was an epidemic crying out for a precision public health approach and it got the opposite.”
Having lined up behind that lie, and the COVID hysteria that went with it, it was equally difficult to find your way back from the labyrinth, because, the implication of that lie was the need for a COVID zero strategy, in which the aim was not just to reduce the number of deaths and serious illness from COVID down to the levels that are accepted for other viruses such as flu, but, not only must there be no deaths at all, but nor must there be even any infections, a goal that has proved impossible for all diseases other than a few like smallpox. And, if there are to be no infections, then the only way to achieve that is that everyone has to be vaccinated, whether they want it or not, whether they are likely to be ill or not, and whether they represent a danger to anyone else or not. That is not only irrational, but the illegitimate denial of basic civil liberties it implies, could have no other consequence but to add fuel to the fire of the anti-vaxxers and their wildest conspiracy theories.
Examining it, why should someone who does not want to be vaccinated have to agree to it, or else have their basic rights to free movement and so on taken away? For the vast majority, under 60, not being vaccinated implies no more risk to them than it has ever done, because, contrary to the lie, COVID, as Woolhouse states, is a highly selective virus that only seriously affects a small, and identified section of the population. So, why should those not part of that cohort need, let alone be required, to be vaccinated. It simply provides large profits for the drug companies that produced the vaccines. If those under 60 choose not to be vaccinated that is their choice, and one they take in the knowledge that, if infected, they are very, very unlikely to be seriously ill, whilst any such infection, provides them with natural immunity.
The argument is that if they are not vaccinated, then they might become infected, and, even if they are not ill, as a result, they could infect others. That argument is nonsensical. Firstly, being vaccinated does not prevent you from being subsequently infected, and so still being a carrier and, thereby, infecting others. So, if that is the concern, vaccination is not the solution to it, and so it necessitates a zero COVID strategy, which, in turn, would require a total lockdown of everyone until such time as the virus disappeared, and, as the virus is never going to disappear, that means a total lockdown for ever more, and a collapse of society as a consequence of it. Being vaccinated only ensures that your immune system is enabled to respond each time you are infected, by producing antibodies and cell immune responses to prevent the virus from multiplying and making you ill. Its why as Dr. Clive Dix has said, the idea of continually giving additional jabs should be dropped, other than for the elderly or those with compromised immune systems, because, also, once you have a level of immunity, regular infection with the virus is a good thing, because such infection itself acts like a booster, prompting your immune system to get back into gear.
Secondly, if the concern is that those who are not vaccinated will infect others, the answer to that is not to insist that everyone be vaccinated, but to ensure that those who are at risk, or who simply want to ensure they are protected against any such infection, can be vaccinated. I have been fully vaccinated, and so I have no issue with anyone who does not want to be, because, even if they come into contact with me, I feel secure that, even if they do infect me, I am not going to be ill. Otherwise what was the point of me being vaccinated? Why, therefore, should I seek to infringe their personal liberty by requiring them to be vaccinated if they don't want it? I see no reason why anyone else should have to be tested, to carry around vaccine passports or any of the other palaver, because, given that 90% plus of the population has been fully vaccinated – even all those who did not require vaccination anyway – the only people at risk are those who choose not to be vaccinated!
So, given that, its not hard to see why, when even at this point, we have demands that everyone be vaccinated, that, to do even the simplest things, citizens are required to be tested – even though its known the tests themselves are extremely unreliable – and should carry around what amount to being identity cards showing that they have complied with the irrational diktats of the state, that plays directly into the hands of the anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy theorists who can rightly point to the irrational, and authoritarian aspects of such requirements, requirements that social democrats have been at the forefront of demanding, as they have not just acquiesced, but actively encouraged a huge removal of basic liberties, and extension of the power of the state, and a growing Bonapartism.
Those social-democrats, having lined themselves up behind that lie, and having provided no independent working class perspective, could do no other than line themselves up behind the capitalist state, a capitalist state moving ever closer towards Bonapartism, as its chosen method of dealing with its opponents within the camp of petty-bourgeois reaction. Trying to defend an irrational stance itself necessitates an authoritarian, and bureaucratic response to the critics of it, and that is precisely what has happened, as the social democrats have tried to defend the lie of COVID as an existential threat, and have tried to defend the irrational nature of the lockdown strategy, and who now try to defend their insistence that everyone be vaccinated.
In some places, that requirement has been made absolute. In others it comes with sanctions against those who refuse. Those sanctions might be the requirement to agree to invasive and regular testing, despite its ineffective nature, the requirement to have a negative test before being allowed to engage in various activities, even though those carrying the virus pose no threat to anyone else who has immunity, or, as in the NHS, a requirement to be vaccinated or lose your job. For the latter, as I have said previously, the requirement is justifiable, because of the need to try to prevent staff from being ill, and also to help protect those patients who have compromised immune systems, but mostly because, such workers should be proponents of science over conspiracy theories. But, for everyone else, the various requirements for vaccination, and the sanctions against those who are not should be immediately removed.
The truckers in Canada, protesting the requirement for vaccine certificates have a point, even if those protests are being organised and fermented by extreme right-wing, and fascistic elements. Given widespread vaccination of populations in North America, what is the point of demanding that they not only be vaccinated, but submit to regular testing, and carry identity cards proving that they have done so? They pose no threat to everyone who has been vaccinated, or who has natural immunity! The demand for vaccination and the carrying of proof of negative testing is, indeed, an irrational removal of basic civil liberties, and indeed, a removal of the right of free movement. Its not necessary to offer any succour or support for the fascists and conspiracy theorists to, also, point to the irrational, and undemocratic actions of the social-democrats, which provide the fascists and conspiracy theorists with the fuel to their fire. And, finding themselves up against the Bonapartism of social-democracy, and its state, the petty-bourgeoisie then responds with its own Bonapartism, as it mobilises its mass, and seeks to install authoritarian governments that push in the opposite direction.
In a different context, its like the actions of social-democracy and Stalinism in the 1930's, which lined up behind the Bonapartist regimes of “democratic imperialism”, in opposition to the fascist imperialism of Hitler. In Britain, that Bonapartism took the form of the alliance between Labour and Tories in parliament, to form a national government. It imposed a wide range of restrictions on basic freedoms, and on trade union action; it incarcerated significant numbers of potential opponents as political prisoners, and so on. Only The Commonwealth Party of Tom Wintrigham and J.B. Priestley offered a working-class alternative to it, in elections. And, in France, the Popular Front of Stalinists and Social-Democrats represented the same kind of Bonapartism. Rather like the expansionism and aggressive stance of NATO imperialism as it surrounds Russia, today, so the aggressive stance of this “democratic imperialism” that had created the conditions for the coming to power of Hitler, by the conditions imposed under the Versailles Treaty, enabled him to point to the alliance of the social-democrats and Stalinists with this democratic imperialism, to rally the German people around him. As Trotsky put it,
"The democracies of the Versailles Entente helped the victory of Hitler by their vile oppression of defeated Germany. Now the lackeys of democratic imperialism of the Second and Third Internationals are helping with all their might the further strengthening of Hitler’s regime. Really, what would a military bloc of imperialist democracies against Hitler mean? A new edition of the Versailles chains, even more heavy, bloody and intolerable. Naturally, not a single German worker wants this. To throw off Hitler by revolution is one thing; to strangle Germany by an imperialist war is quite another. The howling of the “pacifist” jackals of democratic imperialism is therefore the best accompaniment to Hitler’s speeches. “You see,” he says to the German people, “even socialists and Communists of all enemy countries support their army and their diplomacy; if you will not rally around me, your leader, you are threatened with doom!” Stalin, the lackey of democratic imperialism, and all the lackeys of Stalin – Jouhaux, Toledano, and Company – are the best aides in deceiving, lulling, and intimidating the German workers."
In place of the fight between these two Bonapartisms, which amounts to a struggle between two sections of the bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie v the imperialist bourgeoisie, we urgently require a struggle by an independent working-class against both, a struggle for workers democracy, and workers control.
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