Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 6 of 20

It is only exchange-value that is significant under commodity production and exchange, because it determines how many use-values the producer can obtain from the exchange/sale of their commodities. It is not that society, or the individuals within it, are no longer interested in consumption/use-value, and seek to maximise it for the least expenditure of labour, but that the means of achieving that are now changed. Each commodity producer, now, seeks to obtain more use-value for less expenditure of their own labour, i.e. to obtain more labour for less. 

The way of achieving that is to raise the efficiency of their production above the average, to reduce the individual value of their own production below the market value. In turn, this process, which creates winners and losers, brings about a differentiation into bourgeois and proletarians, and a development of capitalist production. But, this capitalist production, as Engels describes in his Supplement to Capital III, also, brings about a further change in the form of manifestation of The Law of Value. Under generalised commodity production and exchange, it manifests in the form that commodities exchange in proportion to their market-value, but under capitalism, that is no longer the case. Under capitalist production, they exchange at prices of production.

Under generalised commodity production and exchange, commodities exchange at their values, i.e. at their market value, and, in a money economy, at their market price. However, once capitalist production begins, the capitalist is primarily concerned with maximising their annual rate of profit, on the capital advanced. As the organic composition of capital, and rate of turnover of capital varies, for different types of commodity, the annual rate of profit is different in different spheres of production. Consequently, capital accumulates more rapidly in those spheres of production where the annual rate of profit is higher. Supply in those spheres rises relative to demand, so that the market price/price of production in these spheres is lower than the exchange value of the commodity, and vice versa.

But, as Marx and Engels set out, although this means that, under capitalism, the allocation of labour to production of different commodities is no longer determined by the value of those commodities, as occurred previously, but, now, by the requirement to maximise the annual rate of profit, that does not mean that The Law of Value ceases to operate under capitalism. It is simply that its form of manifestation is different. Taking production as a whole, the total prices/prices of production are equal to the total of values. The fact that, with a given quantity of labour, only a given quantity of use-values can be produced, determined by the labour-time each requires, continues to apply.

“At the same time it goes without saying that the laws which are valid for definite modes of production and forms of exchange also hold good for all historical periods to which these modes of production and forms of exchange are common. Thus, for example, the introduction of metallic money brought into operation a series of laws which remain valid for all countries and historical epochs in which metallic money is a medium of exchange.” (p 187)

As Marx sets out in A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, money arises, naturally, out of the production and exchange of commodities. The very process of repeated exchange of a growing range of produced commodities, leads to the use of just one of these commodities to act as an indirect measure of the value of all other commodities. This commodity becomes the money commodity. To perform this function, its own value, i.e. the labour-time required for its production, must be well established, and the commodity must be widely traded. As Engels sets out, cattle were, therefore, used widely as such a money commodity. But, they suffer numerous defects. Many of those defects are removed by using precious metal, such as silver and gold as the money commodity.

Again, Marx sets out the laws relating to the use of precious metal as the money commodity, in A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, and, on that that basis, he sets out the modification of those laws that arise from the subsequent use of metal and paper tokens, as currency, which have their own laws of motion.

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The Idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 12 of 15

The similarity, here, of the position of the Narodniks and today's petty-bourgeois Brexiters/Lexiters, and their equivalents in other countries is obvious.

On the basis of these comparisons, therefore, Lenin says, its apparent that it is the Marxists, not the Narodniks, who are the inheritors of the liberal heritage of the 1860's. Such a claim would, of course, be seen as heresy and damning, in itself, by Comrade Douglass, and other Left Brexiters.

“As far from renouncing the heritage, they consider it one of their principal duties to refute the romantic and petty-bourgeois fears which induce the Narodniks on very many and very important points to reject the European ideals of the enlighteners. But it goes without saying that the “disciples” do not guard the heritage in the way an archivist guards an old document. Guarding the heritage does not mean confining oneself to the heritage, and the ‘disciples” add to their defence of the general ideals of Europeanism an analysis of the contradictions implicit in our capitalist development, and an assessment of this development from the specific standpoint indicated above.”

Lenin spells it out more clearly in relation to the development of capitalism in Russia, but the same argument applies to the development of capital on an international/EU scale.

“One can “greet” the capitalism developing in Russia only in two ways: one can regard it either as progressive, or as retrogressive; either as a step forward on the right road, or as a deviation from the true path; one can assess it either from the standpoint of the class of small producers which capitalism destroys, or from the standpoint of the class of propertyless producers which capitalism creates. There is no middle way.”

The development of first the EEC, and, subsequently, the EU was such a similar development. Indeed, Lenin and Trotsky saw it that way, too, even at the start of the last century. They supported the idea of the formation of a United States of Europe, and the implications of that, were also set out by Trotsky, in The Program of Peace. Its not that we see a United States of Europe, still less the current EU, as in any way a sufficient development. On the contrary, as Lenin says above, we cannot confine ourselves “to these people’s ideals”, but the “ideal” of the EU, of a United States of Europe, is a higher stage of development from which to pursue our own proletarian ideals, of the end of national borders, and nation states, for the self-determination of the working-class and so on.

We do not confine ourselves to the limited bourgeois ideals of the EU, or even a United States of Europe, but as against the petty-bourgeois, Narodnik, Anarchist, Brexitism we “therefore strive to support, accelerate, facilitate development along the present path, to remove all obstacles which hamper this development and retard it.”

The reality is, as seen on numerous occasions, although the ideological representatives of the petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry, i.e. the Stalinists, centrists and anarchists, proclaim their hostility to the bourgeoisie, in the end, they always fail to break with them. The epitome of that is the Popular Front. It was seen in the Provisional Government in Russia, in 1917, when Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev, as well as the Mensheviks and S.R's sought to support the government of Kerensky, as against Lenin's demand of “Down With The Capitalist Ministers” and so on. It was seen in the position of the Stalinists and Mensheviks in relation to the Chinese Revolution, and again in the Spanish Revolution. As Trotsky put it,

“From April to September 1917, the Bolsheviks demanded that the SRs and Mensheviks break with the liberal bourgeoisie and take power into their own hands. Under this provision the Bolshevik Party promised the Mensheviks and the SRs, as the petty bourgeois representatives of the worker and peasants, its revolutionary aid against the bourgeoisie categorically refusing, however, either to enter into the government of the Mensheviks and SRs or to carry political responsibility for it. If the Mensheviks and SRs had actually broke with the Cadets (liberals) and with foreign imperialism, then the “workers’ and peasants’ government” created by them could only have hastened and facilitated the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But it was exactly because of this that the leadership of petty bourgeois democracy resisted with all possible strength the establishment of its own government. The experience of Russia demonstrated, and the experience of Spain and France once again confirms, that even under very favourable conditions the parties of petty bourgeois democracy (SRs, Social Democrats, Stalinists, Anarchists) are incapable of creating a government of workers and peasants, that is, a government independent of the bourgeoisie.”

(The Transitional Programme)

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Trump Screws MAGA & Starts A New US Forever War - Part 3 of 5

The JCPOA, thereby, also, strengthened the position of the more liberal, reformists within Iran, at a time when the regime of the mullahs was facing increased internal opposition. Here, however, is where the extent to which the separate interests of Netanyahu, and of the Zionist regime, does play a part. Zionism has no interest in fostering the rise of more liberal, reformist elements in Iran, or anywhere else, in the region. It was an ardent supporter of the Shah's dictatorship in Iran, providing support and training for the Shah's SAVAK, secret police and torturers, for example. One of the greatest threats to the Zionist regime in Israel, would, indeed, be if it was surrounded by bourgeois-democratic republics, because its ideology of continual colonisation and expansionism, in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, would no longer be covered by the distraction of the nature of the political regimes of its neighbours compared to it own claims to being a bourgeois-democracy. Zionism like all ethnonationalisms depends on the presentation of an external threat. Hence, also, its equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

In the case of Zionism that is all the more ludicrous, because it is by far the greatest military power in the region as well as being backed by the even greater military power of the US and European imperialism. It is the Zionist state, in Israel, that has continually been the one engaging in expansionism and annexation of territory, from the first days of its creation in 1947. It is the Zionist state that already has one of the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, which, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and so, also, does not allow any IAEA inspections.

The fact that it is the Zionist regime, which "does the dirty work" of US imperialism, in particular, in the Middle-East, or, as Joe Biden put it decades ago, “If Israel didn't exist, we would have to create it”, also, gives the Zionist state its own degree of leverage, a sort of wages of sin, for its efforts, alongside the huge financial and military support given to it. It depends, in the end, on US imperialism, but US imperialism requires it to act on its behalf, like a henchman employed by a super villain, and the henchman, decides how they will carry out those tasks, ensuring that, as far as possible, it does so, to, also, further its own particular interests. Its a bit like a corrupt, bureaucratic caste of CEO's, as with those at TYCO, or Enron, who are put in place, not to advance the interests of the company, but of the shareholders, and who, along the way, also line their own pockets. It is able to proceed on the basis that its easier to obtain forgiveness than permission, and, on every occasion, including in carrying out genocide in full public view, it has been given not only forgiveness, but, also, back dated permission.

On this occasion, its also, clear, as a result of Hegseth's penchant for making state secrets public, that the permission itself, was given, “months ago”, and not only given, but the detailed plans were also drawn up for the attack.

It again seems that Starmer, and the EU were used as dupes, and useful idiots, kept in the dark, until after the event, unable to present their own, independent position, or interests, as with their impotent offerings in trying to provide a coalition of the willing to support Ukraine, as the US increasingly detaches from it. They too can only limply bleat their support for the US action, and proclaim the irrelevant mantra that “Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon”, whilst of course, they are quite content for the blood and soil, ethnonationalists and religious zealots of the Zionist state to have one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals, as well as of chemical and biological weapons, as it commits genocide, and other crimes against humanity on a daily basis, as it continues its relentless expansion and colonisation of the region – “doing the dirty work of imperialism”, as Merz put it.

The only difference in the approach of the Trump regime, and that of the Biden regime is one of intellectual capacity and subtlety. Trump in his first term, scrapped the JCPOA, but had nothing to put in its place. Typical of Trump, there was a lot of hot air, but a failure to follow through. Inevitably, the advances made by the JCPOA were immediately lost, and Iran, began to process uranium at higher levels of purity, ready to use it as a bargaining chip, when Trump left the White House. In the meantime, as China expanded on the world stage, itself partly a result of Trump's trade war, and the re-routing of global trade flows by China, and US imperialism began to levy sanctions on Russia, and China, Iran was able to develop its own relations with these other, large and powerful sanctioned countries, as witnessed by the expansion of BRICS+, largely by-passing their effects. As a consequence, when Trump was replaced by Biden, in 2020, Iran was in a stronger bargaining position than it was when Biden left office, in 2016. In the next four years, therefore, Biden failed to simply reinstate the JCPOA, driving it, also, closer into reliance on the Zionist state.

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Northern Soul Classics - Help Me - Al Wilson

 

Friday Night Disco - The Whole Damned World Is Going Crazy - John Gary Williams

 

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 5 of 20

“Political economy is therefore essentially a historical science. It deals with material which is historical, that is, constantly changing; it first investigates the special laws of each individual stage in the development of production and exchange, and only when it has completed this investigation will it be able to establish the few quite general laws which hold good for production and exchange in all cases.” (p 187)

As Marx describes, in his Letter To Kugelman, explaining The Law of Value, therefore, it is such a general law, a natural law, applying to all modes of production, each of which has its own specific, historically determined, and limited laws of motion. This natural law operates differently, in every mode of production, in its manifestation through these specific, historically determined laws. The Law of Value, that value is labour, and the value of any product is determined by the labour required to produce it, and, consequently, that, with relatively scarce labour, society must allocate this labour accordingly, applies as much to the primitive commune or future communist society, as it does to slave society, feudalism the AMP, or capitalism. However, the specific manifestation of that is quite different, and operates via different laws of motion, in each of those different modes of production.

In the primitive commune, which produces directly to meet its own consumption needs, value is, necessarily, individual value. The labour involved is inextricably linked to the use-values produced. There is no competition, and so the labour is never compared with the labour of other communes producing the same things. As Marx and Engels described, for example, in A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, it is only when this labour, the individual value of the product, comes into competition with, and comparison to the individual labour/value of other products of the same species that value becomes market value, and labour becomes universal labour.

It does not change The Law of Value, only its form of manifestation, now, as the market value of commodities is different. Similarly, in societies based on direct production, not only does market value – the mean average individual value – have no relevance, but the comparison of this market value of A to the market value of B has no relevance either. However, as Marx sets out in Capital I, it has fundamental relevance in a society based on commodity production and exchange. For the product, under direct production, value or worth is understood as use-value, even though value/labour determines its production. But, under commodity production and exchange, use-value, for the producer ceases to exist, and only value expressed on its face, as exchange-value, is significant.

“We have one close at hand in the patriarchal industries of a peasant family, that produces corn, cattle, yarn, linen, and clothing for home use. These different articles are, as regards the family, so many products of its labour, but as between themselves, they are not commodities. The different kinds of labour, such as tillage, cattle tending, spinning, weaving and making clothes, which result in the various products, are in themselves, and such as they are, direct social functions, because functions of the family, which, just as much as a society based on the production of commodities, possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour. The distribution of the work within the family, and the regulation of the labour time of the several members, depend as well upon differences of age and sex as upon natural conditions varying with the seasons. The labour power of each individual, by its very nature, operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the whole labour power of the family, and therefore, the measure of the expenditure of individual labour power by its duration, appears here by its very nature as a social character of their labour.”

(Capital I, Chapter 1, Section 4)

“Now we know the substance of value. It is labour. We know its unit of measurement. It is labour-time. We have yet to analyse its form, which precisely stamps the value as an exchange-value.”

(Capital I, Chapter 1)

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The Idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 11 of 15

The enlighteners, in Russia, did not pose questions about capitalist development, and nor did their predecessors like Smith, Mill and Ricardo in relation to its development in Western Europe. Their revolutionary optimism was characterised by the fact that they argued for an unrestricted development of the productive forces, of production for the sake of production, and because they, therefore, aimed their fire at all of the vestiges of the old society that stood in its way. As Lenin continued, in a vein entirely relevant to today, and Brexit,

“Narodism posed the question of capitalism in Russia, but answered it in the sense that capitalism is reactionary, and therefore could not wholly accept the heritage of the enlighteners: the Narodniks always warred against people who in general strove to Europeanise Russia from the standpoint of a “single civilisation”; warred against them not only because they, the Narodniks, could not confine themselves to these people’s ideals (such a war would have been just), but because they did not want to go so far in the development of this, i.e., capitalist, civilisation. The ‘disciples” answer the question of capitalism in Russia in the sense that it is progressive, and they therefore not only can, but must, accept the heritage of the enlighteners in its entirety, supplementing it with an analysis of the contradictions of capitalism from the standpoint of the property-less producers.”

And, this sums up the difference between the Marxist, the liberal and the “left” Brexiters, today. The liberals, conservative social-democrats, sought to advance the idea of the EU uncritically, the Lexiters to oppose the EU, simply on the basis of it being a bigger, more developed capitalist club, just as they oppose bigger, more developed capitalist enterprises, whereas the Marxist sees precisely the fact that the EU is more developed, bigger, and so closer to socialism, as the reason to welcome it, just as we welcome the more developed forms of capital, as against the limitations of small capital, just as we welcome free trade as against protectionism, but not uncritically, not on the basis of the liberal, or conservative social-democrat, but on the basis, of arguing the need to go beyond the aspirations of the latter.

Lenin continued,

“By the nature of their aims, the first and last trends correspond to the interests of the classes which are created and developed by capitalism; Narodism, by its nature, corresponds to the interests of the class of small producers, the petty bourgeoisie, which occupies an intermediate position among the classes of contemporary society. Consequently, Narodism’s contradictory attitude to the “heritage” is not accidental, but is a necessary result of the very nature of the Narodnik views: we have seen that one of the basic features of the enlighteners’ views was the ardent desire to Europeanise Russia, but the Narodniks cannot possibly share this desire fully without ceasing to be Narodniks.”

The Stalinists represent a petty-bourgeois ideology, and the whole basis of their world view, summed up in the Popular Front, has been the need to subordinate the working-class to the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie. The same is true of all those other sections of the “Left”, which adopted the principles of the Popular Front, as their political activity collapsed into the routinism of party building, via immersion in one single issue campaign after another. The Anarchists are the epitome of those ideas of the peasant and petty-bourgeois, as first set out by Proudhon, and exposed by Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy. They begin by proclaiming their opposition to the bourgeoisie, and to the idea of the state, or structures, and, yet, always, end up both operating through bourgeois structures, and supporting the bourgeoisie and relying on its state. So, as we see in the letter from Comrade Douglass, he ends up, in supporting Brexit, thereby, being allied not only with the most reactionary sections of the petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, but also relying on the state – the bourgeois state – to defend those sections of the bourgeoisie! He not only supports Brexit, and, thereby, the existing British state as some kind of “lesser-evil”, but also supports the imposition of import controls, to protect “British” capital, as well as supporting nationalisation by the “British” capitalist state.

Proudhon drew the conclusion from his anarchism that trades unions were reactionary organisations, and, also, subsequently, opposed strikes by workers, and their demands for higher wages. Comrade Douglass may appear to be more advanced, in that regard to Proudhon, given his own illustrious record as an NUM militant, which we applaud, but, in reality, all that it shows is that, in practice, Comrade Douglass's proletarian class position, forced him to abandon the logic of his anarchist ideology, to recognise the need for organisation, for structure, and for, even a struggle for reforms, be they in the form of higher wages, or of other kinds, as a stepping stone to further progress. Unfortunately, those structures, and those reforms are, themselves bourgeois!

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Trump Screws MAGA & Starts A New US Forever War - Part 2 of 5

For the same reasons, Trump quickly became unpopular in his first term, and lost, even to the dreadful Biden, in 2020, and, has become even more unpopular in his second term, even more quickly, as all of the reality of his policies of economic nationalism, of tariffs and so on, have been quickly revealed. Tariffs are a tax on consumption, and those consumption taxes always hit the poorest, and least affluent, first and hardest. The poorest and least affluent, are always the lower reaches of the petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry, as well as those on fixed incomes such as the unemployed, and pensioners. It is those sections that were drawn behind the petty-bourgeois nationalist agenda of Trump, as well as of Farage/Brexit.

In the last week, that fracturing of the MAGA movement has become obvious. Not only was it seen in the inevitable split between Trump and Musk, as Trump proceeds to increase US debt even more disastrously, but it has been seen in the open warfare launched against Trump by the likes of his former ideologues and propagandists such as Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. It is clear that Trump's regime is, now, following the same agenda, in relation to the Middle-East, as that pursued by the previous Biden regime. Forget all the stuff, about Trump being a US dog wagged by the Zionist tail of Netanyahu. Zionism is just a useful tool for US imperialism to use, as the means of implementing its agenda in the Middle-East, as German Chancellor Merz, let slip, in the last week, admitting that the Zionist state was “doing their dirty work for them”. That agenda is driven by the emerging third imperialist world war, and the conflicting interests of US imperialism, Chinese/Eurasian imperialism, and European imperialism.

US imperialism, seeks to put an end to the increasing importance of Chinese/Eurasian imperialism in the Middle-East, symbolised, some time ago, by the role of China in brokering a rapprochement between Saudi-Arabia and Iran, but whose real, material basis is the growing economic power of Chinese capital, as manifest in its wide-ranging overseas, direct investments, and its growing trade relations, strung together across Eurasia, and the Middle-East, by its “Belt and Road Initiative”. Forget about any US concern about China having strategic control over Gulf oil supplies, because the US is self-sufficient in oil, and, as seen, when it pressured the EU to boycott Russian oil and gas, and made sure by blowing up the Nordstream pipelines, it directly benefits when those oil and gas prices rise. For the same reason, Iran is unlikely to block the Straits of Hormuz, even if it could, because that would damage the interests of its Chinese/Eurasian allies, as well as of the other oil exporters in the region, whose support, Iran is going to seek, now, more easily, in presenting the picture of a western/Zionist Crusader army, again seeking to subjugate it.

The only difference, here, between the approach of the Trump regime, and that of the previous Biden regime, is one of subtlety, and intellectual capacity. US imperialism, under Obama had negotiated the JCPOA, because it was not eager to begin a shooting war with Iran. The JCPOA understood, based on CIA intelligence, going back to 2003, that Iran was not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, and that, although the enrichment programme, had little or nothing to do with its requirements for a civilian nuclear energy programme, what it was about was providing Iran's leaders with a bargaining chip. It basically, said, remove the sanctions you have put on us, since the 1979 Revolution, and we will agree to limit the degree of uranium enrichment, and we will allow a full regime of international inspection by the IAEA to monitor it.

Even before the bunker buster strike on Fordow, a number of scientists and engineers had question how effective it could be.  It depends on going straight down for 200 feet, before exploding.  But, Fordow's facilities were said to be at least 300 feet down.  Moreover, it is build under a mountain, whose surface is very uneven, comprising numerous natural, pyramidal structures, which act to deflect the bombs sideways, rather than going straight down.  This is similar to the way that bullet proof vests work, or that varied structures in the armour of tanks, work to deflect shells, so as to minimise their effects.  That kind of deflection of the bombs, sideways, is consistent with the released images of a lot of devastation on the surface, rather than at depth.  According to the leaked US Intelligence assessments, that is also what seems to be the case, contradicting the narrative of Trump, and saying that the the Iranian nuclear programme has been put back only a matter of a few months.

That is besides the fact that much of the already enriched uranium had been removed, and stored elsewhere.  All that this crude response has done, compared to the permanent solution offered by the JCPOA, is to strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners, and to illustrate the importance of following the example of the Zionist regime and others, of developing in secret, keeping out the IAEA, and actually developing your own nukes so as to deter aggression!  That, now, seems to be the course that Iran is set upon.  

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 4 of 20

A parallel between that and today can be made, in that, today's global ruling class of speculators and coupon-clippers, have little scope to spend their increasing wealth, from interest/dividends/rents, other than on an ever more extravagant conspicuous consumption, for example, their own space craft, and a continual feeding back of that wealth into the purchase of financial and property assets that drives those prices ever higher. Their only other option is to revert to becoming private owners of industrial capital, which some have sought to do, but that has limited scope too, in the era of socialised capital and imperialism. Moreover, any actual investment in real industrial capital, as opposed to simply the purchase of existing shares/bonds/property, i.e. speculation, means an expansion of the real economy, and demand for labour raising relative wages and squeeze on profits, and, also, a consequent increase in the demand for money-capital, causing interest rates to rise, and so reducing asset prices, which is what the ruling class seeks to avoid.

The fact that the Pharaohs and other such dynasties, for example, in China and India engaged in this conspicuous consumption, however, did have other consequences. To meet their consumption needs, it meant that skilled craftsmen developed in producing jewellery etc. It also developed architecture and construction, and along with it mathematics. Similarly, when the feudal aristocracy began to have the potential to buy an increasing range of exotic commodities, as the Americas and East Indies were opened up by merchant adventurers, it meant that they bought these new commodities with money, driving a shift in the payment of feudal rent from Labour Rent to Rent in Kind, to Money Rent and taxes, which drives a shift, also, to the production of commodities, sold for money, in order to pay these money rents and taxes.

A similar development to the AMP occurred in South America. But, in North America, with large open spaces, and sparse populations, the material conditions favoured a continuation of societies based on hunting and gathering. The same was true in Australia. In Western and Northern Europe, neither weather conditions nor soil conditions were as favourable as in the Nile Delta or Mesopotamia. For a long time, hunting and gathering continued to dominate, but the weather conditions did not require the same focus on large civil engineering works that formed the basis of the AMP. For many societies, the mode of production was based on pillage, as with the Vikings.

None of these modes of production arise as a consequence of acts of conscious will, but evolve, purposively, as a consequence of societies adapting to the specific conditions in which they exist. Of course, the very act of producing, itself, changes those material conditions.

“The conditions under which men produce and exchange vary from country to country, and within each country again from generation to generation. Political economy, therefore, cannot be the same for all countries and for all historical epochs. A tremendous distance separates the bow and arrow, the stone knife and the exceptional occurrence of exchange transactions among savages from the steam-engine of a thousand horse power, the mechanical loom, the railways and the Bank of England. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego have not attained mass production and world trade, any more than they have bill-jobbing or a Stock Exchange crash. Anyone who attempted to bring the political economy of Tierra del Fuego under the same laws as are operative in present-day England would obviously produce nothing but the most banal commonplaces.” (p 186-7)

Duhring, of course, did want to reduce everything to the same set of absolute laws, relevant to all societies, everywhere in the universe, and for eternity. Bourgeois ideology proceeds on a similar basis. How many TV programmes do you see in which ancient Roman society, for example, is reduced to the same kind of class and productive relations of capital and labour we have today, other than simply less advanced or developed?

I remember as an undergraduate being in a politics tutorial with the late Margaret Canovan, who asked us what the main difference was between feudalism and capitalism. I, of course, replied that feudalism was based on direct production, whereas capitalism was based on generalised commodity production and exchange. You can imagine my astonishment, and that of another Marxist in the tutorial, then, when Dr. Canovan responded by saying that this was preposterous, or words to that effect. After the tutorial, myself and the other Marxist comrade went to speak to our Economics Professor, the late Les Fishman, and put the same question to him, asking whether capitalism was so distinguished, to which, of course, as a Marxist, himself, he concurred.

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The Idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 10 of 15

In 1914, the big imperialist powers went to war with each other, driven by the economic factors, discussed earlier, the need to create ever larger, single markets, in order that capital could produce on ever larger scales, and be able to sell into them. At first, the new large workers' parties that had been created, at the end of the 19th century, during a period of long wave expansion, and which, nominally, adhered to the ideas of Marxism, opposed the drive to war by their own ruling classes. But, in the end, having failed to overthrow those ruling classes, mostly because those parties clung to the ideas of reformism and Fabianism, they found themselves having to deal with the reality that a large section of workers themselves were being drawn in behind the war wagon. They capitulated, and found “socialist” reasons as to why they had to back their own rulers in slaughtering the workers of other countries.

In other words, they became “social patriots”, arguing that they needed to ally with their own ruling class to “defend the fatherland”. That soon became a justification, not only for such defence, but, also, for offence, for the invasion of other nations, for the annexation of their land and so on, in other words “social imperialism”. That same approach exists today on the part of the social patriots and social imperialists. The latter, for example, line up behind their own ruling class, and NATO to promote the war against Russia, using the same arguments used to support the war against Germany in 1914, invading “poor little Belgium”, and so on. Now Ukraine sends NATO produced munitions to blow up bits of Russia in Moscow, and as far away as Vladivostok! Those in the labour movement who back Brexit, whether they call it Lexit or not, simply follow the example of the “social patriots”, in 1914 and 1939, in lining up with their own national bourgeoisie. Except that, today, unlike 1914 or 1939, when it comes to Brexit, they are not even lining up with their own bourgeoisie, but worse, with the most reactionary sections of the petty-bourgeoisie!

They are like their Russian equivalents, the Narodniks, described by Lenin, who, as representatives of the peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie, despite their own intentions, ended up,  actually being reactionary compared to the liberal bourgeoisie (Enlighteners).

“The enlightener believes in the present course of social development, because he fails to observe its inherent contradictions. The Narodnik fears the present course of social development, because he is already aware of these contradictions. The “disciple” (Marxist) believes in the present course of social development, because he sees the only earnest of a better future in the full development of these contradictions. The first and last trends therefore strive to support, accelerate, facilitate development along the present path, to remove all obstacles which hamper this development and retard it. Narodism, on the contrary, strives to retard and halt this development, is afraid of abolishing certain obstacles to the development of capitalism. The first and last trends are distinguished by what may be called historical optimism: the farther and the quicker things go as they are, the better it will be. Narodism, on the contrary, naturally tends to historical pessimism: the farther things go as they are, the worse it will be.”

(The Heritage We Renounce)

This, of course, illustrates the reactionary nature, itself, of what has passed for Marxism, at least over the last 80 years. As Lenin says, genuine Marxism has more in common with the bourgeoisie and its liberal ideologists than it does with the petty-bourgeoisie and its illiberal, reactionary and protectionist ideologists, and yet much of the Left has put itself in the position of forming alliances with, and usually playing second fiddle to, the latter. In pursuing Brexit, “anti-imperialism”, and “anti-capitalism”, it has necessarily associated itself with those sentiments expressed by the petty-bourgeoisie, and its ideologists, even though their criticisms are derived from a reactionary and pessimistic perspective, as opposed to the revolutionary and optimistic perspective of genuine Marxism.

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Trump Screws MAGA & Starts A New US Forever War - Part 1 of 5

As Trump's, reactionary, petty-bourgeois, MAGA coalition fractures, under the reality of his regime's policies, he has screwed the base, and drawn the US into another of its forever wars, possibly the biggest, and most devastating of all, as he launched his unprovoked attack on Iran, in support of the expansionist aims of his friend Netanyahu, and the Zionist regime in Israel. It is a sort of equivalent to Hitler's Night of The Long Knives against the Strasserites, and an indication that Trump' himself has become captive of the “deep” state, i.e. the US capitalist, permanent state. The extent to which that is so, is that this represents simply a continuation, by Trump's regime, of the strategy already begun under the Biden regime.

Hegseth, in his Press Conference, has let the cat out of the bag, revealing that this attack was planned MONTHS AGO, meaning long before any 60 days for negotiation, or even before the start of the Zionist bombing of Iran!

The main strength of the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry and of their political movements, is, also, simultaneously, their greatest weakness. Their strength is their numbers. It is why the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry is most significant when it comes to being able to use those numbers passively, for example, in elections, referenda and so on. But, that is only a strength when those numbers can be mobilised in a single direction. Usually, that single direction is in opposition to something, rather than in favour of something, as an alternative. It is why leaders of such movements, so much favour plebiscites, posing a vague and superficial choice, as with Brexit.

But, that is, also, simultaneously, the greatest weakness, because, unlike the bourgeoisie or the working-class, the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry is far less homogeneous in its class interests, whether recognised or not. The petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry is heterogeneous differentiated between poor small peasants through to richer peasants, for example, and, similarly, with the petty-bourgeoisie comprising, the self-employed through to the small family run corner shop, through to the medium sized enterprise. And, all of these variations are criss-crossed by other cleavages of the type of business operated, and so on. It is why Marx and Engels noted, nearly 200 years ago, that such a heterogeneous mass could not form itself into a class for itself, and so into a ruling class. It would always, end up fracturing into parts, along these fault lines, and dragged behind one of the main classes – the bourgeoisie and working-class. To the extent the petty-bourgeoisie/peasantry did exert any kind of independent political role, it would be on the basis of some form of Bonapartism, of being drawn behind a strong, charismatic leader, able to impose some sense of unity, and direction upon it.

But, that implies, when such a Leader assumes power in society, the reality of those divisions begin to erupt, and fracture the mass. The more it requires an imposition of order, and authoritarian rule. Hence, The Night of The Long Knives. In fact, as Trotsky described, in relation to the rise of the Nazis, in Germany, in the 1930's, this weakness of the petty-bourgeoisie means that a limit on its electoral success requires it, when that limit is reached, to already be moving in the direction of an abandonment of those parliamentary methods, and to prepare for a coup.

“the main strength of the fascists is their strength in numbers. Yes, they have received many votes. But in the social struggle, votes are not decisive. The main army of fascism still consists of the petty bourgeoisie and the new middle class: the small artisans and shopkeepers of the cities, the petty officials, the employees, the technical personnel, the intelligentsia, the impoverished peasantry. On the scales of election statistics, a thousand fascist votes weigh as much as a thousand Communist votes. But on the scales of the revolutionary struggle, a thousand workers in one big factory represent a force a hundred times greater than a thousand petty officials, clerks, their wives, and their mothers-in-law. The great bulk of the fascists consists of human dust.”

(Trotsky – Germany Is The Key To The International Situation)

In fact, today, with the proletarianisation of all those white-collar, professional jobs even that layer is no longer a significant reservoir for the fascists, and far-right nationalists. That professional middle-class is far more likely to represent a reservoir for a progressive opposition to it, as seen in the votes over Brexit, and in relation to the votes in US Presidential elections. On the other hand, as a result of the deindustrialisation of the 1980's and 90's, the size of the petty-bourgeoisie itself has grown, by 50% since that time, in large part comprised of these former industrial workers, now fallen into the ranks of the self-employed, the petty trader and so on. But, it is still a minority, comprising only around 30% of the population, in developed economies, though it may also draw in behind it, at times, a section of backward workers. Its why, for example, only 37% of the electorate voted for Brexit, and why, despite the current hype, Farage will not become Prime Minister.

"It is stupid to believe that the Nazis would grow uninterruptedly, as they do now, for an unlimited period of time. Sooner or later they will drain their social reservoir. Fascism has introduced into its own ranks such terrific contradictions, that the moment must come in which the flow ceases to replace the ebb. This moment can arrive long before the fascists have united about them even half of the votes. They will not be able to halt for they will have nothing more to look for here. They will be forced to resort to an overturn.

But even apart from all this, the fascists are cut off from the democratic road. The immense growth of the political contradictions in the country, the stark brigands’ agitation of the fascists, will inevitably lead to a situation in which the closer the fascists approach a majority, the more heated the atmosphere will become and the more extensive the unfolding of the conflicts and struggles will be. With this perspective, civil war is absolutely inevitable. Consequently, the question of the seizure of power by the fascists will not be decided by vote, but by civil war, which the fascists are preparing and provoking."

(For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism)

The main strength of the petty-bourgeois nationalists has been the absence of any unified, progressive alternative to them.

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 3 of 20

The driving force of The Law of Value, compels all societies to adapt to the material conditions they face, by continually raising labour productivity, so as to relax the constraint that the scarcity of labour places on its production, and, thereby, consumption. In turn, this drive to raise productivity leads to changes in the method of production. Societies quickly learn to utilise a division of labour, some hunting and gathering, some engaged in horticulture/agriculture, some in pottery production, others cloth and so on. As Marx notes, contrary to Adam Smith, this division of labour occurs long before the existence of trade, and is a precondition for it.

But, it is these changes in production technique, to continually raise productivity that, also, then, drive changes in productive relations, in distribution relations, in the method and nature of exchange and consumption. Engels notes, in relation to Production and Exchange,

“Each of these two social functions is subject to the influence of what are for a large part special external factors, and consequently each has, what are also for a large part its own special laws. But on the other hand, they constantly determine and influence each other to such an extent that they might be termed the abscissa and the ordinate of the economic curve.” (p 186)

The mode of production that evolves in each society, is no more the consequence of an act of conscious will by the members of that society than the fact that, in conditions of soot blackened trees, during the Industrial Revolution, species of moth become considerably darker than they had been, so as to better be camouflaged. The moths did not consciously decide to be darker to better be camouflaged, it was simply that the darker one's survived and passed on their genetic characteristics, which, in turn, became enhanced in future generations, i.e. the darker ones of the next generation survived, and so on.

But, likewise, the material conditions facing societies, at different times, and in different places, are also not the same. When the use of coal for fuel ended, in the 1960's and 70's, and air pollution was, thereby, greatly reduced, in Britain, the moths that had evolved to be darker now began to become lighter again, because it was the darker moths that were less well adapted to the changed cleaner conditions. Similarly, in the process of social development, some societies faced harsher conditions, some more favourable conditions for production, and that influenced their allocation of scarce labour, and production decisions.

Settled agriculture, and with it civilisation, began in the Nile Delta, and in Mesopotamia. It was facilitated by the natural material conditions of the weather, and rich alluvial soils. It meant that labour expended on this activity was highly productive. Indeed, the productivity of this labour meant that sufficient food and agricultural products could be produced, whilst releasing labour for other activities. The society, also, needed to understand the regular times in which the river flooded, for example, which led to a study of astronomy. It, also, meant a requirement for skilled builders and architects, to produce earthworks and so on, which becomes a feature of all such societies based on the Asiatic Mode of Production.

The story of Joseph, in The Old Testament, is apocryphal, in the way it describes the way an understanding of these regular cycles enabled some to prosper, and to form themselves, over a very long period of time, into a ruling caste/dynasty. But, for example, in relation to the Pharaohs, it also illustrates the limitations. The facility to produce the basis consumption needs, particularly once the construction of various earthworks are completed, released large amounts of labour for other purposes, but to what effect? It was long thought that the huge amounts of labour required to build the pyramids was done by slave labour, but we now know that they were built by the free labour of highly skilled masons. The immense and accumulating wealth of the pharaohs, resulting from their appropriation of the surplus labour of society, had little scope for its use, outside the continual amassing of treasure in precious metal ornaments, and ever grander buildings.

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Northern Soul Classics - Easy Baby - The Adventurers

 

Friday Night Disco - That's The Way I Want Our Love To Be - Joe Simon

 

The Idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 9 of 15

So, returning to the lazy argument of Comrade Douglass, what difference does it make that on the side of “Leave”, in the 2016 Referendum, were the Stalinoid, “Traditional left leaders of unions and the Labour left”, whilst on the other side, the side of “Remain”, were “the whole of the establishment - from the Confederation of British Industry to the leaders of all three political parties, the heads of the armed forces, the police, the EU, the International Monetary Fund... Nato, the US president, etc.”?

If we ask, rather, the question, which of these two sides, if any, represented progressive development, as against reactionary regression, which was how Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky approached matters, then, the answer is clear. It is the latter, the forces seeking to remove the restrictions on further development of capital, the restrictions on free movement, and creation of ever larger single markets, the free movement of labour, and potential to break down the outmoded national borders that separate workers in one country from those in another.

Just as it was the industrial bourgeoisie, in the 19th century that represented progress, as against the old landed aristocracy, and its allies amongst the commercial bourgeoisie, and financial oligarchy, who sought a continuation of their equivalent of Brexit – The Corn Laws and the system of protective tariffs – so, too, today, it is the representatives of large-scale, monopoly capitalism/imperialism that represent progress, as against the sections of backward, small scale capital and the petty-bourgeoisie. That sections of the labour movement have decided to back the wrong horse, just as they have for the last century, is simply an indication of their own idiocy, an idiocy that has taken the cause of the working-class backwards rather than forwards.

In the 19th century, the leading role was still played by the industrial bourgeoisie that drew the working-class behind it, leading, after the defeat of Chartism, to the advanced workers seeking their political advance via the party of the industrial bourgeoisie, The Liberal Party. But, as Marx sets out in his Address of 1850 to the Central Committee of the Communist League, that situation was coming to an end, because, as the workers became the largest class in society, became organised, and became increasingly conscious of their own class interests, so too, in proportion, they would be forced into taking the leading role themselves, a dynamic of permanent revolution, and meaning that, in equal proportion, the bourgeoisie would become reluctant to mobilise that working-class, even to pursue its own ends, and would, instead, always pull back, compromise, and ally itself with its own class enemies against the workers. That reality was understood by Trotsky, as set out in the theory of permanent revolution, and in practice by Lenin, as set out in The April Theses, and Letters On Tactics.

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 2 of 20

The relationship between production (supply) and consumption (demand) is, then, driven by production, and by the scarcity of labour, as Marx sets out in describing The Law of Value. It is, also, what drives societies to seek to loosen that constraint by raising productivity. As Marx discovered, therefore, it is The Law of Value, which acts in the realm of social evolution, in the same way that the Law of Natural Selection works in biological evolution. Biological species do not change and evolve as a result of some conscious act of will of members of the species, as Duhring suggested, but as a result of adaptation, i.e. those whose characteristics are best adapted to the conditions survive and prosper, and those characteristics are passed down, in their genes, to their offspring and so become dominant.

Similarly, as Marx and Engels describe, and as Lenin noted, as against Mikhailovsky, the evolution of social organisms – societies/modes of production – does not arise as a consequence of an act of conscious will by members of those societies, but arises on the basis of a similar unconscious process, taking place behind their backs, by which those best adapted to the material conditions thrive and prosper, and their characteristics are, then, spread to other societies.

It is, for example, those best adopted to bourgeois commodity production and exchange that survive and become capitalists. It is capitalist production that, then, becomes dominant, and destroys feudal and other forms of production. But, as Marx and Engels, also, set out, in The Communist Manifesto, it is, then, not just in the one society, where this occurs.

“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

It is why today's “Reactionists” and “Barbarians”, such as the Brexiters, Trumpists and Starmerists, with their “intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners”, are an historical anachronism.

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The Idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 8 of 15

Marx and Engels did not see the fact that, at this stage, “every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie”, being in any way a problem. Those old classes were not just the enemy of the bourgeoisie, but of the workers too. So, whenever those old feudal classes sought to appeal to the workers, on the basis of an attack on the iniquities of industrial capitalism, the workers, quickly saw through them.

“In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe.”

(ibid)

A similar appeal and warning of coming catastrophe, comes from today's Malthusians, environmentalists, and catastrophists, seeking to enlist the workers in a utopian and reactionary venture to reduce or reverse industrial development.

“In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.”

(ibid)

The fact that the landed aristocracy was an enemy of the bourgeoisie, did not make it the friend of the workers, on the basis of “my enemy's enemy is my friend”, which is the concomitant of the concept of lesser-evilism. But, nor did the fact that the landed aristocracy was the enemy of both the workers and the bourgeoisie, make the bourgeoisie the friend of the workers. They shared a common enemy, that is all. In the words of Trotsky, and the United Front, set out earlier, it required them only to “strike together”, even as they “marched separately”.

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, I - Subject Matter and Method - Part 1 of 20

“Political economy, in the widest sense, is the science of the laws governing the production and exchange of the material means of subsistence in human society. Production and exchange are two different functions. Production may occur without exchange, but exchange — by the very fact that it is an exchange of products—cannot occur without production.” (p 186)

In The Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy, Marx elaborates on these ideas, separating Production, Distribution, Exchange and Consumption.

In all modes of production, these functions exist to one extent or another. The mode of production determines not only the method of production, but also of distribution, exchange and consumption. In the primitive commune, production is a collective, cooperative operation, whether it is hunting and gathering, or agriculture, or village industry. The collective product is, then, also distributed on the same basis. That does not preclude exchange of products, following such distribution, as members of the commune may exchange some of their share with others, and the commune, as a whole, may exchange products with other communities, which, itself, becomes the foundation of trade.

What it does mean is that the scale of exchanges is very limited, and is an exchange of products not of commodities. Consumption is also determined by this mode of production, both because it often occurs, itself, as a social function, a communal act, rather than an individual act of consumption, and because the communal consumption results in communal decisions about what should be produced, given the available labour and resources to produce it.

The question posed by modern, bourgeois governments and societies of “can we afford it?”, meaning do we have the “money” to do something, does not arise, because, for such societies, if they can do it, i.e. if they have the required labour and resources, they can afford it! The only question, for them, is whether they obtain greater utility from expending scarce labour doing one thing, rather than doing another. In such societies, the only scarce thing is labour. Ruth Bunzel in Frank Boas' “General Anthropology” (p 346) says primitive people consider only labour “scarce”.

This, of course, is an example of how, although production determined distribution, exchange and consumption, consumption (demand) also determines production (supply). So long as labour is scarce, it is always production (supply) that is primary, because it limits what can be produced, before it can be consumed. It is what drives The Law of Value, and dynamic of societies to always raise the level of social productivity. A society that really liked truffles might expend all of its available labour-time on such production, but would quickly cease to exist, because the truffles obtained would not provide it with the nutrition required, let alone the clothes, shelter and so on. Only when such a society develops its labour productivity to a level where it can produce all of these other things, and have surplus labour to devote to finding truffles, including having bred pigs that can sniff them out, can it diversify its production in that way.

Similarly, a society might realise that if it can construct a large dam on a river, it can control water flow, and use it to irrigate land, and so on, significantly improving its agricultural production. However, if it diverted all, or a disproportionate amount of its labour to the construction of the dam, and so neglects its immediate food production, it will run out of food to feed itself, including those working on the dam. This was the problem faced by the Bolsheviks in the 1920's, in trying to balance the need to rapidly industrialise a backward, largely peasant economy, with the need to still provide the consumption goods to supply its population.

Back To Part I, Philosophy.  XIV. Conclusion

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The idiocy of Left Brexitism and Its Twin - Part 7 of 15

The “anti-capitalists”, in reality, are simply opponents of the most mature, progressive forms of capital, i.e. of large-scale monopoly capital, and the immediate corollary of that is to posit, the less mature forms of capital, as in some sense a “lesser-evil”. That is what the Stalinoid “anti-monopoly alliance” is all about. Marxists, by contrast, see the petty-bourgeoisie, as the main immediate threat, as Lenin set out, in Left-Wing Childishness, and far from being “anti-capitalist”, see in its more mature forms, the basis for the creation of Socialism, the next rung on the ladder, as Lenin puts it. Our goal is not to be “anti-capitalists”, not to seek to negate that large-scale capital, which, as socialised capital, is already the collective property of the working-class, by setting it to zero, as in crushing it under foot, but is to negate it by taking it to its next level, raising it to a higher power, as we take control of what is already our collective property. To negate it by sublating it, as Engels puts it.

The same is true with the “anti-imperialists”, who confuse the methods of imperialism for achieving its aims, as against the aims themselves, as Trotsky set out in The Program of Peace. The aim of imperialism, its historic task, of creating a single world market, via ever larger single markets, and, thereby, the destruction of all national borders, nation states, and other such limitations, is entirely rational and progressive. Its means of doing so by imperialist wars, and annexations, however, is not, which is why we seek to pursue the former, and oppose the latter. In its place, we argue and organise for the voluntary association of nations, and, at all times, for the unity of, and self-determination of workers across existing borders.

Marx and Engels saw no difficulty in recognising the historic role of capital as being progressive, without having to accept any requirement to call on workers to simply lie down, and allow it to roll over them. On the contrary, the struggle of workers, within that capitalist development, to defend their own interests within it, is what creates the dynamic for its ultimate transformation into Socialism. Capitalism played a progressive role, not just in developing the forces of production, required for Socialism, and by sweeping away all of the old feudal monopolies, rural idiocies, and provincial borders, but, also, in mobilising the working-class behind it, to fight their common enemy, the old landed aristocracy and so on.

“At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.”

(ibid)

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Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy. XIV Conclusion - Part 6 of 6

“The philosophy of nature offered us a cosmogony whose starting-point is a “self-identical state of matter” — a state which can only be conceived by means of the most hopeless confusion over the relation between matter and motion; and which, moreover, can only be conceived on the assumption of an extramundane personal God who alone can get it into motion. ” (p 183)

So, just as Duhring's attempt to establish basic, absolute truths turns out to be nothing but a confused Idealism, in which these eternal truths exist out in the ether waiting to be discovered, so too his treatment of the material world, also, requires the intervention of some supernatural force to provide the external impulse to set it in motion.

Duhring rejected the Darwinian explanation of biological evolution, but, unable to provide any other alternative theory, is forced to reintroduce it by the back door, whilst claiming it, then, only played a secondary role. Secondary to what Duhring doe not specify. And, Engels sets out that Duhring could not present any primary alternative, precisely because his ignorance of the science was manifest. Rather as with Marx's critique of the economic theories of Rodbertus, it was a reflection of the limited scope of Prussian ideas that took the reality within its borders as the foundation upon which it based its world view. But, the reality was that the world, as it existed in Prussia, still dominated by the Junker landlords, was itself out of time, compared to the rest of Europe.

That was manifest in Duhring's limited knowledge in the one sphere where he should have had some expertise, that of jurisprudence.

“The philosophy “which cannot allow the validity of any merely apparent horizon” is content with a real horizon in legal matters which is coextensive with the territory in which Prussian Landrecht holds sway.” (p 183)

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