Anti-Duhring, Part III – Socialism, I – Historical - Part 1

The Enlightenment philosophers appealed to Pure Reason. Only the rational was real.

“A rational state, a rational society, were to be founded; everything running counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with.” (p 327)

But, what appeared to be rational was only a manifestation of the world view of the rising bourgeoisie. A premature, and inevitably confused, example of that came with the English Civil War. But, the consequence of the, as yet, immature condition of the bourgeoisie meant that, having seized power, it did not know what to do with it, and soon resorted to the Protectorate of Cromwell, as an uncrowned King. It was another 100 years before the bourgeoisie had developed enough to take control of the state, and to install its own constitutional monarch via The Glorious Revolution.

Even then, this was not a total victory for the bourgeoisie. It was a victory for the the commercial bourgeoisie and financial oligarchy, in alliance with the landed aristocracy, based on Mercantilism, and the creation of a colonial empire. As Engels points out, it was only after 1848 that the industrial bourgeoisie asserts its dominance, and, in alliance with the industrial workers, defeats that old alliance of the landed aristocracy, commercial bourgeoisie and financial oligarchy. A similar pattern emerges in France, later, but in a more condensed sequence.

“The state based upon reason completely collapsed. Rousseau’s Social Contract had found its realization in the Reign of Terror, from which the bourgeoisie, after losing faith in its own political capacity, had taken refuge first in the corruption of the Directorate, and, finally, under the wing of the Napoleonic despotism. The promised eternal peace was turned into an endless war of conquest. The society based on reason had fared no better. Instead of dissolving into general prosperity, the antagonism between rich and poor had become sharpened by the elimination of the guild and other privileges, which had bridged over it, and of the charitable institutions of the Church, which had mitigated it.” (p 327-8)

It was these birth pangs of the new bourgeois society that enabled sections of the old feudal ruling class not only to effectively snipe at their successors, but to periodically appeal to the workers and petty-bourgeoisie against them. It was what enabled the likes of Sismondi to expose in stark tones the inevitability of an overproduction of commodities, in turn, plagiarised by Malthus, to justify his calls for the parasites of the landed aristocracy, church and state to have greater revenues, for the benefit of society, to avert such overproduction. The role of the guilds formed the basis of other forms of reactionary socialism, as with William Morris and the Guild Socialists.

“As far as the small capitalists and small peasants were concerned, the “freedom of property” from feudal fetters, which had now become a reality, proved to be the freedom to sell their small property, which was being crushed under the overpowering competition of big capital and big landed property to these very lords, so that freedom of property turned into “freedom from property” for the small capitalists and peasant proprietors.” (p 328)

Back To Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History

Was This TACO Trump Again?

Trump clearly blinked first, leading commentators to see this as yet further confirmation of the TACO Syndrome (Trump Always Chickens Out). As the time arrived for Iran to capitulate to his latest childish tantrum, and it didn't, he and US imperialism, were left with the option of carrying out his promise to end Iranian civilisation in just 4 hours – which could only be done via a widespread nuclear attack on a country that is as big as France, Germany, Spain and Britain combined, and with a population of over 90 million – or else to back down. Given the childish nature of Trump, and the fact that, in the end, he and his friend Netanyahu, are implementing the interests of US imperialism, albeit in their own, moronic fashion, I would not have been surprised had it been the former rather than the latter.

Trump blinked first, but maybe not last. He blinked because, everyone knew that his threat was either empty, or just as fatal for US imperialism, its Zionist and Gulf allies, and for Trump, as it was for the Iranian regime. Already, the propaganda wheels have come off the western imperialist, i.e. NATO wagon. The claims of it being a purely benign, “defensive” alliance, that its global military adventures, thousands of miles away from its own territory, were, merely, it acting as a global policeman, to uphold international law, and a rules based order, were always pompous bullshit, believed only by the most gullible, or the campists who were prepared to tightly close their eyes to reality, as they chose to align with the western “democratic-imperialist” camp, as the means of fulfilling their own moral imperatives, having accepted their own impotence, and long since abandoned the working-class, as the revolutionary agent of historical change.

The façade of international law, of the so called rules based order has been stripped away, as has the veneer of bourgeois-democracy itself, most notably in the US and UK, where governments and the state, responded to growing protest at the genocide being committed against Palestinians by the Zionist state and armed, funded and politically defended by western imperialism, with the most brutal repression, on campuses across the US, and in Britain by the ridiculous labelling of Palestine Action as a “terrorist organisation”, leading to thousands of police hours being taken up to arrest peaceful grannies, sitting in protest. That began not with Trump, but under Biden, and was given the full-throated support of Starmer and his government. It has cratered support in the electorate for Trump, but not yet clearly manifested itself as a support for those to the Left of the Democrats. It has destroyed the Labour Party, but again, has created only support for the Greens, who in the latest polls, now have a clear lead over all the other parties.

NATO and its media propaganda machine have spent the last 4 years spelling out the idea that Putin's invasion of Eastern Ukraine was “illegal”, because they shot first. The facile nature of such claims was made clear by Lenin and others more than a century ago, when they were made by the imperialists in relation to Germany. Lenin noted,

“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defence of the fatherland,” “defence of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declared war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defence of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.” “For decades,” explained Lenin, “three bandits (the bourgeoisie and governments of England, Russia, and France) armed themselves to despoil Germany. Is it surprising that the two bandits (Germany and Austria-Hungary) launched an attack before the three bandits succeeded in obtaining the new knives they had ordered?””

(Trotsky – Lenin On Imperialism)

That was not seen by Lenin and Trotsky as a reason to defend, let alone support, the actions of German imperialism, but merely to point out the hypocritical and lying nature of the claims by Britain and France. There was no need to side with either of these two camps, but, instead to side with the independent camp of the global working-class, whose position should be to turn the guns on their own respective ruling-class, to turn the world war of nation against nation, into a global class war of proletariat against bourgeoisie, as Marx had called for in “Wage-Labour and Capital”.

Russia had openly said that if NATO sought to expand into Ukraine, it would be seen as an aggressive move, preparatory to war, back in 2007, at the time that Saakashvilli, who sought to ingratiate himself with NATO and the EU, by wrapping himself in those flags at every press event, and by his attacks on ethnic Russians in South Ossetia, gave Putin the reason to annex South Ossetia. The idea of a pre-emptive invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been repeatedly dismissed as “illegal” by NATO imperialism and its apologists.

But that same justification has been used by Trump and Netanyahu for their bombing of Iran, and of Lebanon, Syria etc. What really upsets western imperialism/NATO is that the moronic nature of Trump, and of Netanyahu, exposes all of the carefully crafted veneer to their global military strategy. Trump/Netanyahu do not bother with all the old claims about upholding “international law”, or a “rules based system”, or “liberal intervention” to prevent atrocities. Why would they? They are not “liberals”, i.e. “neo-liberals/conservative social-democrats”, of the type that constructed the global order, after WWII, for the benefit of large-scale, multinational capital. They are petty-bourgeois nationalists, proponents of a system that died even by the end of the 19th century.

Trump makes clear that what he wants is simply a return to colonialism, which itself died along with the economic system that created it – mercantilism. The return of those ideas, is simply a reflection in the mind of the fact that, as western industrial capitalism has relatively declined, over the last 40 years, a decadent class of billionaire owners of fictitious-capital has grown alongside a 50% growth of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie. Trump is emblematic of it.

He openly says he “wants the oil”, he wants to “make a fortune” from robbing it from the people of Venezuela, or Iran. He has fantasies about becoming a new George III, who the Americans overthrew as their King, in the American Revolution, 250 years ago. George III, of course, had his own mental health issues, as, clearly does Trump. Trump's statements about seizing Greenland/Iceland and so on both reflect his moronic nature, but, also, expose the underlying conflict between US imperialism, and its NATO subordinates within EU imperialism. Its partly why those EU subordinates in NATO have continued to de facto support Trump's war against Iran, whilst denying they are doing so.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment on James O'Brien's LBC YouTube video, which had asked whether the Iran War was just a distraction, used by Trump, from the Epstein files – itself a symptom of that decadence of the billionaire class that has settled on the surface of the ruling-class like scum. O'Brien at the time asked the question whether, in that case, Trump would look for an off-ramp. I pointed out, in my comment that whatever Trump's personal motivation, the fact remains that US imperialism locked in a global imperialist struggle with a rising Eurasian imperialism, whose influence is growing in the Middle-East, embarked on the Abraham Accords, so as to promote the Zionist state, and ensure that it, along with US other allies in the region, Egypt, the Gulf monarchies etc., to create a politico-economic bloc that is friendly to the US-EU, and able, thereby to resist the advances of China.

The genocide against the Palestinians is fundamental to that plan, but, so too is the neutering of Iran, which acts as the proxy for China-Russia, just as the Zionist state does for NATO. Consequently, whether Trump again chickened out again or not, last night, the reality is that the task of US imperialism and of Zionism is not done. The Iranian regime may have made a big mistake in agreeing a ceasefire and opening the Straits of Hormuz, because as seen last year, and as the Iranian people seem to understand, once the oil has flowed again, and the financial markets have made trillions for the billionaire class, in a relief rally, US imperialism and its Zionist ally will be back to finish the job.

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 39 of 39

Engels returns to British political economy.

“Just as the bold stroke drawn through the years 1691 to 1752 removed all of Hume’s predecessors, so another stroke obliterated Sir James Steuart, who came between Hume and Adam Smith. There is not a syllable in Herr Dühring's “enterprise” on Steuart’s great work, which, apart from its historical importance, permanently enriched the domain of political economy.” (p 323)

Duhring uses past theorists in one of two ways.

“either as “pegs” of Herr Dühring's “authoritative” and deeper foundations, or, still more because of their badness, as a foil to him.” (p 323)

In relation to Steuart, he says nothing of his work, but falsely states that “he was “a professor” in Adam Smith’s time.” (p 323)

Steuart was not a professor but a large landowner in Scotland. Having been banished from Britain, he used his extensive travels in Europe to familiarise himself with the economic conditions there.

“Nevertheless, there are also a few heroes of political economy who represent not only the “pegs” of the “deeper foundations”, but the “principles” out of which these “foundations”, are not “developed” but actually “composed”, as prescribed in the natural philosophy - for example, the “ eminent and incomparable” List, who, puffed up the “more subtle” mercantilistic teachings of a Ferrier and others into “mightier” words for the benefit of German manufacturers”. (p 323-4)

The more the superficial nature of Duhring is considered, and his attraction to the likes of List, the more the image of Trump, also, comes into mind. List was one of those early advocates of economic nationalism, and protectionism, of the kind that, today, admires and appoints such as Peter Navarro.

Another theorist used by Duhring in this way is the American economist Carey, who wrote of Ricardo's system,

“the true manual of the demagogue, who seeks power by means of agrarianism, war, and plunder” (p 324)

Finally, in that category Engels cites Macleod, “the Confucius of the London City” (p 324)

Engels summarises what has been learned from Duhring's exposition, and concludes that it is nothing. As with Duhring's philosophy, we have a lot of big words, but very little illumination. Duhring's theory of value resulted in him putting forward five different, contradictory definitions of value.

“The “natural laws of all economics”, ushered in with such pomp, prove to be merely the worst kind of universally familiar platitudes, and often even these are wrongly grasped.” ( p 324-5)

His theory fails to explain how class society arises, and how one form of class society is replaced by another, just as his theory of Natural Philosophy was unable to explain how nothing becomes something, or how a condition of stasis becomes one of motion. In relation to exploitation, he can only resort to the claim that it is the product of force, but is unable to say how this condition of superior force is produced.

“Compelled to give further elucidations of the capitalist exploitation of labour, he first represents it in general as based on taxes and price surcharges, thus completely appropriating the Proudhonian “prior deduction” (prélèvement), and he then proceeds to explain this exploitation in particular by means of Marx’s theory of surplus-labour, surplus-product and surplus-value. In this way he manages to bring about a happy reconciliation of two totally contradictory outlooks, by copying down both without taking his breath.” (p 325)

That, of course, having first lambasted and lied about Marx's theories, just as, in relation to Philosophy, he vilified Hegel, before plagiarising him, and presenting a diluted version of his ideas. Throughout, Duhring shows a staggering lack of knowledge in relation to the things he writes about, even in relation to his own profession – Law. It displays a narrow Prussian parochialism. In history, his claim that it was the large landed proprietor that stands at the dawn of civilisation “is oblivious of the common ownership of land in the tribal and village communities, which is the real starting-point of all history — this ignorance, which is nowadays almost inconceivable, is well-nigh surpassed by that of the Kritische Geschichte, which immoderately glories in “the universal breadth of its historical survey”, and of which we have given only a few deterrent examples. In a word: first the colossal “input” of self-praise, of charlatan blasts on his own trumpet, of promises each surpassing the other; and then the “output” — exactly nil.” (p 325-6)

Back To Part 38

Forward To Part III - Socialism

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 8

Except for a short period during its inception, when the Zionist state was backed by the USSR, on the basis that its terror campaign against British colonialism, in Palestine, was part of the global “anti-imperialist alliance”, the role of the Zionist state has been to act as a proxy for Western imperialism. The Zionist terrorists of the Irgun and Lehi, became the politicians and Ministers of the Zionist state. The terrorists that murdered British representatives, and blew up hotels, now sat down with representatives of the British and French states, in 1956, to plan the seizure of the Suez Canal.

The old European colonial powers, however, fell into a trap, much as did Saddam Hussein in 1990. Saddam had been assigned the role of US proxy against Iran, after the fall of the Shah, in 1979. His regime was provided with chemical and biological weapons (WMD) to use against Iran, as well as technical-military advice on how to best use them, by the US and Europe. But, after years of conflict, Iraq was unable to defeat Iran, despite all of this assistance. In 1990, as Iraq attempted to rebuild its economy, it, also, faced economic crisis. On the one hand, it had large debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, run up during the Iran-Iraq War, which they refused to cancel. On the other, the US and NATO was pressing OPEC to increase oil production to reduce global oil prices, as the 1980's period of stagnation dragged on, and as the USSR was sustained by its own global oil revenues. It was the subsequent fall in oil prices that put the final nail in the coffin of the USSR, and of Gorbachev's policies of détente and perestroika.

Iraq also saw the actions of other Gulf states as effectively “economic warfare” against it. That was exacerbated by the fact that Kuwait was “slant-drilling”, into Iraqi oil fields in Rumallah. In discussions with the US, Iraq was given the impression that the US was not concerned with disputes between Arab countries. Of course, once Iraq invaded Kuwait, that provided a basis for the US mobilising military forces behind it for its invasion of Iraq. Saddam had failed to be the US's effective proxy against Iran, and now paid the price. As the USSR collapsed, US imperialism, saw the possibility of forging new alliances in the Middle-East, with the oil rich Gulf states, especially as their petrodollars fed back into a developing financial market bubble that, eventually, led to the global financial crisis of 2008.

Similarly, in 1956, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, to seize the Suez Canal, they saw their erstwhile ally, the United States, condemn their actions. Richard Nixon, later explained,

"We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser".

That has echoes of today's hypocrisy of NATO's position in relation to Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine, as against its position in relation to Israel's invasion of its neighbours, and the US war against Iran. But, although Eisenhower, also, later, argued that if the US had supported the invasion of Egypt, it would have swung the Arabs behind the USSR, the real motivation was that US imperialism used this opportunity to assert its hegemony, to tell the old European colonial powers, “You do not start wars, unless we tell you,” and it, also, meant that it put the nail in the coffin of those old European colonial powers in the Middle-East, introducing US imperialism to them, as the new sheriff in town.

To the Zionist state, in Israel, it also conveyed that message loud and clear. Its future depended on acting as the Deputy to the US Sheriff.

Back To Part 7

SNNS 37

 

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 38 of 39

“ But, according to Quesnay, this fund of one milliard serves, for the most part to cover the repairs which become necessary in the course of the year and the partial renewals of invested capital; further, as a reserve fund against accidents, and lastly, where possible, for the enlargement of the invested and working capital, as well as for the improvement of the soil and the extension of cultivation.” (p 321)

In part, this is true. The capitalist farmer, in so far as they undertake labour, covers their own personal consumption out of the wage fund (variable-capital), as with other labour. It is part of the working-capital. But, the repair and renewal of capital should, also, form part of that working-capital. The amount to cover accidents, and for capital accumulation are valid elements of this “interest”. The same categories are listed by Marx, in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, in his explanation of why, even under communism, the workers could never receive “the full fruits of their labour”. Indeed, because workers, under communism, would want to develop production and productivity as much, and as quickly, as possible, so as to raise living standards for all, they would need to expand the amount of surplus-value going to this accumulation of capital, i.e. to raise the rate of surplus-value.

Whilst Quesnay's argument may have had validity at the time, and similar arguments were made in relation to the industrial capitalists, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, it soon ceased having any such validity. As profits expanded, the capitalists, also, expanded their own personal consumption, including conspicuous consumption of luxury goods.

“The whole process is certainly “pretty simple”. There enter into circulation: from the farmers, two milliards in money for the payment of rent, and three milliards in products, of which two-thirds are means of subsistence and one-third raw materials; from the sterile class, two milliards in manufactured goods. Of the means of subsistence amounting to two milliards, one half is consumed by the landlords and their retainers, the other half by the sterile class in payment for its labour. The raw materials to the value of one milliard replace the working capital of this latter class. Of the manufactured goods in circulation, amounting to two milliards, one half goes to the landlords and the other to the farmers, for whom it is only a converted form of the interest on their invested capital which accruing at first hand from agricultural reproduction. But the money thrown into circulation by the farmer in payment of rent flows back to him through the sale of his products, and thus the same process can take place afresh in the next economic year.” (p 321-2)

Engels, having given this explanation of the Tableau, then returns to Duhring, and his “truly critical” exposition of it. Duhring had admitted that he did not understand what happened to the net product, and had also, falsely, claimed that the Tableau contained only money values. But,

“We have seen that the Tableau — this description of the annual process of reproduction through the medium of circulation which was as simple as for its time inspired — gives a very exact answer to the question of what becomes of this net product in the course of economic circulation. Thus once again it is with Herr Dühring alone that the “mysticism” and the “confusion and arbitrariness” remain as “the most dubious aspect” and the sole “net product” of his study of Physiocracy.” (p 322)

Engels notes Duhring's other claims about the Physiocrats and their historical influence.

““With Turgot,” he teaches us, “Physiocracy in France came to an end both in practice and in theory”.” (p 322)

That Mirabeau was essentially a Physiocrat in his economic views, a leading authority in the Constituent Assembly of 1789, and this assembly put a large part of Physiocratic principles into practice, including a heavy tax on ground-rent, “all this does not exist for “a” Dühring.” (p 323)

Back To Part 37

Forward To Part 39

Artemis & Artifice

On Wednesday, NASA launched the Artemis Mission to the Moon. When Man first left behind the shackles of the Earth, and entered the Space Age, I was in Infant School. I grew up with the adventure of Torchy the Battery Boy, when my parents rented our first tiny black and white TV from Rediffusion. I was still at Infants School, when the USSR, put Yuri Gagarin into space, 65 years ago, in April 1961. By then, I had moved on to watching Supercar, and was fully committed to becoming a scientist like Professor Popkiss. At the start of Junior School, I was avidly watching the adventures of Steve Zodiac and the crew of Fireball XL5, and at weekends the missions of Space Patrol.

Anyone growing up at the time could hardly not be influenced, in some way, by the fact that a new age had begun. The other darker side, of course, was that the rocket technology that was sending humans into space, had first been developed as a means of delivering explosives, as a means of killing other human beings. The Chinese, centuries earlier, had developed the basic principles of rocketry, along with their development of gunpowder. Although the story of modern rocketry has focused on the role of the Nazis's V1 and V2 rockets, developed by Werner Von Braun, who was quickly snatched up by the US, and central to its rocket development, the first such developments came in the USSR, in the early 1920's. With the US, developing the technology at around the same time, led by the likes of Robert Goddard. The soviets, also, took back their fair share of former Nazi scientists.

So, along with the excitement of entering a new space age, came, also, the sheer terror of the same technologies, now, resulting in our own nuclear annihilation. Few people who grew up during that time, did not have similar dreams about nuclear warheads raining down on their heads, as they tried, in vain, to escape the explosion, especially as the memory of World War II, was still fresh. I remember, while at Junior School, in 1962, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, waking up, in the middle of the night, to a loud thunderous bang, and the curtains in the bedroom being brightly illuminated from without, thinking that this was it. Fortunately, it was only a very loud thunderstorm.

In that space race, despite the US having the most advanced economy in the world, and having the services of Von Braun, it was the USSR that led the way.

Key Soviet Space Firsts:

• First Artificial Satellite: Sputnik 1 (October 4, 1957).
• First Animal in Orbit: Laika on Sputnik 2 (November 3, 1957).
• First Spacecraft to Impact the Moon: Luna 2 (September 14, 1959).
• First Human in Space & Orbit: Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 (April 12, 1961).
• First Human in Space for >24 Hours: Gherman Titov on Vostok 2 (August 1961).
• First Group Flight: Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich on Vostok 3/4 (1962).
• First Woman in Space: Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6 (June 16, 1963).
• First Spacewalk: Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 (March 18, 1965).
• First Robotic Moon Rover: Lunokhod 1 (1970).
• First Space Station: Salyut 1 (1971).

But, the soviets also had many other firsts, such as the first fly by of the Moon, and first photographing of the far side of the Moon, by its Luna Missions, in 1959. It was also, first in its missions to Venus, Mars and other planets. This was at a time, in the 1950's, and early 1960's, when despite the US being the most advanced economy, the USSR was industrialising very fast, and many in western governments seriously feared that its planned economy was soon going to overtake them. In fact, no such thing happened, because although the soviet centrally planned, and so bureaucratic, economy was good at directing resources to such heavy industrial development, as seen during WWII, it was, for the same reasons, poor at adapting, or meeting the needs of its citizens for consumer goods.

Nevertheless, it was enough for the US to see the need to outdo the USSR in that race, even if, as is the nature of US capitalism, to do so, at a superficial rather than fundamental level. JFK promised to put a man on the Moon by the end of the 60's, “not because it was easy, but because it is hard.” Exactly why you would want to put a man on the Moon, was not quite clear, because the soviets had already landed unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, as well as Venus and Mars by that time. It was artifice, as the US sought to capture the headlines.

In terms of why it was harder to send a manned mission, rather than an unmanned mission, that too was unclear, as I and a number of my school friends, now at secondary school, argued with our teacher at the time, who seemed to be concerned at the steady leftward drift of his students. Is it easier to have a human drive a car, or fly a plane, we asked, rather than have a robot do it? Given that 60 years later, we still do not have reliable self-driving vehicles, or planes, the answer to that question in 1967, was quite obvious, if not to our teacher.

Yet, the soviets had done the hard thing, focusing on unmanned missions to the Moon and elsewhere, perhaps because, in those first Luna missions, they had detected strong ionising radiation from the Sun, which is lethal to organic life, without the protection of the Earth's magnetic field (seen in the Aurorae), and of Earth's atmosphere. The soviets also pioneered the work on space stations, which, even with the development of the ISS, was invaluable. Even so, learning from those earlier observations in relation to the Solar Wind, as the crew spend months in space, it orbits below the Van Allen Belts.

When NASA landed men on the moon, in 1969, as JFK had promised to do, our teachers sat us down, as a school, to watch the virtually indecipherable, grainy black and white images sent back from the Moon. Given that only a few years earlier, TV pictures sent across the Atlantic, by means of the Telstar satellites, had only just occurred, pictures sent from a distance more than 80 times greater was inevitably grainy, not helped by the fact that we only had black and white TV's. To have coped with the vast differences in temperature on the Moon, between its areas of light and shade, and the problems of the solar radiation, with more or less just Kodak 70mm medium format film was quite an achievement.

The Moon landing was a major media event, in 1969, even though, in reality, it achieved nothing that had not been achieved years before, other than using a manned spacecraft. Even the fact that Apollo 11 returned to Earth, was not that significant. In 1970, the USSR sent its Luna 16 to the Moon to collect samples, and it successfully returned them to Earth. By the time, NASA sent Apollo 12 to the Moon, the public had already grown tired. It was no longer new. TV audiences for the first landing were estimated at 125-160 million in the US, and 650 million globally, whilst for Apollo 12, despite its much better image quality, they fell to around 11 million in the US. Only with the drama of Apollo 13, did interest recover, but quickly dissipated again, as TV screens, across the globe, were filled with the images of US war crimes committed in South-East Asia, for example the My Lai massacre.

In the immediate aftermath of Apollo 11, and, especially as the US and USSR began to engage in a period of detente, and cooperation in space, the Sunday newspapers filled with stories of imminent manned bases on the Moon, and manned missions to Mars to be undertaken by the end of the 70's, or early 80's at the latest. The same stories have emerged at regular intervals in the 50 years since then. So, although I watched the launch of the Artemis Mission with interest, I could not help feeling that, once again, this was more about artifice, given the current competition between the US and a dynamic China.

Someone commented on the TV, in one of the channels coverage of the launch, that it was something new, that the mission was to go to the other side of the Moon, but the USSR had done that in 1959, nearly 70 years ago, now. Someone else, commented that they were going deeper into space than ever before, but that is clearly not true either, even for manned flight, let alone unmanned flight. Given that in 1969, 57 years ago, we did not have even personal computers, and the power of a £2 million mainframe computer, was about the same as today contained in a microchip in a toaster, the current mission seems underwhelming.

In 1903 the Wright Brothers undertook the first manned flight. They did so in a plane that was basically held together by glue and string. By the 1950's, we already had passenger jet flights across the globe. By the 1970's, we had Concorde. But, despite the huge developments in technology, not least in computing power, this Artemis Mission still amounts to 4 humans “sitting in a tin can” to use David Bowie's description, on top of a huge fuel bomb! It is not even achieving a Moon landing, as happened nearly 60 years ago, in 1969. Even the advances made in the 1980's, with the Space Shuttle, are a distant memory.

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 7

The ruling-class, its media, and the social-imperialists have continually tried to portray NATO as a “defensive alliance”, rather than what it actually is, which is the tip of the military spear of US imperialism. NATO was established prior to the Warsaw Pact, and numerous accounts show that, it was US imperialism, and its Western Allies that were quick, as WWII entered its closing stages, to bring an end to their connections with the advancing Red Army, which had born the brunt of the fighting in Europe. Similarly, in China, it was the US and its allies that ensured that Japan, handed over Formosa/Taiwan to Chiang Kai Shek, in order to keep it from the advancing forces of Mao's Peasant Army. Indeed, the US military engaged more openly in China itself, unsuccessfully, to support Chiang.

As every martial artist, let alone military strategist knows, there is no real distinction between defence and offence. One of the most obvious examples is the “tortoise”, used by the Roman army, in which it has the appearance of being a defensive shield, but is used to enable the ranks of centurions beneath it to continually advance. The “defensive” nature of NATO is exactly the same, as is the use, from 1947 onwards, of the claims of national self-defence by the Zionist state, which under cover of such hypocrisy, has continually expanded its own territory.

The Zionist state has had its own reasons for such expansion, on that basis, since it came into existence, in 1947, by seizing land from the Palestinians. As an ethno-nationalist ideology, Zionism is both inherently racist, and expansionist, and that is hard-wired into the Zionist state, whichever party is in office. It is Zionism, which is committed to extending the scope of Israel from the river to the sea, using the old biblical mythology, as its justification, and one, therefore, that sits, today, conveniently with the rise of the Christian Zionists, in the US, who see it as their duty to promote such a development, as the basis of Armageddon.

Of course, this mystical, religious claptrap is not believed by, or the basis of the motivation of, the ruling-class. Their interests and motivation are securely based on more earthly and material concerns, as previously described. For US imperialism, and its fraction of the global ruling-class, those concerns revolve around limiting the further growth of the global influence of China. It is simply that, in this context, the interests and expansionist nature of Zionism fits perfectly with the interests of US imperialism, and its subordinates in Europe. Everything that Trump has done in that regard, both in his first term, and now, his second term, was already begun under previous Presidents, both Republican and Democrat. Not for nothing did a, then, Senator Joe Biden say, “If Israel did not exist, we would have to create it.”

Biden and Hariis, as well as the likes of Starmer, and other European politicians, lied and lied again, in the most blatant manner, to deny that the Zionist state was committing genocide and other war crimes, and crimes against humanity, in Gaza, just as they have allowed the Zionist state, for nearly 80 years, to ignore, entirely, one UN Resolution after another, in relation to its expansionary wars, violence and occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands. On the contrary, they have ideologically defended its explanations for such occupation, on the basis of its right to "defend" itself. At the same time, they have armed and financed its occupations, and, now, its genocide and war crimes.

Dragged in front of the international courts that were only intended to prosecute the tyrants and butchers of states opposed to western imperialism, the Zionist war criminals have, of course, claimed that they should not be there, that the courts have no jurisdiction over them. And, they have largely been supported in those claims by the western imperialist states. After all, the Zionist state, which would have to have been created if it did not exist, was, in the words of Chancellor Merz, in Germany, “doing their dirty work for them”, in the Middle-East. The US has even imposed sanctions on the judges of the international courts themselves, so affronted are they that the rules based international order, and international law should be thought to apply to them and their proxies.

Like Louis XIV, US imperialism believes “L'etat, c'est moi”, when it comes to the global order. Thomas Hobbes argued that the Sovereign once appointed had absolute power, and appointed its own successors. The permanent state fulfils that role, irrespective of what government is in office, whatever the nature of the political regime, be it an Absolute Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Bourgeois-Republic, or Bonapartist regime. Trump sees himself as an Absolute Monarch, prompting the “No Kings” demonstrations across the US. But, King or no King, Trump or no Trump, the driving force of US imperialism, and of the imperialist state, would remain. Louis XIV, after all, on his death bed, said, "I depart, but the State shall always remain."

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 37 of 39

Adam Smith had abandoned his Labour Theory of Value, because he saw that wages did not equal the new value created by labour. He argued that, as soon as landed property and capital arise, the owners of these factors of production will demand a price for allowing their use. As Marx sets out, he need not have abandoned his Labour Theory of Value, and, in places, where he is being analytical, he reverts to it. Ricardo, indeed, did not abandon it, but was, then, presented with the same contradiction faced by Smith that wages did not equal the new value created by labour.

Smith had, in fact, done all the work required to understand, as the Physiocrats did, that surplus-value is created in production, and only realised in exchange. His error was in not distinguishing between the use-value/commodity labour-power, and the value creating activity labour. Had he done so, he would have seen that there is no need to abandon the LTV. The value of labour-power, bought by the capitalist, is, like every other commodity, equal to the labour required for its reproduction. The capitalist does not exploit labour-power, does not cheat the worker in the price they pay for it, but pays the worker its full price. The capitalist does not exploit labour-power, but exploits rather labour.

The value of a day's labour-power may be, say, 8 hours labour, and that is what the capitalist pays to the worker for that labour-power, as wages. But, having bought that labour-power for a day the capitalist can utilise it for a day, and that day might be 10, 12, or more hours in duration. In other words, the labour creates 10, 12 or more hours of new value. The difference between that and the 8 hours of necessary labour (value of labour-power) then forms the surplus-value/profit.

Smith, basically, took over the Physiocratic advances but went further with the LTV, in recognising that value is labour. But, like the Physiocrats, he recognises the contradiction seen in the fact that wages do not equal the new value created by labour, by arguing, as they did, that the owners of the factors of production – land, labour and capital – demand a price for their supply. Because capital is scarce, and labour plentiful, he says, capital is sold above its value, and labour below. His explanation of the falling rate of profit flows from this, as he says that, as capitalism progresses, and capital is accumulate, the supply of capital will rise relative to demand, and the supply of labour will fall.

I have examined these arguments of Smith and Ricardo and Marx's critique of them, elsewhere, in examining Marx's explanation of that tendency.

But, as Marx notes, by the second half of the 19th century, the functional role of the private capitalist had also disappeared, just as it had, earlier, for the landlord class. As the scale of industrial capital grew, it could only be managed and administered by a growing professional, middle-class army of managers, administrators, accountants, technicians and so on. They were drawn from the working-class, requiring an expansion of free, public education. They became the functioning capitalists, just as the industrial capital, itself became “socialised capital”, as the collective property of the “associated producers”, i.e. the workers and managers. The monopoly ownership of capital by private capitalists had become a fetter on the development of capital. The expropriators were expropriated.

The former capitalist owners were relegated to the role of suppliers of money-capital, owners of fictitious-capital, with no social role in production, as had happened to the landlords. They were, now, just a parasitic excrescence living off their ownership of money-capital. As with the landlords before them, if they ceased to exist, production would continue as before, but, now, with their revenues being used productively to accumulate additional capital.

The bourgeoisie and its ideologists, who recognised this, in respect of the old ruling-class – the landed aristocracy – of course, do not admit it when it comes to the redundancy of their own position.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 6

Whatever the actual form of this monopolistic competition, the underlying reality was that it required expanding markets, and those expanding markets meant the creation of multinational states, such as is in formation with the EU, and the various similar blocs across the globe. Global imperialist competition, now, takes the form of competition between these various large, multinational blocs. As with the previous shifting alliances between nation states, so too these blocs form their own shifting alliances as they jockey for position.

For a long time, after WWII, as US imperialism was hegemonic, and as the other imperialist states faced the USSR, they subordinated themselves to US imperialism, and its determination of what constituted “international law”. The US created NATO, with its subordinated allies in Europe, prompting the USSR to respond by creating the Warsaw Pact. Superficially, NATO acted to “protect” Western Europe from the threat of invasion from the USSR. But, in reality, Western Europe was not under threat of invasion from the USSR. It sought only to hang on to its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, assigned to it, at the end of WWII, in the conferences at Potsdam and Yalta, to assuage its fears of itself being, again, a victim of invasion from the West, as it had been repeatedly.

US imperialism stationed its troops in Europe for the same reason it created its military bases in 80 countries across the globe, not for any kind of altruistic, defensive reason, but to assert its own global reach, and interests. NATO was the means for US imperialism to spread the cost of its own military expenditure, to serve the interests of US imperialism, just as the US used the role of the Dollar as global reserve currency to pay for its expenditure with increasingly worthless, paper Dollars, which led to the inflation, and global currency crises of the 1970's. Europe acted as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, and early warning system, against any nuclear missile attack from the USSR, the form that any actual war with the USSR would inevitably take, as against any significant, conventional ground offensive.

European countries in NATO, whose real protection against the USSR came from their higher living standards, were obliged to spend money on weapons and weapons systems they were never going to use in Europe, but only ever in support of US imperialism in its militaristic adventures across the globe, for example, in South-East Asia, or Africa and the Middle-East. More than 60% of European military spending goes directly to US arms manufacturers, directly subsidising and justifying the large-scale production of those US companies, and further subordinating European states to the US. Another reason for US imperialism's troops in Europe, was to deter the working-class in Europe from advancing its own interests.

For so long as US imperialism was hegemonic, the role of international law was to represent the interests of US imperialism, and, to a lesser degree the interests of its subordinates in Europe and Japan. The global para state bodies designed to plan and regulate global capitalism, such as GATT/WTO, IMF, and the World Bank also fulfilled that function. But, even within those constraints, as soon as US hegemony began to break down, as US industrial capital went into relative decline, in the face of the rising power of imperialist capital elsewhere, in Europe, Japan, and most notably China, the façade began to erode.

As early as 1971, when France demanded payment of US debts in Gold, at the official exchange rate of $35 an ounce, the US, ended convertibility of the Dollar, bringing the Gold Standard crashing down, and initiating a decade of global currency instability. A surging Japanese industrial capital, dominated world markets, replacing the once dominant US multinationals, and amassing huge trade surpluses with the US in the process, leading to the US using its remaining dominance as global superpower to impose measures on Japan to limit its expansion. Trump is not the first to engage in such actions.

Over the last 40 years, the US has repeatedly imposed tariffs on imports to the US, as its domestic industry has continued to decline relative to its global competitors in Asia, and Europe. Whilst, its actions have been referred to the WTO, it has largely ignored the international rules based order it created, as soon as those rules ceased to operate in its favour. When it comes to other global bodies that has been even clearer. The US, never backed the creation of the International Criminal Court, for example, because it clearly saw, in advance, that its own global military adventures, its own record of military and paramilitary actions, would be a hostage to fortune. It has been its subordinates in Europe that did sign up to the ICC, and ICJ, that again, have been the ones left trying to justify the hypocrisy of an international law that only sought to put defendants from third world countries in the dock, whilst giving worse war criminals from the imperialist states a free pass.

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 36 of 39

“If it were not for this interest, the farmer—the chief agent in agriculture—would not advance the capital for investment in it. Already from this standpoint, the appropriation by the farmer of that portion of the agricultural surplus proceeds which represents interest is, according to the Physiocrats, as necessary a condition of reproduction as the farmer class itself; and hence this element cannot be put in the category of the national “net product” or “net income”; for the latter is characterised precisely by the fact that it is consumable without any regard to the immediate needs of national reproduction.” (p 321)

In other words, to use Marx's formulation, gross output is equal to c + v + s. C, the consumed constant capital (raw and auxiliary materials, and wear and tear of fixed capital) plus the variable-capital (the physical wage goods), must all be reproduced on a “like for like basis”, so that reproduction can occur. Only what is left over after that represents the net or surplus product. Of course, in class societies, the exploiting classes do not see things that way. They, after all, must consume to live, and they justify their consumption on the basis of their functional role in society. Landlords provide land, without which production could not take place; capitalists provide capital, without which production could not occur; money-capitalists provide money, without which some industrial capitalists could not accumulate capital.

The Physiocrats represented the ideas of the rising French bourgeoisie, and, in particular, the capitalist farmers. Like the rising productive-capitalists everywhere, they recognised that the old, aristocratic, landlord class no longer had any functional role. They played no part in agricultural production, as that function was now undertaken by the capitalist farmer. If the landlords didn't exist, then, what the Physiocrats saw as the mystical power of the land to create a surplus product (output greater than inputs) would still exist. If the farmers did not have to hand over that rent to landlords to consume unproductively, production not only would still take place on the same scale, but those rents could be used productively, to cultivate additional land.

In Britain, this same perception led the bourgeoisie's ideologists to argue for land nationalisation. If land was nationalised, they argued, rents paid to the aristocracy would instead go to the capitalist state, so that it would not need to levy as much in tax, which is a deduction from profit. That would leave more profit, and so a greater potential for capital accumulation and economic growth. This is the opposite to the Keynesian argument set out earlier, which argues that increased taxes by the state used, for example, in arms spending can act to increase capital accumulation, employment and growth. Keynes' argument was just a 20th century version of the argument put forward by Malthus as paid apologist of the landed aristocracy. Malthus plagiarised Sismondi's arguments in relation to the inevitability of an overproduction of commodities, and put forward as the solution, increases in the revenues of the landlords, clergy and state, so that the capitalists had less to use to increase production, and all of these other parasitic and unproductive classes had more to spend to increase demand.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 5

So long as capitalism exists, competition will exist. That competition is no longer the free market competition that existed even in the early days of capitalist production, let alone in the period of small-scale, independent commodity production that preceded it. It is globalised, monopoly-capitalist (imperialist) competition, but it is competition no less.

“In practical life we find not only competition, monopoly and the antagonism between them, but also the synthesis of the two, which is not a formula, but a movement. Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. Monopolists are made from competition; competitors become monopolists. If the monopolists restrict their mutual competition by means of partial associations, competition increases among the workers; and the more the mass of the proletarians grows as against the monopolists of one nation, the more desperate competition becomes between the monopolists of different nations. The synthesis is of such a character that monopoly can only maintain itself by continually entering into the struggle of competition.”

(Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy)

In the preceding era of free market competition, each producer sought to increase their market share by undercutting other producers. It was this plethora of small capitals, and petty-bourgeois commodity producers that determined the market-value of commodities, and it was the small number of larger-capitals that were, thus enabled to obtain, surplus profits/rent by selling at these market-values that exceeded the individual value of their own production. It was this same plethora of small private capitals, in conditions of all-out free market competition that led to the crises of overproduction of commodities, such as that of 1825.

By the latter half of the 19th century, it was already the large monopoly-capitalist (imperialist) producers that dominated the economy. It was their production that now determined the market-value of commodities, thereby, removing the conditions that enabled them to obtain, surplus profit/rent. It was now, the remaining small-scale private capitals and petty-bourgeois producers that had to sell at these lower market-values, and who, thereby, obtained lower than average profits, facilitating their ultimate dissolution and subordination to the large monopoly capitals. These large monopoly capitals themselves began to plan their production over the long-time horizons required to justify the investment in huge amounts of fixed capital equipment.

They found that the old free market competition of seeking to gain market share by price-wars was destructive.

“... if one firm out of a small group of firms raises its price, all the others, who at the old price were happy with the volume of sales they were enjoying, would see that volume of sales increase without their doing anything. Hence they might be expected to be reluctant to follow a price increase. On the other hand, one firm lowering its price would take customers from them, if they did not respond. Hence, to avoid this possibility these other firms would be likely to follow a price cut. And not only is there a priori plausibility here; there is also a certain amount of evidence from questionnaires circulated to firms that they do indeed tend to expect their competitors to react this way – not following a price increase, but following a price cut.”

(David Laidler - “Introduction to Microeconomics, p 69-70)

As I have set out, elsewhere, in conditions where social productivity rises by an average of around 2% p.a., the unit value of commodities, also, continually falls, which, if the standard of prices remained constant, would translate into continual falling unit prices. For, one thing, a consequence of that would be that firms would, also, need to reduce nominal wages, each year, which workers would resist. So, imperialist states created central banks in the early part of the 20th century, which presided over fiat currencies. In so doing, they could inflate the currency supply, and, thereby, depreciate the currency/standard of prices so that, despite falling unit values of commodities, prices themselves did not fall, including the price of labour-power/wages.

The monopolies rather than generally competing against each other on the basis of price, sought to compete on the basis of costs. If each firm maintained its prices in line with others, but was able to reduce its production costs, it would make bigger profits. Bigger profits facilitated increased capital accumulation, but that was only useful if the market itself was expanding enough to absorb the additional supply. Otherwise, this increased production could only be sold at the expense of other monopolies. One solution to that, if prices were not to be reduced, was to offer real or supposed improvements in what was being sold. The development of brands, was a part of that. But, bigger profits, if not used for capital accumulation could also enable larger dividends to shareholders, which, then, resulted in a higher share price for the company. A higher share price for one monopoly against another, transferred the competition between them to the stock market, enabling the more valuable company to simply buy-up a controlling stake in another's shares.

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SNNS 36

 

Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 35 of 39

Above, I set out that the real explanation for the existence of surplus value is the surplus labour undertaken by labourers. That surplus value is produced in industry as well as in agriculture, contrary to the belief of the Physiocrats. On the one hand, they could only explain the unequal exchange between town and country by claiming that it was a result of the town selling its output above its value. However, they have a similar problem with the surplus value produced in agriculture. Its output was 5 milliards, and only 2 milliards was required to replace its working-capital, which it did in natura. That left a surplus product of 3 milliards, of which only 2 milliards is handed over as rent to landlords.

“The third milliard of the surplus constitutes the interest on the total invested capital of the farmers, that is, ten per cent on ten milliards. They do not receive this interest—this should be carefully noted—from circulation; it exists in natura in their hands, and they realize it only in circulation, by thus converting it into manufactured goods of equal value.” (p 320-21)

The argument of the Physiocrats is that, were it not for this interest, the farmers would not advance the 10 milliard of capital required for production. In this, already, however, we see the need to distinguish within the productive class between the capitalist farmer and the labourers employed by them. It is the capitalist farmer that advances the capital not the labourer, who, in fact, is exploited by it. As Marx sets out in Capital and Theories of Surplus Value, however, this begs the question of where the surplus value of 1 milliards, which takes the form of this “interest” comes from. Moreover, why is it only this 1 milliard that is required as “interest”, rather than 2 milliard or ½ milliard?

According to the Physiocrats, the surplus product arises as a free gift of the land. Its on that basis that the landowner claims the 2 milliard of rent, but, again, why not, then, the whole 3 milliards? In fact, the argument is like that put forward by Duhring, which is stood on its head from the real situation. It would mean that the whole surplus of 3 milliards is due to the landlords, but that they “pay” to the capitalist farmer 1 milliard as the required interest to advance their capital!

The reality, of course, as Marx sets out in Capital III, is that the surplus value is produced by the agricultural labourers, and appropriated as profit by the capitalist farmer. Because of the lower organic composition of capital in agriculture/primary production, it produces surplus profits, i.e. profits above the average annual industrial rate of profit. This makes possible Absolute Rent. In addition, because some land is more fertile than others it produces even greater surplus profits, which are the basis of Differential Rent.

The capitalist farmers, having appropriated the profits produced by their workers, hand over a portion of it, the surplus profit, to the landlord. There is nothing, then, arbitrary in this amount, but, as Marx sets out, is now objectively determined. The landlord obtains these revenues, but without giving anything of equal value in exchange. That the landlord, or the state and church, then, hand back some of these revenues to the farmer, in exchange for actual commodities, does not change that situation. It is the original version of the ridiculous Keynesian argument, used today, that claims that economic expansion can be produced by having the state engage in arms spending. The opposite is the truth.

The state finances arms spending by taxes (even if it borrows to finance it, it must eventually repay the loan plus interest on it out of its tax revenues). Taxes, like rent and interest, are a deduction from surplus value/profit. So, that spending reduces the amount of profit available for capital accumulation, and capital accumulation is the basis of economic expansion. That the state spends some of that tax buying arms from some arms companies, who may, then, employ additional workers, does not change the fact that it has done so by reducing the profits available for capital accumulation in the rest of the economy.

What is more, unlike real capital accumulation, which creates new value (because more labour is employed), which goes back into the economy, arms spending does not create any new value that goes back into the economy. That is particularly the case, where, say, the UK government uses those taxes to buy US arms, fighter jets and so on, which creates jobs in the US, not Britain.

If the government uses tax revenue to build a bridge, the bridge itself is a use-value. It raises productivity, by reducing the time required to transport commodities. It feeds back into the economy. The same is true if the government uses tax revenue to build a new school or hospital. It takes part in the production and maintenance of labour-power, just as much as the food produced by a farmer that is then sold to workers.

But, at best, tax spent on arms, results in a stockpile of weapons that sit there and rust away! Non-use values. At worst, it is used destructively – means of destruction, negative use-values – and so further damages real capital accumulation. Obviously, as Marx sets out, in Theories of Surplus Value, states, sometimes, need to spend money on arms, and employing workers unproductively, as soldiers, where they fear invasion. But such diversion of resources is a reduction in its potential capital accumulation and growth forced on it, and the opposite of being a means of stimulating growth.

If Robinson Crusoe had the choice of spending his surplus labour hours building additional animal pens and stocking them, or building sea defences against an unlikely invasion, what do you think his rational choice would be? The ridiculous claims of the British government about the possibility of a Russian invasion of Britain – the same Russia that has spent more than 3 years just trying to advance a few dozen miles into Eastern Ukraine – are simply a means of it justifying its own additional arms spending, as part of NATO's global imperialist ambitions. The suggestion that such spending would have the benefit of creating jobs and spurring the economy is equally ludicrous. The money would be better spent on repairing the crumbling roads, rail network, schools and hospitals, which is where the real threat to the well being of British workers is to be found.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 4

This objective reality that The Law of Value drives societies to continually seek to raise productivity so as to be able to produce more use-values with any given amount of social labour is not just a matter of each society doing that in order to increase its own real wealth and well-being. Unless it does so, it puts its own existence as a society in peril. It has no insurance against natural disaster, such as crop failures and so on. But, it also has no protection against other societies that seek to resolve their own problems by the use of force against them. As Engels sets out, in detail, in Anti-Duhring, against the latter's “force theory”, force, of itself, cannot explain why some in society become the rulers, nor why some societies are able to exert rule over others. Force itself is a function of production, and the more developed is production, the more the producer is able to gain access to superior force.

To raise productivity, societies are led to engage in technological development, and that creates new productive and social relations, which, in turn, creates new forms of property and social classes as the personification of that property. But, technology's ability to raise productivity is itself limited by the purpose of its use. There would have been little point Robinson Crusoe or a medieval peasant household introducing a piece of technology that enabled them to increase their production of food ten-fold, because they simply could not have consumed the food they produced. Time spent producing fishing nets, or animal pens that raise productivity by, say, 10 or 20%, however, are worthwhile, and free up time to produce other use-values.

So long as the demand for these products is severely limited, which it always is when their production is geared to consumption by the individual producer, so too, the development of productivity by the use of technology is limited. It is only when societies begin to produce commodities on a large scale, and that production becomes geared to this production of commodities in a market, that the benefits of the use of technology/machines comes into its own, because the larger the market/demand for any commodity, the greater production of it is justified, and any producers that can meet this demand most effectively, will benefit. The larger the market, the more the use of technology/machines by any producer is justified, and profitable.

It was this reality that led to the need to create ever larger single-markets, so that, as capitalist production expanded, particularly machine production from the time of the Industrial Revolution, the old principalities, and small kingdoms became a fetter on the development of society, and were replaced by the nation state, as part of the bourgeois-national revolutions. At that time, the nation state was, therefore, an objectively progressive development, required for the further development of the productive forces, just as, at that time, the role of the individual private industrial capitalist was objectively progressive, as a means of centralising and developing the means of production as capital.

But, everything has its time and season, and what was once progressive, turns into its opposite. The private industrial capitalist is, today, an historical anachronism. Even by the second half of the 19th century, as Marx and Engels describe, the private industrial capitalists (the expropriators of the small producers) were being themselves expropriated (expropriation of the expropriators) by the large-scale socialised capital that was itself the inevitable consequence of capitalist production on an ever larger-scale, which leads to the development of state-monopoly capitalism (imperialism). And, as this capital in its imperialist phase expands production on an even greater scale, so it requires ever larger single-markets, making the nation state a fetter on production, and objectively requiring its destruction and replacement by ever larger multinational states, as described by Trotsky earlier.

That long historical process inevitably unfolded violently, as the most powerful states sought to annex their weaker neighbours. England annexed Wales, and in conjunction with Scotland, annexed Ireland. Prussia annexed the other German states and so on. In France, more than 200 nationalities were forged into the French nation state. In America, European colonialism created nation states, and in North America, that initial process was supplemented by a violent civil war to assert the dominance of the Northern industrial capitalists over the Southern states, and to assert the dominance of a centralised Federal State over the individual states themselves. In Europe, faced with this dynamic, and the need to compete with an already dominant Britain, the two main continental European powers, France and Germany, sought to assert their dominance, in the creation of a single, European state.

This same process continues to play out on every continent on the planet. The war in Ukraine, and in Iran, is a manifestation of it.

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Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 34 of 39

Engels proceeds, then, to look at these series of exchanges, starting from the initial material balances in the hands of the three classes, and the 2 milliards in money in the hands of farmers.

The farmers, out of their production of 5 milliards, in the previous year, replace their working-capital of 2 milliards directly from that production, just as a farmer replaces seed corn out of their output of corn. That leaves them with 3 milliards of output. They also have the 2 milliards of money. They pay this to the landlords as rent.

“Circulation passing between only two of these three classes is called imperfect by the Physiocrats; circulation which takes place between all three classes is called perfect.” (p 319)

The landlords buy 1 milliard of means of subsistence from the farmers (imperfect), thus handing back half of the rent they had received. Quesnay does not refer any further to the state or church, which received a portion of these revenues as taxes and tithes, so all of this is subsumed under the heading of the transactions with the landlords.

“In regard to the landlord class proper, however, he says that its expenditure (in which that of all its retainers is included) is unfruitful expenditure, at least as regards the great bulk of it with the exception of that small portion which is used “for the maintenance and improvement of their lands and the raising of their standard of cultivation”. But by “natural law” their proper function consists precisely in “the provision of good management and expenditures for the maintenance of their patrimony”, or, as is explained further on, in making the avances foncieres, that is, outlays for the preparation of the soil and for the provision of all equipment needed by the farms, which enable the farmer to devote his whole capital exclusively to the business of actual cultivation.” (p 319-20)

A parallel could be drawn with the ruling-class of, today, whose revenues come from their renting out of money-capital, i.e. coupon payments on bonds, and dividends on shares. The vast majority of capital accumulation comes from reinvested, realised profits, not from additional financing from the issue of new shares. Only a tiny fraction of the shares traded on stock markets is of new shares issued to raise finance for capital investment. The majority of trading is just speculation – the buying and selling of existing bonds and shares.

And, of course, in relation to that portion of capital accumulation that is financed by the issue of new shares or bonds, the owners of money-capital that buy these shares and bonds do so with money previously paid to them (revenues) as interest/dividends out of realised profits. In other words, a payment of a revenue to them for which nothing was provided of equal value.

The landlords use the second milliard of rent to buy manufactured goods from the sterile class to buy means of subsistence from the farmers (perfect). The farmers, now, have the full 2 milliards of money, paid in rent, back in their hands. At the same time, of the 3 milliards of products they had, they have now sold 2 milliards – 1 milliard to landlords, and 1 milliard to the sterile class.

The farmers, now, use 1 milliard of the money returned to them to buy manufactured goods from the sterile class, which it sells from its initial stock.

“... a large part of these goods consists of agricultural implements and other means of production required in agriculture.” (p 320)

The sterile class, then, uses this same 1 milliard of money to buy raw materials from the farmers to replace its own working-capital consumed in the previous year's production (imperfect).

“Thus the two milliards expended by the farmers in payment of rent have flowed back to them, and the movement is closed. So this is the solution of the great riddle,

“What becomes of the net product, which has been appropriated as rent, in the course of economic circulation?”” (p 320)

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