Internationalist Perspective

A caste system

Slavery in Roman times was not racial. Slaves were not considered subhuman, not even a different kind of human. Their skin color didn’t matter. It could be the same as their masters or not.They were exploited, obviously, but their workload was limited by the needs of their masters. They, and more so their progeny, could often become ‘free’ citizens. By contrast, in capitalist slavery, skin color was all important, the visual justification of the treatment of people as beasts of burden. Only Africans were enslaved, ‘black’ became a synonym for slave. Profit was the driving force. Unlike slaves in antiquity and the middle ages, the modern slaves were exclusively bought as a means to the production of other commodities. As long as the demand for the products of their labor was high, their workload was only limited by their physical strength and often went beyond it.

And the demand was very high. Capitalist slavery was very profitable and so it expanded. The construction of racism, its indispensable ideology (see part 2), created a rigid caste system in the western hemisphere. It was a complex, blood-based hierarchy of Others that dictated that for each caste member, the ceiling was the floor of the caste above his.  

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American workers have been on the receiving end of an onslaught of astonishing proportions, all of it caused by the bourgeoisie which considers the rest of the population to be a free-fire zone.   In past months, the extra-juridical executions of black people by the police, the deaths of a quarter of a million people from Covid-19, the accelerated impoverishment brought about by the economic crisis and the refusal to send relief to the unemployed and hungry have intensified social distress.    Added to which the elections and events around them have seemingly bludgeoned the population into the most extraordinary mindsets.

Clearly, faced with this barrage, the workers have been on the defensive.   So, how do we assess their ability to fight back?   To do this we have to unravel several themes in the social situation;   in so doing we encounter its several unusual features.

Racism, Plague and Poverty

Throughout American history, racism has been an integral part of the social reality and as capitalism developed so this poison was used to divide the working class.   The US party system with its Republican and Democratic organisations have each had what we might label their progressive and reactionary wings.   But, especially since the Nixon era, their alignments have moved.    

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Like in their earlier text on the site Ill Will , “Theses on the George Floyd rebellion” , in their more recent essay “The Return of John Brown: White Race-Traitors in the 2020 Uprising “, Shemon and Arturo describe the social unrest of this year as a big step forward towards revolution. Less because of the mostly peaceful daytime mass protests than because of the nighttime violent insurgency. “Riots, looting, and arson have accomplished more in one summer than what activists have been able to accomplish in decades”, they write. And: “Experiencing this has been unlike anything we’ve experienced before. In the nerve-centers of the American empire, disparate fractions of the proletariat came together to attack the police and storm the commercial corridors of dozens of cities. In the “Theses,” we argued that the self-activity of the Black proletariat is the driving force of this revolutionary trajectory. In this essay, we explore the role of the white proletariat in this process.”

The authors are apologetic for even addressing this subject. They expect resistance from non-white proletarians “who cannot, on principle, stand any discussion of poor and working class whites”, who “think that it [the white proletariat] is eternally lost to racism”.  

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This text is, in part, a reply to the previous one on this site.

During the last four years the crisis of capitalism has steadfastly worsened. The climate disturbances created by its growth addiction and environmental rape have intensified, the spurt of growth and booming stock markets could not hide the growing sickness of the economy, social inequality and class conflicts increased, as well as international frictions. A general sense of dread and insecurity spread around the globe. The pandemic brought the simmering tensions to the surface, exposed the weaknesses of the capitalist global social order.

This would have happened, regardless who the leaders are. This doesn’t mean that there are no choices for the bourgeoisie, only that their choices are bound by those conditions. They can do nothing to solve the crisis, so their choices are essentially limited to how to manage it, how to deal with the tensions it creates. On this, the ruling class is divided. Trump represents a management style that is increasingly popular in the capitalist class around the world. Giving the population enemies to blame and a “he talks like us” strongman to follow, is a proven method of dealing with rising frustration and anxiety.  

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In September we posted The Rise of Black Counter-Insurgency, a text by Shemon originally published on the website Ill Will. It made a sharp analysis of the “George Floyd rebellion” of past summer and of the efforts to contain it and make it harmless for capitalism. We introduced the text with some critical comments, to which Shemon reacted on the (non public) discussion list Meltdown. We repost his comments below, with his permissioni.

The IP intro raises a lot of good points and shortcomings of what I have been writing.

Some brief comments:

1. No doubt that the struggle has to spread to the workplaces. The question is why hasn’t it in the mass way that it has spread to the streets? The struggle cannot remain at the level of riot and fighting the police. I 100% agree. The question is why do people fight in the streets and not in the workplace? Even if we tell most people of striking at the workplace, they just shrug their shoulders and move on. It must reflect NOT a false consciousness, but their real materialist analysis of where they are strong and where they are weak. Perhaps that is too generous. I would be curious to hear from others what they think?  

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Trump, Xi, Putin, Kim, Johnson, Assad, Erdogan, Netanyahu, bin Salman, Duterte, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Lukashenko, …. this is only the start of the list of today’s global kakistocracy: the government of the worst, the most unscrupulous national leaders. Their military, economic and political interactions drive the direction of today’s global capitalism. The most pivotal at present is Trump.

The US President’s behaviour can be stupefying; but we must not be mesmerised by his repugnant personality and miss what is going on in the American bourgeoisie as a whole. Despite a minority popular vote, he entered the White House through the electoral college vote. His campaign had rubbished the Democratic Party in its entirety and the Republican Party elite, and to this he added an exhibition of an astonishing level of narcissism, buffoonery and indifference to the usual norms of behaviour of his class, Trump has been able to thwart the customary functioning of the institutions of state, political parties and the media – and maintain to a considerable degree the affection of his core electoral constituency.

Domestically, his first three years built on his predecessor’s economic policies, the bringing home of a considerable amount of American investment capital through which he hoped for significant job creation.  

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