A Better World - Part One - 2

Capitalism

A balance-sheet
The capitalist system is behind all the ills that burden humanity today. Poverty, deprivation, discrimination, inequality, political repression, ignorance, bigotry, cultural backwardness, unemployment, homelessness, economic and political insecurity, corruption and crime are all inevitable products of this system. No doubt bourgeois apologists would rush to tell us that these have not been invented by capitalism, but have all existed before capitalism, that exploitation, repression, discrimination, women's oppression, ignorance and prejudice, religion and prostitution are more or less as old as human society itself.
What is being covered up here is the fact that, firstly, all these problems have found a new meaning in this society, corresponding to the needs of capitalism. These are being constantly reproduced as integral parts of the modern capitalist system. The source of poverty, starvation, unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity at the end of the 20th century is the economic system in place at the end of the 20th century. The brutal dictatorships, wars, genocides and repressions that define the life of hundreds of millions of people today draw their rationale from the needs of the system that rules the world today and serve specific interests in this world. Women's oppression today is not the result of medieval economy and morality, but a product of the present society's economic and social system and moral values.
Secondly, it is the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system itself that continually and relentlessly resists people's effort to eradicate and overcome these ills. The obstacle to workers' struggle to improve living conditions and civil rights is none other than the bourgeoisie and its governments, parties and apologists. Wherever people rise in the poorer regions to take charge of their lives, the first barrier they face is the armed force of the local and international bourgeoisie. It is the bourgeoisie's state, its enormous media and propaganda machinery, institution of religion, traditions, moralities and educational system which shape the backward and prejudiced mentalities among successive generations. There is no doubt that it is capitalism and the bourgeoisie who stand in the way of the attempt by millions of people, driven to the edges and more or less clear about the outlines of a society worthy of human beings, to change the system.
Today at the end of the 20th century, at the height of capitalism's globalization and in the midst of the greatest technological revolutions, humanity finds itself in one of the most critical periods of its history. Bare physical survival has become the main challenge for millions of people, from the impoverished countries of Africa and Asia to capital cities of the West. For the more backward countries, the hope of economic development has now been totally shattered. The dream of economic growth has given way to the permanent nightmare of famine, starvation and disease. In the advanced Europe and the USA, following years of recession, the miserable promise of 'growth without employment' holds the same nightmarish prospect for tens of millions of working-class families. Around the world, war and genocide are wreaking havoc. Massive intellectual and cultural U-turns are in progress: from the resurgence of religious fanaticism, male-chauvinism, racism, tribalism and fascism to the collapse of the individual's rights and status in society, to the abandoning of the life and livelihood of millions, old and young, at the mercy of the free market. In most countries, organised crime has become a permanent fact of life and an integral part of society's economic and political functioning. Drug addiction and the growing power of criminal networks engaged in the production and trafficking of drugs is now a major unsolvable international problem. The capitalist system and the primacy of profit have exposed the environment to serious dangers and irreparable damages. Bourgeois thinkers and analysts do not even claim to have an answer to these problems. This is the reality of capitalism today, boding a horrifying future for the entire people of the world.

Foundations of capitalism
The present society is no doubt complex and sophisticated. Billions of people are in continuous interaction in elaborate arrays of economic, social and political relations. Technology and production have acquired gigantic dimensions. Humanity's intellectual and cultural life, just as its problems and difficulties, are broad and diverse. But these complexities only keep out of sight simple and comprehendible realities that make up the economic and social fabric of the capitalist world.
Like any other class system, capitalism is based on the exploitation of direct producers - the appropriation of a part of the product of their labour by the ruling classes. The specific character of every social system in different historical epochs lies in the particular way in which this exploitation in each system takes place. Under slavery not only the slave's product but he himself belonged to the slave- owner. He worked for the slave-owner, and in return was kept alive by him. In the feudal system the peasants either handed over part of their produce to the feudal lord, or performed certain hours of forced and unpaid labour. Under capitalism, however, exploitation has quite different bases.
Here the main producers, i.e. the workers, are free; they don't belong to anyone, are not appendages of any estate, they are in bondage of any lord. They own and control their own body and labour power. But workers are also 'free' in yet another sense: they are `free` from the ownership of means of production, and so in order to live, they have to sell their labour power for a certain length of time, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist class - i.e. a small minority that own and monopolise the means of production. The workers have to then buy their means of subsistence - the goods they themselves have produced - in the market from the capitalists. The essence of capitalism and the basis of exploitation in this system is the fact that, on the one hand labour power is a commodity, and, on the other hand the means of production are the private property of the capitalist class.
Without living human labour power that sets instruments of labour to work and creates new products, the existence of human society, the very survival of human beings and satisfaction of their needs, is inconceivable. This is true of any system. But in capitalism labour power and means of production are shut off from each other by the wall of private property; they are commodities and their owners must meet in a market. On the face of it, the owners of these commodities enter into a free and equal transaction: the worker sells his/her labour power for certain periods, in exchange for wages, to the capitalist, i.e. the owner of the means of production; the capitalist employs this labour power, uses it up and makes new products. These commodities are then sold in the market and the revenue begins the production cycle anew, as capital.
However, behind the apparently equal exchange between labour and capital lies a fundamental inequality; an inequality which defines the lot of humanity today and without whose elimination society will never be free. With wages, workers only get back what they have sold, i.e. the ability to work and to show up in the market once again. By its daily work the working class only ensures its continued existence as worker, its survival as the daily seller of labour power. But capital in this process grows and accumulates. Labour power is a creative power; it generates new values for its buyer. The value of the commodities and services produced by the worker at any cycle of the production process is greater than the worker's total share and that portion of the products which goes into restoring the used up materials and wear and tear. This surplus value, taking the form of an immense stock of commodities, belongs automatically to the capitalist class, and increases the mass of its capital, by virtue of the capitalist class's ownership of the means of production. Labour power in its exchange with capital only reproduces itself, while capital in its exchange with labour power grows. The creative capacity of labour power and the working class's productive activity reflects itself as the birth of new capital for the capitalist class. The more and the better the working class works, the more power capital acquires. The gigantic power of capital in the world today and its ever-expanding domination of the economic, political and intellectual life of the billions of inhabitants of the earth is nothing but the inverted image of the creative power of work and of working humanity.
Thus, exploitation in capitalist society takes place without yokes and shackles on the shoulders and feet of the producers- through the medium of the market and free and equal exchange of commodities. This is the fundamental feature of capitalism which distinguishes it in essence from all earlier systems.
The surplus value obtained from the exploitation of the working class is divided out among the various sections of the capitalist class essentially through the market mechanism and also through state fiscal and monetary policies. Profit, interest and rent are the major forms in which the different capitals share in the fruits of this class exploitation. The competition of capitals in the market determines the share of each capitalist branch, unit and enterprise.
But this is not all. This surplus pays whole cost of the bourgeoisie's state machinery, army and administration, of its ideological and cultural institutions, and the upkeep of all those who, through these institutions, uphold the power of the bourgeoisie. By its work, the working class pays the cost of the ruling class, the ever-increasing accumulation of capital and the bourgeoisie's political, cultural and intellectual domination over the working class and the entire society.
With the accumulation of capital, the mass of commodities which make up the wealth of bourgeois society grows. An inevitable result of the accumulation process is the continual and accelerating technological progress and rise in the mass and capacity of the means of production which the working class sets in motion in every new cycle of the production process. But compared to the growth in society's wealth and productive powers, the working class continually gets relatively poorer. Despite the gradual and limited increase, in absolute terms, in the workers' standard of living, the share of the working class from the social wealth declines rapidly, and the gap between the living conditions of the working class and the higher living standards that is already made possible by its own work widens. The richer the society becomes, the more impoverished a section the worker forms in it.
Technological progress and rise in labour productivity mean that living human labour power is increasingly replaced by machines and automatic systems. In a free and human society this should mean more free time and leisure for all. But in capitalist society, where labour power and means of production are merely so many commodities which capital employs to make profits, the substitution of humans by machines manifests itself as a permanent unemployment of a section of the working class which is now denied the possibility of making a living. The appearance of a reserve army of workers who do not even have the possibility of selling their labour power is an inevitable result of the process of accumulation of capital, and at the same time a condition of capitalist production. The existence of this reserve army of unemployed, supported essentially by the employed section of the working class itself, heightens the competition in the ranks of the working class and keeps wages at their lowest socially possible level. This reserve army also allows capital to more easily modify the size of its employed work force in proportion to the needs of the market. Massive unemployment is not a side-effect of the market, or a result of the bad policies of some government. It is an inherent part of the workings of capitalism and the process of accumulation of capital.
Periodic economic crises with catastrophic economic and social consequences are an inevitable feature of the capitalist system. These crises spring essentially from a fundamental contradiction within the accumulation process itself: while labour is the source of surplus value and profit, the accumulation process and the inevitable technological progress constantly diminish the ratio of labour power to means of production. The surplus value that is produced, even if it grows in absolute terms, cannot normally keep pace with the growth in the capital advanced. By the material laws of the accumulation process itself, therefore, the rate of profit has an inevitable tendency to fall. The ceaseless activity to offset this tendency and maintain the rate of profit, especially through intensifying exploitation and reducing the share of the working class from the social wealth - paid in the form of wages, public services, etc. - is the daily business of the capitalist class, its various governments, and the large corps of bourgeois economists, managers and experts worldwide.
Nevertheless, the inner contradictions of capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, assert themselves periodically and throw the whole economic system into a deep crisis. Periods of stagnation and crisis are not only signs and symptoms of the intensification of capital's internal contradictions, but also the practical mechanism for their alleviation and the reconstruction of capital. Competition among different sections of capital grows and many are driven to bankruptcy. The weaker capitals are knocked out, improving the conditions of profitability for those who remain. On the other hand, the capitalist class and its states embark on a wide-scale offensive on workers' living standards. The ranks of the unemployed swell and the exploitation of the whole working class intensifies.
Capital emerges from every crisis more centralised. Thus the next crisis takes on wider and deeper dimensions and gives rise to a more severe competition and conflict in the capitalist class. Each new crisis makes an ever more comprehensive reconstruction of capital necessary. Equally, the prospects for society each time grow darker and more terrifying.
The consequences of the capitalist system's contradictions and crises are not confined to the economic sphere. Devastating global and regional wars, militarism and military aggressions, autocratic and police states, stripping people, and especially workers, of their civil and political rights, rise of state terrorism, resurgence of the extreme Right and of religious, nationalist, racist and anti-woman groups and trends - these are the realities of contemporary capitalism especially in periods of crisis.

State and political superstructure
Bourgeois analysts portray the state as a necessary institution for the administration of society in the common interest of all; an institution supposedly embodying the collective will of the people and enforcing their combined power. We are told that the existing laws are a collection of self-evident natural principles, accepted by all, which the state guarantees and puts into force. Representing the state as an autonomous body standing above antagonistic class interests is a cornerstone of bourgeois ideology. This idea is more entrenched among people in advanced Western countries which have had more stable parliamentary systems. But even in the less developed countries, despite the existence of autocratic and police states and the public's distrust of the existing states, the idea of the necessity of the state is not questioned, and viewing the state as an institution responsible for the management of society is just as deeply rooted. The expansion of the economic role of states, and, particularly, state intervention in the domain of public services and economic management and control, over the past few decades, has greatly strengthened these illusions.
The truth is that the state is the most important instrument of the ruling class to hold the exploited masses in subjugation. Historically, the emergence of the state has been the result of the appearance of exploitation and division of society into exploiting and exploited classes. For all the complexity in the structure of present-day states, the state, as before, is an apparatus of coercion, with the army, courts, and prisons making up its foundations. The state is the organised coercive power of the ruling class. It is an instrument of class rule. Any state, whatever its form and outward appearance - a monarchy or a republic, parliamentary or despotic - is the instrument of dictatorship of the ruling class or classes.
In all systems, even in the most brutal slaveries of ancient times where the class character of the state was unconcealed, the ruling class has always needed to give some form of legitimacy to its state. Monarchy and dynastic rule, reign of aristocracy, divine rule and theocracy, are all forms in which such legitimacy has been sought. In capitalist society, a society based on market, and where worker and capitalist are portrayed as 'free' agents entering into a voluntary and equal contract, the right to vote, the parliament and the electoral system are the chief forms of gaining legitimacy for the class rule of the bourgeoisie. On the surface, the state is an instrument of political rule by all the people formed by their own direct vote. Certainly, from a historical viewpoint, the right to vote and parliament are important gains in the struggle of the working people to promote their civil rights. It is also clear that life in a liberal bourgeois system is far more tolerable than life under a military or autocratic regime. But these forms cannot conceal the class nature of the modern state. Even in the most advanced, stable and free parliamentary systems the working people have very little chance of influencing state policies and actions. Parliamentary system employs relatively less open and brutal violence and lets government positions alternate among different sections of the ruling class through periodic general elections. It has thus managed to ensure the unquestionable rule of the whole bourgeoisie over society's political and economic life. Parliamentary democracy is not a mechanism for people's participation in political power. It is a means of legitimizing the rule and dictatorship of the bourgeois class.

Culture, ideology, morality
Flagrant exploitation, discrimination and disenfranchisement of people on such monstrous scales, could obviously not last without the victims themselves submitting to it and rationalizing it in their minds. To paint this state of affairs as legitimate, natural and eternal, and to intimidate people into submission is the task of the intellectual, cultural and moral superstructure in this society. The cultural and intellectual arsenal of the bourgeoisie against freedom and liberation is enormous. In part this is a legacy of antiquity, now polished up and adapted to the needs of bourgeois society. All shades of religions, prejudices, tribalism, racism and male-chauvinism have throughout history served as so many intellectual and cultural weapons in the hands of ruling classes to hold down and silence the working people. And in our day all of these, in new forms and capacities, are summoned to protect bourgeois property and bourgeois rule from the menace of working peoples' awareness and consciousness.
But bourgeois society's own additions to this collection of intellectual and cultural artillery are much more extensive and efficient. In this society, self-interest and competition, i.e. the rationale behind the capitalist's behaviour in the market, are portrayed as human nature as such and sanctified as exalted human values. Here the relations among people are a reflection and an extension of the relations among commodities. People's worth and status are measured by their relation to ownership. The bourgeoisie broke up the local and narrow arrangement of the old society and organised nation- states. Tribalism and parochialism gave way to modern bourgeois nationalism and patriotism as the heaviest ideological yoke ever put on the shoulders of the working people.
The ruling ideas in every society are the ideas of ruling class. But the extent of intellectual, cultural and moral domination and control of the bourgeoisie over the life of society today is unprecedented in history. The scientific, technical and industrial revolutions of the past couple of centuries and the powerful mechanism of the market, which transcends all national, tribal, political and cultural barriers, have provided the bourgeoisie with enormous possibilities for safeguarding its ideological rule and spreading it on a world scale.
Just as in the sphere of production of goods, so in the sphere of production of ideas humanity's creative power has turned into a weapon against itself. The many innovations and advances of the twentieth century, which have revolutionised literary and artistic forms and means of mass communication and opened up new fields of cultural activity, have above all paved the way for a constant bombardment of millions of people with bourgeois ideas in more elaborate, subtle and effective forms. The information technology and satellite TV networks introduced over the past two decades, which have greatly facilitated the task of information gathering and transfer across the globe, have in the hands of the bourgeoisie turned into a monstrous machinery of misinformation, indoctrination and provocation. The mass media and show business, in themselves among the most profitable sectors for capital, have taken over a large part of the traditional role of family, religion and even the repressive organs of the state, and play an increasing role in preserving the existing ideological balance in society, spreading the ideas and values of the ruling class, indoctrinating and controlling minds, intimidating and atomizing people and countering critical ideas and tendencies in society. These institutions and the modern forms of thought- control are pillars of political stability in bourgeois society, particularly in times of crisis, uncertainty and popular unrest.
Struggle against the dominant reactionary ideas has always been a permanent component of the class struggle of workers and a crucial task of the worker-communist movement.