The crisis and contradictions of the capitalist system are afflicting humanity on a global scale, with increasing inequality, widespread poverty, environtmental degredation, wars and authoritiain austerity programs being just some of the manifestations of this process. In this guest post, these articles drafted and published by members of the Republican Communist Network (Scotland), open up the debate as to what Communism as an idea could look like and offer as a systemic alternative in the 21st century. Original post here.
The current crisis of capitalism has found the majority of the the Left offering neo-Keynesian ‘solutions’ which go no further than attempts to reinvigorate a system that is long past its sell-by date. However, those who try to promote a vision of a new social order to replace capitalism have to confront arguments that ‘There is No Alternative’ – arguments tacitly accepted by most of the Left, whose socialism remains as distant a prospect as the realisation of ‘Clause 4′ did for old British Labour party.
The RCN, in contrast, argues that the current crisis of capitalism means that the Left has to provide a real, viable alternative. Unless we do this, all those struggles, which inevitably occur in response to current ruling class attacks, will be self-limiting in their objectives. They will be either defeated or recuperated unless the exploited and oppressed believe that there is really an alternative way of organising society. The RCN thinks that it is time to retrieve that alternative – communism – and make it relevant once more to today’s world.
This is why we have started a debate which we ask others to join. We begin this debate with two articles – Is Communism Possible? and Beyond Neo-Keynesian Props for Capital to the Abolition of Wage Slavery.
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IS COMMUNISM POSSIBLE?
Communism and Human Nature
One of the more common arguments put up in relation to the question ‘Is communism possible?, goes like this: ‘Communism is great in theory but it won’t work in practice’.
The claim is made that ‘human nature’ is such that the altruism and cooperation required would not be forthcoming. In reality, altruism and cooperation are the underlying characteristics of human behaviour. It appears not to be the case because, ironically, of the perverse and parasitic nature of the very capitalism which claims, for all its faults, to truly embody the essence human nature. It is capitalism that forces competition in place of cooperation. It is capitalism that maintains patriarchy in society, that imposes working practices that are damaging to the development of healthy relationships within families, gives us the ‘rat race’ and the worship of money.
In contrast, it is communistic/cooperative relationships that have always been there in human societies that make living worthwhile. Capitalism is a parasitic economic system that sucks the life force out of us. It is the degree to which we behave in a communistic/cooperative fashion that determines the degree to which we can be human beings.
Let us look at an example from the ‘heart of the capitalist beast’, the USA. There is a huge gap (as in most countries) between the demand for organs for transplant and their supply. The capitalist ‘solution’ is to increase the price paid to donors until the supply matches demand. Two problems arise. First, those who cannot afford the price die and this is the majority of the population. Second, the majority of voters and, indeed, of capitalists themselves, are opposed on moral grounds to the sale of organs.
Yet hundreds of life-saving organ transplants are carried out every year in the USA. In 2011 an amazing chain[1] involving 60 people allowed 30 lives to be saved through the altruistic donating of kidneys from 30 healthy, living people. Even more amazingly, none of these kidneys were given to a direct relative! It started with a single decision of one man to donate one of his kidneys to an unknown recipient. The recipients’ niece then felt moved to donate one of hers’ in return. Subsequently, 28 more people, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, cousins, mothers-in-law, ex-boyfriends, friends, out of gratitude and altruism, donated a kidney to a complete stranger. The kidneys were given as a gift of life, not a commodity to be sold at a profit. This is communistic living in action in the here and now. Communism is not a future utopia, it is what sustains us today and helps us survive the distorting, parasitic economic system called capitalism. There are many examples of these human and humanising chains in other spheres of activity where no money exchanges hands, and no exploitation occurs. People with skills and trades cooperate in building each other’s houses and carrying out repairs.
In many early European settlements in the USA the people cooperated in building a schoolhouse and feeding and clothing the teacher. We forget that before capitalism, before feudalism and slavery, and in those parts of the world where these perversions (exploitative forms of social organization) never occurred, communistic/cooperative life styles were the public lifestyles. In most parts of the world today these communistic/cooperative lifestyles have been made invisible. They go under the name of the blood transfusion service, lifeboat and mountain rescue teams, good neighbour schemes, some charity work, and a host of other names that deny their essence.
The reality is that communism as a way of life is very much in existence in the here and now – if it were not for this reality, unfettered capitalism would have surely destroyed us by now. The real question is for how much longer can the underlying and latent communistic strands in our society withstand the destructive force of the capitalist economy?
We are trapped in a mind set schooled into us since birth. The Incas ripped the hearts out of children in a mistaken belief that only this would guarantee the rising of the sun. The children, their parents, the wider family, and society, had no answer to what the priests said so submitted themselves to the sacrifice. Today, we allow the heart to be ripped out of our society in the false belief that we need to ensure that profits will rise again (i.e. there will be another economic revival) because the politicians tells us so and we don’t recognise any alternative.
Communism and Abundance
In arguing for communism, one question we often face is, ‘What would a communist society look like?’ One of the many aspects we may consider when answering this question is that of Abundance. We focus on Abundance because, ultimately, if the material basis is not secured there is no sustainable society.
The basis of all societies is their ability to meet the material needs for food and shelter. Through the division of labour the earliest societies were able to build up surpluses which, today under capitalism, along with most of the land are in the control of and are the property of, a ruling class. Under their direction this surplus takes the form of huge military stockpiles, luxury cars, boats, planes and clothing, an ‘entertainment industry’ and the concomitant commoditisation of everything. The utilisation and distribution of resources to meet basic human need does not happen. When we say that communism offers the opportunity to achieve abundance, the common perception will be much distorted for the term will be understood through the refracting prism of capitalist experience and ideology. It will be taken to mean ‘as much as you want of everything you want’.
One reaction to this is Green fascism where, in response to environmental degradation, ‘environmental protection’ legitimises the strict control of human activity and levels of consumption through legal and fiscal controls. While under capitalist production these controls are necessary, perversely, under capitalism it will be those most in need who suffer the effects of any rationing. As capitalism continues on with its destructive pursuit of profit, this will lead to further environmental degradation and pollution. Corporations pass on their pollution costs to others – the polluter doesn’t pay.
Furthermore many Greens focus on the issue of overpopulation with their solution resolving down to the control of women’s fertility and their wider lives. Our view is, on the contrary, the issue of population can only be addressed when women have economic security and control of their fertility. Greens will increasingly be forced to choose between the socialist road or the fascist road. Those who see humanity at the heart of our environment will choose the former.
Before continuing with the environment and abundance, we should reflect on another dimension to the issue of abundance. Abundance could be understood both as a negative and a positive. It is the absence of poverty [having sufficient food, heating, housing, etc.] and this could define its material dimension. But abundance implies a more positive presence -‘quality of life’ and emotional security. It is here that communism might begin to differentiate itself. For quality of life we might address those aspects of the human experience more usually monopolised by religion – an understanding of ourselves individually and socially, a knowledge of ourselves biologically, emotionally and psychologically – for us the ‘spiritual’ dimension to human experience is a very human quality rather than something bestowed upon us by a deity. For us it captures the material fact that we are part of nature. It incorporates the feeling of connection to other humans and the natural world so very much denied and degraded in the atomised ‘society’ of capitalism. Do we, as communists, feel embarrassed talking about ‘these human experiences’?
Anthropological studies suggest that under conditions of abundance much of human endeavour involves communicating with others and celebrating life. Capitalism involves the whittling away of holidays and popular celebrations.
A hugely important dimension to this is human social relationships, how they are distorted under capitalism and how these relationships can be repaired and developed. Perhaps one of the more subversive activities we can advocate in the here and now is to consciously change the way we relate to each other as friends, as families and as work colleagues and for socialists to commit to actually acting in a genuinely comradely manner.
We can act like Communists now. Once everyone does this in a conscious, organised way we will be at or near a communist form of society. However, there are non-material barriers to this and this is where the insights of psychology/psychotherapy have to be integrated into our understanding and practice despite this being anathema to many on the Left. Such a conscious change would also have to include the lessons to be learned from feminism e.g. that the personal is political and that we can learn to act in an emotionally intelligent manner. We could travel even further leftfield here and talk about ‘Love’ meaning wanting to share in another’s growth, to promote their wellbeing alongside and as part of your own. Importantly, Love can be thought of as action orientated i.e. it’s what we do more than what we feel, although ideally the two should be in harmony. This aspect of abundance – an abundance of quality in human relationships – should be one of our most powerful rallying cries.
Again, it is a demand we should make in the here and now and, in fact, is an ever present, communistic/cooperative approach to life that even (British Prime Minister) David Cameron supports (if only he recognised it!). We should celebrate the example of David Cameron’s attitude to his disabled son. Mr Cameron, quite rightly wanted the best that society could provide so that his son could have the best quality of life possible. In this he acted like a Communist. If we all insisted on this in an organised militant fashion capitalism would crumble overnight. If Mr Cameron had insisted that his son was not economically viable or belonged to some undesirable sub class of humanity then he would have been acting as a true representative of inhuman Capital. This example also serves to illustrate the way that the capitalism/communism struggle is not only external but goes on within ourselves. Capitalism colonises our emotions and shapes our desires. It runs right through us and so does the negation of this – as Cameron’s feelings about his son demonstrate.
Through being more in contact with who and what we actually are, the issues of ‘What is abundance and how can our environment support it?’ begin to resolve themselves. Abundance for a 12 old girl, brought up in a capitalist society, is usually about having the latest mobile phone and clothes, and all the TV, MTV, make-up and chicken burgers you want. Abundance is defined for her by the very TV shows and magazines she ‘wants’ more of and her ‘want’ is fuelled by the ads in them.
People who have attained a level of ‘at-one-ness’ or contentment seem to be free[er] from the compulsion to consume, to surround themselves with ‘things’.
This has nothing to do with vows of poverty. A real understanding of communism requires an emotional maturity toward material possessions. Capitalism beguiles us with its ‘Mountains of Things’ (from the album ‘Tracy Chapman’). Real communism is about providing a secure material base (enough) so that we can focus on individual and collective human development, self expression etc. It’s not about having and possessing. Who really needs 3 houses, 10 TVs and 4 cars? It’s about freedom from material scarcity, freedom from fear and the freedom to be and become.
Eric Fromm points to this distinction between “To Have or to Be” in his book of that name. Abundance can be seen as freedom – freedom from cravings that can never be satisfied, freedom from spending enormous amounts of our time earning money to satisfy these cravings. Watch the Channel 4 documentary[2] about Ed Wardle who spent 50 days in the wilds of Alaska living off the land with no human contact. It was an experiment to see how long he could last. At 50 days, through lack of food and lack of human contact, he radioed to be rescued and cried at his ‘failure’. Next day, he looked around the hotel room, at the TV, electric kettle, telephone, the chair saying, ‘There is nothing I want here at all’. He began smiling. He had realised he hadn’t failed; he had learned something enormously important about himself and what his human ‘needs’ were.
Abundance is fundamentally an issue of ownership of time, literally, the time of our life. With time we can reconstruct ourselves, and our society. We have time to talk in social gatherings about what we need, about what we really want and whether the things we want are really worth the price in terms of time, in terms of the environment.
So, Communism involves rebalancing our relationship with the natural world. We are part of nature, we have co-evolved with planet earth, it is our natural home. One of the crimes of capitalism is to rip us out of this ‘natural’ relationship and alienate us from our ‘true’ selves (our ‘species being’ as Marx called it).
Because of our social intelligence and technical skills, nature provides for us humans an environment of superabundance but we need to (re) learn how to work with the grain of nature in order to allow this superabundance to be permanently sustainable.
For example this requires organic farming methods and the creation of good quality furnished homes made from renewable/sustainable materials wood, bricks, earth, straw and natural stone. We can also use plastics/alloys but this needs to be done in an extremely thought out, measured way.
What Communism won’t solve
We also need to be clear that Communism is not a magic wand. Some existential issues are not solvable e.g. mortality, relationship breakdown, damaging accidents, the ultimate meaning of existence.
We referred earlier to those aspects of the human experience more usually monopolised by religion – an understanding of ourselves individually and socially, a knowledge of ourselves biologically, emotionally and psychologically – for us the ‘spiritual’ dimension to human experience is a very human quality rather than something bestowed upon us by a deity.
Communism and ownership of time would allow us to address these issues and learn how to manage their effects. It is likely that this would lead to the developments of new social practices, (forms of rituals and celebrations) that help us negotiate these areas of life.
When we look at human history what do we find? Lo and behold we discover that such rituals were the central heart beat of pre-class societies even one step away from absolute poverty and insecurity, never mind material abundance.
It could be useful, then, to explore the content of the anti-capitalist uprisings led by indigenous peoples in Central and South America. Surely we have much to learn from these struggles and their 500 years of resistance.
It seems clear from the above that touching on any one aspect of what we think communism has to offer by way of abundance for human kind quickly leads on to a consideration of many others. Abundance in terms of material comfort tempered by a greater self knowledge (i.e., knowing what we need rather than being driven by what we have been made to feel we want) and by greater knowledge of what the environment can support. Abundance in terms of unstructured time to create the society we want. Abundance in terms of emotional/psychological well being.
So, in response to the question, ‘What would a communist society look like?’, we can say, ‘Imagine you had the time to spend bringing up your kids to be emotionally and psychologically saner and happier, the time to get in touch with yourself in order to find out what ‘things’ you really wanted, the time to think about agreeing and planning what and how much should be grown and manufactured to meet these needs, to think about the bigger questions in life and how our feelings can be given social expression.’
In presenting a vision of Communism through the prism of Abundance, perhaps we can rehabilitate the tarnished image of the hammer and sickle, the union of workers and peasants, by placing them in the hands of lovers strolling in the company of friends and family carrying musical instruments on their way to a gig.
Allan Armstrong, Bob Goupillot, Iain Robertson, 15.4.12
[1] Report in The Independent, 23 Feb 2012
[2] Alone in the Wild, Ch 4, 2009
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BEYOND NEO-KEYNESIAN PROPS FOR CAPITAL TO THE ABOLITION OF WAGE SLAVERY
This article was written in 2009 in response to the developing capitalist crisis heralded by the Credit Crunch. It first appeared in the commune:- http://thecommune.co.uk/2009/08/30/beyond-props-for-capital/#more-3305
Neo-liberalism and neo-Keynesianism – two options for capitalism
In the face of the deepening economic crisis enveloping the US and world economy, Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the US Federal Reserve and prime architect of Republican neo-liberalism was summonsed to a Congressional hearing on October 23rd 2008. Asked to account for the failures of the ‘free market’ he shamefacedly admitted, “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”
Greenspan’s embarrassed admission highlighted the fact that unregulated ‘free market’ capitalism does not bring continued economic growth and prosperity in its wake. For every upturn, there is a downturn. Therefore, even before the final demise of the ailing Bush Presidency, his Republican administration, followed then by the incoming Democrat President Obama, have been forced to adopt a programme of massive government bail-outs of failed companies, first banks, followed by key industries, such as Chrysler.
Greenspan is not the first capitalist spokesmen to discover we live in a fundamentally crisis-ridden system. As the ‘Roaring Twenties’ gave way to the ‘Great Crash’ in 1929, an earlier Republican President, Herbert Hoover and many business leaders were unable to accept that their economic system was off-course and heading for the rocks. However, as production plummeted and unemployment soared in the early 1930’s, a new economic guru, Maynard Keynes, tried to persuade reluctant bosses and politicians, brought-up on the sureties of the Gold Standard and the ‘Free Market’ that without government intervention their beloved capitalism was going to fail.
Keynesianism offered a political economy for a crisis-prone capitalism. A few capitalists might have leapt to their deaths out of top-storey windows, but many others became convinced enough that their system faced terminal crisis, to give their backing to the new Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his Keynesian inspired New Deal.
Of course, just as the Republican Party majority in the 1930’s did not accept that Keynesian state intervention was necessary if capitalism was to survive, neither has the infuriated Republican Right rump in the USA today. However, today’s political division, between the neo-liberal fundamentalists and the neo-Keynesian pragmatists, should not disguise the fact that capitalism, in both its upswing and downswing phases, represents a single unified system. Neo-liberalism and neo-Keynesianism represent two alternative capitalist strategies, one more suited to ‘boom’, the other to ‘bust’.
Crisis has not been part of the experience of the ‘masters of the universe’ in recent years. After a prolonged period of boom, grudging acceptance of state intervention in their businesses is very much a reluctant second choice. However, despite the partisan attachment of particular politicians and economists to Freidmanite ‘free markets’. most business leaders’ deep-seated survival instincts soon kicked in, when the economic crisis enveloped them in the wake of the ‘Credit Crunch’. A reluctant second choice, or neo-Keynesian state interventionism, is still a better bet than the prospect of economic and social oblivion.
Left and Right united on what constitutes capitalism and socialism
However, it is not only the neo-liberal Right which has been wrong-footed in the wake of the current economic crisis. Many socialists, particularly from Left Social Democratic, orthodox and dissident (e.g. Trotskyist) Communist traditions, share a common understanding with the neo-liberal Right of what constitutes capitalism – ‘free markets’ – and what constitutes socialism – nationalised property. The difference lies in that neo-liberals put a + sign against free markets and a – sign against nationalised property, whereas these socialists reverse this particular assessment.
Therefore, after two decades of workers, their families and communities facing the woeful consequences of successive deregulations and privatisations, many have been quick to acclaim the new state promoted interventions in the economy. “We are all socialists now”. Criticisms have largely been confined to calls for more state nationalisations and direct government control, rather than the current half-hearted government measures, which still leave the new nationalised concerns in the hands of failed bankers and their friends.
Furthermore, such views have much deeper roots. After the impact of the Great Depression and the Second World War, Keynesianism eventually became economic orthodoxy amongst the leading western powers. Even Republican President Nixon could declare in 1971, “We are all Keynesians now”. Government intervention in the national economy, and the provision of welfare measures, were then accepted by all but the most marginal Right-wing ‘free marketeers’.
There was opposition to Keynesianism on the Left, but this was focused on the limited scope of its government interventions, compared to the wholesale nationalisation founded in the ‘Communist Bloc’. Nevertheless, the existing British national economy and the growing state economic ‘achievements’ were seen as the basis for the more thoroughgoing statist measures. These were advocated by the official Communists, in a British Road to Socialism, and by the Trotskyist Militant with its support for the nationalisation of the top 200 British companies.
Many socialists still look back to these post-war decades with some nostalgia. The Welfare State provided from the ‘cradle to the grave’, trade unions had some real influence, and the Labour Party still talked in class terms, and had at least a nominal commitment to ‘Clause 4 socialism’. Today, battered by two and a half decades of neo-liberal assaults, and chastened by the collapse of their USSR-inspired statist economic alternative in 1989, these sentimental socialists are to be found earnestly hoping that the current economic crisis will permit a return of the ‘old days’. They think that the current greater acceptance of neo-Keynesian measures could provide new possibilities for socialists to be heard once again. The latest Left campaign, backed not surprisingly by the CPB and the Socialist Party, No2EU/Yes to Democracy (No to the nasty European capitalist conspiracy/Yes to 1975 independent Labour Britain) is a good example of Left nostalgia and national Keynesian revivalism.
Of course, many socialists have been quick to highlight the very limited scope of current government interventions. They have thrown their hands up in horror at New Labour’s recycling of failed bankers, who have returned to the trough, fattening their bellies once more on bonuses, only now provided directly at public expense. A completely unrepentent Lord Mandelson has made it quite clear that he sees his main job as restoring the economic standing of the crooks responsible for the current crisis. He wants to ensure that New Labour continues to be at the beck and call of the rich and powerful.
What would full-blooded Keynesianism and nationalization bring about in practice?
But just what would it mean for the working class today if a future Left government did take full control of the economy? We can get some idea by looking at the much more extensive Keynesian-inspired interventions taken in the 1930’s, including the New Deal in the USA. Despite large increases in government spending, economic regulation and innovative state backed projects (e.g. the Tennessee Valley Authority), which did provide some boosts to the economy, there were still continued downturns in the ‘30’s and a further much deeper one was anticipated for 1939-40. Only the Second World War, with its massive destruction of capital in Europe and the Far East, prevented this. It was this war, not Keynesianism, which brought about economic recovery, but at what a cost.
Today, the prospects for a full neo-Keynesian recovery are even slimmer. Since the 1980’s, more sophisticated, and ever more fraudulent financial products and policies have allowed finance capital to preside over a considerably longer boom (up until 2008) in the US and Western Europe, compared to that of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. The only problem is, since this recent and longer credit-induced boom was not based on any commensurate expansion of real wealth, so the consequent economic necessity for a ‘clear-out’ of unprofitable capital is even greater, before any real recovery can take place.
Any government adopting more full-blooded national neo-Keynesian measures would soon be involved in competitive ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ policies to maintain its economy’s position in a shrinking world market. Thus, if any national state took over the running of particular industries, it would soon be forced into imposing austerity measures on their workforces – unemployment, short-time working, wage and pension cuts and the undermining of working conditions. The massive attack on Chrysler workers’ jobs, pay and conditions, under Obama’s new regime, is a warning of what nationalisation under capitalism can mean.
There is the additional problem that whereas, in the 1930’s, the collapse of the Gold Standard, the guaranteed currency exchange rates, and the remaining ‘free trade’ policies, together brought about a decline in international trade with shrinking markets, at least most national industries were made up of largely integrated enterprises, making useable completed products. Of course, they were still largely dependent on imported raw materials, so competition for these limited resources still contributed to in inbuilt tendency to war, which broke out in 1939.
However, since the mid-1970’s, the major corporations have pushed for the globalisation of production to break the power of the militant workers in places like Paris, London, Turin and Detroit. Major car companies, for example, ended nationally integrated production so that components could be produced in many different countries, with more than one source of supply. Effective strikes became much harder to organise. As a consequence, in today’s situation, the nationalisation of most companies would not necessarily provide the opportunity to make a useful finished product. Instead of producing cars, you might end up only with clutch linings, windscreen wiper blades and tyres! Therefore, any commitment to a nationally-based ‘socialist’ economy would have an even greater inbuilt tendency to war, to try to overcome the limitations of such fragmented production.
A vision to inspire rooted in the reality of our living labour
So, what does all this mean for socialist or communists today? We should be using the opportunity of the current crisis to point out that this is as good as it gets under capitalism. Neo-Keynesianism can only lead to further dead-ends for our class. Any economic recoveries will be short. They will be followed by deeper recessions. Furthermore, the shallow recoveries will all be made at our expense, with ever more calls for cutbacks and greater austerity. Moves to national protectionism (or further entrenched EU protectionism) will be accompanied by ever shriller anti-immigrant calls, racism, homophobia and attacks on women’s rights. Far Right thinking and personnel will become increasingly accepted into the mainstream (as can already seen in Berlusconi’s Italy). The current curtailment of democratic and civil rights will be accelerated. The endemic wars on imperialism’s periphery will move closer to its centres.
That capital, which today’s corporate executives need to write-off or destroy, in order to restore their profits, is the product of our labour. They use our living labour to create their ‘dead labour’. This is stored up in plant, machinery and raw materials. Our living labour also provides the surplus value they convert into the profits to undertake further rounds of production. Thus, the product of our living labour is constantly being used against us. In this manner, the capitalist appropriators and controllers of our labour appear to be the initiators of all production in society, a factor that enables them to claim much of their political power too.
As long as our living labour is used to produce their dead labour, or capital, we remain wage slaves. Wage slavery is the real essence of capitalism. Capital rules us in the daily grind at work, by constantly trying to limit our needs to their socially-necessary minimum, and then by throwing us on the scrapheap when no longer required. Thus the controllers of capital constantly restrict and blight our lives.
Furthermore, when deep-seated economic crises, like the present one arise, the competing controllers of capital have only one ultimate get-out – war. Then they demand sacrifices of an altogether different order, hoping they will be the ones to emerge as the victors presiding over the next ‘recovery’. The First World War cost 15 million lives, the Second World War cost 55 million. Rosa Luxemburg’s prediction of barbarism turned out to be very well founded, if socialists fail to completely uproot capitalism. Today, Istvan Meszaros has written that the choice lies between, “Socialism, or barbarism if we are lucky”!
Whilst we remain wage slaves, unable to think beyond merely better terms of exploitation, higher wages and better conditions, then our potential power remains crippled. Marx was quite clear in his opposition to the limited trade union demand, “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”, insisting on the necessity of “The abolition of the wages system”. As the only truly economically creative body in society, we have the power to use the ongoing crisis, not as an opportunity to cheer on and push the neo-Keynesians further, but to begin to explain the pressing need for a new social order. We need to point out that our living labour is indeed the real creative force in the economy. Only if this power is organised directly, through new forms of associated labour, can we move beyond ever-deepening and potentially catastrophic crises, which continued capitalist imperialism has in store for us.
Furthermore, our living labour doesn’t just have the capacity to take full responsibility for economic production in the future, it also provides the basis for our independent class organization in the here and now. Today, New Labour represents one wing of the UK Business Party. Under ’social partnership’, trade union leaders offer a cheap personnel management service for the employers. However, trying to revive ‘Old Labour’, either from within (e.g. Socialist Appeal and the Labour Representation Committee), or by starting all over again (e.g. Campaign for a New Workers Party), or trying to capture the ‘commanding heights’ of the trade union bureaucracy (Broad Leftism) can only lead us back to the failures of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
The pages of The Commune provide the opportunity to debate our internationalist alternative, integrating our economic, political and cultural challenges to their crisis-torn order. We need to further develop revolutionary democratic methods of debate and organization. ‘Another world is possible’, but call it International Socialism, World Communism, or the Global Commune, the vision informing all our activity should be the abolition of wage slavery and the creation of a world based on the principle of ‘From each according to their ability and to each according to their needs”, where, “the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all”.
Allan Armstrong, Republican Communist Network, 24.8.09
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It is unusual in the UK to find Left organisations seriously addressing the issue of communism. It is usually thought that, if certain works of Marx are made available that is enough. The future realisation of a communist (a term more often ditched for socialist) society can safely be left to the unexplained ‘powers’ of transition. However, two Fourth Internationalist theorists, the late Ernest Mandel and Daniel Bensaid, did make a contribution to a wider debate on communism, so we are providing links to two of their articles.
Ernest Mandel, Communism at:-
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article152
Daniel Bensaid, The Powers of Communism at:-
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1799
In addition, Andrew Kliman, who comes from the Marxist-Humanist tradition, has written a difficult (to those unfamiliar with Hegelian language) but very interesting article.
Andrew Kliman – Alternatives to capitalism – What happens after the revolution? at:-
http://thecommune.co.uk/2010/01/08/alternatives-to-capitalism-what-happens-after-the-revolution/
