We either escape the internal logic of capitalism or descend with it into barbarism

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

The Green Social Democrat Fall 2018 #2

Nothing is to be gained by sugar-coating the stark reality of the crisis humanity now faces.

1. We begin here with comments to our comrades in the integrally connected struggles for a livable planet and the liberation of humanity from exploitation and oppression in all its forms. We affirm our own continuing dedication to these inseparable struggles even while criticizing some of the forms these struggles currently take.

Contrary to the implicit views of generations of fellow working-class militants, the logic of the struggle between capital and labour does not by itself lead out of capitalism. The struggle for a higher location on the decks of the sinking Titanic did not spare the lives of those aboard. Only the appearance in time of rescue ships was able to accomplish that, and only for some. But there are no rescue ships from the global social and environmental crisis that capitalism deepens. Only global solidarity for moving beyond capitalism has a chance to overcome this crisis.

Both the capitalist class and the working class exist only in relation to each other. While capitalism exists, the struggle between them is one for relative position, the former with the power of wealth, the latter with the potential power of numbers. Neither class, however, can exist without the other.

The clarion call for the working class to rid itself of its chains by creating a revolutionary alternative to capitalism is most closely identified with the writing of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Frederick Engels was a capitalist. Karl Marx was a scion of the liberal middle class. The first revolution to declare its victory a socialist one was led by Vladimir Lenin and included within its leadership other champions of the working class from among the declining feudal ruling classes of Tsarist Russia. None of the leading, well-educated revolutionary leaders from the former ruling classes survived the revolutionary period. Most died at the hands of Stalin and the clique around him. Even though the revolution inspired millions inside and outside of revolutionary Russia and its far-flung empire, the Soviet state ultimately succumbed mere decades after its formation. An already dominant capitalism strengthened its global position economically and politically.

If the capitalist system continues to be the dominant economic system on the globe, the ever-narrowing circle of its ruling class will likely henceforth be accompanied by an ever-increasing number of those superfluous to capital’s need for labour. Without stable, reasonably remunerative employment or income from other sources, an increasing part of humanity is likely to experience deteriorating environmental and economic conditions as a threat to its survival. But that, by itself, will not turn those without employment or other means to a living into revolutionaries.

Neither is the working class on its own account a revolutionary class, any more than the serfs under feudalism were. It was the emergent capitalist class that led the way to capitalism as the system that replaced feudalism.

The end of a class-based system of organization of production and distribution is a system without classes, a genuinely cooperative, classless system. What else could it be? Contemporary capitalism is self-evidently the end of the chain of class-based systems, now in the process of abandoning even the pretence of democracy, cannibalizing the very institutions which distinguish it from feudalism, increasingly turning the people into (debt) slaves. Either we move beyond capitalism to a classless society or we remain with this sinking ship on its downward spiral to the grave.

Contemporary revolutionaries, therefore, do not constitute a present or emergent class from within capitalism. Rather, they include all those willing to commit their very lives to protecting and expanding the existing commons, who work to advance the aim of a cooperative, classless society and a symbiotic relationship between humanity and the rest of nature, characterized by stewardship responsibilities and usufruct rights. And no one else can claim to be revolutionaries who has not yet made that commitment.

There can be no advance assurance of a future for humanity. There is only the choice between becoming a revolutionary, committed to thinking outside the logic of capitalism to find a path to its replacement, or remaining trapped within the death spiral of a system that is now beyond remedy.

2. We conclude with a few additional comments to those who share what they imagine to be defensible “privileges” which will see them and their dependents through any foreseeable crisis. Some of these argue – and may believe – that the words and actions of those who seek a more equitable, democratic and sustainable society than the one now on offer are thereby expressing their disrespect and disloyalty to the people and countries which have conferred on them such “privileges”.

The reality is otherwise. The “privilege”, for example, of receiving average or above average labour income is attributable in part to the relative material privileges some of us enjoy in consequence of the global struggle of working people for a better deal under capitalism. It also ignores the unpaid debt owed in some of the colonized countries to the descendants of those unwillingly removed from Africa.

In some countries, like the one in which the authors live, the concession of the ruling capitalist class to temporarily pay a higher than average wage to some workers can be attributed in part to the loot they continue to be allowed to harvest from the extraction, processing and sale of resources from lands stolen from the First Nations. The outcome of this continued theft would most likely be the completion of the genocide that began with colonization unless it is ended.

An increasing part of the income and wealth that enables the capitalist class to increase its share of the total wealth produced by labour while averting a working-class rebellion can be attributed to the super-exploitation of nature, equating to a theft from present and future generations of the resources they will need to sustain themselves. If this form of theft is not ended, the inevitable consequence is a deepening of environmental degradation and societal disorder, leading to societal collapse.

While there is no guarantee of its success, the only rational and moral course of action left is to join the struggle for a more equitable, democratic and sustainable global community. The path of this struggle is by way of the expansion of the global commons with the aim of achieving a symbiotic relationship between humanity and the rest of nature, including the assumption by all of stewardship responsibilities and equitable, sustainable usufruct rights.

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If you find this opinion piece helpful, feel free to re-publish and otherwise share it with others. For related writing by the authors, please see our website www.greensocialdemocracy.org. Included there, in addition to reviews and other opinion pieces, is our programmatic work, Achieving an ecologically sustainable civilization.

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In solidarity for a more just, democratic and sustainable future,

Karen and Charles McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada