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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Herman Gorter and Socialism (Part 3)

Part 3 and the final instalment introducing the ideas of Herman Gorter, the Dutch revolutionary and socialist. 

War

It is true that in the countries in need of capital, a great deal of national capital is imported; but much of this national capital is still national capital at war with other national capitals. And this international or foreign capital is a vanishingly small minority compared to national capital. And how is capital set in motion in all these countries? By means of the nation, which exercises power, by means of the nation as a unity, as a whole, as a power. The capital created by the wage workers is born and is mushrooming in all the powerful capitalist countries of Europe and America; and, impelled by the force of the nation, this capital flows to new territories. In the countries of Asia and Africa, the weakest from the capitalist point of view, those countries which are exploited by foreign capital, capital formed in them escapes to enrich the distant nations which rule them. But every country, with the exception of those which are too weak, are either trying to become powerful or more powerful capitalist countries or are trying to conquer the leading power position. And all nations have their own, mutually opposed interests. he powerful capitalist and industrial nations, every last one of them, want to export as much capital as possible. All of them want to seize the raw-material and food-producing countries. This is why they come into conflict; all of them want to seize the wealthiest countries. The capital-importing nations want to free themselves from the capital-exporting nations; they want to become capital exporters themselves. Therefore they come into conflict with those nations. Countries want the same thing. Therefore they come into conflict with one another. Nations still lacking a secure foundation want to become free nations, they want to be independent of the powerful capitalist nations. Therefore they come into conflict with those nations. And the subject ex-colonies want to become free and powerful countries from capitalist point of view. Therefore their interests conflict with those of their exploiters. Every nation wants supreme power, or to become powerful and independent, by means of capitalist development and the subjection of the workers to capital. Therefore the interests of each nation are opposed to the interests of every other nation. Such is the spectacle offered by the world: strong capitalist nations, weak capitalist nations, dependent nations, subject nations, nations which have yet to be founded. All, however, aspire to capitalist power. There are also impotent nations, such as Africa, which cannot do anything yet and are only the playthings and victims of looting by the powerful nations. The problems which society, that is, mankind, poses for itself, can only be resolved by mankind itself. The mind is the most powerful economic factor, even though it is not free, and that in the final accounting, in continuously changing conditions, it is the mind which forms and creates society. Capital’s expansion is proceeding at an ever more rapid pace and is assuming ever greater importance; it is caused by the ceaseless, massive growth of the productive forces. Therefore, the interests involved are always greater, more powerful and more violent; conflicts grow more numerous and become more serious. But how has capital managed to develop until today? How has it spread throughout the earth? How has it attained power on the national level? The answer is the one we have already provided: by means of conflicts, torrents of blood, and murder. Capitalism, which brings the earth science, technology, social consciousness, improved methods of labor, greater wealth and can only attain its goals by these methods: murder and war. To reach its goals, to realize its mission, to spread itself over the earth and to become international, capital splits into adverse parts which fight against each other, against the weak peoples, and against the proletariat.

Capitalism murders, oppresses and enslaves the weak peoples, it makes war against itself, it makes war break out among its members—individuals as well as nations—it continuously frees itself of its weakest members by means of destruction, war and murder, and, at the same time, it murders the proletarians and uses them as murderers. It prospers in an extraordinary. It wades through a sea of blood to reach its goals, and perpetual war is proof of this. Never before have conflict and war formed the means of capitalism’s development to such a degree as they do today. For the development of capitalism, no other way and no other road besides those which have been employed for centuries will be discovered today. Now that the accumulation of capital has become so engorged in all countries, and is growing at a rapid and even unprecedented rate; now that the will to expansion has grown enormously; now that the internationalization of capital has begun to break through all national borders, even though it is only in its nascent state; now that the nations, the national governments, the armed nations are the principle supports and driving forces possessed by the capitalists, or which they are trying to possess, throughout the world, to serve as the basis of and for the increase of their capital or to preserve their exclusive rule over the entire earth now there can be no other way. Today, like yesterday, development takes place by way of war. Wherever the struggle between interests has become most intense and wherever expansion has become most necessary, war will never end. Capitalism grows and spreads throughout the world by means of the force employed by nations. Each nation and each national capital all have different interests. The only way to settle this conflict of interests is an arms race and then war.  For the opposed capitalist interests of the nations impels them towards war. Every nation buries itself under a mountain of weaponry. The whole earth bristles with armaments. And this stockpiling of weapons is accompanied by an extraordinary pacifist hypocrisy. Every country’s parliament is besieged with demands for expenditures on weapons more powerful than any previously produced. And all the members of the bourgeois parties, whether friends or enemies of peace, will grant their approval.

The reformists are all for world peace, for disarmament and for arms control agreements. Those who aspire to peace, to disarmament and to arms control, and who propagandize for these goals, must prove that these objectives can be realized. Anyone who preaches peace and disarmament will have to show proof that peace and disarmament are possible and that the interests of nations and national capitals are all identical. If they cannot prove this, then it will be certain that disarmament and peace are still impossible. And they cannot prove it. They have not been able to prove it even once, not even approximately. This is our conclusion. What we have just said should be enough. And this proof must be undertaken not with vain phrases, with desires and hopes or vague slogans, but with precision, with examples and facts; these people must show us what means of development other than conflict exists under capitalism and what principle besides power. The peoples of the earth are very diverse, all of them live in different conditions and have very different powers as well; all of them ardently desire power and all of them have divergent interests, they are in a permanent state of disequilibrium both within their own borders and in respect to other peoples. The supporters of peace, disarmament and arms control must show us how these peoples can coexist harmoniously and without conflict. They must tell us precisely and with documentation derived from political and economic practice, how they imagine the organization of the world and the distribution of wealth. Which parts of the world should Britain, Germany, Russia, France, America and China have? Which parts to exploit, how much power and which sphere of influence? According to what principles should the world be divided? And who will be the judge, and who will be the referee? How can trust be established between the two great powers and all the others, in such a way that it will not be necessary to resort to ever more powerful weaponry? All of this is revealed to be impossible as soon as one concretely faces the issues. Until today no one has been able to even point towards the road which could lead to disarmament, to conflict-free development, to the division of the world which could please every State and to harmonious equilibrium. Until today, under capitalist rule, power is the sole principle allowing the division of the earth and the development of capitalism. Under capitalism, in its contemporary form, there is no means other than brute force for the purpose of expansion, growth and globalization. Might makes right. It is violence and force which decide. They speak of free trade. But how is trade born in primitive countries like those of Africa? By means of violence, murder and war. Only murder compels the weak populations to produce rubber and other similar commodities. But trade is far from being the most important goal. One of the most important goals is the export of capital in order to create new capital. Another is the construction of ports and factories. How are the foundations created for capitalist production, the rule of capital and the enslavement of indigenous populations? By means of violence and expropriation.

Whoever thinks that capitalism can change proves how little they know about the soul and psyche of capitalism. It is the nature of capitalism to form surplus value in such a way that it constantly increases. Surplus value which, in a constantly increasing fashion, forms more surplus value again. Therefore: expansion, extension. This is the nature of our society. All that is capitalist must therefore obey this tendency. Capital only exists thanks to private ownership of the means of production. And since they are possessed by only a few, capital bears within itself, necessarily, conflict. Conflict between individuals and between the groups in which individuals are united: nations. Therefore, he who obeys the nature of capital, must also obey the principle of private property, and must implement it. The direction of capital’s economy and politics is in the hands of magnates of industry and high finance. They are not afraid of war but use it for their own ends: the exploitation of the world and the enslavement of the earth’s inhabitants in order to turn them into proletarians. War allows them, over the long term, to carry out this exploitation. It is their best and most forceful instrument, which never fails. It puts the earth and the workers in their power. And that is why these magnates of high finance and industry represent the power which allows capitalism to attain its goals and which makes capital always fertile and everywhere in conformance with its nature. They are the managers and producers of capital’s power of expansion, and all the other capitalists, as well as all the other classes which live off of this capitalism and its surplus value, can do nothing but follow and obey them. These oligarchs and plutocrats of high finance and the big corporations, do not govern the world by virtue of their political and economic power, but because they fully and perfectly represent the nature of capitalism. Capital’s power of expansion, concentrated and organised, resides in the gigantic masses of capital of these invisible forces. They themselves obey this power of expansion and the nature of their capital. And all the men who live off of surplus value obey them.

War once again proves that all individuals, those of the capitalist classes and those who obey them, pushed forward by the instinct for self-preservation and by the social instincts which tend to preserve the society in which they live and with which they form a single whole, will not refuse to sacrifice their blood and their money if what is at stake is the further extension of capitalism, the sole basis of their existence, through conflict. Even if the capitalists wanted disarmament, peace and arms control, they would not be able to realize their desire. Capitalism has its own laws which are consequences of its very nature. Its principle laws are conflict and expansion. If capital could, without war, share out among its various units the colonies, spheres of influence and States like China, it would not need any expenditures on armies and navies and would be able to devote all its forces to the looting and exploitation of these countries. Only then would capital be able to grow on a stupendous scale. The impossible goal of the pacifist movement is, behind all their fine words, the enslavement of the working class, and the subjection and exploitation of the weak peoples. Just as social legislation and a growing interest in the plight of the workers are the other side of the coin of an ever more violent exploitation, of ever more intensive labor and an ever more embittered class struggle, the pacifist movement and the movement for disarmament are the other side of the coin of war-mongering.







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