The insane system called capitalism

"One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman; two men with the same idea in common maybe foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question." - William Morris

We workers are not a nation. The nation state is the collective arm of the capitalist class and the referendum had damn all to do with workers but represents a division in the interests of rival capitalist groups. Workers have more in common with fellow workers worldwide than with their local or global capitalist class. Workers have no country to live or die for, but we do have the world to win. The emancipation of the last great social class, the wealth producing working class will end waged slavery and class divided society. Social evolution suggests that no mode of production is cast in stone and the dynamics of change also affects capitalism as a social system. Studies of social systems with distinct social relationships related and corresponding to their specific mode of production have identified, for instance, primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. All of these societies changed from one into another due to the contradictions inherent in that society and also due to technological advancement which each society found itself incapable of adapting to. Capitalism reached this point over a century ago. It’s time to move on to socialism.

Opponents of the arms trade argue that it promotes war. But they have got it the wrong way round. It is economic competition in which ‘might is right’ that promotes the arms trade. As long as capitalism lasts with this built-in competitive struggle between states over economic matters there will be a demand for arms and so an arms trade. No state which has, as Cameron put it, a ‘comparative advantage’ in arms production is going to renounce this profit-making advantage on ‘ethical’ grounds. This means that, given capitalism, the opponents, despite their sincerity and however justified their objection to arms and arms trading which socialists share, will, unfortunately, be tilting at windmills. The only way to stop it is to join us in campaigning to end capitalism. Removing the international arms trade is a nice ideal but an impossibility within a capitalist social system. It is similar to wishing for lions to become vegetarian. Aggressive competition is the norm.

You should not single out just one capitalist political manifestation for your ire. The Labour Party has just as enthusiastically endorsed capitalist war, with some exceptions in its ranks but Conservatives sometimes do so for different reasons. Opponents of the arms trade argue that it promotes war. But they have got it the wrong way round. It is economic competition in which ‘might is right’ that promotes the arms trade. As long as capitalism lasts with this built-in competitive struggle between states over economic matters there will be a demand for arms and so an arms trade.

 You are not a 'machine head' but a thoughtful, sincere individual. What an indictment on capitalist education when you can only bring the faulty and religious 'human nature' argument to bear upon the much greater prevalence and the evidential fact of socially conditioned human behaviour which is more likely to be cooperative in essence. If this were not so we would have extinguished the human species long ago.

History is a series of class struggles for supremacy. The examples of history which you can cite are all examples of ruling classes fighting within themselves with coercive measures to make workers comply as cannon fodder, so resistant to violence are we in the main and far from typical human behaviour. Still, war-free complex societies are known to go back a long way. Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in Turkey dating from around 7,500 BC, famously lacks any sign of warfare, or of social or gender stratification.

The State, which is an organisation composed of soldiers, policemen, judges, and gaolers charged with enforcing the law, is only needed in class society, for in such societies there is no community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is, in fact, an instrument of class oppression. It is irrelevant whether the government is professedly capitalist or allegedly labour.

One of the main criticisms that world socialists have of attempts to reform the insane system called capitalism, is that gains obtained one year may disappear when the economy dips, and you find yourself back at square one again. That looks to be what is happening as we enter a period of recession. A slump is the market's way of correcting a serious failing – that is, the diminishing levels of profit returning to the owning class. That recalibration must occur inside capitalism, regardless of the damage to be incurred by those dependent on the state, such as children, the unemployed and the poor.

So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the normal hardships of the capitalist system when trade is relatively good, and from the aggravated hardships which are the workers’ lot during economic recessions.

The workers just need to get off their knees and tell the politicians including St. Theresa of Maidenhead and Blessed Jeremy, to lead their business friendly capitalist supporting parties out of the way.

Wee Matt