Internationalist Perspective

Report on Internationalist Perspective’s Public Meeting in New York

Internationalist Perspective held a public meeting in New York on October 15, 2009 on the current econimc crisis. Here is a report on the meeting.

IP Public Meeting, New York, October 15, 2009

There were 15 at the meeting (besides IP): several “class struggle” anarchists, linked to NEFAC, though critical of it in a number of respects; 2 ICC; three from the Meltdown List (including L.G.); J. from Endnotes, and a few others who seemed politically close to him; and H.

I did the introduction, focusing on how the crisis had “produced” a dramatic increase in the rhetoric of “anti-capitalism,” which entailed a positive critique of capitalism, focused on attacks on speculation, “unproductive” capital, neo-liberalism, and on the need for regulation, Keynesian economic and financial policies, and – at the extremes – nationalization and statification. By contrast, I posed the need for a negative critique of capitalism, focused on the value form as the root of the crisis, and the necessity to attack the value form both theoretically and practically as the only response to the alternative posed by Rosa Luxemburg: socialism or barbarism.

Sander’s presentation focused on the toll the present crisis – the deepest since the 1930’s — has taken, especially in human terms, on a global level. In contrast to the rise of equity and share prices over the past six months, he accentuated the rise in global unemployment (now measured in the billions), the blighted urban landscapes, the ecological crisis, itself exacerbated by capital’s desperate search for new energy sources and quest for profitability through the exploitation of cheap labor in the Third World, which involves dependence on the most toxic and polluting forms of energy. Sander then evaluated the prospects for an economic recovery, accentuating the greater capability that capital possesses today vis a vis the 1930’s to prevent a total collapse, while focusing on how the contradictions of the value form itself constitute an insurmountable obstacle to any sustainable recovery. Indeed, the very steps that capitalist states have taken to avert a collapse already contain the seeds of new financial bubbles and the spectre of an even deeper crisis on the horizon.

The discussion, and it was a real discussion, not just questions posed to IP, with comrades speaking to each other and not just to IP, was very animated. Several issues dominated it. There was general agreement that the response of the class to the crisis, despite some militant struggles, was still weak in the face of such a sharp deterioration in living and working conditions. To which one response of IP was that this was one more indication that the value form was not just material but subjective too; that it had impacted the very way in which workers “see” the world, making the value form appear natural. Beyond that, this led to a focus on the role of pro-revolutionaries: was it primarily theoretical, were they outside the class, trying to animate it and provoke a response, or were they a part of the class, indeed, not different than any other workers? Was there a distinction between theory and practice, was there a distinct role for pro-revolutionaries, and in addition to theory, how did pro-revolutionaries play a role as an “accelerator” of class struggle – indeed, in addition to theory did pro-revolutionaries need a new “idiom” into which to translate their analyses of the value form, for example, into the actual terms of the life of the collective worker? Or was such a putative task already the creation of a division of labor between pro-revolutionaries and the class. The ICC argued that revolutionaries were simply one part of the class, and that at critical points the class can be ahead of the revolutionaries. At least one of the anarchists argued that pro-revolutionaries were not “just” workers; that their theoretical practice was vital, J. and others with him argued that there should be no separation – at times it seemed – no distinction even between pro-revolutionaries and workers, and no tasks that were specific to pro-revolutionaries.

At the end of the meeting, the NEFAC comrade suggested the possibility of a meeting of several of his comrades with IP, which we endorsed. H. has asked to be in close contact with us, and J, who is organizing a conference sponsored by the journal “Historical Materialism” (Trotskyist, but open to the left communist and heterodox Marxist currents) has invited IP to make presentations.

Mac Intosh

What was China?

The following is a post by a member of Internationalist Perspective on a list about China. It was written in as part of a thread of Maoist China.

First, on your last point. While I don’t have an extensive knowledge of China during its Maoist period, I would not be surprised if, as you say, there was not a great deal of increase in the organic composition of Chinese capital in general during that time (as compared, e.g. with its post-Maoist period). The reason, I suspect, relates to what you describe as a very significant increase in the mobilization of labor power, especially in the countryside. And that would be, I would imagine, because what was really occurring during that time was primarily the primitive accumulation of Chinese capital on a massive scale. That would of course be because China’s economy at that time was very ‘backward’ or undeveloped in comparison to the most ‘advanced’ or developed capitalist countries of the West. That would also account for why what was going on then didn’t appear to mimic ‘normal’, developed capitalist extraction of surplus-value and the operation of the law of value as Marx theorized it.

However, you have also claimed (in your first and second points) that during the Maoist period the ruling class was developing the productive forces in order to strengthen China. But how was it developing the productive forces without increasing the organic composition of its capital? Generally these two processes are coeval. As productive forces develop, typically, living labor in the production process is replaced by dead labor, i.e. constant capital, thus, an increase in organic composition. Perhaps, as you suggest in your final sentence (of point three), an increase in extraction from rural workers — and let’s assume that such extraction was principally of absolute rather than relative surplus labor — that would indeed offset the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, but it wouldn’t negate it. The tendency would still be operative, though, it’s just that during that period it would be effectively counter-acted, just as it was in the early days of Western capitalism, of what Marx called the formal domination of capital.

You say that a capitalist cares not one iota what product is being produced as long as it makes a profit, whereas China did care during the Maoist period which products were being produced. But you are comparing the individual capitalist (or firm) with the whole Chinese ruling class (state). That is not the proper comparison to make, however. At the national level, the level of the national capital, and hence the ruling class and state, of both Stalinist state capitalist countries (e.g. the USSR) and of Western (liberal or mixed) state capitalist countries, the ruling class very much does care about which products are produced. The same concern (as in Maoist China) for the development of the means of mass destruction and other products that are necessary for national ‘defense’ and imperial expansion and conquest applies to them. Also, apart from the products necessary for building up a strong state machine, are those products necessary for providing basic energy needs for their industries, infrastructure, etc, not to mention the housing, health-care, education and other basic needs of the population generally in order to sustain a modern, developed society and to prevent the dispossessed masses from becoming an unmanageable problem. Certain specific products are necessary to meet these needs and it is the state that is charged with assuring their production.

Even if China was largely autarkic during the Maoist period, it still existed in a capitalist world and it had to compete with other countries in that world. It couldn’t afford to ignore what those other countries, especially the most powerful ones, were doing, geo-politically, militarily and economically. It needed to both try to catch up and ‘keep up’ with them and to utilize its economic resources as efficiently as possible in order to do this catching and keeping up. Certainly the Chinese state, exercising more or less total control over the Chinese economy, could organize this effort in a way that wouldn’t appear, on the surface at least, to mimic the way it occurs in liberal or ‘mixed economy’ capitalist countries. But if efficiency or productivity in this effort was significantly ignored, it would clearly at some point thwart it. Whereas, I would argue, if efficiency/productivity was pursued in order to decrease the time and resources needed to achieve it, then the same fundamental economic processes must have been operational.

A final point. You claim that China did not mimic accumulation for accumulation’s sake. But would you say that, e.g. Stalinist Russia in the 1930s did so mimic it? Surely it could be seriously argued that Stalinist Russia in the ’30s pursued the development of its productive forces in order to create a strong military and country within a tense international environment (i.e. the same as how you characterize Maoist China). Yet it was also a state capitalist society and mode of production, was it not? In fact, was not the economy of Maoist China in large part modeled on that of Stalinist Russia? (Not that it was an exact replica, of course.) In any case, ‘accumulation for accumulation’s sake’ is how capitalist economic functioning appears on the surface to an outside observer. It is not the reality for either the individual capitalist/firm or the national capital/ruling class/state. The reality is that accumulation in capitalism is invariably pursued for the sake of power, both economic and political.

E.R.