File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 33


Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 00:25:05 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Blair's willing executioners


In message <199709021844.TAA21079-AT-spock.tinet.ie>, Karl Carlile
<expresspost-AT-tinet.ie> writes
>I am interested to know how in this context you view the British
>working class? Do you view the present state of working class politics
>in Britain as simply a result of the defeat of the working class?

Big question! At the risk of hyperbole, I would say that the historical
condition of working class organisation internationally is more
profoundly damaged than it was by the fascist enterprise. The
reactionary wave of politics of the thirties and forties impacted upon
the working class from the outside, so to speak. Repression was its
principle characteristic. (The situation in the allied countries is
rather different - there reformism - and Stalinism - took hold.)

The internal collapse of the reformist and Stalinist movements in the
seventies and eighties is more far-reaching for working class self-
organisation. To qualify that, it should be stressed that the material
conditions of the working class - at least in the advanced countries -
are much better than in the early century.

None the less this is the first time in a hundred years that the working
class has had no political existence or impact, beyond the partial and
fragmentary. That seems to me to be a self-inflicted defeat whose
consequences are not to be minimised. The mawkish spectacle of Tony
Blair magically saving the Labour Party by turning it into a middle
class Sunday School should explain that state of the British working
class movement.

If you want a quick snap-shot of the primitive state of working class
consciousness in Britain, just take a look at the current spasm over
Princess Diana. It might be hard to believe for those off these shores,
but literally millions of people are expected (and I don't think that is
exaggeration) to attend the funeral on Saturday. Already everything has
been cancelled on the day.

In particular the shallow movement for Scottish devolution has been
cruelly exposed as a none event: all parties have agreed to suspend the
campaign for SCOTTISH devolution to mourn this ENGLISH princess. Pity
the poor Scottish Football Team, whose match with Belorussia could only
be scheduled on Saturday afternoon. Already they have been denounced as
'traitors', by Scottish MPs and newspapers, who, only days ago were
telling the Scots that it was their duty to vote for a devolution and a
Scottish parliament!
-----------------
At the risk of turning into a fascism bore, I found this rather useful
article by Elmar Altvater and some others in the Confereence of
Socialist Economists Bulletin: On the analysis of Imperialism in the
metropolitan countries: the West German example.

Altvater et al look at some indicators of the rate of exploitation under
fascism:

'The most favourable relation in the twenties between income to capital
and income to labour in industry was 16 per cent in 1927, dropping to
1.6 per cent in the crisis year of 1931. In the course of fascism the
relation between income to capital and income to labour managed to be
raised from 7.5 per cent in 1934 to 43.4 per cent in 1938.

'This set of figures clearly brings out the historical function of
fascism [marvellously unfashionable formulation, I know, but this was
written in the seventies]. It rasied the rate of exploitation of the
working class extremely rapidly and extensively to a level 300 per cent
above that of the Weimar Republic. This led to the rate of profit being
increased so much that capital accumulation expereinced a new boom. The
organized working class had been smashed and every attempt to resist
fascist authority ended in the concentration camps. 

...

'West German capital reaped the benefit of the fascist form of the
fulfillment of the drive for surplus labour, after fascism had been
defeated politically and militarily: the higher level of the rate of
exploitation which had been brought about by force was maintained for
ten years after the period of fascism.'

Can I just say that this materialistic analysis in no way precludes an
investigation of the ideological or social bases of fascism or the
holocaust.

Fraternally
-- 
James Heartfield

PS I entirely agree with Andrew Austin on the dialectics question. The whole
possibility of a *development* as opposed to mere change is inconceivable
without consciousness. Nature has no progress and does not learn from its
mistakes. Dialectic must be more than flux.


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