Fifteen
years have passed since the zenith of capitalist triumphalism, the
peak moment of capital's successful penetration of nearly every
inhabitable area of the globe. Not unlike the beginning of the last
century, the wealthy and privileged saw few storm clouds on the
horizon, a future of unlimited accumulation and placid rule. While
there were some risings in the hinterlands and some rebelliousness in
the air, they were easily suppressed or marginalized.
At
the center of this capitalist utopia stood the world's gendarme-- the
US Goliath-- with bases, military power, and unmatched technology,
ensuring that the world was a secure haven for monopoly corporations.
Moreover, the US sought and enforced international dominance. They
pledged to bring “democracy” to the world with the same
self-righteous hypocrisy and hubris that the earlier imperialists had
masked their economic voraciousness behind religious missionary zeal.
But
matters went awry in the new century.
The
support for religious zealots organized by the US, NATO, and their
allies against Middle Eastern secular, independent movements
boomeranged. Unlike earlier puppets who were quickly jettisoned when
their usefulness was exhausted, Islamic fundamentalists struck their
erstwhile masters before they could be betrayed by them. Under the
guise of a “war on terror,” a perpetual overt and covert war
against Middle Eastern states and populations-- a veritable
modern-day crusade-- continues to this day. The US, NATO, the EU, and
a motley collection of scavengers cynically used the excuse of
terrorism to reconfigure an entire region, destroying stable
societies, killing millions, and leaving millions homeless.
At
the same time, a global economy resting on the triumph of
nineteenth-century bourgeois economic thought and practices began to falter.
Faith in the bright future was shaken by the destruction of trillions
of dollars of nominal value, a disaster brought on by the foolish
speculations of a gang of the oracles of a new era of technological
advance.
Before
the effects of the so-called “dot-com” crisis subsided, the
global economy was struck with another downturn, shaking the
capitalist underpinnings like no other blow since the Great
Depression. To answer this catastrophe, capitalism spun off millions
of workers, stripped wages and benefits, and shredded an already
meager social safety net. The wake of the 2007-2008 collapse
continues to drown the hopes and aspirations of millions, with even
more turbulence on the horizon.
To
any sober observer, capitalism is in the throes of a deep, profound,
multi-faceted crisis. The celebration of fifteen years ago was a
hollow and unwarranted declaration of the unstoppable success of
capitalism. War, deprivation, and uncertainty are the legacy of those
hailing that moment. Few alive today know a time when the future
looked so unsure.
The
Basis for a Left Revival?
Years
of disillusionment following the decline of the Soviet Union and its
Eastern European allies produced an era of navel-gazing and an
extreme dilution of the socialist vision for the left, especially in
the US and Europe. Murky enemies like “globalization” or “empire”
replaced “imperialism” and “capitalism” in public discourse.
Gradualist programs, market-centered reforms, and a trivialization of
diversity toward micro-identities guided a dispirited left.
Revolutionary politics were smothered by a sense that a “humane
capitalism” was the best that could be gotten.
Sure,
the left rallied around the anti-imperialist project in Latin
America, particularly the heroic rise of Hugo Chavez, and later, Evo
Morales and Rafael Correa. The broad-based defiance of the North
American gendarmerie
served to inspire millions who had lost hope. But the leftist
“Spring” that swept through the South has yet to spawn a real
replacement for capitalist economic relations, not to mention, a rock-solid socialism, such as that in Cuba.
Now
with capitalism on the ropes, one might expect a left upsurge. With
political and economic crisis-- endless war and near-depression-- one
would expect a revitalized left to emerge today.
It
hasn't happened.
In
Europe and North America, two flawed, failed currents dominate the
left ideological landscape: anarchism and social democracy. The
anarchist tendency is not the revolutionary anarchism of Bakunin, but
a tame version based on the utopian idea that all that stands in the
way of a just and fair society is restraint on the freedom of the
masses-- authority, and not capitalism, is the ultimate oppressor.
For the modern day anarchists, social change lies in radical
democracy, removing the encrusted bureaucracies that rule over our
society-- civil servants, agencies, union leaders, politicians, etc.
Of
course there is some truth in this critique, but without a greater
vision, without a plan to replace capitalism, overturning a
bureaucracy simply invites another one. And insofar as its enemy is
authority, modern anarchism differs little from its anti-government
counterpart on the extreme right. The social base for this
contemporary strain is, as it was in the 1960s, students and the
economically marginalized. The failures of the 1960s New Left are
reproduced today in the meteoric rise and quick collapse of the
Occupy Wall Street movement and its European counterparts. Its
clarion calls, as in the past, are spontaneity and “horizontalism.”
A
second dominant strain in our time is social democracy, a posture
that traces its origins and draws its life from hostility to
Bolshevism. As an antidote to revolutionary socialism, it attempts to
awkwardly straddle the divide between working class advocacy and
accommodation to capitalism. It offers an evolutionary road map-- a
socialism-lite-- that depicts capitalism as gradually eroding and
giving way to a growing public sector. Moreover, the mechanisms
established to insure capitalist rule are to be somehow harnessed to
this end. The social base for social democracy is the ossified union
leadership, opportunist politicians, and a neutered, cowed working
class made impervious to revolutionary ideology.
For
much of the twentieth century, social democracy rivaled
Marxism-Leninism. But after decades of advocating market solutions
and supporting imperial belligerency, social democracy-- in the form
of center-left political parties-- stands discredited and unpopular.
Where
successful campaigns of anti-Communism and fear-mongering had taken
root, social democratic parties did thrive. However, when periods of
deep crisis appear, social democracy invariably fails the working
class. We are in such a period now.
The
last gasp of social democracy arose with the election of SYRIZA in
Greece. Garbed in a militant swagger and an outlaw persona, SYRIZA
quickly became both the darling and flag-bearer for the left wing of
social democracy. For Die Linke, France's Left Party, Spain's
PODEMOS, and other European movements seeking to revive the social
democratic corpse, the Tsipras government of open-collared and casual
intellectuals promised the rescue of a spent political philosophy.
But
as quickly as SYRIZA rose, it crashed and burned, delivering the
Greek people a fate even more onerous than that delivered by earlier
governments. But more than a failure, the SYRIZA tenure was a fiasco
with an ill-considered national referendum giving the party a mandate
to resist, only to be followed immediately by a humiliating
surrender.
Not
to be deterred by the debacle, the admirers of SYRIZA--- the last
bastions of social democracy-- spun a web of apologetics, excuses,
and obfuscations worthy of the best confidence artists. Where
sober-minded observers drew critical lessons, these sycophants chose
to deflect and deny.
Writing
in the Peoples World (9-11-2015),
Sam Webb, recently retired chair of the Communist Party USA, wrote:
“Nevertheless Tsipras still hoped
that the large ‘no’ vote of the Greek people in a referendum a
week before the negotiations began might
give German leaders reason to pause, to reconsider their draconian
bargaining posture, and maybe, just maybe, consider some form of debt
relief.
Or,
alternatively that the vote
would nudge France and Italy, as well as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), to show some
backbone and stand up to the German capitalist juggernaut.” (my
emphases)
“Nudge”?
“Reason to pause”? “Reconsider”? “Maybe, just maybe...”?
Are
these the considered negotiating objectives of serious leaders
confronting the resolute and naked power of European monopoly
capital? Do you “nudge” a bully? Do you chance that “maybe just
maybe” a ruling class will show compassion? Webb sees history as
not the history of class struggles, but the history of class
“nudges.”
And
then there is Oscar La Fontaine, the godfather of Germany's Die Linke
party, writing on Jean-Luc Melanchon's blog (Melanchon is the leader
of France's Left Party): “We have
learned one thing [from the SYRIZA
debacle]: while the European Central
Bank, which claims to be
independent and apolitical,
can turn off the financial tap to a left government, a
politics that is oriented towards democratic and social principles is
impossible.
It
is now necessary for the European left to develop a
Plan B for the case where a
member party arrives in a comparable situation.” (my
emphases).
“Claims
to be independent”? Did La Fontaine only recently discover that the
ECB is a tool of monopoly capital? Like the cynical Captain Renault
in the film Casablanca,
La Fontaine is shocked, shocked that the ECB is neither independent
nor apolitical! And how dare the ECB deny “a politics that is
oriented toward democratic and social principles...” That's not
cricket! Like Webb, La Fontaine does not see monopoly capital as the
enemy, but as a partner acting unreasonably.
It
should be no surprise, accordingly, that La Fontaine's “Plan B”
depends upon the EU oligarchs agreeing to disarm the ECB, an outcome
as likely as their acceptance of SYRIZA's original plan. Thus, the
circle is complete: the Euro-left needs to secure an agreement from
the very same forces that “shockingly” denied a moderate
agreement in the first place. Could anything be more futile?
Curiously,
the former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, sees things
differently and yet the same! In a long-winded speech in France
(Festival of the Roses, 9-23-2015), Varoufakis locates the roots of
Europe's problems in its unification: “Why?
Because we let our rulers try to do something that cannot be done: to
de-politicise money,
to turn Brussels, the Eurogroup, the ECB, into politics-free zones.”
(my emphasis). So where Germany's La
Fontaine faults the European oligarchs for politicizing
their decisions, his Greek counterpart faults Europe for
de-politicizing
its institutions! He goes on incoherently: “When
politics and money are de-politicised what happens is that democracy
dies. And when democracy dies, prosperity is confined to the very few
who cannot even enjoy it behind the gates and the fences they need to
build to protect themselves from their victims.
To
counter this dystopia the people of Europe must believe again that
democracy is not a luxury afforded to creditors and declined to
debtors.”
So
the debacle arose from a shortage of democracy. And the remedy is for
the people of Europe to “...believe again that democracy is not a
luxury afforded...” to the few. Varoufakis conveniently deflects
the blame that he and his colleagues share for the Greek tragedy onto
the people of Europe and their lost belief in democracy. “We
do not have to agree on everything. Let us make a start with an
agreement that the Eurozone needs to be democratised.”
If
only there were more democracy! If only Europe's rulers would see the
need to cooperate! And if only the people of Europe would make them
act democratically! Smothered by Varoufarkis' petulant burst of
disconnected ideas is the simple truth that rulers rule. They rule
for their own interests and not to please or recognize supposed
oppositional forces like SYRIZA or their ilk.
All
three commentators, like many others who fawned after SYRIZA, are now
left harboring wild illusions and offering shallow, unimaginative
answers to the crises of capitalism.
A
Path of Renewal
SYRIZA's
harshest critic offers a different answer to the challenge of a
wounded, but ruthless capitalism. From surveying most of the left
press in Europe and North America, one would not know that the
leaders of a Greek political party clearly analyzed the SYRIZA
program and accurately predicted its failure. One would not know that
only one Greek party now offers the only program even remotely
hopeful of resisting the further impoverishment of the Greek people.
One would not know that only one political force in Greece gives the
Greek people a dignified path forward that does not depend on the
“fair-mindedness” of monopoly capital or the condescension of
European elites.
That
party is the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), a party with both a
long history and deep ties with the Greek people.
Shamefully,
most of the leaders of the Western left ignore the KKE and its
alternative program, a reflection of the deep strains of
anti-Communism infecting political thought and the obdurate
close-mindedness of the neo-anarchists and social democrats. Thus,
the KKE is objectively blacklisted from the Western discussion of a
road forward.
With
Greek elections coming on September 20, KKE has adopted the campaign
slogan: “You have tried them… Now
the solution is to be found on the path to overthrow the system,
joining forces with the KKE.” This
slogan reminds the Greek people and others that finding a solution
within
capitalism is not only a bad idea, but a proven failure.
“KKE
is stressing that the people must not give a 'second chance' to the
parties that support the path of capitalist development and the EU,
the path that brings the memoranda and the anti-people measures. They
must not approve the implementation of the new anti-people memorandum
with their votes. They must not give a 'second chance' to those who,
in the recent past as well, sowed illusions about the ‘humanization’
of capitalism.” With the Greek
people's standards of living approaching the tragic levels found
after the Second World War, we are witnessing a preview of where the
capitalist crisis is taking the rest of the world. For those who are
open to seeing it, the collapse of SYRIZA is a demonstration of the
futility of finding a way out of the crisis within
the system of capitalism. KKE understands this and offers an
alternative; not an easy road, but one more promising than following
the dead ends traveled in the past.
KKE
electoral success this coming weekend will shorten that road
immeasurably as well as provide an inspiration for those of us
seeking an alternative to the bankrupt model of social democracy.
KKE
gains will improve the chances for a real left revival.
Zoltan
Zigedy
