Solyndra: Scandal or a Noble Effort that Failed?

The internet and the other media are abuzz over the collapse of a private corporation, Solyandra LLC, singled out by the Obama administration for a $535 million government loan in early September of 2009. Solyndra, a company boasting of its mission to create a new, innovative type of solar panel was hailed by the President as the future of clean energy, a center piece of his stimulus program. As recently as May of last year, Obama pronounced Solyandra a “testament to American ingenuity and dynamism,” a claim that might well be proven sadly prophetic. After burning off well over half a billion dollars in less than two years, Solyandra filed for bankruptcy in September.

The dust-up generated by the Solyandra bankruptcy has pitted hypocritical conservatives on one side against cynical Obama apologists on the other. Neither side offers anything of value; both obscure the real lessons of Solyandra.

The charges and counters of insider favors and noble job-creating effort obscure the common practices of funding private enterprises with public funds. It is a rare, unusual occasion for the typical entrepreneur to tackle a new project without first seeking public, taxpayer funding. Though unspoken, this is the modus vivendi of twenty-first century capitalism. From the federal level of Solyndra to the local level of new restaurants, shopping malls or stadiums, thousands of contractors, developers, and business start-ups approach the government with hat in hand. From tax forgiveness to out-and-out grants, from publicly funded infrastructure improvements to interest-free loans, business in the US begins with the politics of securing taxpayer-provided welfare or cost-free public services.

Disguising these practices as job creating or growth enhancing, the Democratic and Republican Parties, liberals and conservatives, national politicians and local officials energetically endorse what has euphemistically been dubbed “Public-Private Partnerships.” Typically, the projects are profit-producing endeavors with any profits going to the capitalist partner and the costs and risks absorbed by the public partner. Generally the political operatives who arrange these deals are well rewarded for their effort with generous campaign contributions or out-and-out kickbacks. In the case of investment bankers who structure bond deals to finance such projects, there are fat commissions. And for the public – which seldom has a voice in these deals—there may be carrots: vague promises of jobs or increased economic activity. Or there are sometimes sticks: threats of relocation or closure of existing businesses. In any case, Public-Private Partnerships are never democratically decided, but imposed by the elites who stand to benefit.

The supreme irony of the emergence and dominance of Public-Private Partnerships lies in their blatant violation of the axioms of free market economic theory. The very proponents of these partnerships uniformly voice the values of entrepreneurship, market rationality, and market non-intervention. By the dogmas that dominate economic thinking in the US, a new business or the expansion of an existing business should be left to the tender mercies of the free market. If private capital is not made available, then the market, in its purported rationality, shows little confidence in the proposal; it is too risky. If, on the other hand, the market allocates private capital for a new project, there is no need for public subsidies. Obviously, hypocrisy is never an obstacle to profit seeking through pillaging public resources.

In the case of Solyndra, the Administration gambled public funds and lost on a project laden with political opportunities. If Solyandra had succeeded, Obama would have touted this as an example of job creation and environmental progressivism, a feather in his cap with important elements of his electoral base. His Republican opponents, on the other hand, cheerfully endorse private sector welfare, but seized an opportunity afforded by the bankruptcy to charge Obama with political favoritism in the Solyandra affair.

But missing here is advocacy for the people. Solyandra was a decidedly bad deal.

It was a bad deal because investing public money in private enterprises is generally a bad idea. There was a time when the ferocious war between corporate monopolies and small businesses might have been influenced by government intervention. There was a time when tax breaks, favorable loans to small businesses and other modest measures of support would have given small businesses a lifeline against McDonalds and Wal-Mart. But that moment has long passed. Instead, governments and public officials chose to side with monopoly capital, seduced by the corruption, influence, and power of giant national and international corporations. Those who need help the least, get it the most.

Of course the corrosive influence of profit on government funding is not new. In the interesting 1947 movie, Boomerang, an innocent man is railroaded on murder charges. Directed by Elia Kazan, in his “red” period before he ratted out his colleagues and comrades for mainstream respectability, the movie connects the fate of the accused to the conflict between the old-guard political party and its “reform” opponents. But the movie shows that there is more at stake than one man’s life. While the “reformers” are willing to broker a man’s life to remain in power, the movie reveals that there are even more sinister motives behind their complicity: the top “reform” leaders are involved in a shady deal to sell their real estate holdings to the city for a seemingly worthy public facility. If the Boomerang story resonates today, it is because these kinds of petty corruptions have since expanded and evolved enormously into common and prevalent practice.

The perpetual military economy propelled private appropriation of public funds and resources to an entirely new, qualitatively higher level after World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The so-called military-industrial complex – a kind of socialized mechanism of anti-social economic activity for private profit – intimately linked procurement, research and development, war planning, intelligence, etc. to the private sector. Thanks to the hysteria of the Red Scare, a massive amount of public funds was uncritically and wastefully funneled into profits for corporations parasitic upon both war fears and tax-payer resources. Even without the threat of world war, the military economy expanded and evolved to include private sector mercenaries, client armies, and a giant complex of private contractors and consultants. Standing as a symbol for this evolution is that private behemoth, Halliburton, which offers the military every service from showers to food service.

Two other distinct, but related, developments – the privatization of public enterprises and services and the explosive expansion of tax-evading “non-profit” services – added to the pillage of the public coffers and the taxpayers' paychecks. Despite its free-market advocates in both major parties, privatization has produced higher costs and diminished services, while the growth of “non-profits” has stripped tax collections and government revenues. In some cities over 40% of property goes untaxed because of the granting of transparently ridiculous “non-profit” status.

Solyandra is merely one more instance of the decay and systemic crisis of the capitalism system. Solyandra exposes not an aberration, but a politically charged example of the fusion of the private capitalist economy with the functioning of the state. While some rail against corporate welfare, few today understand its deep roots in the logic of capitalism. V. I. Lenin foresaw this development over a hundred years ago and later Marxist political economists developed his insights into the theory of state-monopoly capitalism. We can trace the twentieth century evolution of the unification of the state and monopoly capitalism from the capitalist response to the Great Depression through the lessons learned from the state’s role in creating political consensus, employment and profitability in World War II. We can see its further expansion in the permanent war economy, the wholesale purchase of the two-party system by private wealth, and the guarantee of private sector profitability in all state policy. We are now experiencing its highest form in the outrageous publicly funded rescue of the most irresponsible and socially aloof corporations.

Without this understanding, we only change the flavor of the drug we are offered.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

Greece, A Victim of Capitalism

Thanks to Walter Lippmann of CubaNews for the English translation of the Granma article which appears below in Spanish as well. Lippmann hosts the CubaNews list serve recommended on my blog-- the best English language source for real and honest information about the beacon of socialism in the New World. And thanks to Manuel E. Yepe who consistently and fervently advocates the Marxist-Leninist perspective in the pages of the esteemed organ of the Cuban Communist Party. Granma, as well, is a recommended link on my blog.

The Greek people continue to suffer from and struggle against the demands of finance capital. While the world economy hangs in the balance, the narrow interests and petty maneuvers of the capitalist actors continue.

ZZ






Havana, Monday, July 18, 2011. Year 15 / Number 199

MANUEL E. YEPE

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs3223.html
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Greece, cradle of slavery democracy, seems fated to be among the countries digging the upcoming grave of capitalist democracy.

“To understand what the future has in store for the people of Greece, you need to imagine an intruder breaking into your home, pointing a gun at your head and demanding you give him your salary, your savings, your car, your TV set and your refrigerator.”

That’s how US writer and journalist Zoltan Zigedy sees the situation in his web site ZZ’s Blog where, under the title Capitalism Mugs Greece. Who is Next?, he explains that the Greek people did not benefit at all from the orgiastic profits of international banking nor did it promote its irresponsible behavior, but now it is forced to pay the price for the damage which caused the collapse of the global capitalist system.

“And if invasion, armed robbery and extortion are crimes, Greece is undoubtedly a crime victim. And the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the criminals with the PASOK leaders and parliamentarians who attempt to legitimize the crime".



The recovery-from-recession prescription -- presented by capitalist economists as a universal law – stemmed from the concept that deficit and debt-promoting expenses stimulated growth and inflation which, in turn, increased tax incomes and made the debt cheaper allowing the reduction of public debt vis-a-vis the economic product.

Today, according to Zigedy, two factors have changed this dynamic. Firstly, the almost total domination of the neoliberal ideology which has generated in public opinion a great fear of any degree of public debt.

Secondly, for decades, changes in the global economy led to a new dynamic that manipulates and exploits the debt to limits never seen before. With many of the rich capitalist countries moving their manufacturing industries to low-salary areas, the financial activities – administration, manipulation and expansion of capital – took on a main role in these economies.

New techniques, instruments and institutions evolved toward the accumulation of surplus value – profits – in the hands of only a few engaged in the financial game.

The combination of these two elements –one subjective and the other objective – has placed Greece in a spiral of death. With a swiftly rising unemployment rate already over 16%, with taxes that cannot be collected, reduced salaries and benefits, with a growing number of homeless families and their social services slashed, Greek workers face a future of serious decadence.

The Greek people know little of the exotic instruments created in the international financial centers to generate the massive amounts of ghost capital that stimulates the growth of the predator system; they are only indirectly familiar with the arrogant and irresponsible actions of gargantuan international banks such as Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers and Goldman Sachs.

Zoltan Zigedy recommends that his fellow countrymen notice the similarities between this assault on the Greek people and the situation facing the US citizenry. “We should be inspired by the popular resistance in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states, and understand that we have a very difficult struggle ahead, without being seduced in this struggle by such false political allies as the Democratic Party, the US homologue of the Greek PASOK.”

Certainly for humankind the collapse of the global capitalist system will not be an easy matter, because there is no doubt it will do everything possible to delay its own debacle and will lay upon the rest of the world, including its allies, the associated damages.







La Habana, lunes 18 de julio de 2011. Año 15 / Número 199

Grecia víctima del capitalismo

MANUEL E. YEPE

Grecia, cuna de la democracia esclavista, parece encaminada a estar entre los países llamados a excavar la ya próxima sepultura de la democracia capitalista.

La plaza Syntagma, de Atenas, fue escenario de las protestas del pueblo contra las medidas estrangulatorias impuestas por la Unión Europea y el FMI.

"Para comprender lo que el futuro depara al pueblo de Grecia, usted debe imaginar que un intruso llega a su casa, le apunta a la cabeza con un arma y le exige que le entregue su salario, sus ahorros, su auto, su televisor y su refrigerador".

Así ve la situación el escritor y periodista estadounidense Zoltan Zigedy en su sitio web ZZ¢ s Blog donde, bajo el título Capitalism Mugs Greece. Who is Next?, explica que el pueblo griego no se benefició para nada con las orgíacas ganancias de la banca internacional, ni estimuló su irresponsable conducta y, sin embargo, ahora se le fuerza a pagar el precio de los daños causantes del colapso del sistema capitalista mundial.

"Y si la invasión, el robo armado y la extorsión son crímenes, Grecia es sin dudas la víctima de un crimen. Y la Unión Europea, el Banco Central Europeo y el Fondo Monetario Internacional son los criminales¼ con los líderes y parlamentarios del PASOK tratando legitimar el crimen".

Alimentado por una fuerte inyección de fondos públicos, el sector financiero del mundo capitalista desarrollado, que no fue condenado ni castigado por sus acciones conducentes al desastre que se pretendía reparar, retornó con fuerza a la especulación y, ahora, ataca las deudas soberanas de países como Grecia, Irlanda, Portugal y España, los más vulnerables en Europa, forzándoles a la conversión de la deuda privada en deuda pública.

Con pocas excepciones, estos países se vieron obligados a contraer mayores deudas para estimular el crecimiento económico ante la severa caída de la inversión y la demanda general, a nivel global. Las economías capitalistas quedaron sin otra opción que no sea la de seguir hundiéndose.

La fórmula para la recuperación en casos de recesión —que los economistas capitalistas presentaban como ley universal— partía de que el déficit y los gastos generadores de deudas promovían el crecimiento y la inflación que, a su vez, incrementaban los ingresos impositivos y abarataban la deuda permitiendo que la deuda pública se redujera con respecto al producto económico.

Hoy, según Zigedy, dos factores han cambiado esta dinámica. Primero, la dominación casi total de la ideología neoliberal ha ido conformando en la opinión un gran temor a cualquier grado de deuda pública.

En segundo lugar, por décadas, los cambios en la economía global llevaron a una nueva dinámica que manipula y explota la deuda hasta límites nunca antes vistos. Con muchos de los países capitalistas ricos trasladando sus industrias manufactureras a áreas de bajos salarios, las actividades financieras —administración, manipulación y expansión del capital— asumieron un mayor papel en estas economías.

Nuevas técnicas, instrumentos e instituciones evolucionaron hacia la acumulación de valor excedente —ganancias— en manos de unos pocos comprometidos con el juego financiero.

La combinación de estos dos elementos —uno subjetivo y otro objetivo— ha situado a Grecia en una espiral de la muerte. Con un desempleo en acelerado incremento que ya sobrepasa el 16 %, los impuestos que no se cobran, salarios y beneficios recortados, un número creciente de familias sin vivienda y con sus servicios sociales cercenados, los trabajadores griegos encaran un futuro de grave decadencia.

El pueblo griego conoce poco de los exóticos instrumentos urdidos en los centros financieros internacionales para generar las masivas cantidades de capital fantasma que avivan el crecimiento del rapaz sistema y solo indirectamente están familiarizados con las arrogantes e irresponsables acciones de gigantescos bancos internacionales como Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers y Goldman Sachs.

Zoltan Zigedy recomienda a sus compatriotas que vean la similitud que tiene el asalto al pueblo griego con la situación que enfrenta la ciudadanía en Estados Unidos. "Debía inspirarnos la resistencia popular en Wisconsin, Ohio y otros estados y reconocer que lo que tenemos por delante es una lucha difícil, muy difícil, sin dejarnos seducir en esta lucha por falsos aliados políticos como el partido demócrata, homólogo en Estados Unidos del PASOK griego".

Es indudable que para la humanidad toda el colapso del sistema capitalista mundial no será nada fácil, porque nadie duda que hará todo lo posible por retardar la debacle propia descargando sobre el resto del mundo, sus aliados inclusive, los perjuicios coyunturales.

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2011/07/18/interna/artic01.html

There is a Better Way

What can we learn from Karl Marx regarding the swelling second wave of the global economic crisis with its epicenter in Europe?

Writing in the first volume of Capital nearly 150 years ago, Marx added to the end of the first chapter a curious essay entitled “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.” Coming after a rigorous argument that places the commodity at the center of his analysis of capitalism, section 4 reads like a disclaimer of all that precedes it:

Man’s reflections on the forms of social life, and consequently, also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins, post festum, with the results of the process of development ready to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as commodities, and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are immutable, but their meaning. Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values. It is, however, just this ultimate money form of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of disclosing, the social character of private labour, and the social relations between the individual producers. When I state that coats or boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incarnation of abstract human labour, the absurdity of the statement is self-evident.

Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots compare those articles with linen, or, what is the same thing, with gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation between their own private labour and the collective labour of society in the same absurd form.

The categories of bourgeois economy consist of such like forms. They are forms of thought expressing with social validity the conditions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of production, viz., the production of commodities. The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.

The “secret” in this section is not only the secret to understanding commodities, even capitalism, but indeed the key to appreciating the Marxian method.

Marxism stands apart from “bourgeois economy” precisely because, through a dedicated study of history and revealed historical patterns, the Marxian method grasps that commodities, like markets, banks, and even today’s credit default swaps, are evolved and evolving human artifacts best understood through the constitutive relations between human actors who consciously construct and employ these instruments. That is to say, these elements, like the social relations that stand behind them, are neither fixed nor eternal, but changing and changeable.

Contrary to the pretentious, puffed up Hegelianism of celebrated pundit Francis Fukiyama, capitalism as we know it is not the “end of history.” And contrary to the triumphalism of iconic political figures like Margaret Thatcher, “There is No Alternative” is a foolish, bombastic slogan.

Yet today’s political leaders and economic thinkers are captured by the “magic and necromancy” of markets, as Marx might put it. They firmly believe that the profound economic crisis currently destroying thousands of lives and chewing up the standards of life of millions more can only be resolved in the narrow straight jacket of bourgeois economics and its eternal theological “laws.” But unlike the laws of nature, bourgeois economic laws reflect social relations, relations of social classes established by power, dominance, and privilege that might well be overturned or modified by human agency. We cannot replace the second law of thermodynamics for a “better” law of physics, but we can replace the current “laws” exhibited by the financial market place with new social relations and, consequently, a new financial order.

As Marx notes, this point is obscured for those unable to envision “other forms of production,” for those dogmatically wedded to the “immutable” laws of bourgeois economics.

With the exception of those fighting austerity and the tyranny of the popes of economic dogma such as the Greek Communist Party and others not constrained by any irrational fetish, the global economy remains strangled by the fetishism of markets and the financial predators exploiting that fetishism.

What is needed urgently is a break with stagnant, self-defeating thinking that elevates the cancerous financial sector and its privileged status among our institutions.

Witness the tragic pandering of progressive, social democratic, and other left political parties to the fetishism of financial markets throughout the world. The never ending demands of the agents of finance – the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Union functionaries, in the case of Europe – bleed working people of the little they have retained in the face of the economic hurricane unleashed in 2008. Relentlessly, a tiny elite of financial manipulators and their hedge funds, private equity firms and investment banks have extorted concessions in the form of vicious austerity programs imposed on the masses.

The more governments concede in jobs, spending, and public welfare, the worse their economies perform. The worse their economies perform, the greater their debt in relation to economic product. The greater the share of sovereign debt against national product, the greater the concessionary demands of the vultures of finance. And the cycle repeats endlessly. This is the kind of reductio ad absurdum that only a madman could embrace.

The laboratory for this insanity is Greece. For two years financial predators have swarmed the relatively small chunk of international debt held by the Greek government while demanding the surrender of Greek assets and social spending to cover or guarantee those debt claims. The EU leadership could have easily placed this debt in a secure strong box as they did for banks in 2008 and 2009, protecting Greece from the vultures. Instead, they did nothing but collaborate with the assault of the financial sector. That collaboration, along with the compliance of the politically bankrupt PASOK government, brought catastrophe to the Greek people.

Recent exposés of misery in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have only scratched the surface of the pain now being endured daily by the workers in Greece.

And the misery will continue with the passage of the latest package of property taxes, salary reductions and layoffs. As these draconian measures, extorted by the titans of finance, further slow the Greek economy, officials will shrilly note that the Greeks are now even further from reducing their national debt and even more crippled by debt service. There will surely be further demands of privatization and austerity.

Unmoved by the fetishism of markets and the iron discipline imposed by its doctrinaire disciples, a growing segment of the Greek population has joined with Greek Communists and militant trade union leaders to simply say “No!” to this voluntary enslavement. For them, there is no fear of crumbling capitalist institutions. There is no civil debate over the fate of extortionate European banks. There is no awe of a future without the imposing structures constructed by European elites to shape Europe to benefit the privileged.

Rather, they face the future with optimism. Instead of “There is No Alternative,” they offer “There must be a Better Way.” The rest of the world would wisely heed this message and take a hard look at the socialist option.

The old Moor, as his friends fondly called Karl Marx, would smile at the slogan: “We will not pay for your crisis!”

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

Imperialism Unmasked

If international solidarity is to be a cornerstone of building a militant and oppositional left in the US and other developed countries, then we have much work to do. Tragically, much of the left continues to tacitly or enthusiastically view NATO and US intervention in the affairs of far-off, small countries as support for just causes – noble military offensives for democratic change or the promotion of human rights.

Since the demise of the last great counterforce – the Soviet Union – the US and its allies have used their domination of all major sources of information to posture their many aggressions as altruistic efforts to secure stability, peace, democratic change and support for human rights.

Of course there is nothing new in this posture. Since the birth of imperialism, powerful developed countries have striven to shape the world in such a way that it benefits their economic and geo-political interests. They have sought to explain these interventions by offering transparent, but morally seductive, accounts of their motives. From the “civilizing” mission of British imperialism through the rabidly anti-Communist demonology of US administrations, imperialists have sought to mold the world in a way that best advances the narrow interests of their national bourgeoisie, especially its supra-national interests.

What is new is the incredible gullibility of so many to swallow the lame justifications for aggression against weaker, more vulnerable countries. When you slather great power intervention with noble-sounding homage to democracy and human rights, it remains imperialism. When powerful countries use their resources to fashion the world – regardless of their pretended motives – the result never serves either democracy or the interests of the subjected peoples.

I have in mind, of course, Libya.

While the media assiduously portrays the Libyan civil war as a popular rising and part of the so-called “Arab Spring,” they calculatedly avoid the obvious differences. Unlike the mass risings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and some other Middle Eastern countries, the opposition to the Gaddafi government quickly took the form of an armed uprising. Within a month, a shadowy alternative government and armed resistance was established. In less than another month, US and NATO intervention occurred, sanctioned by a hasty UN resolution ostensibly passed to “protect innocent civilians” with a vigilant umbrella of air power, a “no-fly zone.”

Despite the pretext of the resolution, NATO intervention has been decisive in determining the outcome of the civil war. Air Power, arms, advisers and covert operations have wholly shaped every engagement, as well as terrorizing the Gaddafi loyalists. In addition, Qatar, Jordan, and the Emirates have supplied resources to the anti-Gaddafi cause, which certainly include advisors and might well involve combatants. What may have begun as an expression of political opposition was quickly transformed into a military action fronted by a surrogate regime and its rag-tag military, all serving the interests of the leading NATO countries.

The media portrays the Gaddafi government as Satin incarnate. This characterization is most agreeable to those in the West who trust no one but white guys in business suits. But even many of the left and most liberals fall prey to their own cultural biases by seeing Colonel Gaddafi as alien and unpredictable, without any reference point to the culture or social context from which he sprang. They are much more comfortable with “rebels” in Nike shoes and Western T-shirts.

But the issue is not whether Gaddafi is a good guy or bad guy, as simple minds in the West so often characterize conflicts. I confess that I know far too little about conditions in Libya, its history and its political life. I’m confident that pundits like Juan Cole or Stephen Zunes who have jumped out emphatically in support of NATO’s “humanitarian mission” know little more beyond uncritical internet research, anecdotes and hunches. The real issue is whether or not non-Libyans should have a say or, more urgently, a hand, in determining the fate of this North African country. Surely, those with the most at stake, those living in Tripoli, Benghazi and other cities or villages in Libya are both best equipped and most deserving to decide these matters without the eager “helping hand” of NATO.

This, of course, is the principle of self-determination enshrined in the United Nations charter and declarations of rights, a principle that has been shamefully abused since the post-Soviet domination of the UN by the US and its allies.

Self-determination is also a guiding principle, a core element, in the anti-imperialist posture. Anti-imperialists reject any actions or policies that restrain a people from determining their own course of action. But anti-imperialism is much more. It is also to confront and resist those great powers that overtly or covertly shape the fate of weaker nations for their own economic and political interests. For those living in those great powers – in this case, the US and other NATO countries – it is a special duty to vigorously and militantly support and advocate for the victims. The ideological softness fostered since the disappearance of a principled socialist bloc has sown confusion, luring many to side with imperialism in the several great-power encroachments and wars contrived since that time. The Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and many other areas have experienced imperialist meddling, even military actions, all under the banner of human rights and democracy.

Blindness to imperial maneuvers produced little outcry when the G-8 countries – the primary imperialist countries – pledged $40 billion in “aid” for the “Arab Spring” countries in late May of this year. While few details were offered, the G-8 leaders stressed economic and social “reforms,” “transparency” and private sector development, all code words for fostering regimes amicable to imperialist penetration.

To Egypt’s credit, it emphatically turned down a US offer to supply the newly liberated people with $165 million to support “democratic and economic development” through the stealth imperialist agency, USAID. Egyptian officials were stunned when Hilary Clinton announced that these funds would come from existing aid programs and were to be administered directly by USAID and without the consent or involvement of Egyptian representatives. Egyptians wisely saw this as US interference in their internal affairs in order to influence the course of its ongoing revolutionary process.

On the Libyan question, skeptics point to the cozy relations Gaddafi has enjoyed with the West since 2003 as counter to the claim that the US and NATO are operating out of imperial hostility. Further, they cite economic ties as erasing any possible self-interestedness – energy resources, for example – that would motivate imperialist aggression.

For sure, recent releases from Wikileaks and other sources demonstrate warm, bilateral relations between US officials and Gaddafi right up to the January events. Even closer ties are now known between Libyan officials and the CIA. But this only demonstrates incredible hypocrisy on the part of the aggressors.

Even more revealing of imperial cynicism is the strange story of the rebels’ military commander, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj. In a recent AP story, Belhaj is identified as a CIA target swept off the streets of Bangkok in 2004 by the CIA, tortured, and rendered to Libya where he was imprisoned by pre-arrangement with Libyan authorities. The fact that Belhaj -- labeled a “terrorist” only a few years ago -- is now acceptable to the West as the principal military leader of the anti-Gaddafi forces seems to cause no discomfort.

But do the US and its NATO powers have an economic interest in seeing Gaddafi removed from power in Libya?

Contrary to the skeptics, the NATO aggressors have a major and telling interest in seeing Gaddafi removed. In a little noticed article in the back pages of the April 15, 2011 Wall Street Journal, author Guy Chazan lays out the case for the major oil companies in seeking Gaddafi’s departure (For West’s Oil Firms, No Love Lost in Libya). Chazan notes that foreign companies enthusiastically “poured in” to Libya after 2003; he cites a major player: “Libya was very fashionable… [e]veryone saw it as a great opportunity.”

But despite some major early deals, things turned sour. “Under a stringent new system known as EPSA-4, the regime judged companies’ bids on how large a share of future production they would let Libya have. Winners routinely promised more than 90% of their oil output to Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corp., or NOC.”

In addition, Libya kept its “crown jewels”—the onshore oil fields producing most of its oil – in the hands of state-owned companies. In 2007, even long engaged “friendly” companies were made to renegotiate their contracts to conform to EPSA-4. Foreign companies were forced to hire Libyans for jobs, including top managers.

One big loser was Italian oil firm, Eni SpA, which had to pay $1 billion to extend its contract with the Libyan government. Even more painfully, the Libyans reduced Eni’s share of production from 35-50% to a mere 12%. It’s no wonder that the Italian government was the most enthusiastic supporter of the NATO aggression. Nor is it anything more than a bitter irony that Eni CEO Paulo Scaroni pronounced the NATO assault on Gaddafi’s government “a lucky outcome.”

Chazan reports that “A clutch of companies left Libya as their five-year contracts began to expire, among them Chevron Corporation, BG Group PLC, and Australia’s Woodside Petroleum LTD.”

No doubt they are now eager to return with a more favorable regime on the verge of taking power under NATO’s protective arm.

In the last week of August, Eni SpA signed a contract with the “interim” government of Libya to fulfill all of the natural gas and petroleum needs of the Libyan people, a suitable reward for the fulsome efforts of Italian imperialism. No one in the capitalist media saw this naked payoff as shameless.

When the “friends of Libya” conference convened in Paris on September 1, 2011, the 63 countries representing themselves as “friends” spoiled their celebration by feuding over the disposition of the Libyan oil resources. “French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he thought it would only be reasonable if French companies benefited from preferential access to Libyan contracts, given that Paris, together with the UK, led the foreign military offensive in Libya”, as reported in The Wall Street Journal (Amid Harmony on Libya, a Spat Over Its Oil, 9-2-2011). So now the scramble for Libyan oil begins.

Convincing some that NATO intervention in Libya was an act of imperialist aggression may well be a hopeless task. Many are blind to capitalist motives, just as they are ignorant of historical patterns. Yet, imperialist aggression continues as blatantly and arrogantly as it has for well over a hundred years.

V.I. Lenin, writing in 1900 of the naked aggression against China by the “Great Powers,” presages the imperialism of 2011:

And now the European capitalists have placed their rapacious paws upon China, and almost the first to do so was the Russian Government, which now so loudly proclaims its “disinterestedness.” It “disinterestedly” took Port Arthur away from China and began to build a railway to Manchuria under the protection of Russian troops. One after another, the European governments began feverishly to loot, or, as they put it, to “rent,” Chinese territory, giving good grounds for the talk of the partition of China. If we are to call things by their right names, we must say that the European governments (the Russian Government among the very first) have already started to partition China. However, they have not begun this partitioning openly, but stealthily, like thieves. They began to rob China as ghouls rob corpses, and when the seeming corpse attempted to resist, they flung themselves upon it like savage beasts, burning down whole villages, shooting, bayonetting, and drowning in the Amur River unarmed inhabitants, their wives, and their children. And all these Christian exploits are accompanied by howls against the Chinese barbarians who dared to raise their hands against the civilised Europeans…

How is our government’s senseless policy in China to be explained? Who benefits by it? The benefit goes to a handful of capitalist magnates who carry on trade with China, to a handful of factory owners who manufacture goods for the Asian market, to a handful of contractors who are now piling up huge profits on urgent war orders (factories producing war equipment, supplies for the troops, etc., are now operating at full capacity and are engaging hundreds of new workers). In the interests of this handful of capitalists and bureaucratic scoundrels, our government unhesitatingly sacrifices the interests of the entire people. And in this case, as always, the autocratic tsarist government has proved itself to be a government of irresponsible bureaucrats servilely cringing before the capitalist magnates and nobles. (The Chinese War)

That was the ugly face of imperialism in China, this is the ugly face of imperialism in Libya today.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

Sinking Fast

Regrettably, there is much to write about that must take a backseat to the economy and the current panic in equity markets. For the moment, the political fiascos, imperialist misadventures and cultural crudities that cry out for commentary are driven into the background by the fears generated by the latest economic news.

The loss of over 10% of equity value in one week terrorized business and economic pundits while driving investors to the exits. Making matters worse, there is an overriding, profound sense that no one in the seats of power knows what is wrong or how to fix it.

Of course some of us foresaw another round of decline coming, what the media has misleadingly dubbed the “double-dip”.

I posted on May 4, three months ago: “Rather than a recovery, we are in Act II of a severe crisis of capitalism. It is not merely a financial crisis, a severe business cycle trough or a radical imbalance, but a profound crisis of the capitalist system.” (The Crisis of Capitalism: Act II). Citing trends in GDP, labor productivity, unemployment, consumer spending, trade and even profits, I drew the conclusion that the road ahead was not only bumpy, but deeply rutted and perhaps impassable.

In another post in late June (Reliving 1937?), I emphasized the folly of debt hysteria and wholesale government budget slicing as a prescription for a seriously ill economy. A near consensus of economists and policy makers were blithely urging the same policies that nearly wrecked the vulnerable New Deal recovery in 1937. History was indeed repeating itself, first as a misstep in 1937, now as dogma-driven insanity.

Among liberal economists, Paul Krugman has commendably repeated warnings of this disaster in the pages of The New York Times.

And on the left, political economist Jack Rasmus has, for many months, boldly projected an impending relapse of 2008, citing a raft of economic data supportive of this conclusion (see jackrasmus.com).

But most economists and mass media commentators were swept up in the debt fraud and the high drama leading to the last minute capitulation to debt extortion.

After the curtain fell, ridiculousness reached new heights as Standard and Poor’s – one of the feared financial rating agencies (the same cabal that assigned the highest ratings to toxic, Rube Goldberg financial junk)—lowered the US credit rating by one notch. To underline the irrelevancy of this rating, the yield of US Treasury notes immediately dropped. Instead of fleeing US debt, investors stepped up to pay more and buy more. In fact, since late July, as the phony debt standoff grew in intensity, the yield on two and ten year Treasury bonds fell at an unprecedented rate, indicating not only willingness, but eagerness on the part of investors to secure US debt. In addition, the stern warnings about the consequences of debt on interest rates were proven unwarranted, with mortgage rates at an historic low. Still the humbuggery reigned.

This is a strange debt “crisis” indeed that attracts investors to secure more US debt. The same pundits who cite rising interest rates on EU member state bonds as evidence of a debt crisis conveniently overlook the reverse behavior of US bonds. The blatantly contradictory claims of economists and public commentators demonstrate that the “crisis” is really a contrived political maneuver.

No one notes that the credit rating of the Peoples’ Republic of China is two notches below the lowered rating of the US. It is no wonder that PRC officials howled at the US debt drama after they were able to weather the 2008 financial crisis despite a credit rating of only AA-. Standard and Poor’s ratings mean little to a country unchained from the tyranny of bond markets. Thanks to the PRC’s publicly owned banks and its large measure of economic planning, PRC leaders are able to withstand capitalist irrationality better than their Western counterparts.

Capping the confusion and deception of the first week of August was President Obama’s emergency statement during the stock market collapse on August 8. Adding to the madness, he spoke of “a renewed sense of urgency” in drastically reducing US debt, as though throwing gasoline on a fire would somehow extinguish it. I’ll leave it to psychotherapists to determine if the President really believes this nonsense.

Some not-so-random thoughts:

1. We are indeed falling off the economic precipice. While stock market performance is only a secondary indicator of economic health, it does signal the sentiment in ruling circles and among the wealthy. That sentiment is decidedly confused and fearful. Volatility, as in 2007-2008, signals an imminent retreat from investing. The players who remain active are hedge funds and private equity firms who gain even when the rest of us are drowning economically. We lost the chance to tame these renegades in 2009 and 2010 with financial reform, but left them free to prey on our economy. And they are.

2. Profit and its tendency to decline are still at the center of the global economic crisis. While profits have grown enormously over the last two years, they have shown slowing growth for some time. Moreover, the widely noted $2 trillion in cash reserves held by US corporations represent the same glut of liquidity, or vast pool of capital seeking a return, that led to the last crisis of financial speculation. In a Marxist technical sense, these reserves count as potential constant capital and weigh against the profit rate of capitalist enterprises. The lack of investment opportunity for accumulated capital explains why the stock market and economic growth are in such dire straits despite officially high profits. Capitalism only thrives when every possible cent of accumulated surplus is placed back into the profit-generating caldron.

3. Increased labor exploitation – the principle force propelling the proclaimed recovery – has petered out. Labor productivity, won by employing fewer workers to do more work, dropped .6% in the first quarter and another .3% in the second quarter of 2011, calculated on an annual basis. I noted the decline in productivity growth in my May 4 article, but new BLS figures actually show an absolute decline. While capitalists will continue to try to squeeze workers, BLS data prove that hyper-exploitation is showing diminishing returns.

4. Act II of the capitalist crisis is still centered on the financial sector. Despite the absorption of weaker financial institutions by those left standing after the 2008 crisis, despite the concentration of finance capital, banks are in a precarious position, holding shaky loans and dubious assets. Again, the opportunity was lost in 2009-2010 to secure a rational, economically useful role for banks. Instead, they were allowed to resume their rogue, speculative ways, further exacerbating the crisis.

5. Unemployment – the idling of workers seeking to keep their families from despair – continues to loom over the economy. As I urged in my May 4 posting, the “official” rate, as bad as it is, is a false, misleading indicator of the plight of the workforce. Instead, we must measure the pain of job loss and employment frustration by the employment-to-population ratios and the labor participation rates which better show the tragic fate of the US workforce. Jack Rasmus, in a recent post, has given an even more forceful, complete explanation of the true dimensions of unemployment (http://jackrasmus.com/2011/08/07/look-again-july-jobs-declined-by-198000/), an explanation that erases the false hopes encouraged by the media.

6. The trade balance widened in June to the detriment of US exports, a trend that further dilutes GDP growth potential.

All signs point to a perfect conjunction of stubbornly irrational policy decisions and lost economic momentum leading to the second, more intractable act of this twenty-first century economic crisis.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

A Crisis of Liberalism?

“Obama’s offer… falls to the right of the average voter’s preference; in fact, it may outflank the views of the average Republican.” George Packer (The New Yorker) citing The New York Times writer, Nate Silver

“Put it this way: If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph” Paul Krugman, The New York Times

“President Obama presented Republicans with what, at almost any other time in recent history, would be seen as a conservative dream…” The Nation editorial

“It was shocking when he betrayed core principles of the Democratic Party, portraying himself as high-minded and brave because he defied his loyal constituents.” William Greider, The Nation

The quotes above and many other similar statements point to a crucial, disturbing moment in the evolution of US politics. Self-styled liberals or, as they now prefer to be called, “progressives,” are recognizing the loss of their influence in the dynamics of the US political process. They are feeling the pain of marginalization.

For liberals, the election of Barack Obama signaled a return to an imagined earlier politics that would establish a coalition of the have-not and have-less elements of US society and would counter the unrestrained pillage of the very rich and powerful. This idealized vision never promised to settle accounts with powerful interests, but only to buffer the pain of the less advantaged with a robust, but patronizing “safety-net.” In foreign policy, liberalism never abandoned imperial goals masked as advocacy of transcendent values, but sought a softer, less belligerent imposition of these goals on client states and potential opposition. In the 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama and other Democratic Party candidates did much to encourage the view that new politics were on the horizon.

Nearly three years after the election, the promise of Obama and the hope of liberals are gone, replaced by shock and disappointment.

Liberals-in-denial blame the Obama debacle on the ultra-right: the determined, uncompromising right flank of ruling class politics that unabashedly promote the interests of the wealthy and powerful while advocating unrestrained US global dominance. Standing by 19th-century economics, libertarian social and political policies, and hyper-patriotism, the ultra-right enjoys a base seduced by an ideology in a world awash in compromise, opportunism and hypocrisy. Against their shrill, ideological fervor, Obama, the prince of civility and concession, stands no chance. For the liberals, the ultra-right violates the rules of fair play, a charge of little sting at a time of profound economic and political crisis.

Still other liberals lash out at Obama as a traitor to the cause, a candidate who side-stepped the promised changes and violated the values enunciated in the 2008 campaign. For the most part, they need to revisit the campaign promises and sweep away the naiveté that blinded them to the massive corporate and elite support that put Obama on the main stage. They need to investigate the available, though widely ignored, accounts of Obama’s political career that cast great doubts on his liberal credentials and show his progressivism to rest on the thin ice of opportunism. Those who bought the puffery of vanity political accounts have no one to blame but themselves. More importantly, liberals fail to acknowledge the many decades of Democratic Party embodiment and facilitation of shifting liberal values; they fail to see the continuing escape from and re-shaping of those values as demonstrated transparently by the previous policies of the Carter and Clinton administrations.

US Liberalism

US liberalism is an elusive ideology, if it is an ideology at all. It shares with classical liberalism a reverence for vague and fuzzy notions of freedom and liberty that deny any class relativity to these concepts. For the most part, US liberalism in the era of monopoly capitalism differs from US conservatism by exhibiting more social tolerance, allowing more free space for life-styles, religious attitudes, ethnic differences, and expression. Notably, the limits of liberal tolerance often stop at radical political expression and activity. Liberals are seldom friendlier to socialist, anarchist or Communist movements than their conservative counterparts.


Some locate the roots of modern US liberalism in the Progressive Era. Others see stirrings of the modern variant in the doctrines of Woodrow Wilson. But liberalism, as we came to know it, surely owes its fundamental principles to the Franklin Roosevelt era and New Deal policies. Shaped by a profound capitalist economic crisis, an influential and growing independent left, and emerging ultra-right, fascist threats, Roosevelt and his allies crafted an ideology that re-structured capitalism and its institutions to meet these challenges. Not without many reservations, the Democratic Party became the flag-holder for this new ideology.

Apart from the bloated mythology surrounding the New Deal, the liberal initiatives of the 1930’s ameliorated the hard edge of suffering falling upon most working people, deepened democracy and proved to be immensely popular with a majority of US citizens.

Key elements of New Deal liberalism include the following:
1. Government has a duty to establish a baseline of living standards guaranteed to all.
2. Government has a similar duty to regulate and manage the capitalist economy to ensure its viability and success.
3. Foreign policy should avoid intervention (except in the Americas) and rely on negotiation and international institutions.

To a great extent, these elements served as a cornerstone of liberalism, broadened its appeal and established a loyal base for the Democratic Party. Coupled with the threat of fascism, this produced an uneasy, but stable unity with the socialist and Communist left.

New Deal liberalism reached its zenith during World War II with its Grand Alliance of those fighting fascism, an alliance that included the Soviet Union. The post-war world envisioned by liberals as well as Communists promised an end to war, peaceful democratic governments and a decided social and economic tilt towards the masses. The Potsdam, Tehran and Yalta conferences sketched the outlines of this post-war world.

But it was not to be.

New Deal liberals and Communists alike underestimated the strength of reaction and failed to stem the counterattack by corporate interests and their political allies.


Within three years of the end of the war, liberals melted before an onslaught of hyper-patriotism and anti-Communist zealotry. In a preview of our current moment, liberalism sought to compromise with the most rabid, anti-democratic forces, conceding civil liberties, foreign policy sanity and the militarization of the US to protect remnants of the New Deal agenda. With the left nearly destroyed or in retreat, liberals lost the spurs that prodded the most radical, progressive policies in the New Deal’s response to the Great Depression. With that loss went the spine of liberalism. The Cold War ushered in the retreat of liberalism and the infidelity of its Democratic Party electoral partner.

With the mass upsurge of the 1960s driving the initiative, liberalism and its Democratic Party vehicle made one last, futile attempt to breathe life into the New Deal agenda. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society returned to the spirit of the New Deal, but made the fatal mistake of embarking on domestic reform while appeasing conservatives with an aggressive, imperialist war. The New Deal and the Cold War were simply incompatible.

Since that time, with liberalism and the Democratic Party joined at the hip, the trajectory of US liberalism and the Democrats has moved further and further away from New Deal ideology. The Democratic Party platform of 1976 was the last gasp of New Deal consensus, only to be neglected and subverted by the Carter administration.


The electoral victory of Ronald Reagan pushed liberals and the Democrats even further from New Deal thinking, with both soon accepting the primacy of free markets, de-regulation, a minimal public sector, balanced budgets, and government non-intervention in the affairs of corporations.

If liberalism had an ideology, it was embodied in the New Deal. With most of the New Deal gone and liberals tepidly defending its remnants – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – it’s hard to find the soul of this once vital political force.

Liberals and Democrats

US liberalism, since the time of the New Deal, placed its fate in the hands of the Democratic Party. Indeed, most identify modern liberalism with the Democratic Party. It is easy to understand why. During the New Deal era, the Democratic Party was the vessel for New Deal policies and the legislative executor of those policies. But it is also necessary to understand that it was not an easy fit. Roosevelt battled internally with many factions within the Party, as did his closest liberal allies.

From the onset of his term, Roosevelt felt compelled to appoint conservative Party figures to key positions and appease the pro-business orientation of the Party’s old guard. As a self-proclaimed experimenter, he shifted personnel to find answers to the Great Depression: progressives brought him success, conservatives didn’t. In addition, he was always looking over his left shoulder at a Communist and labor movement that was pressing hard at his heels.

His successes won a huge victory for the Democrats in the 1936 election. While many newly elected Democrats were progressive, many were not. And his program after 1936 was often stalled and even reversed by conservative elements in the Party. In short, the Democratic Party was still a bourgeois party. It did not make Roosevelt and his New Dealers progressive; they made the Democratic Party progressive.

In 1948, New Deal liberals, led by ex-Vice President Henry Wallace, understood this well. In the face of a Democratic Party retreat from the New Deal ideology, they formed a third party, the Progressive Party. While many see this as ill-advised and ill-fated, others of us view this move as a premature recognition of the forthcoming decline and dissolution of New Deal liberalism. While the Progressive Party fell victim to Cold War hysteria and liberal divisiveness, it attempted to keep alive the soul of the New Deal.

Over the next many decades, with the rise of television and other new media, the decisive role of polling, and the accompanying critical necessity of fund raising, the Democratic Party became less of a willing partner for New Deal ideas and more of a brand to be manipulated by consultants and other shapers of public opinion. The draw of ideas and issues was replaced with the politics of personality and vapid sloganeering.

Having made its bed with the Democratic Party, US liberalism valiantly stood by as the Democratic Party was polluted and corrupted with corporate money. A Party allied with the bourgeoisie became a Party owned by the bourgeoisie. Instead of a Party seeking the enlightened interests of US capitalism to be found in a measure of social justice, the Democratic Party became a vulgar tool of US capitalism, paying lip service to its core support in the labor movement and among African Americans and other minorities.

Today, liberalism has paid a heavy price for its marriage with the Democratic Party. By slavishly correcting its vision to comply with an increasingly ideologically bankrupt and crassly opportunistic political machine, liberalism has acceded to the sapping of its once politically relevant principles.

It is not for those of us of the anti-capitalist left to find redemption for liberalism. We have our own work to do. But its collapse has left the door open to the continuing advancement of the most extreme, the most rabid supporters of corporate brigandage and political reaction.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

What It Takes to Make It Better

On July 2, as people in the US began their Independence Day festivities, Associated Press writer, Paul Wiseman, offered a remarkable article for our fellow citizens to ponder. In The Economic Recovery Turns 2: Feel Better Yet?, Wiseman gives a summary of the meaning of “recovery” for ordinary folks.

Wiseman observes: “[ In this recovery], …ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.”

True enough.

But Wiseman goes on to demonstrate his claim in a way never seen in the mainstream media. He points out that workers’ wages (with skyrocketing executive pay included!) account now for 57.5% of GDP, down from 64% before the first throes of the crisis. Moreover, profits are up by nearly 50% since the “recovery” began in June of 2009. Much of this, I might add, “achieved” during the tenure of a laughably pro-worker government led by the Democrats.

Wiseman notes that “Unemployment has never been so high – 9.1 percent [now 9.2%!] – this long after any recession since World War II… Average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier…[And] Higher paying jobs in the private sector, the one’s that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour, made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010, but only 27% of the jobs created since then.”

Wiseman’s bleak picture of US workers’ plight dispels any notion, constantly floated by politicos and their lap dog media, of shared sacrifice. Instead, the “recovery” has been decidedly one-sided: the wealthy and the corporations have enjoyed substantial gains, while working people have sunk further economically.

On the heels of the long July 4 weekend, pundits and forecasters sought to conjure better news by projecting a drop in the unemployment rate. Euphoria set in when the ADP data suggested strong job growth, sending the stock market soaring.

But as is often the case, the ADP report proved to be fool’s gold and the forecasts baseless, with the June unemployment rate notching up to 9.2%. A mere 18,000 jobs were added in June, the fewest since September of 2010. And May’s meager numbers were also revised dramatically downward. It has been over a year since fewer private sector jobs were added to the workforce. Temporary jobs – the new “growth” area – were down by 12,000.

In addition, wages were lower in June and workers worked fewer hours. If Wiseman had waited a week, he could have painted an even bleaker picture.

Amazingly, news of this import – news that directly and severely affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and indirectly millions more – gets little more than a shrug from a media obsessed with bizarre crimes and celebrity missteps.

At the same time, the politicians who owe their offices to these millions sidestep the question by expressing canned condolences prepared for random acts of nature, or – worst of all – linking the solution to unemployment to the need to rein in the debt, a cynical insult to the unemployed. The Commander-in-Chief offered an empty platitude – “The American people need us to do everything we can to strengthen the economy and make sure that we are producing more jobs.” – while working hand-in-glove with Republicans to cut government spending and guarantee the loss of more jobs.

This is surely a shameful performance all around.

To be sure, the continuing crisis of capitalism demonstrates the bankruptcy of the ideologies that supposedly triumphed over Marxism, over Communism. With those ideologies enjoying well over thirty years of ascendancy and domination over policy, the net result is an economic collapse of catastrophic proportions. If this putrid mix of corrupted bourgeois politics and economic alchemy were held to honest account, millions of our fellow citizens would be rushing to embrace an alternative, including socialism.

But those who rule and hoard the wealth have many mechanisms to restrain any such movement: fear, war-mongering, xenophobia, racism, anti-Communism, consumerism, and a host of other tools designed to derail any movement away from accepting the despair brought forth by capitalism.

Fending off these ugly, divisive influences has never been easy; perhaps it is even harder today, but it is essential for uniting and unleashing the popular forces that could challenge a world view that has been tried, but failed.

Yet, fighting consumerism, racism, anti-Communism and the other sordid road blocks to unity is not enough. We cannot unify without something to unify around. We cannot take an exit from this road designated by misleaders and well-paid flacks by simply removing blinders. We must also offer a new route, based on careful analysis and historical experience, that promises an escape from the carnage of global economic crisis.

A vague commitment to anti-capitalism is not enough, either. While it makes a nice slogan, a nice balm for the soul, it offers no solution, no road forward.
The road forward begins with a vision of a society shorn of all-powerful corporations, corrupted politicians, the pillaging of nature, exploitative social relations, and self-centeredness. For sure, it’s not a new idea. Elements of that society are found in all religions; they emerge more fully in utopians like Thomas More, Fourier, Saint-Simon and Robert Owen who painted a social landscape of fraternity and cooperation.

Industrial society coalesced this thinking into the idea of socialism and the recognition that the market economy and private ownership of productive assets stood in the way of the new vision. The clearest and most reasoned, though certainly not the final, expression of this vision was conveyed in the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

Since their time, no other alternative to capitalism, no rival vision, has emerged to effectively challenge capitalism, except socialism. No alternative has captured the allegiance of working people world-wide, across borders, in factories and villages, like socialism.

With the Bolshevik revolution in Czarist Russia, the vision became a reality. Like all visions that come to life, the Russian experience inspired and warranted study. And the touchstone of that inspiration and study was the work and thought of the Bolshevik leader, V. I. Lenin. Throughout the twentieth century, millions drew upon that experience to spark and shape their struggle for a better life. As Bertolt Brecht wrote:

Comrade Lenin has been honored
often and plentifully. There are busts and statues.
Cities and children have been named after him.
Speeches have been given in many languages,
meetings held, and demonstrations
from Shanghai to Chicago in honor of Lenin.

Again, Lenin was not the last word, but his program and its successes marked a step further from vision to reality. It was no accident that Leninism, as an anti-capitalist program inspired by Marxism, marked a point of departure for anyone serious about moving beyond the grip of capitalism. And to date, no alternative to Leninism has succeeded in fully breaking the shackles of exploitation and the dictatorship of profit.

Assuredly, political movements of a different cloth and their leaders have successfully championed anti-imperialism and national independence. Some have even raised the banner of “socialism” over profound changes in the balance of forces between the owners of capital and working people. They have even privileged working people, to some extent, over the bosses, using electoral leverage to achieve great gains. But they have yet to eliminate exploitation or erase private profit as the economic engine. Nor do they have a coherent idea of how to do it. I am thinking today, of course, of the revolutionary movements that inspire us in Latin America. While they inspire us, they inspire us as visionaries, remaining caught in the web of utopianism, as were Robert Owen and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon before them.

Of course much has changed since the time of Lenin. Still, Leninism remains the touchstone for crafting a revolutionary strategy. Advocating anti-capitalism, while dismissing Leninism, failing to heed its lessons, is like starting a journey without knowing where you are and where you are going. Marxism-Leninism boldly offers a full account of both where we are and where we should be going.

The failure to seriously engage Marxism-Leninism is a transparent failing of the left, especially in the US, but also in many other parts of the world. It is not a theological failure, a failure to memorize the classic texts or mechanically apply them, but a failure to grasp the powerful tools resting in the Marxist-Leninist tool chest – the analytical devices of class, profit and exploitation and the strategic notions of vanguard party and dictatorship of the proletariat. That is not to say that these tools must be accepted as they are or applied in the old ways, but they remain available, particularly at a time when so few viable alternatives to capitalism have emerged.

One sees the absence of class analysis and revolutionary tactics in the popular movements in the US, much of Europe, and the upheaval in many Arab countries. While the sentiment is there – anger, frustration, and despair – it fails to channel toward a program of fundamental change. While we must admire the determination and dedication of active masses, that action is too often dissipated or redirected by self-styled leaders or “democratic” illusions. Rather than shaking the foundations of capitalism, these movements demonstrate against the personalities and character of those in power. But these rulers are disposable, to be easily and quickly replaced by others of their ilk. A deeper understanding of the structures and institutions that reproduce the model bourgeois politician and minister is lacking. Marxism-Leninism offers that understanding.

The capitalist media showers us with pictures of thousands of “indignants” determined to give voice and physical commitment to their anger. Missing from these pictures are the slogans or banners that reflect an alternative program either challenging capitalism or wresting power from the capitalist rulers and their parliamentary lackeys. In short, they constitute no “specter” haunting those in power.

For Marxist-Leninists, spontaneity is seldom a reliable road to change.

In the US, the political arena is further complicated by leftist ideologues who have no mass base and mass leaders who have no ideology.

With no mass base, the best known ideologues command an audience, but their words are shorn of tactical constraints or organizational commitment. As such, they speak “freely” and “independently,” but with little concern for the political impact or the context of their statements. Noam Chomsky’s recent sharp, public criticism of a single alleged policy of the popular, progressive Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela is a case in point. As perhaps the leading light of the broad left, Chomsky, with his interview in the UK Guardian, provided raw meat to a pack of media carnivores ready to pounce upon the Bolivarian Revolution. This attack came at a time of great vulnerability brought on by malicious speculation about Chavez’s health. No doubt Chomsky acted from sincere individual conscience, but dissociated from any organization and without any responsibility to a movement –and no internationalist obligation to the interests of the majority of the Venezuelan people. As a result, he evades responsibility for the consequences of his words.

And our mass leaders, especially most labor leaders, often rail against the inequities and injustices wrought by capitalism, but without any over-riding, systematic understanding of how it produces and reproduces these results. Mired in the immediacy of policies dictated by others – corporate bosses, two-party politicians, and other hostile social forces – they only react with indignation and without a strategic plan to shift to the offensive. Without an ideology, without a class-based stance, they fulminate without inspiring, posture without leading. All of the mass anger and fighting spirit is funneled into the electoral arena and barely qualified support for the Democratic Party.

The Wisconsin uprising demonstrates well the ideological vacuum and strategic chains limiting the labor movement. Acclaimed by all as a major escalation of working class militancy, the mass actions threatened to grow in scope and fervor, but were soon sapped by “leaders” promising to convert the struggle into a grueling legalistic campaign for electoral recall. Instead of mobilizing tens of thousands of workers nationwide who are equally threatened by draconian cuts in wages and benefits, instead of calling for strikes and other expressions of solidarity, US labor leaders opted to divert the struggle to a mere political contest between Republicans and Democrats. Their fear of mass initiative and their ideological immaturity smothered a rare opportunity for US workers to achieve a level of effectiveness on a par with many struggles in Europe and the Arab world, a chance to stand up to ruling class power.

These weaknesses point again to the need for a Marxist-Leninist political organization, an organization committed to bringing a vital, energizing ideology to working people. Whether that organization comes in the US from a change in direction of the now nearly empty shell of the Communist Party USA, or one of the few, small organizations that have emerged to fill the ideological void abandoned by the CPUSA, or from some new formation is yet to be settled. The process is a difficult one requiring a clearing of all of the ideological underbrush accumulated since the fall of the Soviet Union and the shedding of all of the disillusionment generated by that fall. That process will only develop from offering Communist leadership to mass action and diligent and aggressive action in the war of ideas.

Such an organization will not arrive spontaneously, but we should be confident it can be delivered.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com