Avi Ohayon/GPO
As we noted in the previous post, the rejection of permanent revolution in practice is ultimately a result of the abandonment of any view that the working class and socialism are relevant. It is not that the objective prerequisites of socialism do not exist – in terms of development of the forces of production and creation of a large working class – but that this class is not conscious of its interests as a class and never will be. Supporting Western imperialism in Ukraine or supporting Hamas in Gaza is a result.
For defenders of these views, being on the right side of the struggle of the oppressed is enough and everything else is secondary. Other, perhaps ‘nice to have’ factors, like specifically working class political leadership, are relegated to an indefinite future. Socialism becomes something so distant from application that it becomes akin to the promise of life after death.
As far as campaigns go, humanitarian demands raised in solidarity with the oppressed suffice to address the issues, and de facto support is provided for whatever political leadership happens to exist, justified on the basis that it does exist – the oppressed have picked their political leadership and who are we to disagree? ‘Being on the right side’ and ‘supporting the leadership of the oppressed’ become moralistic incantations that are supposed to demonstrate one’s commitment to the struggle while ironically condemning it to defeat. This approach reaches its nadir when it entails support for Western imperialism in Ukraine or Islamic fundamentalism in Palestine.
Identification of the class forces involved and the distinctions arising go missing through talk, for example, of ‘Ukraine’ and the ‘Ukrainian resistance’. Concepts such as class and the necessity for socialist leadership are rehearsed when left organisations recruit young people and provide them with what passes for a basic education in Marxism but are often ignored when real struggles develop.
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Permanent revolution does not claim that certain democratic advances cannot be made by bourgeois forces (or by petty bourgeois ones) in every instance, although in the case of Ukraine and Palestine this is clear. In Ukraine, western imperialism ignores the clampdown on democratic rights by the Zelensky regime including its lack of any constitutional legitimacy. In this it repeats the events of 2014 and provides another example of the rules-based international order being whatever the Western powers say it is.
In Palestine it routinely speculates on what sort of Palestinian regime will be installed once the Zionist state has halted its genocide, with not the slightest recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to select its own government. The leaderships that are touted as potential candidates are corrupt and designed to be weapons in the hands of the Zionist state (including the Palestinian Authority).
What democratic tasks that are achieved by bourgeois forces are carried out in their own interests, which interests demand that real democratic control by the majority of a country’s people is excluded. It is ironic that those who argue that Western imperialism is in effect defending democracy in Ukraine do so when the façade of what passes for democracy is more and more exposed as fraudulent by its policy of support for genocide in Palestine.
In the West the right to protest is under attack as students are clubbed by cops and Zionist thugs in the US, while meetings are proscribed and Palestinian speakers expelled in Germany. In the US the Presidential election is between two equally repulsive senile geriatrics, almost equally unpopular, where it is almost the case that Trump is the only candidate that Biden could possibly beat and Biden the only candidate that Trump will most likely defeat.
In Britain the choice between Sunak or Starmer is rendered fundamentally meaningless since no essential differences are involved so that there is no worthwhile choice to be made. When the limits of capitalist democracy are so blatantly exposed the stupidity of the claim that these forces are defending democracy becomes impossible to vindicate. This should provide the opportunity to tear away the fraudulent pretence that imperialism is in some way the protector of any sort of democracy but this requires putting forward an alternative.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries democracy was viewed as tied tightly to the working class movement and socialism so that Friedrich Engels was able to state at one point that the two were almost synonymous. The bureaucratisation of the workers’ movement, reaching its apogee in the Stalinist states, was a product of its incorporation into, and reconciliation with, the capitalist state, either in the form of reforming the state or in the form of ‘socialism in one country’ and its pursuit of accommodation with ‘democratic’ capitalism. In doing so it lost the identification of socialism with democracy.
The associated transformation of socialism into the idea that the capitalist state is the means to socialism, or even the potential embodiment of it, has meant that the central claim of Marxism, that the emancipation of the working class must be carried out by the working class itself, has been buried and lost. This distortion is so ubiquitous it is how the idea of socialism is habitually and unthinkingly understood.
So, in Ireland the idea of a ‘left government’ (of a capitalist state) is paraded as the answer while in Britain the idea of nationalisation (capitalist state ownership) was, in the form of clause 4 of the Labour Party, the totem of socialism. Other forms of capitalist rule, such as authoritarianism or fascism, thus become not just particular forms to be opposed but turn ‘democratic capitalism’ into the ‘lesser evil’ that must be positively supported. What democratic rights that do exist thus become not just elements to be defended but reasons to ‘suspend’ opposition to capitalism and ally and subordinate socialism to the demands of ‘democratic’ capitalism.
These corrupting assumptions makes it easier for many self-declared socialists to claim that the Ukrainian state, Western imperialism, or the Russian or Chinese varieties are today’s forces of democracy, ‘anti-imperialism’ or even socialism. All such claims are what permanent revolution rejects, and the road back to the central assertion of Marxism lies through reclaiming it.
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In relation to Ukraine, permanent revolution means opposition to the Russian invasion, opposition to the Ukrainian state and opposition to the intervention of Western imperialism. Opposition to war thus means organisation of the working class in opposition to membership of NATO and its rearmament.
In Palestine it means opposition to the Zionist State and its genocide and the liberation of the Palestinian people through a permanent revolution that seeks the unity of the Arab working class of the region against their exploiters and oppressors. The liberation of the Palestinian people can only be achieved by the liberation of all the working classes and oppressed in the region, which alone can offer a socialist alternative to Jewish workers and an alternative to their allegiance to Zionism.
In this, we really have no choice. The ‘democratic’ governments and states of the West have provoked a war in Ukraine and their defence of the Zionist state has shown us that there are no limits to the barbarity they will support. Continued escalation of the war in Ukraine only points us to a world war.
Russia and China are no defence against such a war because ultimately their only weapon against their Western enemies is also war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is proof, as are the repeated threats against Taiwan and the constant provocations of the United States that threaten to precipitate it.
Perhaps it will then be clear – even to the most stupid – that imperialism defends itself, is not interested in those it exploits and is no defender of democracy. The working class, whose members are always expected to fight and die in every war, will face the choice of war or peace and that peace can only come through ending capitalism. Once again it will be permanent revolution to end the war or war to end civilisation.
Of course, we are not there yet, but one product of the war in Ukraine has been the readiness of many in the West, normally opposed to war – as previously in Iraq – to rally behind this one. The fake-left supporters of war are only a small part of this much larger constituency. However the war in Ukraine ends, with some temporary ceasefire or agreement, the conflict and antagonism between rival imperialisms is not going to go away; imperialism itself has no way of ensuring that they do not intensify, and the world will face the possibility of their eventual resolution by way of force, in the way such conflicts have been settled before.
In some ways we are back to Marx, when the working class was not ready then either:
‘although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realisation of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development . . . they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organised party of the proletariat.’
Back to part 4
Sráid Marx 
I haven’t seen Cockshott’s video, so its wrong of me to comment definitively. However, on the basis of most of his previous stuff, I think its probably flawed. A lot of current “marxist” definitions of productive labour is actually a rehash of one of Adam Smith’s definitions, not Marx, and one actually criticised by Marx, in TOSV.
That Smithian definition, which differs from his initial definition, also used by Marx of labour that exchanges with capital, rather than revenue, introduces the false requirement that the labour is involved in material production, i.e. of physical commodities, rather than services. Marx notes that on this basis, the labour of musicians or actors would not be productive, and yet, a musician or actor, employed by capital, produces surplus value like any other such labour that exchanges with capital.
The labour of a teacher produces no physical commodity, and yet, a teacher employed by capital, be it the private capital of a fee paying school, or the state capital that employs teachers in a comprehensive, still produces surplus value, and so is productive labour. A tutor, however, employed by a parent directly, and paid for out of their revenue (wages, rent, interest, profit) would not be a productive labourer, and nor would, say, a tailor who came to their house to make them a suit. A prostitute, who likewise sells their labour service to clients directly, is not a productive labourer, but one employed in a brothel, by a capitalist brothel keeper, who pays them wages, is a productive labourer, although, again, there is no material commodity produced.
Given that 80% of modern economies are service industry based, and developed economies have been dominate by services, now, for at least 40-50 years, its fairly obvious that if you use Smith’s second and false definition of productive labour, and not Marx’s definition, you will conclude that most labour is not now productive!
“Other forms of capitalist rule, such as authoritarianism or fascism, thus become not just particular forms to be opposed but turn ‘democratic capitalism’ into the ‘lesser evil’ that must be positively supported. What democratic rights that do exist thus become not just elements to be defended but reasons to ‘suspend’ opposition to capitalism and ally and subordinate socialism to the demands of ‘democratic’ capitalism.”
The irony of this is, of course, that authoritarianism/totalitarianism, is most closely associated with that state capitalism, or state socialism as Engels described it, in his Critique of The Gotha Programme, rather than with free market capitalism. Its the reason Marx and Engels, for example in the above, and in The Critique of The Gotha Programme opposed welfarism, and statism.
You only have to look at the NHS to see the way for workers as consumers, the result is take it or leave it, having paid your taxes to fund it, whereas for its own workers it is characterised by a hierarchical and authoritarian structure, with bureaucrats at each level acting like little dictators presiding over their own fiefdom, and that is true of all capitalist statised enterprises and services, just as much as was the case in the Stalinist states, or Nazi Germany.
Indeed, in the absence of workers control, it applies to the large corporations too. So, its no wonder that a section of that moralising Left, unable to apply the principle of permanent revolution, and the concept of the self-activity and self-government of the working-class, fell into the same arguments as Hayek, set out in The Road To Serfdom, and so, as most notably shown by James Burnham quickly become enemies of the working-class itself. It also manifests as moralising demands for a reactionary “anti-capitalism” based upon breaking up those monopolies – the anti-monopoly alliance, as a domestic equivalent of the anti-imperialist alliance, promoted by Stalinists and petty-bourgeois Third Worldists – higher taxes on the big companies, support for small capital, and so on, rather than the struggle to win industrial democracy alongside political democracy, and workers control of those monopolies.
Nationalisation and state control is the means by which the logic of capital is brought about, resulting from concentration and centralisation. It requires centralised control of the economy, but if such control does not rest with the workers, it can only rest with some form of bureaucrat, be it a Stalinoid bureaucrat or a Nazi bureaucrat, as Trotsky pointed out the only difference in appearance between the two, is that the former is more brutal, precisely because it rests on the lie that it is acting directly in the workers interests, who form the ruling class, in the absence of a bourgeoisie, whereas the latter makes no secret that it acts in the interests of a still dominant bourgeoisie as ruling class.
As Trotsky noted in relation to the demand for workers control, it is only possible in conditions of dual power in society, where the workers are able to enforce it arms in hand, organised in soviets. It is a perfect example of the principles involved in permanent revolution as a transitional method. To call for workers control outside such conditions, as something tagged on to demands for the capitalist state to nationalise some (usually failing company or industry), amounts only to an attempt to save face, by attaching some superficially Marxist colouration to the demand for the capitalist state to act, as Marx also described in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. As Trotsky continued, to demand workers control in such conditions is only to misled the workers to ask them to support class collaboration such as in the form of Mondism, or else amounts to pointless rrrrevolutionary phrase-mongering, in the knowledge that no such workers control would be conceded.
So, just as Lenin noted that the demands of Kautsky against monopoly were utopian and reactionary, because, as Marx had pointed out, competition leads back again to monopoly, so too the idea that capitalist democracy or democratic imperialism is an alternative to, a lesser-evil, to Nazism/Stalinism is likewise utopian and reactionary, because the very process of capitalist accumulation and competition leads to monopoly, the most mature form of which is state ownership, which unless the state itself is a democratic workers state, implies control by a bureaucratic caste acting as the representative of the ruling class, but imminently in its own interests, and sustaining that position by the methods of authoritarianism/totalitarianism.
I wonder if the social composition of the working class is anything like it used to be. The industrial sector has shrank so drastically that all the miners, dockers, metal workers, shipbuilders, even the car plant workers are no longer a force to be reckoned with. If you are socialist and activist where do you go to organise workers? You end up going to striking doctors and teachers and with some luck transport workers. This partly explains the fact that most ‘ marxist groups spend their days arguing about extending bourgeois rights to every social minority to be found. The second and third international Marxists in Europe had work places to visit and organise consisting of often tens of thousands of industrial workers. These masses seem only to present in what we used to think about as the colonies of the backward economic regions.
Actually, Lenin in arguing against the Narodniks dismissed that argument, indicating that the majority of the working-class is never to be found in those places. Focusing on industrial workers in large enterprises can lead to Economism, and a focus purely on trades union struggle for better conditions within capitalism, whereas to overthrow it a political struggle, based on proletarian class consciousness is required.
Just watched one of Paul Cockshott’s videos on YouTube called the uk mixed economy before and after. Paul collects and presents data relevant to the marxist theory of value. One data point is that the high point of productive labour in Britain comes out as 1960. Since then more and more labour is used to service the consumer habits of the leisure class. Paul only presents the data for UK so it is not possible to generalise for the rest of Europe using British data. It would be good to have the data. My impression is that workers employed in productive labour is down and those engaged in unproductive labour are up. This makes a mark on politics since those engaged in unproductive labour have no leverage. They are like the servant class of late Victorian England. There were more of them during the life time of Marx than there were factory workers. He is ignored them because they had no leverage.