1) The Situation and Dynamics of Capitalist Profits. Data

According to a study by Michael Roberts:

“The average annual growth rate of global corporate profits during the 2010s—the decade I have termed the ‘Great Depression’ following the Great Recession of 2008–2009—was 3.9%. However, in the first half of the 2020s, the average growth rate has doubled to 7.7%, although it remains well below the average growth rate of 16.1% recorded in the 2000s, which was driven by credit. There were only two periods of declining global profits: the mini “profit recession” in late 2015 and the decline caused by the 2020 pandemic.

That said, the figures for the 2020s suggest that capital in the major economies is not heading toward a recession, with the exception of Germany, where profit growth confirms the current recessionary environment.

If we focus on the U.S., using the Basu-Wasner profit calculation based on official data, we see that, in the 2020s, annual profit growth has been even higher than that recorded during the neoliberal period of the 1980s. The higher figure for the 1970s is due to higher inflation. (...) Therefore, the rise in profits is not due to public spending but can only be attributed to an increase in the rate of exploitation of workers, as reflected by the rise in the share of profits in the U.S. economy relative to wages. Corporate profits, expressed as a percentage of U.S. GDP, are at historic highs.” (1)

Global profits for the 1,600 largest publicly traded companies reached a record $4.85 trillion in 2025, with year-over-year growth of 12.2%, driven by expanding margins and reduced extraordinary costs. (2)

Companies allocated a significant portion of their profits to shareholder distributions, with dividends and share buybacks totaling $3.50 trillion—double the 2016 figure—though coverage levels remained similar to the historical average.

 The technology and media sectors led earnings growth, while, by region, the United States, Canada, and Asia-Pacific stood out, and Spain recorded a 4.4% increase in corporate earnings. (3)

Global profits rose 12.2% in 2025 to reach a projected record of $4.85 trillion, more than double the figure from nine years ago. Revenue rose 5.3% to reach an all-time high of $44.2 trillion in 2025 (forecast). Dividends and share buybacks provisionally totaled $3.50 trillion in 2025, up from $3.25 trillion in 2024. Earnings comfortably covered dividends and share buybacks at a ratio of 1.39 in 2025; cash flow exceeded payments by at least one-fifth. Technology and media companies were the main drivers of earnings in 2025. (4) 

2) Historical materialist interpretation.

There are no signs of a capitalist crisis due to a fall in the rate of profit, nor of a permanent crisis, but rather of the classic trajectory that runs from the expansion of investment and business activity to the capitalist crisis, which brings about a significant devaluation of capital that allows for the resumption of upward capitalist activities. This trajectory repeats cyclically and generates, on the one hand, the maintenance of the permanent foundations of the globalized capitalist valorization process and, on the other, structural changes—ranging from technology to the organization of labor and the configuration of classes and their activities.

The fall in the rate of profit manifests itself over long periods and is accompanied by formidable increases in the total volume of profits.  This is verified time and again, and on this basis a wide range of trends develops in money capital, finance… and profit-seeking movements based on rent-seeking and financial speculation:

 “Global market capitalization surpassed $150 trillion for the first time in history, driven by the strong performance of U.S. stocks and growing investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence.

Behind this record figure lies a long-term trend as well. The United States currently accounts for 52% of global market capitalization—its largest share in more than three decades—consolidating Wall Street’s leadership over the rest of the major economies.” (5)

“The dominance of the U.S. market is a historical reality in global equities. The figures reflect a clear concentration: the U.S. accounts for around 62.7% of global indices such as the MSCI ACWI, which equates to a market capitalization of more than 75 trillion dollars in the U.S. market.” (6)

Global Ranking - Market Capitalization Ranking of Domestic Companies Top 100 Countries in the World (7)

Foreign exchange trading volume rose in April to $9.6 trillion per day (about 8.2 trillion euros), up 28% from 2022, according to figures released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on Tuesday.

Over-the-counter interest rate derivatives trading rose in April to $7.9 trillion per day (6.7 trillion euros), a 59% increase.

The dollar is the most traded currency and accounted for 89% of all foreign exchange market trading last April, followed by the euro and the yen, according to the Triennial Central Bank Survey coordinated by the BIS.

However, there is a shift in trading from the dollar to other currencies such as the euro and the yen.

The euro was the world’s second-most-traded currency with a trading share of 28.9%, followed by the yen with 16.8%.

The pound’s trading share fell to 10.2%, the BIS adds.

Trading in the renminbi and the Swiss franc increased last April.

The survey shows that currency swaps are the most traded instrument, with a daily trading volume of $4 trillion (3.4 trillion euros) in April, up 5% from April 2022.

In the over-the-counter interest rate derivatives market, the average daily trading volume of euro-denominated contracts nearly doubled to $3 trillion (2.6 trillion euros) in April, accounting for 38% of the total.

Trading volume for dollar-denominated contracts rose by 7% to $2.4 trillion (2 trillion euros), causing the dollar’s share to fall to 31%.

Trading volume in other major currencies also rose significantly. (8)

Global financial flows. The market with the highest trading volume is the foreign exchange market (Forex).

In April 2025, the average daily trading volume reached $9.6 trillion, an all-time high and a 28% increase compared to 2022. Of those 9.6 trillion dollars per day: 4.0 trillion correspond to currency swaps; 3.0 trillion to spot transactions; 1.8 trillion to forward contracts; and the remainder to options and other instruments. (9)

$9.6 trillion per day in April 2025, and over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate derivatives trading rose to $7.9 trillion per day.

The U.S. dollar maintained its position as the most-traded currency, accounting for 89% of all foreign exchange transactions in April 2025, followed by the euro and the yen.

Trading desks in the four major jurisdictions—the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, and the Hong Kong SAR—accounted for 75% of total foreign exchange trading volume, while the United Kingdom and the United States accounted for 73% of OTC interest rate derivatives trading.

The 2025 Triennial Central Bank Survey of activity in foreign exchange (FX) and over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate derivatives markets shows that foreign exchange trading reached $9.6 trillion per day in April 2025, representing a 28% increase from 2022. Trading in over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate derivatives increased by 59%, reaching $7.9 trillion per day. (10)

3) The Booming War Economy. Implications.

The figures for the war economy are significant and on the rise, with record levels of investment, manufacturing, and arms sales:

“The global arms market reached record revenues of $679 billion, driven by rising military budgets and international conflicts. Global trade is at its highest levels since the end of the Cold War, with the United States as the undisputed leading exporter.” (IA)

“Revenue for arms manufacturers grew by 5.9% in 2024, reaching a record $679 billion.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza and increased military spending are the causes, according to SIPRI.” (11)

This effort diverts investment away from non-military sectors and thus tends to slow the pace of capitalist growth. Competition intensifies and spreads on a global scale. Capitalist states seek financing by establishing large-scale plans with projections for significant increases over time. All of this takes place amid high levels of international public debt, which complicates access to credit—a powerful lever for capital accumulation.

All of this inevitably requires capital and its states to exert strong pressure on the proletariat, on its working and social conditions, and on direct, indirect, and deferred wages.  Existential insecurity and poverty are on the rise among the proletariat, albeit in a segmented and uneven manner; however, the trend is for this pressure and this deterioration to intensify, which serves as a spur for the mobilization of the working class and the growth of its discontent. Likewise, numerous petty-bourgeois sectors in cities and rural areas are facing difficulties and frequently express their outrage, whether by leading or supporting right-wing socio-populist movements.

Under these conditions, big capital is accelerating militarism and, at the same time, political and social campaigns to administer doses of nationalism and defend the interests and causes of each imperialist bloc. This poses significant tensions and challenges for the working class and internationalist revolutionaries.

In the workplace, we see how capital employs methods of extracting absolute surplus value (by extending the workday) and relative surplus value (by increasing productivity). The erosion of the welfare state (where it exists) is evident. So-called “precariousness” is spreading everywhere. Retirees and older workers are forced to work, even if it is off the books, and the so-called “informal economy” continues to grow. In short, the hopes and conditions of the proletariat are under pressure, and imperialism’s increasingly militaristic course—which is on the rise—will subject them to even greater pressure.

There are responses from workers who can no longer easily conform to previous forms of adaptation, and this gives rise to certain conflicts still dominated by trade unionism and workplace democracy. Discontent is spreading, but not so the proletarian self-organization against capital and the clarity that this both demands and generates. The ways of clinging to quietist or opportunistically adaptive attitudes are gradually eroding, albeit slowly and painfully, and in an uneven manner.

4)  Capitalist overcapacity. Trends and countertrends in the development of overproduction.

This consists of the overaccumulation of fixed capital—that is, the construction of plants with the capacity to produce a quantity of goods that far exceeds what the market can absorb under “normal” conditions of accumulation. Excess capacity is measured by capacity utilization rates.

“For example, in the U.S., the average capacity utilization rate across all sectors between 1972 and 2011 was 80.3%. During the 2009 crisis, it reached a low of 67.3%, while in February 2012 it stood at 78.7% (the highest levels reached in 1994–1995 were 85.1%; all data are from the Federal Reserve’s website—“Global Outlook (2025–2026)”).

The steel industry is one of the best-documented cases. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, global steel capacity reached approximately 2,472 billion metric tons in 2024, while excess capacity exceeded 600 million metric tons, equivalent to 24% of total installed capacity. (12)

The OECD forecasts that steel overcapacity will rise to 721 million metric tons by 2027, as plant expansion continues to outpace global demand.

Global steel capacity utilization could fall to around 73%, below the level considered healthy for the sector (≈80%). (13) 

Signs of Overcapacity in the Global Economy

In addition to steel, numerous sectors show signs of overcapacity:

• Traditional manufacturing (textiles, chemicals, metals, and consumer goods). (14)

• Construction and the real estate sector in some Asian economies. (15)

• The automotive sector, particularly electric vehicles and batteries in certain markets. (16)

• Renewable energy and solar panels, where installed production capacity far exceeds demand in several segments. (17)

Average utilization rate

United States: 79.5% (April 2008 — Federal Reserve measurement) Japan: 83–86% (Bank of Japan) European Union: 82% (Bank of Spain estimate); Australia: 80% (National Bank estimate); Brazil: 60–80% (various sources); India: 70% (Indian business sector); China: perhaps 60% (various sources); Turkey: 79.8% (September 2008 — Turkish Statistical Institute) Canada: 87% (Statistics Canada) (18)

This excess capacity indicates that capital develops opposing tendencies with regard to the rate of growth and forms of overproduction, but the increase in the productive capacity of the labor force pushes toward overproduction.

It is within the framework of this dialectical dynamic—between trends and counter-trends—that we must understand the situation and prospects of capitalism.

Capitalism accumulates in excess; it finds the technical and social conditions to do so on a large scale, and under certain conditions, this dynamic leads to an international crisis. This does not preclude the emergence of specific crises in certain national or sectoral spheres.

At present, symptoms of overproduction are becoming apparent, albeit still to a limited extent. Overproduction is mitigated by this excess capacity, which becomes a permanent feature that fluctuates to a greater or lesser degree. But the rate of profit does not fall, and the counter-tendencies that offset its downward trend prevail. Therefore, the course of productivity development continues, and capital needs to expand the proportion of unpaid  labor time—the hours of  surplus labor (the basis of surplus value, the root of capital’s economic exploitation of wage labor)—relative to paid labor, which is necessary to maintain and reproduce the labor force under certain social and cultural conditions. These are the tendencies toward overproduction which, if they intensify, could lead to the outbreak of an international crisis of capitalism, but we see that such a crisis has not yet materialized. 

  The events of the war in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Middle East are adding fuel to the fire,    generating inflation and problems for capital and wage labor, while competition against the dollar continues to intensify and U.S. capital maintains Trumpism as its guiding principle—a policy that is already causing problems for many bourgeois sectors, but which marks the protectionist trend as a necessity for rebuilding its military might in the face of international inter-imperialist tendencies.

***

Just like the IDA, Internationalist perspective builds slippery bridges

I.

In the May 1 “Internationalist Perspective (IP) article titled “On the Transition to Communism,”  IP points out several errors in its response to two members of the Initiative for Democratic Working Time (IDA).

A and S (IDA) tell IP:

“…you only have vague ideas about communization, such as that everything belongs to everyone, and that people debate everything all day long in permanent assemblies or whatever, and then they’ll ration the total product. For us, the greatest danger is falling back into a state-run economy, because there will always be groups with vested interests who will try to secure their privileges. Your theory of communization lacks a concept of social planning or social accounting and, therefore, does not answer the question of how workers will remain in charge and be the protagonists of a process of total social planning. That is precisely what working-time accounting is all about.” [Generally speaking, this is correct, although some of the terminology could be improved.]

“First of all, we want to emphasize that the idea of working-time accounting and council communism is opposed to any form of centralized state power. 

At best, the state will no longer be necessary during a transitional period, because the people will have found new political forms of decision-making and of organizing the reproduction of society. Thus, we fully agree with you on that point, and we make this very clear in our presentation.”  (1)

What the IDA envisions is a transition without a dictatorial power structure to expropriate the expropriators, eradicate and overcome capitalist relations and wage labor. This is a libertarian concession to communizer ideology, with ambiguous language regarding “centralized state power.” 

Historically, council communism has never accepted the dichotomy between centralism and federalism. From the outset, council communists maintained that workers’ councils transcended both centralism and federalism – tendencies associated with obsolete forms of struggle and uneven development. (2) In fact, the revolutionary workers’ councils concentrate the maximum possible and exclusive power of action over the means of production and the product of labor, striving to ensure that manifestations of bourgeois property and activity disappear and resorting to arms and force to prevent the bourgeoisie from turning the situation around and reestablishing capitalist exploitation and domination over the proletariat.  Therefore, these aspects of the dictatorship of the revolutionary councils continue to exhibit characteristics that we have observed in state structures throughout history. The difference lies in the fact that the revolutionary proletariat does not seek to introduce a new class-based mode of production in which the exploitation of labor is perpetuated, strives to implement a cooperative mode of production and the general self-management of society: a society, in short, without classes or a state, and therefore without the need for politics. 

This period of proletarian dictatorship prepares the conditions for living not in a struggle against others—where classes and state structures exist—but in communism. That is why we speak of a semi-state or provisional revolutionary commune.

The IDA confuses the transition process with its ultimate positive outcome: the entry into communist society, which does away with classes and the state.  This is a serious error and an ideologically driven denial,  allowing the IDA to slip into the camp of  communization, which denies the transition period and the task of establishing a semi-state  structure of the revolutionary dictatorship of the workers’ councils. (3)

The transition period from capitalism to communism requires international proletarian power to unfold; it cannot take place in a single country or in an isolated region of the world as long as bourgeois states prevail elsewhere and capitalist relations continue to exist as the dominant form overall.  The communist mode of production and distribution neither arises nor develops within capitalism nor in competition with it; rather, in order for it to become a reality, capitalist state power and capitalist relations of ownership, production, and distribution must first be destroyed, something which cannot be achieved in isolation. Capitalism is global, and the transitional period from capitalism to communism must also be global.

The law of value, the supreme law of bourgeois political economy, has a global scope and expression, and cannot be eliminated in a single country or in an isolated region, which, in addition to being in the crosshairs of the bourgeois counterrevolution and its armies, cannot develop into autarky that must not only defend itself but also engage in trade (and trade is not communist, since it requires money; it is not a simple barter among neighbors and comrades). 

Those who claim that value can be abolished (and  who rarely mention its true origin: wage labor) in isolated strongholds surrounded by the market and capitalist power are, at best, deluded and, at worst, harm the proletariat by facilitating their enemies’ strategy through ideological disorientation.  If one believes that value can be abolished in a single country or region of the world, one fails to devote the necessary effort to generalizing the insurrection and, instead, relies on exercising economic power that, in fact, cannot be exercised to such an extent, since it is far more limited than what gives rise to that fallacy and that pernicious illusion.  

The proletariat must generalize the revolutionary phase of the insurrection against the bourgeois states and defeat them completely; this is fundamental, without which all revolutionaries will find themselves on the brink of the abyss. Proletarian measures with communist intent and orientation, adopted under such conditions of isolation, are necessarily limited, and this entails serious consequences.

Under these conditions, any misstep, any organizational or ideological weakness, the lack of proletarian unity, and petty-bourgeois illusions    are factors that allow for the development of state capitalism, in which a social minority once again exercises power over the proletarian class and the products of its labor, thereby reproducing capitalist functions in opposition to the revolution.  It matters little whether that minority is “red” or of another ideological hue; what matters is its social function and the determining conditions in which it takes root.

The IDA continues:

“However, it would be very naive to assume that the state will simply disappear overnight in a revolutionary process. On the contrary, there will be many people with a material interest directly linked to the maintenance of state power—not only capitalists, but also the petty bourgeoisie, teachers, academics, civil servants, and so on. This is even more true when the economy is in disarray and the population’s livelihood is at risk, due to a lack of principles of production and distribution, accounting methods, or a rational vision of total social production and consumption.

In such a situation, the “experts” (bureaucrats/technocrats) are more than willing to seize state power and monopolize control over the process of social reproduction— r by appropriating the workers’ surplus labor, as in the Soviet Union—arguing that they know how to manage it all.”

Indeed, but this demonstrates that the communist approach is the correct one—not that of the “communizers” nor that of the anarchists. For the state to disappear, it must undergo a period of struggle involving a coordinated proletarian power—that is, one that is centralized and, at the same time, operational at the grassroots level— interweaving both aspects in a proper relationship between them, with the aim of unifying and coordinating efforts, planning them, and exercising self-control over them—not based on moralistic, opportunistic, or political impulses, but through an objective, scientific, collective, and rational method of controlling working time, the means of production, and the products of labor. The IDA wavers and rambles, taking one step forward and two steps back.

The IDA continues:

“The theory of working-time accounting seeks to find solutions to these problems, to prevent a relapse into a state economy—which seems, in fact, the most likely scenario in a revolutionary situation, since not even the left has a concept of socialism (only a few disjointed and often romantic notions (...) This was one of the reasons we discussed labor-time accounting at the roundtable on the transition, because almost no one seems to have a well-developed concept of a communist mode of production.”

Well, that accounting serves that purpose, even though IDA expresses it in somewhat crude, confusing, and imprecise language: Is the state economy state capitalism? What is this “left” that has “disjointed and often romantic notions” about socialism?

So: does classical Marxism have “a well-developed concept of a communist mode of production,” or not? Of course it does; whether the IDA knows this and admits it is another matter. The IDA flirts with tendencies of the New Left, such as ParEcon (participatory economics), and also with communization. In short, with petty-bourgeois political expressions that encapsulate the typical aspirations found within the petty bourgeoisie.

The IDA continues:

“…we would like to add that we do not believe it is possible to ‘abolish work’ as such, as you seem to demand. Instead, we want to ‘abolish wage labor’! [a thousand times correct]. Our conception of work is inspired by Marx, who described it as the metabolism between human beings and nature. Work, in this fundamental sense, cannot, of course, ever be abolished, as long as human beings are also natural beings. What can and must be done is to drastically reduce the necessary workday, but in that process it is important for society to have a clear idea of the actual time spent on different products and services.”

In fact, this approach is correct, and we must act accordingly. Work that produces goods and services for use—that is, with use-value—is necessary in any human society. The communizers many anarchists, and autonomists continue to insist on the dogmatic mantra of “doing away with work,” which attracts various lumpen, leftist, and opportunist social elements who complain about the pressure of capital and want to live according to their petty-bourgeois selfishness, with abundant selfish pretensions.

The IDA continues

“...we want to emphasize that the accounting of labor time does not constitute the production of value. To consider it a form of value simply because labor time is measured and people are paid for their work is a rather primitive interpretation of the theory of value (although those who hold this view often present it with a certain philosophical depth) and is not a Marxist perspective. According to Marx, value is the result of private property relations, and wage labor is a specific form of value-based income distribution derived from alienated relations of production—which means that people must produce surplus value for those who control the production process in order to reproduce themselves. If there were only workers who controlled their own labor process and planned their inputs and outputs as part of the total social labor, publicly and based on information regarding real needs, the commodity form (of goods and labor power) would not exist, and therefore neither would value.”

It is worded somewhat bluntly, but overall it is on the right track. The labor that produces exchange value (“on the basis of use value,” as Marx put it) is that of the capitalist, and in many textbooks and economic treatises this is referred to as value. But use-value without exchange value is a form of value that communist society needs in order to exist. These are goods and services that are neither bought nor sold, that cannot function directly or indirectly as capital; they are elements intended to satisfy human social needs. Therefore, generating communist use-value does not involve generating surplus value or exploiting anyone to do so. In simple terms, while in capitalist society goods are produced solely to become exchange values, in a communist society production would have the sole purpose of satisfying human desires and needs.

This simple fact is denied by “communizers” and their ilk, with a stated political objective. 

IP maintains:

“…we cannot accept that a text such as the GIK’s Fundamental Principles should become a kind of orthodoxy.”

What does this mean? Is there something incorrect or inadequate in that text? As far as we know, IDA has not said so. For IP, there is; it asserts that “it is not clear that its application would do away with wages and value.”   Obviously, like any text, it is subject to expansion in terms of the problematic aspects and the issues it addresses—and, above all, those it does not address—and, therefore, improves as human practice develops critically and actively. But it constitutes a fundamental basis for revolutionary action.

Read more

More information on the correspondence among IP-2 members of the IDA: Internationalist Perspective: Debates

On the debates between the IDA and  Fredo Corvo and Aníbal: Response from the IDA to  Anibal and Fredo Corvo; Critical Comments on the IDA and Paul Cockshot and Cottrel 

II

Let’s focus specifically on IP, who argues:

“…it is by no means clear that the GIC’s theory of labor-time accounting eliminates the categories of value and wage.”

This is the orthodox position of communization. Dauvé and former ICC militant Raoul Victor, amongst others, have theorized this at length. (4) Once again, they confuse use-value with exchange-value, and they fail to explain why wage labor could be reproduced in an economy that does not require wages and in which the productive elements own the means of production and the products of their associated labor, having at their disposal an objective method for accounting for and planning their activities.  A society in which no one can possess money or the means to produce it, and which cannot capitalize either its own labor or that of others, cannot generate capitalism; and the decisive factor in this is that its social relations of production make it impossible. 

The ideolems and fallacious frameworks of communization—all tailored to reach their predetermined conclusions—stand in direct opposition to the necessary requirements of lucidity and methodological critical truth that communists must seek. They start, implicitly or explicitly, from the premise that if there is productivity, there is capital; that if there is an economic plan, there is capital; that if there is a calculation of labor time, there is a wage system; that if there is use value, there is value and, therefore, capital, and so on. In this way, they crush communist theory, relying on a distorted ideological maximalism. The social and class relations underlying all of this become blurred and vanish. The plan of capitalist enterprises and states is not the same as the necessary plan for the mode of production and the associated way of life. Increasing the level of surplus value is not the same as increasing that of use-values. The economic relationship based on the law of value and the wage laborer is not the same as the one that dialectically and materially negates and overcomes it in a revolutionary manner.  In short, they express absurdities  amid  inaccuracies,  distortions, and  confusions, in a  sequence  that  has   negative  consequences  for  the communist program and action.

IP continues:

“Since we both abhor the nightmare scenario of a ‘proletarian state’ (whether or not controlled by workers’ councils) that would assign everyone their place in the global production chain, we can imagine, on the one hand, that the displaced masses—especially at first—would consume goods without contributing much or any labor time to their production, and, furthermore, that the majority would find—probably quite quickly—meaningful activities in which to participate, regardless of whether these are considered socially necessary (and, in any case, who would determine that?). We can expect an explosion of creativity, but that does not mean we can imagine it. Nor can we imagine how this will fit in with the need for global planning, or how communication and decision-making will take place. But what seems clear is that it would be a dangerous mistake to restrict access to goods to those who have contributed socially necessary labor time approved by the councils. The human community will take care of the human community.”

In other words, instead of workers’ councils in which the workers themselves are in charge, the IP paints a picture in which an exploitative state gives them orders and assigns them specific tasks, sets their schedules, and so on. This is a pure distortion, an ideologically orchestrated farce. It asserts that the human community will take care of the human community, which is acceptable when that community exists—that is, under communism—but during the transition from capitalism to communism, classes and class struggle still exist. 

On the other hand, there is a sector of society that can and must work and another that cannot, because it lacks the physical and mental capacity to do so—and not because it enjoys any special privilege over the rest of those who work. 

Workers must know how much total and average social time is necessary to produce and distribute    what is needed at any given moment, which is obviously determined by the level of development of productive capacity and the self-organization of workers, the condition of facilities and available energy,  as well as the ecological consequences and those related to human labor and its conditions. In this way, they do not perpetuate an arbitrary and unjust division between those who work and those who do not, and they do not need to create bureaucrats or specialized management bodies that defend particular interests; rather, they satisfy a need for planning, coordination, and efficiency, and they do so with self-managed means and resources and with the greatest possible degree of self-management at all times—a process that must be deepened until bourgeois relations are eliminated and overcome.

IP speaks of displaced masses who will not produce and things of that sort, but what exactly does this mean? Geographically displaced? Displaced from one economic sector to another? Human masses who are capable of producing but do not do so do not constitute a communist process, but rather a dangerous,  lumpenized dynamic. IP speaks of majorities who will easily find activities and of everything functioning perfectly—without planning, without  theoretical and practical methodological resources, without the need to know or use  working time—as if  it were a  magic trick  in a show. That said, they hint that there might be planning, but not necessarily; we don’t know—we have to imagine scenarios… imaginative ones, that is, fraudulent utopias with anti-worker outcomes. This runs counter to scientific and critical materialist communism.  Those who produce and those who need to be produced—because they neither should nor can produce—need to know how many resources are available, how much energy is needed and can be generated, how many means of distribution exist and what their quality and global reach are, the ecological effects that must be taken into account… the number of producers and their level of versatility and training… in order to know what can be produced to meet needs, maintain and expand production—which has been reformulated by setting aside and discarding what only makes sense under capitalism, and promoting what serves communism and the new sectors and techniques it requires. In   short,  we must  be aware of    a series  of   necessary elements and resources, but  the labor time required  to  make  use of them  is  a  fundamental axis.

When everything fits together indiscriminately, nothing fundamental or meaningful ends up fitting together. IP makes obvious concessions to anarchism and its “immediate abolition of the state”

IP continues:

“We reject the voucher system not only because it is complicated and impractical, but because the kind of restrictions it entails are antithetical to what communism stands for.”

IP    envisions a society with such productive capacity that it will not be necessary to ration a portion of consumption and, therefore, to do so based on rules and resources that are known, operable, and controllable by all those interested in the social revolution. IP claims that it is complicated,    ignoring that, precisely under our current conditions,     it is simpler  than in the 19th or 20th centuries, that it is a necessary task that must be approached as an art—neither haphazardly nor in a limited manner— but this does not matter to IP, which decrees that it goes against communism, when what actually goes against communism is leaving everything “to the imagination”—what some want to do and what others are supposed to do as well… without having to work. This rhetoric of the lumpen left attracts elements who avoid work and want to enjoy what others—women—do.

IP continues:

“But the political defeat of capitalism will not occur suddenly. Most likely, there will be a long period during which the proletariat fights against the capitalist state and, at the same time, begins to build a new world. And even when it is politically defeated, capitalism will probably continue to survive in isolated pockets here and there. Amid the chaos, some of the displaced might set up capitalist-style production. Even if there is no official currency, they might invent one and begin to exchange and accumulate. Furthermore, we do not know what conditions a victorious proletariat would encounter in this world. It may be that capitalism’s destruction of the environment and the damage caused by its wars are so severe that they seriously limit what can be achieved in the short term. During the period of the collapse of capitalist production and the expansion of production to meet needs, there will be shortages. We can debate how shortages should be managed, but this much is certain: current conditions are not the same as they were in Marx’s or the GIK’s time. They emphasized that the development of the productive forces was necessary to overcome scarcity, to make possible the slogan “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” But today we do not need the productive forces to grow; we need them to change in terms of their content and purpose.”

First, the IP asserts that there is no immediate transition to communism, but rather a transitional period… ahem, the opposite of what communist dogma holds. Moreover, the IP speaks of a “long period.” But during that time, anything goes; the crudest forms of eclecticism and opportunism are regarded as signs of free and critical imagination and all that, blah, blah, blah. Second, the IP describes conditions that may arise—in particular, manifestations of bourgeois relations and activities, along with shortages. But then there is no community, nor are programs appropriate for it carried out; rather, there is struggle, confrontation, agitation, and the need for dictatorial power on the part of the workers’ councils. And if there is scarcity, no matter how much critical imagination is employed, the shitty things that plague its development can relatively easily become decisive and recurrent, as happened in post-October 1917 Russia. That is why the goal is to work under conditions of self-control over the means and products of labor, increasing productivity in the sectors and areas necessary for communism—not the productivity of the untouched capitalist apparatus of production (here this word, which signifies an increase in production, will be like a cross before Dracula and his earthly hosts, as seen in Dauvé’s efforts to change the meaning of terms and insinuate that this is how practical, material, and social problems are solved).

But IP goes from acknowledging the possibility of scarcity to arguing that the solution is not “for the productive forces to grow,” but rather that “we need them to change in content and purpose.” “… but the change in content—which is clearly necessary—as well as the change in purpose, does not eliminate the problem of the socially necessary quantity of means and hours of labor, which must increase as society grows (demographics, folks!!)   and as needs    expand      both quantitatively and qualitatively, as does the need for funds    and various allocations, just as  Marx aptly explained in the Critique of the  Gotha Program. 

IP resorts to the same rhetorical maneuver that the  communitarians have been demonstrating to us, but which does not resolve the problem that may exist simply because the conditions for its existence are present. That is why we critical communists assert that, even in the lower phase of communism—already without classes and without a state—there may still be some restriction on consumption, because production has not yet managed to reach the required level, given that the repercussions of a relatively recent capitalist past still persist, along with the deep scars that capitalism left on the exploited class, on the fertility of the land, and on the biosphere.  This is easy to understand, except for those blinded and alienated by dogmatic communist doctrines. The dawn of communism—the lower phase—can no longer feature classes, the law of value, or other capitalist categories, nor the division of labor as it exists under capitalism. But it is evident that this process of eradicating that division of labor requires certain minimums; however, even once these have been met, there remains a process of development and improvement that takes time and refinement. Overcoming the division between manual and intellectual labor, between urban and agricultural activities, and between social and domestic-family activities is necessary for communism to begin, but within it there is room for improvement and development based on those minimum steps that demonstrate this radical break with capitalism and its forms of division of labor.

IP: 

“We reject the voucher system not only because it is complicated and impractical, but because the kind of restrictions it entails run counter to what communism stands for.”

But the political defeat of capitalism will not happen overnight. Most likely, there will be a long period during which the proletariat fights against the capitalist state while beginning to build a new world. And even when it is politically defeated, capitalism will probably continue to survive in isolated pockets here and there. Amid the chaos, some of the displaced might establish capitalist-style production. Even if there is no official money, they might invent their own and begin to exchange and accumulate. Furthermore, we do not know what conditions a victorious proletariat would encounter in this world. It may be that capitalism’s destruction of the environment and the damage caused by its wars are so severe that they seriously limit what can be achieved in the short term. During the period of the collapse of capitalist production and the expansion of production to meet needs, there will be shortages. We can debate how shortages should be managed, but this much is certain: current conditions are not the same as they were in Marx’s or the GIK’s time. They emphasized that the development of the productive forces was necessary to overcome scarcity, to make “from each according to his needs” possible. But today we do not need the productive forces to grow; we need them to change in terms of their content and purpose.”

Complicated? Will producers—and those who aren’t producers but need to earn a living—be guaranteed general abundance at the dawn of communism? Can the IP prove this, or does it merely assert it without providing evidence? The IP simply repeats that “today we don’t need the productive forces to grow.” Despite all their theoretical “sophistication”—based on plundering isolated passages from the Grundrisse—they remain trapped in the most vulgar, productivist version of Marxism. The idea that we no longer need to “grow the forces of production” must be a source of joy for those who have been harmed by that situation. This is the ideology of “come and take”—through plunder—something that the phrase about the change in content and purpose attempts to conceal. The  hardships  faced  by  millions  of  proletarians  and  those  impoverished  by  capital  around  the  world…  cease  to  exist;  their  influence  on  the  struggle  for  communism  disappears. …  however,  mysterious  changes  in  content  take  place.  For those who have access to resources such as running water, kitchens,  bathrooms and sanitation facilities, heating, transportation, good roads, and communication systems, etc., that is easy to say. But this is not the reality of global capitalism or of the entire proletariat. Communization fails to take this harsh reality of capitalism into account. Its lumpen-left “imaginary” is oriented toward the developed areas of the great capitalist megalopolises… within and around which  misery and deprivation also abound….

IP continues:

“‘So, isn’t there a risk that a distribution system making basic consumer goods freely available to all could collapse due to abuse? Wouldn't that mean that some would prefer to be lazy, contribute nothing, and live off the labor of others? And that some would indulge in thoughtless and greedy consumption of free goods, simply because they can?”

Yes, probably. But this would be a minority that, in all likelihood, would not place a heavy burden on the community. We cannot believe that a post-capitalist revolutionary society would condemn those who do not participate in production to starvation. Not even if the distribution of goods were based on work vouchers, as you believe would be the case. The basic needs of the non-working population would be covered by a general fund: the portion of the social product not distributed through the voucher system. So the question is: why not meet everyone’s needs in that way, rather than taking the complicated and perhaps unworkable detour of the voucher system? The standard of living of those receiving free goods or rations would have to be considerably lower than that of workers receiving labor vouchers; otherwise, the vouchers would cease to be the incentive to work that they are supposed to be. Thus, the labor-accounting system would create a two-tiered society rather than a human community.”

These paragraphs speak for themselves. If, in a communist society, someone is capable of working, they must contribute the corresponding minimum share of labor so that, on the one hand, there is a socialized and free portion of goods and services for general use to which everyone—whether they work or not—has access, and another portion in which that type and level of socialization has not yet been achieved, and which therefore requires, in order to gain access to consumption, the presentation of said certificates of time worked. If someone who is able to work does not do so, they do not enjoy the support and assistance of society, which does not tolerate parasitism.

In other words, there are circumstances in which there is not enough to satisfy everyone’s needs, but at the same time it is necessary to maintain a minimum level so that  society as a whole can survive and be capable of reproducing itself and increasing the production of goods and services intended to satisfy  social needs –  both means of production and consumer goods.  Until a situation of abundance is established and can be easily sustained,  a portion of consumption cannot  be freely accessible without a corresponding contribution of social labor; it is impossible. The  communizer ideology takes a rhetorical turn and assures us that this situation of fulfillment and abundance will exist… and so on…

IP theorizes as follows:

“We believe that the revolution would skip that so-called ‘lower phase’ of communism. Lazy workers and greedy consumers would not pose a serious problem, not only because of the productivity of communist society, but also because people would not be the same as they are today, nor would they work. Production would no longer be work.”

In other words, there would be lazy people and it wouldn’t be a problem, because at the same time people wouldn’t be the same as they are under capitalism (why, then, would there be people shirking their social responsibilities?)… and since no one works… there can no longer be parasitism or shirking… ahem!… because production is no longer work… but rather, everyone does whatever they please—and what about those who shirk, swarming around and taking advantage of the work of others? A fairy tale with a happy ending…

“On the contrary, we believe that a distinctive feature of communist society will be the disappearance of the distinction between work and leisure. Work will be rewarding in itself, and leisure will often be creative and productive. And since it would be impossible to distinguish the activity of ‘work’—the only one that would entitle one to receive consumption coupons—from other activities, it would also be impossible to measure working time proper, as required by the coupon system. Therefore, this system would be a real obstacle to communist transformation, since it would perpetuate a reality that must be overcome as soon as possible.”

No, in communist society there continues to be necessary labor time and leisure time. The goal is for the latter to flourish and expand qualitatively on the basis of necessary labor time, which must be limited as much as possible at all times, and which must be carried out in the manner most appropriate for the human species, bearing in mind that such time must cover social, productive, reproductive, and general and individual consumption needs.

“Given these qualitative differences, it would not really be possible to measure the average social labor embodied in each product or the labor time contributed by each individual producer.”

This becomes possible when the division of labor is challenged and overcome… which is one of the great objectives of the world communist revolution.

“Accounting for labor time would deprive producers of control over the process and the means of production in various ways. One such way would be that it would promote standardization. The need to measure the individual labor times invested in the products of combined social activities would require dividing work processes into uniform, standardized tasks whose duration could be determined. This is where the rupture occurs between the collective worker and their product. Producers would be pressured not only to complete tasks within the socially assigned average time, but also—to meet the deadline—to perform the task in a specific, standardized manner. They would remain subject to the clock and lack autonomy over how they use their means of production.”

This is pure mystification. Standardization is, on the one hand, a necessity—bringing what is produced into line with common and necessary standards—but, at the same time, it does not mean impoverishing or limiting the quality and variety of what is produced.  Producing fruit according to a defined health standard—for consumers, for producers, and for nature—does not  mean    producing    a   single type of  fruit  or a single variety of  a type  of fruit, but rather ensuring  that   all types  and varieties    meet the minimum  necessary  level  of  quality  and  food safety, as well as  environmental impact standards. On the other hand, producers know what is necessary and what is not, what constitutes an imposed routine and what does not, since they manage their inventory and labor resources and decide which products to prioritize with them and according to which characteristics and requirements—technological, labor-related, and social.

“A society in transition may face severe shortages, but accounting for labor time is not the only possible way to address them. A dynamic rationing system based on the equitable distribution of goods according to need and capable of adapting rapidly to changing circumstances seems a far better solution than a system that continues to treat everyone and everything as a quantity of labor time. What Marx proposed in the “Gotha Program,” and what the GIK elaborated on in the “Fundamental Principles,” amounts to a value exchange without money.”

Dynamic rationing, they say, requires knowing the quantity of goods to be rationed and, at the same time, the time required and the material resources that must be mobilized to produce them… or simply letting improvisation and corporate or selfish cunning prevail. That inevitably creates problems; it is an obstacle. This simple ABC is omitted from the IP’s “imaginative” reasoning… as are the secondary consequences, the chaos generated in society, and the dangers to the proletariat—among which state capitalism is the most potent—and which are brought about through the simplistic mythologizing of rationing.

This is a negligent attitude not only toward the proletariat’s need for power and its forms of exercising and controlling it, but also toward the dangers posed by the absence of abundance. Are there conflicting interests in the struggle for rationing? It is clear that there may be, because the conditions for this still exist—given that capitalist relations have begun to be attacked but have neither been eliminated nor overcome. The example of Russia after October 1917 is highly significant. So-called “war communism” was not communism, but a disjointed capitalist economy mired in productive and social chaos. Money cannot be abolished by administrative decree, neither centrally nor from the grassroots; rather, the material and social conditions that make money and its use in production and consumption necessary must be eliminated and overcome.  In Russia during that period, the result was inflation, chaos, looting in various forms, compulsory rationing by the “red capitalist” state, and… the black market. As a consequence… money was reestablished… and the exploitation and alienation of the proletariat continued. There was neither socialism nor a transition from capitalism to communism, but rather capitalism, accompanied by social, military, and productive chaos.

Once again, value is identified with exchange value, the hallmark of the capitalist mode of production and distribution.

“If you start from the premise that people must be forced to work in order to consume, you are already implicitly saying that they must be monitored. The tracking of working hours continues to be based on coercion and requires control to function. Coercion and control require an apparatus to enforce them—one that imposes the laws and regulations of the economy on society and punishes deception, abuse, and other violations. That is the State, even if there is a structure of workers’ councils above it.”

There is no state or entity external to the human community itself—and which governs it—that compels people to work; rather, it is something that society needs and accepts as a condition for existence and the reproduction of life.

“The State must die and not be resurrected. The persistence of the value-form in the accounting of labor time could allow for its return. It would lead to the emergence of a separate class to manage the value system and create new avenues of accumulation. Even if the form of a state were based on the dictatorship of workers’ councils, with delegates elected and removable by the very workers who elected them, that could not fundamentally change the content of its practice.

This does not deny that such a structure—or a comparable one that involves the whole of society in setting global priorities and making other decisions with global impact—is essential. The revolutionary transition would not be disorganized. On the contrary, organized life is likely to flourish as never before. As the collective of workers opens the door to the human community, communal consciousness will give rise to countless organizations.”

No, the state dies when there is no competition among human beings over production and profit, when there is no productive anarchy or opposing classes. IP admits that the revolutionary transition must be organized, but it dismisses the best-defined method to date for doing so, and attempts to justify this with the prejudices and verbiage of communizer ideology. Numerous organizations… but nothing about whether they coordinate or how they draw up plans; an organized life “that flourishes as never before,” yet oblivious to how much time it needs to produce and reproduce its existence and its future… insubstantial, idealistic—utopian, in short—blah, blah, blah.

In  the    exchange  of  messages  with  the two  IDA members, 

 IP says:

“Despite its defense of internationalism and workers’ democracy, the Communist Left remained confined within the theoretical framework of traditional Marxism with regard to its conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat and a transitional period. For both the Italian and Dutch-German left, the vision of communism was that of a ‘republic of labor,’ of communism as an affirmation of the proletariat as a class, whose goal was the liberation of labor, not the abolition of labor. And the Russian Revolution, with its general strikes, factory occupations, and soviets, remained the model for how a future communist revolution would take place.”

“The theoretical basis for the GIC’s vision of communism—the jewel of the historical communist left—is found in Marx’s Critique of the Goth (1875), where, in criticizing the Goth recently adopted by the German Social Democracy, he articulated a vision of a post-revolutionary world, in which there first existed a lower stage of communism and, subsequently, as a result of that transitional period, a higher stage. It is to this vision of Marx—the theoretical cornerstone of both traditional Marxism and the Communist Left—that we must turn now.”

The IP misrepresents what Marx (and Engels) said: it is when the transitional period concludes successfully that communism begins, and its lower stage develops historically. The transition, for the IP, on the contrary, extends all the way to higher communism.  Despite its anti-Leninism, what resonates most here is Lenin’s theory regarding the persistence of the state in lower-stage communism. In fact, there is a common thread: Lenin considered that only in higher communism would the state come to an end (as he theorizes in The State and Revolution).

IP seeks to free people from labor—that is, from the need to produce goods and services for their own use. Hallelujah! It asserts that “left-wing communism” is a new way of chaining workers to their condition. Bakunin and his followers have been resurrected, along with their errors and ramblings. That is why they repeat the errors of anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism regarding the state and its immediate abolition, the transitional period they consider harmful and unnecessary, and political and international struggle—which they view as “statist”—while distorting the necessary centralized and general coordination, which is not free federalism and independence for communes that desire it (as  Bakunin and the anarchists advocated),  claiming that communism can be implemented immediately, that it is not necessary to use  work-time vouchers, defending  “‘production’ without productivity” and  “radical non-accounting, whatever the sphere, ” and so on. (5)

In short: an ideological hodgepodge of nonsense. (6)

 Spain, in Catalonia and the Valencian Community: Appropriate communist intervention, proactive and activist intervention.

In a recent pamphlet by Barbaria, Balance, and Avante on the teachers’ strikes and protests in the Valencian Community and Catalonia, we can read:

“We salute the indefinite strike by education workers in the Valencian Community, which begins on Monday, May 11, as part of the working class’s struggle to improve its living conditions. The working conditions of the education proletariat are deteriorating. We are subjected to increasingly intense workdays, with very high student-to-teacher ratios, absurd bureaucracy, and job insecurity and staff turnover affecting many of our colleagues.” (1)

This is evident. More and more teachers are seeing this for themselves. But the bureaucracy is not absurd, nor is everyone part of the proletariat. Civil service status entails certain ranks and functions that are not characteristic of the proletariat, but rather of the qualified and educated petty bourgeoisie, which performs bourgeois functions and receives a salary and a certain status. In private and charter schools, this disappears, and the system becomes one of purely wage labor, generally under harsher conditions and with greater insecurity, precariousness, and the overwhelming weight of the arbitrariness of educational employers… while the state looks the other way. Hence the growing discontent and protests, but also the massive and widespread desire to attain the status of a civil servant—a permanent position guaranteed by the state—the desire to become a civil servant.

Both groups continue:

“But as proletarians, we must defend our class interests and do so on our own terms, from a position of independence. Our comrades are the collective of workers, both in education and in any other sector, including students (future workers). It is urgent to break with narrow, corporatist logic. To break, for example, with the fragmentation of the struggle among the different autonomous communities. In the last two years, there have been significant struggles in Madrid, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country. At this moment, the struggle is unfolding in Catalonia and Aragon, as well as in the Valencian Community. An indefinite strike is now being planned in Madrid for the start of the next academic year. In addition, a major indefinite strike has been underway in Madrid’s daycare centers since April 7. 

We are a class that thrives on struggle and unity. Our strength comes from breaking down corporate and national divisions.

We must also call for the mobilization of all teachers at charter and private schools. They are our colleagues. They are neither responsible for nor complicit with their employer, just as we are not responsible for or complicit with ours: the State. This also means breaking with the corporate logic of all unions that confines us to trades, professions, and companies (public and private). It means allying ourselves with our entire class—the proletariat—which is subjected to a general deterioration of living conditions caused by the capitalist crisis. Only by seeking common ground on this basis—that of the entire proletariat—and not on the basis of public-sector ideology, will the struggle of education workers move forward.”

Most of this is also self-evident; it is a general necessity. But it is a mistake to attribute the problems to the supposed crisis of capitalism, given that we are not in such a crisis. And similarly, there is an approach taken by groups that prioritize what they consider necessary for communism, which gives rise to voluntarist and activist expressions that seek to have communism recognized and implemented… even if that is not the case. So, what conclusions do these kinds of groups reach, and what do they say in response? Silence. They insist systematically and voluntaristically that “we must—!” — and since what they say is necessary for communism and the revolution, it is clear to us that it is desirable; it is evident to communists and critical and revolutionary internationalists — so they repeat it over and over again, and that is all. We will examine further critical arguments below.

Both groups continue to say:

“What is the function of public education under capitalism? Its function is to organize the social reproduction of wage labor in this society. It involves the distribution of credentials so that we proletarians can compete in the future labor market by selling our labor power.”

The first point is an important part of the education system, but a portion of what it produces. The education system also produces cadres and officials of the bourgeois class — individuals prepared to perform bourgeois and wage-labor functions — but bourgeois, not proletarians. 

Similarly, in one part of the educational system’s economic structure, the source of its salaries comes from capitalist rent and does not generate capitalist surplus value. In another part, it does. If this is not clarified, things rapidly devolve into confusion.

Both groups go on to say:

“...Defending the ‘public’ takes us away from our class terrain as proletarians (in this case, in education). What they call ‘public’ is nothing other than the State, in this case the State/employer: the one that hires us as proletarians. The entity that imposes the deterioration of our living conditions. The entity that exploits us with increasingly unbearable workdays, with a bureaucracy that subjects us to absurd protocols. This is not just a problem in the Valencian Community, but rather the clear decline in wages we have suffered in recent years. It is estimated that the average loss of purchasing power among non-university faculty in Spain since the 2010 capitalist crisis is 22 percent, based entirely on official inflation figures. This shows that the problem is not which party is in power. Furthermore, we already know that, by the very logic of capitalism, the cost of living is much higher…”

It’s obvious, but that’s the prevailing view. And it’s no coincidence. Barbaria and Balance and Avante argue that, since it is necessary to revolutionize capitalist society by challenging “the public sector” (state activity and ownership), these protesting sectors—which are currently demonstrating and striking in the education sector in those parts of Spain—must understand this and act accordingly.

But for most of these strikers, the choice they must make does not lie in whether or not to revolutionize capitalist society and its educational system, but rather in trying to mitigate the deterioration of working conditions and improve the educational system by implementing changes and reforms to that end. For this reason, what these voluntarist activists say usually falls on deaf ears. It sounds like a utopia—undoubtedly radical and well-intentioned for those who detest capitalism.

Both groups state:

“...Since the beginning of this strike, dozens and dozens of assemblies have been held in many high schools. These assemblies must be the vehicle through which our struggle is directed and expanded. We must be patient, knowing that this is not a struggle that will end soon. The assemblies must be expanded to include all workers in educational institutions, breaking with the prevailing union corporatism. We advocate for self-organization that extends to all workers, identifying our struggle with theirs: a single struggle against a single world—the capitalist world—that is deteriorating all our living conditions, both those of teachers and students (just think of the immense anguish expressed in the “mental health” crisis) and is leading us toward a world dominated by imperialist war.

So yes. Enough of hiding our needs behind the idealization of “the public sphere.” Let us put forward our demands from a class perspective. There is no shame in demanding better wages and working conditions. We have no other means of subsistence than our jobs: we are part of the proletariat. Self-organization and solidarity to expand our struggle, to generalize the content of our struggle against this world that is rotting from within and threatens to bury us inside it.”

Once again, the “we must–!” But once again it has no effect.

So, what should we do?

Remaining silent is not the solution, but neither is relating to the strikers in this way. It would be pertinent to point out what should be done if we were radicals or if there were radical anti-capitalist sectors already acting as such—but knowing that the conditions do not exist to carry it out or to generalize it. Therefore, the key is to warn that movements of this kind—the struggle for changes and reforms within the system—will lead to a series of consequences, ranging from defeat through isolation to the achievement of some demands and the subsequent dismantling of the movement. But in both cases, they do not aim to do away with “the public sphere” or wage labor, nor do they consider it necessary to revolutionize the educational system, given that they—and we—live in a world where the balance of power between the classes does not determine the mass expression of such a revolutionary attitude.

What is developing slowly and unevenly is an accumulation of calamities and discontent in the face of the evident deterioration of economic and social conditions… and all this against the backdrop of the accelerated process of international inter- ist confrontation, which generates powerful tendencies toward world war and the spread of imperialist ist wars across the globe, while the proletarian class watches as its environment is devastated by the effects of capitalism.

Therefore, we, the communists, interpret, warn, and clarify; we highlight the foreseeable consequences of what is done and what is left undone, but we no longer demand that what cannot be done be done. To say that it would be good to do so is nothing more than a vague, voluntarist wish. In doing so, we give the impression of being avant-garde prophets detached from the world, which the majority perceives in non-revolutionary terms. Our role consists of clarifying and also setting general and historical objectives, while pointing out that, to achieve them, democratic reforms and high-level or grassroots unionism are not sufficient. However, we must not present as possible what is not and defend it simply because it is considered necessary… by an internationalist communist ultra-minority.

Both groups are correct in stating: 

“As communists fighting for a world without commodities, without social classes, and without the state, we have nothing to defend in public education.”

This is true, but we are a tiny social minority. And activist voluntarism isn’t going to get us out of this shitty situation. (2) 

Conditions for a third world war. Origins of many misunderstandings.

World war does not emerge, nor has it ever emerged, after World War II, despite numerous episodes of political and military conflict between states and factions of imperialist capitalism.

The explanation is that such a war only occurs when conditions arise that are not currently present. For such a world war to emerge, the tendencies toward it, those that determine it, must clearly prevail over the counter-tendencies. And among these counter-tendencies in the military sphere, the existence of a broad and developed strategic scheme of nuclear weapons, both offensive and defensive, in the possession of powerful capitalist states stands out.

Therefore, they do not readily launch into a world war, given the high probability of mutual annihilation. As such, they have been and continue to be an important relative deterrent, but not an absolute one.

World war is postponed either until that nuclear parity is broken, or, if such parity is maintained, until the contradictions are so repeatedly intense that they motivate the formed blocs to have no choice but to unleash generalized war, with one bloc trying to get ahead of the other militarily in an agile, global and extremely dynamic advance from an offensive military point of view.

That is why the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, and others avoid generalizing conflicts and using nuclear weapons.

The consequence of this so-called "balance of terror," of the so-called "nuclear deterrence," is not world peace, as we know, but a constant trickle of localized wars, and the constant development of strategic nuclear capabilities.

Furthermore, the assessment made by these decadent trends regarding the prevailing conditions and trends since World War II is inaccurate and distorting. And that is why their predictions fail time and time again.

A prime example from the past was the position of the GCF (Communist Left of France, which published "Internationalisme"), a decadent tendency that preceded organizations like the ICC. It argued that the Korean War (1950-53) would trigger a Third World War... which did not happen.

In the text "L'évolution du capitalisme et la nouvelle perspective", published in the summer of 1952, they assert: "Under the current conditions of capital, generalized war is inevitable." (1)

World imperialist war occurs when a number of powers have no other option but to resort to war to maintain and improve their conditions, given the intense competition that stifles them. It drags lesser states along with it and, in turn, stirs up previous or latent conflicts, clashes over territories, raw materials, land or sea routes of strategic and commercial interest, and so on.

In this dynamic, the multiple clashes of interests between states and bourgeois forces necessitate reaching a point where, inevitably, higher levels of political and military aggregation occur within them. It is not limited to clashes between states and so on.

Market disputes and the effects of economic crises are important elements, both an expression and a cause of the immense contradictions of capitalism. The race for profit and the externalization of costs and the processes of capital devaluation necessarily engender a constant war between capitalist forces, which under certain conditions manifests as open military confrontation. Its varying degrees of intensity since World War II are evident. (2)

All of this can be summarized and the following included beforehand:

The danger of world war is something we read and hear about daily, amidst wars in various parts of the world and trade wars. It is clear that nuclear armament, both tactical and strategic, is being developed on an unprecedented scale. This occurs on the basis of the growing exploitation of the working class by capital, which entails an erosion of direct, indirect, and deferred wages (where they exist). This is not a coincidence and foreshadows more of the same, only worse. Imperialist capitalism, with its struggles between blocs, leads to a proliferation of localized and regional wars, and above all, to a Third World War, if the world proletariat does not resist, strengthen its organs of defense and attack against capital, and overthrow its bourgeois states by force, with the intention of moving towards communism, the only society where the conditions for war do not exist, since class and state relations will cease to exist.

World War III will not develop immediately; the contradictions that are tearing capital apart still need to mature, but that does not mean the situation is a bed of roses.

Capital, in all its components and blocs, accelerates competitive pressure and the need to ever-increasingly expand profit extraction, which is only generated by producing surplus value (labor time performed but not paid to the working class). Its states and blocs arm themselves, and its large, concentrated, and centralized capital operates on the scale of these conditions that drive them, dragging the entire bourgeoisie and society along with them.

If necessary, the imperialist blocs would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons, because in this globalized system the only option is to redistribute it again and again under conditions of force.

Obviously, the fatal consequences for the human species are increasingly highlighted by those who study this type of warfare. The proletariat, therefore, needs to respond and prevent it from happening. And it can only do so by fighting against capital and building its own communist strength to eradicate it.