From Proletarian Self-defense to the World Revolution
Index
Intense market competition and inter-imperialist rivalries continue…
Ceuta
Cockroach Janta Party: The Movement that has Led - its Goals and its Evolution.
Labor Unions: More Policing Over the Proletariat - Part 1
The Value-Form and Capitalist Society
Letter from F. Engels to Jose Bloch (September 1890)
Basic Texts of Council Communism
To contact us, please email: lawseries1@gmail.com
In our sixth issue: we provide an update on the main current developments surrounding inter-imperialist competition and global tensions; we offer our commentary on recent events in Ceuta, Spain; an article on the so-called “cockroach movement” in India; as part of a series of articles, we offer an introduction to trade unionism; and, finally, in another series of articles, a critical overview of communization. We supplement this with a letter from Engels on the historical materialist method and a selection of classic texts on council communism.
Translations: Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese
We will review trends, data, and relevant facts to understand the situation and prospects of imperialist capitalism. Everything revolves around the interimperialist axis and the pressures that capital and its states will inevitably intensify on the working class, skillfully exploiting its divisions and limitations.
The conditions of the exploited class are being eroded—unevenly but effectively—while bourgeois forces flex and flex their muscles regarding class domination, rising above their divisions and conflicts.
Capital thrives on competition but asserts its power ruthlessly over the proletariat—and it does so through governments of every political and ideological stripe.
The challenges and obstacles are growing, and the strength required of the working class under these conditions is extraordinary. The repetition of old attitudes is doomed to failure. But new ones have not yet emerged, while the militaristic drums of imperialism beat with renewed intensity.
Likewise, significant consequences of the climate chaos engendered by the development of capitalism are becoming apparent, accumulating, and interrelating.
In this issue, we present articles and data on all of this.
We read on June 10, 2026:
The second week of August begins with stock markets around the world at all-time highs.
Stock market gains, fundamentally, make those who are already wealthy even richer and offer improved returns to savers as a whole, whether they invest directly in stocks or do so through mutual funds or pension plans. This overall increase in economic gains generates a wealth effect across the economy that generally translates into higher consumption, greater investment, and, consequently, more economic growth and improved employment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, forecasts global growth of 3% for this year and 3.4% in 2027.
The assessment by IMF economists is that the negative impact of the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the resulting energy shock are being partially offset by the extraordinary technology investment cycle—particularly in artificial intelligence (AI)—which is driving productivity and profit growth, especially among U.S. companies. Investment in AI, data centers, semiconductors, and digital remains one of the market’s major drivers. Paradoxically, another major driver of the market continues to be the wars themselves, insofar as they increase demand for weapons production and the massive investments that this entails.
The other variable that directly influences the economy—and, fundamentally, the stock market—is interest rates. In this regard, the weakening of the U.S. job market reported on Friday—with 23,000 jobs lost in July—was met with euphoria on Wall Street—which has a decisive influence on the rest of the world’s stock markets—because it reduces the likelihood of further tightening by the Federal Reserve without posing a risk of recession. This means that financing costs for businesses and consumers will remain stable for the time being in the world’s largest economy. In Europe, interest rates also remain stable, though an upward trend cannot be ruled out.
Energy costs, in any case, are key. In this regard, developments in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz remain one of the main risks to the global economic and stock market outlook.
If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes, not only will oil prices fall, but inflation will also decline, the scope for lowering interest rates will increase, and the outlook for stock markets will improve. If the opposite occurs, oil prices will rise, inflation will increase, interest rates will remain higher for longer, growth will slow, and downward pressure on stock markets will mount. So far, since the war with Iran began, the stock markets have weathered the situation, as oil prices have remained contained. But the uncertainty remains (La Vanguardia).
According to PR Newswire…
The world’s 500 largest companies (Fortune Global 500) collectively earned approximately $3.39 trillion in profits in 2025.
Their combined revenue was $43.1 trillion.
That represents a profit margin of approximately 7.9% of their revenue.
Profits increased by about 14% compared to the previous year.
The 50 largest companies accounted for approximately 39% of the total profits of those 500 companies.
In 2025, the top 10% accounted for 53% of global income, while the bottom 50% accounted for only 8%; in terms of wealth, the figures were even more extreme: 75% versus 2%.
According to La Vanguardia…
The major oil companies are sitting on a mountain of money unlike anything in their history. According to the latest data published by Bloomberg, the top five international energy firms generated nearly $70 billion in cash flow in the second quarter of 2026, the highest figure ever recorded.
The list includes giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP. By way of comparison, the previous record—about $60 billion—was set in the second quarter of 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to The Economist…
“More than one-fifth of industrial capacity remains idle in Europe and the Americas,”
a situation that, they say, also affects China’s domestic economy.
Infobae reports that…
“2024 data from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China: 35% of the 529 companies surveyed perceive overcapacity, and 10% expect this to worsen in the future. In the automotive industry, this phenomenon affects 62% of companies; in the pharmaceutical industry, 56%; in industrial machinery, 55%; and in the chemical industry, 51 percent.”
"Fierce price wars are sweeping through Chinese industry as companies struggle to maintain their market share and shed excess capacity," explained Capital Economics.
Analysts believe that Beijing is trying to put an end to what it calls “disorderly competition,” but the problem is said to be structural.
Capital Economics states that China’s growth model, based on investment-intensive growth—where investment still accounts for approximately 40% of GDP—is leading to “chronic overcapacity, extremely thin margins, and ever-declining returns.”
AI generates overinvestment and additional problems:
“The problem is that AI has become a new competitor for capital at a time when the U.S. government also needs record amounts of funding. U.S. public debt has surpassed $40 trillion, as confirmed by the Treasury Department on Thursday. Ten years ago, it stood at $19.4 trillion.
This is an ominous milestone for an economy built on shaky fiscal foundations after decades of borrowing to finance rising defense costs, social protection programs, and tax cuts enacted by President Donald Trump—all compounded by spending on the war in Iran, lower tax revenues, and tariff rebates.
‘To put this in perspective, it took the United States nearly 200 years to reach a gross debt of $1 trillion for the first time in 1981,’ Maya MacGuineas, chair of the committee, explained in a statement. ‘A debt of $40 trillion doesn’t just exist on the balance sheet. It’s felt throughout the economy and impacts people’s wallets. The more we borrow, the more we fuel inflation, crowd out other budget priorities, and expose ourselves to vulnerability in the face of domestic emergencies and turmoil abroad,’ she added.
The U.S. fiscal situation led the Treasury to announce yesterday that it will increase the volume of its debt buybacks at the long end of the yield curve. This is a stopgap measure to control borrowing costs, as interest payments on the debt have reached nearly 1.2 trillion this year and constitute the second-largest budget expenditure, behind only Defense and Medicare.
Trump’s promises have not been fulfilled. And the AI boom makes it even harder to balance the books” (La Vanguardia).
Global military spending rose by 2.9% in real terms in 2025, reaching a record $2,887,000 million, according to data released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This upward trend is reinforced by increases in 12 of the 15 countries with the largest military budgets in the world. While social needs face budgetary constraints, the transfer of public resources to the military-industrial complex is accelerating, especially in Europe, where combined spending rose by 14% over the past year (APHDA).
In 2025, global military spending reached approximately $2.89 trillion, a historic record. It accounted for 2.5% of global GDP and has been growing for 11 consecutive years.
How is this “increase in strategic effort on an international scale” financed?
There are primarily five sources:
Taxes and public budgets. This is the primary source. Governments collect taxes and allocate an increasingly large portion of their budgets to defense. For example, Europe increased its military spending by 14% in 2025, to about $864 billion.
More public debt. When a government wants to significantly increase military spending but does not want to raise taxes immediately, it can issue debt: bonds purchased by banks, investment funds, insurance companies, individuals, etc.
This is becoming particularly important in Europe. Through the SAFE program, the EU can raise up to 150,000 million euros through European borrowing to provide loans to member states for joint defense purchases.
Reducing other public expenditures through the reallocation of funds, thereby dedicating a larger portion of the budget to “ ” defense. This means allocating relatively less to other areas, such as infrastructure, education, healthcare, development aid, etc. Here, the impact on the working class is significant.
Revenue from natural resources. Some states are able to finance a significant portion of their military efforts through raw materials. The Russian case is particularly significant: revenue from oil and gas is of enormous importance to public finances. SIPRI estimates that Russia spent around 16 trillion rubles on the war and other military expenditures in 2025, approximately 7.5% of its GDP.
Credit and financing of the military industry. There is another, less visible aspect: states enter into long-term contracts with arms manufacturers. These companies receive orders for aircraft, missiles, ammunition, ships, satellites, drones, air defense systems, etc. They issue debt and gradually break down the investments
Data from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
In Spain, in addition to corporate credit, there is specific public funding for weapons programs. An analysis by CESEDEN indicates that, by 2025, the MITU was expected to provide approximately 4.5 billion euros in loans to companies in the industrial sector (Defensa).
The IMF specifically notes that new pressures on public finances include defense and strategic autonomy, in addition to social spending and debt interest (IMF).
So far, no significant proletarian responses have emerged in the face of this imperialist military course.
Two major theaters of war and other less significant, yet effective, ones remain active. In the war in Ukraine, both sides are trying to gain ground, although the Russian army has demonstrated its superiority.The war is spreading its tentacles across various locations, while Ukraine calls for more support, faces a crisis regarding military command, and attacks strategic Russian positions. Russian bombings of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other locations appear daily in the media. It is clear that Russia does not want to expedite ceasefire talks, while Ukraine receives more aid from both the EU and the U.S. China is supporting Russia’s imperialist effort through extensive trade and financial ties. In the background, class tensions are escalating, and poverty is growing among the proletariat and impoverished sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. We read:
What has the war in Ukraine brought about? In addition to civilian and military casualties on both sides:
“According to World Bank data, during the war the poverty rate in Ukraine has roughly doubled, reaching 41.6% in 2025.
At the same time, inequality has widened dramatically: the real incomes of the poorest households have fallen by more than 30%, while those of the wealthiest have risen by over 10%. (A warm hello to the arms manufacturers and Mindich class)
By 2025, food prices had surged by roughly 70–80% since the start of the war, and in some regions by nearly 90%. Housing and utility costs climbed by another 50–70%.
This is the other front of the war — the one measured not in territorial gains or triumphant communiqués, but in empty wallets, shrinking household budgets, and a society being pulled ever further apart.
The longer the war grinds on, the deeper it will drive Ukraine into poverty and social inequality — while those who profit from the machinery of war remain comfortably insulated from the price everyone else is forced to pay.”
According to Agenda Publica…
“Since 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin prepared for a scenario of isolation: it built up foreign exchange reserves, reduced external debt, and devised a ‘Fortress Russia’ policy. When sanctions were imposed following the invasion of Ukraine, the country had those buffers and an economy less dependent on the outside world. Furthermore, international oil and gas prices—which rose in the first months of the war—allowed Moscow to maintain high revenues and finance the war effort.
“The ‘economy of death’ model has created a new war-driven middle class: families who, at the cost of enormous personal risk, have risen out of poverty thanks to money from the conflict.”
But this resilience had a catch. Russia’s growth in 2023 and 2024 (more than 4% annually) was not the result of a healthy economy, but rather an artificial boom driven by massive military spending. The state poured resources into the military-industrial complex, skyrocketing the production of weapons, ammunition, and equipment, and creating full employment in the country’s poorest regions. Wages rose, unemployment fell to historic lows, and millions of families received extraordinary income, whether from enlisting in the military or from compensation for those killed in action. This phenomenon, dubbed “deathonomics,” has created a new war- -middle class: families who, at the cost of enormous personal risk, have escaped poverty thanks to money from the conflict.
However, this model has serious consequences. Growth is concentrated in the military industry, while civilian sectors (automotive, construction, agriculture, and commerce) are stagnating or declining. Civilian companies, unable to compete for labor and resources, have had to reduce the workweek to four days—a measure intended to prevent mass layoffs but one that results in lost income and precarious working conditions for millions of workers. In industrial cities like Togliatti, where the automaker AvtoVAZ is the main employer, the reduced workweek is now the norm, not the exception.
To sustain this model, the government has resorted to tax increases—for example, the sales tax will rise from 20% to 22% in 2025—the issuance of domestic debt, and the use of reserve funds accumulated in previous years. But these financial buffers are running out: the budget deficit has multiplied, revenue from energy exports is falling—due to sanctions and falling oil prices—and inflation remains high, forcing the Bank of Russia to maintain very high interest rates (17–21%), which further stifles the civilian economy.
Thus, the Russian economy has held up thanks to a total mobilization of resources toward the war, at the expense of civilian well-being and development. But this model is showing clear signs of exhaustion: growth is slowing, inflation is eroding wages, and the state must choose between continuing to spend on defense or facing a deep recession”….”
“The boom of the past two years is fading: the economy entered a technical recession in early 2025, the budget deficit is skyrocketing, and reserve funds are being depleted at an accelerated rate. The government has opted to raise taxes and cut civilian spending, but this only exacerbates social unrest and the loss of purchasing power. Inflation, driven by military spending and labor shortages, hits the poorest hardest, as they see prices rise much faster than wages.”
El Pais reports…
“Russia. Although massive military spending temporarily boosted industrial sectors and raised wages in weapons production, the conflict is taking a heavy toll on the most disadvantaged regions and deepening inequality, disproportionately affecting minorities and rural areas with fewer resources”…” “Minorities suffer from the war not because of their nationality, but because of their economic situation, their poverty, or their lack of work,” says Alexandra Garmazhápova, founder of the organization Free Buryatia, who is also in exile. Russian authorities have included this political scientist on their list of “extremists and terrorists” and have sentenced her in absentia to more than seven years in prison.”
Massive military spending is drawing workers into the defense industries, driving up labor costs and undermining the competitiveness of the civilian sector.
Unemployment in Russia is at a historic low of just over 2%, while the war absorbs significant numbers of men each year. The country has set a goal of recruiting 409,000 contract soldiers this year, which means up to 34,000 men are leaving the civilian workforce each month.
This constant flow of workers into the military has caused wages to continue rising at double-digit rates, even as economic growth has stalled. Production is contracting in many industries and investment is plummeting, according to data from the Federal State Statistics Service.
The labor shortage is so severe that the state-owned monopoly Russian Railways is offering welders higher wages than some station masters. Freight rates are rising, passing the cost on to all customers and spreading wage inflation throughout the entire production chain.
Employment in military production has increased by about 510,000 jobs since late 2021, reaching 2.8 million according to Oxford Economics. This has created an imbalance that civilian companies cannot easily offset.
To avoid an unpopular mobilization, the Kremlin is offering high salaries and signing bonuses to volunteers. The monthly salary of a contracted soldier has gone from approximately four times the average in 2022 to about double the average today, keeping pressure on civilian employers.
“Dmitry Polevoy, chief investment officer at Astra Asset Management, warns that the civilian sector cannot operate this way indefinitely. “When wages rise faster than productivity, profits inevitably suffer, and that is exactly what we are seeing,” he notes.
Less efficient companies, unable to compete on wages with the state sector, will lose key workers. This brain drain further exacerbates their situation, creating a vicious cycle of low productivity and rising costs.
The impact of this dynamic is reflected in the rise in the average monthly wage, which climbed to 101,784 rubles (USD $1,280) in 2025, up from 57,244 rubles in 2021. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, Russia ranks above Greece, Slovakia, and Hungary in the OECD’s wage rankings.”...” The governor of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, has defended the use of high interest rates as a tool to reallocate scarce labor to more productive sectors. However, state support for large, inefficient companies appears to be hindering that reallocation.
Nabiullina acknowledged in July that there is still an “insufficient reallocation of scarce resources toward more productive sectors,” which hinders progress in slowing price growth and easing financial conditions.
Tatiana Orlova, an economist at Oxford Economics, describes a vicious cycle: labor shortages require higher productivity, which can only be achieved through investment, but high interest rates limit that spending. The only sectors that are favored are those considered “priority” by the state, which benefit from subsidized loans”…” The Kremlin’s strategy of financing the war through fiscal spending has injected money into the economy, but it has distorted incentives. Workers prefer well-paid military jobs, leaving vacancies in sectors critical to long-term economic development”…” The lack of investment in infrastructure, technology, and human capital outside the defense sector threatens to leave permanent scars on the Russian economy. Even if the war ended tomorrow, the reallocation of resources would be slow and painful.”
But trade with China continues to provide strong support for Russia’s capitalist efforts in the face of NATO-led blockades…
“Trade between Russia and China increased by nearly 24 percent between January and May of this year compared to the same period in 2025.”
Moscow, Aug. 7 (Prensa Latina)...
“The volume of Russian-Chinese trade between January and July of this year increased by 26.3 percent year-over-year, reaching $159,240 million, the TASS news agency reported today.
The report, based on customs data from both countries, specifies that shipments of Chinese products to Russia during the period analyzed rose by 29.5 percent, reaching $72,840 million, while China imported Russian goods worth $86,400 million (an increase of 23.7 percent).
Meanwhile, Russia’s trade surplus with China during the first seven months of this year totaled $13.56 billion, up 1.7 percent compared to the same period in 2025.
According to published statistics, bilateral trade totaled $25 billion in July, an increase of 2.6 percent compared to the previous month”…” Most of the Russian products exported to China are raw materials, such as oil, natural gas, and coal. Other commodities include copper and copper ore, timber, fuel, seafood, and agricultural goods. In turn, China exports to its neighbor automobiles, tractors, computers, cell phones, industrial and specialized machinery, as well as a wide range of consumer and industrial goods.
Authorities in both countries are working to optimize their joint trade structure, including through the development of e-commerce and primary processing projects.
Trade volume between China and Russia reached an all-time high in 2024, exceeding $244 billion, but fell by 6.9 percent to $228.1 billion in 2025.
According to Russian Ambassador to Beijing Igor Morgulov, this annual figure could soon rise to $300 billion.”
In the Middle East, on the one hand, the U.S. continues to attack Iran’s internal and external positions, while the Iranian military launches attacks against neighboring states and its allies—such as the Houthis in Yemen—are responsible for expanding the front lines of the attack. The U.S. Treasury Secretary threatened to subject Iran to economic isolation “like the world has never seen.” China has been working to support its Iranian partner:
“The pressure is also being felt in the Iranian private sector. Morteza, an Iranian merchant, says that regional trade routes changed rapidly after maritime transport through the Strait of Hormuz became more difficult.
“China acted quickly to fill part of the void left by suppliers in Dubai,” he explains to DW. “Unlike the Gulf countries, China can also transport goods by rail through Central Asia, avoiding many of the risks and delays associated with maritime transport” (DW)
Meanwhile, the IDF is launching heavy attacks in Lebanon and putting pressure on the Hezbollah party-militia, which is also under pressure from the Lebanese army to relinquish its military power—already severely weakened by Israel.
In Gaza, Hamas has accepted the second phase of the Trump Plan, relinquishing control of political power and agreeing to disarm if the IDF withdraws.But conflicts are arising because Netanyahu has declared that they will not leave and that he holds different views than the U.S. For this reason, Hamas is now calling on the U.S. to respect the agreement, which entails the entry into Gaza of police and troops from various Arab and Islamic states, “advised” by the U.S.
In Israel:
“Israelis will go to the polls on Tuesday, October 27, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not in a strong position to secure another term. Polls show a clear lead for the opposition bloc, led by Gadi Eisenkot, the former Chief of Staff” (La Vanguardia)
Three countries—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan—have signed a joint military cooperation treaty, clearly aimed at Iranian imperialism and its “proxy” forces, although they note that Israeli expansionism is also in their sights.
In Iraq, internal tensions between pro- and anti-Iran factions continue to flare up.
In Libya, there have been protests and skirmishes between bourgeois police and military factions. In Sudan, fighting continues between government forces and the Rapid Support Forces, with massacres and famines everywhere.
In Tigray, calls for war against Ethiopia—whose army poses a threat—are once again being heard.
Between Eritrea and Ethiopia, tensions are rising over access to the sea and the agreements that the Eritrean government may sign with various states. Ethiopia demands direct access to the Red Sea. “Asmara seeks to build alliances that serve as a counterweight to Addis Ababa. Its recent diplomatic overtures to Egypt, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopian opposition groups, and even the United States should be interpreted within this context,” explains Michael Woldemariam, a researcher at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and the Atlantic Council (DW).
Ethiopia and China maintain a “strong strategic alliance” focused on mining, manufacturing, industrial parks, construction, services, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (Prensa Latina).
They have now agreed to restructure Ethiopia’s debt (SwissInfo).
Nearby, in Somalia and Somaliland, there are clashes between the army and jihadist groups, and Somaliland has taken a clear stance in favor of Israel.
Clashes continue between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, as well as between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where there are indications of U.S. support for “national liberation” groups.
In Myanmar and the DRC, and elsewhere, fighting continues, and what is common is not only the presence of local armed bourgeois groups but also the direct or indirect influence of more powerful states and the two major imperialist blocs that have formed, which continue their struggle to win over more supporters and undermine their rivals. It is common for states to resort to trade war measures, threats, and boycotts against one another.
In short, the dynamics of imperialist capitalism—which is not experiencing an international economic crisis—continue to fuel militarism, local and regional wars, and an escalation in each bloc’s preparations to achieve its maximum military might against its rival bloc.
In Venezuela, U.S. capital is gradually displacing Russian and Chinese influence through agreements with the Chavista leadership—which is more inclined to strike deals—and to share a portion of the spoils, since the lion’s share goes to the U.S., which is now promoting negotiations between the government and the opposition, sidelining the sector backed by the EU.
The U.S. government continues to pressure the Cuban Castro regime, which is in a state of clear internal decline and receives limited aid from its allies due to its financial difficulties, although China is providing more aid than Russia, including solar panels and the promotion of certain commercial contracts.
In Nicaragua, the Sandinista government is strengthening its ties with China and has ruled out holding elections for an indefinite period, as demanded by the opposition backed by the U.S. and the EU.
Between Brazil and Argentina , signs of dissent are emerging… again. These are pieces of a much more complex puzzle.
The working class is paying the price, and in this regard, the measures in Germany stand out: the commission of experts appointed to reform the pension system has presented Chancellor Friedrich Merz with a proposal that provides for greater flexibility in the labor market (longer working hours on Sundays) and the abolition of the requirement for a doctor’s note to take sick leave, the expansion of the taxpayer base, and the creation of a capital-funded pension fund: more years of work, a new integrated public pension, and no more retirement at age 63 without penalties.
In Chile, the new government aims to extend the workweek while reducing corporate taxes. Similar measures are being implemented here and there. And this is the reality: in practice, people are working much longer hours… and much of that “overtime” isn’t even paid. The ILO states: “Global job quality is stagnating despite resilient growth”…” Nearly 300 million workers continue to live in extreme poverty, with incomes below $3 a day, while informality is on the rise: 2.1 billion workers are projected to be in informal jobs by 2026, with limited access to social protection, labor rights, and job security. “The marked lack of progress in low-income countries is leaving workers with the worst employment conditions even further behind” (International Labor Organization).
There is a certain response that creates some tension for the company and some union federations, as at Airbus Spain, where the CCOO union has been left in a very bad light before the assemblies,
but three other unions continue to exert influence; these have yielded to the assembly’s decision, which is holding firm through legal channels:
“The majority decision of the Airbus Spain workforce has been to move forward with the indefinite strike beginning this Tuesday, August 25, called by the General Union of Workers (UGT), the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and the professional union ÚTIL on July 31” (Industry Talks)
Alongside working and living conditions marked by increasing hardship, the militarism of imperialist capitalism is on the rise.
The U.S. is launching a rearmament plan with a particular focus on submarine warfare:
CNN — This week, the U.S. Navy announced a “fundamental shift” in its future submarine force, a move that, according to analysts, offers important insights into how Washington would combat any potential conflict in the Pacific, where China is rapidly expanding its forces.
The Pentagon announced that 19 planned Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) would be reclassified as guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) and equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), a 25.6-meter-long section that adds 28 missile launch cells to the 12 found on current versions of these submarines.
These cells can be equipped with land-attack Tomahawk missiles as well as hypersonic vehicles. According to analysts, this capability, combined with the submarines’ stealth capabilities, will provide the new vessels with a crucial ability to penetrate China’s anti-missile defenses (CNN Espanol).
The U.S. defense budget rises to $839 billion in 2026, with priority given to ammunition and shipbuilding (MarketScreener).
“The Trump administration is requesting 1.5 trillion dollars (trillion euros) for defense spending in fiscal year 2027. This will be the first time that defense spending exceeds one trillion dollars…” (Fly-news).
And what about the EU? Let’s look at the figures for this enormous militaristic effort:
“With the ELSA (European Long-Range Strike Approach) program, six European heavyweights—including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—now aim to create an industrial counterweight. For the time being, ELSA remains a framework for political-industrial cooperation that should ultimately lead to the development of specific hardware. These include, in addition to the “Euro Multi Missile Launcher,” a combination of highly complex cruise missiles and more cost-effective long-range drones, with a range of between 500 and 2,000 kilometers.
Although interim solutions are already being procured, true independence on the battlefield will not be achieved until the early 2030s, thanks to newly developed European systems.
But ammunition is only half the battle in this area. The real dependence on Washington lies in target detection—the so-called “kill chain.” Without an autonomous, joint network of sensors, satellite reconnaissance, and command structures, even European missiles cannot hit their targets on their own” (DW).
Defense spending in 2026 has increased by 8.6% compared to the previous year and by 75.3% compared to 2021. In 2025, defense spending grew at an exceptional rate, reaching a record high of 134 billion euros—23% more than in 2024. The data indicates that the upward trend will continue in 2026, with defense spending estimated to reach nearly 163 billion euros. This represents a 158.7% increase compared to 2021.
Defense Equipment Procurement
In 2025, spending on the procurement of defense equipment totaled 115 billion euros, a 26% increase compared to 2024. The procurement of defense equipment accounts for more than 85% of defense investment.
In 2026, spending on the acquisition of defense equipment is projected to continue rising, reaching around 87%.
Research and Development
In 2025, total spending on defense research and development—which includes all expenditures up to the start of a product’s manufacturing—reached 17 billion euros. This represents an increase of nearly 31% compared to 2024.
Spending on research and development is expected to reach 20 billion euros in 2026 (Consilium).
China Increases Defense Spending by 7% in Its Push for Modernization by 2035 (ChinaLasAmericas).
Taiwan Accelerates Its Rearmament Against China and Will Increase Military Spending by 16% in 2027 to Strengthen Its Deterrence Capabilities (ElEspanol)
Russia spent nearly one out of every two rubles from its federal budget on the war during the first quarter of 2026 (united24media)
The 2026–2028 Russian budgets cement a prolonged war economy. Moscow is preparing for a scenario of low growth and high inflation, but is maintaining structurally high military spending. Although the budget calls for a slight reduction in defense spending, the government is increasing funding for internal security and preserving the military apparatus as the central pillar of its economic model, indicating that it is not preparing for the end of the war, but rather to sustain it indefinitely.
Fiscal policy is tightening: higher taxes and increased pressure on society (RealInstitutoElcano).
Berliner-Zeitung reports…
“Calls to extend the workweek are becoming increasingly urgent in Germany. The 35-hour workweek, common in the German automotive industry, is no longer acceptable to many business leaders and politicians…”
The chairman of Mercedes’ supervisory board, Martin Brudermüller, has also advocated in the newspaper *Handelsblatt* for a return to the 40-hour workweek, with wages remaining unchanged. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has been tirelessly repeating this almost unbearable refrain ever since he took office.
“We will not be able to maintain this country’s prosperity with a four-day workweek and work-life balance,” he had proclaimed in May 2025…
In a recent op-ed, the Handelsblatt goes even further, attributing the decline in German industry’s competitiveness to supposedly obsolete social benefits. These include high wages, paid vacation, early retirement, bonuses, and severance pay. According to the author, those who benefit from “numerous privileges” should be “less protected against unemployment”…
Increasing employees’ workweek from 35 to 40 hours without a corresponding wage increase amounts to a 14.3% increase in working hours. Consequently, the calculated hourly wage is reduced by 12.5%…
The statistics also contradict the narrative of collective idleness. According to the Federal Statistical Office, full-time workers in Germany worked an average of 39.9 hours per week in 2025. The European average was 40.2 hours. The difference is only 18 minutes…
Germany’s problem is productivity.
Above all, Merz and business leaders confuse working time with productivity. Longer working hours may increase the quantity produced, but they do not make every hour of work more effective. A person who spends ten hours filling out useless forms is no more productive than someone who stops doing so after eight hours.
“Germany has never become wealthy by extending the workweek, and it never will,” Enzo Weber of the Institute for Employment Research told the Berliner Zeitung. “Prosperity comes from higher productivity, not from longer workweeks.”
That is precisely where the problem lies. While labor productivity in Germany increased by approximately 34.5% per hour worked between 1991 and 2011, according to OECD data, it grew by only 9.1% between 2011 and 2023, according to the Federal Statistical Office—on average, not even 1% per year. In 2023, labor productivity per hour worked in Germany actually declined by 0.8%. At the same time, workers lose time due to unnecessary reporting requirements, outdated software, a lack of digital interfaces, and antiquated infrastructure.”
“The message from the economy is that, in the face of the polycrisis, Germany cannot afford to increase its leisure time. To maintain its standard of living, it will have to work more, not less. And for more years. In their letter to Berlin, the researchers warn that the goal of maintaining the level of pensions (the replacement rate—the percentage of final salary replaced—which stands at 48% in Germany [74% in Spain]) will cost 520,000 million euros in the coming years. This will trigger an increase in social security contributions”…” Gone are the days when Germany benefited from cheap Russian energy, Chinese demand (which seemed endless), and the U.S. security umbrella.”… “This isn’t the first time Germany has eliminated a public holiday. In 1995, it eliminated the Day of Prayer and Repentance (a Protestant holiday) to fund long-term care insurance. Only one federal state chose to keep it: Saxony, where workers now pay higher contributions than in the rest of the country. Germany is a federal state, so it is not easy to make a decision of this kind. In total, there are 9 public holidays common to all federal states. Saxony has 11; Baden-Württemberg, 12; and Bavaria, 13.
Ascension Day has been a holiday in Germany since 1936 and coincides with Father’s Day. It is an important holiday, typically celebrated with plenty of alcohol.”
“The slight increase in gross domestic product during the first quarter has failed to change the underlying mood in a country where corporate bankruptcies have reached their highest levels in the last two decades.”
“business unease is growing at the same pace as the perception that major reforms are still not materializing. The government defends its record by pointing to tax cuts for businesses, measures to lower energy prices, and a package of investment incentives. The so-called “growth booster,” based primarily on tax breaks and depreciation allowances for business investments, was initially met with some optimism by the business community. Reductions in electricity bills for certain industrial sectors and the elimination of specific charges related to gas storage were also approved, although the political and economic impact of these decisions has so far been limited.”
“The German economy continues to show minimal growth, and the government has had to revise its growth forecasts downward. The slight increase in gross domestic product during the first quarter has failed to change the underlying climate in a country where business insolvencies have reached their highest levels in the last two decades and where many small and medium-sized enterprises continue to cite energy prices as their main problem. This wear and tear is particularly affecting the industrial sector, which had hoped for a clearer shift following the departure of the previous coalition and is beginning to show growing signs of impatience. This disillusionment is evident even among sectors that initially supported Merz. The association representing German small and medium-sized enterprises recently went so far as to state that the “euphoria” generated during the election campaign had turned into “genuine dismay.” The Federation of German Industries also warned that companies still do not see a clear strategy capable of driving growth and improving competitiveness at a particularly delicate time for the German export industry.”
The consequences of overproduction and overcapacity in the German economy are evident, with the problems of capitalist profit being exacerbated by rising energy costs and the loss of competitiveness in the global market… and the forces of capital are reacting as the situation demands.
We have limited our focus to Germany, but trends of this kind are developing everywhere.
The pressure on the proletariat continues to rise, and state and social welfare continue to decline, though not uniformly. The bar for the anti-capitalist struggle remains very high… and conditions exist for it to rise even higher.
Drought in the EU, wildfires, record temperatures, intense heat waves, and severe wildfires exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon. The United Nations (UN) notes that the global average temperature between 2026 and 2030 will rise by between 1.3 °C and 1.9 °C above previous levels. In the EU, research agencies are already talking about a 3 °C increase… The economic consequences are becoming apparent (UN) (El Pais) (Mongobay) (inter-rev).
Ceuta: Yet another case of capitalist exploitation and inter-imperialist score-settling
What happened in Ceuta is yet another example on a long and macabre list—one that, in one way or another, has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to occur as long as capitalism and bourgeois states exist.
Forced or “voluntary” migrations—whether fleeing terrible civil or military conditions or seeking better working and living conditions—are recurrent, and therefore clash with states and the dynamics of the process of capitalist accumulation, their investment flows, business flows, labor management flows, and the legal, illegal, and parajural flows of labor itself.
In Ceuta, as a result of a policy initiated by the state (this is not the first time) and condoned by its internal and border police forces, thousands of people took to the sea in an attempt to enter Ceuta, a Spanish autonomous city in North Africa, which is claimed—along with Melilla and several islets— by the imperialist nationalism of the Kingdom of Morocco (now widely supported by U.S., Israeli, and other African, Arab, and Islamic capital, and with backing from EU member states, through frameworks of economic cooperation and business interests in border control). Therefore, there is a clear framework within inter-imperialist conflicts that have a long and ancient history.
The Spanish government, in the hands of the bourgeois left, is playing both sides in the Sahara–Morocco conflict and in business dealings—particularly regarding natural gas—with Algeria. The feuds are constant, and yet there is support and interest among all the corporate and state forces involved in ensuring that investments and trade continue. At the same time, Morocco is a key strategic stronghold for the U.S., hosting the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and serving as the site for international military exercises such as African Lion. This supports Morocco’s significant economic growth and encourages numerous Spanish and EU investments in its economic sectors. Even so, unemployment—especially among young people—is high: The unemployment rate in Morocco stood at 9.5% in the second quarter of 2026, representing 1.121 million unemployed people. (Trading Economics. Key Employment Data).
Youth unemployment stands at 27.2% for young people aged 15 to 24. Unemployment by gender: 14.8% for women compared to 8.1% for men.
Morocco is seeing an influx of many people fleeing areas of military conflict, massacres, and social degradation from various regions. Among those arriving are not only young Moroccans, but also children, young women, and families…
What has happened is that a percentage of them have died—drowned—increasing the number of bodies in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, as well as in other seas and on land across the globe (from Bosnia to Mexico, from South Africa to the UK, from Pakistan to Syria…). The rest have been controlled and repressed, with the majority forcibly returned to Morocco, where there were clashes with the police and where there are already arrests, prison sentences in summary trials, threats…and the whispers of new plans to enter via networks, this time on boats…
The Spanish left-wing government denies having any knowledge of the background to these events, but its police and intelligence services deny it… The fact is that it deployed the Civil Guard, the Legion, the Army, and the National Police to crack down, with armored vehicles rolling through the city and plans for maritime barriers… and amid clashes with the bourgeois right-wing forces seeking to take over the government and attempting to erode the left, which is weakened by its own policies and facing corruption trials and other capitalist nonsense. A major nationalist campaign unfolded on both sides, and the unions joined in. In Morocco, they blame the mafias, although those who entered say that’s not the case, and they assert claims to Ceuta and Melilla; in Spain, opinions are divided between those who advocate an effective and legal way to maintain border control and others who want the same but emphasize respect for human rights, which are being trampled on daily. Asylum is limited in Spain, and only certain young people and children are admitted to centers; then there is a tremendous clash among the autonomous communities over whether to accept quotas for transfers to the mainland and how they are distributed, the procedures, and the costs. As a result, many are left in the streets or run away, with all that this entails—a situation frequently exploited and distorted by Spanish nationalist Nazis and fascists. In short, a chaotic situation in which thousands of migrants find themselves trapped.
Most of the foreign workforce in the EU arrives in two ways: either through legal agreements or as tourists with temporary, restricted visas. Then a certain percentage stays and does so illegally. There are regular raids, deportations, and also some “regularization processes,” when a certain percentage of the workforce is needed for capitalist accumulation in the EU. Illegal migrants eke out a meager existence in extremely precarious conditions, with all that this entails—from hyper-exploitation by business sectors to prostitution, illegal drug trafficking, and lumpen-criminal activities. Camps made of plastic sheeting and pallets spring up in areas where they are brought in as agricultural and livestock labor, with fires causing death and further misery. Sometimes there are protests, as well as Nazi-fascist pogroms. The Spanish right-wing is converging with the far right on what they call a “national priority”: that migrants—including legal ones—be placed second in line for state aid and assistance. There is a long list of NGOs that operate as a business and act as a conduit for the state and bourgeois interests.
In short, within the framework of an interstate and interimperialist conflict—marked by business deals and alliances, but also by confrontations and clashes among them—the exodus unfolds, in this case from Morocco, in others from Libya, Senegal, etc.—of many proletarian people or those from impoverished sectors, and the state and interstate management of labor flows for capitalist business and the accumulation of profits through the exploitation of the proletariat and natural resources. One business owner clearly explains what unequal development entails: agricultural workers in Morocco are paid three times less than their counterparts in Spain. The CEOE (Spanish business federation) and the Moroccan employers’ association have many agreements, backed by both states, but inter-imperialist rivalries exist and are shrewdly exploited at various junctures, always based on suffering, death, and capitalist terror.
The proletariat must either demand full and complete legal protection for those who enter Spain and elsewhere in search of work, or it will, in effect, once again align itself with the state and the interests of the Spanish national capital. There are no half-measures: either we practice internationalism and class solidarity, or we let capital have its way. Some are in a worse predicament than others, facing greater dangers and exposing themselves more to the damned police and to the EU’s immigration and border control measures—and this is Machiavellianly exploited by the bourgeois forces.
Badrul Alam, an ideologue of the petty-bourgeois Left and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (ML), comments:
“The emergence of India’s so-called ‘Cockroach Protest’ has become one of the most significant political events in South Asia in 2026.
What began as a student-led protest against exam corruption has rapidly evolved into a broader expression of popular outrage over unemployment, dwindling opportunities, democratic accountability, and the social consequences of neoliberal economic policies. In recent weeks, the movement has captured national attention, drawing support from students, unemployed graduates, civil society organizations, and sectors of the farmers’ movement.”
The protests were initially triggered by repeated allegations of corruption in public recruitment and entrance exams, particularly the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for medical school. Millions of students spend years preparing for these highly competitive exams, often at enormous financial and emotional cost.
Successive allegations of leaked exam papers, irregularities in entrance exams, cancellations, and delays have deepened public mistrust. For many young people, the issue extends beyond exam malpractices; it has become symbolic of a system that seems increasingly incapable of ensuring fairness, merit, and equal opportunity.
The movement’s main demands include transparent exams, strict accountability for exam paper leaks, comprehensive reforms of the admissions systems, and expanded employment opportunities for educated youth.
Although exam scandals sparked the protests, the movement reflects much deeper structural contradictions within India’s political economy. Despite sustained economic growth and the government’s emphasis on development, millions of educated young people continue to face chronic unemployment, precarious work, and dwindling prospects for secure employment in the public sector.
Higher education has become increasingly commercialized, forcing many families into heavy debt without offering any guarantee of employment after graduation. For many protesters, the crisis is not merely educational, but fundamentally economic and political.
Large demonstrations in New Delhi and other cities have been met with a heavy police presence. Protesters attempting to march toward Parliament have faced barricades, preemptive arrests, and, in some cases, the use of tear gas and baton charges to disperse the crowds. Despite these measures, protest camps and demonstrations have continued, reflecting the movement’s resilience and growing public sympathy.
Government officials have acknowledged their concerns about exam irregularities and have announced administrative measures. However, many protesters argue that these responses do not address the deeper issues of unemployment, institutional accountability, and systemic reform.
One of the most significant developments has been the growing solidarity between student protesters and organized farmers. Several farmers’ organizations, including the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), have expressed their support for the students while simultaneously organizing nationwide protests against proposed free trade agreements (FTAs), particularly negotiations involving the U.S....
“The emerging solidarity among students, unemployed youth, and sectors of the peasantry recalls an important principle of Marxist politics: isolated democratic struggles possess transformative potential when they develop into broader alliances among exploited and oppressed social classes.” (sinpermiso)
The description aligns with what happened, but this Stalinist–Maoist fails to mention that the movement’s leadership is now calling for an end to the mobilizations, since they have succeeded in forcing the resignation of the Minister of Education —a member of the BJP party—from the government led by Modi, we read:
“India’s Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, resigned in July 2026 following massive protests led by the youth movement calling itself the ‘Cockroach Janta Party’” (La Vanguardia)
This movement is typically representative of the petty bourgeoisie, frustrated and outraged by the difficulties they face in climbing the social ladder—or simply in maintaining their status—with the specter of proletarianization looming over many college graduates and those with higher education degrees. What the bourgeois left tries to make people believe is that a convergence of movements—which are essentially defensive in nature, aimed at protecting bourgeois interests—is a positive development, but which, to a certain extent, also hinder certain sectors composed of the children of proletarians who have managed to pay for their offspring’s higher education—often with significant debt. The so-called “democratic transformative potential” of these movements manages, at best, to secure some palliative measures that revive the illusion of minor reforms, but which barely affect the proletariat that is directly involved, and which, of course, do not affect the dependent and exploited status of the working class at all.
What happens is that the unemployed segment of the working class overlaps with many members of the petty bourgeoisie who view the precariousness of in the face of a mountain of academic and bureaucratic obstacles, with the need to recoup the money invested and serve capitalism as a sector of the skilled wage-earning class—that is, above the exploited and dominated class and in the service of the reproduction of capital. This is the effective and critical Marxist teaching—not the repeated call to submit to interclassist movements led by representatives of bourgeois interests and forces.
Arundhati Roy (Progressive International) describes the movement as follows:
“As the outrage of the ‘cockroaches’ turned into an online tsunami, Dipke returned from Boston on June 6 and went straight from the airport to Jantar Mantar, Delhi’s famous protest site. Sonam Wangchuk, the well-known activist and educational reformer from Ladakh, joined him and declared an indefinite hunger strike. Six college students—Neha Bora, Manish Kumar, Aameen Amitosh, Danish Ali, Hrishikesh, and Deepak—members of the All-India Students’ Association (AISA), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Liberation), announced that they too would fast and took their places on an adjacent stage. Protests began in other cities. As the strikers’ health deteriorated, the young “cockroaches” who had flooded the internet began to appear in person at Jantar Mantar. The “Cockroach Janta Party” announced that on July 20—the day Parliament was set to open its monsoon session—they would march on Parliament. Two days before the planned march, the police removed Sonam Wangchuk from the stage and detained him, first at a public hospital and, later, at his wife’s insistence, at a private hospital. He remains on a hunger strike. On the morning of July 20, the day of the march, the AISA students ended their hunger strike.
The “cockroaches” stormed the capital. They arrived by train, bus, plane, and metro, and their numbers swelled by the hour. Hours before the first rays of sunlight illuminated Delhi’s monsoon skies, they began arriving at Jantar Mantar by the tens of thousands. By dawn, it was clear that a generation of desperate and furious young people—who have watched their future vanish before their eyes—was going to reclaim what their parents’ and grandparents’ generations had relinquished: our dignity as a people and as a country. Our rights as citizens of a democracy. The protesters exorcised the corrosive fear that has become second nature to all of us with their courage and grace. And with humor. By the end of the day, it was clear that the protest had come to be about something much greater than what the protesters or their leaders were demanding. Dharmendra Pradhan is now nothing more than a footnote.” (Progressive International)
Now, July 25, 2026:
“The movement’s spokesperson, Ashutosh Ranka, confirmed that the demonstrations are being suspended now that the main demand has been met.” (France 24)
Illustrative.
Comment by Andrea Rizzi on “Generation Z’s Rebellion Shakes the Global South” (El País):
“The protests in India and Morocco are part of a remarkable series of events. Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru… one after another, episodes of youth mobilization have unfolded, which, in several cases, have yielded notable political achievements, even toppling governments, for example in Nepal or Madagascar.
Each country has its own characteristics, and the Global South is a deeply heterogeneous region. Each protest has had specific triggers, ranging from outrage over restrictive social media measures in Nepal to the failure to provide basic supplies in Madagascar; from opposition to fiscal measures in Kenya to anger over the massive spending to host the upcoming World Cup while precarious living conditions abound and opportunities are lacking in Morocco.
But it is clear that there are common denominators behind all these protests—and behind the desire to flee Morocco.
There is a pattern of population growth and difficulty in adequately absorbing an increasingly educated population into the labor markets; there is systemic discontent with corruption, nepotism, the betrayal of meritocracy, repression, and censorship; and there is extensive use of social media. And there are supranational factors that exacerbate national failures: from wars that drive up inflation to pandemics, from the fragmentation of the trade landscape to China’s overwhelming manufacturing power.
Thus, more than 1 billion young people between the ages of 14 and 29 in the Global South harbor enormous frustration that is being released in powerful upheavals that are shaking the foundations of power.
“This generation does not believe in the system, understood as a state of affairs that generates predictability. They feel it falls short. They feel very strongly that the commitment to intergenerational solidarity is being broken with them. No matter how hard they try, they cannot find good jobs. The political system doesn't address their needs. They inherit an unsustainable planet. They are anti-establishment because the system has frustrated them, betrayed them with the idea of predictability,” comments Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí, political consultant and author of the book Polarization, Loneliness, and Algorithms (Siglo Veintiuno), which explores the characteristics of Generation Z.
This discontent with the system takes two distinctly different forms in the advanced democracies of the Global North and the Global South. In the North, it manifests as voting for radical options or, at the very least, options considered alternatives to the mainstream. Hence the success among young people of far-right parties—with a strong male bias—or the rise of figures on the left wing of the Democratic Party in the United States, strongly supported by young people.
‘In the South, with greater institutional weaknesses and a more rigid democratic framework, this option of a radical vote generally doesn't exist; what does exist is simply a break with the system.” “Often in these protests there are people marching, but also people who break and physically destroy things,” notes Gutiérrez-Rubí, who believes there is a strong tendency in this generation to believe that the system cannot be reformed. An interesting feature of these eruptions of protest is that they transcend classic divisive factors. Gutiérrez-Rubí points out that the traditional constraints of the left-right axis do not influence them.’”
This “simple rupture” that Andrea Rizzi speaks of does not correspond to what has happened in Nepal, in Madagascar...and now in India. When these movements have achieved some of their goals, they have not generated a rupture with the system, neither with the prevailing political system nor with capitalism as the dominant mode of production, consumption, and existence on the planet. They have either joined the political system, supported some kind of change, or remained silent after an arrogant minister was caught out of position and resigned. In other words, many leaders and a good portion of their participants believe the system can be reformed and are content with certain expressions of such reform. For example: a new political leader in Nepal, a new government supported by the military leadership in Madagascar, a new Minister of Education in India... Isn't all of this highly significant?
Let's look at the Nepalese case. Rakshya Bam, leader of the Generation Z movement in Nepal, appeared in El País:
“The Generation Z movement," Bam explains, "still exists, but it's divided into different tasks. Some work with the ruling party in the ministries or with the prime minister; others, like her, remain in the streets and monitor the new government. 'In Nepal, civil society is weak; all these problems have arisen precisely because of that.'" “We don’t want this government to fail, and that’s why we need a strong citizenry that asks questions and demands accountability,” Bam explains. “Generation Z is the biggest opposition to this new government.” Today, the movement has spread to the citizens and is everywhere,” he adds.
In other words, it's a movement that plays with many faces and cards, something typically adaptive and opportunistic. On one hand, supporting the new government, and on the other, claiming to be in the vigilant and controlling opposition... On one hand, infiltrating capitalist ministries and state agencies, and on the other, remaining in “civil society” to frame dynamics and dissent, tensions and frustrations... They explicitly support the democratic system and implicitly the system of wage labor and capital. They want political changes to the former in order to maintain the latter.
Political reform maintains and enables the reproduction of capitalism, regardless of its successes. If it appeals to young sectors of the proletariat, it ultimately leads them to continue suffering their exploited and subordinate condition.
Again, this is all very significant, and it sheds light on what generates the democratic and interclass citizen indignation that the petty bourgeoisie leads politically and socially, amidst self-serving labels like "Generation Z"... and those yet to come.
The shifting competition of elites, including their lesser counterparts, have found an extensive strategy in rendering a conspiracy of what constitutes the labor union relation. The manner in which such competition, and the subsequent recomposition, have encountered and compensated for differences of power within and across class regimes, be it the 19th to 20th century imperialisms and revolts, the 21st century has found no break from this and continues as the paradigm we find ourselves. This article, across many parts, introduces the labor union, its variants, and asserts that unions are the means to police rank-and-file dissent, workers’ demands, strike action, and the mere organizing of workers. Whether during war, revolt, or crisis, the labor union struggle has left a legacy that has consistently consolidated to the demands of the class society.
In this issue #6, we will introduce the major historical forms of labor unions and the significance in the role of policing proletarian self-organization. Issue #7 will introduce gig worker unions and tenant unions and their particular dynamic of policing workers. Issue #8 will introduce modern Wildcat action and strikes and what anti-union proletarian organization means revolutionarily and its significance today. Each will be accompanied by a recommended reading to supplement your future analysis.
The major forms of unionism can be summarized as those of Unionism in General, State-Controlled Unionism, Direct Collaboration of Unions and the State, Yellow Unionism, and Independent Unionism. Despite the variety, their activity remains committed to the state and enterprise for legality—state recognition—and wages by negotiating, bargaining, and lobbying for rights, legislation, and contracts. The union becomes an authority on how to negotiate with the enterprise that controls the proletariat, yet it's still a control that remains with the enterprise.
A brief description of the scale and structure of the union organization:
The individual units of unionized workplaces are formed by workers of a shop who’ve collectively appealed and thus were collectively sanctioned the permission—by the employer or state—to bargain their contract with their employers. These individual unions can and have joined as regional bodies who can and do form into national or international unions who consult unions and campaign for labor reform domestically or internationally. The way these unions include the many sections of a workforce can vary and are as follows…
A singular union can be for an entire shopfloor or even shopfloors within a particular large enterprise. Craft or Trade unionism can also be of the specific crafts or trades—roofing, plumbing, electrician, welding, lawncare, academic, etc.—supplied to contractors or trades which are present on the shopfloors. Industrial unionism is for an entire industry type—automotive, meat-packing, healthcare etc.—whose members are of such industry or can include the rank-and-file belonging to particular unions within that industry. General unionism is for various industry-types whose members are workers of such industries or can include the rank-and-file belonging to particular unions within the industries. Union federations, congresses, and associations are umbrella organizations whose members are the various unions and their representatives.
Shop Stewards are at the shopfloor for everyday supervision enforcing the terms of the contracts and to coordinate actions and unionization efforts according to the union bylaws. This extends to the higher scales of unions, including legal advisories, union representatives, and the tiered internal union bureaucracy, becoming necessary to administer the policing of the rank-and-file activity. This rank-and-file submit complaints, grievances, and demands, voting on calls for collective actions and contract decisions. The method of appointing who fills the roles across this institution of the labor union varies, rank-and-file election or by an executive board—often some combination of union, private or state interests—but is essentially structured by centralizing an authority over what rank-and-file can collectively do depending on the permission from the union that protects labor and production for sake of management and production.
Given we navigate the historical results of prior unionisms, unions across the globe have found emergence in its initial illegal or assembly phase, mass unionism and formal integration, and eventual decline, occurring unevenly across nations where each phase, or rather, characteristic can still be observed in modern cases. Unionization recently increased in a few select countries, like the US, though nowhere near historic peaks of 30%-50%, if not, staying stagnant as a minority, often oscillating around 10% or less after decades of decline, with exception of the Nordic countries of 70%-98%. Regardless, unionization is not a neutral ‘victory’ over one’s dignity for themselves and their families. This is a result of a wider historical and current process of policing the self-organization of the proletariat that has and could make unions unnecessary to organize.
Early mass unionism found a large solidarity movement but the workers of these movements had erected a basis of strength that depended on repressing the original solidarity to gain and maintain recognition and reforms that did not threaten the basis that belonged to the sovereignty of employers and state. Where the unions have declined after deindustrialization, due to unions’ dependence on industrial-based unionization, the state assistance remains but experiencing decades of decay and dismantling. Even where the unionization rates have remained high as direct collaborators with the state, like nordic social democracy, the reduction of state assistance demonstrates the complicity of unions and their limits in defending workers.
Unions tend to consider its rank-and-file as clients to provide a service of negotiating and bargaining of contracts with the enterprise (or government employers). A large majority of unions consider this as the full extent of their role, large and small, progressive or conservative, historically and contemporarily. Workers have and do collectively organize the workplace to form such unions and are often aided by the dominant unions to accomplish such. The larger unions are able to engage in creating new unions themselves by directing or consulting new unionization. A union may also consider this collective bargaining as a principle to emphasize, considering the improvement of wages and labor conditions a central demand. Yet these larger unions control the access to organization resources and assistance, making unionization implicitly or strictly conditional on accepting the directive of union leaders.
This model is global across liberal democracies and varies in their political commitments: from largely abstaining from political strategies to becoming an important resource for campaign mobilization. Often developed along the other union-forms, these unions may endorse policies and reforms that resemble the other forms. Additionally, a majority tend to be affiliated with the national union federations and umbrella organizations conjoined to political campaigns of social reform led by a coalition of parties or candidates of moderate-sized mobilizations.
European Works councils (EWCs), particular to the European Union member nations, are government-issued representative bodies elected from and by the employees of a particular multinational enterprise above 1,000 employees for a determined period to provide workers’ right to information and consultation, termed as codetermination rights, to company decisions on management practices and implementation including productivity, wages, benefits, layoffs, restructuring, training, etc. by having plenary meetings with management. The workers electing and the nominees are not required to be trade union members but trade unions commonly capture the works council by nominating their own members and, by proxy, control the EWCs. The EWCs are, in practice, another channel for every particular enterprise to more effectively lock worker demands waiting on the one or two yearly meetings that result in little information about the new practices which is left to the discretion of what the company discloses, largely leaving the implementation nearly undisturbed without consultation. The trade unions, meanwhile, can gain rapport and occupy more channels of labor arbitration.
In addition to the union’s own management, the government is monitoring the lawful conduct of the union and collective bargaining. Employers’ associations are also present and active in applying pressure on labor disputes and lobbying state legislation. The state indirectly controls the unions by enforcing a large series of formal procedures and lawful obligations in its internal operations for the status of a legal union and state subsidizing. This, with the employer interest in mind, is calculated by the union leaders and is applied to rank-and-file activity with a relative normalcy as the proletariat themselves are policed and divided to accept the legal boundaries. This is the standard of union procedure of monitoring production and enforcing labor contracts—which the union is obligated to—dissipating grievances and locking workers into their proletarian condition.
These are unions that become—though officially independent—members of government bodies designed to consult state assistance legislations, labor reform, and economic policy. These unions typically have a strong affiliation with a political party, often socialist or social democratic in name, that is part of a national multi-party electoral system. Such a partnership becomes intimate with the nationalist interests of the bourgeoisie class and the political anxieties of their politicians to parse and negotiate how to discipline production and dictate labor for multi-national bourgeois rule. This also includes nations with parties that had campaigned to nationalize certain industries in a mostly privatized economy. These parties win elections and are able to collaborate with the given unions or grant union status or install executive offices that directly manage labor disputes of workers that belong to that newly nationalized industry. Like the state-controlled unions, the party envisions what organizing, demands, and reforms are practical for the national growth and productivity, although this is in competition with other socialist parties or in opposition with conservative parties. Not uncommon in many countries’ pasts, today, it still reemerges as political struggles between the electoral campaigns of political parties.
Given many nations have a mixed history of these various union-forms, neo-corporatists unions resemble many politicized and major unionisms. Typically, these unions followed campaigns of state assistance and nationalizing industries where these campaigns belonged to the capital-accumulating ruling classes erecting mass industry that mobilized large portions of the lesser classes to manage a growing proletariat. The integration these unions, or labor parties, had gained to ‘better represent’ worker interests have responded to the expanded multi-national class rule by adopting the interests that were incentivized from domestic class rule to better accumulate by dismantling major labor and state assistance reforms gained by campaigns that required a policed proletariat dependent on employers and legislators who. Many unions establish relations and enter into into state commissions for the analysis of productivity and international competition, and for occupational safety and health, etc., and the state provides them with funding based on the number of their union representatives, as well as other types of assistance that can range from training courses to support for their headquarters, their activities, publishing houses, and training centers for their leadership, etc., They also assist them in training their legal teams and “social” advisors. Furthermore, unions often serve as observers in numerous state agencies to gauge the extent they can keep workers docile to protect production and wage-relations.
State-controlled unions are unions that are either directly generated by the state apparatus or have been unions that are fully integrated into the state by mandatory affiliation, either case, its unions directly controlled by the state. The rank-and-file have no collective bargaining, rather, these unions, as an official arm of the state, manage employees’ grievances that prompts the labor laws to be enforced for particular cases of illegal conduct by the enterprise management. Today, these unions are typically the only unions in a state-corporatist nation making employment near synonymous with membership, although a large minority is non-unionized considering the decades of integrating private enterprise into the formerly fully nationalized economies. Today, nations like Iran, Russia, China, Vietnam, Post-Soviet Eastern Bloc, and recently Cuba, have developed their unionism from this model, able to provide some form of state assistance generally and particular to employee needs through the unions. Meanwhile an executive party apparatus directs the industries which are mostly nationalized and collaborating with private enterprise, multi-national and domestic, labor cooperatives, and employer associations.
Yellow unions are unions generated by the enterprise management itself with the union representatives being directly selected by the enterprise itself. It also can refer to trade unions that have not been generated by the enterprise but maintain a strong alignment with company interests and management authority with the goal of preventing any collective organizing by the rank-and-file for a particular labor dispute. All the procedures of complaint processing, arbitration, compensation, and are provided by the company, or the trade union, thus all resolutions to grievances are individual or particular to the instance of a single shop without the encouragement of collective bargaining, especially not beyond the shop. These are also parallel to company employee resources departments. Such unions, although now banned in the US, elsewhere, typically compete with the other unions to prevent collective bargaining from workers, common where the labor protections and trade unions are weakest.
These unions do not or rarely organize strikes.
Independent Unionism are unions that are not generated by the enterprise nor do they integrate with a larger national organization, often resorting to forming resources, funds, and structure without top-down direction from a national union organization; a bottom-up or grassroots organizing. That is, local fund pools, recruiting activists, training organizers, etc by a collective of local employees who coordinate resources for each case of collective bargaining. Overall, they engage in the typical union activities and responsibilities but are less common as most unions are affiliated with larger unions.
Syndicalism or Anarcho-Syndicalism is another variant that are unions who have derived themselves from a legacy the traditional labor movements’ radical organizations who sought to radicalize or use the radicalized unions as a means of triggering social revolution and installing socialist production, this is termed as revolutionary syndicalism. Many remain active, including the: General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France, the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD), and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA). Most formed during the waves of strike movements during the first world war, and would produce splinter groups, often the ‘original’ keeping the name and new ‘reformist’ groups, both varying in success, if not, both already with the justification of endorsing labor reforms generally.
Today, this independent unionism and revolutionary syndicalism focus on creating unions from their grassroots principles or, for the later, include an anti-capitalist program, though both commit to the usual union-form. They both tend to endorse and create projects of workers’ self-management that typically mean some form of employee ownership or public ownership as a local entity recognized by the state granting minor autonomy over their own finances, operation, and funding. Although this is simply allowing employees to become partial owners and employers, no longer of the proletarian class, but enter the petite bourgeoisie who need the security of the state that guarantees class rule to also guarantee their recognized—or rather, sanctioned—autonomy of ‘self-management’. The revolutionary syndicalism imagines this as a potential basis to better introduce the experience of controlling production for workers in a socialist future, but this relies on a legalism and state assistance that invests in the class order as mentioned. Some expressions of grassroots unionism believe the classes can coexist peacefully without revolution but the wealth is more ‘fairly distributed’.
Particular unions may express a political tendency of rightist or leftist solidarities. This can result from a wide array of historical circumstances and precedent that ultimately find cause in a convenience for the different sectors of bourgeois competition who ally and rival accordingly. When there are or existed prior bourgeois reactions against a larger labor movement, or a remnant of the period’s unions aligned with said reactionary domination, then such a union will express rightist tendencies often associated with the fascist or chauvinist governments. Leftist tendencies expressed by unions today will correspond to the unions remaining from the historical labor movement or large campaigns for leftist government policies of past and present. Despite the distinction, they both commit to a supposed project that relies on a statist domination by their perceived allies who have accumulated the power to compliment such tendencies. When this had actually occurred, the role of the proletariat had entirely been one of becoming disciplined and policed by the larger class instruments and bourgeois competition of national and multi-national scales.
The large unions are more closely tied to national strategic lines and will follow closely the economic or fiscal policies of the national legislators endorsing the corresponding politicians and campaigns. The smaller unions are more focused on this or that specific company but can find interest in appealing or endorsing the local or regional politics. In the face of layoffs across the global workforce, the union’s power is demonstrated to be contingent on the activity of the bourgeoisie class who control the multi-national competition and management of enterprise.
Given such a history and the variety of labor relations in class societies, unions can express a wide array and mixture of political tendencies that do not necessarily follow certain assumptions about leftism or the right. Together, they are often ascribed labels of Social Unionism, Social Movement Unionism, Grassroots Unionism, and are included under political projects and theories of class collaboration, of the ‘Social’, ‘Liberal’, or even ‘Fascist’ designation as promoted by their proponents. Thus, the accumulation of and empowerment by the political means in the bourgeoisie factions and its larger but lesser bourgeois counterparts, motivated by their political traditions, will oppose or endorse unions always as they envision their particular class rule over the proletarian condition, the proletariat as a tool and agent to mobilize and maintain disposable.
Labor strikes are workers organizing concerted actions of walk-outs, work-stoppages, and slowdowns of production that pressure the private, state or cooperative enterprise for higher wages, safer working conditions, improving or protecting employee rights, or illegal infringements of worker rights by the enterprise.
For unions generally, the strike is officially permitted when authorized by the union executive board, making it a legal strike that follows the board’s directive which typically obligates the employer to enter negotiations according to most labor laws internationally. Unlike the US, unless for public workers, many countries require permission from a dedicated government body where the state decides what's lawful, otherwise, the matter goes to an arbitration system that is independent only in theory. Union leaders are already committed to avoiding strikes—if not, making them temporary or limited—that can threaten the horizons of negotiations and bargaining for the sake of concessions. The state becomes a barrier to justify avoiding strike requests, and without the need for notifying the state like in the case of US private employees, the executives become all the same in policing strike action as strictly permitted by the law according to the particular legislations in each national case.
This finds its strictest legal formality in the No-Strike clause, typical in the US, elsewhere, often considered as an ‘industrial peace’ agreement. These clauses and agreements are included in the terms of the labor contract and often only allow strikes on certain conditions but conditions that risk losing prior or better concessions. Strikes are constrained in this model of unionism, whether large or small, and are subservient to negotiating contracts and appealing to the state for political concessions as envisioned by union leaders and the leaders of the wider labor movement. Capitalist production is again protected by the union. Union representatives, in the duration of the negotiations evoked by strike action, have to follow a series of obligations and procedures to maintain lawful conduct, which involve limiting communication with their rank-and-file about the behind-closed-doors discussions. The motives held by workers in the strike create a tension that if they have immediate updates about developments in the negotiations, it can trigger reactions collectively in workers that are disagreeable to the employer interest risking the employer’s withdrawal from the negotiations which is unfavorable to generating conciliation and reaching a decision. The union representatives become sensitive to employer interest, privileging them over workers because employers are the class who definitely hold the control over production, ownership, and the workers’ employment. Union representatives' sensitivity with workers are simply conditional on its significance for employer interest, only risking the dissolution of the strike which returns to the normal arbitration of grievances.
Strikes for unions that directly collaborate with the state are permitted but are often highly regulated and prohibited when the collective agreement is active. Given these unions are in countries with majority unionized employees, this prevents strikes for that large majority of workers. For state-controlled unions, strikes are strictly prohibited, if not, never sanctioned, and any strike action that occurs is usually illegal, wildcat strikes. Often disputes unresolved by the official channels because it was not recognized as suitable for accumulation as envisioned by the national party. Workers resort to independently organize coordinating strikes without union authorization. Often demanding that independent unions be legalized, that is, unions not affiliated to the national federation commanded by the party, but forming these independent unions are prohibited.
For many countries, the independent strike does not require a union and can be considered legal within the rights of workers including non-unionized employees who select spokespersons, create petitions, or make public announcements to pressure management. The enterprise can also select a negotiator themselves but can still lawfully refuse to enter bargaining. Wildcat strikes are done by rank-and-file without union authorization when the union is viewed as no longer willing to meet their demands. In other cases, unions can authorize illegal strikes, often done by independent unions, refusing the legal restrictions on the right to strike. The strike coordination and planning occur without union or official state channels. Workers in such strikes can still hold unions as important and return to them if the strike degenerates or was ‘resolved’ when demands are kept minimal and concessionary.
A strike—if led by the affected proletariat with a message that brings a series of needs to the forefront— there comes a point when—due to the unfavorable balance of power—the action does not continue, and the worker assesses whether anything has been achieved, to what extent, and in what form; but the worker does not commit to a period of time to be “good citizens” and work hard, to increase productivity, nor do they even state whether they accept labor laws; they simply want this, that, and the other thing, and if they don’t get it, they try to resume a pattern of preparation to build up more resources and strength. Union agreements entail more than just the total or partial achievement—or failure, of course—of a platform of demands. A collective bargaining agreement is signed, and then, during the stipulated period, one must be compliant with the company and general bourgeois legality. This is the main trap. Furthermore, the actual history of these relations show that companies can always ignore them when it’s suitable; outside the framework of the unions and labor contracts, important issues are at stake that affect the living conditions of the exploited class, starting with inflation and decisions regarding the international economy and war.
Workers can plainly observe how the established unions actively discipline rank-and-file organizers, enforce concessionary contracts, or penalize immediate direct action to protect their union's legal standing. Especially since the union pigeonholes the proletariat’s primary weapon for organizing, the strike. Despite this, workers are able to organize despite the union-form.
The proletariat in its council movements tended to coordinate a bypass of this competition, meaning shopfloor self-activity made demands directly to its class in their seizure of society via their independent control of the mass strike action and a social reorganization via the direct control of production and distribution. There was a reformist approach and a revolutionary one to these movements. The former channeled those demands and that social reorganization toward content and forms compatible with capitalism, especially through the social democratic parties. The second approach focused on the growing development of the independent class struggle against capital in order to carry out the insurrection against the capitalist state and thereby achieve the revolutionary dictatorship of the councils, whose transformation into bodies for the co-management of capitalism’s labor relations stripped them of their revolutionary potential and their capacity to coordinate and unify the exploited class, in short, these reformist councils were either co-opted into such forms of class accommodation or eliminated, leaving that pro-capitalist function to the official unions who were complicit in this attack on the councils. Though, these revolutionary councils were in the minority and would encounter the policing of the bourgeois classes. The proletariat did not cohere sufficiently to properly distinguish the reformism and the councils were violently and swiftly destroyed. The policing was present and transformed accordingly before, during and after the council movement had their moment. Labor unions are not necessary for their self-activity, rather they are necessary for ordering the class struggle into a policing of the proletariat.
Proletarians do not need the union to organize themselves. The bases of their organization: assembly, committees, etc. can be directed and extended towards each other rather than locked toward contracts, legality, or employment. Though, when this occurs, the balance of power and the conditions determine whether this type of struggle based on assemblies will lead to the creation of stable proletarian defense organizations, unbounded by the capitalist labor and political legality or by economic unionism which reproduces capitalist relations and thus facilitates bourgeois control—whether private, cooperative, or state-run. Resistance funds, coordination with other proletarians to drive mass strike action, defense against employer and state aggression, attention to numerous issues affecting the exploited class—not only economically but also politically and socially appear time and again as practical necessities. Many assemblies and ad hoc committees form for the immediate needs of a particular struggle but later disappear, these needs of struggle cannot be addressed unless proletarian organization endures the consequences of strike action. As imperialist campaigns rage on, the internationalist scope necessary for effective and militant struggle and solidarity can provide the defensive basis to orient self-organization of the class.
This urges a call for all workers to search where their class is currently grasping for their self-organization—independent from class collaborationism—to orient their action internationally and better establish their organizational independence. The communist among them must insist on this revolutionary internationalism, may these communist themselves cohere on developing this clarification.
Recommended reading:
We and German Syndicalism - Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union or General Workers' Union 1921
¿Conquistar los sindicatos o destruirlos? - L’Ouvrier Communiste 1929
Unions Against Revolution - Grandizo Munis and Benjamin Peret 1972
Communizers often quote Marx’s adage in Capital that during commodity exchange producers relate to one another “behind their backs” in order to prove that the essence of capitalist society is the VALUE FORM. According to them, the pinnacle of capitalism's inhuman nature is that in a capitalist society, the social relationships between producers take the form of relationships between things. What communizers often overlook is that only a scant few chapter lantern, just before Marx takes the reader into the “hidden abode of production,” he writes that prior to examining the production process, his examination had within the principles of a political garden of Eden, where everything appears as “freedom, equality, property, and Bentham.” Communization repeatedly stresses that the essence of capitalism’s evil is that goods are transformed into values, something they supposedly derive as Marx’s analysis, then why would this ‘Marx’, by extension of this supposed essence, grant political economy the concession that the capitalist system still appears as a veritable heaven on earth even once discovering the secret of commodity fetishism. As we argue, while communizers are right to point out that the value-form is something specific to capitalism, they are wholly incorrect to argue that it constitutes the essence of capitalism – let alone the essence of capitalist exploitation and the domination of money over man. Instead of representing a general advance of Marx’s critique of political economy, we argue that the refocusing of Marx’s project around the value-form which occurred in the 1970’s constitutes a step back from Marx’s theory of the social forms of capitalist production, a refocusing which increasingly retreats into capital’s surface appearances, and in the process forsakes Marxism's basis in the class struggle, and forecloses the possibility of the emancipation of the proletariat in the form of a society based on directly social production.
The reformulation of Marx into a theorist of the value-form by communizers in particular has led to a lengthy polemic with council communism, encompassing not only the Group of International Communists (GIC)’s proposal in The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution, but the rejection of the historical workers councils themselves. Communizers claim that by using time as a measure of definite quantities of social labor, council communists mean to sneak the value-form in through the back door, and that the continued measurement of goods in terms of labor time may even threaten the continued existence of life on Earth” itself. The latent threat of labor time accounting is associated with the “workerist” nature of the historical council communists, who could “only envision workers as workers.” (Cammatte, “The KAPD and the Proletarian Movement, 1973) Some communizers do hold a different perspective, something we will address later. Communization, following in the footsteps of Proudhon, affirm what they seek to prove: that the workers councils and their associated political movement could not negate the condition of proletarianism, and that the only suitable alternative to both is their specific brand of insurrectionary socialism.
Politically, communization has gone in and out of popularity during the wide variety of populist movements which have emerged in the last 20 years, such as the Yellow Vests, the Arab Spring, the Greek university occupations, Occupy Wallstreet and the George Floyd uprisings. The repeated pattern of communization's political existence has been to intervene in these movements in order to promote the (somewhat ambiguous) idea of living without the value form, something which traditionally has found very little resonance in milieus dominated by the petit bourgeoisie.
For council communists, the positions of communization are wholly unsuitable for the project of developing genuine working class autonomy, something which requires the utmost clarity regarding the social form of labor and class relationships specific to capitalist society. Instead of clarifying the fundamental issues at stake for the working class, communization's dogmatic insistence that the value-form is the issue of capitalism has proved to be a sort of apologies for the petit bourgeois nature of interclassist populism, something which comes to a head with their absolute rejection of council communism.
This is not the appropriate place to deal with social origins of communization, however such an article may appear later on. There is undoubtedly a need for such a study, as the movement to reformulate Marx’s critical theoretical approach in the terms of abstract labor was developed independently by several tendencies in around the same time in the 1970’s — by second generation Frankfurt School sociologists with deep tendrils in Lukacs and Weber, post-Frankfurtians like Robert Kurz, as well as Moishe Postone. Not all of these reformulations led to the same political conclusions, but nevertheless all of them have common origins in an era where the Keynesian form of capitalist relationships was being cleared away for a newer, more atomized and efficient form of capitalist domination during the neoliberal revolution. As a tendency communization should only be seen as the representative of a general theoretical reaction to the changes which capitalism was undergoing within the communist left — one which is essentially negative, harmful, and should be overcome.
Because communizers advance the claim that labor time = value = exchange value, we will first have to address the significance of these terms within Marx’s critique of political economy before we can correct their misunderstanding. Only once we have populated our analysis with the categories of value, socially necessary labor time, and exchange value can we move on to the question of the abolition of capitalism in the form of direct social production.
On the question of value, the most important point for Marx is that goods only take the form of values when producers relate to one another privately, and produce goods which are not meant for their individual consumption, but the consumption of others.
According to Marx in the first chapter of Capital, goods only becomes a commodity under a particular set of social conditions. Every society produces goods, but only in capitalist society do all goods take the form of commodities. What are these necessary conditions? Firstly, a good can only become a commodity if it is firstly useful to someone; whether it is a social necessity or a personal pleasure does not matter. The second condition is that it is the result of labor carried out in private from the rest of society, within the boundaries of a certain social division of labor. The final condition is that this labor and its product is alienable from the producer, ie., that the object of private labor is not to satisfy the immediate wants of the producer, but the wants of another private producer. It is at this point, when private producers meet to exchange goods in order to satisfy each other's needs, that a useful good becomes a commodity. Here, the good acquires a double nature: more than being a value in the way it is used, it is now also an exchange value, a certain ratio with which it can be exchanged with other goods.
Goods therefore only become values under a particular set of social relationships between producers; namely, when the social relationships between producers takes the form of social relationships between things. The basis of commodity exchange is therefore the alienation of product from producer, whereupon goods take up their lives as values.
This situation is illustrated well by Marx in the first chapter of Capital, where he imagines an entire society based on the process of simple commodity circulation. Prior to the genesis of capitalist society, the exchange of goods was only incidental to social production. In slave, feudal and asiatic society, producers would produce for their immediate consumption as well as a certain portion for their exploiter. Despite the importance of mercantilism for these societies, especially politically, the portion of products which entered into exchange was tiny compared to the total mass of social products. When goods did assume the form of value, they only did so in order to rematerialize in the form of another good. For example, if an Indian king procured 1000 pounds of spice to exchange with a Chinese merchant for porcelain, the purpose of exchange is pure and simple: transform spice into porcelain, or bread into wine, or flesh into gold, etc.
In such a society, the whole process of production and circulation is expressed in the circuit:
commodity – money – commodity
Here, producers enter into exchange with one another in order to satisfy their mutual desire for a different form of product. For the moment, we will simplify Marx’s explanation by omitting the proof that money is merely a commodity like any other. And indeed, it is only the heterogeneity of two use-values which makes them exchangeable in the first place, for spice cannot express its value in terms of spice, nor porcelain in terms of porcelain.
A society such as the one portrayed above, where every independent producer relates to each other through a vast network of exchange which depend on one another, has never existed. For a majority of the history of societies where even private labor dominated, such as feudalism, a majority of producers existed within direct relationships of dependence. The peasant household would not exchange its goods with other peasants, but produce what it required in addition to the taxes levied by the feudal lords. In only a few cases did the products of individuals in possession enter into circulation; a majority of the time, the goods which entered into circulation started their lives as a surplus extracted by a feudal lord, which were then pressed into the service of circulation in order to satisfy want for luxuries or military necessities. It was the latter of these two requirements which gave rise to the first industrial production. And yet, even with instances of industrial production prior to the 16th century, it did not change the principle purpose of commodity production as a means to fulfill some kind of want belonging to the other. We only drew out the example above to show the principles of commodity exchange prior to capitalism, which is also why we employed the antiquated examples of spice and porcelain to make our point. Thus, we see that while goods assume the form of value in the fictional society presented above — where the coordination of society's labor and products is mediated through the alienated relationships of commodity exchange where the final purpose of production and exchange is still human consumption — this society is very unlike our own. It is only the neglectful and unscientific method of political economy which assumes that the exchange value presented above, when taken purely and simply, can provide a useful understanding of capitalist society. Nevertheless, it is essential that we understand this antiquated form of exchange before we can turn our attention to the important role which value plays in capitalist society.
According to Marx, when two producers enter into exchange with one another there is a need to establish a basis upon which to compare their goods, which can be nothing but the amount of socially necessary labor time (SNLT) embodied within that good; but this quantitative measure has no existence outside of the process of exchange. Because a commodity cannot be exchanged against itself, but must find another commodity with which to express its value, the only form in which value can appear is exchange value. The amount of social labor expended during the production of a commodity therefore becomes the commodity's value, whose “necessary form of appearance” (Marx) is exchange value.
Returning to the example from earlier, let us suppose that within 1 pound of the Maharaja’s spice there is 1 hour of socially necessary labor, and in 1 set of Chinese merchants porcelain is 3 hours. While the quantity of socially necessary labor within both goods establishes their value, each can only express that value in the other. Therefore we may only look at the spice in terms of porcelain, or porcelain in terms of spice, but never spice in terms of spice, or porcelain in terms of porcelain, so that:
1 pound of spice = ⅓ set of porcelain
or
1 set of porcelain = 3 pounds of spice
The existence of a discrete measure of socially necessary is therefore obscured, as it necessarily must be, by its form of exchange value. Taking a step back from the subcontinent to the point of view of the world economy, we see that there is no existence of value as such (ie., as socially necessary labor time) outside of the millions of reciprocal exchanges which are made by private producers. Exchange therefore precludes the direct existence of value. Socially necessary labor time is only calculated roundaboutly, on the margins of the fluctuations inherent in capitalist society — of supply and demand, varying social productivities etc. — over the social economy as a whole (1).
Classical political economy made an epochal discovery when they discovered the general equivalence of all human labor in its products, but had neglected to investigate the form in which that human labor takes in commodity exchange. They had assumed that because all products can be reduced to generally equivalent human labor (socially necessary labor time), exchange itself could be reduced to its natural and “most proper basis” (Engels). Hence, they misunderstood that when products take the form of commodities, they can never represent their value directly, but only express their value in the most phenomenal form of exchange value. The very existence of exchange value precludes the calculation of the individual commodities socially necessary labor time. According to Marx, the failure of the classical political economists to properly understand exchange value represented a deeper failure to separate what is natural and common to every society — the “necessity of the distribution of social labor in definite proportions” and those “historically different circumstances [being the only] form in which these laws assert themselves. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labor asserts itself, in the state of society where the interconnection of social labor is manifested in the private exchange of the individual products of labor, is precisely the exchange value of these products” ( Marx, “Letter to Kugelmann in Hanover,” London, July 6, 1868).
Most important to our examination, the fact that labor time cannot appear in any direct form within commodity exchange was not only one of Marx’s theoretical quibbles with classical political economy, but also the basis of a political struggle which Marx conducted from the 1840’s onwards. In his introduction to the critique of political economy, Marx singled out John Gray as the first economist to propose that the exchange of commodities should be based directly on labor time in order to eliminate the negative side of exchange and exploitation (the latter of which we have yet to introduce to our considerations). And it was precisely this premise — that labor time could be directly represented in goods while maintaining relationships of exchange — that Marx took issue with. According to Marx, the maintenance of money is absolutely incompatible with a directly social mode of production. In the 1840’s, Pierre Joseph Proudhon lifted Gray’s proposal for his own program, which advocated the fixing of exchange rates and credit around the “constituted value” (socially necessary labor time). According to Marx, by assuming that all production would consider socially necessary labor time from the beginning, Proudhon wanted to eliminate the basic problems which alienated labor introduces while at the same time elevating the necessity of alienated labor to the level of gospel.
According to Marx, such a society was impossible, for “...if the members of society are to be immediate workers, the exchangeability of equal quantities of labor is possible only on the condition that the number of hours to be spent on [a good] is agreed upon beforehand. But such an agreement negates individual exchange.”(Marx, “The Poverty of Philosophy.” And almost 20 years after the publishing his critique of Proudhon’s doctrine, Marx made sure to single him out once again as a target of his ire:
“Of course, the petit bourgeois, who sees the production of commodities as the nec plus ultra of human freedom and independence, wants the problems associated with this form [money], especially the non-direct exchangeability of commodities, to be wiped away. Proudhon’s socialism is a version of a philistine utopia.”
(Marx, Capital vol 1, “The Commodity”)
According to Marx, it is therefore impossible to reconcile production based on labor time directly, which requires collective forethought and a collective possession of the means of production, to be reconciled with the maintenance of relationships of exchange.
The basic issue of the value form is this: in a society in which goods are produced to be exchanged (ie., produced as commodities), each good is the product of a definite quantity of social labor, but owing to the fact that producers relate to one another privately and their social interconnection takes the form of exchange, the social character of the commodity only appears in its relationships with other commodities. The very essence of the commodity, and the social relationships it expresses, is that it is not equatable with the social labor expended on its production, as that labor is only expressed roundabout in the value form, and its ultimate expression in the form of money and price. It is the two sides of this same problem which gave rise to the twin dominant theories of political economy — classical political economy, and vulgar economics. While the former sought to prove that exchange was indeed based directly on proportions of labor time expenditure when not affected by external disturbances, the latter economists denied that behind the everyday fluctuations of commodity exchange was any value at all. Hence Marx also singled out the vulgar economist, who…
“has not the faintest idea that the actual everyday exchange relations can not be directly identical with the magnitudes of value. The essence of bourgeois society consists precisely in this, that a priori there is no conscious social regulation of production. The rational and naturally necessary asserts itself only as a blindly working average.”
Marx's theory of socially necessary labor time therefore cuts both ways: on one side, it argues against those who wish to assume embodied value prove that goods are really traded at their embodied, and on the other, against those who base themselves on market prices in order to prove that there is no value in the first place. The appearances of the capitalist mode of production bedazzle both, as the former makes the scientific investigation of exchange value impossible by conflating its existence within capitalist society with conditions common to every society, while the latter makes any science impossible at all (2).
In a communist society, by contrast, which treats goods as products of social labor as straightaway and direct. Producers will receive a voucher entitling them to an equal quantity of social goods as they have contributed with their social labor, minus the portion product necessary to maintain machinery and social expenditure. At the beginning of production, society consciously takes account of its own social needs, lays out the necessary amount of product and social labor in order to fulfill those needs (and if need be, expands production), produces those goods, and then consumes them. The operation of production is not guaranteed not by exchange, but instead by a labor time accounting. In such a society, goods do not form part of a circuit of petty commodity exchange (C - M - C), but instead in something we may express as:
need for use value – production of use values – fulfillment of through consumption of use values
Balancing production to human need and consumption is guaranteed by the voucher system described above. Socially necessary labor time ceases to be an attribute of goods themselves, and becomes merely a way of bookkeeping which ensures that producers get back from society what they give to it. All the operations of the determination of value are here repeated, but the form and content are changed.
“From the moment society enters into possession of the means of production and uses them in direct association for production, the labour of each individual, however varied its specifically useful character, becomes social labour straight away and directly. The quantity of social labour contained in a product need not then be first established in a roundabout way; daily experience will show in a direct way how much is required on the average. Society will be able to calculate in a simple way how many hours of labour are contained in a steam-engine, a bushel of the last crop of wheat, or a hundred square yards of cloth of a specific quality. It could therefore never occur to it to go on expressing the quantities of labour put into the products, quantities which it will then know directly and absolutely, in yet a third product, in a measure which, moreover, is only relative, fluctuating and inadequate, though it was formerly unavoidable as an expedient, rather than express them in their natural, adequate and absolute measure, time. [...] Hence, on the above assumptions, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required, say, a thousand hours of labour for their production in the oblique and meaningless way involved in stating that they are worth a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-power. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of the much-vaunted “value””
Engels, “Anti-Duhring”
The political strength of communization, like the strength of classical political economists and the petit-bourgeois socialism of Proudhon, is that its assumptions rest on the surface appearances of commodity production. In this sense, communization constitutes an inverted form of this petit-bourgeois socialism, only whereas Proudhon and Bray want to use time to correct the problems of volume, the communization wishes to abolish time for the same effect. What eludes both is the possibility of a society which treats goods as representation of social labor directly, but without necessitating their exchange. But as we will see, the confusion over what Marx considered the content of is not even the worst mistake that communization makes; for, it is the significance of value within capitalist society which communizers make the worst butchery of.
Thus far, we have restricted ourselves to the analysis of value as such, in both its incidental form like in the case of the Maharaja and the porcelain merchant, and imaginary form in the case of a society of independent private producers who fulfill their needs through commodity exchange. Neither of these examples historically or logically led us to our present day society's system of commodity production, with its wage labor, surplus value and capitalist accumulation. But it is precisely the relationship of value to capitalism’s social form of labor and class relationships which constitute Marx’s most important contributions to science. Classical political economy had already discovered the most important aspects of exchange value, but did not do so in a systematic or critical fashion. Before Marx could launch his own critique of their apologia, it was first necessary to correct even the smallest misconception within their concept of value.
We have just begun to explain the concept of the abolition of capitalist production in order to dispel the mythos around social value, socially necessary labor time and exchange value, but we must immediately move on; only once we circle back and the rhythms of capitalist society in its entirety, and not just in the moment when goods are transformed into values, can we understand the significance of the concept of value within Marx’s critique of political economy, and move on to the significance of his theory of communist society.
This brings us to the issue of the way in which the categories of commodity and exchange relate to capitalist society specifically. Thus far, we have limited our analysis to commodity exchange in its own terms, that is today, in isolation from a specific mode of production. Prior to the development of capitalism, goods were only exchanged incidentally and typically at the borders of various societies who interacted with each other as foreign entities. Goods therefore only assumed the value form incidentally and as in a supplementary fashion. It is only with the development of capitalism that a majority of social wealth began to take the form of the commodity.
For classical political economy, the fact that commodity exchange did not regulate the production of goods throughout most of human history was explained by the intervention of various forces in the ‘natural’ course of human development, ie., the development of commodity production. Chief amongst these negative inhibitors was the overbearing intervention of the landed estates, which (according to the classical political economists) prevented the development of the social division of labor and the general development of the productive forces of society. To the classical political economists, the development of unimpeded trade was not the triumph of the interest of one particular social class, but of all social classes and human reason. This mythical ideology was useful and indeed necessary for the nascent bourgeoisie, for the development of capitalist society required the expropriation of the agricultural producer and the demise of feudal rights and historic rents in order to create a proletariat.
It was the ideological nature of political economy with which Marx took umbrage; specifically, the overbearing naturalism which it presumed towards exchange value and class relationships, which had the effect of reducing their investigations into apologia. In order to represent its interests as the interest of society, the classical political economy had confused in principle not only those laws which are applicable to every society with ones specific to capitalism, but also the forms of confused capitalist property with other forms of property. In feudal society, some both peasants and commodity truckers both existed on one form of private property, but a form completely different from capitalism, and which in fact constitute one the essential obstacles to the development of a proletariat freed of control of the means of production. Political economy had therefore confounded on principle “property based on a person’s own labor” and “capitalist property, diametrically opposed to the first kind, and in fact produced by its destruction.” (Marx, Capital vol 1., XXV “The Modern Theory of Colonization”) In the name of the liberty of the small producer, the project of political economy had cleared the way for the expropriation of the individual owners and the creation of a class of wage laborers.
In capitalist society, the function of value is very different to what political economy had made it out to be. The classical political economists had argued ad nauseum that the purpose of all production was human consumption, but that is not true for capitalism. As opposed to the petty commodity exchange assumed by the classical political economists, where goods assume the value form only to rematerialize in the form of another good which can satisfy the final consumer, in capitalist society, goods only assume the value form in order to turn investment into profit.
Whereas summarized the value form within non-capitalist but commodity exchanging societies as:
commodity - money - commodity
Marx summarized the role of the money within capitalist with the circuit:
money - commodity - money'
('the original quantity of money plus a surplus)It is this process which is the essence of capital: the circuit of self-expanding value, or valorization.
We do not have the time to re-explicate the entire theory of the first volume of Capital, with which we are sure our readers are familiar, nor do we need to in order to illustrate our point Marx makes about the different role which commodities taking the form of value plays in pre-capitalist and capitalist society. In the former, value is a means to coordinate the allocation of goods between private independent producers; in the latter, goods taking the form of value expresses only one moment in the generation of surplus value, and therefore the relationships of wage labor, and therefore the relationships between one class which has a monopoly on the means of production, and one which lacks control of them. Marx’s theory of value comes to a head once we discover that the relationships of commodity circulation in their generalized form are the result of a specific form of social labor — wage labor — which expresses the class relationships between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Within capitalist society, behind the abstract power of money there is the abstract force of valorization, which is nothing less than the exploitation of the working class for surplus value.
The significance of Marx’s theory of value is therefore neither the exposing of its quantitative measure, nor merely exposing how it represents alienated relationships of exchange, but how it represents the alienated class relationships between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Value and consequently money is thus both one of the most essential and most superficial parts of Marx’s system of thought. It is essential in correcting the errors of the classical political economists on value and exposing how it is the consequence of a specific set of social relationships between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; superficial in that it is easy to fall into the trap of choking Marx’s theory as being one of either determining the magnitude of value (socially necessary labor time) or commodity fetishism in general.
The abstract power of money does not only derive from the fact that it represents a portion of the social necessary labor time. The abstract power of money in capitalist society is also derived from the class relationships which presuppose its existence and which, at the end of the process of production, money itself reproduces.
The relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is thus the presupposition and the immanent result of money within capitalist society (3).
It is the class relationships between the bourgeoisie and proletariat and the system of wage labor which gives money its dynamism. The abolition of capitalism, money, and exploitation are thus all bound up in one slogan: expropriate the expropriators — something which entails a cooperative society where the means of production are held in common, all production is conducted in accordance to human need, and labor time is treated directly.
With the above understanding, what are we to make of the communizers who claim that the essential lessons of Karl Marx are that we ought to abolish the value form? It is essentially sophistry. Although the abolition of capitalism does represent the abolition of exchange-value, Marx would never have summarized his project as merely uncovering the substance of value as alienated relationships of exchange: where and when he did summarize the significance of his project, he did so as the scientific discovery of the laws of capitalist reproduction and exploitation. His understanding of these laws directly informed his theory of proletarian emancipation, which to him always meant the seizure of the means of production from the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a system of direct social labor, where producers satisfy their wants and needs directly through labor time accounting.
Judging the perspective of communization by its theoretical edicts, we find that it does not express this proletarian standpoint. Instead, the class whose theory is most closely associated with the standpoint of the…petit-bourgeoisie. It is the petit-bourgeoisie, whose existence is threatened not merely by money, but the process of capitalist accumulation in which money plays an integral part, which most fears the abstract power of time, value and money; the origins of which it has no purview into, and which it has no intention of disposing of. It is the petit bourgeoisie who retreat into mystical formulations about the origins of the alien power of money in order to fight a battle on two fronts: the first against the larger bourgeoisie, who to displace their position within the market; and secondly the proletariat, which threatened their existence through the abolition of the basis of all commodity production itself. And this should come as no surprise, as the theory of communization generally makes it impossible to identify the actual nature of capitalism, the class struggle, and therefore and ultimately the possibility of capitalism's demise in the form of labor time accounting. It is this system of labor time accounting to which we will now turn our attention.
To be continued.
Footnotes
(1) To draw on the language of philosophy, we interact with other human beings, we immediately recognize two things. First, that we are not the same people, and second that we are both members of the species. But when we meet on the market as commodity producers, we do not recognize our products in the same way, ie., as heterogeneous products of generally equal human labor. It is only the commodity which recognizes the other commodity as such, and we who play second fiddle to the embodiments of our human labor. Despite two commodities starting as a portion of society's labor, when we exchange goods, products lose their social character, only to be re-socialized through exchange. What is, on the whole, really a society composed of social relationships between producers, only exists in the form of relationships between things.
(2) In his book Anti-Duhring, Freidrich Engels puts the problem brilliantly: “...when I say that a commodity has a particular value, I say (1) that it is a socially useful product; (2) that it has been produced by a private individual for private account; (3) that, although it is a product of individual labour, it is at the same time and as it were unwittingly and involuntarily, also a product of social labour and, be it noted, of a definite quantity of this labour, established in a social way through exchange; and (4) that I express this quantity not in labour itself, in such and such a number of labour-hours, but in another commodity. If, therefore, I say that this clock is worth as much as that piece of cloth and each is worth fifty shillings, I say that an equal quantity of social labour is contained in the clock, the cloth and the money. I therefore assert that the social labour-time represented in them has been socially measured and found to be equal. But not directly, absolutely, as labour-time is usually measured, in labour-hours or days, etc., but in a roundabout way, through exchange, relatively. That is why I can express this definite quantity of labour-time not in labour-hours – how many remains unknown to me – but only in a roundabout way, relatively, in another commodity, which represents an equal quantity of social labour-time. The clock is worth as much as the piece of cloth.”
(3) We leave out the examination of credit money here. Needless to say, the socialization of capital amongst capitalists merely generalizes the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. Now each capitalist’s issue of making surplus value is the capitalists’ issue of making surplus value.
21 September 1890
A young student addressed to Engels the following questions:
1. How is it that, after the consanguineous family ceased to exist, marriage between brothers and sisters was still permitted by the Greeks, as Cornelius Nepos attests?
2. How was the fundamental principle of historical materialism understood by Marx and Engels themselves; are the production and reproduction of actual life alone the determining factors, or are they only the basis of all the other conditions acting by themselves?
Frederick Engels replied:
London, Sept. 21, 1890.
Dear Sir,
Your letter of the 3rd inst. was forwarded to me at Folkestone; but not having the book I needed I could not reply. Having returned on the 12th of the same month, I found such an amount of pressing work that only to-day am I able to write a few lines. Please excuse my delay.
To your first question:- First of all you can see on p. 19 of my “Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” the Punalua family is represented as developing so slowly that even in this century in the royal family there have been marriages between brothers and sisters. In antiquity we find examples of marriages between brothers and sisters, for instance, the Ptolemies. We must make a distinction between brothers and sisters on the mothers’ side and brothers and sisters on the fathers’ side. The Greek Adelphos (brother) and Adelphon (sister) are both derived from Delphos (mother), indicating thus the origin of brother and sister on the mother’s side. And from the period of the Matriarchate there has been preserved for a long time the feeling that the children of one mother but of different fathers are more closely related than the children of one father but by different mothers. The Punalua form of the family excludes only marriages among the first, not among the second, since the latter, while the Matriarchate lasted, were not even considered relatives. Cases of matrimony between brothers and sisters in Ancient Greece are limited to those in which the contracting parties are descended from different mothers, or to those of whom the parental relationship was unknown, and hence the marriage was not forbidden. This, therefore, is not absolutely in contrast with the Punalua custom. You have noticed, then, that between the Punalua period and Greek monogamy there is a jump from the Matriarchate to the Patriarchate, which changes things considerably.
According to the “Greek Antiquities” of Wachsmuth, one finds in the heroic period of Greece “no trace of scruples due to a too close relationship of the contracting parties independently of the relationship between the parents and children.” (P. 156.) “ Marriage with a carnal sister was not at all scandalous in Crete.” (Ibid., p. 170.) This last affirmation is based on Strabone (X) but at the present moment I cannot find this passage because of faulty division of chapters. Under the expression “carnal sister” I understand, until proof to the contrary is furnished, a sister on the part of the father.
To the second question: -
I have interpreted your first main phrase in the following way: According to the Materialist Conception of History, the factor which is in the last instance decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor myself ever claimed. If now someone has distorted the meaning in such a way that the economic factor is the only decisive one, this man has changed the above proposition into an abstract, absurd phrase which says nothing. The economic situation is the base, but the different parts of the structure-the political forms of the class struggle and its results, the constitutions established by the victorious class after the battle is won, forms of law and even the reflections of all these real struggles in the brains of the participants, political theories, juridical, philosophical, religious opinions, and their further development into dogmatic systems-all this exercises also its influence on the development of the historical struggles and in cases determines their form. It is under the mutual influence of all these factors that, rejecting the infinitesimal number of accidental occurrences (that is, things and happenings whose intimate sense is so far removed and of so little probability that we can consider them non-existent, and can ignore them), that the economical movement is ultimately carried out. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history would be easier than the solution of any simple equation. We ourselves make our history, but, primarily, under pre-suppositions and conditions which are very well determined. But even the political tradition, nay, even the tradition that man creates in his head, plays an important part even if not the decisive one. The Prussian State has itself been born and developed because of certain historical reasons, and, in the last instance, economic reasons. But it is very difficult to determine without pedantry that, among the many small States of northern Germany, precisely Brandenburg has been destined by economic necessity and not also by other factors (above all its complications with Poland after the Prussian conquest and hence, also, with international politics-which, besides has also been decisive in the formation of the power of the Austrian ruling family), to become that great power in which are personified the economic, linguistic, and-after the Reformation-also the religious difference between the North and South. It would be mighty difficult for one who does not want to make himself ridiculous to explain from the economic point of view the existence of each small German State of the past and present, or even the phonetic differentiation of High German which extended the geographic division formed already by the Sudetti mountains as far as the Faunus.
In the second place history forms itself in such a way that the ultimate result springs always from the conflicts of many individual wills, each of which in its turn is produced by a quantity of special conditions of life; there are thus innumerable forces which cross each other, an infinite group of parallelograms of forces, from which is derived one resultant-the historical event -which in its turn again can be considered as the product of an active power, as a whole unconsciously and involuntarily, because that which each individual wishes is prevented by every other, and that which results from it is a thing which no one has wished. In this way history runs its course like a natural process, and has substantially the same laws of motion. But, because of the fact that the individual wills-each of which wishes that to which it is impelled by its own physical constitution or exterior circumstances, i.e., in the last analysis, all economic circumstances (either its own personal circumstances or the general conditions of society)-do not reach that which they seek but are fused in one general media in a common resultant, by this fact one cannot conclude that they are equal to zero. On the contrary, each contributes to produce the resultant, and is contained in it.
I would further ask you to study the theory from its original sources and not from secondhand works; it is really much easier. One can say that Marx has written nothing in which some part of the theory is not found. An excellent example of its application in a specific way is the “Eighteenth Brumaire of L. Bonaparte.” Also in “Capital” (III) are many illustrations. And also permit me to recommend to you my writings, Herr E. Duehring’s “Umwalzung der Wissenchaft,” and “Feuerbach und der Ausgang der Klassischen deutschen Philosophie,” in which I have given the most ample illustrations of Historical Materialism which to my knowledge exists. That the young people give to the economic factor more importance than belongs to it is in part the fault of Marx and myself. Facing our adversaries we had to lay especial stress on the essential principle denied by them, and, besides, we had not always the time, place, or occasion to assign to the other factors which participate in producing the reciprocal effect, the part which belongs to them. But scarcely has one come to the representation of a particular historical period, that is, to a practical application of the theory, when things changed their aspect, and such an error was no longer permissible. It happens too often that one believes he has perfectly understood a new theory, and is able to manage it without any aid, when he has scarcely learned the first principles, and not even those correctly. This reproof I cannot spare to some of our new Marxists; and in truth it has been written by the wearer of the marvellous robe himself. [That is, by Marx. – Editor.]
To the first question:-Yesterday (I am writing these words on the 22nd of Sept.) I also found in Schomann, “Greek Antiquities,” Berlin, 1855, Vol. I, p. 52, the following words, which confirm definitely the explanation given by me. “It is noteworthy that in later Greece marriages between brothers and sisters of different mothers were not considered incest.”
I hope you will not be dismayed by the terrible parentheses which for the sake of brevity overflow from my pen. And I subscribe myself .
Your devoted,
F. Engels
Predecessors
KAPD
GIC and L'Ouvrier Communiste
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