Who will control the 21st Century? -- John Percy

by John Percy

We’re all here because we’re concerned about our society and our world — the horrifying poverty, the terrible oppression, discrimination, environmental destruction we see around us or read about and view on our TV screens each night.

We’re also angry, and wanting to do something about it.

We might be a bit luckier, in this city, this country, than those suffering the worst. We’re probably better off than the vast majority of the world’s population.

We still suffer — we have our wages and living conditions attacked, our education facilities whittled away, have to face discrimination as women or gays, see rampant racism and hypocrisy at every turn. And fighting against all those attacks, large and small, has to be part of our fight.

But we’re fortunate we have access to information, and are aghast at what is happening to the world. Our eyes have been opened, and we won't willingly put the blinders on again.

But we also need the big picture, the long-term picture, to fight the fundamental causes of our problems, and we need the knowledge and understanding and organisation to enable us to continue fighting

An email has been going the rounds in recent weeks that gives a sobering perspective on the world today:

“If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people,” it explains, “with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

“There would be:

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south

8 Africans

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all

6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education

1 would own a computer"

In this panel we’re trying to answer the question, “Who will control the 21^st Century?” We’re really trying to assess — can we fundamentally change things, the problems illustrated by such grim statistics?

Well, first, I hope we’re all clear about who rules and controls the world now, and has throughout the 20^th Century, and the 19^th. I hope no one here has any illusions that we somehow live in a democracy, that somehow the “people”, the majority of us, rule.

Now, and in past centuries, we’ve lived under a system of class rule. The old joke is accurate: “What’s the Golden rule? Whoever has the gold makes the rules!”

In the last few centuries, it’s been the capitalist class, the tiny rich elite from the imperialist countries, ruling the world — pirates and gamblers.

A study in July 1997 reported that 447 billionaires have wealth equal to the total assets of the poorest 50% of the world’s population.

A few years ago a senior economist with the World Bank wrote an article: “Divergence, Big Time,” pointing out that “from 1870 to 1990 the ratio of per capita incomes between the richest and the poorest countries increased by roughly a factor of five and the difference in income between the richest country and all others has increased by an order of magnitude.

As Trotsky wrote in 1939 (MIOT45), “Those lines in Das Kapital where Marx speaks of the polarisation of capitalist society, the accumulation of wealth at one pole and poverty at the other — these lines which have been indicted as ‘demagogic’ now simply prove to be a picture of reality.” He could point to the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, the looming clouds of WWII. We have even more evidence of disaster and divergence.

One super power, with real weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, biological, poison gas — able to destroy us all, and strike forces to police the world. A ruling class uncaring about the medium and long term effects of its greed for profit, willing to gamble the world. Shaky financial structures liable to disastrous collapse, throwing half the world on the scrap heap.

So in this coming century, who will control? What’s our fate?

Three choices

We, and the world, have three choices — and they are choices, since what we do does matter, each of us as individuals, and collectively as the majority on this planet.

1. Firstly, the “mainstream” view: Technological advances will continue, and within the framework of the all-powerful market, wealth will increase (yes, certainly for the capitalists primarily, but it will trickle down, to the workers in the west, and eventually to the world’s poor. This is the dream/illusion of the neo-liberal free market ideologues. Those who have to debate and contend with their critics anyway. I think those with the real power, the real money, don’t give a stuff about the “trickle down” possibilities. Most prefer it all to stay with them.) Eventually, the liberal ideologues say, things will get better. Capitalism’s basically OK, and let’s hope and work for a bit more of the trickle down;
2. The second alternative, the fear of an increasing number of activists and workers and conscious young people today, is that the planet’s headed to hell. The gap between rich and poor will continue to widen. Environmental disasters will continue unchecked. Global warming will have catastrophic effects on the sea level. Capitalist misuse of technology will deplete the world’s resources. We’re doomed. Capitalism’s a disaster, and there’s not much we can do about it, but fight anyway.
3. The third option, is that we make use of the scientific and technological advances in the interests of the world’s people, not capitalist profit. That we use the resources, the wealth, to provide food and shelter and clean water and health and education and culture for the whole world. Not waste it on obscene luxuries for the rich, or weapons, or advertising and other crap. That we organise society in a fundamentally different way, with the workers in control, with real democracy, not fake democracy tied to money. Capitalism’s a disaster destined to be replaced by a more logical, democratic system, that is, socialism.

So which of the three options, three counterposed views of the century ahead, will you pick?

New global movement

The rising global movement against corporate globalisation of the last few years gives us encouragement that that third option has a better chance. The third option depends on us as conscious activists.

Throughout the Third World for decades the workers, peasants, urban poor have been rebelling on a daily basis. They’re directly driven by their poverty and repression, the plunder of the multi-national corporations. Mass upsurges in the Third World have been frequent, even if imperialism was coping through their standard repression and corruption.

But with this new movement, the First World is now catching up.

Seattle was the most dramatic, but it was building up before that. The wonderful experience with S11 in Melbourne really brought it home. We'll follow it up on May 1. More and more people, especially young people, are waking up to capitalism’s neo-liberal offensive, against the workers and poor at home, and to their brutal exploitation of the rest of the world.

This movement encompasses a general rejection of imperialist exploitation of the whole Third World. It’s a reaction to the poverty, the exploitation, the glaring gap. Sometimes it focuses on a specific issue, a particular piece of environmental destruction; a particularly crass multinational corporation. And as yet there’s no universally decided list of demands. But many general propositions would be agreed on, against imperialist institutions, and capitalism itself.

All agree, something’s wrong with capitalism, but many are not sure about what replacement, and how. That’s a much more contentious issue.

The new movement against capitalist globalisation is very diverse, with many trends and campaigns, but we can identify two key trends, the reformers and radicals.

Both are still "anti-capitalist" in the sense that the reformers, the liberals, are still in conflict with the bourgeoisie, wanting a return to the period of concessions characteristic of the post-war long expansionary wave, before the turn to neo-liberal policies by imperialism. They want a return to Keynesianism — propping capitalism up with more government spending, ameliorating the worst excesses.

In the actions we’ll push for a united front. We need that broad alliance of all the forces encompassing many different political perspectives campaigning against global capitalism through some form of mass action.

But we also need to be clear on the differences, the dividing lines, the challenges, and what pushes are likely to come from the ruling class. And the attitude taken to those three perspectives for the future helps us understand the trends.

Movement divide: Fix it or nix it?

These issues came to the fore at Seattle, at Prague, at Melbourne, at Seoul, at Nice, at Porto Alegre and are there already in the lead up to the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City where Washington is pushing to extend NAFTA to a Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The question becomes, do you demand “a seat at the table”, community or trade union or NGO input into the system, or do you fight for a fundamental change, in the belief that a better world is possible.

Do you try and make some reforms within their framework, knock off the rough edges? Or do you campaign to abolish these institutions, abolish the World Bank, IMF, the WTO?

NGOs and liberals and most union bureaucrats have a natural preference for reform and tinkering. Not only don’t they want to do anything to fundamentally threaten the existing system, but the process of discussing reforms, negotiating, dialogue with the global institutions of capital gives them an enhanced role, a raison d’etre.

But can it be fixed?

Where do the problems stem from? Is it a problem of maladjustment, wrong settings, not enough NGO or union input, not enough human considerations? Or do they stem from capitalism itself, its fundamental nature?

Marxist view

Karl Marx was the first to scientifically analyse the workings of capitalism, to understand its dynamics and point to its inherent contradictions that would give rise to its overthrow by the working class on which it was based, and its replacement by socialism, the democratic rule of the producers. As he said in the third volume of Capital:

"The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. It is that capital and its self-expansion appear as the starting and closing point, the motive and purpose of production; that production is only production for capital, and not vice versa, the means of production are not mere means for a constant expansion of the living process of the society of producers... The means — unconditional development of the productive forces of society — comes continually into conflict with the limited purpose, the self-expansion of the existing capital."

Capitalism suffers from long-term structural contradictions which threaten its destruction. Far from being something dynamic and new, neo-liberal globalisation — the frenetic international expansion of capital, an expansion which has had devastating consequences for the majority of humanity — is a sign of economic decay and increasing instability in a world of obscene and growing inequality.

The massive flows of capital around the world, the easy credit that has financed a global stockmarket boom, the growing monopolisation of capital through mergers, acquisitions and privatisations, over-capacity in all of the key industries, the unprecedented autonomy of the financial system from real production, the growing rivalry between the major imperialist powers, and the widening inequalities between rich and poor countries and between rich and poor within all countries, have the same cause — an overaccumulation of capital in the heartlands of capitalism.

The frenetic growth of mergers and acquisitions since the 1980s and particularly after 1995 are a sign of a growing crisis of capitalism, as multinational companies attempt to consolidate and defend their positions worldwide faced with falling profitability and increasingly powerful competitors. Many mergers and acquisitions take place in industries that are faced with over-capacity and low demand. They are defensive in character, often seen as an effective barrier against takeover rather than a means to enhance productivity and profitability. They aim to increase market share by reducing competition.

The same mechanism always drives the boom and bust cycle of capitalism, a crisis of overproduction, a result of capitalism’s thirst for profits and super profits. Little snippets continually pop up on the financial pages illustrating the worldwide problems of overcapacity, and the irrationality of the capitalist system. “Shipping analysts have forecast an upturn in the dry bulk market for the first time in several years as more ships are being scrapped than are being delivered from shipyards.” wrote the London Financial Times on November 29-30 1997. That is, profits are projected to rise from a destruction of capacity.

The productivity of labour has risen enormously over the past century. Future scientific and technological advances will ensure it continues to rise in the coming century. But this poses a problem for capitalism. Their system is not designed to meet peoples’ needs, but to make profits. So while half the world lives in poverty and billions are without shelter, health-care or education, billionaire capitalists around the globe are flush with cash without profitable areas for investment.

The end of history idea was ridiculous when first touted around. Now it looks like a sad joke. Since the end of the long boom in the early 70s, capitalism’s passed through a long period of stagnation and downturn, with chronic problems of overcapacity and declining profitability.

The working class

But even if many of us recognise that capitalism’s the source of our problems and the need for getting rid of capitalism, and retiring the capitalists — (not leave them destitute, give them a proper job).  But how can it happen? It looks like an impossible task. Who can do it?

They have the gold. They have the guns. They have their police forces, jails and armies. They may be a small minority, but they also control the mass media, schools, courts, churches, and other institutions.

Is it too much to hope that we could overthrow that power?

Can the masses of people take over?

The working class has the interest, and the power to do it. Nothing runs without our labour. Workers are used to working together cooperatively, and can organise. 1917 showed that mobilised and organised we can even subvert their army.

Today, the working class of the world is bigger and stronger than ever before. (So much for the myths they try to sell us in the media and university sociology course — that we’re "all middle-class now".)

A socialist party

But workers internationally are divided, swayed by the capitalists’ propaganda and advertising, cowed by their power and violence.

And we’re not going to overcome this as individuals. We need to organise collectively, counter their propaganda, use our numbers and united strength to counter their violence.

And to organise, and educate, and preserve and spread the lessons of past defeats and victories, we need a party.

That’s what we in the DSP are attempting to build. A party with a program, learning from the past, learning from Lenin and Marx, learning from the lessons of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, learning from the betrayals and distortions of Stalinism.

We try to learn from current struggles, learn from the Cuban Revolution, still surviving after 42 years of blockade and attack by Washington, still able to stand as a beacon to the Third World, to set standards on health and education envied by people in the so-called developed countries.

And a party that helps organise and unite in struggle all the oppressed. For the last 20 years we in the DSP have been arguing for and pursuing a less sectarian, more uniting, way of operating, both in Australia, and in our relations with other parties around the world.

In the 80s we sought unity with the NDP, the CPA, the New Left Party, the SPA and the Greens. Although none of those efforts had lasting success then, the publishing of Green Left Weekly at the beginning of the 90s was based on those many activists who were yearning for a broad, non-sectarian fighting paper. Internationally we’ve been championing a less narrow way of relating, moving away from narrow factions, fake internationals, proposing an alliance, a network of socialist parties, even if the parties are from different left traditions. Links magazine is part of that project.

Now at last in Australia we’re seeing a very encouraging development of a Socialist Alliance established for fighting the next elections, providing an alternative to the neo-liberal pro big business polices of Liberal and Labor. The DSP, the ISO, and 6-8 other socialist groups have got together. Soon the Socialist Alliance will be organising, calling for membership, campaigning. Many will join. It will build united struggles in other areas, not just elections.

We’ve seen the positive lessons in Britain, the Socialist Alliances there, and especially in Scotland, with the Scottish Socialist Party

It’s a fantastic, essential development. We need better organisation, a more united left working alternative, to face the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Two choices

This century will certainly be a struggle for control between the rich, capitalist class in the imperialist countries, and the working class of the world, the majority of the world's population of poor, exploited, oppressed.

The capitalists think they'll be able to fence off the problems — erect walls around the countries of the North, high walls around their enclaves in the posh areas of selected cities, retire to fortresses, or cruise the seas in luxury liners, protected by their navies. It happens today, obscenely wealthy retirement ships for the millionaires of the North, voyeurs on the misery of the rest of the world, but increasingly steering clear of the worst disaster areas.

But if we don't win, don't curb their greed, their madness, by the end of the century there won't be much left. Even their fortresses and floating palaces won’t escape. And we can’t hide or avoid a choice either.

Don't delude yourself that it might be a choice between Option 1 and 2 — gradual reform and improvement of capitalism vs capitalism destroying the planet.

The real choice is between Options 2 and 3 — socialism, or barbarism, as early socialists expressed it, or as we can see more starkly today, socialism or the destruction of humanity. There’s only one real choice.

But we don’t just fight for that option 3, socialism, to prevent disaster, we’re not socialists merely for defensive or negative reasons. There are so many positive reasons to fight for the brighter future that is socialism.

That same rising level of productivity based on fantastic scientific and technological advances that creates problems and crises for capitalism — overcapacity, instability, falling profits — holds out the prospect of a golden future, of decent standards of living for the whole world, of greatly increased leisure time.

Imagine the potential of the future, 50-100 years from now, once our resources and technology are properly used, applied to solving the problems of the world we see today.

Imagine, without the fetters of capitalism — its wars and greed and waste and inequities — what life could be like for all. We’d reach new levels of education and health, and culture and art and science that we can only dream of today.

It’s a goal and vision worth fighting for

Join the fight.