“A new epoch is born! The epoch of the dissolution of capitalism, of its inner disintegration.” (Third International, 1919)
“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.” (Communist Manifesto)
Introduction
This text is a critique of the International Communist Current's concept of social decomposition from a left communist perspective. It is a development of previous criticisms made here, and the results of further research, presented here and in the book Capitalism's Endgame.
As the ICC points out, it is more or less alone in defending this concept today; the Bordigist and councilist groups, along with the anarchists, do not even accept that capitalism has entered its period of decadence, let alone decomposition (International Review 167).
The other main representative of the Communist Left, the Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT), considers the ICC’s whole position on decomposition to be “tantamount to the complete abandonment of the terrain of Marxism” (Revolutionary Perspectives 57), while for the Bordigist group publishing Le Proletaire in France, the ICC’s analysis of populism as a product of decomposition is based on “petty bourgeois considerations of morality” rather than Marxism.
In response to its critics, the ICC argues that to deny the existence of a period of decomposition is nothing less than a refusal to recognise the role of the class struggle, and a “major departure from the marxist method” (International Review 170).
All this hyperbole sadly says something about the state of ‘debate’ in the Communist Left today.
If we take as our starting point that decadent capitalism’s decomposition is a real phenomenon, then the test must surely be: is the ICC’s concept based on a correct analysis of the evolution of capitalism and the class struggle?
We start here by examining the origins of the ICC’s concept, identifying its strengths, as well as its flaws and weaknesses, together with the closely related ideas of a ’stalemate’ between the classes, and the ‘course of history’ – both also distinctive to the ICC. We then briefly survey key developments in capitalism and the class struggle from 1980, in order to identify those the ICC recognised, and those it missed, or failed to adequately recognise at the time. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the trajectory of decadent capitalism, and the extent to which ICC’s concept is useful as an analytical tool for understanding this.
We do not apologise for making full use here of the benefit that over 40 years of hindsight has hopefully given us, including the ICC’s own subsequent self-criticisms. How else are we to fully understand the experience of the working class in the period in question and learn lessons, for today and the future?
1. The ICC’s concept of social decomposition
‘Social putrefaction’ as the primary cause of the defeat of workers’ struggles in the 1980s
So what is decomposition?
For the ICC the term has a dual meaning:
* it is the social putrefaction that results from the decomposition of the ideological values of the ruling class, which is the product of its failure to launch a new world war and the resulting stalemate between the classes, and
* it is the new and final phase of capitalism’s decadence that is opened up by the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in 1989 (Theses on decomposition,1990).
Due to this second meaning, we should note there is a tendency for the ICC to describe everything that has happened since 1989 as a product of decomposition; recent texts, for example, point to a wide range of developments and phenomena in order to prove that its original concept has been fully verified. These include famines, the growth of slums, ‘accidental’ catastrophes, ‘natural’ disasters and the degradation of the environment, as well as manifestations of political and ideological decomposition such as the growth of corruption, terrorism, crime, drug addiction, nihilism and despair (Update of the Theses on Decomposition, 2023).
If all this is proof of the ICC’s concept of decomposition then it is hard to see how any Marxist could disagree with it. But it is the first meaning that is key.
Up until 1989 the ICC had occasionally used the term ‘decomposition’ to describe capitalism’s worsening crisis without giving it any more specific meaning; a 1988 article about the events of May ‘68, for example, under the sub-heading “20 years of capitalist decomposition”, referred to phenomena such as the spread of poverty and unemployment to the centres of the system, the intensification of exploitation, worsening imperialist conflicts, and the development of a war economy (IR 53).
At the ICC’s 8th Congress , where the majority of the organisation defended the view that the 1980s had seen a “decisive advance” in the class struggle, a minority led by Marc Chirik (MC) argued that the class struggle was in fact stagnating and retreating due to the effects of “social decomposition”.
This threw into question the ICC’s whole perspective for the period. Despite what we are told was an “animated debate” at the Congress (ICC, 2020), the minority’s argument was not accepted, and right up until the collapse of the Stalinist bloc the majority of the ICC continued to believe that the class struggle was still advancing (IR 59).
The minority's arguments were set out in the International Review:
* The protraction of capitalism’s decadence was causing the decomposition of society, the spread of which threatened to contaminate the working class and put in jeopardy the future of humanity in much the same way as a new world war.
* This decomposition was rooted in the aggravation of the system’s contradictions and the prolongation of its open crisis, which affected not only its economic foundations but every aspect of social life.
* Its symptoms included the proliferation of ‘natural' catastrophes and accidents and the spread of poverty and homelessness, etc, but the specific focus was on the decomposition of the ruling class’s values, which was leading to the growth of gangsterism, terrorism, corruption, drug-use, etc., and the ideology of ‘every man for himself’.
* The origin of this ideological decomposition or ‘putrefaction’ was the existence of a “temporary stalemate” between the two main classes.
Here we have the origin of the ICC’s concept of social decomposition; it was the effect of this putrefaction on the working class that was put forward by MC at the 8th Congress to explain the stagnation and retreat of the class struggle. So we first need to ask: is this explanation credible?
If we take the specific example of the growth of the ideology of ‘every man for himself’, the ICC still argues today that this enabled the British bourgeoisie, for example, to “lock up the workers in corporatism” and “block the dynamic of the struggle” in order to inflict a crushing defeat on the miners’ strike (ICC, 2019).
Now, corporatism has always been a strong influence in the British workers’ movement. It was certainly strong factor in the struggles of the 1980s – as it was in the 1970s; but if corporatism is the identification of workers with their ‘own’ sector or industry, wouldn’t we expect this to be weakened by a growth of the ideology of ‘every man for himself’, not strengthened? And anyone familiar with the 1984-5 miners’ strike could not fail to be impressed by the discipline and solidarity shown by the miners and their communities in the year-long struggle; this does not seem like an obvious example of the growth of ‘every man for himself’.
A more obvious explanation for the strength of corporatism in the 1980s is that the experienced and ruthless British bourgeoisie, having already planned and prepared to inflict a political defeat on the working class (see The “Ridley Plan”), was able to use the trade unions to imprison the miners in a long, exhausting strike while doing everything possible to keep them isolated from other sectors of workers. This then became a model for the strategy of the bourgeoisie in the capitalist heartlands, particularly in France, Italy and Germany – much as the ICC later described (IR 164).
In other words, the ‘stagnation and retreat’ of the class struggle in the 1980s – in reality a deepening defeat – was primarily due, not to the bourgeoisie using the effects of ‘social putrefaction’ against the working class, but to a conscious and co-ordinated counter-offensive of the capitalist class. We will return to this.
In fact, the ICC partially recognised the existence of this counter-offensive at the time: in a 1983 article, for example, we find the sub-heading “1980-82: The new bourgeois counter-offensive: the Left in opposition. Retreat in the workers” struggle” (IR 33). But as soon as it identified the start of a new wave of workers’ struggles in 1983 it dropped this insight, believing that the working class had now “gone onto the offensive” against capitalism (IR 37).
By the time of the ICC’s 8th Congress, it had become clear, at least to a small minority, that this overoptimistic perspective was not being confirmed by reality. Social decomposition was put forward as a new factor in the situation that appeared to explain why.
A ‘social stalemate’ as the cause of decomposition
This debate was quickly overtaken by events. To the ICC, the sudden collapse of the Stalinist bloc appeared as a dramatic confirmation of the minority’s arguments, leading it to conclude that capitalism had now entered into a new and final phase of its decadence, in which “decomposition becomes a decisive, if not the decisive factor in social evolution”.
This idea was developed in the “Theses on Decomposition”, first published in late 1990 [1], which was a bold attempt to offer a global and historical analysis in the immediate aftermath of this unprecedented development. The key factor determining capitalism’s entry into this new phase was identified as the “temporary stalemate” between the classes:
In this situation, where society’s two decisive - and antagonistic - classes confront each other without either being able to impose its own definitive response, history nonetheless does not just come to a stop. Still less for capitalism than for preceding social forms, is a “freeze” or a “stagnation” of social life possible. As a crisis-ridden capitalism’s contradictions can only get deeper, the bourgeoisie’s inability to offer the slightest perspective for society as a whole, and the proletariat’s inability, for the moment, openly to set forward its own can only lead to a situation of generalised decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on its feet. (Thesis 4)
A ‘stalemate’ implies a draw, ie. a situation in which neither side can win and no further action can be taken. But this was not based on a detailed analysis of the evolution of capitalism or the actual balance of class forces in the period following the collapse of Stalinism; nor was it based on a critical reassessment of the overoptimistic perspective defended by the majority of the organisation prior to 1989. There was no public debate on the ‘Theses’, which appear to have been quickly adopted as the position of the organisation following the death of Marc Chirik in 1990. Consequently, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the ICC’s idea of a stalemate was characterised by:
1. An underestimation of the role of the bourgeoisie in the defeat of the working class in the 1980s.
For the ICC, the inability of the proletariat to develop a revolutionary perspective for its struggles in the 1980s was “in large measure” due to the growing influence of social decomposition; the extent of the bourgeoisie’s active role was restricted to making use of the growth of the ideology of ‘every man for himself’ to successfully lay “sectionalist traps” for the workers’ struggles.
What is striking in this explanation is the absence of the role of the conscious and co-ordinated action of the capitalist class in inflicting a series of defeats on the working class from the start of the 1980s.
2. An underestimation of the bourgeoisie’s room for manoeuvre faced with the worsening crisis.
Due to decomposition, the ICC argued, the bourgeoisie was unable to offer any perspective “other than day-to-day stop-gap measures to prop up the economy” (Thesis 8). All the measures being taken by capital to restore profitability and reinforce its domination had already been dismissed as “illusions and myths” (IR 53).
This is contradictory, to say the least, because one of the reasons given in the ‘Theses’ for the failure of the working class to develop a revolutionary perspective was precisely that the bourgeoisie had learned the lessons from the crisis of the 1930s, and was consequently able to make use of state capitalist measures at a bloc-wide level to manage the evolution of the crisis (Thesis 6). But the ICC was not able to apply this very important insight, which in turn led to:
3. An underestimation of the continuing possibilities for economic growth in capitalism’s decadence.
Due to the “historic dead-end” in which it found itself trapped, the ICC argued that capitalism was now “devoid of the slightest project or perspective, even in the short term, and however illusory”. Arguably this could have just been a rhetorical flourish, but it flowed logically from the idea of a stalemate or draw.
Much later, at its 21st Congress in 2015, the ICC recognised it had been slow to see how the collapse of the autarkic Stalinist economies could provide capitalism with new opportunities for economic growth (IR 156).
Finally, at its 23rd Congress in 2019 – 30 years after the collapse of the Stalinist bloc – it adopted a position on the reasons for the spectacular growth of China since the 1990s, explaining this as a product of “the unprecedented circumstances of the historical period of decomposition … without which it would not have happened” (IR 164).
As an explanation this was of questionable value – as ICC comrades with divergent views have themselves pointed out. If China's growth was indeed a product of “the unprecedented circumstances of the historical period of decomposition”, then logically shouldn’t we conclude that the whole phenomenon of globalisation was a product of decomposition too? But how can decomposition cause economic growth? [2]
All this does not in itself disprove the ICC’s basic idea of a stalemate, but it does serve to highlight the extent to which this was based on an incorrect analysis of the evolution of capitalism and the class struggle in the 1980s, and of the resulting balance of class forces; rather it flowed logically from the ICC’s schema of the ‘historic course’.
The ICC’s schema of the ‘historic course’ at the root of its idea of a ‘stalemate’
There is a common misconception that the ICC’s idea of the ‘course of history’ simply expresses the need for revolutionaries to try to make forecasts about the evolution of the balance of power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This is not the case, as the ICC itself has explained (IR 164). In fact, it is a model or schema of how decadent capitalism ‘works’.
Taking as its starting point the historic alternative “either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism” (Junius Pamphlet), the ICC’s view is that in its decadence capitalism is governed by the dynamic between two mutually exclusive opposites: world war and world revolution, so at any one moment the ‘historic course’ is towards either one or the other (IR 107).
This is an interpretation of the position developed by the Italian Communist Left in the 1930s;, against the arguments of Trotsky and others that a new world war could open up revolutionary possibilities, Bilan argued that, on the contrary, the conditions for war necessarily excluded the possibility of a revolution; following the victory of Nazism in Germany, it concluded that the proletariat was unable to reverse the course towards a world war (IR 107).
Applying the logic of this position when World War II failed to end in a revolutionary upsurge, the Communist Left of France (GCF) – of which Marc Chirik was of course a leading member – concluded that a new world war must therefore be “inevitable” (Internationalisme 1952).
What followed of course was the post-war boom; a period of unprecedented economic growth in decadent capitalism which, despite the huge growth of military spending and a proliferation of proxy wars, served to attenuate the tendency towards a direct military confrontation between the two rival blocs.
The unique juncture of factors after World War II created an extremely difficult situation for the few surviving revolutionary minorities. Very few if any at the time understood the significance of the post-war boom. But with the benefit of hindsight we can see that the expectation of a new world war, based on Bilan’s pre-war position, became a source of confusion which undoubtedly contributed to the GCF's dispersal in the expectation of an imminent nuclear holocaust. Any schema of how decadent capitalism is meant to work can only be based on a precise analysis of the evolution of capitalism and the class struggle and constantly verified in the light of changed reality.
On its formation in 1975, in the face of widespread confusions in the revolutionary milieu about the nature of the historical period and the alternatives it posed, the ICC correctly affirmed that, unlike in the 1930s, the revival of class struggle meant that the road to a new world war was effectively blocked. But, adopting the logic of the GCF's position, it now announced that the historic course was towards revolution.
This exposed the problem in treating Bilan’s position as a simple binary schema; the revival of class struggle may have prevented the bourgeoisie from, in effect, exiting the crisis via a new world war, and the objective conditions for a proletarian revolution may have more favourable than at any time since the 1917-23 revolutionary wave; but this does not mean that we can talk of a ‘course towards revolution’ in the same way that Bilan talked of a course towards war in the 1930s.
War and revolution are not equal opposites, like two ends of a seesaw where the rise of one end inevitably and mechanically results in the fall of the other. Nor is there always a ‘course’ towards either one or the other (viz. the post-war boom). In fact, the only time in decadent capitalism when we can talk of a definite ‘course of history’ is the 1930s, when due to the physical defeat of the proletariat a world war was inevitable. In this situation, the bourgeoisie clearly holds the initiative.
But even when the road towards a world war is blocked by the class struggle, the bourgeoisie is still the ruling class, and as such still holds the initiative. [3]
Not only that, but in a crisis the bourgeoisie tends to become more ‘intelligent’, and when its class domination is threatened by the working class it is even more capable of going onto the offensive.
As an exploited class, however, except in a revolutionary situation, the proletariat does not hold the initiative. Its struggle can only proceed through a series of advances, retreats and defeats, and its ultimate victory depends above all on its ability to learn the lessons of these defeats, to become aware of its own nature, and the historic goals of its struggles, ie. in a qualitative development of its class consciousness; without this, there can be no successful revolution.
The ICC corrected its position to a “course towards class confrontations”; and the 1980s did indeed turn out to be a decade of class confrontations. But the ICC later acknowledged that this was still a compromise that “did not close the door to a linear, schematic vision of the class struggle” and revealed an “underlying mechanistic vision of the class struggle proceeding in a linear and inevitable way towards revolution” (IR 156).
The ICC’s position on the ‘historic course’ was undoubtedly a factor in it overestimation of the class struggle in the 1980s and its underestimation of the bourgeoisie’s room for manoeuvre against it. Arguably it also prevented the ICC from grasping the significance of the capitalist counter-offensive; the question posed by the schema was whether the “course towards class confrontations” had been overturned; in other words, had the working class experienced a defeat comparable to the 1930s which meant the road was now open to a world war? And the answer, despite the defeats experienced by the British miners and other major sectors in the capitalist heartlands, was clearly no.
And it is the binary logic of this schema that dictated the ICC’s analysis of a stalemate between the classes: if decadent capitalism is governed by the dynamic between two mutually exclusive opposites – world war and world revolution – and if neither of the two main classes is able to impose its own definitive response to the crisis, then the outcome must by definition be a stalemate; a draw.
Much later, at its 23rd Congress in 2019, the ICC concluded that due to the growth of social decomposition its schema of the historic course was no longer valid; because world war was no longer on the agenda, and because social decomposition would continue to grow outside of the control of either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, decadent capitalism was no longer governed by the dynamic between the mutually exclusive opposites of world war and world revolution. Therefore, the “general dynamics of capitalist society in decadence” were no longer determined by the balance of power between the classes (IR 164).
We will return to this change of position, and the reasoning behind it, which not surprisingly raised eyebrows among long-time ICC supporters at the time.
2. The evolution of capitalism and the class struggle from 1980
So far we have examined the origins of the ICC’s concept of social decomposition, the ideas that underly it, and some of its flaws. But if we really want to understand its weaknesses as well as its strengths, we need to examine the evolution of capitalism and the class struggle from the start of the 1980s, to see the extent to which it is confirmed or contradicted by events.
A key question will be: is there another, more coherent explanation for the phenomenon of social decomposition identified by the ICC?
In this brief survey, we will highlight:
* the role of the capitalist counter-offensive in the defeat of the working class;
* the connection between this capitalist counter-offensive and the collapse of the Stalinist bloc;
* the role of the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in providing a temporary breathing space for the capitalist system, and
* the cumulative effect of all these developments on capitalism’s trajectory.
The capitalist counter-offensive
The capitalist counter-offensive against the working class had two key objectives, one economic and one political:
1. to restore profitability, and
2. reinforce the domination of capital.
These two objectives were intimately linked; to restore profitability, it was first necessary to break the resistance of the working class, and for this reason it is not possible to separate the economic measures taken by the bourgeoisie as part of this counter-offensive from its response to the class struggle.
In Volume One of Capital Marx describes the tendency of capital as it grows to create an pool of disposable labour or ‘industrial reserve army’, the purpose of which is to keep wages low, but also to prevent the growth of working class resistance to “the domination of capital”. [4] Capital’s domination cannot be understood as purely economic; it also takes social, juridical and political forms, all intended to maintain the expropriation of the worker and the power of the capitalists. In its decadent period, this domination is expressed above all in the burgeoning role of the state, which must defend the national capital against external threats, but above all against the threat from the working class. It is not possible to understand the significance of the capitalist counter-offensive in the 1980s without grasping this basic point.
With the benefit of hindsight we can see the late 1970s was a crucial turning point in the crisis and class struggle, and in the bourgeoisie’s response to both; faced with the deepening crisis, the American bourgeoisie abandoned the policies and structures of ‘Keynesianism’ and turned off the supply of credit that had financed the post-war boom, immediately causing interest rates to soar to unprecedented levels and plunging the world economy into the deepest recession since the 1930s; this was a deliberate 'shock and awe' strategy; a brutal reassertion of American power that pushed the effects of the crisis onto weaker economies, including its own allies; but above all it was a brutal re-assertion of the power of capital over a working class that continued to resist.
After the restoration of capitalist order in Poland – with the vital support of western governments, banks and trade unions – the US-led bloc had a free hand to launch its counter-offensive against the working class.
In the first phase of its counter-offensive, the bourgeoisie deliberately used the rapid rise of mass unemployment to discipline militant workers, provoking confrontations with key sectors of the organised working class like steelworkers, car workers and miners. These confrontations were well prepared for and made full use of the state apparatus to repress striking workers while deploying the trade unions to keep their resistance contained. [5]
At the same time we see the start of a longer-term process of capitalist restructuring involving:
* a management offensive against organised workers via productivity deals, flexible working, short-term contracts, temporary and part-time working, etc, together with a tightening of trade union control;
* an accelerated decline of traditional manufacturing industries and a growth of service industry jobs, with more young people and women entering the workforce;
* a reorganisation and automation of work processes, enabled by a huge development of computing and communications technology, and
* a shift of production to new low-cost regions, both within and outside the capitalist heartlands of USA and western Europe.
The cumulative effect of this process, which continued throughout the ‘90s, was to break up concentrations of working-class militancy in the main centres of capitalism and degrade the capability of workers to resist the attacks necessary to restore profitability.
This period saw important workers’ struggles; many, like the UK miners’ strike, showing enormous combativity, and some, like the strikes in Italy (1987), displaying a real capacity for self-organisation. But they all took place in the context of a conscious and co-ordinated counter-offensive of the capitalist class at a bloc-wide level.
By the mid-1990s workers’ demonstrations and strikes globally had fallen to the lowest level since the second world war, effectively marking the end of the wave of workers’ struggles that had erupted in the mid-1960s to threaten bourgeois class rule. This is shown schematically in Fig. 1.
While this was not of the same order as the physical defeat experienced by the working class in the 1930s, with hindsight we can see that overall capital was remarkably successful in reinforcing its domination and obtaining a limited recovery of profit rates – although not to the level achieved during the post-war boom.
Fig. 1 The capitalist counter-offensive and the class struggle
The collapse of the Stalinist bloc and the breakdown of autarky
The downfall of the USSR and the Eastern European Stalinist regimes was primarily due to the impact of the capitalist crisis on the rigid state capitalist economies of the weaker bloc. But we can now see this was only the most dramatic manifestation of a wider development; the breakdown of attempts by weaker national capitals to cut themselves off from the rest of the world market, and their re-integration – with varying degrees of violence – into the circuits of global capital.
There is a direct link between the capitalist counter-offensive of the 1980s and the wider breakdown of autarky, and the subsequent phenomenon of ‘globalisation’ in the 1990s and 2000s. The key to understanding the nature of this link, it is argued here, is the strategy pursued by the American bourgeoisie to ensure its global hegemony.
We have already seen that, faced with the worsening crisis and the threat to American domination, the US bourgeoisie did not hesitate to act unilaterally, pushing the effects of the crisis onto weaker capitals including its own allies. But this American offensive had wider aims: to tear open all weaker economies, to totally subordinate them to American global interests and create much-needed outlets for US goods, new sources of cheap labour and raw materials.
The debt crisis triggered by unilateral US action left the chronically uncompetitive Stalinist economies on the brink of bankruptcy and confronted with a dilemma: either to carry out major political and economic reforms in order to attract western investment, which meant increased borrowing and dependence on western governments; or to retreat into autarky and greater austerity, which risked an explosion of class struggle. The need to choose between these equally dangerous options increased the strong centrifugal forces within the Stalinist bloc and sharpened the political crisis of the regimes.
This is the context for understanding the USA’s aggressive strategy towards the weaker bloc from 1981; the advanced state of decomposition of the USSR appears to have convinced the US bourgeoisie that it could eliminate its main imperialist rival without the need for a direct military confrontation, by deploying its military and economic superiority to escalate the arms race until it bankrupted the USSR, while doing everything it could to convince the decrepit Stalinist leadership that it was fully prepared to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
With hindsight we can see that this strategy was remarkably successful; by 1985, faced with the intolerable burden of military spending and the risk of provoking further social convulsions, the Stalinist bourgeoisie was forced to give up the arms race, in effect conceding the Cold War. Not only was the USA able to eliminate its weaker rival without the need for a direct military confrontation, leaving it as the sole remaining superpower, it was also able to extend its military, economic and political domination over the former Stalinist empire, gaining access to a huge new source of raw materials (including Russian oil and gas) for the first time since 1917, together with large supplies of cheap labour and new opportunities for speculative investment.
This American offensive was also successful in breaking down attempts at autarky by other weaker capitals. We can see this very clearly in the case of India, which had close military and economic ties to the USSR-led bloc; the US bourgeoisie was able to exploit the debt crisis provoked by its collapse to force open the Indian economy, making western support conditional on the dismantling of all autarkic barriers. In the case of China, it had already benefitted from a rapprochement with the USA aimed at strengthening its imperialist position against the USSR, and from the process of economic ‘liberalisation’ begun by the Deng Xiaoping faction after Mao’s death, leaving it well placed to benefit from the capitalist counter-offensive, which depended on the shift of capital and jobs to parts of the world with low labour costs, and from the final collapse of the weaker imperialist bloc.
In summary, the phenomenon of globalisation from the 1990s was a product of both the capitalist counter-offensive against the working class and the American bourgeoisie’s offensive to ensure its global hegemony; the two were in effect sides of the same coin.
The trajectory of capitalist society
We set out to identify the key developments in decadent capitalism that enable us to coherently explain its trajectory from the start of the 1980s. We can summarise the cumulative effect of these as follows:
1. The capitalist counter-offensive tipped the balance of class forces significantly in the bourgeoisie’s favour.
The juncture of the reappearance of capitalism’s open crisis with a revival of class struggles in the mid-1960s had created more favourable conditions for the development of a revolutionary movement than at any time since 1917-21.
But despite the breadth of the wave of struggles from the mid-1960s, which continued to spread internationally during the 1970s; and despite clear tendencies towards the political deepening of this wave – not least the reappearance and growth of genuine revolutionary minorities – with hindsight we can see that the bourgeoisie was largely successful in preventing the working class from developing these struggles into an explicitly anti-capitalist movement.
The limits of this wave were revealed very clearly in the struggle that marked its watershed in 1980; despite a high level of self-organisation and nation-wide extension, the Polish mass strike was unable to develop politically beyond illusions in western-style democracy and trade unionism. This meant that, when the bourgeoise launched its ‘shock and awe’ campaign at the start of the 1980s, the whole working class had been effectively politically disarmed.
While the struggles in the 1980s showed enormous combativity, with some displaying a real capacity for self-organisation, politically they revealed the retreat of class consciousness, with a strengthening of illusions in democracy and trade unionism, accompanied by crises and a lack of growth among revolutionary minorities who now found themselves forced to swim against the rising tide of defeat.
In this way, the capitalist counter-offensive decisively changed the dynamic of the class struggle; it not only resulted in the most important defeat the working class had experienced since the second world war, but, more importantly, created significant longer-term difficulties for the working class. We can point for example to:
* the destruction of traditional working class communities following the defeat of key sectors like the miners, steel and car workers, with devastating social effects (crime, drug addiction, etc.);
* changes in the composition of the working class, with the growth of a formally self-employed low-paid “precariat”, not only in the peripheries of capitalism but also in its centres, and
* the creation of a ‘global reserve army of labour’, which enabled the bourgeoisie to use the threat of relocating jobs from the capitalist heartlands to cut wages, increasing workers’ sense of insecurity and powerlessness, as well as encouraging hostility to new proletarians in low wage economies like China and India;
* the ideological campaigns around the ‘death of communism’ after 1989, which dealt a further blow to class consciousness by reinforcing the message that, in Thatcher’s phrase, there was no alternative, and that further resistance to the victory of western-style capitalism and imperialism was futile.
All these developments not only undermined the ability of the working class to resist the attacks of capital but also struck a powerful blow against its whole sense of identity as a class, and its confidence and capacity to develop a perspective for the future. All this constituted a significant shift in the balance of class forces towards the bourgeoisie.
2. Globalisation created a breathing space for the whole capitalist system.
In general, the more the life of a mode of production in its decadent phase is prolonged, the more the continued growth of the productive forces strains against the now obsolete relations of production. The system is put under increasing pressure to remove anything not strictly necessary to ensure its survival; in previous class societies we can point to measures to free the slaves in the late Roman Empire and the serfs at the end of the Middle Ages. The final stages of a system’s decay can thus give the appearance of its most progressive development, as in the curbing of the power of the nobility and the partial liberties granted to the bourgeoisie by the monarchy in the last gasp of feudalism (see ICC, The Decadence of Capitalism).
One of capitalism’s central contradictions is that it tends towards the unlimited growth of the productive forces, which drives it to become a global system of production; but it is constrained by its organisation at the level of the nation state. At the level of the system as a whole, we can say that the phenomenon of globalisation represented the attempt to overcome this contradiction. While this is ultimately impossible, due to capitalism’s very nature as a system rooted in competition between individual capitals, globalisation unquestionably gave it a certain lease of life.
Confronted by a crisis rooted in overproduction, as we have seen the opening up of formerly semi-autarkic economies to global capital had the effect of creating vital new outlets for goods and speculative investments, as well as new sources of cheap labour and raw materials. In effect it doubled the size of the pool of disposable labour for global capital, creating what was in effect a ‘global reserve army of labour’ that enabled it to keep wages low in the longer term. The cumulative result was a temporary respite for the capitalist system.
3. Capitalism only reinforced its domination and obtained a breathing space at the price of accelerating its own decay.
At the economic level, capitalism was forced to resort to the unrestrained growth of debt, fundamentally due to its worsening crisis of overproduction. Starved of sufficient outlets, in a desperate search for short-term profit, capital had increasingly flowed into the financial sector, leading to a huge growth of fictitious capital and speculation, while at the same time more debt became necessary to maintain solvent demand and fund the growth of unproductive state spending.
This growth of debt and fictitious capital was vital to the success of globalisation, providing the means for capital to penetrate weaker economies to create new markets, exploit new sources of cheap labour and raw materials, and fund the necessary infrastructure. But this led to a series of speculative bubbles, while the breakdown of barriers to the flows of capital meant that the resulting financial spasms and crises spread more rapidly to affect the entire global economy. This culminated, as we know, in the financial crash of 2007-8 and the ensuing global recession; the most severe crisis of capitalism since 1929-32, with the USA at its epicentre, which effectively marked the end of the system’s breathing space.
While there is no set limit to the amount of debt it can sustain, the ever-greater weight of debt in the capitalist system must serve to undermine its foundations, further weakening the already weakened productive sector and eroding the means for any recovery, while creating the conditions for even greater crises and convulsions in the future.
At the ‘superstructural’ level, the capitalist counter-offensive deliberately destroyed the degree of social cohesion on which the bourgeoisie had depended to manage the post-World War II class struggle. While it had no choice, given the depth of the crisis, the US-led bourgeoisie was able to use this as a weapon in its ‘shock and awe’ campaign to disorient and demoralise the working class. But in so doing it opened a veritable ‘Pandora’s Box’ of destructive forces which could only undermine the foundations of the system as a whole.
At a political level, we can see this clearly in the decomposition of bourgeois democratic institutions and the mystifications surrounding them, together with a massive growth of corruption and gangsterism at the highest levels of the capitalist state, which only provokes a growing disgust with the entire bourgeois political system.
In reaction to globalisation, especially since the financial crash of 2007-8, we have also seen a growth of ‘anti-globalist’, ‘anti-establishment’ and anti-immigrant political ideologies, and the rise of left- and right-wing populist movements and parties.
We can say that populism bases itself on those factions of the bourgeoisie most impacted by the effects of ‘liberal shock therapy’ (especially in the former Stalinist regimes), the tearing open of financial and labour markets, and mass migration, etc., and is fuelled by the effects of these on sections of the working class. In this sense, it is undoubtedly a product of the working class’s defeat, and an active factor in the retreat of class consciousness and loss of class identity, which has enabled the bourgeoisie to divert working class anger into a search for scapegoats, or more simply into apathy, nihilism or despair,
But, while it serves to reinforce capitalist domination and helps revitalise democratic mystifications, in the longer-term populism's growth in the centres of the system expresses a growing inability of the bourgeoisie to control the economic, political and social situation, and the slide of capitalist society towards authoritarian rule, accompanied by violence and pogroms.
At a wider social level, we have already noted the devastating effects of the destruction of traditional working class communities as a direct result of the capitalist counter-offensive (unemployment, crime, drug addiction, etc.). [7] At the same time, the dismantling of social welfare provision effectively pushes the costs of the worsening crisis onto individual workers, leading among other things to an increase in deaths related to alcohol, drugs, suicide and violence, and epidemics of self-harm, depression and anxiety, etc. All these consequences of the capitalist counter-offensive, and the defeat it inflicted on the working class, in turn become an alibi for the increase of state surveillance and repression.
At the level of ideology, the destruction of social cohesion ha been expressed in a growth of the idea of 'every man for himself'. Decades of ‘shock therapy’ and mass unemployment have served to impose a neoliberal vision of the individual worker as an entrepreneur competing in the marketplace; a vision reinforced by new forms of consumption promoting illusions of individual liberation, identity and choice, while spreading lies and conspiracy theories that help create a climate of fear, irrationality and scapegoating.
'Every man for himself' is of course the essence of bourgeois ideology. It reinforces the domination of capital, undermining the capacity of the working class for solidarity and collective action, especially in a period of defeat, and sapping its strength and confidence. But in the longer term, the disintegration of the relationships which form the basis for social life can only undermine the foundations of capitalism itself, along with the bourgeoisie’s ability to control the economic, political and social situation.
At the level of inter-imperialist conflicts, this is a particularly complex area, but we can say briefly that the American offensive, by accelerating the decay of the post-World War II order, unleashed powerful centrifugal forces.
The post-1989 period has inevitably seen a loss of 'discipline' previously imposed on bloc members and the rise of the imperialist ambitions of second and third level powers, with a consequent growth of challenges to America's hegemony.
While the USA was successful in eliminating its weaker imperialist rival without the need for a direct military confrontation, its offensive had the unintended consequence of facilitating the rapid rise of a longer-term competitor and military rival, China.
At the same time, the inexorable worsening of the crisis, especially since 2007-9, is provoking the disintegration of the weakest national capitals, which attracts imperialist powers large and small to fight over what remains, and above all to prevent their rivals from gaining any strategic advantage.
These two tendencies – towards a major confrontation between the USA and China, and towards increasingly uncontrollable conflicts – form the two poles which determine the dynamic of inter-imperialist conflicts in the present period.
While the threat of a nuclear confrontation between the major imperialist powers has by no means disappeared, the worsening crisis makes the formation of stable alliances and blocs increasingly difficult. Whichever tendency wins out, the perspective is towards generalised imperialist warfare, in conditions of increasing instability and unpredictability.
Finally, we must note that globalisation represented a qualitative step in capitalism’s destruction of the biosphere. This is clear from CO2 emissions, which began to increase significantly from the beginning of the 20th century due to the growth of capitalist production and its extension across the world; rose very steeply in the 1950s due primarily to the post-war boom, and then rose again from the 1990s due to the economic growth of Asia, highlighting the fact that capitalism’s breathing space was only created by shifting production to areas heavily dependent on fossil fuels and transporting finished goods back to the markets of the USA and Europe (transport is almost totally dependent on oil) (Fig. 2).
Fig 2 Annual CO2 emissions by world region
A specific effect of globalisation has been to increase the threat of zoonotic, animal to human infectious diseases like coronavirus, SARS, Ebola and MERS, which is partly due to the greater level of economic connectivity that has resulted, but also to the frenzied overdevelopment of South and East Asia.
The qualitative worsening of capitalism’s destruction of the biosphere has shown itself in an increase in climate change-related disasters, especially in the last two decades, with more droughts, storms, floods and extreme heat, which represent a growing burden on the already weakened global economy, increasingly threatening food production, and fuelling migration, social unrest and imperialist conflicts.
Conclusions
While we have attempted to identify the links between the key developments in the evolution of capitalism and the class struggle from 1980, the ICC's position that capitalism entered into a new and final phase of decadence leads it to try to explain all phenomena since 1989 as products of 'decomposition', which makes this concept of questionable value as an analytical tool.
More seriously, we have seen that there is a more coherent explanation for the phenomenon of social decomposition identified by the ICC, which we can now see more clearly was rooted in the worsening of the capitalist crisis and class struggle, but more specifically it was a direct result of the capitalist counter-offensive from 1980 and the deliberate destruction of social cohesion as a weapon to disorient and demoralise the working class, while the qualitative worsening of social decomposition from the 1990s onwards can be clearly seen as a direct result of the defeat inflicted on the working class and the effects of the global restructuring of capitalism.
We must therefore conclude that the ICC's original concept of social decomposition is a partial and flawed insight into the trajectory of capitalist society from the 1980s.
We have referred to the fact that the ICC has since been able to criticise some of its weaknesses, and indeed we have openly made use of these self-criticisms in our own analysis. In particular it published a critical balance sheet of 40 years of its activities for its 21st Congress in 2015 (IR 156), which identified its persistent tendency towards an immediatist view of the class struggle, its underestimation of the bourgeoisie’s room for manoeuvre, and a catastrophist vision of the crisis. But despite this, it has been unable or unwilling to draw out the implications for its concept of decomposition or to subject this to a critical review (at least in public).
To this day the ICC avoids talking about a defeat of the working class by the bourgeoisie in the 1980s, continuing to argue that the ‘stagnation and retreat’ of the class struggle was due primarily to the effects of decomposition (Resolution on the balance of class forces, 2019). While it admits the existence of a capitalist counter-offensive, this is either restricted to Britain (Report on class struggle for the 25th ICC congress, 2023), or not mentioned at all (IR 171).
The ICC appears to believe that if it admitted the working class experienced a serious defeat at the hands of the bourgeoisie in the 1980s, then it would throw into question the whole perspective of a proletarian revolution; if so, it surely forgets the words of Rosa Luxemburg that “Revolution is the only form of “war” … in which the ultimate victory can be prepared only by a series of “defeats.”” (Order Reigns in Berlin, January 1919). But it would also throw into question the original justification for its concept of social decomposition put forward by Marc Chirik at the 8th Congress; for this reason alone it would be very difficult for the ICC to subject this concept to a critical reassessment.
For the same reasons the idea of a 'stalemate' remains a central plank in the ICC's concept of social decomposition. While, of course, it roots social decomposition in the aggravation of decadent capitalism’s contradictions and the worsening of its open crisis, the specific cause of this 'putrefaction' for the ICC is the ideological decomposition of the ruling class’s ‘values’, the origin of which is the existence of the stalemate between the classes. The ICC argues that because the bourgeoisie was unable to mobilise the proletariat for a third world war, it was therefore unable to offer capitalist society the slightest ‘perspective’ for the future, and in the absence of this, society could only ‘rot on its feet’.
But we need to be very clear what we mean by a 'perspective' here; in capitalism’s ascendancy, the bourgeoisie could offer society a perspective for the future fundamentally because its mode of production was progressive from the point of view of the the historic interests of humanity. But what 'perspective' for the future can the bourgeoisie offer humanity in its epoch of decadence, especially after two world wars and the barbarism of Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Dresden? By the ICC’s own admission (Thesis 5) what it is calling a ‘perspective’ is in fact the ideological mobilisation of the population behind the nation state, especially in a period of defeat for the working class.
The fact is, since the collapse of the Stalinist bloc, we have precisely seen a growth of nationalist ideologies, especially linked to notions of ethnic and religious identity, along with renewed efforts by factions of the bourgeoisie to mobilise populations behind the nation state, eg. Putin's Russia, Erdogan's Turkey, Modi's India. We must conclude that the ICC’s argument about the bourgeoisie’s ‘lack of perspective’ since 1989 is less an accurate description of reality than an attempt to make its concept of social decomposition fit with its idea of a stalemate between the classes.
The ICC's idea of a ‘stalemate’ between the classes must also therefore be rejected as misleading. We have seen, with the benefit of hindsight, that, deprived of the possibility of mobilising the working class for a world war, and despite its system being sunk in a very long-drawn out economic crisis, the bourgeoisie still held the initiative, and had the necessary room for manoeuvre, through its use of state capitalist measures at a bloc-wide level, to inflict a serious defeat on the working class which has had long-term consequences for its consciousness and identity, and to restructure capitalist production and consumption on a global scale to provide its system with a breathing space which lasted almost as long as the post-war boom.[8]
But perhaps we are in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees here?
Perhaps the ICC’s concept of social decomposition has a deeper meaning that is not contradicted by the actual balance of class forces or certain phenomena of growth in what is supposed to be the final phase of capitalism’s decadence?
The Communist Manifesto talks of the class struggle ending either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society or “the common ruin of the contending classes”[9] and the ICC has cited this in support of its concept of a stalemate (IR 119). Unfortunately Marx and Engels never defined the exact meaning of this phrase or cited any examples of it from previous class societies. We can agree with the ICC that it is a warning the victory of the proletariat is not inevitable. We can also agree time is not on the side of the proletariat; this is starkly clear if we look at the acceleration of capitalism’s destruction of the biosphere: by the end of the 21st century catastrophic climate change could potentially lead to the collapse of human society and even possibly mass extinction [10] – surely the very definition of “the common ruin of the contending classes” (see Fig. 2).
The entry of capitalism into its decadence poses the historic alternative: "either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism". Decadent capitalism's trajectory can only be a regression into barbarism; in the absence of a proletarian revolution no other outcome is possible. Unlike previous class societies, within capitalism no new relations of production can develop; the revolutionary transformation of society is only possible through the violent overthrow of bourgeois class rule by the exploited class and the conscious eradication of capitalist relations of production.
But while the entry of capitalism into decadence is necessary for the proletariat to be able overthrow the system, its prolongation is not in any way a necessary stage the proletariat must go through to emancipate itself. On the contrary, despite the continued growth of the productive forces in capitalism’s decadence, including the numerical growth of the proletariat and the extension of capitalist social relations to all parts of the world, the uniquely dynamic and destructive nature of this mode of production means that, the longer it is allowed to survive, the more it must put in jeopardy the material conditions for a successful proletarian revolution, until eventually it definitively destroys the material basis for a communist society.
For revolutionaries in the first half of the 20th century, capitalism’s “regression into barbarism” above all meant world war; Rosa Luxemburg saw 1914 as a historic turning point precisely because, by decimating the most advanced forces of the proletariat, capitalism now threatened to destroy the very force bearing the future of humanity within itself. She also warned that another world war could definitively destroy the conditions for socialism (Junius Pamphlet). Had she lived, she would surely not have imagined that capitalism’s regression into barbarism could continue for another 100 years. But the defeat of the 1917-23 revolutionary wave condemned humanity to suffer the prolongation of capitalism’s death agony.
From our perspective in the first quarter of the 21st century, we can see clearly that, while the threat of a nuclear confrontation between the major imperialist powers has by no means disappeared, world war is only one expression of capitalism’s regression into barbarism, which is the cumulative effect of:
* the aggravation of its contradictions and social antagonisms from its birth;
* the qualitative worsening of all these contradictions over the last 100 years due to the onset of its decadent phase;
* over 50 years of open crisis, and
* the system’s last effort to push against the limits of its obsolete social relations.
In the context of all the above, we can see the 2007-9 global crisis as the start of a new phase, in which all of these factors in capitalism’s decomposition interact upon each other, creating an effect that is greater than the sum of the parts, due to wars, pandemics, economic crises and the effects of catastrophic climate change, etc. We can only expect more of these ‘tipping points’, together with ‘feedback loops’, in which the consequences of one contradiction or area of decay feed into others and cause new effects, in a trajectory that is always a further regression into barbarism.
In summary:
1. The decomposition of capitalism begins with the onset of its decadence, as announced by the Third International in 1919.
2. The trajectory of capitalism in its decadent phase can only be a regression into barbarism; in the absence of a proletarian revolution, the only possible outcome is “the common ruin of the contending classes” and potentially the destruction of humanity.
3. The longer that capitalism’s decomposition continues, the more it threatens to destroy the conditions for communism.
What does this mean for the class struggle? A full consideration of this question is beyond the scope of the text and we will restrict ourselves to some key points directly related to the ICC’s concept of decomposition.
As we have already noted, according to the ICC since 1989 the balance of power between the classes is no longer the determining factor in “the general dynamics of capitalist society”. This is because “Whatever the balance of power, world war is no longer on the agenda, but capitalism will continue to sink into decay, since social decomposition tends to spiral out of the control of the contending classes” (IR 164).
First, we must point out that capitalism has been sinking into decay since the onset of its decadence, not just 1989.
Second, while the bourgeoisie is still able to use state capitalist measures to ameliorate the worst effects of this decay, fundamentally it has always been outside of its control.
Third, the working class cannot prevent capitalism’s decomposition, just as it cannot prevent its economic crises.
This does not mean the class struggle has no effect on the speed of capitalism’s decomposition or the way in which it expresses itself: post-May ’68, the balance of power between the classes determined that a new world war was not possible, but capitalism’s decay still continued to worsen at all levels; in fact, by blocking the road to a new world war, the class struggle helped to worsen the crisis and accelerate the decomposition of post-World War II capitalist society.
Even if we accept that the balance of class forces can block the road to a world war, we have seen that world wars are only one expression of capitalism’s decomposition. It follows that, while we can see the difficulty or even impossibility of the bourgeoisie forming stable military blocs and mobilising the working class to fight a new world war, this does not fundamentally change “the general dynamics of capitalist society”.
The balance of power between the classes remains the determining factor in capitalist society, fundamentally because the proletariat still bears the future of humanity within itself, in fact this is even more true today; it is the role and nature of the proletariat as a class of exploited, associated labour, and its resistance to the attacks of capital, that represents the only obstacle to the eventual destruction of humanity.
But the ICC’s change of position does serve to highlight some serious issues.
1. The acceleration and qualitative worsening of capitalism’s decay is itself becoming a determining factor in the situation today; this is very clear in the case of capitalism’s destruction of the biosphere, which is definitely spiralling out of the control of the contending classes; catastrophic climate change is now a key factor in capitalism’s decomposition and – short of seizing power on a global scale and directing all available human and technological resources – there is little or nothing the working class can do to prevent it worsening.
2. There is a clear and growing tendency for the bourgeoisie to lose control of the economic, political and social situation, which we can see in the growth of populism, the election (and possible re-election) of Trump, Brexit, etc.; all developments which fundamentally do not reflect the real long-term interests of the bourgeoisie.
3. Capitalism’s decomposition means that it could regress into barbarism without the proletariat experiencing a decisive defeat; this could come from a generalised imperialist war, or more likely an accumulation of wars, pandemics, economic crises and the effects of catastrophic climate change, which renders it incapable of responding.
Today the historic alternative is the same as 100 years ago: “either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism”. The perspective of a proletarian revolution remains open. But if we are to be consistent with our understanding that capitalism’s decomposition begins with the onset of its decadence, and that the prolongation of its death agony can only undermine the conditions for a successful proletarian revolution, then we must recognise that this perspective is 'closing'; theoretically there must be a point at which capitalism's decomposition definitely destroys the material conditions for communism; although this point will probably only be recognisable with hindsight. Time, as the ICC says, is not on the proletariat’s side.
The ICC's concept is a flawed and overly schematic view of decadent capitalism's decomposition. In the past, any criticisms of this concept have tended to be treated as a questioning of capitalism's decadence; in fact as we have shown, a critique of this concept is necessary if we are to coherently explain the trajectory of decadent capitalism.
On the other hand, accusations that the ICC's concept is an abandonment of Marxism appear a bit wide of the mark. The hyperbole expressed in exchanges between groups of the Communist Left on this question, including the ICC, indicates not only a level of mutual incomprehension but also an inability or unwillingness to engage in a serious debate.
But we are where we are. It is necessary to discuss this today because if we don't understand exactly what has happened to capitalism and the class struggle in the last 40 years , then it is very difficult to understand the conditions facing the working class or the perspectives for the revival of class struggle. This is why this text has been written.
Mark Hayes
February 2024
Notes
[1] The “Theses on decomposition” were first published in International Review no. 62, 1990. They were reprinted in IR 107, 2001, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which is the online version quoted here.
[2] As one ICC comrade with divergent views wryly commented recently, the ICC majority “has apparently found a third source of the development of the productive forces: decomposition!”.
[3] As the ICC itself has recognised: “In the balance of forces between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, it is always the ruling class that is on the offensive, except in a revolutionary situation.” (IR 164 my emphasis).
[4] See for example Capital, vol. 1, Chapters 13, 25, Penguin, 1976, pp.449, 792.
[5] The Tory faction around Thatcher came to power in 1979 with an explicit strategy to break up and privatise unprofitable state-owned industries and confront the political threat from the working class, successfully exerting its political influence on the US bourgeoisie to adopt similar ‘monetarist’ policies (see The 'Ridley Plan').
[6] L Perry & P Wilson, Trends in Work Stoppages: A Global Perspective (ILO, 2004). This shows the number of days not worked due to work stoppages per thousand members of the labour force. Global index # 1 = data for a collection of 38 countries; Global index # 2 = excluding May-June “68 France. Due to lack of data, China, the Russian Federation, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia are excluded. This is obviously a crude measure of the class struggle but it arguably shows the broad historical trend.
[7] “In the Barnsley area in Yorkshire after the closure of the mines, it was reported that the use of heroin rose by 300 percent between 1992 and 1995. Grimethorpe, once a prosperous coal mining village, was, in 1996, according to one journalist, called the heroin capital of south Yorkshire.” (Audrey Farrell, ‘Addicted to profit – capitalism and drugs’, International Socialism, December 1997).
[8] Were other groups in the Communist Left more successful in grasping the significance of the capitalist counter-offensive? The Communist Workers’ Organisation and the Internationalist Communist Party (PCInt) were able to recognise key elements of capitalist restructuring at the time (microelectronics, dismantling of large concentrations of workers, growth of financialisation, etc) and the consequent recomposition of the working class, identifying this as a “war on the proletariat”; but they both saw this in purely economic terms as a means to compensate for the fall in the rate of profit, failing to grasp the political dimension of the counter-offensive in defeating the threat from the working class and reinforcing the domination of capital (see for example Globalisation and Imperialism) and On Class Composition and Recomposition in the Globalisation of Capital Part I).
[9] “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
[10] See for example L Kemp et al, Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119, no. 34, August 2022.