Introduction
Although I have already referred to it (see the text on this website), I realised I hadn’t fully grasped all the aspects of the ICC’s analysis of capitalist decomposition, which is key to understanding the resolutions of the ICC’s 23rd Congress. The aim of this text is first to try to clarify as clearly and simply as possible what decomposition is and how I think it fits into a Marxist framework, in passing answering the charge by groups such as the CWO that it is ‘unmarxist’.
Second, and more importantly, I want to try to draw out what I see as the main implications of this concept for an understanding of the balance of class forces and the current difficulties experienced by the proletariat, to see if this helps to explain the confusions I identified in the positions adopted by the 23rd Congress.
(A quick note on sources: the first article on decomposition was published in International Review no. 57, 1989, followed by the ‘Theses on Decomposition’ in IR 62, 1990, republished in IR 107, 2001, with a further article on the Marxist roots of the concept appearing in IR 117, 2004. Unless stated, all quotes are from the ‘Theses’ in IR 62).
Decomposition is the decay of the superstructure of capitalist society
At its simplest, decomposition is a term used by the ICC to describe the decay of the superstructure of capitalist society; “the dislocation of the social body, the rot of its political, economic, and ideological structures, etc.”. Even before the collapse of the Russian bloc at the end of the 1980s the ICC had identified the acceleration of ‘natural' catastrophes and accidents, the increase in gangsterism, terrorism, drug-taking and drug smuggling, etc., as “so many signs of the generalized gangrene that is eating away at the capitalist body politic all over the world” (IR 57).
If all modes of production inevitably enter a phase of decay then we must expect this to affect all aspects of the superstructure of society as well as its economic base. If Marx and Engels did not write extensively about the superstructural decay of previous class societies, this is because they were primarily interested in identifying the factors that led to the successful rise of capitalism from within decadent feudal society, but with this aim they certainly wrote about the effects of the decay of feudalism, eg. the stagnation of the nobility (see Engels, The Peasant Wars in Germany, quoted in IR 118).
So, so far there don’t seem to be grounds for dismissing the basic concept of decomposition as ‘unmarxist’. In fact rejecting it risks putting into question the whole Marxist concept of decadence.
Decomposition is a specific product of the decay of capitalist society
But if there are similarities between the decay of capitalist society and previous class societies, there are also crucial differences. Based on the ICC’s description we can simplify these as:
- its breadth: capitalism is the first society in history to exist on a world scale and to subject the whole of human society to its laws;
- its depth: the tendency for greater state control in periods of decadence reaches its end result in capitalism with the almost total absorption of civil society;
- its rate: the dynamism of the capitalist mode of production only accelerates the development of all its destructive tendencies in its phase of decay;
- the threat it poses: for all the above reasons the tendency towards war in decadent capitalism has resulted in unprecedented destruction and now threatens the future of humanity;
- and, finally, its lack of attenuation: unlike previous class societies the productive relations of the new mode of production cannot arise within the old society meaning that capitalist decay is not attenuated by the rise of new productive relations.
It is this lack of attenuation that determines the inevitability that the effects of decay will accumulate the longer that the decadent social system survives. Capitalism is the first class society where the new revolutionary class is also an exploited class that can only develop the productive relations of the new communist society after first overthrowing the bourgeoisie and destroying capitalist relations of production. In the absence of a successful proletarian revolution the contradictions of the decadent system can only accumulate, leading to the worsening of the effects on the superstructure of capitalist society.
The entry of capitalism into its final phase of decomposition is the result of a qualitative change in its decay
For the ICC these specificities of capitalist decay compared to previous class societies are not simply a matter of quantity. Although all the elements of decomposition can be found in capitalism since its entry into its decadent epoch, by the 1980s the process of the decay of this historically obsolete mode of production had reached such a breadth, depth and rate that it took on “a new and unique quality”, resulting in capitalism's entry into a “new and final phase of its history: the phase where decomposition becomes a decisive, if not the decisive factor in social evolution.”
This qualitative change was precipitated above all by the economic collapse of the USSR and the implosion of its bloc, along with the death of Stalinism and the subsequent disintegration of the rival US bloc – events which constituted “the most important historical turning point since World War II and the historic resurgence of proletarian combat at the end of the 60's” (IR 60). In the ICC’s view this signified the failure of the bourgeoisie to impose its own ‘solution’ to the crisis, due to its inability to mobilise the working class for a new world war.
At the same time these historic events were not the direct result of the action of the proletariat, which despite the upsurge of struggles after May ’68 had not been able to assert its own perspective for the future of humanity:
“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 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 historic perspective, can only lead to a situation of generalized decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on its feet.”
The process of capitalist decay is irreversible
Here we come to the crux of the ICC’s analysis. Driven forward by its dynamic to constantly expand, and with no possibility of new productive relations arising to attenuate it, in the absence of an intervention by the proletariat the process of the decay of capitalist society is irreversible. More insidiously, decomposition actively worsens the difficulties of the proletariat, contaminating its consciousness and eroding its confidence and sense of itself as a class.
If this process continues long enough it will destroy the material conditions for a communist society. Instead of leading to the revolutionary transformation of society, the decadence of capitalism instead will result in “the common ruin of the contending classes” (Marx). Unable to advance to socialism, human society will face a descent into full-scale barbarism, whether it is through a new world war or a proliferation of local wars, possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons, or other effects of decomposition, environmental catastrophe, social collapse, etc.
Clearly, time is no longer on the side of the proletariat. If the entry of capitalism into the phase of decomposition was precipitated by a ‘stalemate’ between the classes, this cannot be a static state of affairs. The longer it takes to overthrow capitalism, the greater the danger to the proletariat from the effects of decomposition.
Not only that, but the stakes could not be higher. It is no longer sufficient for the proletariat to resist the effects of the economic crisis:
“only the communist revolution can put an end to the threat of decomposition (…) Only in the revolutionary period, when the proletariat is on the offensive, when it has directly and openly taken up arms for its own historic perspective, will it be able to use certain effects of decomposition, in particular of bourgeois ideology and of the forces of capitalist power, for leverage, and turn them against capital.” (original emphasis).
But if the communist revolution is a historic necessity it is not an inevitability. As a revolutionary class that is also an exploited class in society, the proletariat can oppose capitalism only with its organisation and its consciousness. A precondition for the proletariat's victory is its ability to become aware of its nature, its struggle's ends and means and the lessons of its defeats: “And this ability of the proletariat to gain in awareness does not spring automatically from the material conditions it is confronted with, just as it is nowhere written that it will come to consciousness before capitalism plunges society into barbarism or destruction” (‘Why the proletariat has not yet overthrown capitalism, Part 1’, IR 103)
What is the implication of decomposition for the evolution of capitalist society?
So far we’ve seen how the ICC’s concept of decomposition fits into a Marxist framework. I think this shows that, while we can disagree with aspects of the ICC’s analysis of historical events, to dismiss the whole concept of decomposition as ‘unmarxist’ dismisses the effects of capitalist decay on the superstructure of society, throwing into question the basic position of Marxism on the inevitable decay of modes of production.
The main aim of this text was to draw out the main implications of the ICC’s concept of decomposition for an understanding of the balance of class forces, to see if this helps to explain the confusions identified in the positions adopted by the 23rd Congress (see text on this website).
The ICC has now concluded that the balance of power between the classes “is no longer the determining factor in the general dynamics of capitalist society” (‘Resolution on the International Situation’). Why? Because today, due to decomposition, “Whatever the balance of forces, world war is no longer on the agenda, but capitalism will continue to sink into decay”.
In the ICC’s schema of the ‘historic course’, war and revolution are mutually exclusive opposites and there can therefore only be a course towards one or the other. Since the entry of decadent capitalism into its final phase of decomposition was precipitated by the inability of the bourgeoisie to mobilise the working class for a new world war, and since decomposition, and the growing loss of control by the bourgeoisie over its political apparatus, makes the formation of two new imperialist blocs increasingly unlikely, following the logic of its schema the ICC now concludes (after nearly 30 years of decomposition) that it is no longer valid to talk about a ‘historic course’:
“In the paradigm that defines the current situation (until two new imperialist blocs are reconstituted, which may never happen), it is quite possible that the proletariat will suffer a defeat so deep that it will definitively prevent it from recovering, but it is also possible that the proletariat it will suffer a deep defeat without this having a decisive consequence for the general evolution of society. This is why the notion of "historical course" is no longer able to define the situation of the current world and the balance of forces between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.”
But what does the analysis of decomposition tell us about this question?
It tells us that the evolution of capitalist society today is towards the destruction of the material conditions for communism.
It tells us that, in the terms of the ICC’s own schema, the ‘course of history’ today is towards the mutual ruin of the contending classes, ie. towards barbarism.
This course however is not fixed or inevitable. It can still change as a result of the action of the proletariat. The balance of class forces therefore very much remains the determining factor in the general dynamics of capitalist society because it is only the balance of class forces that contains the potential for an alternative to the evolution of capitalist society towards barbarism.
Despite the absence of open class struggle, it is the presence of the proletariat in capitalist society that determines the communist revolution is still a possibility, even if it appears today very much as a ‘sleeping giant’, which means that today more than ever it is necessary to see that an essential characteristic of the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat is its capacity for subterranean maturation, that is, the ability to develop outside periods of open struggle and even in periods of major defeat.
But by the ICC’s own admission, time is not on our side. There is a theoretical point in the process of decomposition when it will become impossible for the proletariat to respond. In the absence of open class struggle this point is extremely difficult to identify. It is even possible we have already passed it and we may only know when it is definitively too late.
The determining role of the balance of class forces is is also why, if the proletariat suffers a deep defeat, this must inevitably have a decisive consequence for the “general evolution of society” because it cannot fail to make it even more difficult for the proletariat to respond in time, thus hastening the acceleration towards barbarism.
Conclusion
Having clarified the ICC’s analysis of capitalist decomposition, we have drawn what appear to be the only logical conclusions of this analysis for the general evolution of capitalist society today and for the balance of power between the classes.
But it appears from its latest congress that the ICC has not been able to do the same. Instead, the Resolution on the International Situation throws into question the determining role of the balance class forces in capitalist society today and downplays the inevitable consequences of a deep defeat for the proletariat for the possibility of communism.
The real question to be answered is why?
MH
25th August 2019