On Overproduction
(WDIE reply to reader’s query, continued from issues No.14, 18 and 24, January 27, and February 2 and 10)
Both Marxist-Leninist theory, the summation of the objective
developments, and the practical operation of monopoly capitalism, show that the
present system in which the monopolies operate cannot develop without crisis,
without chaos, without the destruction of the productive forces. It is a system
which is incapable of uninterrupted extended reproduction. By the very
mechanism of capitalist production, the system produces the rich at the one
pole and the growing number of poor and exploited on the other, those to whom
the monopolies and the governments which represent them have no responsibility.
To return to our reader’s query, it is the case that
the management should be given the grand order of the boot. But this is not so
much because they are out of touch and inept, and it is not really the managers
of the factories as such that are the issue. It is the finance capitalists
themselves, those that make the decisions about "rationalisation
processes" and "globalisation plans", that should be done away
with, because they have become a superfluous class. The decisions they make in
accordance with the dictates of a system which is demanding that in order to be
competitive on the global scale they must strive for domination of markets in
order to make the maximum capitalist profit – these decisions are causing
so much havoc for the people, because the workers, the products they make,
everything is made incidental to the realisation of this maximum capitalist
profit. So it could be said that not only are they a superfluous class –
because they themselves are incidental to the socialised process of production
– but they are a class which stands opposed to the very well being of the
needs of the society as a whole, as well as to the needs and claims of the
individuals and collectives within the society.
This state of affairs positively demands certain
conclusions. The first is that these objective processes which, as we have
explained, have worked themselves out from the very genesis of capitalist
society, and which long ago reached a stage of giving rise to a society which
objectively is ripe for revolutionary transformation, are pointing to the need,
the demand, for a new society. Society has been socialised to the maximum, yet
the relations of production are totally anachronistic. The issue is not just
about the jobs that are being cut, the sackings which are taking place, but
that the whole motive and direction of the economy is centred around the
interests of the monopolies and not the people’s well-being. In other
words, the situation is demanding that it is the people themselves that take
the decisions on the direction of the economy, and that the working class put
the assets of production under their control so that they be in a position to
do so.
In a situation of globalisation and mega-mergers, the
situation described by Lenin that the capitalists seek maximum profits by
exacting tribute from every cell of society has been taken to its extreme, in
that the monopolies are demanding an integrated global economy where the full
force of the anarchy and chaos caused by their cut-throat competition is
unleashed and where the governments of each state are to give every facility,
including hand-outs, loan payments, putting public assets under the
monopolists’ control, to these various sections of the financial
oligarchy.
Furthermore, the role of the unions under these conditions
is being defined by governments as to facilitate this process, to win the
workers over to social partnership with their particular monopoly (for where is
the section of production that is not integrated with the operation of one
monopoly or another?), not to mention that many large unions have become
businesses in their own rights. The problem, as the reader touches on, is that
within the workers’ movement, there are apologists for this process, who
say that the class struggle can be conciliated, that at best some reforms are
called for, the system tinkered with, that the issue is that there are some bad
employers along with the good and that workers should not demand that their
rights are recognised and should not get to grips with what is happening right
under their noses but should remain on the margins of society.
(to be continued)
