Tag: marxism

Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have embarked on a National Fighting Oligarchy Tour.

According to the mainstream press, even though this is not an election year, they have managed to draw massive crowds. As those journalists phrase it, ’’The rally is part of a multi state push, highlighting growing concerns over income inequality, political corruption, and what the two call the erosion of democracy, by billionaire influence….they are challenging billionaires, corporations, and what they call a creeping threat to American democracy. …Sanders is accusing both Trump and Musk of manipulating political systems to favour the wealthy…AOC echoed the alarm, calling on supporters to stand united, in the fight against Oligarchy, and for inclusive democracy…a growing wave of progressive support…Sanders says it is not just a political movement, it is a moral one, and it is trying to confront what he calls the Oligarchy reality …supporters say they are drawn to the movement due to the populist message, and to what they see as an urgent call to restore power to working people …Sanders and AOC are making one thing clear, the battle lines are drawn, and they believe the power still belongs to the people.’’

Remarkably enough, this report, by journalists who work for the mainstream press, is quite accurate. Yet it remains silent on one key point: Who is funding this National Tour?

It is very likely that the Democratic Party is footing the bill. 

The reason I say this is because the monopoly capitalists, the imperialists, are not completely stupid. No doubt, they see that the Hands Off Movement has the potential to become ‘’another Occupy Movement’’! Perhaps stronger! In this, the imperialists are absolutely correct! This calls for a little explanation, one which is contained in the Communist Manifesto, CM.

As previously mentioned, in other articles, it was the industrial revolution that gave birth to two new classes. The burghers secured possession of all factories, mills, mines, railroads, banks and shipping lines, as well as anything else of any considerable value, and in the process, became transformed into capitalists, or bourgeois. At the same time, they hired people to run their machines, handle their money, and paid them by the hour. In this way, a second class was created, a working class, technically referred to as the proletariat. 

The Communist Manifesto documents the process the working class has gone through, as all members of that class progress, developing ever more class consciousness. For the purposes of this article, our concern is with the development of the working class. I have placed paragraphs from the Manifesto in quotes, with my statements following them. Now to the matter:

CM: ’’In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., (that is) capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.’’

The title bourgeoisie is a reference to the ‘’upper crust’’ of the bourgeois, the capitalists. In modern terms, that means the monopoly capitalists, the multi billionaires, the imperialists, are the bourgeoisie. As the bourgeoisie is ‘’highly developed’’, and as the ‘’modern working class’’ develops ‘’in the same proportion’’, it follows that the modern working class is also ‘’highly developed’’. 

That is most emphatically true. The modern working class is highly cultured. Most workers are literate, and have access to a great many digital devices. What is more, they know how to use them! They access the internet on a regular basis. Bear in mind that the essential works of Marx and Lenin are now available on the internet!  

Now to proceed with the effect that capitalism has, as people are transformed into workers, proletarians.

CM: ’’Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.’’

Before the industrial revolution, before capitalism was created, a great many people worked in various trades. They took great pride in their work. Yet they could not compete with mechanized production, and were ruined. Of necessity, they took jobs in the factories, as workers. This transformed those people.

CM: ’’Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.’’

This is another way of saying that these people, newly created workers, proletarians, are promptly degraded. It does not stop there.

CM: ’’The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.’’

The use of hydraulics has proven to be a great boon for the capitalists, as no great strength is required to pull levers. If a man can pull levers, so too, can a woman. Or a child, for that matter. And the capitalists can pay them less!

CM: ’’No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.’’

The capitalists make sure that all workers are completely ‘’fleeced’’ If nothing else, they are certainly thorough!

CM: ’’The lower strata of the middle class – the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants – all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.’’

We still have a few -a very few!- members of the lower middle class, including family farmers, but they are exceptional. As well, even the upper strata of the middle class is being ruined, sinking into the proletariat. Too Small To Succeed!

CM: ’’The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.’’

Now we get to the heart of the matter, the development of the proletariat, as a class. It begins with individuals struggling with capitalists, and quickly learning that they have no chance. Then they come to realize that there is ‘’strength in numbers’’. 

CM: ’’At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.’’

At first, it is the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, who serve to ‘’unite’’ the proletariat! For their own purposes, of course! But still united!

CM: ’’But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.’’

Now we get to the point where the workers gets to experience the first vague glimmering of themselves, as a class, with their own class interests. This does not mean that they are conscious of themselves as a class, but it is a step in that direction.

CM: ’’Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.’’

At this point, the proletariat is really making progress. The ‘’improved means of communication’’, which first took the form of railroads, telegraphs and telephones, have now expanded to include the internet. A true blessing! Thank you capitalists!

CM: ’’This organization of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried.’’

It is not just the workers who are responsible for becoming organized, ‘’into a class, and consequently into a political party’’. The bourgeoisie also assist in this noble goal! And the workers, in turn, ‘’upset this’’, due to ‘’competition between the workers themselves’’. Yet each working class movement rises up again, ‘’stronger, firmer, mightier’’. The Occupy Movement died down, but the Hands Off Movement is rising up! It will no doubt become ‘’stronger, firmer, mightier’’!

CM: ’’Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.’’

To think that the bourgeoisie serves to train the proletariat! Strictly for their own purposes, of course, but train nonetheless. 

In modern terms, the bourgeoisie may be divided over the presidency of Trump. They placed him in power, in order to abolish the democratic republic, and establish the rule of the Oligarchy. Yet he has his own agenda. Trump is determined to restore competitive capitalism, to turn back the American economy to that of one hundred years ago, through the use of tariffs, and in the process, create another Great Depression.

That is not the reason he was placed in the White House! Now the bourgeoisie is no doubt divided, with a section determined to remove him from office, before he does more damage.

With that in mind, the bourgeoisie may appeal to the proletariat for help! A true ‘’political education’’. That is so sweet! The least we can do is express our gratitude, by using that training against them!

CM: ’’Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.’’

That is especially true today, as there are only five businesses that are ‘’Too Big To Fail’’. It follows, that all the others are ‘’Too Small To Succeed’’! Numerous members of the upper middle class are being ruined, forced into the ranks of the proletariat. They bring with them, their awareness of class conflict, of ‘’enlightenment and progress’’. 

CM: ’’Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.’’

The preceding paragraph accurately describes our current situation.   The ruling class is indeed in the ‘’process of dissolution’’. They are determined to abolish the existing democratic republic, and establish the rule of an Oligarchy. That is alleged to have cost Elon Musk alone, two hundred seventy million dollars! The cost of buying the presidency! He thought that Trump was ‘’in his pocket’’! Instead, the fool is going rogue!

Now the bourgeoisie must feel like the wizard who summoned a demon from the nether regions, and then lost control of him!

As yet, there is little sign of any portion of the bourgeoisie coming over to the proletariat, but no doubt, a few of the ideologists will do just that, and soon.  

CM: ’’Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.’’

We are now at the point where the ‘’proletariat alone’’ is not only the ‘’really revolutionary class’’, but is is also the only class! Only the remnants of other classes are in existence!

CM: ’’The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.’’

It is correct to expect a certain number of middle class bourgeois elements to join the proletariat. For their own benefit, mind you. In turn, they will expect to be rewarded, after the revolution, with professional jobs, such as in science or business administration, for example. This is completely reasonable, as such skills will be in demand. They can expect to be well paid, and they will also be expected to train advanced workers in their area of expertise.

CM: ’’The dangerous class, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.’’

If the revolution is broad and deep enough, even the lumpen proletariat, the ‘’social scum’’ may be ‘’swept into the movement’’. Yet this is unlikely, and we must be prepared to deal with them, and rather harshly, for that matter.

CM: ’’In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.’’

All workers, all over the world, are ‘’subjected to capital’’. All have a common enemy. To an ever increasing degree, they are becoming aware of this. Truly, the slogan of Marx is correct, ‘’Workers of the World, Unite!’’

CM: ’’All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.’’

Private property! If there is one thing the capitalists cherish, it is private property! More accurately, they practically worship private property! The very thing the proletariat is destined to destroy!

CM: ’’All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.’’

Under capitalism, all goods and services are produced, for the benefit of the tiny minority of monopoly capitalists, the bourgeoisie. The proletariat is destined to overthrow the bourgeoisie, smash the existing state apparatus, and establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and produce for the benefit of the vast majority. 

CM: ’’Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.’’

The American proletariat must first overthrow their own ruling class of monopoly capitalists, and then unite with workers of other countries, who have also overthrown their bourgeoisie. This is precisely that which gave birth to the Soviet Union.

CM: ’’In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.’’

This ‘’veiled civil war’’ is nothing other than the class struggle, of the working class, with the capitalist class. Very soon, it is about to explode into ‘’open revolution’’.

CM: ’’Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.’’

The final word: ‘’Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie’’ They must be overthrown, and then crushed, under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

CM: ’’The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.’’

Monopoly capitalism has succeeded in bringing together countless workers. Competition between the workers is at a minimum. The class struggle, between workers and capitalists, is now sharp and clear.

That previous, rather lengthy exposition, has a point. I went into it, in considerable detail, because it is so important. The Communist Manifesto foretold, in general terms, that which is taking place now.

Marx and Engels really knew what they were talking about! As the capitalists are well aware!

There are two kinds of people who closely study the essential works of Marx and Lenin. Social Scientists, Communists, and monopoly capitalists!

It is very likely that they have come to the same conclusions, as have I. They too, are of the opinion that the Hands Off Movement, has the potential to become even more powerful than the Occupy Movement. A threat to their very existence!

In order to forestall this threat, they have decided to send two highly respected politicians, Sanders and AOC. Their duty is to steer this popular uprising, in the proper direction, onto some harmless path of paltry reforms. Harmless to the capitalists!

As both are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, this makes perfect sense. After all, the political platform, of the DSA, contains a lengthy list of demands for paltry reforms. The complete list of demands could fill a book! 

It is doubtful that either Sanders or AOC, are aware that they are being used in this manner. Which in no way changes the fact that they are encouraging protesters, to rely on the Democratic Party, the Party of the ‘’little guy’’, to represent them. The same Party which is in the service of the bourgeoisie!

Now it is the duty of Leftist people, especially Communists, to persuade the protesters to study the essential works of Marx and Lenin. It is necessary to raise their level of awareness to that of Scientific Socialists, Communists. Paltry reforms are not sufficient. Trump is not the problem. The problem is one of monopoly capitalism, imperialism. The imperialists must be overthrown and crushed, under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

No doubt, at some point, certain intellectual members of the bourgeois, will come to their senses, see the ‘’writing on the wall’’, and join in the revolutionary movement. At the same time, they will assist in raising the level of awareness of the working class. 

Yet as those essential works are readily available, on the internet, there is no need to wait. Further, as Lenin stated, in the absence of a true Communist Party, internationalist workers will come together. As that is the case, they can assist each other, in making sense of those Essential Works. The creation of a true Communist Party follows naturally, after that.

Gerald McIsaac

On the weekend of April 5-6, there were over 1200 demonstrations, in all fifty states of the Union. Without doubt, there were hundreds of thousands of people, taking part in those protests. It was the biggest turn out, since the Women’s March of 2017. This is being referred to as the ‘’Hands Off Movement’’. 

It is clear that the mass movement of the working class, against Donald Trump and his completely reactionary policies, is daily growing stronger. There are numerous videos, on the internet, which document this. 

Yet there is one video, which is most distinctive. It is on the Chris Hedges Report, titled ‘’The Economics of a Dying Empire’’.

According to the internet, Chris Hedges is a self described Socialist and Anarchist. He is also a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist, and as such, is highly respected. 

He is certainly not a Scientific Socialist, a Communist, as all Communists know that Anarchism and Socialism are mutually exclusive. A person can be one, or the other, but not both.

On this particular Report, Chris Hedges conducted an interview with a distinguished Professor of Economics, Richard Wolff.

Before beginning the interview, Hedges made a short speech, with a view to steering the interview in the proper direction. As he phrased it, ‘’Let’s talk about late stage capitalism, the hollowing out of state institutions, DOGE, and that the capitalists in the short term are going to make lots of money, but what it is going to do to the rest of us.’’

This is to say that he wanted the interview to be focused on something more than an abstract lecture on economic theory. He was determined that it should relate to the current state of the economy, which is in a state of chaos. 

The following is the substance of the speech, as best I could copy it:

‘’The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx wrote, will be marked by developments, that are intimately familiar. Unable to expand and generate profits of past levels, the capitalist system will begin to consume the structures that sustain it. It will prey upon, in the name of austerity and government efficiency, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty, and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens. It will, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturing and professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of labour. Industries will mechanize their workplaces. This will trigger an economic assault on not only the working class, but the middle class, the bulwark of the capitalist system. It will at first be disguised by the imposition of massive personal debt, as incomes decline or remain static. Politics in the late stages of capitalism, will become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real political content, and abjectly subservient to the dictates of corporations and oligarchs. But as Marx warned, there is a limit to an economy built on the scaffolding of debt expansion. There comes a moment, Marx warned, when there will be no new markets available, and no new pools of people who can take on more debt. Capitalism will then turn upon the so called free market itself, along with the values and traditions it claims to defend. It will in its final stages pillage the structures, that make capitalism possible. It will resort, as it causes widespread suffering, to harsher forms of oppression. It will attempt in a frantic last stand, to maintain its profit by looting and pillaging state institutions, contradicting its stated nature. The final stages of capitalism, as Marx grasped, is not capitalism at all. Corporations gobble down government expenditures, in essence tax payer money, like pigs at a trough. Then the system crashes. ‘’

According to Hedges, it was Marx who accurately predicted the current crisis in capitalism, in great detail. Yet is it true?

As Hedges provides no sources, such as Marx’s book Capital, or letters to people, or even the year that Marx wrote these things, we cannot help but be skeptical. 

It is also significant that Hedges made no mention of revolution, or of the subsequent Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a key revolutionary theory of Marx. This is characteristic of Utopian Socialists, as well as Anarchists. The Utopian Socialists want no part of revolution, while the Anarchists want no part of any state apparatus. As the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is a state apparatus, to be set up immediately after the revolution, in order to crush the bourgeoisie, as they make every effort to ‘’restore their paradise lost’’, the Anarchists want no part of it.

This in no way changes the fact, that all Leftist journalists can learn from his presentation. He combined certain Scientific Socialist theories of Marx, with the current political situation, which is nothing other than a crisis in capitalism. Further, he spoke dispassionately, without resorting to vulgarity.

All too many Leftist journalists speak with great passion, and there is no harm in this. The harm comes when those same journalists resort to vulgarity. This merely detracts from the message, as working people, or at least the most advanced among the workers, disapprove of such language. Bear in mind that it is the most advanced workers who lead, as the less advanced pay strict attention to that which they say. 

Now it is up to Leftist journalists, especially Scientific Socialists, Communists, to produce articles and videos, which refer to the scientific theories of both Marx and Lenin, while giving the source, along with references to the current political situation. 

At the same time, it is also necessary to draw a clear distinction between Scientific Socialists, and Utopian Socialists, as well as Anarchists. 

This may seem to be a ‘’tall order’’, well beyond the comprehension of working people. Such is not the case. As long as the distinction is presented in a rational, coherent manner, working people will understand this. 

As for those who may be skeptical, allow me to point out that, during the time Lenin worked, conditions were far more difficult. The vast majority of common people were far less cultured. Yet the Social-Democrats, as the Communists referred to themselves, were able to raise their level of awareness. 

Now the vast majority of working people are well cultured. They have digital devices of various sorts, and are able to access the internet. Even the most essential works of Marx and Lenin are available on the internet, so that there is no need to buy those works. 

The current Hands Off Movement is largely spontaneous, the result of numerous ‘’grass roots’’ groups, each with a different set of demands. Each group represents a different section of the population, from students to seniors. These also include the disabled, veterans, immigrants, women and LGBTQ people, among others. For that reason, the Movement is broad based. 

Yet all are united in their concern for their democratic rights. Not too surprising, the Democratic Party is trying to take credit for this movement. This in no way changes the fact that it is largely a leaderless movement. That is not acceptable.

The fact of the matter is that we live under a state of monopoly capitalism, technically referred to as imperialism. The monopoly capitalists, multi billionaires, are imperialists. Lenin covered imperialism supremely well, in his landmark book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. As he stated, ‘’Imperialism is reaction, right down the line’’. 

As that is the case, the problem is not one of ‘’patching up’’ imperialism, but one of overthrowing it. That requires a revolution. Such a revolution can be undertaken only by the working class, the proletariat, the only ‘’consistently revolutionary class’’, according to Lenin. Yet how is this to be accomplished?

Lenin covers this supremely well, in another landmark book, What Is To Be Done?

It was not by chance that the book was written in 1902, the time of a rising mass movement, within the vast country of Russia. Just as the movement of today, in America, is spontaneous, so too, the Russian movement was spontaneous, leaderless. Further, there were other similarities. 

Of course, the revolutionary movement, of the intellectuals, toward scientific socialism, developed separately from the spontaneous movement of the workers and farmers. Within this intellectual movement, two separate tendencies developed. 

I should explain that at that time, Marxists were referred to as Social-Democrats, as they fought for democracy as well as socialism. It was only later that they changed their name, first to Bolsheviks, and then to Communists. It is also a fact that the Marxists had established a political party, led by Lenin. Quite reasonably, it was referred to as the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Now to proceed.

As Lenin stated, one tendency was that, ‘’Social-Democracy must change from a party of the social revolution into a democratic party of social reforms….The possibility of putting socialism on a scientific basis and of proving that it is necessary and inevitable from the point of view of the materialist conception of history was denied, as also were the facts of growing impoverishment and proletarianization and the intensification of capitalist contradictions. The very conception, ‘ultimate aim’, was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was absolutely rejected. It was denied that there is any difference in principle between liberalism and socialism. The theory of the class struggle was rejected on the grounds that it cannot be applied to a strictly democratic society, governed according to the will of the majority, etc.’’ (italics by Lenin)

It may be objected that those ‘’two separate tendencies’’ are not immediately obvious, in America. True! But only because -as yet!- there is no true Communist Party, one which calls for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, to provide the leadership. 

Just as in Russia, in 1902, so too in modern day America, the call for ‘’bourgeois social-reformism’’, as well as a ‘’bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marxism’’, is wide spread. As Lenin went on to say, ‘’The content of this new tendency did not have to grow and develop, it was transferred bodily from bourgeois literature to socialist literature.’’

It is only in University, that the scientific socialist theories of Marx and Lenin are taught, and then only with a view to distorting them. Further, it is mainly only the children of the bourgeois who can afford to go to University. Then these distortions are ‘’transferred bodily’’ to the revolutionary movement. 

Lenin proceeds to refer to this as ‘’opportunism’’, which means a complete lack of principle, ‘’The freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic reformist party, the freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism.’’

Aside from the fact that we do not have a true Communist Party in America, the same is true today. Bourgeois ideas, especially in the form of demands for paltry reforms, are wide spread. 

The Democratic Socialists of America have an extensive list of such demands. As they are Utopian Socialists, they are the ‘’natural and desirable allies’’ of Scientific Socialists, Communists. Yet as Lenin added, ‘’An essential condition for such an alliance must be complete liberty for Communists to reveal to the working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie.’’

Bear in mind that Utopian Socialists tend to ‘’corrupt socialist consciousness’’, by ‘’vulgarizing Marxism, by preaching the toning down of social antagonisms, by declaring the idea of the social revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to be absurd, by restricting the labour movement and the class struggle to narrow trade unionism and to a ‘realistic’ struggle for petty, gradual reforms’’, according to Lenin. He refers to this as ‘’Economism’’. 

Even though we can work with Utopian Socialists, on certain issues, we must still be able to draw a clear distinction between them and ourselves, Scientific Socialists, Communists, as we believe in class struggle and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. 

It is significant that Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, are now active in the revolutionary Hands Off Movement. They are touring the country, speaking to ‘’record breaking crowds’’. They are also members of the Democratic Socialists of America. For that reason, it is reasonable to assume that they are trying to divert that revolutionary motion, onto a ‘’realistic struggle for petty, gradual reforms’’.

This is precisely not what is needed! The Hands Off Movement must be converted into a revolutionary movement! For as Lenin pointed out, ‘’Without a revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement!’’ He then proceeded to point out that, what at first sight may seem to be a minor, unimportant mistake, ‘’may give rise to most deplorable consequences’’. 

It is also a fact that the revolutionary Communist movement is an international movement. We must learn from the experience of previous revolutions, their successes, as well as their failures. Especially their failures! We must not repeat the mistakes of the Russian Soviets, or of the Chinese Communists. The capitalists were able to return to power, in both cases, because of the mistakes of Stalin and Mao. 

Lenin also stressed the fact that, ‘’The role of vanguard can be fulfilled only by a Party that is guided by an advanced theory’’! (italics by Lenin)

As there currently is no true American Communist Party, one which calls for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that is indeed a serious matter. Yet there is no need to despair. The revolutionary motion is certain to give rise to numerous working class intellectuals, who are about to raise their level of awareness, by studying the essential works of Marx and Lenin, possibly as a group, possibly with the assistance of middle class revolutionaries, possibly on their own. In this way, they will become transformed into Scientific Socialists. The creation of a true, American Communist Party, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, follows naturally after this. 

As a means of emphasizing the importance of the theoretical struggle, Lenin pointed out that Engels placed the theoretical struggle on the same level as that of two other great struggles, the political and economic. 

Now to return to the current Hands Off Movement. Without doubt, it is a spontaneous uprising, much as the Occupy Movement was spontaneous. As Lenin points out, this ‘’represents nothing more nor less than consciousness in embryonic form’’. (italics by Lenin)

The working class is not aware of itself as a class, with its own class interests! The conditions of life, of the working class, do not lead to this awareness! This class consciousness can only be brought to them from without! 

That is the role of Scientific Socialists. Bear in mind that both Marx and Engels were members of the bourgeois intelligentsia. For that matter, so was Lenin! Yet all three turned their backs on a rather comfortable middle class existence, in order to work in the service of the working class. 

This is to stress the fact that the theory of Scientific Socialism ‘’grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories’’ of the bourgeois intellectuals. It has nothing to do with any mass movement! The two develop separately, independently! The problem now is to merge the two! The current mass movement, referred to as the Hands Off Movement, must become the movement for Scientific Socialism!

Allow me to stress the fact, that this is not going to happen by itself. The spontaneous Hand Off Movement is not about to spontaneously become the movement for Scientific Socialism. That requires a little effort on our part, those of us who are Communists. 

As we live in a class society, there are only two ideologies. Bourgeois and proletarian. There is not, nor can there be, any third, above class ideology. It follows that, ‘’to belittle socialist ideology in any way, to deviate from it in the slightest degree, means strengthening bourgeois ideology….the spontaneous development of the labour movement, leads to its becoming subordinated to bourgeois ideology…for the spontaneous labour movement is pure and simple trade unionism…and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers to the bourgeoisie. Hence our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the labour movement from its spontaneous, trade unionist striving to go under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social-Democracy….But why does the spontaneous movement, the movement along the path of least resistance, lead to the domination of bourgeois ideology? For the simple reason that bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than Social-Democratic ideology; because it is more fully developed and because it possesses immeasurably more opportunities for being distributed.’’ (italics by Lenin. Bear in mind that Social-Democracy is now referred to as Communism)

The Occupy Movement of 2011, provides us with a fine example of a mass movement which was diverted, becoming subordinated to bourgeois ideology. The current Hands Off Movement is threatened with the same divergence. Both Sanders and AOC are working very hard, to do just that. Neither one is calling for revolution, or for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and certainly there is no mention of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. 

In the interest of preventing the Hands Off Movement from following in the footsteps of the Occupy Movement, allow me to suggest that it is up to Communists to explain to working people, the fact that they are members of a class, a working class, the proletariat, with their own class interests. These interests are in direct contradiction to the interests of the class of monopoly capitalists, the multi billionaires, the bourgeoisie. This has to be explained to them, in terms they can understand, preferably in an entertaining manner. 

Our goal is to raise the level of awareness, of the most advanced workers, to the level of Scientific Socialists. At that point, the creation of a proper Communist Party, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, will naturally follow. That will make the preparations for the forth coming Insurrection, far more efficient. 

Bear in mind that the two mainstream political parties, both Republican and Democratic, serve the same class, the bourgeoisie. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. The proletariat needs a Party which can serve them.

It is also a fact that Trump is merely a figure head, and a supremely stupid figure head, at that. The problem is one of monopoly capitalism, imperialism, which has to be overthrown, and replaced with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

The alternative is the dictatorship of the Oligarchy, led by Donald Trump. Perish forbid!

Gerald McIsaac

As is well known, the industrial revolution first took place in Great Britain, roughly between the years 1720 to 1760. From there, it spread first to neighbouring countries, and then around the world. In fact, it is still spreading.

Historians refer to this industrial revolution, as the greatest thing to happen to humanity, since the domestication of plants and animals. In this, historians are absolutely correct.

Before the industrial revolution, all items were made by hand. Potters worked with clay to produce containers, women worked with looms to produce cloth, carpenters worked with wood to produce wooden items, and blacksmiths worked with metal to produce various items, such as nails. Regardless of how highly skilled these people were, the process was time consuming. Trades people can work only so fast. As a result, even ordinary household goods, such as spoons and bowls, were scarce and rather expensive. 

This changed, quite dramatically, with the industrial revolution. The use of machines, enabled far more goods to be produced, far faster, with people who were by no means, highly skilled trades people. For that reason, the price of goods dropped, and dramatically so. At the same time, those highly respected trades people, were largely ruined. There was no longer a demand for their services. 

In fact, all of society was transformed. The merchants who lived in town, referred to as burghers, saw the potential of investing their money in factories, banks, railroads and shipping lines, among other things, and becoming quite rich.  They succeeded, beyond their wildest dreams.

Incidentally, the factories, mills, mines and such, are referred to as the ‘’means of production’’, while the railroads, shipping lines and trucking companies, are referred to as the ‘’means of transportation’’. The banks and credit unions are referred to as ‘’financial institutions’’. 

I mention this for the sake of working people, who may not be familiar with those technical terms, favoured by the capitalists. They will not hesitate to use our lack of awareness against us. 

This is to say that the industrial revolution gave birth to two new classes. The burghers became transformed into a class of capitalists, referred to as bourgeois. Yet as no class can exist in isolation, a second class was also created. That second class is commonly referred to as the working class, technically referred to as the proletariat. Such a class has nothing to sell, but their labour power, and this they sell, by the hour. 

When we say that no class can exist in isolation, we mean that slaves can exist only with the existence of slave owners, the nobility can exist only with the existence of commoners, and landlords can exist only with the existence of farmers, otherwise known as peasants. In much the same way, the bourgeois can exist only with the existence of the proletariat. In technical jargon, we say that a class can exist only with the class opposite to it, its antipode. 

This technical jargon may be tiresome, but it is important to learn these terms, as the class struggle is about to break out into open warfare, and knowledge is power. Now to proceed.

At first, even within the country of Great Britain, there was competition between the capitalists, the bourgeois. This is to say that different capitalists would set up different factories, perhaps cotton mills, for example, producing the same product. Each would make every effort to put the other out of business. As they phrase it, ‘’nothing personal, just business’’. Competitive capitalism. 

As capitalism developed, this competition spread to different countries. Capitalists within any given country, were not only in competition with each other, but also with capitalists of other countries. International competitive capitalism. 

It was Karl Marx who conducted a scientific examination of capitalism, in the nineteenth century. This was a time of early, competitive capitalism, before it evolved to the stage of monopoly. Quite reasonably, it is also referred to as pre monopoly capitalism.

As a result of this, both Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, in 1848.

As the title of this article suggests, our concern is mainly with the differences between competitive capitalism, as opposed to monopoly capitalism. First we will examine competitive capitalism, as is outlined in the Communist Manifesto, and then monopoly capitalism, otherwise known as imperialism, as outlined by Lenin, in his work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Further, it is impossible to examine capitalism, in any form, without considering the classes that are first created, under capitalism, as well as the classes that are destroyed, by the capitalists.

Having said that, let us examine that which Marx stated, concerning the capitalists, the bourgeoisie:

‘’The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

‘’The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ―natural superiors, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ―cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. 

‘’The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers. 

‘’The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

‘’The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades. 

‘’The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. 

‘’The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

‘’The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature. 

‘’The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. 

‘’The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West

‘’The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

‘’The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

‘’We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. 

‘’Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.’’

I have deliberately chosen to quote the preceding, at such great length, as it is of such vital importance. This is to stress the fact that the class of capitalists exist, the bourgeoisie, and have certain characteristics. It is also a fact that the modern mainstream media outlets, continue to deny the existence of classes. 

This in no way changes the fact, that the bourgeoisie exists, as does the working class, they are in conflict, and in fact, the class conflict is about to break out, into open warfare. Capitalists against workers, bourgeois against proletarians. It is also a fact that, as Sun Zsu pointed out many years ago, in his landmark book, The Art of War, it is of vital importance to know your enemy. Workers, know the capitalists!

This brings us to the subject of workers, proletarians. The Communist Manifesto has a few words to say, on that subject, also:

‘’But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

‘’In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

‘’Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. What is more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of machinery, etc.

‘’Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army, they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over looker, and, above all, in the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

‘’The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.

‘’No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, then he is set upon by the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.

‘’The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus, the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

‘’The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first, the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the work of people of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.

‘’At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

‘’But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labor, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.

‘’Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lie not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by Modern Industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.

‘’This organization of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently, into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the Ten-Hours Bill in England was carried.

‘’Altogether, collisions between the classes of the old society further in many ways the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

‘’Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.

‘’Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

‘’Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a genuinely revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.’’

The preceding was the scientific description, by Marx, of competitive capitalism. It created two new classes, the bourgeois and the proletariat, while destroying all other classes.

Of the utmost importance, is the fact that the ‘’proletariat alone is a genuinely revolutionary class’’, the ‘’special and essential product’’. As that is the case, it is the proletariat, the working class, that is destined to overthrow the class of monopoly capitalists, the bourgeoisie, and establish a state of scientific socialism, in the form of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

This brings us to the subject of monopoly capitalism, otherwise known as imperialism. As previously mentioned, it was Lenin who conducted a scientific examination of imperialism, and wrote his conclusions in his book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, first published in 1917.

In Chapter 1, titled Concentration of Production and Monopolies, he first states:

‘’The enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid concentration of production in ever-larger enterprises are one of the most characteristic features of capitalism. Modern production censuses give most complete and most exact data on this process.’’

This is to say that his analysis, of imperialism, is based upon the ‘’modern production censuses’’, of the most conscientious bourgeois scholars. He then proceeds to summarize those statistics, as a means of proving that the ‘’concentration of capital’’ leads to monopolies.

Incidentally, he also noted that the use of ‘’high tariffs’’, merely ‘’accelerates’’ the development of monopolies. This is significant, as Trump is currently using high tariffs, in order to promote the development of manufacturing in the country, in order to service a local market. This is characteristic of early, pre monopoly, competitive capitalism.

This despite the fact that monopoly capitalism is already well established. It is not going anywhere! The monopoly capitalists will see to that! The ‘’protective tariffs’’ will serve only to strengthen the already existing monopolies. They will have the exact opposite effect, of that intended by Trump. 

As Lenin stated, ‘’Today, monopoly has become a fact….the rise of monopolies, as a result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism’’.

Strangely enough, these are facts, which only the most conscientious, of the bourgeois economists, are facing. The vast majority of such economists, either cannot or will not, face these unpleasant facts.

Lenin then proceeded to give a date at which the early, competitive capitalism, was transformed into imperialism, monopoly capitalism. ‘’For Europe, the time when the new capitalism was definitely substituted for the old can be established fairly precisely: it was the beginning of the twentieth century.’’ (italics by Lenin)

Of course, in other parts of the world, such as North America and Asia, the time of transition was somewhat later.

It should be noted that monopolies come in different forms, and one of those forms is cartels. Lenin also had a few words to say about cartels:

‘’Cartels come to an agreement on the terms of sale, dates of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc…. Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialization of production. In particular, the process of technical invention and improvement becomes socialized….This is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market…. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialization.’’

Lenin then gave a list of the ‘’modern and civilized’’ ways, that the monopolies resort to, in their strivings for ‘’organization’’: 

‘’(1) stopping supplies of raw materials … one of the most important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel); (2) stopping the supply of labour by means of “alliances” (i.e., of agreements between the capitalists and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to work only in cartelized enterprises); (3) stopping deliveries; (4) closing trade outlets; (5) agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels; (6) systematic price cutting (to ruin outside firms, i.e., those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price; there were instances when the price of petrol was thus reduced from 40 to 22 marks, i.e., almost by half!); (7) stopping credits; (8) boycott.’’

Lenin then proceeded to make another point, which I consider to be most relevant, as we are facing a crisis in capitalism:

‘’Crises of every kind—economic crises most frequently, but not only these—in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and towards monopoly.’’

The crisis which Trump has created, through his use of tariffs, with the goal of returning the country to a state of competitive capitalism, will merely strengthen the existing monopolies. The very opposite of his intention!

This brings us to Chapter 2, titled, The Banks and Their New Role.

‘’The principal and primary function of banks is to serve as middlemen in the making of payments. In so doing they transform inactive money capital into active, that is, into capital yielding a profit; they collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the capitalist class. 

‘’As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of establishments, the banks grow from modest middlemen into powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries. This transformation of numerous modest middlemen into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism; for this reason we must first of all examine the concentration of banking….I have emphasized the reference to the affiliated banks because it is one of the most important distinguishing features of modern capitalist concentration. The big enterprises, and the banks in particular, not only completely absorb the small ones, but also ‘annex’ them, subordinate them, bring them into their ‘own’ group or ‘concern’ (to use the technical term) by acquiring ‘holdings’ in their capital, by purchasing or exchanging shares, by a system of credits, etc…. we find that a handful of monopolists subordinate to their will all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of the whole of capitalist society; for they are enabled-by means of their banking connections, their current accounts and other financial operations—first, to ascertain exactly the financial position of the various capitalists, then to control them, to influence them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering credits, and finally to entirely determine their fate, determine their income, deprive them of capital, or permit them to increase their capital rapidly and to enormous dimensions, etc…..Thus, the twentieth century marks the turning-point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital.’’

As regards our current situation, in which Trump is determined to restore competitive capitalism, through the use of tariffs, this is significant. He thinks that if the price of goods, within the country is high enough, then manufacturing companies will build factories, within the country, and sell their products locally. Nonsense!

Even the bourgeois economists estimate that such a ‘’capital investment’’ would require several hundred billion dollars, for each factory, and take three to five years to construct. And where are those businesses supposed to get that money? They certainly do not have that kind of money on hand! From the banks, of course. 

The trouble being that the ‘’handful of banks’’, know precisely the ‘’financial position’’ of those manufacturing companies, and they ‘’control them’’, are able to ‘’determine their fate’’, to ‘’deprive them of capital’’. There is no way that the banking monopolies are about to invest their capital in American manufacturing companies, producing goods for the local market. It is much more profitable to invest that capital elsewhere! 

This is followed by Chapter 3, titled Finance Capital and Financial Oligarchy. 

Lenin explains that the ‘’merging or coalescence of banking with industry’’, gives rise to the term ‘’finance capital’’. He also stated that these monopolies ‘’inevitably becomes the domination of a financial oligarchy’’. 

The American Oligarchy is living proof of the correctness of that statement!

This is followed by Chapter 4, The Export of Capital. 

‘’Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway, was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital….

”England became a capitalist country before any other, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, having adopted free trade, claimed to be the ‘workshop of the world’, the supplier of manufactured goods to all countries, which in exchange were to keep her provided with raw materials. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this monopoly was already undermined; for other countries, sheltering themselves with ‘protective’ tariffs, developed into independent capitalist states.’’

Under competitive capitalism, ‘’protective tariffs’’ were used, by under developed countries, as a means of developing capitalism, within those countries. Now Trump is using ‘’protective tariffs’’, within a highly industrialized country, complete with monopoly capitalism, in order to develop capitalism! This makes absolutely no sense! Madness! What is more, the bourgeois economists are remaining silent on this point!

From the view point of the working class, the export of capital is one of the most striking characteristics of monopoly capitalism. This is to say that capital is defined as ‘’accumulated labour’’. Anything that has been created by labour, is capital. And rest assured, factories have been created by labour. A great deal of labour! That makes them high value capital, and under monopoly capitalism, such items are exported. 

A great many manufacturing plants, which pay quite well, have been ‘’relocated’’ to other countries. The workers of those factories, are of course out of a job. In this way, capitalism spreads to under developed countries. There is a reason for this, as Lenin explains:

‘’As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilized not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap.’’

This stands in stark contrast to competitive capitalism, under which goods, the articles produced by the factories, were the only items which were exported. 

This brings us to Chapter 7, Imperialism As A Special Stage of Capitalism. 

For our purposes, perhaps the most significant section in this chapter, is that in which Lenin states:  

‘’If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. …But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, since we have to deduce from them some especially important features of the phenomenon that has to be defined…..

1. the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.’’ 

This concerns the working class, in several ways. For one thing, it explains the creation of the Oligarchy. They came about as a result of the merger of bank capital with financial capital. As well, the export of capital has resulted in the loss of countless factories, as they are relocated to other countries. The ‘’international monopolist capitalist associations’’ make every effort to set prices of all goods. Then too, the ‘’territorial division of the whole world’’, leads to wars  among the monopoly capitalist powers, in which the working people are expected to kill each other, for the benefit of the monopoly capitalists.

This brings us to Chapter 8, The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism. 

In this chapter, Lenin points out that parasitism is a ‘’feature of imperialism…. like all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay. Since monopoly prices are established, even temporarily, the motive cause of technical and, consequently, of all other progress disappears to a certain extent and, further, the economic possibility arises of deliberately retarding technical progress….Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some  countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand.’’

That explains the lack of any great recent inventions!

This brings us to Chapter 9, The Critique of Imperialism. 

‘’By the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, we mean the attitude of the different classes of society towards imperialist policy in connection with their general ideology….The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further intensification and deepening of the antagonisms which it engenders, or backward, towards allaying these antagonisms, are fundamental questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries.’’

In America, this attempt to reform the ‘’basis of imperialism’’, has been taken up by various middle class intellectuals, and in particular, the Democratic Socialists of America. On their web site, they have a most extensive list of demands, in an attempt to ‘’allay these antagonisms’’. A ‘’step backwards’’! That which is required, is so ‘’further intensify and deepen the antagonisms engendered by imperialism’’.  After all, imperialism is ‘’reaction everywhere and increased national oppression, due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy, and the elimination of free competition.’’ The Oligarchy must be fought, crushed, not placated!

In summary, this article was written in response to the efforts of Trump, to set the American economy back one hundred years, to a time of competitive capitalism. Not about to happen! 

Yet as he raised the issue, perhaps it will inspire workers to examine the differences, through a careful reading of the Communist Manifesto, and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. This, I highly recommend.

Gerald McIsaac