Is neo-liberalism a "neo-reformism" theory?

1. The theory of neo-liberalism
2. Neo-liberalism: ideology, policy or a new stadium of capitalism?
2.1. The economic crisis
2.2. The fall of the Berlin Wall
2.3. The increasing internationalising of production
2.4. Neo-liberalism: an ideology, no stage
3. Confusion about the character of the state
3.1. The theory about the state according to Marx, Engels and Lenin
3.2. The origin of the state as 'redistributor'
3.3. The forged theory about the state
4. The objective conditions for socialism are mature

Mondialisation, delocalisation and deregulation: all terms that indicate the changes in the world-economy. Some even claims that all these changes are expressions of a new stage of capitalism. They call it neo-liberalism, liberalism adapted to the situation of the worldmarket. They take it on themselves to fight against this neo-liberalism more than to fight capitalism itself.

Never before there has been so much poverty in the world. Never before wealth was so enormous. 225 multibillionairs, with Microsoft boss Bill Gates in front, have a fortune at their disposal which is more extensive than 47% of the yearly income of the rest of the planet. (1) Never before the gap between the richests and the poorests was so deep. And the arrogance of the capitalists increases in keeping with it. According to them there's no good except the unconditional agreement with and even submission to the market-laws. An example of this is the negotiation about the Multilateral Investment Agreement (MIA) within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.), which organises the 29 richest countries. (2)

In the light of that new advance of the ideas of free competition, free trade and laissez-faire some, especially in Latin-America, think that we are facing a new stage of capitalism: neo-liberalism. Which are its characteristics? top

1. The theory of neo-liberalism

The quest for a coherent and elaborated vision of the theory of neo-liberalism isn't easy. That itself argues the absence of clearness about the concept. Nevertheless we can tell something about it on the base of standpoints of some authors from the Zapatist movement in Mexico, from the Brazilian Communist Party and from the trotskyites from the Fourth International. It's about six characteristics.

First. The bourgeois ideology preponderates. The ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo (end 18th - beginning 19th century) experience a comeback. In their days they tried to provide the awakening industrial capitalism with a theoretical basis against the remains of feudality. They indicated the parasitism of the high peerage and the landed gentry who only lived on their means. They broke a lance for the abolition of the privileges, for free competition, free trade, the laissez faire as the best means to bring about wealth. In their days they therefore played a progressive role.

Reverting to those points of view today means that one wants to submit the whole world to the laws of the market and therefore to the laws of the bourgeoisie on world scale. With that ideology, its home-ideology, the bourgeoisie justifies and expands its dominion. On this basis it tries to break open the national markets which still partly have been protected. With this it tries to regulate trade on world scale. This provides it the appearance to be new. That's why some people call it neo-liberalism.

Secondly. We are living in the age of mondialisation. "The eighties had been characterised by an increasing mondialisation of the economic activity", write the trotskyites of the Fourth International. (3) They don't give a real definition of it. Riccardo Petrella, a former civil servant of the European Committee, explains: "According to us the new global world that appears from the mondialisation leads to the next thesis: the future of each of us gets shape on world scale. The process of mondialisation means the beginning of the end of the national system as the rudiments of planned human activities and strategies." (4)

Thirdly, and that's connected with the previous item, the financial markets preponderate the rest. That reflects the absolute dominion of the market-logic. The trotskyites mention at their congress. In connection with the neo-liberal doctrine they eighties were the scene of an unbridled financial deregulation which has founded and even expanded the process of mondialisation." (5) And deputy commander Marcos of the zapatist army in Mexico (in Chiapas) is more clear about this: Thanks to computers the financial markets impose, from their Exchanges, their laws and rules on the entire planet at their own discretion. "The mondialisation is nothing else but the totalitarian expansion of their logic to all aspects of life. The United States used to control the economy. From now on they are leaded, tele-leaded by the dynamism of the financial power, the free trade." (6)

Fourthly. An other important characteristic can be found in the outstripping of the national states by the multinationals. They are over it and dictate their conditions to whatever government even to the mightiest in the world. The state gets completely dependent of them, the state becomes an appendix of the employers lobbies. That expression is emphasised the most by deputy-commander Marcos: "The new international capitalism weakens the national capitalism and starves the government. It rages so much that the national states haven't got the power to defend the interests of the citizens." And: "In that new war politics, as motor of the nation-state, don't exist any longer. They are only there to manage the economy and the politicians are nothing more than work managers. The new world rulers don't have to govern directly, the national governments fix the job for them. The new order means the unification of the world in one market. The states are only companies with managers as governments and the new regional alliances look more like a commercial fusion than a political federation." (7)

The trotskyites are a little more cautious in this matter. On the one hand they say like deputy commander Marcos: "The situation differs from the internationalisation of the capital: hitherto the multinationals indeed were the agent of an imperialist metropolis at the ruled countries and established unequivocal relations, completed with a system of political domination. With the mondialisation those relations suddenly become multilateral and the multinationals start a new stage in the internationalisation in which they gradually break away from the states they were related with." (18) And they add: "The idea of an homogeneous political, economical and territorial space at the level of the nation-state is cancelled by the mondialisation and nothing indicates that a certain space can be shaped again on a higher (regional) level." (9) But on the other hand they write: "Even when quiet a lot multinational enterprises are active on several continents and produce in dozens of countries, they keep on leaning at the political, diplomatical, monetary and military power of the strongest imperialist powers." (10)

Fifthly. The privatisations and the decrease of the role of the state are an important item of this new stage. Deputy-commander Marcos who has the advantage of being more directly and frankly says: "In the night-club of the globalisation the state performs a striptease but it keeps its essential minimum: its repression-forces. Its material basis has been destroyed, its sovereignty and independence have been abolished, its political class has been swept away: the nation-state is just only a security machine in service of the mega-enterprises. In stead of directing the public investments to social aims, it rather improves the equipment which it can control the society more efficiently with." (11) That thesis can also be found at the trotskyites. "The crisis indeed affects the reallocation-function of the states which more or less promoted the social cohesion. It will result in the loss of legitimisation of institutions, weakened as the are because of the combined results of the privatisations (reinforcement of the economic private-powers), the globalisation (loss of top-down control of the economic and monetary relations) and the deregulation. That phenomenon doesn't only hit the dependent states and vulnerable ruling classes, it also begins to affect some European bourgeoisies." (12)

And finally a sixth characteristic: everything is connected with the American dominion. When it is not on state level then it is on the level of ideology. Deputy-commander Marcos emphasises this: "This mondialisation also spreads a general way of thinking. The American way of life, that first entered Europe in the wake of the American troops, later Vietnam and more recently the Gulf, today stretches over the entire planet thanks to the computer." (13) The trotskyites write: "It appears that the present day tendency outlines the restoration of the political-military and also economical preponderance of the United States." (14) Riccardo Petrella writes: "What we can call the economy à la Madonna is a real unification process of consumption of information and communication goods, which has been based on a similar logic (the logic of the market) and which appeals to the same means (infrastructure and networks of mass-advertising that enclose the entire planet)." (15)

The words above can give the impression that the characteristics of the neo-liberal theory are very clear. That's not the case. On the contrary, the debate is confused and makes the tasks of the revolutionaries indistinct. We will check up on that with relation to the most important aspects of the theory of neo-liberalism. Especially we will discuss two items: Is neo-liberalism a new stage of capitalism? Which point of view about the state do the advocates of this theory hold? top

2. Neo-liberalism: ideology, policy or a new stadium of capitalism?

The advocates of the theory of neo-liberalism as yet create confusion about their concept itself. Is neo-liberalism a normal ideology? Does it also refer to an economical policy which is directed against keynesianism which pleaded state-intervention to support the demand? Or is it about a new stage of capitalism?

It's not easy to get a clear answer. Luis Fernandes of the Communist Party of Brazil starts his speech for the Conference about the socialist program of that party as follows: "The theme of neo-liberalism is no freak of fashion. It's about a real and concrete movement to a new institutional composition of capitalism that in today's world is ruling more and more. That movement is deep, extensive and long-lasting and so will, for some time, leave it's mark on the configuration and evolution in Brazil and on world-scale." (16) But he ends as follows: "It's an intellectual counterrevolution that lies at the base of political, economical and social developments. This may not be confused with new micro-economic management techniques. It neither can be considered a new stage of capitalism. It's more a specific answer to structural and varying developments of capitalism." (17) Firstly he says that it's about a fundamental change of the system but he ends denying that. Yet we can notice, even in the last case, that it would be the ideology that exerts a decisive influence on the objective developments of capitalism.

Deputy commander Marcos claims that we're in the stage of the Fourth World War. The title of his article in Le Monde Diplomatique for that matter is: "The Fourth World War has already started." First there were two world wars, then the Cold War that ended with the victory of capitalism and now the Fourth World War. "The Third World War consisted of the collision between capitalism and socialism on several fields and with various degrees of intensity, but the Fourth takes place between the important financial centres, on world-scale and with an enormous and constant intensity." He illustrates this symbolically: "At the end of the Cold War capitalism created a military horror, the neutron bomb; a weapon that kills life but spares buildings. But during the Fourth World War a new miracle was discovered: the financial bomb. Just like the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki it destroys the polis (18) (here the nation) and sows death, terror and misery. But moreover it changes its target into a simple piece of a jigsaw puzzle of the economic mondialisation. The result of the explosion is no smoking ruins or thousands of lifeless bodies but a new neighbourhood that joins a commercial mega-city of the new planetarial hyper market and a workforce that was streamlined for the new planetarial labour market." (19) The allusions are clear but the concept isn't: can you put the two world wars, the Cold War and the new form of colonialisation under supervision of the financial markets on the same footing just like that?

The trotskyites aren't much clearer but their theoretical train of thought is more visible. They start with the general recession of 1974-1975 "that entirely plunged the imperialist countries in what you can call a crisis that still continues". In those days the governments still applied the keynesian policy. The general crisis of 1974-1975 is the first turn of what they call the long wave, which characterises a period of capitalism. Then the eighties start: "That's the second important turn at which the neo-liberal policy expands over the entire world with an amazing equality in objectives and means." It has become a stage of the long wave: "The neo-liberal stage, that clearly isn't over yet, is divided in sub-periods which can be defined as follows: the offensive (1980-1986), the pseudo success (1987-1990), the relapse (1991-1993) and after that the restoration." (20) For the trotskyites therefore neo-liberalism is an ideology that transforms itself into a policy in order to become finally a stage in a long economic wave that started in 1974.

The trotskyite point of view shows how the theory of neo-liberalism starts from a change in the ideas (neo-liberalism in stead of keynesianism) and discharges into in a characteristic of a structural change of capitalism. The concept neo-liberalism was born in the eighties. At first it was used to indicate the policy of Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in Great-Brittain. Certain authors of those days emphasised that liberal aspect to make clear or to state explicitly that there also existed another, namely a social-democratic, policy like the one from Mitterrand in France for example. They sided with the latter, which they thought it was more social and human. But the social-democratic orientation was clear. Exalting neo-liberalism to a stage allows hiding the role of the social-democrats in the present condition of capitalism. But especially it boils down to the fact that they demand the transition to a new social-democratic stage. That's why the trotskyites have jumped to that theory in order to adopt and to propagate it.

Apart from that we have to pose the question if capitalism isn't in a new stage? What is necessary to be able to speak of a new stage of capitalism? A structural change, or of capitalism as such or of a main element of it. According to Lenin capitalism has two stages: the competition capitalism and imperialism or the era of the monopolies. But which objective changes define the present period? There are three important changes but none of them puts capitalism as such in the air: the economic crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the increasing internationalising of production. top

2.1. The economic crisis

In the rich countries the economic crisis became perceptible at the end of the sixties and broke out openly in 1973.

That economic crisis is the main characteristic of present capitalism and it is produced by the system itself. For the employers it impedes the accumulation highly. The accumulation partially is hampered because the level of demand cannot follow the level of production. That expresses itself in over-production or in a considerable over-capacity. (21)

The economic crisis is a thorn in the flesh of the world bourgeoisie because it prevents them from making as much a profit as they would like to. That may seem paradoxical if one looks at the enormous profits of the biggest companies on worldscale or at the phenomenal enrichment of employers like Bill Gates. But the gigantic profits often are followed by equal big losses. In 1997 the American company Ford made a record-profit of 6.92 billion dollar in the automobile sector but had a loss of 2.3 billion dollar in 1991 and of 7.4 billion dollar in 1992. (22) Besides that those big companies have to face the continual tendency of fall of the return on capital. In 1973 the 200 biggest industrial companies in the world made a profit of 13.55% of their own funds. (This figure indicates how much profit they make every year at an investment of 100 dollar.) That percentage went down to 7.21% in 1991. Reorganisations, reduction of personnel were the result. In those mega-companies 823,000 workers lost their job.(23) Result: in 1997 the profit-rate again had gone up till 15.51%. (24) But for 1998 a fall is probable and also in 1999 it is more than probable because of the aggravation of the crisis in Asia and in the rest of the world.

The economic crisis makes the condition for the workers and the population unbearable. Because onto their shoulders the employers try to shift the weight of the rationalisations. They are the ones who lose their jobs. They are the ones who have to work harder in the factories. They are the ones who have to put up with the flexibility, the continual adaptation to the market, and the impossible time schedules. Their wages are cut back on the most by a policy that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. They suffer from the reduction of the social expenses. From their ranks appear the unemployed, the excluded ones, the homeless persons, the people with no papers, etc.

The economic crisis makes clear that capitalism, considered objectively, as a system, has nothing to offer to the workers and the population all over the world. The workers impoverish and more and more become slaves of the exploiters. But besides that they produce less wealth because the purchasing power stagnates; the demand cannot swallow the increase of production that the capitalists want to impose upon in order to raise their profit-rate.

The recession in Asia is a good example of this development. That part of the world was seen as model. Of all industrial nations Japan was the most dynamic one. Japan was the symbol for the successful co-operation between workers and employers: the participating management. Japan was the example of obstinate and continual endeavour to competition. But since 1991 the archipelago doesn't succeed any longer in making it's Gross National Product (GNP, or the wealth that is produced by a country yearly) to go up, despite the fact that the Japanese government put 23,000 billion Belgian Francs in the economy. In October 1998 the government again had to stump up with 13,000 billion Belgian Francs to save the banking-system from bankruptcy. The uncollectable debts amount to 20,000 billion Belgian Francs. That's 10% of Japans GNP!

South Korea was the example of a successful Third World-country. According to the bourgeoisie it proved that underdevelopment is no fate within capitalism. Even in China South Korea was seen as an example. Between 1960 and 1992 the average yearly growth-rate was 8.2% and with that it broke all the records. (26) Today the country is on the rocks. There is poorness everywhere. Dismissals used to be non-existing. Then the dictatorial government of Kim Young Sam tried to introduce a decree which allowed dismissals. The militant movement of December 1996 and January 1997 has locked that plan. But in February 1998 the new 'democratic' president Kim Dae Jung made sure that the decree was signed. As political opponent he spend so much time in prison because of his resistance against the military dictatorship that he was called the Asian Mandela. He's completely under the thumb of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In December 1997, a few days before the elections, he, just like all important president candidates, had to sign a letter in which he accepts the conditions of the IMF, and if not the Fund would refuse a loan of 57 billion dollar, very much needed for the survival of the country.

Capitalism means dictatorship of the market and of the world bourgeoisie. Deputy-commander Marcos writes about this: "The son (neo-liberalism) devours the father (national capital) and on its way it destroys the lies of the capitalist ideology: in the new world order there's no democracy, freedom, equality or brotherhood. The planetary theatre-stage has changed in a new battlefield where chaos rules." (27) Indeed, there's more and more chaos. Everywhere the contradictions burst out. Because the profit decreases the several imperialist centres, the capitalists from the United States, Europe, Japan give a bitter battle about the shrinking cake. In their efforts to enlarge the cake that can be divided, they try to exploit the workers and the population even harder. The uprisings therefore increase. The Indonesian people demonstrated to demand the leaving of dictator Suharto; in 1965 he had been brought to power by the United States, but meanwhile he had become a nuisance for the USA. Today there are famine-uprisings in this former colony of the Netherlands. In South Korea the workers are fighting to prevent dismissals. In front of the struggle are the workers of Hyundai Motors, one of the most important conglomerates of the country. They could reduce the number of dismissals the directors had planned from 4,830 to 227. In Russia the miners from Siberia are striking to receive their wages which the state hasn't paid for months. Some admit that formerly they stepped into the breach to bring Yeltsin to power hoping that capitalism would bring them wealth and comfort. Today they conclude that misery and famine are in store for them.

All these contradictions are the cause of the fact that the risk for a military war is greater than ever. Because if one cannot solve the problems 'peacefully' through the economic way, one has to snatch at other means. If the part of the cake of one of the imperialist centres is decreased, it will not stand by and watch but it will try to reconquer its position by other means, for instance by armed force.

As deputy-commander Marcos says: "The economic crisis also destroys the illusions in capitalism. For the workers there's no democracy, freedom or equality in this system (for the capitalists on the other hand there sure is!). (28)

During the crisis in the thirties the bourgeoisie eventually has admitted that the problem arose from the fact that the market was left to itself. The market cannot correct from itself the social disasters it causes or cannot do it quick enough. From this situation emerged the ideas to regulate the market by state-interventions. That's the principle of the 'New Deal' elaborated by the American administration of Franklin Roosevelt: the government supports the demand to avoid the decline. At the same moment the English economist Keynes elaborated a similar theory about that question. That policy was applied in the United States from 1933. In the beginning it caused a descent of unemployment. But in 1937 and 1938 it went up again. The outbreak of the war pushed the unemployment-problem into the background. After 1945 all developed capitalist countries applied the keynesian policy. For the bourgeois class it was very important to obstruct the expansion of socialism by offering the workers of the rich nations a certain level of social security. In this way the state more and more took charge of the social expenditures.

This policy is condemned by he present crisis, because that policy assumes that the state makes debts for the financing of recovery and social security. But once the state has been buried under debts, it is even more difficult to stick to it. Capitalists and persons living on their investments don't want to provide for funds any longer to support that policy because the risk that they won't get their money back becomes realistic. Yet to attract potential financiers the interest-rate has to be raised. That has two negative results. Firstly: the state-debts enlarge because the public loans become more and more expensive. Secondly: investments by loans in general are discouraged because the interest-rates for that kind of activities go up too (otherwise all funds would be pocketed by the public powers). So the result is diametrically opposed to what the keynesian policy had in mind. So the bourgeoisie needs something else.

The crisis has dashed many illusions about a class-compromise between the workers and the employers. The thesis that the interests of the workers and the interests of the capitalists can be reconciled, can no longer be sticked to with the aggravation of the crisis. Because in order to restore their profits the employers have to exploit their personnel more and more. The reformist, social-democratic myth has got lead in its wings. Besides that the crisis has destroyed the illusion that the countries of the Third World were able to develop under protection of or under co-operation with the rich countries. The example of South Korea shows the contrary: as soon as Third World countries become real competitors (because the American capitalist wanted the South to develop in order to resist North Korea) the world bourgeoisie forces them again to dependence (when the 'threat' of socialism decreases). And finally the crisis shows that there's a life-and-death- struggle indeed between capitalism and socialism as systems. The revisionist illusion of a peaceful co-existence between the both systems disappeared with the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union.

So the bourgeoisie has put new life into her fundamental ideology, liberalism. With that ideology it justifies its extravagant profits, it gives arguments for the increasing gap between arm and rich and it strictly keeps to the laws of the market. To the workers and the peoples of the world the capitalist say: "There's nothing to do about it; the mondialisation is inevitable, the domination by the world market is inevitable; the technical progress that destroys jobs is inevitable. Submit because otherwise it will get worse." The bourgeoisie destroys every form of collective struggle and counts on the idea that only individual resistance is possible. This ideology can be called neo-liberalism. But it's clear that it is a result of the economic crisis and that it's no characteristic of it.

But the tide can turn rapidly, by the way. The present crisis shows that the accumulation blocks quicker when the markets are left to themselves. Exactly this is what the capitalists fear. The quick transfer of capital from one country to another leaded to the bankruptcy of Thailand, after that of Indonesia, followed by South Korea and now Russia and Brazil, though that's not the fundamental explanation of the economic crisis. Advocates of pure liberalism, like the American economist Jeffry Sachs, propose to nationalise the banks in those countries, which have serious problems like Japan. And with the demand to regulate the markets, especially the financial markets, others follow in his tracks. Would that be the beginning of a new stage, the neo-keynesianism? top

2.2. The fall of the Berlin Wall

The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet-Union and Central Europe, and also the rise of bourgeois ideas in China and Vietnam, are second, important objective elements of the present era. This change refutes the revisionist illusions about the peaceful co-existence and about the end of class struggle under socialism. Yet in 1918 Lenin condemned these standpoints: "The transition from capitalism to communism encloses an entire historical age. As long as this isn't closed, the exploiters inevitably keep hope for restoration and this hope will change into attempts to such a restoration." (29)

But at the initiative of the world bourgeoisie these events meant for many workers, for much countries of the Third World and even for other socialist countries the end of an alternative perspective. That damaged the spread of socialism. The capitalists gloated over this development after they extensively had set forth the so-called crimes of the communist system: socialism is impossible, its an economic freak, there's only one liveable system left, capitalism, capitalism functions though it isn't perfect.

In reality not socialism failed but revisionism lanced by Khrushchev did. The theory that preaches the end of class struggle under socialism, is a revision of Marxism. It tries to tell the people that capitalism and socialism can co-exist peacefully and that socialism automatically will be the winner. The state would no longer be an instrument of class-domination. The bourgeoisie is labelled as rotten to such an extent that it's no longer able to fight the important waves of labour-struggle in the world and especially not in the Soviet-Union. With such a standpoint one weakens the watchfulness of the workers in the socialist countries and the bourgeoisie is given the change to restore itself until eventually it can take power again. (30)

When at the same time there no longer exists an alternative and the illusions about class-reconciliation can no longer be carried on, the bourgeoisie can bring about its basic ideology: liberalism. That's the banner of its triumph. It's the utterance of its arrogance, which considers the fall of the Berlin Wall as the end of history. But the economic crisis, that rears its head, can bring about a lot of changes. Perhaps it announces the end of capitalist history. Self-indulgence is no longer applicable. In Russia the world bourgeoisie has caused a real catastrophe. Since it took power in 1991 the GNP (Gross National Product) has increased with 50%; some specialist even talk about 83%. So neo-liberalism isn't that welcome anymore. top

2.3. The increasing internationalising of production

The third objective aspect of the present stage of capitalism relates to what some people wrongly call mondialisation. One cannot really speak of mondialisation. An economist of the KPD, a German Marxist organisation, writes: "We're in the middle of a mondialisation process that started 200 years ago. Firstly this process is only in its starting period and historically seen it cannot be otherwise. Secondly the mondialisation takes place in a society that isn't yet mature, but 'pre-historical', capitalism. One cannot label the present stage of this whole process with one term. If we have to choose one name to point out the present part of this process we should not call it, after a precise investigation of the facts, mondialisation but continentilisation. But that concept is an intermediate stage in the process, as it was the case last century with the creation of the regional markets (south-east Germany, North-France, Basque Provinces, etc.) as intermediate step to the creation of national markets and like today these national markets are a stage to the continentilisation." (31)

In reality there a three new phenomena in the internationalisation.

Firstly. The financial markets are connected mutually. So with relation to that field we can say that there's mondialisation, although only the developed or the so-called rising countries have a real financial market. Today it is possible to jump from the stock market in Tokyo to the one in London and from there to Wall Street, the stock market in New York, in one second. Besides, all the stock markets of the other rich countries, including the ones of the countries in East-Asia and the most important Latin-American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, are in touch with these three major financial world centres. Capital shifts 'freely' from one centre to the other. The beginning of this is situated in the seventies but at the same time one can say that it is the end of the phenomenon capital export. That phenomenon started in the nineteenth century and is, in a way, typical for the imperialist stage, namely the stadium of monopoly-capitalism, where giant enterprises dominate the world. In 1916 Lenin wrote: "For the old capitalism, with the complete dominion of free competition, the export of goods was characteristic. In the newest capitalism, with the dominion of the monopolies, the export of capital has become characteristic." (32)

The mondialisation of the financial markets therefore is a result of imperialism. But at the same time it defines the present capitalism. Because of this the financial sector is a privileged sector because it attracts the savings of persons who are living of their own investments. Before 1970, he who had money built a house. Today one is investing his money on the financial market. The capitalists convinced a number of workers to invest their poor savings in shares. That massive supply of money has stimulated the accumulation. Gradually the Stock exchange has pushed aside the banks as most important source of investment for the enterprises. For the financing of their capital they don't concentrate any longer mainly on the financial institutions but on the stock exchange which is fed by all kinds of speculation. For the enterprises that have entailed certain demands: not only accumulation in the long term is important, but also the profit at short notice plays a role. Because when the speculators aren't content about the results they sell their shares. That's why it becomes more difficult, for the enterprise concerned, to find money again at a next rise of capital.

Yet in 1916 Lenin described the condition of imperialism as follows: "The separation between capital-possession and the application of capital in the production, the separation between finance-capital and industrial or productive capital, between the person who is only living of his investments and the entrepreneur and all the ones who directly are involved with the disposal of capital, is characterising for capitalism in general. Imperialism or the dominion of the finance-capital is the highest stage of development of capitalism, in which this separation assumes large proportions. The preponderance of the finance-capital on all other forms of capital means that the persons who are living of their own investments and the finance-oligarchy have a privileged position; it means that a few states which have that financial 'power' at their disposal, cut themselves of from the others." (33) In the present period the strict application of what Lenin wrote more than 80 years ago becomes clear: the domination of the financial logic in capitalism, the domination of the different forms of the finance-capital, namely the banks in Lenin's time, the investment- and pensionfunds on the stock-market today (which by the way often are connected with the banks); the preponderance of the world-embracing financial markets established in a few powerful states (Wall Street in the USA, London in Europe and Tokyo in Japan) which dictate their conditions to the other countries by the International Monetary Fund or any other international organism of debt-control.

Secondly. The information technology has developed enormously. That's why now information can be passed on in a split second from one point of the globe to the other. From that point of view information has been globalised too. And just like it was the case with relation to the financial markets that only applies to the rich countries and to the important cities from the other countries. Because to be part of that internationalisation one must have the elementary communication technology on world scale at one's disposal.

The mondialisation of information has three results. Firstly is makes possible the immediate capital-export on world scale. That made possible the mondialisation of the financial markets. It also explains why that was only realised in the seventies: one had to wait for the revolution of micro-electronics which lies at the foundation of the development of information technology. Secondly, the mondialisation accelerates the international management of the enterprises. It starts with the foundation of a firm abroad. The mother company can control it's branches more strictly because it can ask for up to date information any time they like. But the management of the production is influenced by it too. The development of products and product-instruments can take place at one place in a specialised research-centre and can be applied to at another, in a production-branch. In this way one can concentrate the production in a few plants and the research in a world centre. Thirdly the mondialisation of information also uniforms the way of life all over the world. Deputy-commander Marcos calls it the generalisation of the 'American way of life'.

Thirdly. The organisation of the production itself takes place at a level that surpasses the national borders. That's a result of the development of the multinationals after the Second World War. In the beginning plants were founded abroad with the objective to supply the local markets. With the multiplication of the branches it as yet became possible to manage them as a coherent entirety for a region (North America, Europe, South East Asia, South America). In 1967 in the automobile-industry Ford was the first to found a holding in order to co-ordinate all its activities in Europe. Only in 1980, its major competitor, General Motors, followed that move. After that the multinationals decided to specialise each branch. Again Ford was the first to put that into practice in 1980: the plants in Valencia and Dagenham concentrate on the production of the Fiesta, Genk gets the task to produce exclusively the Mondeo, the German branches build the more sophisticated models. Finally there also appears a permanent exchange between the different units because one specialises also the supply-enterprises which are able to supply several plants of the same group. This buying and selling within the same group is called exchange within the firm. Estimations showed that at the enterprises of the three major industrial countries, the United States, Japan and Germany, this trade within the firm constitutes one third of the world trade.

The internationalisation indeed hampers the intervention of the national states at the financial markets under capitalism, if only because of the fact that capitals are mobile and that speculators immediately punish a policy they don't like. That enhances the liberal ideology, which preaches that there's no good out of the market.

But again we see that with the financial crisis, within the bourgeoisie, more and more people plead the regulation of capital-flows, not only on international but also on national level. top

2.4. Neo-liberalism: an ideology, no stage

In the present period we have three important objective changes: the economic crisis, the restoration of capitalism in a number of important socialist countries and the increasing internationalisation. Like we saw, those phenomena promote the ideology of the bourgeoisie, namely liberalism or neo-liberalism. But with the aggravation of the crisis that can change quickly. In no case we can speak of a new stadium of capitalism and we certainly cannot call it a neo-liberal stage. Because not the stadium is in a crisis but capitalism itself.

This handy confusion is used by the trotskyites to justify reformism and the capitalist system itself. In their program they raise the issue of the long waves very briefly. A wave is a period of several dozens of years with a cyclic evolution: first growth, then turn about and relapse, after that follows a stage of growth, and so on. In the long term capitalism indeed has a cyclical character. Capitalism makes possible the development of production forces, as no other way of production was able to do so before. But because the employers concentrate on profit, at a certain moment the process of accumulation seizes up. Over-production or over-capacity arises. There's an economic crisis. This crisis generalises. The contradictions get sharper. The employers want to restore their return on capital by exploiting their workers more intense. They want to impose the Third World even worse conditions for the loot of their wealth. They fight against each other for the pieces of the pie that is in danger of shrinking. The crisis takes a political shape openly, because the capitalists don't succeed in solving it. On the contrary, their solutions aggravate the crisis because they impose heavier and heavier demands on the workers and the peoples of the world. Increasingly clearly they see that the problem arises from the system itself. That's why the structural economic crisis is a part of the general crisis of capitalism. This general crisis is the reason why capitalism is a way of production that has been condemned by history.

The general crisis is defined as follows: it's the stage of capitalism in which it finds in such contradictions that it can survive as system more difficult all the time, that it becomes such an obstacle for the development of the production forces that the replacement of capitalism by socialism presents itself. The Third International describes that condition as follows: "The imperialist world system and the partial stabilisation of capitalism are undermined from several sides: by interimperialist contradictions and conflicts, by the struggle of many colonial peoples and by the revolutionary proletariat in the homelands, by the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR that has the leadership over the revolutionary world movement. The international revolution advances." (34) During the general crisis the four major contradictions aggravate: antagonism between the capitalist and the socialist system, irreconcilable interests between employers and workers, contradictions between the rich countries and the peoples of the Third World, intense mutual struggle between the imperialists.

A first time the condition of the generalised economic crisis expresses itself as such. From 1873 the capitalist system is confronted with a recession in the most European national economies. The employers can't any longer accumulate as fast as in former days. In a number of sectors competition leads to the foundation of monopolies and they feel 'locked up' within the national borders. This especially applies to the railway companies because the majority of the concessions has been allotted and the new lines concern secondary connections with few travellers. As a solution the capitalists propose the expansion outside the original territory. Capital is exported on a large scale. The colonisation starts again, penetrates deep into Africa and annexes almost entire Asia. The railway-barons are allowed to build railways in those unreclaimed territories and leave their unprofitable national lines to their state. Together with the rise of new sectors like the automobile-industry, the development of electric energy and telecommunications a new growth is made possible. Capitalism now encloses the entire world and changes everywhere the social relations in capitalist relations or at least in relations which directly are influenced by the pursuit of profit. From 1895 that change of capitalism into imperialism gets the employers out of the economic crisis.

But this is jumping in order to dive deeper. The competition between the powers with regard to the conquering of the colonies becomes more intense. From that antagonism arises the First World War about the repartition of the world. That's the first element of the general crisis of capitalism. Because that conflict is a mere slaughter for the workers and farmers who are sent to the battlefield to defend the interests of their capitalists. At the end of the war almost everywhere uprisings reared their heads: the masses showed their aversion to that capitalism that made them kill each other. In Russia that movements, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, lead to revolution. The Soviet-Union is established. That's the second element in the general crisis of capitalism: a breach is made in the system of world-capitalism. It shows that another society is possible and that one can achieve that by means of violent revolution, which chases away the old leading classes and after that imposes the dictatorship of the proletariat. At the end of the twenties, in the rich countries, again the economic crisis breaks out. Curiously it breaks out in the United States, the most dynamic country of those days that has become the most important world power. That's the third element of the general crisis of capitalism: again capitalism proves its impotence to continue development and to provide for the needs of the people. As the result of the exchange-crash it brings deep misery to millions of workers. In a number of countries like Germany, Italy and Japan the process of accumulation has been blocked to such an extend and the political crisis is so paralysing that the local bourgeoisie opts for fascism, that is the open dictatorship against the workers and a faster colonial expansion. That's the fourth element of the general crisis of capitalism: fascism is the most disgusting, reactionary and violent shape of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It even sharpens the contradictions of the system and effectively it leads to a new world war which causes even more victims than the previous did. That's the fifth element of the general crisis of capitalism. From that international struggle emerge new socialist countries: China, Korea and Vietnam in Asia, the countries in Eastern Europe. That's the sixth element of the general crisis of capitalism.

The period between 1914 and 1950 draws the first stage of the general crisis of the system, namely the period in which the contradictions aggravate. The victorious American bourgeoisie holds another strategy. To prevent the expansion of socialism, that would make short work of the general crisis, it grants social guarantees to the workers of the rich countries. It unites those countries, which it can make its allies against the Soviet-Union. It imposes a certain opening of the borders, which makes the access to cheap raw materials for all imperialists possible. In this way the growth in the European countries and Japan can set going again. The major danger, namely the explosion of the system, is pushed aside to the countries of the third world; Washington promises them political decolonisation and development aid. That illusion, by the way, reformism and a certain post-war thirdworldism are relying on.

The break-out of the economic crisis in 1973 ushers in a new stage of the general crisis of capitalism. Because it shows that capitalism again isn't capable of developing the production-forces in a constant and harmonic way. Again it impoverishes the workers in its attempt to solve the crisis. The crisis leads to the fact that all illusions about class-reconciliation weren't able to stop anything and that only the structural antagonism between the interests of the world-bourgeoisie and the interests of the workers of the several countries remains. Sure, capitalism succeeded in breaking the soviet-model, by which the realisation-process was retarded. But on the other hand it has speeded up the internationalisation of the economy and thus the expansion of the crisis and the conditions for change as well. The general crisis is worldwide.

So the economic crisis is not, like the trotskyites present it, a stage in a long wave which, at a certain moment, will turn into growth. Because under those conditions one defends the survival of the capitalist system and the crisis is only an incident in the long wave. On the contrary the crisis proves that capitalism can't escape from its own contradictions. It ushers the general crisis of capitalism. The result of it is completely uncertain because it depends on many elements: on the one hand the objective situation of the aggravating crisis but also the subjective realisation-process of the workers and the population, the impotence of the world-bourgeoisie to find a solution for the crisis and the existence of a communist party which is able to reshape the discontent of the masses in a socialist revolution.

If the present period should be a stage, then it's the stage of the general crisis of capitalism, more or less to be compared with the period 1914-1950. It's the stage in which the contradictions aggravate openly and in which there will come an opening toward socialism and not at all the stage of neo-liberalism. top

3. Confusion about the character of the state

The theory of neo-liberalism shows a wrong insight about the character of the state. To neo-liberalism the state is more than just an organ of class-dominion. To the trotskyites the state had also a social role, at least in the rich countries: "The crisis indeed strikes the roots of the redistributing role of the state, which, in a certain way, promoted the social cohesion." (35) Deputy-commander Marcos affirms that the state is only the instrument for the use of the financial markets and the world-bourgeoisie. So that supposes that it used to be more than that. The Third Conference of Sao Paulo, which groups a number of Latin-American organisations, approved a text which said: "The state has to be a place of national participation and decision making because it has to play a central role of regulation and to promote social equality, without leaving the leadership of the economy to the market." (36) top

3.1. The theory about the state according to Marx, Engels and Lenin

In his work The origin of family, private property and the state Engels writes: "The state is rather a product of society on a certain level of its development; it's the recognition of the insoluble contradiction with itself in which this society has got tangled up, of the irreconcilable contradictions in which it has divided itself and which it isn't capable of averting it. But in order that these contradictions, classes with contradictory economic interests, will not destroy itself and society by an ineffectual struggle, a power which seems to be beyond society has become necessary, which has to damp the conflict, to keep it within the limits of 'order', and this power, which has arised from society, but which puts itself above society and more and more alienates from society, is the state." (37)

What does Engels say? Firstly, that the state is a product of class struggle. It serves to guarantee the dominion of the ruling class over the other classes. So every state is a class-state. Secondly the state expresses the irreconcilable character of the interests of the several classes. So it cannot be a place of democratic participation because in the first place it organises the repression of the ruling class against the exploited classes and after that the democracy within the ruling class. Thirdly, state-power puts itself before society. Constituted by force and by no other means, the state appropriates the right to impose laws, which the ruling class enacts. Fourthly, the first task of the state is to damp the conflict between the classes. Lenin precises that as follows: it's about that "the suppressed classes don't get the possibility to use certain means and methods of the struggle for the overthrowal of the oppressors." (38) In other words, the state has to prevent that the exploited class succeeds in endangering state-power. For that purpose the state uses the following means: to impede realisation, to hinder the organisation of the workers and of course to put down every surge of protest. Fifthly, the state apparatus doesn't only recruit in the ruling class but in all classes. That gives the state its "strange" character, as if it is not connected with one class and if it is above the scene of battle. If the state-machine exclusively would have been composed from persons of the ruling class, which is a minority under capitalism, it would be easy for the workers to overthrow it. The direct connection with the bourgeoisie would be more clearly. Its armed force, the ultimate bastion of its power, would be much smaller than it is the case now. Sixthly, that strange characters grants the civil servants a power, which doesn't come from society but from the ruling class. A police-chief has been invested with authority and has a police force at his disposal to make that authority observed but he hardly inspires respects. top

3.2. The origin of the state as 'redistributor'

When we regard the policy of the capitalist state or states under the influence of the United States since the Second World War, we can see how those principles are put into practice. At that moment the European bourgeoisies trembled. One part had collaborated with the Nazis, an other part had fled the country. Socialism had become much more popular because in the occupied countries the communist militants had ranked first in the struggle against the Nazis and the Soviet-Union had dealt the major part of the decisive blows against Hitler. Everywhere in Europe Washington tries to bring in control pro-capitalist governments again in order to assure the power of the local bourgeoisie. In Western Europe the communist parties have accepted that and the politicians were able to return and have come to power again. The capitalist state was re-established. There where the communists refused that, another kind of state arised, a socialist state like in Albania for example. There where they took a hesitating position, a civil war broke out, like in Greece. So the state indeed is a product of class struggle.

The local bourgeoisies brought communist ministers in their government. They realised that this was the best way to reconquer their authority. They demanded that the arms were handed in at the official army. As compensation they allow social security and they set going the economy again, which provides the workers with an income. They "subdue the conflict": they prevent realisation and take away from the oppressed classes the most important instrument for the wielding of power or for the contest of power of the bourgeoisie, namely weapons.

When the bourgeoisie doesn't need the communists any longer, they throw them out of the government. Because soon Washington has another strategy: the Soviet-Union and its allies have to be surrounded. Anti-communism has to be propagated. So the witch-hunt starts. As well in the United States as in Japan the communist are drummed out of the trade unions. In Europe the bourgeoisie establishes alternative unions in France and Italy. Subduing the conflict in this case means: inwardly eliminating the communists, the forces which can organise the workers the best, and outwardly putting a stable economic capitalist system opposite to the Soviet-Union. The United States government promotes the foundation of a unified Europe on the base of free trade.

In this scope the so-called welfare state develops. The supporters of the theory about neo-liberalism refer to this; they put civilised, regulated capitalism against the 'wild' capitalism of mondialisation. In most countries agreements were made between employers and unions to raise productivity in exchange for wage rise and social benefits like social security. For the employers those agreements offered the opportunity for growing accumulation with a minimum of social conflicts. The role of the state increased: it took care of social security, developed infrastructure, took care for some rendering of service to the population, expanded education and health care, took over the unprofitable activities of the private sector and was engaged in those sectors which were of strategic importance for the whole of the national economy. At that moment those tasks stimulated the accumulation process for the capitalists and therefore the state apparatus developed. That does not change anything at the "strange" character of this machine nor to its subservience to the capitalist class.

Today those functions aren't necessary anymore, at least not in the same way.(39) In the first place the maintenance of such a state apparatus means a burden of debt which becomes too expensive for the capitalists in the long run. So they want to shrink the state apparatus. Besides that there are plenty of workforces because of the unemployment and internationalisation. The employers can invest where they like and stimulate the competition between the workers in order to carry of the best conditions. Next to it there's the fall of socialism (or actually the fall of revisionism) in Eastern Europe which deprives the workers the belief in an alternative. Finally the capitalists look for new profit perspectives and with the technological developments a number of public sectors are considered for that.

That is why today the international bourgeoisie pleads the reduction of social expenditures and a change in the economic role of the government. That only has to be engaged in what's strictly necessary for the functioning of the economy. According to that point of view the public enterprises at least have to be managed as private companies. Therefore they only receive fixed budgets, with the eventual aim to abolish them, so that they public services get into a position in which they can pay their way. More often the customers, in spite of their income, have to pay the real cost price of the supplied services. The sectors, which are considered for, are left to the private-sector; that's the logical result of this policy.

In all periods of capitalism the employers stipulate the role and tasks of the bourgeois state. From 1950 till 1980 they want a government which is engaged in the regulation of the national economy. After 1980 they turn down that role in favour of the market.

But that doesn't change anything to the character of the state which still is the instrument of the class dominion of the bourgeoisie. The state doesn't die off. On the contrary, its repression tasks get more and more important and it takes measures to increase the police force. It does not lose autonomy in order to submit to the major multinationals.

When one checks who dictates the orientations of the government and for whom the state machine works, there's not a single change. In 1953 someone asked Charles Wilson, president of General Motors who in the meanwhile had become Secretary of Defence, if there couldn't exist a conflict between those two positions. Wilson answered: "I shouldn't know why. For years I have had the opinion that what is good for our country is also good for General Motors and vice versa. There was no difference. Our company is too important. It's growth keeps pace with the growth of the welfare of the country." (40) Today we can see the same phenomenon. When the United States had trade problems with Japan, especially in the automobile sector, president Bush in 1991 went to East Asia with in his retinue the three presidents of the three major American automobile constructors, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

If one looks at the state tasks one concludes that the state still sets the general line for the capitalists. It defends their general collective interest and not only their specific interests. When there's a conflict between the two of them, it chooses the former because it's its role to prevent that the system is brought up for discussion. That's why it occurs that the state takes measures against single employers, like for example the breaking of the monopoly of Microsoft (as far as the trial goes on). Such a situation is or disadvantageous for other capitalists or for the maintenance of the system itself. The role of the state, former and now, consist of guaranteeing the continuity of capitalism. top

3.3. The forged theory about the state

The theory of neo-liberalism leads to several different conclusions, which are diametrically opposed to this analysis about the state.

Firstly it suggests that one has to return to another policy and that the state can play a role of pacemaker in it. So another strategy is possible. The theory of neo-liberalism therefore is fundamentally reformist because eventually it stands up for the return to regulation, the welfare state, a keynesian policy against deregulation, the liberal state, the laisser-faire policy. It is interesting to conclude that the term "neo-liberal stage" in fact protects social democracy, because it emphasises the 'right-wing' offensive of the bourgeoisie. So one proposes to return to a 'left-wing' policy and, at the same time, to maintain capitalism as well. That solution is proposed in all European countries by the socialist parties or today, in a more offensive way, by the environmentalists. The argument they use is that this 'left-policy' for the defence of the public services would be better than the right-wing policy which wants to dismantle them. One forgets that the world bourgeoisie has stipulated these orientations, whether they are 'left' or 'right' and that, in order to stop privatisations, one has to change the system, to overthrow capitalism, to take state-power and to do away with the existing public apparatus.

Secondly, according to the supporters of the theory of neo-liberalism, this policy can be realised by the state. They present the state as neutral and that it can be forced to make allowance for the peoples-movement. That's the thesis of someone like Riccardo Petrella: "As defender of and guarantee for the interests of the population the state has intervened in that evolution (of wild capitalism from the 19th century, editor) to embank the excesses which national competitive capitalism was guilty of." (41) And this former European civil servant proposes to call into existence a new structure on world-level to do what the state did at the end of the 19th century: regulating competitive world capitalism. But he doesn't see that the state directly serves the interests of the employers and never leaves the capitalist logic.

Thirdly the theory of neo-liberalism creates the illusion that it is possible to have a state which is independent of the important monopolies and multinationals. Nevertheless the states and their civil servants actively co-operate with the elaboration of the capitalist strategies against the workers and the peoples of the world. The personnel of the public apparatus, by the way, is often exchangeable with the one from the major companies, like was shown with the example of the president of General Motors who became Secretary of Defence in the United States. But there are other famous examples: Etienne Davignon, European Commissioner for Industry, becomes president of the Generale Maatschappij van België (General Society of Belgium, a leading holding company). At the beginning of the eighties he develops a project for the creation of a European united market. His text lies at the base of the foundation of the Round Table of European Industrialists, around which 45 of the biggest European employers reside. The Round Table is present at several organs on which representatives of the employers as well as important European civil servants sit; sometimes it's difficult to see who's the employer and who's the civil servant. That's how strong the important company-leaders and leaders of the state-machine have been blended. For this situation the bourgeois state was and is standing surety.

Fourthly. The taking of state-power by means of revolutionary violence is unacceptable for the bourgeoisie. With leftist language the supporters of this theory conceal and obscure this. One cannot 'conquer' the power of the multinationals without dealing with the power of the states, without overthrowing and breaking the bourgeois state. When the present states, which are seen as too 'national', don't any longer meet the needs of the major capitalist groups, they possibly will found bigger ones on a higher level. Because for the tackling of class conflicts they need such an instrument any way. And the working classes have to take that power in order to discontinue their oppression by the capitalists. Any way, the conquest of state power is, for the workers, the only way to appropriate the economic structure. It's the only instrument that will be able to take away from the employers the first and most important compulsive means: the possession of capital.

That reformist character of the theory of neo-liberalism explains why the trotskyites have jumped on it and have sprinkled it with their sauce. They want to keep the progressives of from their revolutionary tasks an to bring confusion in their minds. Following passage from their congress text is very interesting. It shows how they let opinions seep through which eventually defend capitalism. They write: "From that analysis follows the restricted legitimisation of that way of functioning of capitalism." In other words: capitalism has a legitimisation. It goes on: "Without idealising the efforts afterwards, the power of the capitalist way of production in its years of expansion, lied in the fact that it could bend the needs according to its own logic. It could assure a continuous growth and at the same time it could distribute or at least spread the fruits of that growth -in terms of expansion of purchase power- more or less equally in order to give the system the argument of efficiency." (42) Is this something else than an apology of capitalism in its years of expansion from 1950-1973? Capitalism guarantees the development of production forces. It would make possible a re-distribution of wealth and this distribution of increased productivity would be the basic element of its efficiency? If that is not an appeal to a return to that period or something like that, what do we have to call it then? They abstract the hard and difficult situation the workers and peoples of the world were in, for example the war in Korea and Vietnam, the slaughter of one million people in Indonesia in 1965, the anti-colonial freedom struggle in Algeria, the numerous coups d'Etat and wars in the Third World, the keeping down of the prices of raw material, like the oil-price, which slowed down the development of the poor countries etc. They keep the progressives of their tasks, namely the taking of state-power and the building of a socialist society. In the past the trotskyites have attacked the countries where the capitalist state-machine was overthrown and were socialism was installed under the leadership of a communist party.

The trotskyites, by the way, maintain the biggest possible confusion. They write: "The transition demands build a bridge between the immediate demands, which meet urgent needs, and the conquest of power. But today those bridges and gangways are very fragile. Where is power situated? Still in the existing state-apparatus but also delegated to the regional and international institutions." (43) That thesis can only lead to ambiguity. That's, by the way, also the case in the trotskyite ranks itself: "Some comrades seemed to be shocked by the question posed in the report: where is power situated? Indeed, one can simply answer that class struggle still - like the classics, from Marx to Trotsky, said - still starts in the national arena and that its strategic horizon in the first place, remains the conquest of power on national level. That isn't yet wrong, but it's no longer completely correct." (44)

But on the other side they claim: "The idea of a homogeneous political, economical and territorial space on the level of the state-nation is condemned by the mondialisation and nothing proves that such a space will restore itself on a higher (regional) level." (45) Bringing forward a thesis and its contrary seems to be the way in which the trotskyites want to bring forward their reformism, while at the same time they make believe that they appeal to Marxism. top

4. The objective conditions for socialism are mature

The confusion at the progressive forces after the fall of the Berlin Wall hides a fundamental phenomenon: since the period 1914-1950 the world was never so close to the objective conditions for the transition to socialism.

Objectively seen the contradictions within capitalism become sharper and sharper. Firstly, the antagonisms between the classes become clearer. The employers have to restore their profits at the cost of the workers and therefore have to exploit them more intense. There are the contradictions between the world-bourgeoisie and the oppressed peoples. The capitalists try to force up the loot of all possible resources in the Third World and they impose an absolute power under the cloak of institutions like the International Monetary Fund. The uprisings in Indonesia and the labour-struggle in South Korea show the resistance of the workers against that domination. The mutual collisions between capitalists increase. With the shrinking of the pie the struggle about the pieces becomes more and more intense. The United States, which face a tremendous trade deficit with Japan, urge that country to open itself for the American import. Japan and Europe want to play a more important role in the international institutions where until now Washington wields the sceptre. The aggravation of all those contradictions shows that capitalism is stuck; that it no longer can offer a future to the peoples of the world. The risk is too big that it drags along the planet into a Third World War that will be even more devastating than the two previous ones.

Objectively seen the economic crisis aggravates. The bankruptcy of the capitalist development is especially striking in those countries where, until recently, it was praised as model: in Japan, South Korea and East Asia in general. When the shop-windows are on fire, how can one state that the backside of the shop will be saved? The stock market crash, which started in Asia, has already reached Russia. It jumps over to Latin-America and tackles the United States. From there it can set fire to the entire world and cause a total crisis, with closing-downs of factories, unemployment and general misery. The crisis shows the inefficiency of the system. In 1989 all governments and media of the capitalist world have celebrated and shouted from the rooftops the malfunctioning of socialism in the Soviet-Union and the countries in Eastern Europe. Since then, in those countries, they have proved that they are able to do even worse, because since 1991 the GNP in Russia, for example, fell back to less than 50%. But today they go even further and they put the planet into the horror of poverty and chaos.

Objectively seen the technological development has reached such a level that it is able to found a socialist economy. We have reached the stadium in which it is possible to meet the basic needs of the world population: nutrition, accommodation, transport etc. But that hasn't been realised because for the capitalists only purchase power counts. That's why more than one billion people go hungry. That's why two billion people have no drinking water. To say nothing of not giving elementary health care. Thanks to new techniques the market is no longer necessary. The consumers would be able to choose the goods directly by their computer. The orders could be passed on directly to the factory by international telecommunication networks. The goods even could be delivered home at a time the customer likes best. Nevertheless the bourgeoisie knows only one word: the market and adaptation to the market, which enriches the one and impoverishes the other, which drives the workers in the factory crazy because they have to produce more and more with less people.

The other ideologies objectively have shown their bankruptcy. Reformism has shown its borders: it can no longer give the illusion that the workers have to get the crumbs while the employers make a lot of profit. The thirdworldism has shown its weakness: within the present division of the world it could only demand a more just partition for the poor countries while the rich countries take more and more out of the production of wealth in the Third World. Revisionism has led to the open restoration of capitalism. Fascism has dragged the world along into the most terrible war the world has ever known. Liberalism, whether it is new or not, creates an ever growing gap in incomes and fortunes and accelerates the breaking out of the next recession.

When we emphasise the positive aspect of those conditions, then it doesn't mean that we must underrate the difficulties. Because subjectively seen the workers are still submitted to a great pressure by the capitalists. Often they confuse the bankruptcy of revisionism in the Soviet-Union with the bankruptcy of communism. They hardly see an alternative and lots of them are stuck in fatalism and defeatism. It's not unlikely that they develop a certain sympathy for reformist theories like they were put in a new coat by the environmentalists. We also have to face the fact that the capitalists will try to impose fascist solutions, but in another packing, even when that results in a new world war.

It is the task of a communist party to transform the objective conditions into a subjectively favourable situation. But that requires that one is loyal to marxism-leninism. And one cannot realise that by adopting the theses about neo-liberalism. top

Notes

1. PNUD, Rapport mondial sur le developpement humain 1998, p. 33.
2. Look at the articles in this issue.
3. "XIVe Wereldcongres van de Vierde Internationale", Inprecor, February 1996 p.6.
4. Group of Lisbon, Limites a la competitivite, Labor Publisher, Brussels 1995, p.61.
5. Inprecor, quote p.7.
6. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997
7. Ibidem.
8. Inprecor, p.7.
9. Ibidem, p.17.
10. Ibidem, p.13.
11. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997
12. Inprecor, quote p.14.
13. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997
14. Inprecor, p.7.
15. Group of Lisbon, quote p.35.
16. Luis Fernandes, Os fundamentos da ofensiva neoliberal, Intervencao especial na conferencia sobre o programa socialista do PC do B, August 1995, p.1.
17. Luis Fernandes, quote p.6.
18. Polis means city in Greek. In Ancient Greec the city was the state: Athens, Sparta, etc. Many words about politics have been derived from this word. Politics is the science about governing the city (therefore the state).
19. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997
20. Inprecor, quote p.5.
21. That depends on the sector. Generally spoken, the use of 90% or more of the capacity reflects the seasonal fluctuations. A lower use indicates a blockade of the accumulation process.
22. We give figures in dollars because the official data are expressed in that currency. The dollar has fluctuated heavily. In 1985 it was worth almost 70 BEF. After that it fell down till 30 BEF at the beginning of the nineties. Since 1996 it comes close to 37 BEF and in October 1998 it fell back till 33 BEF.
23. That's a net loss. That means that a number of enterprises perhaps lost more personnel, but that they have bought other units and so there number of employees went up again.
24. Calculations on the base of the World Top 500, elaborated by Fortune (with omission of the financial and service firms).
25. These are loans which banks granted but there's only a small chance that it will be paid back because of a bankruptcy of the client, often a speculator.
26. Calculation on the base of figures in Angus Maddison, L'economie mondiale 1820-1992, OECD, 1995,p.203.
27. Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997.
28. There are fora, like the one in Davos, that takes place in February every year and where capitalists from every where and from all sectors (press-people, politicians, businessmen and ideologists) 'democratically' discuss about the problems and about the way to solve them in favour of the bourgeoisie. There are also a lot of lobby-organisms and such, like the Round Table of European Industrialists, where the employers define a common standpoint and then dictate it to the governments. (See the article about MIA).
29. Lenin, De proletarische revolutie en de renegaat Kautsky, Edition Pegasus, Amsterdam 1971, p.39.
30. For more details see Ludo Martens, The USSR and the velvet counterrevolution, EPO, Berchem, 1991, and Ludo Martens, "De weg van de wereldrevolutie in de XXIe eeuw", in Marxistische Studies, nr. 39, September-October 1997.
31. Offensiv, May 1998, p.14.
32. Lenin, "Het imperialisme als hoogste stadium van het kapitalisme", in Keuze uit zijn werken, Vol II, Edition Progres Moscow, p. 307.
33. Ibidem, p. 306.
34. "Programma van de Communistische Internationale". Approved at the VIth Worldcongres on September 1th 1928 in Moscow, in Marxistische Studies, nr.40/1997, p.37.
35. Inprecor, quote p.14.
36. Inprecor, nr. 358, September 11-24 1992, p.24.
37. Friedrich Engels, De oorsprong van het gezin, van de particuliere eigendom en van de staat. Quoted by Lenin in "Staat en Revolutie", Keuze uit zijn werken, Vol II, Edition Progres Moscow, p. 468.
38. Lenin, "Staat en Revolutie", in Keuze uit zijn werken, Vol II, Edition Progres Moscow, p.469.
39. See Gerard de Selys, De kraak van de eeuw, EPO, Berchem, 1997, p.17-22.
40. American Senate, Committee for the armed forces, Hearing about the appointment of Charles Wilson for Secretary of Defense, February 18, 1953, quoted in Robert Reich, The work of nations, Vintage Books, 1992, p. 48.
41. Group of Lisbon, quote p. 25.
42. Inprecor, quote, p. 9.
43. Inprecor, quote, p. 17.
44. Inprecor, quote, p. 19.
45. Inprecor, quote, p. 17.
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