INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

Since its earliest development, the capitalist system of production and exchange, has provoked substantial opposition as well as enthusiastic support. The reason is simple. The possession of capital, in the form of money, enables its owner to cast it into circulation and with little or no further effort receive back, not only the original capital, but an additional amount as well. It is this apparently magical ability that gives rise to the enthusiasm displayed by its owners and supporters. However, since money cannot accomplish or create anything by its own efforts, the surplus, yielded in the form of interest or profit, is created ultimately by the labour of others. It is this almost effortless return of ever increasing wealth and power - derived from the unpaid labour of others - which led to the earliest form of anti-capitalist struggle and explains the antipathy of its opponents.

The medieval campaigns against usury (or money lending) were early attempts to limit the amount of interest, profit, or rather surplus labour, which the owner of money capital could extract from borrowers. In the long struggle against capital, therefore, there has always been a strong element of humanistic concern. Subsequent to its early and scattered beginnings, capital has separated into four distinct but connected types, commercial capital, industrial capital, agricultural capital and finance capital. Throughout this long historic gestation, capital has generated repeated anti-capitalist struggles of one form or another. When capital advanced into industrial production it generated the anti-capitalist struggles of the medieval guild system and the craftsmen attached to it. As capitalists moved into agriculture they produced opposition from displaced peasants, poor farmers and agricultural labourers. Later, the capitalist class developed banking, stock jobbing, insurance, etc., which in turn created protest and opposition to the high interest, financial swindles and price fluctuations which attended this growth.

Throughout all this time, and in all its forms, the owners of capital have put the preservation and continued accumulation of their capital above all other considerations. It is precisely these other considerations which have created the basis for the recurrent anti-capitalist struggle. The many negative effects of the capitalist system upon human beings, the environment and other life forms have at all periods proved to be of little or no consequence to the vast majority of owners of capital. In capital's normal cycle of operations, profit comes before anything else. If the interest or profit is sufficiently high then quite abnormal and horrific consequences follow, such as the trade in slaves, opium and imperial conquest. The modern anti-capitalist struggles, therefore, are the continuation of a long history of opposition to capital. It is an opposition that is rooted in a concern to place all human beings, and now the environment and other life forms, above that of the selfish needs of the capitalist classes.

Over long periods of history the anti-capitalist struggle has taken various forms - riot, rebellion, boycott, demonstrations, petitions, revolution and even on occasion religious condemnation. None of these repeated outcries have yet been strong enough to end it permanently, or prevent its continued development. However, in the 19th century, when the capitalist system eventually became the dominant mode of production, the anti-capitalist struggle was put on an entirely new footing. The development of capitalism, by extending its activities to all forms of production and distribution, created a potential new force for the anti-capitalist struggle. By ruining or replacing earlier economic forms, the owners of capital created large-scale production, a global market and a new class of people who worked in their factories, farms, distribution services and commercial outlets. The peasants made landless by agricultural capital, the ruined farmers, guild-workers and their collective offspring, formed a new economic group. They became known as the proletariat or working classes.

From that point on, the majority of working people were set to work for the primary purpose of enriching the capitalists. Social production became dominated by the capitalist need for a profitable return and not by how useful or necessary a product or service was to the community. The capitalists' desire for wealth accumulation also meant that it was in their financial interests to keep wages low, working conditions poor and working time long, to obtain the maximum surplus or profit. On the other hand, it was in the interests of those working in the various industries, commercial outlets, financial houses or distribution networks to try to shorten the working hours, improve their working conditions and increase their levels of pay. Thus the interests of the capitalists and their workers were for the most part diametrically opposed.

The two classes were opposed not only in the day to day struggle against low pay, long hours and dangerous working conditions, but also by the fact that working people became unemployed when capital no longer needed them. This was a problem which grew in proportion to the growth of large-scale capital. This opposition and struggle is a continuous feature of the capitalist system and creates a permanent source of instability. However, with the creation of a large working class, the anti-capitalist struggle had been provided with a radically new ingredient. Many people realised this, but one, a German named Karl Marx, saw that in the long run it was the working classes of the world who held the key to a successful anti-capitalist struggle. He also undertook a detailed study of how the capitalist system worked, and in this way delivered to the anti-capitalist struggle a new and powerful weapon of political and economic criticism! His extensive economic analysis was focused in a three-volume work called Das Capital. Marx suggested that during the struggle between the two classes of workers and capitalists, conditions of crisis would continually arise which could lead to a transformation of society. Such a revolutionary crisis, would sharpen the struggle to such an intensity that a transformation of society would become a possibility. Under the capitalist system as a whole the working classes were so badly treated and so numerous throughout the world that they would be not only the major combatants in the global anti-capitalist struggle, but also the main beneficiaries of overthrowing the system. Marx therefore put forward the following famous phrase.

"Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains."

Although much has changed since Marx was alive, particularly in the field of technology and in the economic functions of the state, the circulation and accumulation of capital remains essentially the same. In addition it is still the working classes (now including the 20th century skilled 'elite' white-collar workers) of the world who occupy the most crucial place in the anti-capitalist struggle. This is not only because of their vast numbers and their uncertain predicament, but also because of the key (and antagonistic) positions they hold in the means of production, distribution and exchange. They are not the only sections of society who will oppose the strategies of capital, but without their social and political participation a revolutionary challenge to the existing order will not take place, and without their collective co-operation, any future large-scale socio/economic system could not function.

With the criticism of the capitalist system provided by Marx, the aspirations of generations of oppressed people were given a new and revolutionary direction. From that time a combined revolutionary and a humane perspective to the anti-capitalist struggle became possible. Tragically, this humanitarian dimension was overlooked by those who subsequently became the leaders of the anti-capitalist struggles. The struggle of the working and oppressed classes to challenge and overcome the capitalist system of production became infected by reformism, sectarianism and vanguard elitism, strong echoes of which still reverberate today. For over two generations the anti-capitalist struggle was high-jacked and distorted, by articulate and presumptuous Reformists, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyists. These sectarian groups, with their elitist and dogmatic agenda's, have managed to seriously divide and disfigure the anti-capitalist movement on many occasions. Some individuals, to their shame, kept quiet about the atrocities falsely carried out in the name of anti-capitalism and a future post-capitalist society, in Russia, even after they knew. For practically the whole of that time the revolutionary humanism of Karl Marx lay dormant in the disregarded part of his writings.

The combined result of this neglect and sectarian arrogance, has been the continued existence of the capitalist system along with all the horrors of the 20th Century, which have attended its survival. It has been a century of global wars, state organised terror, widespread poverty, pollution and environmental degradation. A further result of the lack of a serious humanist perspective, in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle, has been the death of all hope, particularly among working people and intellectuals, for a better future and more egalitarian form of society. Such an aspiration has all but died out as defeats, defaults and distortions have accompanied all previous attempts to overthrow the rule of capital. The secular vacuum resulting from this extended process has caused many oppressed people to fall back upon various fundamentalist religious interpretations of life and criticisms of western capitalist values. At the extreme end of this particular oppositional spectrum, some individuals have even rejected life itself and embraced martyrdom with acts of terror against the citadels of capitalism. For many more people any prospect of a post-capitalist society, in which people and the planet live a more reasoned and balanced existence, is now pessimistically seen as utopian and unnatural - a hopelessly naive idea - and one that has failed miserably in practice.

Yet such a perspective is far from unnatural or utopian. The natural world abounds with co-operation, symbiosis and endo-symbiosis. Beneficial associations, in which individual organisms and species interact without detriment to each other, are both numerous and extremely varied. The whole of multi-cellular life, including our own bodies, is physically dependant upon the reciprocal co-operation taking place between its many and varied cellular components. As the ecological sciences progress in their scope and understanding it also becomes increasingly apparent that the whole natural world, including the systems upon which human life depend, interact in a complementary fashion and are not simply bent upon an indiscriminate war of self-survival, anarchy or mutual destruction.

Indeed, the life of our early human ancestors was also based predominantly upon co-operation, reciprocity and egalitarian relationships as evidence from archaeology, anthropology and ethnology indicates. That is if we care to look. Considered from this longer view, therefore, it is only in comparatively recent times, in the history of the human species, that exploitation, competition and greed have come to dominate the affairs of so-called 'civilised' peoples. Yet even in modern life the need and desire for positive reciprocal relationships still survives in most human beings. Most of us hate being 'ripped off', 'betrayed', 'disrespected', 'exploited' or 'degraded', even though the capitalist system we live under is based upon, and depends upon, such exploitative and oppressive characteristics. We don't like it, we don't accept it as fair, we complain and fight back in various ways, but for the moment we just don't know how to end it. Once seen against such a natural, social and historical background it becomes clear that it is the modern, ultra competitive capitalist world which is for the most part unnatural, antisocial and inhumane.

The recent growth in the anti-capitalist movement is an indication that once again an anti-capitalist understanding is beginning to take shape. The anti-Globalisation and the World Social Forum movements, as with the Argentinian Assemblies, the Zapatista and the various indigenous peoples' struggle's, throughout the world, are indicating that more and more people are saying enough is enough - 'Ya basta! These are positive developments and hopefully these movements will eventually overturn the mood of pessimism and frustration which embraces many millions of people. In this context I suggest that an urgent task for the new generation of anti-capitalists is to recover the neglected revolutionary-humanist perspective, for without it the anti-capitalist struggles of the present and future will be in grave danger of atrophy, stagnation or further tragic failures.

Anti-Capitalist Unity

In the global capitalist network, working people inhabit different national boundaries, speak many different languages and have different belief systems. They also comprise of different genders, different age groups and different occupations. The problem of unity, therefore, is quite exceptional. A prerequisite of any significant degree of unity is a considerable breaking down and erosion of the ideologies of racism, sexism, ageism, elitism, and religious superiority. The capitalist system, by its extensive division of labour and its hierarchical structures, creates conditions of severe competition and alienation, thus continually reinforcing these ideologies. This includes their more extreme forms such as 'ethnic cleansing' and Fascism. For these reasons the erosion and breaking down of these barriers between working people, is no easy task. Indeed, such is the strength of these divisive factors that, if they were the complete picture of the capitalist system, unity of the working classes and other anti-capitalist forces would in fact be an impossibility. Fortunately they are not. At the same time as creating these conditions of competition, separation and alienation among working people, the capitalist system also creates the need and some of the means to overcome them. For whilst competing amongst themselves for jobs and scarce resources, workers are compelled to organise and form collective structures in order to defend or advance their earnings and conditions. Working people are required by the very circumstances that they find themselves in, to create organisational forms to overcome the problems facing them. These have most often been in the form of trade unions, political organisations, campaigning or community groups and workers co-operatives.

Such organisational structures are in the main defensive and reformist but the motivational implications running through them can, under the right conditions, become revolutionary. In the face of the most negative conditions due to the many forms of exploitation and degradation, which capitalists and imperialists create, the essence of a positive view of their own, and others, humanity is never entirely extinguished from the experience of the working classes throughout the world. Indeed, it is continually reborn amid the most barbaric circumstances. Within the homelands and the outposts of capital's far-flung financial and commercial empire, co-operation, solidarity and human feelings arise and are engendered within the oppressed themselves, thus giving rise to acts of resistance, heroism, humanity and self-sacrifice. The humanist essence of love and co-operation, formatively learned and experienced by each new generation at the breast and during infantile nurture, constantly reasserts itself positively in most adults.

Even in the most extreme regimes of Fascist concentration camps - calculated as they were to reduce human beings to mere abstract units of labour for industry, or sources of raw material, for glue and animal feed - humanity was not entirely extinguished among the inmates. The essence of humanity continues to rise, phoenix like, from the ashes of its destruction. Incidents of support, kindness and solidarity are numerous and consistent - even in the face of regimes of organised terror. The story was the same in relationship to the Stalinist forced-labour camps. It arises today in the suburbs and ghettos of South Africa, South America, Asia, Oceania and the Indian subcontinent.

In the advanced countries this essence surfaces, incompletely, and often in a distorted fashion, in the form of charity and sporadic acts of altruism. It surfaces also in the form of discrete pressure groups and campaigns. True, under the distorting structures of capitalist relationships, it often takes disasters to bring out the real potential of humanity. Such cataclysmic events, which irregularly occur, and momentarily burst asunder the oppressive confines of capital-induced competition and aggression, reveal the underlying potential of human beings. To realise this potential, the rule of capital and other forms of exploitation and oppression will need to be removed permanently. Tragedies aside, even the normal every day conditions of exploitation and degradation lead to working people's resistance to them. This response is universal and will remain so. The reason is simple. The contrast between working people's essential humanity - what they could be and feel themselves to be - and the inhuman social and working conditions they find themselves born into - constantly asserts itself. Capitalist oppression and exploitation are experienced as unreasonable, wasteful, destructive and in need of redress. This remains true even of those employed in highly waged and frequently highly stressed occupations. The brain - the human organ of reflection and judgement - of ordinary people, weighs no less on average, than their so-called educated 'betters', it is, therefore, eminently capable of critical reflection upon their condition.

These factors explain why the vast majority of people remain both essentially humane and potentially revolutionary. The reaction to the clear injustices and oppressive nature of modern society among some often explodes in negative and self-defeating ways (violence against self and/or others) but its source and inspiration, with the exception perhaps of the hard drug culture, are predominantly positive. It stems from the desire not to be forced to live a stunted, one-dimensional and restricted life. This selfsame human motivation has asserted itself whatever the social form oppression has taken: Slavery saw repeated rebellions; feudal servitude witnessed countless serf and peasant uprisings; modern capitalist wage-slavery has experienced a number of insurrections and revolutions. Even the state controlled wage-slavery of totalitarian forms of so-called socialism such as the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc, provoked a hidden but corrosive resistance, frequent demonstrations, and finally collapse.

Capitalist Social Conditions

The conditions under which the working poor exist are a highly visible and living condemnation of the capitalist or imperialist imposed structures, and of the people who perpetuate them. On the surface it seems that the mass of poor people around the world will tolerate for whole periods, the most abusive and exploitative conditions of life - in many cases taking on some of these characteristics themselves. A fact that often leads to cynical views and blanket condemnations of the so-called brutal reactions or apathetic adaptations, of the lower classes. As workers and poor peasants, they are accustomed from birth to get by with few needs and entertain only low expectations of life and of themselves; this is so, even where their ghettos are surrounded by ostentatious wealth. They appear not to care. But in case they begin to question these conditions, the wealthy and privileged in society put much effort into 'law and order', education and propaganda, to explain away and render acceptable such a state of affairs. Sociology, political ideology and religion all play a part in the process of 'educating' people to accept as logical and natural conditions of poverty amid plenty that are clearly illogical. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" - "All things bright and beautiful." - "The Lord God made it so." Not a bit of it! In fact it was armed oppression which originally made it so and it is the capitalist global system, also armed to the teeth, which ensures it continues to be so.

The fact that some people can be starving whilst others are indulging themselves to excess just around the corner, can only be rationalised by resorting to the most convoluted arguments. That some people can be homeless in cardboard boxes, whilst others have several luxury homes is plainly obscene. Such facts alone are themselves a consistent indictment of the present class nature of society and require an almost daily ritual of explaining them away. This is often done in terms of blaming the victims of this distorted method of producing and consuming the world's goods. They should 'try harder', 'get on their bikes', 'undertake re-training', etc. All this for jobs that are just not there for large numbers of them. Police, prisons and the military throughout the capitalist world remain on the alert in case the poor, oppressed or dispossessed, remain unconvinced and defiantly begin to try to change and improve things for themselves.

With wages for many jobs in the advanced countries reduced to levels only just above the level of state benefits there is very little incentive to work for some people. The solution to this has characteristically been to lower state benefits rather than raise wages. Indeed, in the UK, the Tory pro-capitalist government (of 1979-97) abolished the wages' councils which put a theoretical, if not a practical, lower limit on wages. The apologists for the present inequitable system try to limit and channel public concern in various ways to acts of charity and patronising kindness with occasional suggestions and programmes for self-improvement. Ironically, whilst the professional charity fund-raisers carve a career for themselves caring for the poor and needy, the poor and needy, instead of disappearing, are continually created by the system.

Poverty traps created for working people by the current capitalist social and economic system constitutes, at the same time, the means for a relative enrichment for some high placed dispensers of state benefits. An enrichment that provides for many ample holidays and trappings of material wealth. Since the end of the Second World War, a whole class of professional people have been created under enlightened capitalist rule. Many have been promoted from within the educated working class itself. Their permanent function is to dispense welfare to another section of their class who have been made poor and needy by the arbitrary movements of global capital. It is precisely these movements of capital which create unemployment, and thus relative and absolute poverty.

The United Kingdom is typical of many advanced capitalist countries. Just considering the last two decades of the 20th century, for example, reveals a great deal. In December 1983, using government figures, it was claimed that there were in Britain over 1 million people who were without work, with all that implies in terms of poverty and ill health. Despite government reassurances, the boom conditions of the 1980's (i.e. the much heralded economic growth) did not soak up unemployment. Unemployment and poverty - irrespective of boom or slump - are now a permanent feature of the lives of working people in all the 'advanced' countries as well as the 'poor' countries. Large-scale unemployment is now an admitted long term feature of capitalistic productive methods. By 1989 the figure had risen to 3 million. Throughout the 1990s it fluctuated little and is still a constant feature of 21st century capitalism. It has become so permanent that pro-capitalist governments routinely reduce the categories which are counted in the unemployed statistics in order to hide the true scale. The existence of large numbers of unemployed working people enable capitalist employers to lower wages and salaries in the full knowledge that someone will be desperate enough to take the job.

Yet, at the same time, things have never been better - for some! From the entrepreneurial point of view, the post-war capitalist economic system, has been unclogged and freed from trade union resistance. The restrictions of government legislation and high taxation of the rich, having been lifted, have allowed big-business the freedom to expand and make profits! It is a 'conservative' freedom that is much vaunted and celebrated. In return for this freedom, approximately 15 million people in Britain are now 'free' to be relatively poor and/or unemployed! This is a situation which is replicated throughout the capitalist world. There is in conventional terms a great divide, but it is not geographical. In Britain, as elsewhere, the identification of a North/South, East/West divide, between rich and poor, misses - either accidentally or deliberately - the essential point. The real divide is along lines of social class. It may happen that more workers and poor people are grouped in one location rather than another for historic, economic or social reasons. However, it is not geography that continually creates a savage contrast between poverty and wealth, but the social division of labour. Nor is it the first time such a stark contrast and division has taken place.

Meanwhile, within the impoverished conditions in which they find themselves, working people attempt to find meaning and satisfaction in multifarious ways. However, when their conditions continue to deteriorate, a point arises where it becomes impossible to continue to exist by wit, ingenuity and neighbourly competition. A transformation may begin to take place. The previously quiescent can become rebellious, the passive become active. Working people can become collectively subversive - a fear which constantly haunts the minds of the oppressing classes and their hangers on. Riots, youth rebellions and even insurrections, can begin to erupt in areas of deprivation and, as noted, some individuals, finally driven to desperation, can begin to adopt terrorist tactics. When conditions mature sufficiently, and a severe economic crisis develops, the dominant ideology, as well as the dominant classes, are increasingly challenged to justify the corrupt system they uphold. The dominant ideology usually responds by again 'blaming the victim.' They discover the reasons for unrest, not in the extreme conditions created by the unequal system of global production and distribution, being experienced by the oppressed, but in the action of extremists stirring things up. Such ideological reflexes are calculated to provide the capitalist economic and political elites with justification for further onslaughts on the lives of the oppressed. Onslaughts which, depending upon the country in question, may take the form of bombings, embargoes, arrests, fines, confiscation's, imprisonment, torture and even death for those trying resist the effects of global capitalist exploitation. However, these assaults often create further cycles of general or terrorist response, as they become additional reasons for a deepening spiral of hatred. The capitalist state's armed bodies of men are prodded into further oppressive action against its own, and other countries' citizens, a practice that often seems to succeed. If such conditions continue, then, in the wake of (or during) a serious economic, political or military crisis, a revolutionary situation becomes possible. At such times alternative economic and social networks are created.

At, or even before that point, a pre-revolutionary situation can exist in which revolutionary and humanist ideas and the people who promote them exist as a minority - and seem to be deviants to some, or ahead of their time to others. It is theoretically and practically possible to organise these anti-capitalist people (in the past often termed "a vanguard!") into organisations which both prepare, work for and wait for, such a revolutionary possibility. Yet these forces also face in advance the same obstacles, created by the same capitalist structures, as those which face the working classes and the oppressed in general. That is to say, the previously mentioned conditions of atomisation, competition and disunity. How they measure up to the problems of disunity, in the pre-revolutionary periods, (and as we shall see their past track record was not good) is at least an indicator, if not an exact precursor, of how well the classes from which they are drawn, will later measure up to the revolutionary and humanist tasks facing them.

Capitalism and Crisis

With regard to capitalist economic crisis, little doubt can be expressed after even the most cursory study, that the world is again approaching a severe crisis. Previous crises, although being extreme - even catastrophic when they have been transformed into war - have been largely restricted to the economic and political spheres of life. The present world crisis is different. It certainly contains strong economic factors. World wide poverty, low pay and unemployment, set alongside the white heat of global speculative investment, falling rates of profit, stock market crashes, and monetary fluctuations are just a few! They provide ample evidence of a high degree of economic instability, continually hovering close to or on the edge of economic collapse. The present world situation also contains its full share of political horrors. These comprise of military supported and imposed regimes - funded and fuelled by the advanced so-called civilised countries - with widespread politically-motivated torture and killings. It is undeniable that the more bankrupt the politics or the more unjust the society, the more transparent its reliance on force. And, of course, the more force is relied upon, the more resistance will eventually be generated against it and the greater the future backlash.

However, alongside these economic and political crises, occurs a serious ecological one. The unregulated nature and the enormous productive capacity of large-scale capitalist industry and commerce, is such that it is, on the one hand, consuming essential raw materials faster than they can be replenished, and on the other, producing waste materials quicker than they can be safely disposed of. When the problem is viewed in this way, it is not so much that the third world countries are underdeveloped, but that the western fully capitalist societies are overdeveloped. The latter are producing and consuming too much, too fast, faster than nature can replenish its once ample resources, and in such volumes that utilising and disposing of this production and its by-products has become a major problem, a problem of world shaking proportions.

Rivers, seas, trees and soil have already become highly polluted by toxic effluent and the dumping of waste products. The very atmosphere itself along with the earth's crust is increasingly approaching the point of exhaustion. Large numbers of non-human species are nearing extinction, many have already been rendered extinct. The unregulated productive capacity of modern industry ceaselessly whipped into new action by the individual and corporate capitalists desire for profit, has become like an uncontrollable cancer, eating away at the healthy tissue of the entire planet. All these real problems and unprecedented levels of human misery too! As we begin the 21st century, the dominant capitalist system of production and exchange cries out for revolutionary change. Although, as an economic system, it has only dominated global life for a few hundred years, it has become increasingly apparent that the capitalist system cannot continue indefinitely without catastrophic consequences to the planet and its inhabitants.

Even before such an eventuality, the deep-seated economic problems will not go away. Of late, even moderately paid working families, middle-class professionals, and small business people, cannot escape staring daily at the abyss of relative poverty and feel its threatening proximity. With price increases, VAT and council tax on the one hand, and short-time working and redundancy lists on the other, once secure families are under continual threat. Relatively well-paid people cannot entirely escape being pushed closer to individual crisis by falling or rising house prices and rising mortgage repayments. Two-salaried families can quickly see their illusion of well-being disappear when one partner or the other is handed their notice to quit. As global capital roams the world now looking for sources of cheap professional and skilled labour, security in a boring repetitive job for some now seems an enviable position, rather than the anathema it once was. Pro-capitalist and reformist political wisdom is limited to leading impotent campaigns to save jobs or create them, under the very same conditions that have led to the job losses in the first place: these conditions being those of private investment based upon the realisation of a substantial profit for the individual or collective investors.

Failed businessmen are employed by local colleges and local government agencies, to dispense business advice and acumen (if they are so good why aren't they employing themselves?) to redundant workers and to students, with no prospects of employment other than self-employment. This amounts to an incredible pro-capitalist scam on the local tax payer. In the new global capitalist reality, countries, regions and towns are encouraged to compete with each other to lure capital's low-paid exploitative jobs into their area, a negative and divisive policy if ever there was one! One also doomed to failure in the current economic climate and under the current economic and political regime. For the underlying capitalist crisis is one of falling rates of profit and relative overproduction, not a scarcity of cheap labour or suitable locations, from which to conduct business. This fact is amply revealed when the much heralded new enterprises, after taking all the grants and subsidies they can get, soon close down even in areas of high unemployment and low pay.

The Failure of Anti-Capitalist Reforms

Between the First World War of 1914-18 and the Second World War of 1939-1945 there had been an earlier crisis of capitalism and another yawning divide. The acute division between the increasingly rich minorities, and the increasingly poor majorities, caused major unrest and civil disorders throughout the world. In one country after another, anti-capitalist revolutionary upheavals were witnessed. In Britain it caused the formation of a Triple Alliance and created a General Strike. It resulted in major changes to the politics of governing the country. It also resulted in the rapid growth of the British Labour Party. These changes are of the utmost relevance to much of the present political situation in Britain and have important lessons for working people and anti-capitalists in all capitalist countries.

In Britain between the two world wars, the defensive economic struggle against capital, organised in trade unions, had spilled over into a struggle for political power to change things for the better. The parties of the privileged classes, the Tory Party and the Liberal Party, saw their political positions increasingly challenged. The Liberal Party declined and the Tory Party elders learned, for a time, to adopt a less hostile stance to the working classes. At the end of the second world war the Labour Party was returned with a massive parliamentary majority. It professed to offer a new deal for the working people of Britain. With a considerable platform of reforms aimed at cushioning the position of the working people of the United Kingdom, it promised to take Britain forward in prosperity and social justice. Education, pensions, health, social welfare, full employment and rising standards of living were to be delivered, not only to the demobilised armed forces and civilian adults at the time, but also to future generations. If stopping well short of the revolutionary transformation of British Capitalism, the Post War Labour Government, nevertheless, seemed for a time committed to a radical reform of its worst features. In these circumstances a large part of the workers' anti-capitalist struggle became directed toward trying to reform capital through parliamentary procedures, acts of legislation and government departments.

Considerable numbers of ordinary trade unionists and Labour Party members laboured long and hard to protect and extend some measure of social justice under the capitalist system. Some even mistakenly believed that the capitalist system could be ended in this way. Successive Labour Governments settled for a mixed economy of state run industries and private enterprise. It was considered that these state controlled (nationalised) industries would guarantee an efficient level of essential services at a reasonable cost, and at the same time provide good wages and conditions for those employed in them. In practice these public sector industries remained in the control of hierarchies whose actions and sentiments more often than not alienated the public and employees alike.

In a similar way reformist political commitment to the mixed economy of private and public enterprise meant leaving the major and most powerful parts of the economy (the banks and major industries, etc.) in private hands; in fact, in the hands of the same class as were running the nationalised industries! To most people, including the majority of the working class, this seemed sensible and in any case it didn't seem to matter. For set against this economic control by capitalist domination of the top economic positions, was political control by parliament which was supposed to count for more. In this post-war dream-world scenario of reform, the extremes of capitalist abuse would be kept in check by government agencies and under the watchful eye of parliament. In politics there was also a post-war consensus amongst the different political parties. It seemed, for a time, as if there was to be no going back to the bad old days of pre-war capitalism.

Yet in the 21st century, practically all the anti-capitalist reforms fought for and achieved by the organised working class - including those won by their local representatives - have now been eroded or taken away. In Britain, a decade of populist conservatism headed by the radical right-wing, Margaret Thatcher, succeeded in rolling back nearly every concession gained by the working classes over the previous thirty years. Nothing the parties of reform could do was able to halt the onward march of Thatcherism, which was but a political mask for the City of London's international banking fraternity. Countless demonstrations, calling for 'Maggie Out', mistakenly focused attention on personalities rather than politics and economics.

It took an internal Tory Party coup to oust Thatcher and replace her with what the men in 'grey suits' hoped was a more acceptable, meaning 'electable', representative of their interests. They succeeded with John Major and the same neo-liberal political and economic principles were pursued. The political fixers, along with their favoured political representatives, continued to push back, to them the relatively expensive post-war reforms, as one way to increase their share of the surplus value created each year. They undoubtedly succeeded. Fewer taxes from these capitalist concerns and the upper middle classes, means less government finance available for essential services, and they have more available to invest in global capitalism. Many more of the capitalist elite top earners have become millionaires.

The reduction in local government expenditure, as already noted, has in the main hit the services to the poor and needy. The main purpose of central government cutbacks in local and national services is to transfer the expenses of education, health, welfare and local government activities from a degree of socialised accounting where people pay approximately according to their means, to privatised accounting where you only get what you can pay for. The mechanism for this reverse transfer of funds to make the poor pay for their own services, or do without, is termed 'subjecting them to global market forces'. In effect it means that those who can afford to pay will get one level of service, those who cannot, will have to do with another. When the low paid can no longer manage, and increasingly they cannot, they will have to make do with what public and private charity can offer them in its place. Yet from within the capitalist political establishment, whatever political party, in whatever country, there is no real debate or explanation of how and why some people, in this day and age, can afford a higher level and others only a lower level of services. New Labour has in the main continued the same policies, and promoted the identical interests of the global capitalist economic system, as the Tories before them. No serious discussion exists of why there are such wide disparities in wealth and poverty. There appears to be no consideration of why services to the worst off sections of society are cut, whilst jobs for the relatively well off sections, are protected. It is the same in all the capitalist countries of Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S.A. No political party can offer a perspective on establishing full employment, good pay, low cost high quality housing and an end to poverty. Such things were apparently unthinkable throughout the 1990's period of 'realistic' neo-liberal politics and still are in the twenty-first century. Yet, as we shall see later, such basic requirements are eminently attainable.

One hundred years after the struggle to form organisations for the betterment of the working classes, vast numbers of them are offered nothing better than low pay, unemployment or state-regulated poverty and meaningless training. Not only that, but the very institutions and organisations created and supported by the working classes for the defensive and reformist struggle - the trade unions and political parties - are in considerable disarray! They too have absolutely nothing to offer! They cannot construct and offer a political programme which affords the mass of the population a vision of a better future. They can only suggest feebly that it is the incompetence of other politicians which is at the root of the problems, rather than the capitalist system itself. They squabble about the symptoms but steadfastly ignore the cause. A century of struggle, which has also seen miracles of technological achievement, has seen little advance in long term security and well-being for the majority of people on the planet. In every advanced country in the world, whatever political form is in being, a similar picture can be painted. The capital and technical knowledge exist and is frequently utilised to defy the restrictive confines of the planet and send privileged people into space; but available resources, brain power and money are never used to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter for every human being needing it.

The Failure of Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism

If this is the picture from the parties of reform and reaction, what about the so-called revolutionary anti-capitalist left? Perhaps we could expect that the radical and anti-capitalist groups, who have waited for this very moment would be ready to step forward. They should by now be waiting to proclaim to the world the success of their propaganda, the correctness of their prophecies of inevitable capitalist crisis and reformist bankruptcy. We might expect them to be in a position to demonstrate in other ways that they are ready and waiting for support. Yet where are they? They appear, as if by some strange misfortune, to be totally unprepared for the very thing they have so frequently predicted - a deepening world crisis of the capitalist economic and political system. It is an undeniable fact that many small groups have been publicly engaged in anti-capitalist party building in Britain, Europe, North and South America and other countries of the world. They have been active since the end of hostilities in the Second World War, some even carrying on propaganda work during it.

Where are the fruits of their endeavours? Fifty-plus years is not an insignificant amount of time to build even a small alternative anti-capitalist tradition. On the contrary, this period should have provided ample time to prepare a 'vanguard' membership. Time enough to equip them with a deep and sound understanding of the ideas, philosophy and theoretical methods which would make it a distinct and exemplary opposition to all that is corrupt and exploitative in the capitalist world they were pledged to revolutionise. However, the revolutionary left section of the anti-capitalist struggle is in a state of atomised sectarian disarray - a condition they have rarely been out of for over four or five decades. For over half a century they have failed to fulfil their promises, despite their frequently boastful and arrogant claims to be guided by the most advanced theories of revolutionary anti-capitalism.

Much of this dedicated and frenetic revolutionary activity has been undertaken in the name of the previously noted, Karl Marx. Many groups have claimed to be guided by his theories of revolution. Many of them also claim to have followed in the tradition of Vladimir Illytch Lenin, Leon Trotsky or Mao Tse-Tung. Yet after fifty years of so-called diligent application of these theories, so little has been built. The present apparently monumental and palpable historic failure of this self-styled Marxist left, to build anything of use in the anti-capitalist struggle, could be taken to mean that the theories advanced by Marx, have been carefully applied - but found wanting. Not a few from within the revolutionary left have thought so themselves, questioned the methods and subsequently abandoned their part in the anti-capitalist struggle. Alternative explanations have also been promoted, often by those who remained and who consider themselves the 'vanguard'. Some have suggested that the objective circumstances were against all development of a successful vanguard. Others that the working classes were not ready. In response to such self-serving rationalisations we are entitled to raise more than a quizzical eyebrow.

Yet answers to questions about this failure of the so-called revolutionary left, are in reality, important for all anti-capitalists. Considering such questions may be disturbing for those who were involved in this half century of sectarian atrophy but there are profound implications if we do not. If former revolutionary socialists and other anti-capitalists are not to sit helplessly around or busy themselves going round in circles, such issues need to be posed and addressed. It is insufficient to hope that if revolutionary anti-capitalists eventually seize power in another country that the same thing as happened in the Soviet Union and China will not occur again. Indeed, it is unlikely that these 'lefts' will ever get such a chance, due to the now existing universal hatred of the working class for such communist-type regimes. Those in the East who have tried these so-called brands of communism have also apparently found them so lacking in producing reasonable living standards and human decency that millions of them clearly prefer something else. Many, in fact, see western capitalist methods of production as an improvement upon eastern communism. In addition, numerous anti-capitalists and the working classes, in the rest of the capitalist world, no longer show any enthusiasm for trying their own Russian Soviet experiment. They wisely demonstrate no desire to exchange one form of political oppression and economic exploitation for another, and possibly worse form!

This is not a surprising reaction. During the life of Lenin, and particularly after his death, the newly formed Soviet State in Russia was used systematically to force the poor and oppressed back into a life of productive toil, which was no better and in some aspects worse, than that experienced under capitalism. They were expected to endure and even welcome this bitter exploitation, simply because the previous exploiting classes had been overthrown. However, aping the capitalists and previous exploiting elites, the state functionaries and Communist Party leaders, also viewed the working classes primarily as sources of labour and surplus labour. Thus within a short time the workers under these regimes had fewer rights than feudal peasants let alone capitalist wage slaves. To prevent organised resistance to this fate, the ruling soviet elite granted themselves the right of organisation with an armed force to protect it and denied this to the rest of the working population.

The savage heel of the Stalin dominated internal police was systematically used against the working and toiling masses in the name of Marxism, Leninism, Bolshevism and Socialism. Assassinations and fabricated show trials became routine. As in the later example of Pol Pot in Cambodia, forced labour and concentration camps were common and secret assassinations and tortures became the normal every day political practice of the regime. How this came about in Russia, is the subject of further sections, but it should be noted, as in all such cases of sectarian terror and oppression, that it had nothing at all to do with the welfare of the working class, its unity or the creation of co-operative or socialistic associations of people. Nor, as we shall see, had it anything to do with Karl Marx.

The death of Stalin brought little change. The so-called liberalisation under Kruschev and Brehznev was no more than a superficial change of style in Soviet politics, whilst the Gorbachov and post-Gorbachov era offered little but pragmatic adaptation and accommodation to the capitalist West. With this development the official communist parties were split several times asunder, some of them failing to break with their totalitarian past, others became firmly entrenched in the ruts of sectarianism and opportunism. Not a few disappeared or went completely over to reformism in the belief that a different set of reformists would do better than the previous ones. Unfortunately the revolution in China fared little better. The People's Republic of China was no more tolerant to people who did not follow the Party line than was Russia. Although having ideological differences with the Russian Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party ran the People's Republic of China on similar bureaucratic centralist lines. Many of the Chinese old guard still saw Stalin and his supporters' bestial policies as unavoidable, necessary and even on occasion admirable. And of course China is now being willingly brought into the global capitalist economy by its 'communist' leadership.

In fact the totalitarian Stalinists, terrorists and sectarians offer no real opposition or serious threat to the capitalist world order. On the contrary, they pose a grave danger to the interests of the international anti-capitalist struggle. They are a symptom of capitalist crisis and decay, not a solution to the problems it poses. Their extreme disregard for human life and dignity often far exceeds, that of the capitalists themselves, and so they cause many people to mute their criticism against the capitalist system or even on occasion support the system. In numerous such ways sectarian groups have been of the utmost service to the capitalist ruling elites. So good are they at causing splits and divisions among themselves and workers in struggle, that if such sectarians did not already exist, an astute ruling class would probably want to invent them! Just how negatively sectarians of all hues have damaged the anti-capitalist struggle we shall see from a critical examination of some of them in a later section.

Hopefully, such criticism, and demystifying of the rhetoric of correctness of these self-appointed religious and political vanguards, will at the same time begin to clear a space for a more workable and systematic strategy of solidarity and international support for the anti-capitalist struggles of the oppressed throughout the world. Also, hopefully, this might contribute in some small way, to the strengthening within all countries of the world, of a non-sectarian anti-capitalist movement. A movement that is increasingly drawn from within the ranks of the working and oppressed classes of society themselves as well as other classes. One which will refuse to see itself as a superior intellectual or political force within society sent to lead and deliver the working and oppressed masses out of their servitude. A movement that, on the contrary, would constitute itself on the basis of assisting, practically, the working classes of the world to achieve successive degrees of anti-capitalist unity. And in achieving that unity, assist them during future revolutionary anti-capitalist struggles, in establishing a social system based not upon exploitation and greed, but on community organisation and need. At the same time that new vanguard of facilitators would consciously and consistently recognise the dangers of newly emerging elites of leaders (including the possible development into such themselves). In view of this they would, therefore, work toward their own rapid political dissolution and complete integration among the citizens of their respective parts of the world.

Learning from mistakes and the development of real solidarity is the only way that working people and their anti-capitalist allies can hope to free themselves from the poverty, oppression, exploitation and ecological devastation caused by the capitalist mode of production. By challenging some cherished beliefs and inviting serious self-criticism, I do not intend that current and former anti-capitalists should throw their hands up in despair or wait helplessly around for things to change. But nor do I intend to encourage them or new recruits to the struggle against capital, to repeat the frenetic labour of Sisyphus that has been the lot of so many of their predecessors over the last four decades. If we do not pause and reflect from time to time we are surely doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past as well as make unnecessary new ones. At this present juncture the time is over ripe for a great deal of reflection, before and even whilst embarking on new stages of the anti-capitalist struggle. It is the purpose of this book to argue for a new sense of direction among all those who are opposed to the capitalist system whether in part or in whole.

It is often said that history repeats itself, once as tragedy, the next as farce. If the Soviet degeneration in the 1930's 40's and 50's under Stalin was a tragedy, and it certainly was, then those who wish to continue to oppose capitalism from a revolutionary and humanist position, need to see to it that the 1960's, 70,s and 80's of sectarian left buffoonery has been the farce, and take those steps necessary to be done with it.

The new generation of anti-capitalists has arrived at a time when the capitalist system has created such damage to the human and ecological areas of life that the more enlightened pro-capitalists are themselves having grievous doubts about the system they uphold. These supporters of capital are being forced to ask themselves and other pro-capitalists serious questions. Questions that require critical answers and which will be difficult for many of them to contemplate let alone accept and implement. Driven on by their arrogant greed, the neo-liberal global capitalists are creating unrelenting devastation to communities and the environment. At the same time, the new anti-capitalist forces gather strength at a time when the past deviations and distortions of this struggle have not yet received sufficient evaluation. This book represents the author's contribution to a review of the mistakes of past struggle against capital and to resurrecting the neglected revolutionary humanist dimension within the anti-capitalist struggle. Both, I feel, are essential to guide not only the future practical struggles, but also the striving for a more sustainable and humane post-capitalist society.

Part 1 looks at the whole question of sectarianism. This is essential for the future healthy development of the anti-capitalist struggle. Sectarian anti-capitalist groups will continue to seriously hinder, undermine and demoralise any present and future anti-capitalists struggles if their behaviour is not understood. Their own individualist, elitist, hierarchical agenda, hidden under a rhetoric of post-revolution equality, will ensure this outcome. The first chapter, therefore, starts by attempting to construct a detailed profile and list of typical sectarian characteristics. A working knowledge of this chapter will help the reader to detect, oppose and hopefully isolate sectarian methods in any of the many forms in which they manifest themselves. One of the problems with identifying and effectively dealing with the past sectarianism within the anti-capitalist struggle has been the lack of such a comprehensive definition. The first chapter tries to remedy that deficiency. Chapter 2 examines what sectarianism looks like once the sectarians have managed to get hold of state power. It illustrates how the sectarian characteristics identified in Chapter 1 manifest themselves on that larger scale. I feel this review is important because some people tend to think that sectarians are nothing more than a mild or ridiculous irritation that can be ignored because they will cause no great harm. Given the right circumstances for their development, nothing could be further from the truth. This chapter outlines this fact and entails a brief look at one of the most shameful and terrifying episodes in the international anti-capitalist struggle. It indicates the outcome of such a struggle in which the guiding participants lacked a firm revolutionary-humanist perspective and philosophy. Chapter 3, in Part one examines a series of left sectarian groups which over the last 50 years, claimed to be 'the' leadership in the struggle against the capitalist system. By using the characteristics identified in chapter 1 it is possible to see by their own example how and why these groups failed to play a positive role in the struggle against capital. This also serves to demonstrate how any present or future sectarian groups are likely to operate within the coming anti-capitalist struggles. This chapter concludes that sectarian characteristics are mostly very deep seated - and will be maintained by most sectarians - in spite of everything! The type of people and groups in question will continue with such sectarian practices until the individuals within the groups themselves are effectively isolated or undergo a profoundly revolutionary change in their thought processes and habits.

Part 2 critically examines the attempts to set up an alternative post-capitalist society in Russia after the October 1917 revolution. Thus Chapter 4 describes as fairly as possible, and using Lenin's own words, what he and the Bolsheviks were trying to do in the aftermath of the successful October insurrection. On the basis of the description in Chapter 4, Chapter 5 tries to analyse the mistakes and the source of the mistakes of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, from the standpoint of the working classes and the oppressed peasants. Major parts of these mistakes are to be found in the top-down centralist planning of the system of production and in the sectarian agenda of Bolshevik party politics. Chapter 6 continues this analysis by examining the role of Leon Trotsky. This is done because many past, and a number of contemporary anti-capitalists, consider that Trotsky's attempt to build a Left Opposition and then Fourth International after Stalin came to power, was 'the' way to lead the future anti-capitalist struggle. The author considers that this Trotskyist viewpoint has failed to distinguish the connection between the sectarianism and elitism of Stalin and the sectarianism and elitism of Trotsky. These two personalities representing both sides of the same elitist and sectarian coin, even if one side (the Stalinist) was intent on becoming more tarnished than the other. The final chapter in Part 2 tries to look at a range of ideas contained within Marx's writings which deal with the role of ideas, politics, and the working classes in the anti-capitalist struggle. It is this chapter in particular that seeks to uncover the explicit revolutionary-humanism contained within the anti-capitalism of Marx. It concludes from this examination that Marx was not a Marxist (as Marx himself was to state) but on the contrary a revolutionary-humanist. In the opinion of the author he was also one of the highest calibre who made many sacrifices for the anti-capitalist cause. Yet despite this he has been frequently distorted and vilified by his enemies and repeatedly betrayed by his so-called disciples. This chapter concludes that the concept of politics, and power, even revolutionary 'politics' and 'power', is part of the problem and not the solution.

Part 3 explores the opposition between the essence of humanity and the system of capitalist production. In particular, Chapter 8 looks at the natural phenomena of beneficial association, or co-operation, between most life forms, including those human groups existing before the development of civilisations. It finds that beneficial association, endo-symbiosis and symbiosis are essential features of all forms of life and that where these are adopted undoubted evolutionary advantages accumulate. This particular chapter also concludes that positive reciprocal exchange was the normal method of human interaction in what are now known as primitive societies. It also proposes that this original and developing essence of humanity (beneficial associations with positive reciprocity) has been distorted by negative reciprocal exchanges imposed by the armed rulers of civilised states and that the rule of capital continues the imposition of this negative reciprocity. Chapter 9 gives a brief sketch of Marx's analysis of the economic functioning of the capitalist system. It concentrates on providing an understanding of how surplus value is extracted from the labours of working people throughout the world and how this finishes up in the pockets and bank accounts of the capitalist class and their supporters. The chapter also tries to give an appreciation of just how large the surplus production is, and contrasts this with the pro-capitalist perspective on reducing the social expenditure costs of pensions, health provision and education. Chapter 9 closes with a description of the factors that can still lead to economic crisis and collapse under the present capitalist system. Chapter 10 provides an abbreviated review of many of the negative effects of the capitalist system of production upon human beings, the environment and other life forms. It argues that the pursuit of the profit motive ensures that these effects and others cannot be effectively curtailed and will always emanate from the capitalist system of production, distribution and exchange.

Part 4 explores the possibilities for a change in the capitalist system. Chapter 11 traces previous attempts to modify some of the effects of the capitalist system by parliamentary or legislative reforms, and describes the illusion of reformism and how it arises. It argues that anti-capitalists need to consider the whole network of capitalist power relations and not just the legislative arenas provided as functional window dressing. Since many anti-capitalists, myself included, consider that the effects of the capitalist system of production can only be removed by the revolutionary transformation of the capitalist system itself, chapter 12 looks at the question of revolution. The chapter briefly surveys four past revolutions in England, America, France and Russia and attempts to indicate how and why revolutions occur. It tries to provide an antidote to the voluntarism of much of the sectarian left who often seem to think that anti-capitalist revolution is something a few thousand people can create if they all join one revolutionary group or party and work hard enough to undermine the capitalist system. It will be demonstrated that such a perspective is complete nonsense. At the same time chapter 12 tries to provide some criteria by which to judge whether or not a revolutionary situation really exists within any future struggle or large-scale protest/rebellion against the rule of capital. The concluding chapter draws together many of the strands examined in the book and suggests a number of ways forward in the struggle against the destructive rule of capital and for a better, more caring post-capitalist society. Revolutionary anti-capitalists are invited to cast off their typecast 'labels' which often stem from an outdated and discredited past and now serve only to divide the struggle. It makes the case for anti-capitalists to consider themselves as revolutionary-humanists and to non-dogmatically bring both aspects, revolution and humanism - to every struggle against capital and its effects. It also argues against sectarian and elitist concepts of leaders and led and for the concept of 'facilitator' in the struggle against capital and in the construction of any future alternative form of society.

Finally, throughout the various chapters I have tried not to assume a specialist knowledge of historical events. In most I have attempted to give a popular level of description, one which - apart from my conclusions and selections - would have general acceptance. In some places, however, I have had to present a great deal of detail and in doing so I may be in danger of patronising some readers who are familiar with such detail. In other places I have overlapped historical events across sections so as not to get the reader bogged down or side-tracked from the crucial issues being examined in each particular chapter.