Revolutionary
Humanism

Preface

Introduction and overview

Part One: Anti-Capitalism without Humanism

Part Two: Post-Capitalism without Humanism

Part Three: Beneficial Association or Capitalist Exploitation

Part Four: Anti-Capitalist Struggle: Reform or Revolution

Conclusion

Part One: Anti-Capitalism without Humanism

The struggle against capital reached a high-point in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was a period in which great anti-capitalist struggles took place. It also witnessed the birth of various political movements with political parties dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. The predominant motivation for the majority of ordinary activists taking part in those anti-capitalist struggles, was humanitarian and humanist. Millions of ordinary citizens around the world joined and campaigned in those political movements. They did so because they rejected some, or all, of the inhuman conditions and inhumane practices of the capitalist system. It was this humanist rejection, which provided the motive force of the anti-capitalist movement of that period. Yet because anti-capitalism at that time lacked an explicit and consistent humanist core, its leadership and many of those who remained active in the movement, became imbued with the same negative values as the capitalist system, namely, Arrogance, Elitism, Ruthlessness, Competition, Deviousness and Dishonesty. Those characteristics continued to survive within the anti-capitalist movement, throughout the 20th century. The generic term by which these negative characteristics are commonly known within the anti-capitalist struggle, is sectarianism.

Chapter 1:

Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism

Anti-capitalist Sectarianism in Power

Anti-Capitalist Sectarianism 1950 - 1993

Part Two: Post-Capitalism without Humanism

One of the few places where those engaged in the struggle against capital, overcame the capitalists and their supporters, was in Russia, in 1917. How this initially successful anti-capitalist revolution became transformed, by degrees, into a mirror image of Fascism, is of the utmost importance to present and future generations of anti-capitalists. If we are not to repeat past mistakes we must surely learn from them. The social and political process which took place in the fledgling Soviet Union, clearly indicates that simply campaigning against, and eventually destroying, the capitalist political system, is not enough. Much more is needed. Without firm humanist principles, consistently guiding the anti-capitalist forces, oppression and exploitation are not necessarily brought to an end. Many past anti-capitalist activists and theorists thought the destruction of capitalism would automatically create a better form of society. On the contrary, as we shall see, if sectarian and anti-humanist characteristics come to dominate the anti-capitalist struggle, oppression and exploitation can actually increase and take new forms in any post-capitalist socio-economic system.

Chapter 4:

Lenin leads the Anti-Capitalist Struggle

Chapter 5:

The Logic of Bolshevik Post-Capitalist Society

Chapter 6:

Trotsky's Post-Capitalist Perspective

Chapter 7:

The Revolutionary-Humanism of Karl Marx

Part Three: Beneficial Association or Capitalist Exploitation

The human body is a complex, multi-cellular entity, which is made up of millions of living cells and bacteria which communicate, co-operate, co-ordinate, and support each other. We are living evidence of the extent of symbiosis. Yet capitalist ideology consistently distorts, the real processes of nature to suggest that nature and evolution, mimics the exploitation and oppression at the heart of the capitalist system. Yet multi-cellular life, in any form, could not have originated without the long-term mutual integration of single-cell organisms. The human species could not have evolved at all, let alone become conscious, thinking and reflective, if it were not for the fact that life itself, in the form of bacteria in the primal conditions, developed and continued over billions of years, on the basis of co-operation, beneficial association and symbiosis. The same is true for all other life forms on earth and in the sea. Beneficial associations and symbiosis abound in nature. Humanism, humanity and humility are merely the conscious expressions of that underlying complex, endo-symbiotic package which makes up the human body and the structures of all living things.

Over millions of years of human social development, the essence of what it is to be really human has also been humane and humanist. That is to say humans have lived in collective, co-operative and reciprocally beneficial associations known as groups, bands, or tribes. Oppressive and exploitative societies, developed only during the last 10,000 years, have distorted this essence and created exploitative conditions and habitual acts of inhumanity. The capitalist system is merely the most modern form of exploitation and oppression and it is also the most destructive. Its effects are diverse and global. Yet despite the hegemonic domination by capitalist methods and values, humanist sensibilities and humane feelings still embody the core values to which most humans secretly or openly aspire.

Chapter 8:

The Evolutionary basis of Co-operation and Humanism

The Capitalist System of Production

The Human, Social and Ecological effects of Capital

Chapter 11:

The Illusion of anti-capitalist reforms

Chapter 12:

Revolution

Conclusion