The new world is possible....
BASIS OF CONTEMPORARY
CRITICAL THEORY OF CAPITALISM
Mike Ciul needed to order some checks. He
decided to make a statement by having them printed with
his own background designs.
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Introduction to the book The
New World is Possible, pub. 2005 by Dunja and
Ljubodrag Simonovic, Belgrade (Serbia). E-mail: simonovic@simonovic.info
INTRODUCTION
The final stage of a mortal combat between mankind and
capitalism is in progress. A specificity of capitalism is
that, in contrast to "classical" barbarism
(which is of destructive, murderous and plundering
nature), it annihilates life by creating a "new
world" a "technical civilization"
and an adequate, dehumanized and denaturalized man.
Capitalism has eradicated the man from his (natural)
environment and has cut off the roots through which he
had drawn life-creating force. Cities are
"gardens" of capitalism where degenerated
creatures "grow". Dog excrement, gasoline and
sewerage stench, glaring advertisements and police car
rotating lights that howl through the night this
is the environment of the "free world" man. By
destroying the natural environment capitalism creates
increasingly extreme climatic conditions in which the man
is struggling harder and harder to survive and
creates artificial living conditions accessible solely to
the richest layer of population, which cause definitive
degeneration of man as a natural being.
"Humanization of life" is being limited to
creation of micro-climatic conditions, of special
capitalistic incubators completely commercialized
artificial living conditions to which degenerated people
are appropriate.
The most dramatic truth is: capitalism can survive the
death of Man as a human and biological being. For
capitalism a traditional man is merely a
temporary means of its own reproduction.
"Consumer-man" represents a transitional phase
in the capitalism-caused process of mutation of man
towards the "highest" form of capitalistic man:
a robot-man. "Terminators" and other robotized
freaks which are products of the Hollywood entertainment
industry which creates a "vision of the future"
degenerated in a capitalist manner, incarnate creative
powers, alienated from the man, which become vehicles for
destruction of man and life. A new "super race"
of robotized humanoids is being created, which should
clash with "traditional mankind", meaning with
people capable of loving, thinking, daydreaming, fighting
for freedom and survival and impose their rule
over the Earth. Instead of the new world, the new
man is being created who has been reduced to
a level of humanity which cannot jeopardize the ruling
order.
Science and technology have become the basic lever of
capital for the destruction of the world and the creation
of "technical civilization". It is not only
about destruction achieved by the use of technical means.
It is about technicization of social institutions, of
interpersonal relations, of the human body. Increasing
transformation of nature into a surrogate of
"nature", increasing dehumanization of the
society and increasing denaturalization of man are direct
consequences of capital's effort, within an increasingly
merciless global economic war, to achieve complete
commercialization of both natural and the social
environment. The Optimism of the Enlightenment could
hardly be unreservedly supported nowadays, the notion of
Marx that man imposes on himself only such tasks as he
can solve, particularly the optimism based on the myth of
the "omnipotence" of science and technology.
The race for profits has already caused irreparable and
still unpredictable damage to both man and his
environment. By the creation of "consumer
society", which means through the transition of
capitalism into a phase of pure destruction, such a
qualitative rise in destruction of nature and mankind has
been performed that life on the planet is literally
facing a "countdown". Instead of the
"withering away" (Engels) of institutions of
the capitalist society, the withering away of life is
taking place. The thesis of conservative bourgeois
theoreticians, according to which the history of mankind
ends with capitalism, becomes more and more convincing.
Unless it is prevented, capitalism will, already by the
beginning of the third millennium, finish off what
remains of the world.
Scientists are a human form in which capitalism
instrumentalizes natural forces in order to control men
and nature. They have been reduced to specialty-idiots
who, in a technical world, where everything operates by
"pressing a button" and where "everything
is under control", see an ideal world that should be
longed for, and in a machine-man the "culmination of
progress". Scientists, for whom "obtaining
expertise" is paid for with their humanity, perceive
people as enemies and machines as "friends".
The same way profit and not man is essential to
capitalists, "progress" and not man is
essential to scientists progress being another
name for profit, and "profit" being another
name for destruction. "The technical
intelligentsia" are mutilated people not able to
express their humanity. Fear of people transforms into
hatred of people. They consciously deprive themselves of
all those features that make them men, and they escape
into a technical world where they can
"experiment" with machines, people, the living
world.
The Power of science and technology becomes
the power of manipulation and destruction. For them the
technical world becomes the "natural" world and
the highest esthetic challenge, like Eiffel's tower, this
capitalistic Tyrannosaurus, which symbolizes domination
of "technical civilization" over man.
It becomes more and more obvious that capitalism creates
an increasingly deep social and ecological crisis that it
cannot control. The transition of capitalism is going on,
from the stage of "controlled" into a stage of
uncontrolled chaos which is the ultimate
"answer" of the ruling order to its own
incapacity to manage the increasingly dramatic
existential crisis out of which either the tearing
down of capitalism and the creating of the new world, or
the destruction of mankind and life on Earth, can be
generated. The consequences of capitalism cannot be
controlled by means of social institutions, for those
have also become tools of capitalist corporations and are
being used to achieve their interests. Men are deprived
of basic human rights: the right to live, to labor, to a
healthy environment, family, happiness, a future.
A
process of depersonalization by the capitalist governance
shows no responsibility for its own actions. Invisible
and impossible to seize, the spirit of capitalism, which
becomes the fatal force of destiny, rules the world.
Multinational corporations destroy the international
legal system, democratic institutions, the "social
state".
The political arena becomes a
political circus, politicians become capital's court
jesters. Public disputes on essential social issues are
being replaced with fabricated affairs. "Rule of
law" becomes an ideological mask of capitalist
tyranny. Eventually, the political sphere becomes a
vehicle of the ruling class used for depolitization of
citizens and extermination of trust in democratic
institutions and hope for the possibility of creating a
rational social order that would be an incarnation of the
guiding principles of the French Revolution upon
which modern humanism is based. It turned out that
(Western) democracy is a political form of the rule of
capital over man. Multinational corporations destroy the
emancipating legacy of civil society, and the
institutions that should offer a possibility for
expression of the citizens' political will become the
means for achieving their interests instead. The
possibilities for the political articulation of
increasing citizens' discontent through institutions are
diminishing. A declining number of issues determining the
destiny of men are being raised in "representative
bodies". A declining number of people take an active
part in the elections. Instead of being a political
subject, the citizen becomes a consumer of political
programs. Everything occurs in accordance with the
principles of market economics, within which good
advertising is of utmost importance for the sale of
products. "Money does not stink!" becomes the
basic political principle. Politics becomes an industry
for production of "democratic" falsehoods and
illusions.
The more the crisis of capitalism develops, accompanied
by the increasing discontent of people which
unavoidably generates the need for creation of the new
world, for this is an existential imperative the
more aggressive are the efforts of the ruling class to
prevent its disintegration. The most important task of
the governing politics is to make it impossible that the
objective possibilities for the change of the existing
world become real potential for changes, through the
change-oriented practice of the oppressed. Therefore,
destruction of (critical) mind and
"pacification" of the oppressed through
idiotization become the most important task of the
governing propaganda machinery. Degenerated capitalist
rulers of the world develop increasingly horrible
mechanisms for physical and mental destruction of people.
Governing politics is limited to techniques for the
manipulation of the oppressed by which the emancipating
legacy of civil society is being annihilated while an
increasingly aggressive relationship between races,
nations, religions, genders is being developed.
Artificially provoked and controlled conflicts between
people are being imposed, in which trust in man and
change-oriented energy should burn out. "General
suspects" are being labeled so as to be accountable
for the causes of discontent and at which anger of
citizens deprived of their rights should be vented. In
this manner a critical and change-oriented relation
toward the world and any class awareness are being
annihilated, while contemporary fascism is being created.
Production of fear, used to prepare the public for the
use of the means of mass destruction (including atomic
and neutron bombs) by the "bad guys" around the
globe, becomes the most important task of the ruling
propaganda machinery. The capitalist perpetuum mobile is
in action: capitalism generates increasing discontent
which is transformed, by means of politics limited to the
technique of redirection of people's discontent toward
the accomplishment of anti-human political and economic
goals, into a driving power for repression and
destruction. The governing regime tries to accomplish
total criminalizing of the society, which means that
chaos is created controlled by that very way of
life based on the totalizing principle of "Big fish
devours small fish!"- within which all efforts to
create a human world are being degenerated. Criminalizing
of the society becomes the most important form of
integration of the oppressed into a spiritual and
existential orbit of capitalism and a way of dealing with
the libertarian (class) struggle. The specifics of the
capitalist criminalizing of the society go toward the
expectation that it should eliminate a population
"surplus", in other words, the "non usable
labor force". Biological destruction of the
oppressed becomes the most efficient way of controlling
them. This method was "successfully" used by
the American administration with Indians in
"reservations" all over the USA: methanol and
blankets infected with smallpox once played the role now
assigned to AIDS, cigarettes, drugs, poisoned food.
The faster the operating of capital, the less space
remains for humanity. Capitalism destroys the family and
all other forms of social life and produces the lonely
man, for whom it becomes increasingly difficult to accept
responsibility and to oppose the capitalist craze. This
is a psychological moment of extraordinary importance for
the ruling order. The growing misfortune becomes a
generator of the growing evil into which the average
citizen (petit bourgeois) masochistically blends so as to
avoid responsibility for the annihilation of the world
in which process he, actively or passively,
participates. No one raises the issue in public any more
of man's responsibility for the established global
"development" for this responsibility
implies the right to freedom and life. Therefore, the
concept of "future happiness" was replaced by
the fear for life as the main behavioral motivation
factor. Capitalistically degenerated man has lost faith
that he can do anything in the social area, so he tries
to barricade himself within his own atomized hopelessness
and to create his own micro-world. "Freedom" of
the slaves of capitalism is limited to the possibility of
purchasing an increasing variety of ever more destructive
ways to "escape" from everyday life offered by
the entertainment industry. Capitalism generates the
pathological man that accepts destruction as way of life
the petit bourgeois is a man degenerated in a
capitalist way. He has become a victim of capitalist
nothingness to such an extent that he finds relief from
the everyday agony he experiences in a vision of an
ultimate and spectacular annihilation of mankind:
instinct for life transforms into instinct for
destruction.
Capitalism as a totalitarian order crushes the
emancipating legacy of civil society which opens a
possibility for creation of the new world and it
produces forms of political struggle that have a
destructive nature. Terrorism is a capitalistically
degenerated form of the fight against capitalism
destructive violence that uses capitalist means and
methods and only contributes to the
intensification of the process of destruction. It does
not long for creation of the new world, but for
annihilation of the existing world. This is the essential
difference between revolutionary struggle and terrorist
actions. Fanaticism, and not a visionary conscience based
on reason and freedom, dominates terrorist violence.
Fanaticism is a consequence of an increasingly merciless
destruction of the world and people performed by
capitalist monopolies. A typical example is so-called
"Muslim extremism": it is an unavoidable
consequence of the more and more obvious Western effort
to crush the Muslims and take full control over oil
deposits. At the same time, the "fight against
terrorism" is a new ideological mask of American
imperialism which is analogous to the "fight against
Judaic bolshevism", a mask of the Nazi Drang nach
Osten, annihilation of Jews and Slavs and conquering of
Lebensraum for German capital. "Fight against
terrorism" becomes a pretext for introduction of
global terror by the most powerful capitalist
corporations. Those who terrorize the world in the form
of the "fight against terrorism" try to crush
all those who threaten their efforts to transform the
entire world into their own concentration camp. The
offered "protection" from terrorism is of a
mafia nature: those who do not accept the iron embrace of
the "global policeman" will be exposed to the
worst American terror. "Global terrorism"
becomes the main danger that threatens
mankind" this is being constantly repeated by
servants of the American politics around the globe. From
its position toward terrorism one can view the real
outreach and the real objectives of the American
politics: terrorism is neither ideological nor
alignment-related, but of a global and anti-existential
nature.
Ruling oligarchies of the most developed capitalist
countries are "solving" the increasingly deep
existential crisis within their respective societies by
shifting it onto the shoulders of the poor of the world.
The survival of capitalism is directly conditioned by the
robbing and destruction of the entire world. Contemporary
imperialism (which has been named "globalism"
by Coca Cola intellectuals), unlike its earlier
historical forms that were exploitative (Rob!) and
genocidal (Kill!) in nature, is of an ecocidal nature
(Annihilate!). NATO, IMF and other "international
organizations" are only a vehicle the West uses for
carrying out its ecocide terrorism and the genocide
politics based on it. A new fascism is being established,
based on total global capitalist terror: each part of the
planet, and each segment of life become means for
capitalist reproduction which means that life
itself becomes terror over man and the destruction of
humanity. The always more intensive destruction of life
leads toward a radicalization of the genocide politics:
destruction of an increasingly large number of people
becomes a precondition for the survival of an
ever-smaller number of people. Within that context a
theory of the "golden billion" has been
established which represents a strategic landmark for the
political practice of the most developed capitalist
countries. This ecocide capitalist craze generates a
growing fear for survival and consequently, based on this
fear, establishes conditions for radicalization of
political decisions and political action. The use of
atomic and neutron bombs, artificial viruses (such as
HIV) and other lethal means becomes a legitimate
"defense" tool. In almost all reports produced
by the Western "experts",
"overpopulation" of the planet is "the
greatest danger for survival of mankind". Fear for
survival is being redirected toward nations of the world
that "excessively procreate" thus jeopardizing
the survival of all. The solution is being imposed by
itself: destruction of the billions of
"superfluous" is essential for the survival of
mankind. Those who unsparingly destroy nature and
exterminate peoples become "saviors of
mankind". The West has ample experience with
destruction of nations: extermination of the North
American Indians by American capitalism, and the Chinese
and the Australian Aborigines by British imperialism
show the Western "traditions" of
elimination of the "surplus" of humanity. At
the same time, based on the American "new world
order", "globalism" provides conditions
for establishing new "national" genocide
plutocracies that have the task of destroying the
"excessive population" in their respective
territory, by applying of economic and other measures.
Further development of capitalism will be paid for by
billions of innocent people, by a growing number of
wildlife species that are facing extinction, by the
entire living world... Eventually, it all serves to
enable several million of the mentally degenerated
"rich" to continue "enjoying" the
material wealth created for them from the ashes and
blood, tolerance for which is being provided by the use
of police, mafia and military tyranny, and the illusions
created by the entertainment industry. Fanatics of
capitalism are the worst sort of terrorists: they are
destroying life on Earth.
The economic logic of monopolist capitalism, which is
based upon the notion of "Big fish devours small
fish!", has become the ruling political rationale
that determines relations between states. What the Nazis
did not achieve with weapons and concentration camps, the
Western capitalist corporations accomplished with money
and economic extortion: the transformation of former
"Eastern block" countries into their own
"living space", while transforming their
citizens into contemporary (Coca Cola) slaves. The ruling
European political circles identify Europe with the
European Union in the same way as the nazi
ideologists declared Europe "the new European
order". It is exactly those who advocate Europe as a
community of equal nations and who insist on its
emancipating heritage who are the most bitter
enemies of the European Union as a vehicle
for the largest European corporations toward their
destruction of the emancipating heritage of European
nations. The so called "European Union" is
being built upon an illusion that joining the
"Union" guarantees all European nations
prosperity and a better life. It should be
remembered here that the main goal proclaimed by the Nazi
"new European order" was to make "all
European nations happy"! The European Union is (1)
an anti-human and destructive order based upon the ruling
principles of monopolist capitalism, "Big fish
devours small fish!" and "Money does not
stink!"; (2) its ruling political sphere does not
provide opportunity for expression of the citizens'
political will but represents a political form of the
rule of capital over people; (3) the entire
institutional, normative and propaganda area of that
order is directed toward destruction of the cultural and
libertarian self-consciousness of people and toward their
integration into a spiritual orbit of capitalism at the
level of the idiotized labor-consumer "mass".
The European Union is not a "democratic
community of nations", but a form of integration of
the European multinational corporations in their fight
against the American corporations which use the
American state as a vehicle for the achievement of their
interest at the global level. The European
Union is not based upon the emancipating traditions
of European nations, but upon the imperialist traditions
of European capitalism. It is not a humanistic goal but a
vehicle of the most powerful capitalist corporations for
the achievement, by economic and political
"measures", of the very same goals that Hitler
was expected to achieve for German capital by
military means. It is a transitional phase in
"European development" that leads toward the
creation of a new (ecocide) fascist order. Appropriately,
this violent, capitalistically established
"integration of European people" cause
nationalism and racism to thrive in response to people's
deprivation of basic human and civil rights which
is an introduction to new increasingly dramatic clashes
that will develop based on the prevalent logic impose by
monopolist capitalism, and also based on the increasingly
contaminated natural environment and on the biological
deterioration of European peoples. The ecocide capitalist
terrorism unavoidably generates nationalism which is no
longer based on the struggle to obtain and preserve a job
or a living standard, but on the struggle for survival.
It becomes more and more obvious that "the uniting
of Europe", instead of developing optimism and an
atmosphere of tolerance, which would correspond to the
"humanist ideals" referred to by politicians,
the citizens' fear of the future and intolerance are
growing. "Humanist speeches" cannot conceal the
growing crime, unemployment, falling apart of the
"welfare state" and, along with it, of social
protection, devastation of environment, drug abuse,
violence, suicides, fanaticism, extremism, the
flourishing of Satanist sects and of fascism, the
breaking up of the family, the growing number of
parentless children, human-trafficking and
child-trafficking aimed at sexual abuse or the taking of
their lives to "obtain" organs (in England
alone more than 40,000 underage children
"disappear" annually), the spreading of AIDS
and other diseases that would decimate the poor,
loneliness that has achieved epidemic dimensions.
"The "United Europe" generates racism,
similar to that developed in the U.S.A. East European and
Balkan peoples are getting the status of "people
with no culture", which means "lesser
creatures". The languages spoken by the Gastarbeiter
population are not being perceived as part of the
European cultural heritage, but become a motive for
discrimination. As a mass phenomenon, migrant laborers
keep their children from learning their own mother tongue
in order to mask their origin and avoid humiliation.
Bearing in mind that an insignificant number of children
of migrant labor achieve college and university
educations, it becomes clear that depriving them of their
mother tongue represents obliteration of their cultural
being, through which act they are predestined to be the
"dirty labor force" predestined to perform the
hardest and the most dangerous jobs. Within the
European Union one can clearly discern the
racist pyramid of power based upon economic, political
and military supremacy: Germany, France and England are
on the top, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium... are
bellow them, the Balkan peoples are located at the bottom
the pyramid. In the "United Europe", the place
reserved for them is the one Afro-Americans occupy in the
United States of America. On the "road toward
Europe" the Balkan people will lose their own
historical (cultural) self-consciousness and libertarian
dignity in order to become a garbage collector labor
force, while the Balkans become the septic tank of
Europe. The Balkan peoples are commanded to renounce the
libertarian myths that are the basis of their historical
and libertarian self- consciousness, while at the same
time, they are expected to cling to the myth of
"Europe" as a "community of free
nations": libertarian myths are being replaced by
colonial ones. The "uniting of Europe" in
accordance with the American model, which means to be
based upon the interests of multinational corporations
and their struggle for supremacy, leads toward
annihilation of "nationalism" which translates
into annihilation of the cultural heritage of European
nations and their right to make sovereign political
decisions. The U.S.A. is populated by the dregs of
European and other nations, degenerated with the
"American way of life" and the Coca Cola
"culture". In Europe, we refer to historical
nations who associate their national, civil and cultural
identity with their own country, in which they were born,
and for the freedom of which their ancestors fought. This
country is their vital and spiritual homeland and the
basis of their human self-image. "European
identity" cannot be built on formal principles (such
as a constitution), but based on a libertarian tradition
and on the cultural heritage of European nations.
Europeans must be judicious and resolute people who defy
the processes of destruction of cultural heritage and of
life in general; people who would, through political
struggle, turn objectively accumulated potential for
creation of a new world based on reason and freedom into
the realistic potential for liberation. Europe (world)
should become a garden where flowers of all European
(international) cultures flourish together. It is of no
importance which flower is "bigger", but that
each of them emanates its own scent. It is about
implementation of the leading ideas of the French
revolution, ideas that are not only humanistic, but have
become basic existential principles. Only based upon a
struggle for the new world can the emancipating legacy of
the European and other nations living in Europe be
achieved. Europe will overcome the growing social crisis
by creating the new world or it will collapse. For
the European peoples, acceptance of the "American
way of life" means suicide.
In the increasingly merciless global economic war between
the most powerful multinational corporations, social
institutions become an instrument used to assure
"stable development" of the capitalist order.
Everything is in the game: the entire institutional
mechanism has to develop in accordance with the growing
demands imposed by the interest on the assets. It is not
true that politics ceased to depend on economy in a
classic way", as Habermas claims, but, on the
contrary, it is entirely controlled by the logic of
economic relations in an attempt to turn the society into
a producing-consuming base camp within which the
reasoning and behavior of people would be entirely
subdued to the existential interest of the capital. The
state becomes the vehicle for "introduction"
into a society of the basic relationship logic as a
supreme principle for the organizing of social life, so
that "efficiency" (once
"righteousness") becomes the key political
principle. "Superstructure" becomes the means
that should make the logic of basic relations become a
driving force of the entire social life and play an
active part in its dehumanization. Its activity primarily
goes for "planning the future" as an active
impact for increasing the certainty for survival of the
established order. With the descending of the
superstructure towards the base, the circle has been
closed: the state becomes a totalizing ratio of the huge
capital that needs to integrate the society (primarily to
preserve "social peace") and enable stable
development of capitalism. In insisting on "the
introduction of elements of superstructure into the
base" there is the intention to prove that reason
has won over chaos (the so-called "organized
capitalism"). In fact, "reason" has become
a form of manifestation of the irrational processes of
capitalist reproduction. The basic support of
"reason" becomes the instrumentalized
(destructive) ratio turned into a vehicle for development
(science, technology, organization, etc.) and protection
(economic, police, ideological and other forms of
repression) of the established order. Its sterilization
has been successfully performed; it has been cleansed of
all "valued-related prejudices" and has become
a blind and efficient vehicle for control over man. It is
about the so-called "technical mind" that has
accepted contemporary forms of technological planning,
applying them (adapted and improved) to human behavior
planning. In that sense, the very political make up of
the society, the way it "carries out of
policy", becomes more and more separated from the
people and accepts the logic of technocratic efficiency
as a basis for establishing a "rational" social
order. However, the attempt to constitute a society, set
within the tumult of global events, based on
"reason", is like attempting to reenforce the
walls of one apartment in a building that is falling
down. The stability of each separate capitalist society
depends on the stability of the global capitalist order.
If its foundations are in crisis, with "rational
measures", which means through integration of the
society under the sponsorship of the state, the crisis
can only be alleviated (a so-called "controlled
crisis"), its blows can be received less painfully,
but the crisis cannot be solved. The "rational
policy" of the most developed capitalist states is
limited to the building of a sort of breakwater that
blocks the waves of crisis and makes them spill over
those less capable (the least developed countries) to
resist the crisis.
The capitalist ratio is the means for destruction of the
critical mind that enables a vision of the future and a
possibility for building the free world based on reason.
Instead of being oriented towards creation of social
relations where man would have a chance to be a man and
to provide for his own existence, reason becomes an
extended arm of the economic (profit-oriented) strategy
which tends to transform all social relations into
segments of its own development. Destruction of mind by
the entertainment industry, in which sports have a key
role, is an integral part of the process of destruction
of "traditional humanity" and the creation of
the "new man" reduced to a robotized freak. The
capitalist totalizing of the world implies degeneration
of the man by imposing the "one-dimensional"
(Marcuse) way of thinking which requires: a positivist
attitude toward the world; instrumentalization of
everything and of everyone; quantitative dimension;
mysticism in a "spectacular" package;
progressivism based on the principle of absolute
efficiency, which in turn is based on the principle of
absolute profit... It is a way of thinking which
abolishes not only the essence (freedom, justice) but
also the existence (biological survival, nature), which
means that it is of a fatalistic nature. At the same
time, an idealized image of the classical and of the
medieval periods becomes the foundation for development
of an idea of transcendence that becomes a vehicle for
annulling the visionary mind and the idea of a future.
Christian (and almost all the other) churches are natural
allies of capital, which attempts to destroy the
self-consciousness of the modern man (citizen) as a
constituent subject of a civil society and the creator of
his own world. Christianity and other apocalyptic
religions contribute to a development of the awareness
that the destruction of the world is unavoidable. It is
one thing to preach such ideologies in a situation where
there is no real threat of global destruction, as it used
to be in the medieval period, and something completely
different when such a threat becomes more and more real.
Manipulation moves from an ideological to a psychological
level. Consciousness has been "outgrown"
the sub-conscious matters. Both the advertising industry
and the political (ideological) sphere operate based on
that principle. All efforts are being invested to keep
man from understanding his own tragic position in the
world, where destructive nothingness rules. It is media
terror dominated by the entertainment industry and
advertisement video clips which create distorted
mirrors where man can only see his own
degenerated image. Capitalism systematically
destroys man's ability and need to raise essential
questions about his own (social) existence, as well as
his potential to answers them. Almost the entire media
space is controlled by those who destroy life and
marginalize the essential, while attributing a crucial
dimension to the marginal. "Sensational
affairs", "historical matches", media
"star" shows, "spectacular" Hollywood
films and TV soap operas become the vehicles for
averting people's attention from the issues which
determine the survival of mankind or its idiotization.
Blocking conscience and giving vent to the man's
repressed being, his growing discontent, fear, anxiety
and insemination of man by the ruling spirit of
capitalism wherefrom the "positive man" is to
be born this is the essence of the
"spectacle". Therefore, the growing importance
of sport. Psychological manipulation in it is based on
the Iuvenal's maxim panem et circences innovated in a
capitalist manner: the less bread there is, the more
abundant bloody games there are. The growing discontent
of the oppressed is burning in stadiums those
fire-stakes of capitalism. Sport is a spectacular form in
which destructive capitalist irrationalism emerges
based upon the absolute principle of performance (profit)
and upon the capitalistically mutated social-Darwinist
principle. If existential and humanist
(mindrelated) criteria are taken as an overall
goal, it is clear that longing to break records leads
toward the self-destruction of man, and toward the
destruction of his cultural being: "progress"
becomes a way of obtaining legitimacy for destructive
sport practices. Only when the tendencies of development
of sport are adequately perceived; only then can its
essence namely, its destructive character
be understood. Therefore, one of the key tasks of sport
is to eliminate visionary conscience. It represents an
educational model that recognizes its own outcome in the
present way of living elevated to the level of a mythic
phenomenon. Sport is one of the most usable ways for
transforming man's life-creating energy into destructive
practice. Sportification of society has become one of the
key forms of capitalist totalizing of the world. In the
same way the Nazi Olympic Games were used to disguise the
real intentions of the Nazis, contemporary sport is being
used to conceal the existential "match" between
the West and the remainder of the world, in which there
are no winners and losers, but only the exterminated and
those left alive.
The story of the "American dream" is over. The
assassinations of Martin Luther King, John Lennon and
numerous other people who fought for a humane world have
clearly demonstrated that the notion of "a better
society" represented the greatest threat to the
ruling capitalist groups because it provided a
possibility for the development of a political platform
that could direct the growing discontent of the oppressed
toward the creation of a new (righteous) world. The major
goal of the capitalist propaganda machinery is to kill
the people's hope that the future is possible and that
fighting for it does make sense. Capitalism is not to
blame for the people's growing discontent, but those
"irresponsible" politicians who promised a
"happy" future are. The "vision of the
future" becomes a commodity that is being sold to
people through TV shows by nullifying their need to
fantasize about freedom and justice. This commodity
glorifies (destructive) technology thus creating the
illusion of the "progressive nature of
capitalism". Scientists are "concerned"
with what will happen to the planet in 5 million years
from now but show no interest in what will happen to
humanity within the next hundred years. Instead of
reliance on the "American dream", which was
till recently used by the capitalist propaganda machinery
for integration of citizens into the ruling order, the
main vehicle for strengthening the global capitalist
dictatorship today is the intimidation of citizens with
the "terrorist threat".
Ideologists of capitalism represent life as if nothing
serious was going on as if the world were not on
the very edge of total ruin. The bourgeois critique of
capitalism is not directed against capitalism but against
the very critique that tends to raise essential issues,
primarily the issue related to the trend of development
of capitalism which is a precondition for
determining its essence. Bourgeois theoreticians treat
capitalism as a non-historical order, meaning, as a given
fact which cannot be questioned. From this position
result statements on the "necessity" of
capitalist globalization, based on the interest of
multinational corporations and the annihilation of life,
which fail to mention the unavoidable fall of capitalism
as one of the historical stages of the development of
mankind. Coca Cola intellectuals, by definition, use the
expression "communism" while talking about the
USSR and other countries of "real-socialism" -
intending to "prove" that "communism
failed" and to repudiate the Marxist critique of
capitalism and the idea of a future. In their ideological
blindness they fail to notice that while criticizing Marx
they actually employ his own historical concept, only
adjusted to the requirements of preservation of
capitalism. Francis Fukuyama in his book "The End of
History and the Last Man" finds that the main reason
for the failure of "communism" in the East is
related to the fact that this order was based on
"social justice": struggle for social justice
becomes an anti-existential principle. Long before
Fukuyama, this notion was "assessed" by Auguste
Comte, and by his follower Pierre de Coubertin: the
struggle of the oppressed for freedom and justice hinders
"progress" incarnated in the bourgeoisie
which means that it jeopardizes the very survival
of mankind. Fukuyama's critique of the former
"communist" societies remains limited to
rejection based upon an intention to create a rationally
founded economic order that serves the fulfillment of
human needs which would enable man to overcome the
increasingly deep existential crisis generated by
capitalism. His theory, too, points out the leading
tendencies in the development of Western political
thought: things are no longer being placed on an
essential level, but onto a purely existential level.
This means that all vehicles that provide a possibility
for the survival of capitalism are legitimate at
the price of erasing the emancipating legacy of civil
society and of "traditional humanity". For Marx
socialism is a transitional phase between capitalism and
communism which represents the ultimate
superseding of capitalism and the beginning of the real
history of mankind. This means that (re)establishing
capitalism is not possible if communism was previously
achieved. The dimensions of the bourgeois theory's
absurdity can be perceived in the context of the notion
that declares capitalism to be
"post-communism"! At the same time,
theoreticians such as Habermas speak about "late
capitalism" that is of a completely different nature
from that of the capitalism Marx is dealing with. It
achieves those characteristics Marx attributed to
socialism, which means that "late capitalism"
implements Marx's idea of "socialism". Their
"critique" of capitalism is in fact directed at
the very critical thought which advocates the superseding
of capitalism and the creation of the new world.
Horkheimer treats his own analyses in "Dialectic of
Enlightenment" as a purely academic stance. His
attitude toward sport indicates that he sterilizes the
critical, change-aspiring charge when dealing with the
concrete political sphere, thus crafting entirely
arbitrary structures in order to preserve the ideological
vault of capitalism, which appears in sport in a
condensed form. As for the Heidegger's Sorge, it is of an
abstract nature for it relates to the abstract
"world" and the abstract "man". The
focus should, instead, be on the concrete concern of the
concrete man, meaning the man who lives in the capitalist
world where destruction prevails. It is no longer
mans fear that he has to face his own unavoidable,
natural death, but the anxiety that he has to confront
the increasingly realistic possibility of destruction of
life on Earth, and consequently of mankind itself. In the
first case, the concern remains in the sphere of
necessity; in the second case the concern is related to
the sphere of freedom: man cannot avoid his own death,
but he is in a position to prevent the destruction of
humankind and to create a human world. In this context
the issue of death and extinction can be broached. Death
does not have to mean extinction if man leaves behind him
his opus for which he will be remembered, meaning an opus
that eventually contributes to the survival of mankind.
In the context of the natural (life) cycle, death is a
precondition for the birth of new life it is
life-creating. The essence of the capitalist death is the
destruction of mechanical nature and of technical form,
which is also the destruction of man and life, and
consequently of the death-birth chain which creates life.
Capitalism has not only deprived the man of his spiritual
homeland (Heimatlosigkeit), but also of his vital
environment through the annihilation of nature and of man
as biological being; it does not only deprive man of his
human essence, but questions his survival. Capitalism has
"blended" the existential and the essential
concern: struggle for survival becomes struggle for
freedom, and struggle for freedom turns into struggle for
survival.
The so called "leftist thought" did not
adequately respond to the development of capitalism. It
invested most of its energy into a futile dispute about
the past instead of directing its focus toward the
future and uniting its efforts to criticize capitalism as
a life-annulling order. Instead of designing contemporary
notions that would enable the creation of a political
concept that would be a road sign for the radical fight
with capitalism as a destructive order, it continues to
use the conceptual tool set created by Marx and Engels,
"swept away" by capitalism long ago, as well as
Hegel's (Marx's) dialectic, which can be taken for the
starting point for the critique of capitalism only
conditionally for its (historical) pyramid of
freedom is based upon existential certainty. The
capitalist train did not halt in the station in which,
according to Marx, it should have been stopped (by means
of the socialist revolution), and it continued to move
dragging the entirety of humankind towards the
abyss. The theory of so-called "scientific
socialism" which is an ideological match to the
theory of capitalism as the "end of history",
insists on the absolute performance principle and, in
that context, on quantitative indicators of
"progress" thus hopelessly drowning in
the muddy waters of capitalism. It is not by chance that
sport (as well as the other repressive forms of physical
exercise), meaning the ideology of
"record-mania", was granted such importance in
Soviet society. Deprived of its humanist essence, Marx's
idea of socialism was transformed into Stalinist practice
in the East; in the West many "communist
parties", taking the dogma of "realized
socialism" in the USSR for granted, transformed the
Soviet practice into the "idea of socialism"
that should be longed for. The offered "project of
the future" is still based on the notion that
capitalism is an unjust, not a destructive order. The
most important task of the global anti-capitalist
movement is not only to liberate humanity from
oppression, but to prevent its annihilation. Therefore
awareness of consequences of development of capitalism
represents a conditio sine qua non of the struggle
against capitalism.
Struggle for the survival of life and, in that context,
the fight against capitalism open a possibility for the
creation of a wide political movement that will surpass
the classical class divisions and class struggle, but
also open a possibility for the dilution of the fight
against capitalism with directing of the change-aspiring
energy toward "ecological projects" that remain
limited to the hopeless curing of the consequences of
capitalism and its "improvement". Capitalism
has "solved" the conflict between determinism
and freedom between "objective
potentials" for revolution and revolutionary
voluntarism by destroying the emancipating
(cultural) heritage of humanity, man as a biological
being and nature. The only real (existential and
essential) solution would be an overall war of humankind
against capitalism, which implies using every means that
might bring about its destruction. This fight would be
not only defensive, liberating, or revolutionary, but a
fight like has never been fought before: a fight for the
survival of mankind and for the preservation of life on
Earth. Having in mind the intensity of global
destruction, it becomes obvious that communism is not
merely a libertarian possibility, as it is for Marx, but
an existential necessity.
The "positive side" of capitalist globalization
is that it inevitably generates the international
anti-globalist movement that, with time, will develop
into a more radical international anti-capitalist front.
From confrontation with the existing world, it will
develop into the struggle for the new world. Marx's
exclamation from the "Communist Manifest":
"Proletarians of all countries, unite!"
becomes a libertarian end existential cry of awakened and
fully aware humankind. Mass anti-globalist rallies are
important, but only if they make up a part of the
day-to-day fight against capitalism. If not, they become
a part of the political circus and lead the
change-aspiring energies astray. The issue of political
struggle is primarily organizational. Individual forms of
confrontation are not irrelevant, however, though they
are not sufficient for essential achievements. If
organized struggle is lacking, their impact remains as
limited as that of stones thrown into a rising river
which only unified efforts can overpower.
Organized struggle does not mean the domination of man by
organization, if it is based upon self-initiative and if
each individual is aware of the fact that the fight for
survival of mankind is the issue. It is a challenge
compared to which all other issues in dispute become
almost insignificant. Among those discussing the
"workers issue", some are unhappy with the
conformist behavior of a considerable part of the working
class in the most developed countries. However, that
results from its position in the society. That it is not
"terminated" as a political subject in the
fight against capitalism confirms in the best way the
"concern" of the capitalists for the creation
of working class (self)consciousness and for prevention
of its political engagement. In fact, the workers'
discontent is growing and so the forms to confront it are
increasingly merciless. The "consumer society"
has not only exhausted its own potential for integrating
workers into the capitalist world, but it is, itself,
disintegrating, and, consequently, the walls of the
concentration camp in which a majority of workers
are still kept are falling down. Regarding
American democracy, US citizens never had an
opportunity to hear the truth about one single issue on
which their freedom and destiny depend, and never, as
emancipated citizens, took part in defining and
implementing the strategy of social development. They
live in a world that is a total lie and never had an
opportunity for real choice. What will happen when the
fence comes down in a society where no democratic
institutions exist to offer the possibility to articulate
people's discontent over the achievement of general
social goals?
The prevailing philosophy does not identify the
confirmation of the authenticity of its positions in
life, but only in philosophy and so on ad
infinitum. It becomes an institutionalized reason,
alienated from man and thus a vehicle for averting
mans attentions from making key vital decisions
which only assists the ruling order. A
phenomenological conceptual vault becomes the way to the
creation of the virtual conscience in people's minds and
of the destruction of the man's reasonable relation to
the world. The right issue can only be the concrete
historical issue. Today, it is the issue of survival.
"Traditional" philosophical issues can be
discussed exclusively in the context of this basic
historical (existential) issue. Otherwise, they turn into
the creation of a labyrinth where the reason capable of
revealing the destructive tendencies of capitalist
development, preventing annihilation of life and winning
the cause for a humane world, should disappear. One of
the most important tasks of critical theory is to
liberate the mind from "traditional" philosophy
which diverts the attention of reason away from
concrete existential and essential issues, the solutions
of which require radical confrontation with the ruling
order and the creation of a new society which is a
privilege of "philosophers" (now reduced to
intellectual technicians) and a means for suppressing
man's libertarian struggle: the struggle for freedom
(survival) becomes "non-reasonable" activity
and consequently loses the legitimacy of an authentic
change-aspiring practice. Political engagement indicates
the true nature of philosophy which is just a
snail's shell in which a capitalistically degenerated
reason is hiding. It mediates between man and the world,
facilitating the annihilation of life and of man as
reasonable being. The truth is not a super-historical
fact, reachable through science and philosophy alienated
from man. It has always been concretely historical, as
is, also, the struggle to achieve it: today the truth is
survival, and the way to reach it is the struggle for
survival. This is the concrete basis of the "will to
power" of contemporary man and the criteria for
determining the appropriateness of political action.
Critical theory does not hide behind philosophical
"objectivism" but has a clear value-based
political orientation: it invests efforts for the
annihilation of capitalism and is based upon man's right
to life and freedom. It does not attempt to create a new
philosophy, but tends to abolish philosophy as a separate
sphere that mediates between man and the world and to
implement the emancipating legacy of modern society
symbolically expressed in the guiding principles of the
French Revolution: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. In
classical German philosophy, which shaped the
self-consciousness of modern man, the notion of reason
was related to the notion of freedom. Today reason is not
only the basic precondition for freedom, but also for
existence: the struggle for reason becomes the struggle
for survival.
The critical theory of capitalism should be modernized
through the introduction of new notions, having in mind
the fact that the trend of the development of capitalism
also influences the critique of it. Two key notions
should become the basis for the creation of the modern
critical theory of capitalism: the capitalist destruction
of life and, opposed to it, the life-creating human
practice. They are dialectically opposed: the
totalitarian capitalist destruction of life leads to an
integration of humankind based upon a totalizing
life-creating practice. If in the past it was still
possible to claim that no clear starting point for the
foundation and development of the critical theory of
society existed, today the increasingly dramatic
annihilation of life, meaning the ecocide-nature of
capitalism, does represent the unifying starting point
for both critical thought and change-aspiring (political)
practice. This is related to the subjective nature of
freedom and to the transformation of the objective
potential of freedom, established within civil society,
into a realistic potential for the liberation of man. The
real significance of struggle is not in achieving some
super-human goal, but in the development of human
potential and of the society as a brotherhood community
of emancipated individuals who are capable of directly
managing their own (social) life. It is not a task for an
abstract man, but for every man. Humanity is endangered,
for the life of each individual man is directly
endangered. Historically, man had a chance to achieve his
own humanity through the struggle against tyranny; today,
he has a chance to achieve his own humanity, and a chance
to survive thereby by fighting against the
life-annihilating order. The readiness to sacrifice his
own life for freedom becomes the readiness to offer his
life for the survival of humankind.
The capitalist maelstrom of death transforms everything
that man created social institutions, technology,
science, economy, education, medicine, art, religion,
sport, media into a vehicle for the operating of
capital, which means for the annihilation of life. No
social sphere remains man's ally. There is no one else
from whom he could seek help but other men: sociability
is an existential imperative. Only now, when he has been
abandoned, alone in his struggle against capitalism, has
man the opportunity to express his own human values, to
become the real Man and to transform the world into a
community of free people. The most extensive and the most
dramatic battle ever fought is in progress: either man
will triumph over capitalism, preserve life on this
planet and create the world compatible with his own image
or he will be annihilated.
comment re capitalism
on xymphora blog:To
understand 'history' in our times, one need only to
understand this: almost all human beings with some money
and wealth and above the age of around 30 repel each
other and the poorer like protons in a proton-chamber.
This is the historical result of what is described as
'capitalism': everybody's war against everybody by all
means. In this ideal situation for any psychopath, the
road to global hell is sure. What is played up by the
media as 'wars','conspiracies',
'politics' etc. is only the expressions of the lowest
human denominator, which came to rule very early in
history. History was by Hegel correctly called "a
slaughterbench'.
Anonymous | 05.21.06 - 6:39 am |
My view is that for a
very good reason the Left blanks out the bankers, and
thus the aspect of usurious finance, and talks only about
private ownership of the means of production. I am only
aware of one Marxist author who has tried to discuss the
nature of the financial system, as opposed to the system
of production, and that is Rudolf Hilferding, in
Finanzkapital (1910). I certainly do not regard Lenin's
treatment as useful. Outside of Marxism, there is
Hobson's Imperialism (1902) where we find this money
quote : "The direct influence exercised by great
financial houses in "high politics" is
supported by the control which they exercise over the
body of public opinion through the Press, which, in every
"civilised" country, is becoming more and more
their obedient instrument. While the specifically
financial newspaper imposes "facts" and
"opinions" on the business classes, the general
body of the Press comes more and more under the conscious
or unconscious domination of financiers."
Rowan Berkeley | 05.22.06 - 4:11 am |
Another useful Hobson quote:
"In a former chapter I pointed out how small a
proportion of our national income appeared to be derived
as profits from external trade. It seemed unintelligible
that the enormous costs and risks of the new Imperialism
should be undertaken for such small results in the shape
of increase to external trade, especially when the size
and character of the new markets acquired were taken into
consideration. The statistics of foreign investments,
however, shed clear light upon the economic forces which
are dominating our policy. While the manufacturing and
trading classes make little out of their new markets,
paying, if they knew it, much more in taxation than they
get out of them in trade, it is quite otherwise with the
investor.
It is not too much to say that the modern foreign policy
of Great Britain is primarily a struggle for profitable
markets of investment. To a larger extent every year
Great Britain is becoming a nation living upon tribute
from abroad, and the classes who enjoy this tribute have
an ever-increasing incentive to employ the public policy,
the public purse, and the public force to extend the
field of their private investments, and to safeguard and
improve their existing investments. This is, perhaps, the
most important fact in modern politics, and the obscurity
in which it is wrapped constitutes the gravest danger to
our State."
Rowan Berkeley
| 05.22.06 - 9:14 am
|