Revolutionaries face complex and challenging problems at this stage of the revolutionary process. In every arena and in every struggle the revolutionary movement is blocked by the influence of the Democratic and Republican parties over the minds of the workers, their domination of the political terrain, and their ability to use their influence and wealth to divert the social struggle away from its aims.   They frame every struggle as a fight over apparently opposing views, each one of which serves the policies and interests of the capitalist class they represent. Nothing can be achieved without breaking this control over the political thinking and political organization of the workers.

This hold seems unshakeable, but is it? The domination of the two political parties – and the capitalist class they represent – is being eroded by a force larger than all their wealth or petty control over this or that institution or leader. Transformation always begins with the introduction of something new that breaks up the old and forces it on a path to something qualitatively new and different. In society, this begins with a qualitative change in the economy. Today, the steady implementation of labor-replacing technology constitutes that new quality. Its results are profound, attacking the way society is organized at its very root, and initiating a process of polarization and destruction of the complex relations that hold society together. Starting first within the economy, then spreading to society, the effects of this transformation are beginning to have an impact on political life.

Today, we are seeing the embryonic beginnings of the destruction of the political relations which have tied the workers to the capitalists. The existing two-party system is much broader than the Democratic and Republican parties.  It includes the institutions at every level of society through which each of these parties work to advance the interests of the capitalists and the leaders they rely upon to distract and divert the workers from their class interests.

A social movement is arising in response to worsening conditions. This movement finds itself increasingly politically irrelevant to the conduct of capitalist affairs. The struggle for some form of political resolution is inevitable, but the nature of that resolution is not. New parties will emerge to give voice to the resolution of the problems faced by society, but the character of those parties — what and who they represent, and where they seek to take society — will be the result of a battle for the consciousness and clarity of the workers, and the fight for the strategic orientation and proper tactics that make that possible.

 

Parties change as Capital demands

 

Widespread ownership of property has been a feature of American society almost since its inception. As a result, the ruling class has had to develop political mechanisms which allow for broad political participation among the American people.  It expands that participation - as necessary - to achieve its overall aims.  This participation has always been limited to siding with this or that representative or policy of the capitalist class. 

Political parties have been formed, reformed, and realigned throughout U.S. history to meet the changing needs of the capitalist system. Every stage of economic development in America – the shift from the mercantilist trading economy of early America to one based on the rapid growth of slave capital, to the battle between the interests of the slave economy and the rising demands of industrial capital, to the emergence of the demands of international finance – brought forth new parties, or forced existing parties to transform themselves in line with the needs of capital. Upon each new foundation the parties stabilized themselves and took on responsibilities for politically corralling and managing different sections of the American people.

Throughout these different stages of the development of political parties, one factor remained constant: capital needed labor. Workers had to work and buy commodities, and in one way or another, the capitalists had to calculate this necessity into any political equation. Managing and controlling the workers took many different forms during the different periods of American history, but throughout U.S. history the expanding economy formed the material foundation for the capitalists to offer tangible benefits to a broad section of the American people. On the basis of an expanding economy rested an entire mechanism of political control, including the political party system, the influence of numerous leaders upon whom the capitalists relied, and ideas about the nature of American society and its political system.

Together, the expanding economy and the capitalists’ means of political control gave life to the idea that classes do not exist in America, and sustained the conclusion that workers’ interests were the same as the capitalists. It also helped to guarantee that even when the workers were forced into motion by the ups and downs of the economy the capitalists could make use of these ideas, and channel that energy in a direction that ultimately benefited the capitalist system. 

 

Transformation of Democratic and Republican parties

 

Once again the needs of capital are changing, and the process of parties transforming themselves is underway. Globalization inevitably generalizes the crisis that electronics initiates at the heart of the capitalist system. As the nations of the world are pulled and reshaped by the demands of the global economy, they are thrown into fierce competition with one another on the global stage, while at home they must control and manage their own burgeoning new class of poor.

Both the Democratic and the Republican parties are transforming themselves to protect and advance the globalization of the economy under the domination of the U.S. and in the interests of those who profit from it – the transnational mega-corporations, transnational financiers and speculators, and the circuits of production and distribution under their control. What differences exist between the parties today are largely over how the interests of these global forces will be advanced and protected.

The two-party system of today will not simply proceed by making quantitative adjustments to its current form, but will polarize, that is, it will undergo the process of splitting, destruction and opening the way for the formation of something new. We have seen this happen in our own history.  Prior to the Civil War, the two-party system fractured and a variety of parties emerged, together representing the complex of forces battling to enforce their ideas and solutions to the problems posed by developing industrial capitalism. The Republican Party – representative of the new industrial order – emerged triumphant after the war, twinned with the transformed Democratic Party that took as its task managing broad sections of the defeated South. By 1876 and the Hayes-Tilden agreement, Wall Street controlled both parties.

This time the process is taking place under qualitatively different conditions.  Labor-replacing technologies cheapen the value of labor power as robotics and automation make the same commodity for a fraction of the cost of human labor. Whether working or not, human beings, and therefore human life, is becoming worthless within the capitalist system. Layoffs, declining wages, the growth of slavery, and the spreading social ills – all are expressions of this process and affect a wide range of the American people, regardless of party affiliation.

Inevitably, these conditions are giving rise to a growing social struggle. Although it is still dispersed and somewhat spasmodic in its response, as most social movements are in their beginnings, its significance lies in its qualitatively new character. Forced into motion by specific issues – health care, immigration, education – these different strands of social discontent share the same problems – the destruction of the society that provided them with the means to live – and are driven by the same necessity to survive. Better working conditions and better pay are no longer the only demands. A growing section of society finds itself forced to organize itself and fight for even the basic necessities of life – water, food, heat – a situation that most find inconceivable in the richest nation in the world.

Faced with the complicity of the Democratic and Republican parties in the aggressive destruction of the “pact” between the classes, this complex of social forces is beginning to find it difficult to live with the real-life consequences of the parties’ actions. This is expressed in the growing instability and conflicts within the political parties as one constituency after another is cut adrift, as well as in the growth of “independents”, and in the instability of the so-called swing voters. It is expressed in the calls from the right and the left to break from business as usual and form new parties. This is not the back and forth of politics as usual.  It is the inevitable result of the process of polarization and destruction we have described, and the beginnings of the struggle to establish the means of resolution on a new foundation.

 

Consciousness of class interests

 

The central problem for both the Democratic and Republican parties today is that as they abandon greater sections of the American people the increasing social polarization and the discontent creates the conditions for political polarization, making the parties’ respective roles in controlling different sections of society increasingly untenable. On the one hand, the ruling class and its parties must still appeal to the workers to sanction their policies. On the other hand, the objective changes make it impossible to back up these appeals with solutions that can return the American people to a stable standard of living.

With little material improvement to offer, the parties increasingly come to rely on ideological appeals. Each party, with its own particular brand of populism, seeks to use the developing social struggle to group the different sections of society under the banner of the capitalists, and to shape and use the social motion to achieve their goals.  Ultimately, the capitalists’ goals means mobilization of a section of society for a fascist solution, as this is the only option open to them if they are to maintain their rule.

The central problem for the arising social movement is its limited awareness of its strengths and, as a result, its scattered and disparate nature. It does not yet see that the foundation of its strength lies in the new class forming within its ranks.

This idea of a “new class” is difficult to grasp, yet new classes have emerged at every revolutionary turn of history and served as the human and social force that has determined the character and direction of the new society. Today, this growing new class of poor – marginalized from production, labor cheapened by the advent and spread of robotics, and forced to fight for every crust – defies the old definitions and categories. It must work to live, but it can no longer live by its work. It is stratified and divided along lines of race, gender and party affiliation, yet the effects of labor-replacing technology is to reduce all those who must labor to the same level, and to erode all past objective differences. It clings to a sense of self that once had meaning, but now it finds that everything it once knew or held dear is being swept away.  The old bonds are being broken, setting this developing class loose to make its own way in the world.

Its practical demands – for housing, health care, food, water, and for work – are the central component determining the character of the social struggle today. The capitalists cannot and will not provide this; the new class cannot survive without it. It has no choice, as a class, but to fight for its interests, and barred from that, to overturn society and reorganize it in a manner that guarantees that the wherewithal for life is provided to all.

We have used the words objective and inevitable. But these words only indicate direction, not outcome. There is a difference between the objective reality of a thing, and the understanding needed to do something about it in order to accomplish a desired goal. This “subjective” aspect of the process makes all the difference, and this is where revolutionaries concentrate their efforts. The key battle today is over the resolution of society’s problems. The decisions that are made, opinions that are held, and actions taken are rooted in and guided by ideas, thinking, perspective and outlook.

The new class will not be able to realize itself in all its historical power unless it understands itself as a class with interests separate and opposed to the capitalist class, and on that foundation, form itself politically into a party that fights to resolve society’s problems in the interests of the new class.

Tasks of Revolutionaries

In times of polarization, when the bonds start to rupture and open the possibility of something new, revolutionaries can make a difference. The qualitatively new conditions will set the conditions for the rise of new parties. Their formation will be a result of the battle for the hearts and minds of the class. This is as true for the fascists as it is for the communists.

Widespread and more open fascistic propaganda is bound to accompany the growing polarization in society (already in embryo among the neo-confederates, anti-immigrationists, theocrats and various other groupings of the extreme right) reinforced and made respectable by previous years of conditioning.  Without the dissemination of communist propaganda deep into the heart of the developing movement, the populism of today will seem like nothing compared to the very real possibility of the rise of an openly fascist party backed by a section of the workers.

Revolutionaries face complex and challenging problems.  They must devise and implement practical and concrete steps to influence and develop the consciousness of the workers along the path that will resolve the problems of society in the interests of humanity. Only through consistent application of the program of the new class to every problem can the struggle be directed along that path. In the course of the struggle to implement that program, workers will develop consciousness of their class interests. Through the consistent work of revolutionaries, the new class can be formed into a force that understands and operates in accordance with its independent class interests, a class with a vision of the possibilities presented by the transformative qualities of today.  It will grow into a force that is capable of forging new political formations representing those interests, and carrying through with the transformation of society.

 

May.2007.Vol17.Ed3
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