Capital, Absolute Over-Accumulation and the Fascist State (Part four)

In its fully developed form, the Fascist State is an American empire imposed by the United States on all other national states, in which each of these national states are no more than its local (national) subsidiary. The emergence of this Fascist State became the condition for the further development of the World Market bound up with Capital.

Over-accumulation of capital results from the fact that capital is founded on scarcity and can only exist on this premise. This fact leads us to the export of surplus capital into what Marx referred to as the outlying field of production within the world market, where it can be employed at a higher rate of profit. But, absolute over-accumulation in the complete meaning of this term, presupposes absolute over-accumulation not only in one or a few nations, but in all nations together. Thus, it also leads to the universal — and not merely national — competition between capitals, aimed at concentration of the total global social capital and the elements of capital into fewer hands, and the global centralization of this social capital, along with the emergence of a global finance capital — the problem presented by the conversion of the mass of surplus value into a mass of profits within the World Market as a whole.

The question how the concentration and centralization of national capitals is to proceed is settled in the manner of such disputes between nations — i.e., by armed conflict in which one national state emerges victorious — a condition most notably expressed in the eruption of predatory total war between nation states during the Great Depression whose bloody power had been swollen by the sheer mass of social labor time that could be converted into unproductive military expenditures on a truly horrific scale. World War II was the systematic destruction not merely of armies on the battlefield, but of the industrial capacity of the belligerents and the civilian populations who could place that capacity in motion. From this point forward, when I speak of absolute over-accumulation I shall be referring to absolute over-accumulation within the World Market as a whole; and, when I speak of the Fascist State, I will be speaking of the American empire.

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In the preceding section, I have suggested that under conditions of absolute over-accumulation of capital, it becomes necessary for society to reduce total hours of labor, and thus bring its productive activity under its conscious control. If this is not done, or is done insufficiently, the Fascist State emerges as a symptom of the unwillingness or inability of society to realize the general reduction of total labor time. I have further argued that this unwillingness or inability to reduce total hours of labor leads to an expansion of total social labor time in relation to socially necessary labor time, i.e., to an increase in superfluous labor time. This expansion of total social labor time in proportion to necessary labor time leads to a general rise in prices of commodities even as the value of the commodities fall. Side by side with this general rise in prices, we see also the forcible withdrawal of gold standard money from circulation as money and its replacement by American ex nihilo pecuniam, along with the constant increase in the supply of this fictitious money.

It is not the increase in the supply of this fictitious money that leads to inflation, i.e., to a general rise in the prices of commodities, to the depreciation of the purchasing power of the money generally, but the increase in the proportion of total labor time to socially necessary labor time that leads to both the increase in the supply of money and the general increase in prices. If taxes are assumed to be zero, the growth of the Fascist State, of superfluous labor in the form of a grotesquely bloated and constantly expanding state, consists precisely in the issuance of ex nihilo pecuniam to pay for its expenditures. Its growth and the growth of the money supply are identical.

At the same time, the growth of the Fascist State is also the unproductive consumption of the superfluous portion of the surplus value produced by the total social capital, of the mass of surplus value that cannot be employed productively by the social capital as additional capital for the purpose of self-expansion. The expansion of the Fascist State is, therefore, also the expansion of fictitious profits, or profits “realized” on surplus value that no longer exists and has been consumed unproductively by the Fascist State.

But, socially necessary labor time is only that portion of the working day during which the mass of workers produce the value of their wages. The duration of labor time beyond this is surplus value, which, under condition of absolute over-accumulation, cannot be sold at a profit — actually realized according to the law of value — and, which, therefore, must be unproductively consumed (destroyed) entirely by the Fascist State. It is logically impossible to assume, as do the various statist ideologues, that an increase in Fascist State expenditures can lead to an increase in the wages of the working class, or an improvement in their conditions. The opposite is actually the case: the increase in Fascist State expenditures presupposes the increase in the mass of surplus value, in the mass of labor time expended by society beyond that labor time required for the production of the commodities consumed by the working class. This expansion only results in the further impoverishment of the great mass of society.

Thus the constant increase in Fascist State outlays, even for social services, result only in the deterioration of the mass of society; in their increasing impoverishment; in the actual decline in “real” wages; and in the general rise in both prices and unemployment. Yet, moderation of prices and unemployment during periods of expansion bring no more than the slightest moderation of this immiseration — the stagnation rather than outright decline of wages, and stagnant, desultory, job growth rather than outright increases in unemployment.

The absolute over-accumulation of Capital presupposes that all the contradictions of capitalist society comes to its surface in a rather spectacular fashion and on a global scale. A rampant speculative binge of remarkable proportions is unleashed as even the very largest capitals find it impossible to realize the surplus value extracted from the mass of employed labor power and thus are forced into speculative financial pyramid schemes. Competition between capitals explode, but no increase in the concentration and centralization of capital suffices to reduce the costs of production sufficiently to enable realization of the gains of this concentration and centralization — indeed, the problem of realization only becomes more difficult and profound as the concentration and centralization of capital proceeds at an accelerated rate. Wages are too high, but also too low — thus even as the reduction in the value of labor power accelerates by export into the least developed regions of the World Market where wages can be paid amounting to a fraction of the most developed regions, and by accelerated application of machinery, science and technology to still further reduce the expenditure of labor power and increase its surplus producing capacity, the successful reduction of the value of labor power only creates the necessity for its further reduction.

The ferocity with which Capital attacks the value of wages increases in proportion as each successful assault on the value of wages necessarily creates a demand for the next wave of assaults. Governments are converted directly into an instrument for the creation of fictitious profit and speculative financial schemes. The Fascist State is an agent for increasing the rate of surplus value, for an increase in the mass of surplus value produced, and, therefore, for an increase in its own mass as consumer of the entirety of the surplus value produced and the creator of fictitious profits on an even greater scale. The magnitude of the insatiable lust for profit increases, and, simultaneously with this increase in magnitude, the effort by the state to satisfy this lust by reducing the tax rate on capital (which continues to exist only as a formality, a fig leaf to provide political cover for Washington’s absolute corruption); promoting increased export of capital; ripping up regulations or altogether ignoring them; deliberately exposing the mass of society to environmental disasters and the ever expanding despoiling of nature; the routine introduction of dangerous materials into the food chain; the promotion of dangerous products etc., all for the purpose of gaining an insignificant increase in the rate of surplus value.

The Fascist State is premised on the world historical political defeat of the Proletariat in its struggle for power against the Bourgeoisie. It is the actual political-economy of this defeat in the form of a globally dominant parasitic mass that grows in proportion as the political defeat of the Proletariat becomes the very premise and condition of the Proletariat’s own political activity — to the extent, therefore, that its complete and final subjugation to Capital is the premise not merely of its productive activity, but of its political activity as well; that political activity itself offers only to increase its impoverishment — its absolute degradation and absolute immiseration — and the constant expansion of its own capacity for self-governance in the form of an alien power confronting it and ruthlessly dominating it. The very political power of the proletarian majority of society looms as a merciless tyrannical social power over it that is absolutely indifferent to it.

On what other basis can the emergence of the Fascist State in a society founded on universal suffrage be premised other than those under which the actual proletarian majority of society express their own divisions in the form of this Fascist State? And, under what conditions should we expect these divisions to be most pronounced other than universal competition within the proletarian majority of society; under which each member of this class is thrown into absolute competition with the rest of the class, where every member of the class is set in absolute competition against every other member, and, therefore, under such condition as the class more or less assumes the form of a mass of petty commodity sellers under the most extreme competition, i.e., under conditions of an absolute and growing excess population of laborers? Marx argues that over-accumulation of capital consists precisely of this absolute excess population of laborers along with an absolute excess of capital.

It follows that the question is not whether the working class is split into adherents of greater Fascist State deficit spending, or a reduction of Fascist State deficit spending — that they oppose each other as Democrat versus Republican, progressive versus Tea Party, liberal versus conservative, public employee versus private employee, black versus white, male versus female, undocumented versus citizen, employed versus unemployed, etc. All such distinctions between and among the various factions within the Proletariat are of no significance whatsoever — are merely incidental to the outcome of the process I have described. It is not a question of the political prejudices or particular circumstances of the various members of the working class, but of politics itself: that Fascist State, no matter its specific composition and periodic reshuffling, is indifferent to this class, hostile to its interests, and exists only to further degrade and impoverish it.

The Fascist State signifies that politics is dead! That the class struggle is dead! That the class struggle has been settled decisively in favor of the Bourgeoisie and against the Proletariat — a class struggle that ended with the world historical defeat of the Proletariat. That the struggle against present day society must henceforth proceed on a different basis.