BASIS
OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL THEORY OF CAPITALISM
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 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 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 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 technique 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
technique. 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 technique 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 technique 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
towards 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 conscious
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 an anti-human
and destructive order based upon the ruling principles of monopolist capitalism,
"Big fish devours small fish!" and "Money does not stink!";
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; the entire institutional, normative and propaganda
area of that order is directed toward destruction of the cultural and
libertarian self-conscious 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 nations"
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 nations.
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 USA. 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 labourers 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 labour
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 nations will lose their
own historical (cultural) self-conscious and libertarian dignity in order
to become a garbage collector labour 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-conscious, 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 towards annihilation of "nationalism" which
translates into annihilation of the cultural heritage of European nations
and their right to make sovereign political decisions. The USA 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 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, technique, 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-conscious
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 reason 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 (mind-related)
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 conscious. 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. Sportication 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) technique 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. 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. 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". 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 man's 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 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)conscious 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 man's 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 conscious 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 suprahistorical 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-conscious 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 contemporary 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 superhuman 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,
technique, 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 true 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.
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