In an actual colony, or semi-colony, engaged in an anti-imperialist struggle, the Marxists, on the basis of permanent revolution, seek to unite the masses under the leadership of the working class. They subsume the tasks of the bourgeois revolution under the proletarian revolution, so that, as the former tasks are accomplished, by revolutionary proletarian means, so the social weight of the workers rises, and they draw behind them the poor peasants and urban petty-bourgeois, enabling the dialectical dynamic to do its work, making the revolution permanent, and flowing over into proletarian revo ..read more

To the extent that real industrial capital expanded in the developed economies, it increasingly became concentrated in its pre-social-democratic forms. Just as newly industrialising economies filled the gaps of large-scale production, to meet the consumption needs of developed economies, so, within those developed economies, a growing petty-bourgeoisie arose to meet the needs of local consumption, i.e. a growth of labour services such as window-cleaners, gardeners, child minders, domestic cleaners, back street garages, sandwich shops and so on. In addition, of course, was all of those that s ..read more

Capital then is not a “thing”, such as a drill, or plough, but is a social relation. What makes a drill or a plough capital when it is used by a wage-labourer, whereas it is not when it is used by me to do DIY, or by a peasant to produce food, is that the wage labourer does not own it, and the capitalist that does will only allow the labourer to use these means of production on certain conditions, i.e. that the labourer provides hem with an amount of unpaid labour – profit. The peasant who produces food for their own consumption, does not need permission to use their own plough, and nor do I ..read more

In the 1980's, one solution for developed capitalist economies was to shift production to a range of newly industrialising economies, particularly in Asia. This production was largely of those mature commodities, based on high levels of output, using significant amounts of fixed capital, with very high rates of turnover of the circulating capital, and consequently small profit margins, but a much higher annual rate of profit. In other words, mostly routine assembly. Low wages in these economies helped to boost profit margins. It was not that the total volume of industrial production, in develo ..read more

Trotsky quotes the Committee's resolution, summarising the basis of the erroneous evaluation of the situation by the Chinese party. ““1. The revolutionary movement was estimated as an uninterrupted ascent [the “permanent revolution” à la Bukharin-Lominadze! – L.T.]. “2. No attention was paid to the loss of contact between our party and the masses, nor to the decomposition of the mass organizations at the turning point of the revolution. “3. No account was taken of the new regrouping of class forces inside the enemy camp during this turn. “4. No consideration was given to leading the movem ..read more

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Wage labour, in the form of labour-power, sold as a commodity, has been analysed, but what about capital? According to bourgeois economics, “Capital consists of raw materials, instruments of labour, and means of subsistence of all kinds, which are utilised in order to produce new raw materials, new instruments of labour, and new means of subsistence. All these component parts of capital are creations of labour, products of labour, accumulated labour. Accumulated labour which serves as a means of new production is capital.” (p 27-8) Is that true? No. Just as in previous societies, labour-powe ..read more

Joe Biden's support for the Zionist genocide in Gaza has been steadfast, as he wholesales the lies being retailed by the Zionist regime. When it comes to Zionism and its genocide in Gaza, there is no room for dissent in the US, Democrat and Republican politicians speak in one voice, and anyone attempting to present even the slightest glimmer of criticism of that genocide or US imperialism's support for it, has to be crushed mercilessly, whether by the force of the huge ideological apparatus of the state, or alternatively by the use of the state's bodies of armed men. This is the definition of ..read more

The theory of the so called wealth effect, which is also behind the argument for “trickle down economics”, is that, as people feel “wealthier”, as a result of the money price of their assets rising, they spend more money, and this increases aggregate demand in the economy, creating more jobs and so on. It is nonsense. What inflated asset prices did was to create a speculative fervour, so that rather than encouraging higher levels of consumer spending, they encouraged consumers to divert spending on consumption to spending on the purchase of assets for fear of missing out. In the case of housin ..read more