[Marxism] The Real Reasons Behind the So-called ?War on Terrorism¹ By Nat Weinstein

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Real Reasons Behind the So-called
?War on Terrorism¹
By Nat Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/

Any reasonably objective person trying to figure out the real reasons given
in the mass media for the so-called ³War on Terrorism² is not likely to
swallow the distortions in the mass media whole. Take for instance, the way
the facts in each of the many wars in the Middle East have been reported in
the media. The art of deception tends to take the form of portraying the
victim as the criminal and vice versa.
Thus, the American Empire¹s Zionist storm troopers are portrayed as the
victim and Lebanon¹s Hizbullah, the criminal.
Aside from such an absurdly twisted version of the facts, even more
dishonest is the bald-faced portrayal of the American Empire as the champion
of ³freedom, democracy and the rule of law.² But the characterization of
America?more accurately, the U.S. ruling class?as the arch-opponent of
³crimes against humanity² deserves a special Nobel prize for crudely turning
the truth inside-out and upside-down!
The real reasons for the crimes against humanity committed by U.S.-led world
imperialism in the Middle East, and throughout the world today, have nothing
to do with the growing trend toward inter-racial, religious, national and
ethnic conflict. All these evils were set into motion by the many social,
economic, and political injustices that are rooted in the capitalist social
and economic order that is now the dominant force in today¹s world. That¹s a
viewpoint, if the truth be told, shared by a majority of the peoples of the
world?despite the exactly opposite version of the facts of life created by
the artful dodgers who write the mainstream news.
Let¹s take a look at the real story behind the one told by the
capitalist-owned and controlled mass media of communication:
? The first and most obvious of the many factors driving the American Empire
along its path of death and destruction that we now see unfolding mainly,
but not only, in the Middle East, is the existence, there, of the world¹s
largest reserves of oil and gas, without which the wheels of industry cannot
turn.
? The second of these forces is the ever-sharpening struggle between each
capitalist nation for as large a share of the global market as it is able to
capture. This struggle by all capitalist nations?each against all?has
powered the major imperialist nations toward a policy that has already
resulted in the destruction of millions of the world¹s innocent people, held
hostage to capitalist exploitation and oppression.
? The third and most powerful force driving the capitalist world toward
self-destruction is known by economists as the tendency of the average rate
of profit to fall.
The fall of the average rate of profit is the most fundamental of
capitalism¹s internal contradictions. The tendency of profits is to expand
absolutely along with the expansion of capitalism into new markets. But at
the same time, the struggle for market share sharply intensifies competition
among capitalists fighting for living space in a finite world marketplace.
This spirit of competition, which capitalist ideologues consider the
greatest of all virtues, lies at the roots of the declining average rate of
profit.
As scarce as the proverbial hens¹ teeth, however, are bourgeois economists
who will own up to the fact of a long-term tendency of the average rate of
profit to fall.
But I was surprised to see that James Petras, a former Professor of
Sociology, and a comrade, in the generic sense, since we are on the same
side of the class struggle, has recently written a 4,000-word polemic
against the left wing of the workers¹ movement entitled: ³Crisis of U.S.
Capitalism or the Crisis of the U.S. Wage and Salaried Worker?² His opening
remarks provide a clear indication of the nature and substance of his
critique:
³Progressive, leftist, radical and even a few ?Bearish¹ Wall Street pundits
have been arguing for years about the coming collapse, decline or demise of
U.S. capitalism. No amount of continued growth of billionaires, millionaires
and multimillionaires, record earnings by investment houses and double-digit
profit growth of major corporations can convince our doomsayers to rethink
their prophecies.
³Nothing has discredited the U.S. left more than its apocalyptic visions of
the Big Fall, in the face of robust growth. Given the ³long-term² or
imprecise time frame and a ritualistic litany of profound structural
weaknesses, their predictions are swallowed and regurgitated in the
progressive media, websites and blogs where they are spread to a dubious
public.²
Although, the author of the two preceding paragraphs appears to only see the
bright side of capitalist economy as presented by Wall Street¹s ³Bullish²
Wall Street pundits, he doesn¹t give hardly enough credence to its dark side
as presented by Wall Street¹s ³Bears.² After all, both Bulls and Bears have
to know something?or know people who do know something about the real state
of the economy. But so do those of us like Jim Petras and myself who also
have to know and do know something about the subject.
In any case, I want to thank him for providing me with an opportunity to
explain why ³leftists,² such as are the editors of this magazine, ³have been
arguing for years about the coming collapse, decline or demise of U.S.
capitalism.²
So in order to explain why we say that this is indeed the direction in which
it is moving; and at an ever increasing pace, I think it best to start with
a brief explanation of why the rate of profit tends to fall.
The falling rate of profit: how it works
This question remained unanswered until Karl Marx came along. But to solve
this conundrum required three volumes of Capital, which many consider to be
his most important contribution to the science of society. Marx succeeded,
where all others had failed, first to identify and then to fully explain the
many conflicting forces at work in the complex coordinate system such as is
the capitalist social and economic order in a manner entirely consistent
with the scientific method. That¹s why it has successfully withstood the
challenges to Marx¹s Capital ever since.
The three volumes of Capital expound his labor theory of value, which is the
foundation for his critical analysis of the laws governing capitalist
economy and is the key to understanding why it must fall over the long
term?but rises and falls chaotically over the shorter term.
Competition for market share makes capitalists reduce prices consistent with
their drive to gain a rate of profit justifying the risks that go along with
a system based on production for profit. If we reduce this problem to its
essentials, it boils down to this:
If war and the lies needed to make war acceptable to the gullible become
necessary to keep the rate of profit from falling to the point that
capitalists will not invest when the risks are higher than is justified by
an acceptable rate of profit, then war becomes?for the capitalist?a vital
necessity.
There are two ways to increase profits and, at the same time, the rate of
profit. The first is by increasing the length of the workday, or
intensifying the rate of exploitation by forcing workers to do more work in
every minute of every hour, or both. And the second way is to lower the cost
of labor by replacing human labor by machines.
Reducing the labor costs serves to raise the rate of profit for those
capitalists who first successfully increase productivity without a
comparable increase in costs. It doesn¹t matter whether this is done by the
first or second way, or most effectively by both ways.
But intensifying the rate of exploitation, and replacing human labor by
machines, causes a paradoxical fall in the average rate of profit for the
majority of individual capitalists and nations who have not kept up with the
new standard of productive efficiency needed to garner an average, or
higher, rate of profit.
And try as critical capitalist economists have tried to do to come up with a
viable alternative to Karl Marx¹s labor theory of value?and thereby maintain
the myth that wages are a fair exchange of things of equal value1?all of the
best bourgeois economic theorists have failed to come up with a consistent
theory. All of the latter failed to pass the test of consistency and
experience required by the scientific method, while Marx¹s labor theory of
value has passed with flying colors.
If we follow the logic of capitalist production through to the end, we can
better understand what it is about the capitalist mode of production that is
driving the American Empire and its allied imperialist powers toward an
unending series of predatory wars.
Without new worlds into which the growing multitude of competing capitalists
can expand?and there aren¹t any new worlds left?an ever-increasing number of
capitalists are either driven into bankruptcy, and thus out of the world
marketplace, or swallowed up by their more successful competitors in accord
with the laws of the jungle that rule over the capitalist world. Thus, the
rich get richer and the poor poorer, and the means of production and all the
financial and commercial institutions on this planet are increasingly
concentrated into the hands of an ever more powerful few.
This conquest is paid for with the destruction of millions of the world¹s
innocent people, along with the accumulated wealth of society and wasted
human and material resources. But there¹s always an upside to every
downside.
In the final analysis, the downside is summarized by Rosa Luxemburg in an
essay entitled ³The Junius Pamphlet² (1916), that she was forced to write
under the pseudonym of Junius. She and Karl Liebnecht and other German
revolutionary socialists, who like their comrade in America?Eugene Debs,
were imprisoned for opposing the first imperialist World War.
It was this German revolutionary Marxist who coined the catchphrase which
has echoed around the world ever since by revolutionary Marxists
everywhere?³Socialism or Barbarism!² In it she argued that the only choice
before the human race was an ever deeper descent into barbarism or the
overthrow of capitalism by socialist revolution.
She argued further that the world had reached an historical turning point
which demands resolute action by the workers of the world to carry through
the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist barbarism and create a socialist
world.
In other words, the terrible consequences of capitalism¹s world-historic
tendency is that it calls into existence the struggle for a socialist world
wherein man¹s inhumanity to man will come to an end once and for all time.



1 While wages are indeed a fair exchange for the value of the workers labor
power before it is consumed by the capitalist to power the production of
commodities; wages are not equal to the value the worker has produced after
the end of his workday.


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