Culturally, were in a phase of permanent revolution

Prof. Grave Riddle. Aug 16 2011.

You can see the impulse of the British to close in on old images of themselves in
order to tighten their little island, drawing their suits around themselves, to defend
themselves against all this otherness pressing on themand I look at young black and
asian kids in their third generation who have been boon here and brought up here, so
theyre not from anywhere elseyou know and I just think creatively, culturally
theyre just on top of the world, they dont know where their next meal is coming
from butculturally they are enormously in a rich creative mode [...] Youre asking me,
how can people live without some sense that theres an ultimate truth or ultimate
scale of values, and I dont know but I dont any longer think that this is just a
transitional phase, that were moving on to some other more settled period. You
know I think were culturally in a phase of permanent revolution. Stuart Hall,
speaking on the BBC in the late 80s
British society is a society divided by class; dont let anyone tell you otherwise, until
we manage to overthrow these capitalist bastards. Britain is divided into
the aristocracy, who do quite blatantly still exist and are born into this world with a
silver spoon securely lodged up their arses. Next is the middle class or
the bourgeoisie, which is that historical ruling class of the French and Industrial
revolutions, who launched society into capitalism, supposedly destroying feudalism
in favour of equality and liberty for all. And then there is everyone else. This
everyone else cannot really be called the working class or the proletariat
anymore because the working class is a politically self-aware social entity based on an
ethics of solidarity and produced by a certain era of capitalist production, namely the
Fordist model ofmass production. Contemporary (or post-Fordist, as it is sometimes
called) production is much more heterogeneous and subtle in its exploitation of
labour, and this has also made this everyone else fragmented and divided against
itself. This doesnt mean that the class system has changed in any fundamental way;
Marx analysis of surplus value still applies and is still the starting point if you want
to work out which class you belong to (hint: if you earn a wage, you are not a
capitalist; and unless you have aristocratic blood, you are probably part of the
working class. Small business owners are traditionally referred to as the petitbourgeois)
Today we are faced with renewed competition on the front against capitalism: the
Conservatives. The anti-capitalism of the Conservatives is of course ideological; their
economic approach is still fundamentally capitalist/neo-liberal. However, David
Cameron and his horde of fellow idiots want to reintroduce an essentially precapitalist order of privilege and power back into British society, an order that is based
on family values, tradition, respect and above all morality. They too strongly
criticise the dehumanising effects of capitalism and its erosion of society, but where

Marxists bring in class analysis and socio-economic, historical explanations, the

Conservatives fall back on empty universals that barely conceal class ideology. Marx
called this tendency reactionary. It is a tendency to look backwards instead of
forwards in time, it romanticises the past and cannot cope with the present. The first
socialists manifested this tendency, and what distinguished them from Marxists was
their utopian flavour instead of analysing capitalist society scientifically. According
to Marxist theory, capitalism itself contains not only irreparable contradictions, but
also the conditions for socialism within itself: labour within capitalism is
already socialised, the working class only need to take control of productive forces
and shed exploitation.
What about New Labour? We often hear how New Labour and the Tories are pretty
much indistinguishable, a view that coincides with the total disillusionment with
politics within society, leading to the conclusion: theres no point in voting, they are
all the same! This conclusion is correct, but there are still basic differences between
the two main parties. Ironically, from a socialist perspective, New Labour was the
capitalist party proper. It believed totally in the ideology of the market; they
genuinely tried to abolish class in favour of a meritocracy. Of course, we know that
capitalism itself is based on a division of wage-labour and capital, creating its own
internal class antagonism. The Conservatives, on the other hand, try to reconcile the
market with the idea that there is a section of society that naturally deserve to control
and profit by this market. This is impossible, and I think the pure neo-liberal
economists are right when they say that any interference in the market creates
economic problems. Again, this shows how Marxists and Conservatives attack capital
from totally different perspectives: we think that capitalism is defective and should
be aufgehoben (difficult to translate, but really nails what Im trying to say; vaguely
synonymous with superseded) into socialism; the Conservatives see the potential in
capital to make them richer than ever before, if only they could reintroduce a feudal
hierarchy and system of naked power/repression. There is no internal fix for the
contradictions of capitalism, its only gonna get worse and worse until we reach a
point of economic/ecological apocalypse. The only other option is socialism, now.
The necessary conclusion to come to is that we cannot vote against capitalism.
Anyway, one positive result of the reappearance of conservativism onto the socioeconomic scene is that it has produced a corresponding antagonistic class. As I have
already said, it cannot be called the working class; it hasnt really got a name yet
because it is a new historical phenomenon that is produced by these contemporary
forces. It probably bares closest resemblance to the early anti-industrial movements
of the 18th century: the Chartists, Utopians, etc. I might be completely wrong here, as
my knowledge is a bit ropey. But similarly, there was a dual reaction to capitalism
and industry from left and right, the former being lead by an avant-garde of liberal
middle-class intellectuals and the latter a bitter reaction by the former feudal ruling
class: the aristocracy. So, back to the present, the reappearance of reactionary

conservativism has produced a corresponding avant-garde of middle class

intellectuals. Anyone living, writing and arguing in London can see this very clearly.
Marx is back in fashion.
But there is also a radical underclass element to this revolutionary movement; the
recent riots attest to this. And also an international, post-colonial background to the
British unrest, often referred to as the Arab Spring. At this point in time I am
unable to synthesise these factors into an overarching Marxist perspective, but I will
say that the notion of an underclass seems extremely dodgy to me. I know that
Marx talked of a lumpenproletariat, but I would have thought that the underclass are
just a particularly destitute part of the wider working class, and one that is even
further away from achieving the class consciousness necessary to overcome their
conditions of exploitation in solidarity with their proper comrades.
Whatever we do, as part of this growing anti-Conservative, anti-capitalist movement,
we must act in solidarity with our class. The rioters shouldnt attack their own,
only capital, and we shouldnt join in with denouncing the rioters in terms of
morality and/or criminality. We can criticise the riots as a social phenomenon
created by the conditions of exploitation and alienation that are necessary factors in
our choice of economic foundation: (neo-liberal) capitalism. Not only will capitalism
itself produce this kind of social unrest, because it naturally intensifies the division of
wealth, despite what the neo-liberal economists say (because they do not see the
contradictions as internal, only external, which is why they can maintain the ideology
of liberalism and equality against empirical data the capitalist utopia); but the
added combination of conservativism with neo-liberalism creates a totally irrational
element in society, which is only the manifestation of the totally irrational
contradiction of these two ideological elements. As I have just mentioned in brackets,
neo-liberal economics insists that the market should be totally left alone and that this
will lead to prosperity for all and stabilisation, yet David Cameron and his
bandito army seek to interfere in the market in order to secure wealth for a
reactionary ruling class. This is an impossible combination.
It is a shame that people get hurt and stressed in times of social unrest. In a perfect
world (a socialist one?), no one would inflict pain on anyone else. In really existing
society however, pain is being inflicted all the time, mostly from the top downwards.
Modern capitalism is entirely founded on a history of violence: the dispossession of
the cottage industry before any welfare existed; Empire and the genocide of many
tribes and native peoples; neo-colonialism, the enforced spread of democracy in the
past fifty years to ensure fuel-supplies; and the list is almost endless. The point is that
we take for granted the violence of the history of capitalism every time we buy,
produce and/or sell commodities. Not only that, we sit in school and listen to the
history of the modern world with a dispassionate attitude of historical destiny (it
was shit for the early working class wasnt it? Yeah, but it was shitter before, and

now its better). We are all to blame, and all knowledge is subject to the process of
reification. But dont fucking stand there and tell me that the violence of the riots is
criminality pure and simple Cameron, you total wanker!
I believe that socialism can come about in our lifetime (Im 29, how old are you?!)
and that we dont need to wait for the internal self-destruction of capital. If we do,
things will get so much worse, especially taking into account the ecological effects. I
am somewhere between a utopian and scientific Marxist (see Engels Utopian
and Scientific Socialism and part III of The Communist Manifesto), which is to say
that I believe that if we analyse capitalism as it evolves using the tools that Marx
introduced in his later work, we might be able to imagine an alternative to it that we
could call Communism, or anything else. It might turn out totally unexpected (it
might turn out worse!), but I think that the first step must be to always act in
solidarity with other; mainly our fellow exploited and alienated comrades, but
perhaps this solidarity might catch on across the class divide and we might win over
some influential capitalists (like Engels!). I believe that imagining an alternative is in
itself a revolutionary act, and any alternatives are critical of the status quo (see
Fredric Jameson on utopian SF in Archaeologies of the Future); but this properly
academic act of imagination must always be backed up with practical action, i.e.
political activism and possibly even violence. If contemporary capitalism is based on
the principles of competition and profit, then we should act on principles solidarity
and charity. But genuine charity, not the Big Society idea of a bunch of social
entrepreneurs fucking up communities and creaming off fat paychecks from
government coffers.
- Prof. Grave Riddle, Visiting Fellow, UfSO