Capitalism & Unfreedom. posted by Richard Seymour

"The deranged condition of our affairs is a universal topic among men at present", Thomas Carlyle observed in 1850, (before going on to slander the "great dumb inarticulate class" whom he held responsible for most of the misery in society). He might have written the same today more urgently, countenancing the global calamity that confronts and confounds humans daily. The misery and toil of much of the planet; the environmental waste and destruction; the pirates and emperors that compete in bloody carnage; unparalleled corruption and crookedness, often sanctioned by power. Rarely has such attention been drawn to such issues, and rarely has such effort gone into diverting people from them.

Yet on certain questions it seems we are all too easily baffled. I won't exaggerate the point, but it seems to me that there is an easy wisdom, an artefact of received opinion, that prevents people from experiencing their unfreedom and their exploitation for what it is. When Tom Driberg wrote an article for the Express attacking what he called 'wage slavery', his proprietor irately told the editor, "If I have any wage slaves on my staff, you must free them immediately". Although this deliberately misunderstood the meaning of the term 'wage slave', he hit on a common sense that I find recurs from time to time in conversation.

For instance, speaking to a leftish work colleague recently about the firefighters strike, I was met with the rebuke: "Yeah well, they knew what pay they were getting when they took the job, so they can't complain". The illusion of a free and equal contract between employee and employer is one that exerts considerable hold, particularly given the paucity of industrial conflict over the last fifteen years. The thought that the situation might be rigged in advance, by virtue of the capitalists control of the means of production, is so obvious that it eludes many people who otherwise place themselves on the Left.

In part, this is because people are prepared from an early age to expect and accept this state of affairs. In high school Business Studies class, I was shown along with my class mates a video sponsored by some bank which purported to demonstrate how the division of labour came about. It all took place, it seemed, in a relatively benign and peaceful fashion, with no intruding political questions or economic phases. From the cavemen to cashcards, it was really all about work being broken down into separate tasks which would be undertaken by those most able to do them. Then, finding contact with nearby villages, they would trade things that they were good at making for the things that the other villages were good at making. David Ricardo chortled from beyond the grave. The only interesting thing about this propaganda video is that it raised not a single eyebrow - as how could it? One is led to expect to work for a capitalist without seeing anything necessarily unjust about it, and one has nothing to compare it to. The worker is taught to sell herself (all those job interview training schemes) without perceiving herself as a commodity.

The existence of trade unions has been a recognition of the fact that the employment contract is not one taken under conditions of freedom, but under economic compulsion. If it isn't this capitalist, it's that capitalista. Therefore, the only power workers have is their number and their ability to organise collectively. The decline in industrial combativity and the serious beating that the unions have taken has meant that many of these lessons have been lost to a new generation. Anticapitalism and the antiwar movement has pulled many to the Left without acquainting them with the nature of social and political power. I would add parenthetically, and at the risk of annoying one or two of the regular commenters here, that this could partially explain the persistence of conspiracy theories among some of these new radicals. For the conceptual operations of Marxism, as invaluable as they are for understanding capitalism, only really come alive in the day to day struggle of workers in confrontation with their employers. You can understand the labour theory of value in a scholastic way - but on a picket line with mounted police in attendance and employers munching sandwiches by the windows as they watch, the force of the terms exploitation and oppression are immediate and apparent.

Slavoj Zizek tells a joke from the old Soviet Union. Two friends, one living in the USSR, the other living outside it, agree a system for writing to one another to help avoid the censor. The USSR resident agrees to write in red or blue ink, depending on whether or not she is writing is true. If it is in red ink, the letter is false; if in blue, it is true. The first letter arrives in blue ink:

"The shops are full here. Everyone is happy and well-fed. The restaurants are packed with people, wine is readily available, goods are in abundant supply. The only thing you can't get is red ink."

Are we not missing the red ink, Zizek asks? The very means of expressing our unfreedom is precisely what we have been denuded of. It goes almost without saying that the resuscitation of radical critique that penetrates these extraordinary, criminal times, but also the more mundane matters of routine enslavement, will advance in rough proportion to the ability of the working class to perceive itself as a class and fight for its own interests. The resurgence of trade union militancy, as well as mainstream political expression for the Left, are necessary preconditions for this.

On an entirely unrelated matter, Channel 4 News reports tonight that bookies say George Galloway's odds of taking Oona King's constituency in Bethnal Green and Bow have increased dramatically. Good.