On the Contradictions Among the Ruling Class in the US

Editorial Board

The economic crisis of overproduction deepens, and with it the contradictions among the imperialist ruling class, the monopoly capitalists, become increasingly acute. It is inaccurate to draw a superficial dividing line between the two major parties, who both vie for control over the state bureaucracy and simultaneously traffic with the masses to accomplish a guise of legitimacy. Politics are the concentrated expression of economics—we have to look at the internal contradictions among the ruling class to understand how these essential qualities find their formal expression in the imperialist parties and how each seeks hegemony among the people.

The US state is organized around the interests of monopoly capital—it is the armed and administrative wing of the monopoly capitalist class, their means of maintaining social control. The contradiction we examine comes from discord on the question of how to accomplish the interests of this class which is increasingly divided among their factional interests. Private monopoly capital seeks control of the state in its interests and in crises becomes less tolerant to the state-owned monopoly capital, while both monopolists argue that their contradictory financial interests are the most beneficial to society.

Monopoly capital, whether it is privately owned and publicly traded or state owned, seeks to derive profits from the exploitation of the working class, financially crushing competition from the class of small business owners and restricting, crushing, or remolding education and public services in its interest. The result is that whatever the contradiction between the ruling class, the contradiction between the ruling class and the people sharpens. This is transpiring within the global economic crisis, which is less severe in the US than the rest of the world due to its global financial dominance. Corresponding to the crisis are disagreements among on how to most effectively exploit and oppress the people.

State owned monopoly capitalism is very small by comparison to privately owned monopoly capital, and there is no indication that the US could transform into a state-monopoly capitalist country such as those in the third world, or China for example. Neither faction of monopoly capitalists want this, because their interests are in dominating the masses while being free to collude and contend with one another economically. Nor is there any trajectory of the development of bureaucratic capitalism which is the type of capitalism which develops in countries dominated by foreign finance capital. Because of this, the actual conditions for fascism in the world’s sole-hegemonic imperialist superpower are greatly restricted. This does not mean, however, that the old-state is not desperate to crush democratic rights and unleash reactionary white terror at the threat of unrest in order to preserve its prized position among the world’s imperialist powers and superpowers.

State owned monopoly capital in the US is not insignificant, extending from sizable corporations in banking, insurance, railroads, education, and communications. There are other large scale enterprises which are partially controlled by state owned monopoly capital as well. For instance, the US is the world’s largest producer of petroleum and natural gas, and the state owns 25% of the crude oil and 10% of the natural gas coming from the US. To get out of the general economic crisis of the Great Depression, under the “New Deal” sections of the economy were nationalized and the minority state monopoly capitalists grew. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the US economy is privately owned.

The capitalist is a wretch, always at odds with himself and his class siblings and, unlike workers who stand to benefit more from co-operation, the capitalist only sees co-operation as a means of increasing their ability to compete and dominate their rival capitalists. This leads to the bigger capitalists buying up smaller competitors and the formation of monopolies with the biggest financiers at the top of the food chain. From this arises a contradiction between regulation which stabilizers their expansion and deregulation which allows it. In the same way, the capitalist uses regulation and deregulation to exploit and subdue the workers, with some regulation won through workers struggles. The contradictions arising from these result in things like the increase in the role played by private equity firms and polarization of the political mafias who fight more desperately for control over the state bureaucracy.

Control over the state bureaucracy is the main expression in the US ruling class’ internal contradiction; the question of wielding the state apparatus or remolding it to get the ruling class through the economic crisis is not agreed upon. On one hand, we have the likes of the ultra-reactionaries like real estate monopolist Donald Trump and tech industrialist and richest man in the world Elon Musk who through control of the state bureaucracy reduce or destroy its financial control apparatuses in the interests of private monopoly capital, further responding to the economic crisis with mass lay offs, increasing the competition among workers for lower wages. They argue for efficiency, unchecked capitalism without regulation or with minimum regulation, relaxing the state’s control, and handing more control to the private monopolies.

On the other hand we have the high-minded swindlers, those beholden in a larger degree to the state owned monopoly capitalists. Through regulation, state ownership, welfare, and public infrastructure they seek to stave off revolution and desperately fight to keep capitalism running smoothly. This section is represented by the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC, etc. and has spent the last four years parroting the lie of economic recovery, a lie which, falling flat, helped bolster the calls of the far right.

Revisionism—which seeks to proclaim socialism while doing away with its revolutionary content—has no other option but to trail behind the state owned monopoly capitalists, nationalization under capitalism (leading all the way to corporatism) is indistinguishable from socialism to them, and this is how they plan to “non-violently” get to their idea of socialism (i.e. social-fascism) by accomplishing complete nationalization under the state-monopoly ruling class.

Socialism cannot be anything but revolutionary, since the ruling class monopoly capitalists have to be replaced by the working class. Socialism can only be constructed under the dictatorship of the working class, more properly called the proletariat.

Protests backed by the Democratic mafia have been deployed in every state since Trump took office. The masses who rightfully fight for democratic freedoms and social programs get deceived there by the Democrats and revisionists. This is a political expression of both the fear of the economic crisis and the desperation resulting from it to save and advance the decomposing state-monopoly capitalist section of the US ruling class.

The Democratic mafia, and the revisionists at their side, took a real beating in the last electoral farce. In order to stage a comeback for the next round in the farce, they have to increase tenfold their trafficking with the masses, and they have done so by getting involved as a force in the mass movements as well as generating movements of their own in response.

It is critical to realize that these are still parties of the ruling class, and as parties they are well organized and well funded; they can quickly gain hegemony over the people’s movements, redirecting them or putting them on ice. The working class on the other hand has no party and ends up getting pushed into, and pushed around by, the various parties of the ruling class.

The contradiction between the working and ruling classes are sure to increase and to become more violent and volatile, increasing the desperation of the ruling class to subdue the workers by force or by bribery, and in this maelstrom the inter-ruling class contradiction will only increase. More and more the revolutionary situation expresses itself; the people can’t live like they have been and the ruling class can’t manage its rule as it has been. All that is missing is the development of revolutionary forces.

Neither regulation nor deregulation, neither state-owned monopoly capitalism or unchecked privately owned monopoly capitalism, can resolve the contradiction in which the imperialists find themselves. As these contradictions become more acute, and with the understanding that both seek to maneuver against the working class and middle classes, it must be increasingly stressed that the old-society, and the decomposing economic system upon which it is set up, are nothing but an old shoe that must be thrown out and replaced with a new and better one. The working class requires its own Party to do this, one which stands firmly for conquering power through armed struggle to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, under which is can continue the socialist revolution. Without this, without real historically verified and reality-affirmed socialist revolution, the periodic and worsening crises of capitalism will be back.

The contradiction between the monopoly capitalist ruling class and the working people in imperialist countries like the US is solved with socialist revolution.

Under Socialism:

Today’s ruling class would be deposed and suppressed by the New State which administers in the interests of the working people. Social production would no longer be for private profit but for the improvement of society, which would result in great discoveries suppressed by production driven by private profit. Reproductive labor would take on a social character; food, housing, childcare, recreation, education, and all of life’s wants would be guaranteed to all who work, and only those who desert labor and seek to profit off the work of others would face going without. Only socialist revolution can bring about the end of the reign of monopoly capital; only socialist revolution can turn this aging and decomposing society upside-down, which would be setting us all on our feet.

Image: Amtrak passenger train in Chicago, Flickr 2011, Loco Steve. Amtrak is one of the largest state-owned companies in the US.

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