The massive revenue crisis in Nigeria (triggered by Shale oil revolution in United States) and the political crisis following thereof (waves of labour strikes, including January 2012 Uprising, Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP implosion, All Progressive Congress, APC merger, Jonathan/Obasanjo feud etc); all these have understandably risen the advanced layers of youth and workers to their feet, all asking the perennial question: “what is to be done?”. As Marxists, we maintain that the period we are in and the one we are about entering are inevitably revolutionary and the choice before Nigerian masses is either socialism or barbaric counter-revolution. However, there are some honest worker and youth activists who believe that the road to revolution can be bypassed and that Nigerian capitalism can be reformed into a more responsible system injected with socialist characteristics (welfarism)! In other words, while Marxists advocate revolutionary socialism, the other layers of activists advocate reformist responsible capitalism. In this article, we will put the two diverging opinions to scientific inquiry.
First, how do our reformist responsible capitalist friends plan to achieve their agenda? In other words, what will be the motor force driving the implementation of this reformist responsible capitalist agenda? The reformists always resort to the methods of legislative regulation or the almighty solution of “good governance”. But when asked who would provide this regulation oversight and good governance over unruly markets and capitalism, our reformist friends often expose their confusion. A reformist, who is often an intellectual or an accomplished technocrat, always runs towards abstractions at this level; going into the meaningless circle of good policy advice versus political will; good policy advice from the intellectual/technocrat and political will from leaders! With this common abstraction, the reformist intellectual/technocrat reveals her political program: subservience to the powers that be i.e. to bourgeoisie. This is the political and true meaning of reformism; to pacify and cow the masses and preserve the position of bourgeoisie as the ruling class. By asking capitalism to reform itself, the reformists are effectively asking Obasanjo, IBB, Atiku, Tinubu etc to become good men and save the nation out of their good will! It is not by accident that reformism identifies itself with the opposition APC, where the door is wide open for the bad and ugly. The behaviour of APC (courting OBJ, IBB etc) is the inevitable political program of reformism and let us say this: the reformist intellectual/technocrat is an ideologist of bourgeois opposition APC; her task is to bring the spontaneous movement of the masses under the ideological influence of this or that section of the same bourgeois class.
Unscientific Attitude; The Main Ideological Defect of Reformism
It is necessary, as we have done in the early paragraphs of this article, to begin this discussion with the political program of reformist intellectuals/technocrats. As explained, the political program of reformism is in essence a capitulation to the bourgeoisie. But in addition to this political bankruptcy, reformism also displays marked theoretical and ideological bankruptcy, a defect that originates from unscientific attitude towards society and politics.
First, the way our reformist intellectuals/technocrats talk and write about the question of revolution/reform, makes one wonder if the latter can be freely willed and ‘unwilled’. What do I mean? For the reformist intellectual, revolution generally and socialist revolution in particular, is unacceptably disruptive and chaotic. Thus, this chaos can be consciously prevented through legislative, regulatory and other “good governance” measures employed by the ruling classes (of course with the help of the infinite wisdom of the intellectual)! The other side of this logic is that revolution and its chaos are a product of conscious recklessness and adventurism of irresponsible revolutionaries! With this, our reformist intellectuals/technocrats reduce the question revolution/reform to a contest of wills between revolutionaries on one hand and conservative forces on the other. We have news for our reformist: revolution is not the ingenious invention of this or that enlightened revolutionary or intellectual; it is an historically and materially determined social event coming with the force and inevitability of a Natural Law. The very crisis of capitalism, the exploitation of the vast majority by a handful few and the exposure and collapse of all reformist illusions (e.g. ” I had no shoes” slogan of Jonathan and “progressivism” of APC); all these will inevitably force the masses to take their destiny into their own hands questioning, bypassing and smashing to pieces all traditional institutions and political methods (including electioneering and parliamentarism). This is what is called revolution and no force on earth can either consciously plan this or prevent it. That revolution will break out is given; a fact only utopian reformist can wish away. With the breaking out of current global crisis of capitalism and the bourgeois policy of asking workers and poor to pay for the crisis through austerity, revolutionary wave inevitably spread on a global scale smashing with equal ferocity national barriers and reformist utopias; the wave spread from Occupy Wall Street Protests to the uprisings in Greece, Spain and France to the Arab Spring and the historic January 2012 Uprising in Nigeria. The question is not that of revolution or no revolution but one of revolution and counter-revolution (barbarism). Instead of preparing for the inevitable revolution, our reformist intellectuals want us to engage in the impossible and plan to prevent the coming revolution.
And one thing that must be emphasized at this juncture is that even the reforms such as minimum wage were not the product of benevolence of bourgeois reformists and their ideologists; rather all reforms are won by workers through struggle, sweat and blood.
Another area where reformists display their idealistic unscientific attitude is with regards to the question of human freedom under capitalism and socialism. Now, bourgeois ideologists claim that capitalism is superior to socialism because the former ensures human freedom through the mechanism of free market competition. In contrast, the bourgeois ideologists insist, socialism stifles human freedom and creativity. But what these apologists of capital gloss over is this; capitalism had, for almost 150 years, outgrown free competitive stage; it is now monopoly capitalism where domination by a handful of financiers and monopoly capitalists had replaced freedom of markets. In all countries, advanced and backward, the dominant and leading sectors of the economy are controlled by a few monopoly multinational companies.
As Will Roche wrote in a 2009 article on the Marxist.com website:
“We live in an age of giants. Unchecked, they stride across the earth consuming much that lies in their path, leaving behind them great trails of destruction. This is not pre-history I am describing, but today’s era of monopoly capitalism. There has been no levelling off of the global economy, as economists predicted. Although industrialisation has expanded to lesser-developed countries, it has generally been along lines determined by global corporations based in advanced capitalist countries. From colonialism, we have moved into the age of multinational corporate domination. The world’s largest retailer, Wal-mart, raked in $405 billion in revenue last year– that’s enough to buy Bangladesh! They have over 7,500 stores world-wide and employ 2 million people. Cargill, the world’s biggest company in the food industry, is larger than the economies of two-thirds of the world’s countries.”
Roche continues: “Capitalism hasn’t always been like this. Throughout the 1800s, it was mainly dominated by small family-owned firms. In 1830 the biggest company in the world was the Cyfartha iron company, worth about $2 million, with 5,000 employees. A hundred years later the biggest company, U.S. Steel, was worth $2.3 billion, and employed 250,000 people. Today, the world’s largest company is the energy producer Royal Dutch Shell. It raked in a staggering $458 billion in revenue last year.
Most industries are now dominated by just a few massive companies, referred to by economists as ‘oligopolies’. We call them monopolies in the sense that they collectively dominate the economy as a whole. In Britain, the top 100 manufacturing companies were responsible for 47% of all output in 1948. By 1968, that had grown to 69% (‘Industrial Organisation’, George Joll & Link 1992). Today, it is estimated to have grown even further to around 85%. So, what is causing this unprecedented concentration of power and wealth?”
Explaining the process of the emergence of monopolies out of free competition, comrade Roche wrote: “As small companies compete, you naturally get market leaders. As these companies get larger they become more efficient at producing goods and services. They invest in mass production techniques in order to produce goods more cheaply than their competitors. They buy raw materials at cheaper prices because they buy in bulk. They expand specialization amongst their workforce. They also copyright and patent their work, preventing rivals from using it. This is known as economies of scale. The bigger you get, the easier it is to make money. Smaller companies cannot compete. This is called a barrier-to-entry. If you wanted to compete with Ford motor cars, for example, just one car plant would set you back around $500 million.
When two market leaders merge they achieve massive economies of scale. This forces others to merge in order to compete, leading to ever greater concentration. Monopolies often buy their rivals. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the world’s second largest media conglomerate (often referred to as the ‘Evil Empire’), has just bought out competitor Floorgraphics, a company that was actually suing the media giant for anti-competitive behaviour. That’s one way to win a court case! In the UK, throughout the second quarter of 2007, companies spent over £9.5 billion on mergers and acquisitions, and a further £51 billion on mergers abroad.”(ibid)
This process of monopolization is not peculiar to advanced capitalist countries. In Nigeria, for example, and at current oil price, 40% of the economic activity (as measured by GDP) is formed by oil sector dominated by Shell and a handful other giant monopolies. But this very monopolization points towards a future system. As comrade Roche wrote: “Paradoxically, the monopolisation of the capitalist system creates more favourable circumstances for the building of a planned economy. The commanding heights rest in fewer hands. Back in the 1800s, you would have had to take over thousands of companies in order to plan the economy. That would have been impossible. Today, the top 150 companies would probably suffice to plan the economy. For example, 99% of Britain’s electricity is supplied by six giant firms. Britain’s supermarkets are dominated by just four firms. Six giant companies control about 80% of Britain’s mobile phone industry. There has been huge monopolisation of the financial sector. In 1990, the ten largest U.S. financial institutions held only 10% of total financial assets. Today they own 50%. The largest five U.S. banks now hold $9trn in assets. (Monthly Review, Oct 2009). So taking over the banks would be easier today than ever before.
Scientific planning, which already takes place inside these giant privately owned capitalist enterprises, could be lifted out of the individual factory and applied to the entire publicly owned economy. The results would be stupendous. There would be full employment with decent wages. The cost of production could be cut dramatically reducing the price of goods. And, affordable housing, free healthcare and education could be provided for all. Building a socialist economy out of a modern capitalist economy would present far fewer challenges than attempts of the past. By putting to work the nationalised commanding heights of the economy with a democratic workers’ plan, we could quickly develop a highly flexible system for serving the needs of our population, creating greater individual liberty and shared abundance.”(ibid)
Similarly, the monopolist domination of a handful of multinational oil companies over Nigerian economy (40% of GDP) makes socialism in the country easier than it would have been without such monopoly. The mere act of nationalizing of Nigerian oil and banking sectors under the democratic control and management of the working class will see almost 50% of the economy under the ownership and control of the majority. Combine this with abolition of fat salaries and allowances of political office holders and top bureaucrats and massive wealth and resources would be freed up for the development of agriculture, infrastructure and industry as well as enable us ensure of full employment, descent housing, free and qualitative health and education.
So when our reformists claim capitalism to be defending freedom of choice as opposed to socialism, what they are comparing is in essence capitalism of the past with current crumbling Stalinist regimes such as North Korea. Now, the irony is that, the bourgeois ideologists ridicule the socialist human essence of dreaming about and building the future when they say “the only socialism better than capitalism is the one in books”; but these same apologists of capital, incapable of dreaming about and building a future, dream of the past as the current capitalism degenerates and decays.
“Pragmatic” Reformism and Socialism
The last refuge of reformists is pragmatism; the notion that struggle for reforms is both practical and down-to-earth in contradiction to the doctrinaire attitude of revolutionary socialists. But this accusation has no basis in reality. Revolutionary socialists are fully in support of every concession won by the working class. In fact, we consistently fight for reforms as the basis of launching revolutionary struggle. We tell the workers that the only way to defend reforms and concessions won in the past is by revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Our position is often powerfully proven during periods of capitalist crises, such as the one we are currently passing through, when bourgeoisie aim at taking away all reforms and concessions workers won in the past as the ultimate antidote to the crisis (so-called austerity pill).
Which Way Forward?
Nigerian masses will move in a revolutionary way as they have done in the January 2012 Uprising triggered by removal of fuel subsidy. This will occur irrespective of the existence or otherwise of either revolutionary socialists or reformist intellectuals. As stated earlier, the option is not between revolution and reform but between revolutionary socialism and counter-revolutionary barbarism. The real danger is not in the breaking out of revolution but in its hijack by bourgeois counter-revolution and descent to barbarism. This is why we call on the advanced layers of youths and activists to join us, Campaign for Workers’ Alternative (CWA) to save Nigeria, build socialism and defeat the forces of barbarism.
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