THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
The first great industrial capitalist power in the world was of course England. It was transformed in 1707 into what we know now as the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland (added in the 1920s following the conclusion of the Irish Civil War). Following the Brexit, the UK may well be on its way back to being England-plus, for Scotland is very likely now to declare its independence and apply for membership in the EU. The industrial revolution formed the material basis for the establishment of manufacturing capitalism (as distinct from its predecessor, mercantile capitalism). The industrial revolution, followed closely by the development of manufacturing capitalism, began in the UK in the 18thcentury. They jointly spread to the major countries of Europe and the United States in the 19th century.
Capitalism has two major goals: to produce
profits for the capitalists (owners) from the trading and manufacturing
processes as well as enabling them to accumulate additional amounts of
capital. To do this, the capitalists employ workers who by their
work add value to the plant, equipment, and raw materials supplied by the
capitalists. The profits and additional capital come from the value
added (known in Marxist terms as “surplus value”) by the workers which are not
returned to them in the form of wages and benefits. Throughout
the history of capitalism, the owners and the workers have been in a constant
struggle over the share of the surplus value produced by the workers that
actually goes back to them. In Marxist terms, that conflict forms
part of what is known as “class struggle” (the other part being over the
control of the governmental apparatus that Lenin defined as “the state”).
Beginning in the 19th century, in the
industrialized countries, workers began organizing themselves politically
(political parties) and economically (trade unions) to gain a larger share,
over time, of the surplus value that their labor produced, as well as some
level of control over the organs of state power. It happens,
when one looks back at the history of the 20th century
(excluding the period of the two World Wars but including the period of the
Cold War — otherwise known as the last 47 years of The 75 Years War Against the
Soviet Union), that the periods of time in the several major capitalist
countries of Western Europe and North America in which at least some workers
got at least some reasonable share of the surplus value they produced
corresponded with, varying from country to country, their political and
economic strength.
But with certain exceptions here and there,
capitalists have never been much on sharing. And so, beginning, for
example, in the United States with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947,
and in Great Britain with the advent to power of Margaret Thatcher and her wing
of the Conservative Party, capitalists generally have been on a campaign to
destroy/undermine to the extent possible the power of their respective trade
union movements and of their pro-labor political parties. In most of
the major capitalist countries, especially due to the corruption of labor, the
pervasive disorientation of the population, and the capitalists’ overwhelming
command of the media, the foremost machinery of ideological penetration, this
campaign has been hugely successful.
The full commentary is available here.
Source: The Greanville Post
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