The crisis deepens

It is sometimes tempting to see 2020 as a ghastly aberration, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the multifaceted crisis it has engendered an interruption to “normal life”, which will eventually resume.1 However, whatever part ill-fortune played in the emergence of the pandemic—and the view taken in this journal is that it is primarily the product of capital’s brutal incursions into nature—the resulting crisis is an intensification of existing patterns.

Capitalism—in its bones a system based on exploitation and chaotic, competitive accumulation—lives through subordinating nature and human life to its logic. Already, before the year began, it was clear that ecological destruction was spawning climate change, disruption to systems of food and water supply, and extinction events, along with novel viral threats. There was, in addition, evidence aplenty that a long period of sluggish economic growth was generating mass discontent and eroding systems of political rule that had grown up over preceding decades. This was the context in which Covid-19 helped generate what I referred to in the previous issue of International Socialism as a “triple crisis” of ecological disruption, pandemic disease and economic collapse. These three dimensions of crisis are each deepening, and with them so too are the associated political crises for those presiding over global capitalism.2

The US inferno

This was most obviously the case in the United States in the run-up to the November elections. From mid-August through to the time of writing in late September, swathes of the US west, encompassing areas of California, Oregon and Washington, were burning. News reports from the West Coast showed the sky a demonic orange; those from the East Coast showed smoke from the blazes reaching the Atlantic. The fires follow similarly unprecedented blazes in 2019-20 in Australia, south west China, Siberia and Brazil.3 There is now irresistible evidence that human-generated (more accurately, capitalism-generated) climate change is spawning more—and more devastating—wildfires. Exceptionally arid and warm conditions have, according to a study of the 1984-2015 period, doubled the area susceptible to fires in the US.4 This, along with changing land use, forestry practices and the altered incidence of lightning strikes as weather patterns shift, is driving the current waves of wildfires.5 As the California-based Marxist Mike Davis writes:

A world set on fire by climate change has unleashed a dangerous transformation of plant ecology… At the beginning of this century, water planners and fire authorities were primarily focused on the threat of multi-year droughts caused by intensified La Niña episodes and stubbornly persistent high pressure domes—both of which could be attributed to anthropogenic warming. Their worst fears were realised in the great drought of the last decade, the biggest in perhaps 500 years… These recent catastrophes, however, have forced scientists to recognise a new phenomenon, the “hot drought”. Even in years with average 20th century rainfall, extreme summer heat—our new normal—is producing massive water loss through evaporation in reservoirs and plant communities. A wet winter and early spring may mesmerise us with extravagant displays of flowering plants, but they also produce bumper crops of grasses and weeds that are then baked in our furnace summers to become fire starter when the devil winds return.6

Donald Trump’s response, predictably, was to deny climate change, responding, when questioned: “It’ll start getting cooler; you just watch”.7 Indeed Trump’s policies have gone further even than those of his predecessors in encouraging accelerating carbon emissions and weakening environmental protections.8

This is, of course, just one element in the unfolding US catastrophe. At the time of writing, the US had almost 6.5 million confirmed Covid-19 cases, more than a fifth of the global total, and was approaching 200,000 deaths. This in a nation whose enormous resources gave it number one spot in the 2019 “Global Health Security Index” ranking countries’ preparedness for such outbreaks.9 Trump systematically sidelined, bullied or silenced agencies such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration that might have orchestrated a national response, and sought to dismantle or ignore official bodies offering scientific advice.10 Veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book, based on taped interviews with Trump, shows both that the president was, by early February, fully aware of the danger posed by Covid-19 and that he wanted, in his own words, “to always play it down…because I don’t want to cause a panic”.11 This shaped the response of the wider administration. For instance, Michael Caputo, an ally of the president, was forced in September to agree a two-month leave of absence from his post as head of communication for the Department of Health after a bizarre outburst in which he accused CDC scientists of a criminal conspiracy against Trump.12

The failure to get a grip on the pandemic has reinforced fears that the economic recovery in the US may be short-lived, leading, at best, to stabilisation at far lower levels of output than in 2019. Data compiled by Bloomberg suggested a group of “laggard” states, including the US, Britain and Sweden, levelling out at 70 percent of pre-crisis economic activity, with Germany, France and Spain apparently stabilising at a little over 80 percent.13 The burden of the economic collapse in the US has been shouldered disproportionately by workers, women, black people and other minorities. As Marxist economist Michael D Yates argues:

With respect to unemployment, employment and the pandemic proper, black people, indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC) and women have suffered disproportionately. Black, indigenous and Latinx people have died from Covid-19 at much higher rates than whites. More than 40 percent of frontline workers are BIPOC…the unemployment rates for Black and Latinx workers have been higher than for whites during the months of the pandemic.14

The backdrop for the US presidential election, set for 3 November, is formed by this jobs and health crisis—together with the reverberations from Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, the largest rebellion against racism since the 1960s. Indeed BLM may be the largest protest movement in US history, with estimates suggesting that between 15 and 26 million people took part.15

Predicting the results of the US election in such an intense moment of instability would be foolhardy. Although recession generally counts against incumbent US presidents, and the unfolding public health disaster might be expected to do the same, Trump is aided by the lamentable campaign of his adversary, the centre-ground Democrat Joe Biden. This is generating what has been dubbed an “enthusiasm gap”, with only 43 percent of Biden supporters describing themselves as enthusiastic for their candidate, compared to 59 percent of Trump voters. Biden has cut himself off from the radical upsurge associated with Bernie Sanders’ failed bid for the Democratic nomination and the anti-racist struggle—rejecting the creation of a comprehensive healthcare system, emphasising his commitment to business-friendly policies and condemning BLM protesters.16 Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running-mate, with the potential to be the first black woman to win the position, might have been a nod to the anti-racist sentiment. However, her record as attorney general in California, where she was an advocate of tougher policing, has simply added to the anger of many of those mobilising through BLM.

Along with the self-sabotage of the Biden campaign, there is also a process of disenfranchisement as a result of decisions by conservative-dominated courts. This includes, for instance, a decision by a federal appeals court to allow the state of Florida to deny a vote to those who have unpaid fines or fees, potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of voters.17 Added to this is Trump’s attempt to choke off funding to the US postal service as it prepares for expected record levels of postal voting; Trump claims that such voting will be fraudulent and that the true election results will not be known for “months or years”. In this context, even mainstream newspapers such as the Financial Times are speculating as to what might happen if Trump loses but refuses to leave the White House.18

Much of the Marxist left continues to oppose the duopoly in the US, in which voters have to decide between two pro-capitalist parties—a view expressed in its classic form by Hal Draper in his article: “Who’s Going to be the Lesser-Evil in 1968?”19 Half a century of experience has, if anything, reinforced Draper’s lesson. The point here is neither to shame those people on the left who choose to vote for Biden out of horror at the prospect of a second Trump term nor to make support for third parties the ticket of entry into movements of struggle. It is simply to argue that, strategically, reliance on the Democratic Party as a vehicle for change tends to absorb the energies of radical movements, channelling them into the hopeless task of trying to reform a party that remains resolutely committed to neoliberal, pro-capitalist politics. Electing representatives of this politics to office delays the creation of a credible, left-wing third party in the US—shoring up what Tariq Ali has called the “extreme centre”.20 Politicians such as Barak Obama, Hilary Clinton and now Biden who might promise varying degrees of change, in office preside over deepening inequality and corporate enrichment along with racism at home and imperialism abroad, generating the disenchantment that paves the way for figures such as Trump. Given the scale of the crisis in the US—and the scale of the present radicalism, characterised by BLM and the growth of the Democratic Socialists of America—it would be a tragedy if the opportunity to create a new left, operating outside the framework of lesser-evilism, were to be missed.21

The radical right and Covid-19

Opposition to a politics of lesser-evilism does not, though, suggest indifference towards Trump’s actions. Faced with a tanking economy and an out of control pandemic, Trump has sought to bolster his position by mobilising elements of his right-wing, racist base. This is reflected in his response to BLM, in which he threatened to designate the loose networks that use the label “Antifa” as a terrorist organisation. A tweet by Trump in response to BLM included the phrase, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” first used in 1967 by the then Miami police chief Walter Headley, who told a news conference in the same year that he would wage war on “young hoodlums, from 15 to 21, who have taken advantage of the Civil Rights campaign… We don’t mind being accused of police brutality”.22 Trump further burnished his “law and order” credentials by sending officers from federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security to harass, beat and abduct protesters in Portland, Oregon.23 At a speech during a White House conference on American history in early autumn, Trump summed up his approach:

Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy… The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement… These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations… The left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools… Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation.24

Trump has also given increasingly explicit support to sections of the far-right. For instance, he praised as “great patriots” an armed convoy of militiamen, drawn from fascist groups such as the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, who attacked Portland’s BLM protesters. Similarly, Trump “liked” a tweet stating “Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote Trump”, referring to the 17 year old who drove to Kenosha, Wisconsin, answering the call of a local militia, and shot dead two local residents with an illegally obtained rifle.

Trump has even praised supporters of QAnon, a conspiracist movement that claims the US president is fighting a global satanic cabal of elite figures such as Hilary Clinton, Bill Gates and, more surprisingly, Tom Hanks, who engage in human trafficking and drink the blood of children. QAnon emerged from online forums such as 4chan and 8chan, which have long hosted a range of alt-right content.25 It is hard to know how many people are adherents to this movement, although globally online followers probably numbers in the millions, the “Q” symbol regularly appears at pro-Trump gatherings and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has espoused some of QAnon’s claims, is likely to be elected to Congress on a Republican ticket.26 The key point here is not so much the bizarre set of beliefs propagated by “Q” and amplified by various alt-right influencers and politicians. It is rather that this movement blurs into, overlaps with and gives impetus to a broader array of right-wing movements. By name-checking figures such as George Soros and the Rothschild family as part of the hypothesised shadowy cabal, QAnon adherents can promote the kind of antisemitism that has historically helped bind together Nazi organisations. Moreover, as Covid-19 erupted, QAnon supporters could rally alongside anti-Vax campaigners and followers of the gamut of wild conspiracy theories surrounding the origin and propagation of the virus. Figures such as Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist who runs the InfoWars website and shares QAnon material, has, for instance, mobilised protests in Texas against mask-wearing, while repeating claims that the virus was part of a plot by Microsoft’s Bill Gates to plant microchips in Americans.27

On a global level, after suffering a degree of disorientation with the onset of the pandemic, the radical right—consisting of a range of nationalist and racist formations, which often nurture within them, or create the space for, harder fascist groups—has begun to reorient itself. In many cases these currents are now seeking to grow on the basis of libertarian and conspiracist opposition to public health measures—while drawing on other right-wing tropes such as climate change denial, homophobia and, inevitably, attempts to identify Covid-19 with refugees and migrants.

In Britain, about 10,000 gathered at an anti-lockdown protest in London in August, with another large rally on 19 September. Both events were rife with conspiracy theorists. Most of those attending were not fascists, and, so far, in Britain conspiracist protests have not had as strong an organic connection to the established far-right as in Germany and the US. Nevertheless, fascist groups such as For Britain attended these protests. At the August gathering a British Union of Fascists flag was brandished in Trafalgar Square, and QAnon and other conspiracy theories associated with the far right were promoted from the stage.28 In Berlin, tens of thousands protested against Covid-19 measures under the banner Querdenken (“lateral thinking”) on 1 August, including members of the neo-Nazi NPD. Also present was the radical right party AfD, which is striving to overcome tensions that have erupted between its neo-fascist and its more “respectable” national-conservative wings, which came to a head after an earlier wave of anti-fascist counter-mobilisations. The Querdenken movement spread and a subsequent demonstration in Berlin at the end of August attracted an estimated 40,000 participants, with some attempting to storm the German parliament. The slogan of this movement is taken directly from QAnon: “Where we go one, we go all”.29 Similar demonstrations have taken place on a smaller scale in a number of other countries, including in Melbourne, Australia; the Spanish state, where in May the radical right Vox party organised a car convoy to call for an end to the lockdown; and Vienna, where protesters inspired by Querdenken took to a stage to publically rip apart a pro-LGBT+ rainbow flag.30

The strength of feeling among most workers that they need more, not less, protection from Covid-19, along with the dynamism of the BLM movement, ought to provide the basis for pushing back these movements, but this relies on the creation of movements committed to confronting the far-right, challenging racism, and seeking to drive a wedge between developing fascist movements and whatever softer base of support they might acquire.31

Between Scylla and Charybdis

The upsurge in radical right mobilisation is just one part of a general crisis of politics as our rulers seek to navigate between the Scylla of Covid-19 and the Charybdis of economic crisis. As International Socialism went to press, there were over 32 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide and almost a million deaths. In the Americas the number of daily cases appeared to be stable at high levels but risked rising as Latin American countries relaxed restrictions. India, where the government continues to lift restrictions, seemed set to overtake the US to become the country with the largest number of confirmed infections. Having spread through megacities such as Mumbai, the virus is now rampaging through smaller cities and rural areas.

Meanwhile in Europe the long anticipated “second wave”, generated by what I previously dubbed the “great reopening” of the continent’s economies, has begun.32 Unlike the first wave, this second wave has thus far been centred on younger people, who were encouraged to work, study and consume by their respective governments, only to be condemned for their irresponsibility by the same leaders as cases began to grow exponentially. France and Spain led the way, with each seeing over 10,000 daily cases by September. In Britain, the direction of travel was the same. Although new restrictions have been imposed in a piecemeal fashion across much of Europe, governments remain reluctant to shift back towards the type of comprehensive lockdowns introduced in many countries in spring—though they may be forced to do so. For them it is not a question of the public health value of such measures; it is a simple calculation that the economic price is too high. The constant, irresistible drive to expand profits and accumulate capital clashes with the imperative to defend human lives.

This is especially clear in Britain. The reopening of pubs and restaurants, the drive to push people back into physical workplaces, and, above all, the reopening of the schools have paved the way for the resurgence of Covid-19.33 This is reinforced by the predictable collapse of Britain’s testing system. Predictable, because rather than using the summer lull in cases to build an effective, publically-run test and trace system, the government relied on profiteering companies such as Deloitte, which “handles the huge Lighthouse Labs that can’t get through the tests”, and Serco, which “oversees the contact-tracing system that regularly misses government targets”.34 Predictable, too, because the return of schools and universities typically marks the beginning of an upswing of cold and flu cases, leading to increased demand for testing. The result in early autumn was people waiting hours to be tested or being told to travel hundreds of miles to access facilities.

Meanwhile a study led by researchers at Imperial College estimated that by late August/early September the time taken for infections to double was somewhere in the region 5.5-12.7 days in England and that the R-number (the average number infected by each carrier) had risen to between 1.4 and 2.0.35 In other words, the Boris Johnson government has lost control of the spread of the virus. It has also lost control of the economy. The furlough scheme was, from spring, remarkably effective at patching up the jobs market but, as it has been tapered off, the impact of the economic crisis has come into focus. In May-July the total number of hours worked dropped by 9.8 percent compared to the previous quarter. A report by academics from the London School of Economics estimated that what they call “realistic employment”, which takes into account those furloughed, collapsed from 77.6 percent in February to 54.4 percent in April, recovering a little to 61.7 percent in June.36

Employers are also taking advantage of the turmoil to drive through attacks on workers. Often this takes the form of workers being sacked and rehired on inferior terms, a practice known as “fire and rehire”. That has been the fate of 20,000 staff at British Gas, 12,000 at British Airways, 4,700 at Heathrow Airport and 500 bus drivers at Go North West in Manchester. Workers at Tower Hamlets council in East London took strike action over the summer when 4,000 workers had fire and rehire imposed by a Labour council.

The government’s response to the deepening crisis was, as we went to press, to ban groups of more than six people gathering together in public or private. However, as commentators have pointed out, the rule is hedged around with numerous exceptions, including for activities such as grouse shooting. More importantly, it does not extend to workplaces, schools or universities. In the autumn, university lecturers will face the bizarre situation of having to teach large seminar classes of students, knowing that, if they walked out of the campus grounds together, they could be arrested for violating social distancing rules. More localised lockdowns were also being imposed in the north of England. The more the situation skids out of control, the more these measures are likely to be bolstered by authoritarian language and intensified racism. Already a subgroup of the government’s own Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has warned that the focus on lockdowns on areas with large black and Asian populations is liable to lead to stigmatisation and discrimination.37

Perhaps Johnson believes that the current round of sabre rattling against the European Union will also help his cause in this respect. The publication of the government’s Internal Market Bill sparked widespread controversy by overwriting elements of the Northern Ireland protocol that formed part of the EU withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson. The changes would remove the need for the British government to inform the EU if it intended to introduce any state-aid policies that would extend to Northern Ireland and would modify previous agreements about goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain.38 The potential for a breach in the Good Friday Agreement, reintroducing a “hard border” across the island of Ireland, and the government’s admission that the bill breached international law, have reawakened concerns about Britain failing to reach a trade deal with the EU to replace the transitional arrangement in place until the end of January 2021. The key issue, according to those following the as yet fruitless talks between the EU and Britain, is the insistence by Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s powerful advisor, that Britain retain its right to use state aid. In a reversal of the traditional Thatcherite enthusiasm for restrictions on state aid, Cummings sees injections of cash into business as the means to regenerate the post-Covid economy. He hopes this will also bind those in newly Conservative-voting constituencies to the government and engender the kind of technocratic great leap forward over which he obsesses.39

These debates evoke important issues about the nature of the British state—not least the longstanding socialist demand for a united Ireland and the growing clamour for a new referendum on Scottish independence. Both Irish unity and Scottish independence deserve the active support of the left. However, the central focus cannot be a return to the hugely divisive debates on whether Brexit was a good or bad thing. Instead, there must be a unifying focus on the assault on workers’ living standards—and on their lives—in the pandemic. The scale of the crisis is such that the left desperately requires a coherent response, one based on supporting real struggle and offering a radicalism that can meet the vast challenges ahead. Sadly, thus far, most union leaders have confined themselves to muted complaint. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer seems to be devoting more energy to trashing the legacy of Jeremy Corbyn than resisting the government.40 A far more promising vision is offered in the “Emergency Programme” developed by the People Before Profit network set up in response to the pandemic. This offers a series of demands that if widely adopted, could provide a unified response and put pressure on the leaders of the labour movement to act. It could also draw together the overlapping constituencies of trade unionists, those who marched in Britain for BLM, the protesters involved in the latest wave of Extinction Rebellion protests41 and those who were inspired by the Corbyn ascendency but who have suffered demoralisation in recent months. Among the measures it calls for are an extension to the furlough scheme, safety measures in workplaces to be signed off by the unions, a ban on redundancies from profitable firms and a massive programme of green investment.

This type of response needs to be supplemented with recognition of the intense ideological questions posed by the triple crisis. Here there are sources of hope in the movements developing on a global scale. The great revolts seen around the world in 2019 were interrupted and stifled by the pandemic. Now, six months on, Covid-19 has become another factor destabilising politics, paving the way not simply for radicalisation to the right but also explosions that can gravitate to the left. That is true of the global BLM movement, but it is also the case with the revolts that have shaken Lebanon, Mali, Thailand, Bolivia and Belarus in recent months.42 The final two are especially noteworthy. The insurgent protests in Bolivia, characterised by strikes, blockades and mass demonstrations, challenge the right-wing regime that toppled the former president Evo Morales in autumn last year. In Belarus, the sight of workers in state-run factories striking against the dictator Aleksander Lukashenko, whose regime has retained some vestiges of Stalinism, raises hope that the tradition of “socialism from below”—distorted beyond recognition since Stalin’s counter-revolution of the late 1920s—might begin to be rediscovered.43

In conditions of the deepening triple crisis, the stakes in these struggles could not be higher—as in Britain and the US, it is a choice between the preservation of life and nature, and the deepening barbarism of capital.