I’m thinking about contradictions within contradictions. This is how I view what is unfolding:
Within capitalism’s fundamental contradiction (capital vs labor), capital is the dominant force — it possesses the power to force the whole society to serve it. To become that powerful, capitalists had to become a self-conscious unified class (a “class for itself”). Working people are not currently unified enough to exercise collective class power — though that power is always inherent as potential, constantly emerging from the dynamic of capitalism. It takes a lot of energy for the capitalists to keep suppressing and smashing it. As the working class-in-itself coalesces and strengthens into a class-for-itself, at the right moment it can rise and prevail.
This capital-vs-labor contradiction is considered “fundamental” because the ongoing clash between these two interlocked opposing forces determines the way of life for the whole society. The constant battle between classes determines the course of history. Within the dynamic of this contradiction there are many others, including those internal to each main side. For example, competition generates conflict between concentrations of capital centered in different nations, and/or centered in different forms of investment.
Conflicts within the capitalist class have been growing ever more acute since the last time they readjusted their system by redividing realms of control through inter-imperialist war, and are now coming to a head once again, filling the political arenas of various centers of capital with loud messy drama sometimes to the point of absurdities that would be laughable if they didn’t reflect such a dangerous situation.
Capitalists are having these problems due to the convergence of developing inherent crises in their mature/saturated/overripe/decaying economy: The crisis of overproduction, which slows the rate of profit and drives capital into risky non-productive sectors of speculation and gambling, causing financial crashes. The existential crisis of knowing they’re destroying the planet but compelled to keep doing it. The concentration of capital into so few hands that competition is strangled and capital flows are gridlocked.
This all means that there’s dwindling opportunity and room to maneuver for capitalists who non-negotiably need to keep growing their capital so they don’t lose their stakes. As returns disintegrate, investing is like pushing string. If these trends go too far, the whole system may crumble. And then add in a global pandemic that suddenly grabs the economy by the throat, and everything intensifies and accelerates and becomes wildly unpredictable. Some capitalists seize opportunity in instability; others fall off the table.
And so the capitalist class turns on itself with infighting about how to proceed, each trying to climb over and eat the others in their desperation to keep their positions and profits intact. The losing capitalists vigorously resist being squeezed out. Each section tries to shore up its own approach by rallying public support. They direct all our attention onto their internal conflict, while continuing to obscure and deny the overall framework of struggle between capitalist class and working class, which is also getting more acute by the way.
Billions of people all over the world passionately take sides with one section of capital over another, even when they aren’t part of the capitalist class, because the outcomes and consequences have a significant impact on society as a whole — globally since national economies are all interconnected, and the effects of this colossal clusterfuck of mostly predicted structurally inherent crises ripple out from many centers of capital, including impacting the unfolding of the fundamental contradiction.
To oversimplify things for clarity, the main battle we see playing out in the political arenas of the imperialist centers is basically between the capitalists most invested in national production (who favor an overtly violent nationalist/fascist/individualist/bootstraps/polarizing approach to their coercive domination of the labor force), and the capitalists most invested in financialization (who favor an obscuring imperialist/offshoring production plus the raw violence inherent thereto/nationally inclusive/pacifying/social welfare approach to persuade their more service-oriented domestic labor forces to keep participating voluntarily in the circulation of capital). As noted but I want to repeat it, this description is ultra-simplified, teasing out major tendencies for observation — while keeping in mind that many capitalists are invested in various types of accumulation while also grappling with the overarching need to stabilize the entire machine by restructuring it, so things are much more murky and complex.
In the United States, the main sides are currently politically represented by Republicans vs. Democrats, and lately embodied in Trump vs. Biden. The trumpist approach is generally for onshored production, a working class disunified through violent fragmentation, and maximum ultra-concentration of wealth at the top with total impoverishment for the population. The bidenist approach is generally for offshored production and offshored intensified impoverishment, and a more integrated domestic working class bribed away from international class solidarity and pacified through social programs that meet more survival needs.
Inside each camp of capitalists are narrower contradictions — represented by wings of each party — and inside those, others to infinity. There are also wider contradictions than the class struggle internal to capitalism: all class-divided modes of production vs life, let’s say. And those that spin out beyond our small planet, of course, as well.
We are understandably concerned with the intra-capitalist struggle because it affects our daily existence in many ways, and impacts the future possible conditions of life in our world. We may feel compelled to take sides because our immediate wellbeing and survival are actually at stake. Through their control of the global economy and their relentless erradication of alternatives, they have tied our fates to theirs. And each side needs us, and enlists us, our attention and energy, to support their campaigns.
And so the conflicts among capitalists generate contradictions within all the dominated classes, including the working class, that mirror their own. Instead of uniting against them, we are set up so that our own interests, and/or the interests of our communities and those we care about, are pitted against the interests of other subjugated people. Privileges and punishments are doled out based on which fraction of the capitalist class we align with and which prevails in the short term.
As rival groups of capitalists take turns supplanting one another on the throne, everyone else winds up losing. Though capitalists battle one another, they always close ranks when threatened as a class. They will never never never permit their profiteering rackets to collapse or be smashed. They will invade and tame and steal and monetize and commodify and gorge themselves on every last aspect of our existence. As long as capitalists rule the economy and reap the fruits of others’ extorted labor, humanity and the Earth will suffer. More or less and more again depending on our level of resistance; now here and now somewhere else. The pain temporarily shifts from one section to another as over time they exhaust us all, and the world.
Capitalists sweat to keep workers spinning in place, polarized along the lines of intra-capitalist conflict in order to obscure/erase a vastly more threatening polarization/contradiction that naturally and constantly arises internally within the working class: those with them vs. those against them. What happens when workers don’t align with any capitalists, but pursue their own class interests against all of them? That is the gear that can move the whole machine.
Shifts in the fundamental contradiction start when coworkers overcome their divisions enough to unify against management at their workplace. Power grows as they reach beyond individual workplaces to unify against bosses in general, and against all the companies that these bosses serve. Transformation culminates in breaking apart all the institutions that comprise and enforce the global profit-accumulation system.
The intra-capitalist conflict offers no resolution to or respite from the overarching inter-class war between capital and labor. As we beat our way through the shit right in front of us, which we have no choice but to face, let’s repolarize on terms that allow us to fight in the arena where we ultimately need to win. By the working class overcoming internal contradictions and unifying into a class-for-itself, and by those of all other dominated classes allying with workers against their exploiters, we can apply and intensify our collective pressure to push the fundamental contradiction forward.
As we struggle together to survive cascading emergencies, as we strive to reduce the worst immediate harm and win small victories, in every way that we possibly can, we take steps toward the big victory: emancipation. Forging unity against our common enemy/obstacle, we can break their competition framework as we fight for ourselves and for each other. Each small victory teaches and strengthens us and leads us to the next step. Each small victory squeezes the capitalist class a little more, and gives us breathing room. Each small victory inspires and encourages others standing up against exploitation and oppression too.
Let each small victory — for justice, for higher wages, for equity, for dignity, for better working conditions, for housing, healthcare, education, safety, recognition, for the land, air and waters, for all Earth’s living beings, for our rights, for freedom/responsibility, for each other — join together to build a massive movement of movements to transform our entire way of life so all can thrive. The possibility of emancipation exists with us, as long as we hold it in our hearts and act accordingly.