Countries, nation-states, govts 'belong to' only capitalist class, its allies

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*

The reactionary, regressive, and right-wing cultures promoted by authoritarian politics have managed to undermine democracy, constitutional, and liberal traditions in order to uphold the interests of various forms of capitalism and its imperialist foundations.

The propaganda of these forces has been very successful in creating, sustaining, and expanding differences between people and communities, resulting in atomised and antagonistic individuals who are unable to fight for their rights as individuals or communities. This project is accelerated by market forces, which seek to create competing consumers by expanding mass consumerism for profit.

Such a project dismantles the diversity of production, consumption, and local markets that facilitate interaction between consumers and producers in a social setting, with collective foundations of economic activities based on needs.

Capitalism and its social, political, religious, and cultural forces create national differences, racial antagonisms, and various forms of exploitative systems and structural inequalities based on gender, sexuality, race, region, and caste. These differences manifest at local, regional, and global levels, undermining solidarities among working people.

As a system, capitalism opposes diversity and democratic practices, favouring uniformity in culture, society, consumption, production, and living conditions. The pursuit of uniformity aligns closely with the needs of capitalism and its various forms of political authoritarianism, with which capitalism often forms alliances to manufacture otherness.

These forces reinforce one another and marginalise working people worldwide. The technological advancements have accelerated the culture of uniformity that is concomitant with requirements of capitalism and its regressive brethren.

There is no country that working people can truly claim as their own, in either letter or spirit. Their labour power, genuine commitment and uncontaminated courage are exploited as fodder in so-called nationalist wars, where their deaths are celebrated as the ultimate sacrifice for a nation in which they hold neither a share of the resources nor real political power as citizens.

Capitalist propaganda mobilises the masses to fight among themselves in the name of race, nation, caste, religion, and culture, weakening people and eroding their organic bonds as human beings. All forms of conflict have their roots in capitalism. The culture of conflict is essential for controlling and domesticating people under the guise of providing elusive security in life.

The countries, nation-states, and governments belong to the capitalist classes and their allies. No country, nation-state, or government today represents the interests of the working masses. The working people have no country of their own. All working people are like refugees in their own workplaces, which are set up by the capitalist class and secured by the state and governments.

The working conditions under capitalism marginalise living labour in all its forms on a daily basis without any respite. It exploits young and old, students and workers Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, and atheists. It exploits men, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, Blacks, Whites, Browns, and people of all other skin colours.

Working people all over the world suffer from poverty, hunger, homelessness, debt, destitution, exploitation, inequality, and alienation, while a few members of the capitalist class enjoy life at the expense of people and the planet.

Territories are drawn and designed to ghettoise and domesticate people through the intoxication of nationalism, religion, regionalism, and racism. The capitalist classes move around with their dead capital without borders, while working people, with their lives, remain within a territory as a reserve army for the functioning of capital.

Capital competes and collaborates for its expansion, but working people are pitted against each other in the name of nationalism, religion, culture, and other forms of narrow identities. This conflict among working people becomes the lifeblood of capitalism.

Working people around the world share similar experiences of brute force of capitalism and all its strategies and apparatus. Historically, this collective experience poses a threat to capitalism.

Individuals tend to be happier and more likely to realise their goals in communitarian settings than in the atomised and individualistic environment created by capitalism. Therefore, capitalism seeks to undermine and dismantle everything that fosters the collective foundations of human life, happiness, consciousness, knowledge, and society.

Gods and national glories are consciously designed by capitalist classes and their ruling and non-ruling elites to control working people and harness their abilities for the benefit of building the pyramid of profit for capitalism. It is time to understand and reject all aspects of capitalism that are not conducive to human happiness and freedom.

Based on their experiences, working people can unite to build a society grounded in peace, prosperity, and solidarity. It is possible to create a society free from all forms of exploitation and inequality. There is no nation that truly belongs to the working people; the entire globe, along with its resources and aspirations, rightfully belongs to working people, as they are the ones who create everything in this world. History bears witness to all the victories of the working class.

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*Scholar based in UK

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