1. The Terrorist Attack and U.S. Imperialism

The fact that the Pentagon and World Trade Center Towers were the target of terrorist attacks and suffered great damage has symbolic meaning. In a sense, this is a sign that the world integrated under the United Stats is coming to an end, and a new period of upheavals is unfolding. It is unavoidable that the U.S. will experience a relative, or even absolute, decline.

In the postwar period, big capital in the U.S., by through a high level of productive power and the power of accumulated capital, combined with the “rule of the dollar,” dominated the world, and reaped benefits throughout the world and maintained a high economic level. Emerging victorious from the “cold war,” the U.S. possesses a military might without rival, and has proclaimed its hegemony over the entire world. However, this U.S. rule has entered its twilight period.

Today, China is quickly developing politically and economically as a new bourgeois power, while Russia is making a concerted effort to reconstitute itself as a power in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Germany and France are using the European Union as a lever to make a leap forward, while Japan is also exerting every effort not to be left behind. In other parts of Asia and South America as well, new economic powers are emerging.

Under such conditions today, global capitalism and its international “order” is being refashioned, which will undoubtedly result in great upheavals.

A fierce attack against the stronghold of capitalism and global imperialism has presently been carried out by Islamic radicals. Starting with Bush, the bourgeoisie throughout the world has called for the “eradication of terrorism,” but, needless to say, there is no way that such terrorism can be completely eliminated.

Bush has said that his “retaliatory” war against Afghanistan is being waged “for freedom and democracy” and to “protect civilization,” but in fact this is an imperialist war to maintain the hegemonic rule of monopoly capital throughout the world, its “order” and “safety.” Workers throughout the world certainly cannot support this war.

However, the Islamic radicals will not be able to continue the struggle they have begun against the rule of big capital and imperialism to the end, and will soon give in. This is a struggle that can only be “rationally” taken up and developed by the revolutionary socialist movement of the working class. When this occurs, terrorist struggles will be replaced by the class struggles and mass movement of the workers.

We reject as meaningless the view of terrorism as simply a “tactic.” In considering the terrorist struggles of Islamic radicals, there is little point in considering whether there is good terrorism and bad terrorism. The meaning itself of terrorism as a “tactic” is unclear. We view terrorism not as a question of tactics, but first of all as a political concept, and we juxtapose terrorism with the class struggles and mass movement of the workers.

2. The Dispatch of the SDF to “Combat Areas”

Koizumi’s cabinet has quickly opened up the path for not only dispatching the Self Defense Forces (Japan’s Army) overseas, but actually sending them to “combat areas” anywhere in the world. This, needless to say, is an important step for the imperialistic development of big capital in Japan.

The cowardly Japanese bourgeoisie, still sticking to the “framework” of the constitution, are engaging in a “theological debate” over the interpretation of the constitution that is marked by lies and sophistry. They continue to perform their slapstick comedy where, on the one hand, they recognize that sending the SDF abroad would be in violation of the constitution, while on the other hand they claim that they are sticking formally to the “framework of the constitution.”

At any rate, the direction they are aiming for is clear: following behind the United States, or sometimes in unison, they hope to play the role of “military police of the world”—that is, they are making a “steady” advance towards becoming a full-fledged imperialist bourgeoisie.

The fact that the new rightwing history textbook was approved by the Education Ministry reveals how much the state-ism and imperialism of Japanese monopoly capital has developed and spread. Even though this textbook was selected by almost no junior high schools, there is certainly no room for complacency or negligence, because their rotten, reactionary scheming will probably intensify. 

The unfolding political imperialism naturally corresponds to the Japanese economic imperialism. Japanese monopoly capital is increasingly making advances abroad, and the bourgeoisie exploits the working class not only in Japan, but throughout the world, thereby becoming an imperialistic bourgeoisie in the true sense of the word.

The increasing imperialism of Japanese monopoly capital, comes at a time of the degeneration, and increasing parasitism of the Japanese economy: chronic overproduction (recession), the shift of capital and production abroad, the “hollowing out” of the economy, a relative decline of productive labor, and a deterioration of the welfare system (worsening pensions and medical care).

The ten-year crisis following the collapse of the financial bubble is a reaction against the excesses of the superficial bubble, and such phenomena as the deflation of “assets,” reveals that this is essentially the explosion of the contradictions particular to capitalism. Therefore, this is also the development of overproduction. The bubble merely stores up the overproduction, and produces more, while providing a (temporary) “solution of the contradictions”—in other words the postponement of these contradictions, and their expanded reproduction. The overproduction that was created under the bubble, has still not been eliminated, and the chronic capitalist crisis continues.

If the prosperity of industrial capital does not return, and the revival of capital accumulation and profits does not occur, then all “policies” to raise prices (particularly stock prices) will come to naught. Such artificial “policies” will only worsen the economic decline.

The bourgeoisie in Japan has been saying that the emergence of new “more advanced” industries and “knowledge” industries will lead the way out of the crisis, but in the past ten years of recession no one has yet been able to find a clear direction.

3. The Stalling of “Koizumi’s Reforms”

Because Koizumi’s line of “structural reforms” has stalled and is fizzling out, the bourgeoisie has neither the ability or will to plan to “revive” the economy or make it “healthy,” and have in fact completely lost this perspective.

Koizumi is now talking about the privatization of the postal service, but it is perfectly clear from the beginning that absolutizing the market economy (market fundamentalism) will not act as a “panacea” or “wonder drug.”

The aim of the bourgeoisie in privatizing the postal service is, on the one hand, to get rid of the “Public Corporations” [tokushu hojin] and other businesses that are dependent on the state, in order to create a more agile state, while at the same time creating the possibility for profits for new capital. But there is not guarantee that this will succeed according to plan.

If the effort to create a “healthy economy” breaks down, this could only mean that there is already no way to save the economy of capital. The bourgeoisie looked to Koizumi’s “structural reforms” as the only way to get over the “hangover” of the bubble economy, so if his reforms collapse this signifies the fundamental breakdown of the bourgeoisie.

It is a fantasy, in the first place, to think that everything will go well if the economy is run on a purely “market” basis. Under privatization and liberalization (i.e. “competitive society”), the accumulation of capital may progress and productive power may be developed—and in this sense would appear to be connected to economic prosperity—but this same process would also thoroughly aggravate the contradictions particular to capitalism. In other words, this would leads to worse overproduction, and the development of more intense class struggles. The idea that free competition can be promoted while also alleviating the contradictions of society is just a stale fantasy that will quickly fade before our eyes.

The fundamental standpoint of the workers is neither to defend state companies or to support privatization, but rather to possess in common the means of production currently monopolized by capital—but they should struggle against privatization when it leads to setbacks in working conditions and runs against the conditions the workers are fighting for.

4. The Hope For Inflation in Full Bloom

The only hope that the bourgeoisie can imagine today is the creation of another financial bubble, but experience has already shown that this is not a true solution.

The state debt has reached 666 trillion yen, and the “bad debt” of financial institutions not only has not decreased, but in fact has risen to the level of trillions of yen. A crisis is approaching of the break down of the state and collapse of credit, but the representatives of big capital do not know what to do.

It is natural that the Koizumi cabinet has raised the slogan of structural reform and financial restructuring. This is because with the state finances in a dismal state and the financial world shaky, the rule of capital is in the process of falling apart. This has given the bourgeoisie a deep sense of urgency.

Of course, the Koizumi cabinet has no vision of how to solve these economic difficulties, and it is becoming clearer every day that the slogan of “structural reforms” is just an empty promise intended to trick the people.

Many have said that eliminating bad debt is the key to economic reconstruction, but this bad credit will only be “finally” eliminated by means of an economic upturn, a sharp rise in prices, or a rise in the stock market and land prices. In the absence of these, bad debt will continue to exist as a dangerous cancer for banks and capital as a whole. The bourgeoisie is unable to surgically remove this cancer, or to treat it internally.

Faced with this ongoing economic crisis, the bourgeoisie has only been able to rely on financial expansion and the expansion of credit, and will probably have to give up the dream of “restructuring” the economy or making it “healthy.” By expanding the credit and finances that in fact need to be tightened up and reduced, it is a “physical” inevitability that this will lead to the breakdown of the economy.

The Bank of Japan has stepped up its calls for “quantitative easing,” but this only exposes the fatal stupidity of the bourgeoisie. Finances are already sufficiently “eased,” and to ease them further would naturally not be “effective” at all. Of course, this “quantitative easing” might have some significance if it were linked to inflation, and this in fact is the aim of those who are advocating this. The bourgeoisie have placed their hopes in the rapid rise of prices, but at the same time such inflation would represent a fatal crisis for their political rule, and prepare the conditions for their own demise.

In short, the bourgeoisie think that the decrease in prices is the source of all “evil,” and for this reason hope to pursue a policy of inflation which they feel is justified. This is the idea that a fall in prices constricts the profits of companies, and is thus the root of all difficulties. However, considering the fact that a general drop in prices also reduces the cost of raw materials for industry, thereby creating the possibility for increased rates of profit, it is strange to view a drop in prices as the source of all evil. In fact, in a society where prices are rising, companies are able to make profits if the purchase price lags behind the sales price, but the representative of this lagging price is wages. In other words, capital can increase its profits under inflation, but this is because they are able to exploit more workers. Moreover, for a company that has taken on a great amount of debt, inflation is even more beneficial since each rise in inflation removes a corresponding amount of debt, thereby lightening the debt burden of the company. Furthermore, a country with an enormous national debt would also benefit greatly from inflation by unloading a large amount of this debt. This is the reason that advocates of inflation are sprouting up within the ranks of the bourgeoisie.

However, it is foolish to think that an economic crisis can be overcome through inflation. Rather, by destroying all remaining “healthy” economic relations, this leads to a fundamental upheaval of capitalist society, sparking the large-scale class struggles of the workers and ushering in a decisive crisis for the rule of capital. If the bourgeoisie attempts to escape through inflation, the workers should have no fear. They cannot forget that this may be the deathblow for the bourgeoisie.

This economic process shows that at this point only the rule of the working class and the realization of socialism will be able to overcome the economic decay and failure, and open up the path to the future in Japan.

5. Deepening Economic Contradictions and the Workers’ Struggles.

A period of intensified capitalist contradictions is, at the same time, a period in which an effort is made to shift this burden upon the backs of the workers, and their lives become increasingly precarious. For this reason, it is also a period that sees the development of workers’ class struggles.

Today, the lives of workers are under pressure from every direction. Firings in the name of “restructuring,” slashing of wages, cuts in the social welfare system—the list goes on and on. The system of lifetime employment and seniority wages is being replaced by a system of intensifying competition forced on the workers, and a resulting decrease in wages, as well as the introduction of a more “efficient” system—through “merit-” and “result-based wage scales—to step up the level of exploitation.

Capital is also trying to cut down on “labor costs” by increasing the amount of part-time temporary workers, and ensure their own profits by taking away the rights of workers, cutting wages, and making their working conditions worse.

In fact, the gap between the wages of part-time and full-time workers is extremely large, which means that the bourgeois principal of “equal wages for equal work” is not even applied, showing that this principal has become a dead letter in bourgeois society.

The unemployment rate is the highest in the postwar (since 1953) at 5.3 percent. The existence of hundreds of thousands of unemployed exposes the contradictions of capitalism. This high level of unemployment is a long-term and chronic problem, which is only getting worse.

Despite this, the government looks at the problem of unemployment as if it were simply a matter of individual ability and skills, on the basis of the old bourgeois view of unemployment (bad workers get what they deserve), and hope to deal with this by using  “private employment agencies” and deregulating the use “temporary labor.” In other words, based on incorrect assessment of the situation, or reducing it to an individual problem, they treat unemployment in a perfunctory and irresponsible manner, while totally indifferent to the suffering of the workers. The “unemployment policy” of the government in fact does little to support or help the workers, and can even be said to exacerbate the problem.

They have been saying that “unemployment is merely a mismatch between labor power and jobs, and that the problem can be solved by making labor power more “fluid,” and increasing occupational training so that individual workers can change jobs.” We are certainly not opposed to a systematic increase of occupational training, and in fact strongly demand this, but the realization of “occupational training” is a small reform, and we cannot have any fantasies about it, since the source of large scale unemployment is not a “mismatch” of employment, but a deep contradiction of capitalism as an anarchistic competitive society, and overproduction is inherent in this system.

The Koizumi government had said that they would create 5.3 million new jobs mainly in the service sector, but this was soon exposed as empty words. Even if a large number of jobs were created in the service sector, this would be of little fundamental help to the social position of the workers in Japan, and would not be likely to provide much hope for the future. Moreover, if the government were to propose a “policy” to expand the service sector, this would require a great amount of money that is not currently available (for example, in the supplementary budget a large amount of national debt was issued and a 550 billion yen “Employment Policy” was planed out of which 350 billion yen was targeted for new jobs in the “public sector,” such as assistant teachers, police replacements, and the creation of jobs in the forestry sector.) Even supposing this money were available for jobs, the question arises why they have also been loudly arguing that to reduce the money spent on the public enterprises, it will be necessary accept a large number of unemployed workers. What Koizumi is saying is irresponsible nonsense, and what he has actually done thus far is an improvisation act that is full of contradictions.

On the other hand, companies are making every effort to protect their profits by reducing wages, and are trying to trick the workers with talk about “work sharing.” It is perfectly clear that lowering wages will not protect employment, since capital is both reducing wages and cutting jobs at the same time. If there is “excess” labor power, capital will mercilessly fire workers, and to think that jobs can be saved by lowering wages is a silly idea that overlooks the nature of capital.

6. For Class-Based Revival of the Workers Movement

The crisis of capitalism is worsening, but the class struggle of the workers do not necessarily keep pace with this situation. This is related to the deepening parasitism of big capital, mass layoffs, the relative decline in productive labor, and growing dependency of capital on the state. Under these conditions, the bourgeois or petty bourgeois-led workers movement may in fact gain strength.

The labor union leaders today seek increased cooperation with capital, view capital’s crisis as their own crisis, and preach to the workers that they must make sacrifices and be patient along with capital. If capital calls for wage cuts, the union heads repeat this, and they make

However, the crisis of the rule of capital will undoubtedly be the starting point for the revival of the militant class-based workers movement. In place of the bourgeois, economist workers movement, there will inevitably arise a class-based one.

The head of the Zensen League, Takaki, has said that the role of the labor unions today is not to organize class struggles, but to do “individual counseling” and “eliminate employee stress,” this is how the unions will interact with workers, and gain support from them (Asahi Newspaper, October 18). But this is complete nonsense. If labor unions do not seriously work for the interests of the workers, organize them, to develop strong class struggles, then they will have lost their reason for existence. Labor unions are essentially a means of the class struggle of workers, and historically the emerged and developed for this reason. Labor unions today, however, lack any essential reflection on this, collaborate with capital, and have completely degenerated. This view of unions as “individual counselors” does not conflict or contradict bourgeois collaboration, but rather is one part of it.

The so-called “misappropriation scandal” of the Jijiro union clearly reflects the decay and corruption of the labor union movement today. The corruption of this particular union is not merely accidental or random, but rather symbolizes the rottenness of the labor union leadership as a whole. Putting aside the infiltration, attacks, and scheme on the part of capital, the labor union movement has degenerated because it has slipped into economism, and been unable to rise about this level. To truly revive the labor movement, it is necessary to break free from this narrow economism, completely drive out the union bureaucracy (which has already turned into a “foe” of the workers instead of a “friend”) from the labor unions and the movement, and reset the movement on a class-basis.

Moreover, it is clear from the 20 percent level of union membership, a large number of “unorganized” workers exists. Most of these workers are employed by small and medium size businesses or are engaged in “irregular employment,” in which they are terribly exploited. There are also a disproportionate number of women working under these conditions. We must strive to come into contact with these workers, fight together with them to defend their rights, work to organize them in unions, as well as develop and widen their class struggles.

7. Strengthening and Expanding the Socialist Workers Party [Sharoto]

In order for workers to maintain their class interests and open the way to the future, there must be a political party aiming for socialism that will firmly carry out a class-based political struggle against all bourgeois and petty bourgeois political parties.

However, today in the political realm as well, the working class struggles are at low-ebb. This is characterized by the dissolution of the Socialist Party which claimed to represent to some extent the workers movement and the standpoint of workers. Moreover, the JCP has stepped back from petty bourgeois radicalism (of course this was pathetic to begin with), and has degenerated to the point of being just another bourgeois party. The Democratic and Social Democratic parties, needless to say, hardly reflect the interests or standpoint of workers at all.