An end to bondage

Many are calling for union against capitalism, its corollary imperialism and their dehumanising effects. But, in its nonviolent form, this opposition is too abstract to mobilise more than a few, and even those will have their own interpretations and motives. Mass movements form around concrete alternative projects. In 1917 Russia, the Soviets united to end the war and share the land. In 1960s America, huge crowds marched and protested for civil rights, and then to end the conscript war in Vietnam. In the same decade, youth movements in China, Japan and Western Europe rebelled against the survival of fascist, Nazi and mandarin ideologies and practices. However, in today’s industrial nations, landless peasants have been replaced by immigrants, citizens have equal rights (and still very unequal opportunities), wars are fought by mercenaries and the phantoms of the 1930s and 40s no longer haunt the world. Yesterday’s slogans have lost their power to mobilise. And yet, an opposition to capitalism, which is all pervasive and dominates most peoples’ lives, makes no sense without a simple unifying objective.

Modern societies are divided by multiple fault lines, religion, ethnicity, gender, wealth, urban and rural, etc. this hinders unity and facilitates capitalist dominion according to the formula, divide and rule. However there is one fracture that splits nations clearly in two, borrowers and lenders. On one side the mass of those who are in debt, to keep a roof over their heads, to get to work, or just to have something to eat at the end of the month. On the other those who do not spend all their income, the bankers and retailers who grant credit, and the payday loan sharks. A vast majority does the borrowing and just a few do the lending. The cancellation of private debts would surely be an extremely popular and unifying slogan. Debt slaves are far, far more numerous than their loan masters. And usury is the foundation of capitalism, with the notion that money can bring in more money while others do the work.