Paradoxically, precisely at the moment when the triumphal march of science is opening up all the locked doors and discovering all that was hidden from our view, the stranglehold of religion and superstition over the minds of men and women has never been stronger. When we speak of religious fundamentalism, we usually think of the kind of Islamic fundamentalism that is running amok through the Middle East and North Africa as a direct result of the barbarous aggressions of US imperialism.
However, there is also Christian, Jewish and Hindu fundamentalism. President George W Bush and his British minion Tony Blair used to kneel down and say their prayers to the Almighty before ordering the bombers to blast Baghdad to smithereens and massacre men, women and children. They would go to bed with a clear conscience, happy in the knowledge that their ticket to Paradise was booked in advance. These monstrous regressions closely resemble the state of affairs that Edward Gibbon described in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Moreover, the causes of this regression are the same in both cases.
The “evolutionary adaptations” that originally enabled capitalism to displace feudalism and emerge as the dominant socio-economic system have long since turned into their opposite. It is displaying all the symptoms we associate with a socio-economic system in a state of terminal decline. In the period that is now unfolding before us, the capitalist system is destined for extinction.
History has more than once furnished us with examples of apparently powerful states that collapsed in a very short space of time. And it also shows how political, religious and philosophical views that were almost unanimously condemned became transformed into the accepted views of the new revolutionary power that arose to take the place of the old. The fact that the ideas of Marxism are the views of a small minority in this society is therefore no cause for concern. Every great idea in history has always started as a heresy and that applies as much to Marxism today as it did to Christianity 2,000 years ago.
Dialectics teaches us that sooner or later, things change into their opposite. The most striking manifestation of dialectics is the crisis of capitalism itself. Dialectics are taking their revenge on the European bourgeoisie who have understood nothing, predicted nothing and are capable of solving nothing. The old, stable, peaceful, prosperous Europe is dead, and with it the old peaceful, harmonious relations between the classes. The future of Europe will be one of years and decades of austerity, unemployment and falling living standards. That is a finished recipe for a revival of the class struggle everywhere.
It is true that most people have not yet grasped the seriousness of the crisis. Consciousness is lagging far behind events. But that also will change into its opposite. Contrary to what the idealists believe, human consciousness in general is very conservative. Most people do not like change, especially sudden, violent change. They will cling to the things they know and have gotten used to: the ideas, religion, institutions, morality, leaders and parties. Routine, habit and customs all lie like a leaden weight on the shoulders of humanity. For all of these reasons consciousness lags behind events.
However, at certain periods great events force men and women to question their old beliefs and assumptions. They are jolted out of the old supine, apathetic indifference and forced to come to terms with reality. In such periods consciousness can change very rapidly. That is what a revolution is. Just as the tectonic plates, having moved too slowly, compensate with a violent earthquake, so the lagging of consciousness behind events is compensated by sudden changes in the psychology of the masses. We have seen this process in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain and Greece. Tomorrow we will see it in Britain, France and the United States.