Against theory!

While intellectuals are laboring away to bring us ever newer and better theoretical explanations of the world they have lost sight of the gulf that has sprung up between theory and practice. I am not talking about the "ivory tower" of academia, the way it has become self-sufficient and has failed to be part of the most important emancipatory struggles. I am talking about the curious fact that the state of the world has failed to progress and has recently even regressed so far that theories have ceased to be applicable. Not because there is something wrong with theories, but because the world is lagging so far behind in its development that the most advanced theories fail to describe it. The gap is roughly 150 years. The most advanced theories of that day are those that best describe our contemporary reality.

A leaflet Marx and Engels wrote in 1848 bears the title Demands of the communist party in Germany. One of the demands is quite interesting in the present-day context: "8. Mortgages on peasant lands shall be declared the property of the state. Interest on such mortgages shall be paid by the peasants to the state." What a simple and brilliant solution to the recent mortgage crisis in the US. Give banks the money they need to stay afloat, but at the same time nationalize mortgages. This would have directly guaranteed that the money given to banks benefited citizens, would have stopped or at least significantly slowed down the further erosion of housing prices and prevented misuses of the generous contribution of the US Government - once said to be of the people, by the people and for the people - to the corporate world. It would have also spared Obama from offering that embarrassing lip-service to justice in which he scolded CEOs for rewarding themselves with million dollar bonuses. You would expect that after managing to plunder the federal budget they would be quite proud of that feat and would see it fitting to reward their success.

Given the situation the government had basically three options, two of which were completely unacceptable. The first was standing by idly as the whole economic system came crashing down around their ears. The second - perhaps even worse than the first - was to give a vast amount of money to people who have proven themselves to be perfectly incapably of responsibly handling money. This would be the fiscal equivalent of trying to cure an alcoholic by giving them a crate of vodka. The third option was some form of nationalization (either of banks directly or of mortgages, as Marx and Engels had suggested). How is it possible that a democratically elected government has decided upon an obviously ludicrous course of action just because it brought profit to a corrupt, irresponsible and cruel elite. It has become obvious that such a government is not susceptible to reason. And the US merely set the pace, European governments have by now outdone it in its monstrosity and idiocy. The time for reasoning is past, it is the pressure from the streets that these committees of the global bourgeoisie will listen to once it has become so strong that it strikes fear in their hearts. It has become obvious that we are in a state of war, war of the combined forces of bourgeois and states against the people. In war we must not try to understand our opponent but try to hit them where it hurts. In this context we need only the theory that can serve us as a weapon in this struggle.