BERMÚDEZ The Neoliberal Pattern of Domination Capital S Reign in Decline

The Neoliberal Pattern of Domination
Studies in
Critical Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest
Wayne State University
Editorial Board
Chris Chase-Dunn, University of California-Riverside
G. William Domhofff, University of California-Santa Cruz
Colette Fagan, Manchester University
Martha Gimenez, University of Colorado, Boulder
Heidi Gottfried, Wayne State University
Karin Gottschall, University of Bremen
Bob Jessop, Lancaster University
Rhonda Levine, Colgate University
Jacqueline O'Reilly, University of Brighton
Mary Romero, Arizona State University
Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo
VOLUME 43
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/scss

The Neoliberal Pattern
of Domination
Capital’s Reign in Decline
By
José Manuel Sánchez Bermúdez
Translated by
Martin Boyd
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Art work by Alejandro Magallanes.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sánchez Bermúdez, José Manuel.

The neoliberal pattern of domination : capital’s reign in decline / by Jose Manuel Sanchez
Bermudez.
p. cm. -- (Studies in critical social sciences, ISSN 1573-4234 ; 43)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22377-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-23156-6 (e-book) 1. Capital.
2. Neoliberalism. I. Title.
HB501.S2783 2012
332’.041--dc23
2012014875
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To Iván, Derek, Ulises, Gala, Fanny and Quique, because they are
the future, the nearest and dearest I have, and because, within
fĳifty years, in spite of the wildly complicated world we are leaving
them, they and their children and their children’s children will be
fully and wonderfully alive, even if the empiricists and immedi-
atists like to say that “within fĳifty years we will all be dead.” This
we recognize as an excuse for washing their hands of what their
present acts will reap in the future.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................ix
Prologue by R.A. Dello Buono .................................................................................xi
Introduction .................................................................................................................1
PART ONE
THE DOMINATION OF CAPITAL:
ITS LOGICAL AND HISTORICAL FORMS
1. The Basis of Capitalist Domination ............................................................. 17

2. The General Forms of Capitalist Domination ........................................... 37
3. The Pattern of Domination: Historical Forms of Capitalist
Domination ........................................................................................................ 55
4. The History of Capitalist Domination ......................................................... 69
PART TWO
THE NEOLIBERAL PATTERN:
SECOND EMERGENCE OF THE NATURAL FORM OF DOMINATION
5. The Transition to the Neoliberal Pattern of Domination .....................115

6. The Neoliberal Economy...............................................................................125
7. The Neoliberal State .......................................................................................155
8. The State Administration of Criminal Activity .......................................175
9. Ideological Domination – A Reflection on the Intellectual
and Moral Leadership of Neoliberal Capital ...........................................209
PART THREE
CONCLUSION
10. The Pattern of Domination and Historical Cycle of Capital ..............307
Bibliography ...........................................................................................................335
Subject Index .........................................................................................................351
Index of Authorities .............................................................................................357
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the Autonomous University of Nayarit and its Council
for their support in the completion of my doctoral studies and the research
that enabled me to prepare this work, and to express my profound grati-
tude to Víctor Figueroa Sepúlveda, my friend and teacher, for his generos-
ity in sharing his knowledge; to R.A. Dello Buono for his invaluable support
and encouragement; and to both for their efffort and intellectual consis-
tency in a world full of so much inconsistency placed at the service of
capital.
And fĳinally, to Mari, because if my life has been a life, it has been because
she has shared her life with me; to Omar and Magaly, the most cherished
lives in my life, the lives which, although we gave them life through ours,
we did not make them, because each life makes its own life; to Mireya,
because she has been an anchor in my life and a source of profound feel-
ings, always so remote and so present; and to Isadora, Mirna and Priscila,
because we have been learning how to share life, which is no small thing
in these times of alienation in a neoliberal labyrinth designed to kill the
emotional capacity of human beings.
It is not my purpose to abuse the patience of my readers or bore them
with the details of my personal emotional bonds which are a private mat-
ter. In reality, I only wish to say that I just like every one of the more than
six billion human beings who inhabit this planet loves life – that brief
parenthesis between two eternities which can and must be glorious.
It simply doesn’t seem reasonable that a handful of profĳit-obsessed luna-
tics bent on serving the logic of capital should be able to deem life insig-
nifĳicant and destroy it, as they have done to many millions of lives in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Likewise here
in Latin America, some countries with devastated economic and politi-
cal structures are increasingly incapable of attending the most basic needs
of a growing proportion of their inhabitants and have been turning into
territories controlled by bands of armed murderers.
Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico

PROLOGUE
With publication of this book by the distinguished Mexican economist

José Manuel Sánchez Bermúdez, the “Studies in Critical Social Sciences”
Series has made another major contribution to the fĳield of critical political
economy. In a brilliant treatise, Sánchez lays out an ambitiously systemic,
structural approach to the entire capitalist system with the aim of articu-
lating the shifting general pattern of domination. He places specifĳic
emphasis on the conditions of underdevelopment and readers will be
immediately struck by the breathtaking scope of analysis put forward in
this volume.
While Sánchez offfers a highly structural analysis in The Neoliberal
Pattern of Domination, it is at the same time a hopeful one. This is because
its insightful analysis does not simply point to an all too familiar scenario
of an overly determined fate of inescapable domination. Nor does it paint
a shiny future of the new order emerging out of the throes of a collapsing
“late capitalism.” Rather, its contribution rests upon revealing the real and
dynamic structures of a neoliberal phase of capitalism in decline while
demonstrating an inescapable tendency towards rebellion. It is this fact
that establishes the possibility of anti-capitalist revolutions at multiple
points throughout the larger system.
The analysis presented by Sánchez probes the conditions of domina-
tion that accompany capitalist social formations. By comparing these for-
mations as they developed historically, his analysis spans across various
regimes of domination that have unfolded out of the structured shift back
and forth between their “natural” and “contained” forms. By detailing this
process in the context of a sequential progression across three paradig-
matic periods, namely, the liberal/oligarchic, Keynesian/developmental-
ist, and neoliberal eras, he reveals the structural interconnections of each
within the capitalist mode of production and captures their correspond-
ing cyclical phases.
Throughout this work, Sánchez maintains his “eye on the ball,” i.e., that
the control of surplus is shown to be the ultimate and constant objective
of the exercise of capitalist domination. In so doing, his framework incor-
porates the work of an impressive number of classical and contemporary
analysts, the latter of which includes many distinguished Mexican and
other Latin American authors. Readers will appreciate this intellectual
service and the way he smoothly weaves their contributions into his
xii prologue
discussion of their northern counterparts such as Samir Amin, Zygmund

Bauman, Alain Tourane, Jean Francois Lyotard, Alain Lipietz, just to men-
tion a few.
As Sánchez presents his expansive analysis, he develops a complex
treatment of neoliberalism by employing a historical, social class analysis
that penetrates the shroud of neoliberal ideology. His formulation of an
explanatory framework seeks to build comprehension of the full reach as
well as the structured limits of this pernicious form of capitalist domina-
tion. Among the many unique aspects of his work is the way that it goes
beyond merely establishing the common link between military activity
and overall capitalist state reproduction and expansion. Sánchez extends
out much further in this regard to uniquely draw in the state’s broader
“administration of criminal activity” which in many cases closely overlaps
with other militarized activities. This includes such diverse aspects as the
surge of paramilitary violence, the criminalization of protest, corruption
and organized criminal syndicates, collaboration with foreign military
forces, and so on. His keen observations by reference to the case of Mexico
will be of particular interest to the English-speaking world as he general-
izes from it and develops numerous implications for the rest of the region
and well beyond.
Scarcely a day goes by without news of another horrifĳic murder scene
coming out of Mexico, a vast and developing country where criminal vio-
lence has recently climbed to epic proportions. This book’s analysis of the
state’s administration of criminal activity in recent times makes it all the
more relevant beyond Mexico’s borders. Indeed, the seminal theoretical
work offfered here constitutes an urgent call for the necessity of transition
away from the savagery that neoliberalism has brought to the author’s own
country just as it has done in so many others.
The implications arising from the analysis contained in The Neoliberal
Pattern of Domination are without doubt far reaching. Diverse social
phenomena such as crime and state misconduct, state repression, envi-
ronmental management, social movements, regulatory debates and immi-
gration policy are shown to be fundamentally structured by a globalized
capitalist logic. The imposing manner in which neoliberal globalization
has shaped the development process calls out the need for a theoretical
framework grounded in the larger political economy. With ecological
crimes, state organized crimes, crimes against humanity and so many
other human rights crimes in ascendance, the underlying nature of the
capitalist state persists in manifesting a general albeit elusive character.
In the fĳinal analysis, the neoliberal state is a particularly complex appara-
tus that must nevertheless ensure continuation of the overall process of
prologue xiii
capital accumulation regardless of growing social conflicts and raging

political disputes.
In a post-oligarchic context, the modern state institutionally assumes
the position of “mediator” in which it organizes, regulates and protects the
“legitimate” institutions of conflict resolution that have evolved in a given
national setting. This cultivation of legitimacy is part and parcel of the
state’s attainment of an image of a “neutral” governing body. The state as
such seeks to legitimately establish the “fair” rules of the game by which all
social classes must play. To facilitate this process, neoliberalism created its
own particular mythology concerning the distribution of wealth, the sup-
posedly self-correcting nature of the system, and the long term tendency
towards greater equality. As the myth goes, existing inequalities are inher-
ent but can remain at “acceptable” levels while the “magic of the market”
is left to harness powerful new technologies and produce the best possible
world for the greatest number of citizens. In this sense, neoliberal ideology
reconstructed a worldview atop the complete denial of Keynesian “com-
mon sense.”
Meanwhile, neoliberal restructuring was devastatingly efffective at dis-
mantling the regulatory and interventionist mechanisms of developing
nation states, arguing that the “free market” could not tolerate any form of
“state interference” in economic afffairs. In ideological terms, neoliberal-
ism sought to reconstruct market mediated consumption rights as “natu-
ral,” with the market itself being the essence of democracy. As Sánchez
reafffĳirms, the limits of the neoliberal state in its role of class mediation
inevitably becomes challenged when its policies come into contradiction
with the underlying reproduction requirements of the existing political
economy.
Through his critical systemic approach, Sánchez thus makes it possible
to see globalizing capital in the light of the very social antagonisms that it
spawns at multiple levels, something which in due course generates mul-
tiple centers of resistance. For this reason, his book is essential reading at
it leads us into deeper levels of analysis regarding the big questions of our
time. Readers however should be forewarned. There is no neutral ground
in Sánchez’ provocative exposition and once inside his framework, there is
no easy escape from his impassioned reasoning. In the fĳinal analysis, this
book removes the Teflon from a system in decline and insists on the neces-
sity of a radical alternative to a fundamentally inhumane system.
R.A. Dello Buono

Manhattan College
New York City, USA
INTRODUCTION
In contemporary society, it is a favorite argument of the ruling ideology

that class analysis constitutes a “worn out paradigm.” This paradigm, “an
invention of the communists,” is supposed to have died with the USSR and
“real socialism” since it represented not an internal contradiction of con-
temporary societies but an external challenge by communism of liberal-
ism, which was resolved with the triumph of the latter.1
The dominant ideology goes on to claim that the death of so-called “real
socialism” and, by extension, of class analysis as a means of explaining
social processes brought an end to attempts to defĳine society in terms of
larger articulations of economic, political and ideological interests of
competing social classes. “Metanarratives” are a thing of the past and what
prevails in the post-modern world is a multiplicity of “narratives” (Lyotard,
1984) expressed in society in numerous complex and diverse social spaces
no longer defĳined by class-based features (Morin, 1999; Mafffesoli, 1996).
According to this argument, class-based social alignments, if they ever
existed, are now obsolete. Instead, the new major alignments are marked
out with diffferent delimitations: between civilizations (Huntington, 1996),
between economic blocs and their “models” for the administration of cap-
italism (Thurow, 1992) or since 9/11 between “the civilized world and
terrorism.”
Thus, if we are to believe the dominant ideology, we must convince our-
selves that, given the non-existence of social classes, the contemporary
world is not the product of one social class in conflict with another, but of
the triumph of the market economy (the “economic model”) and of liber-
alism (the “political model”), which have emerged victorious as forces of
nature, as products with no producer, as the very expression of the eternal
nature of human societies.
In reality, the organic intellectuals (using an expression coined by
Gramsci) of the ruling class, or, more specifĳically, of the hegemonic faction
of the ruling class, have never been interested in explaining the mecha-
nisms on which their class domination over the dominated and exploited
class or classes is based. To clarify these mechanisms has always been the
1 See, for example, Fukuyama, 1992.

2 introduction
task of critical thought and this task has been important from the perspec-
tive of the interests of the exploited and oppressed. But in the current
phase of the development of capitalism, it seems more important than
ever. This is so for at least two reasons:
First, due to its exclusive concern for increasing profĳit levels, capital has
devastated the institutional channels that once contained its own vorac-
ity, destroying whole societies, condemning millions of human beings to
economic, moral and intellectual misery and annihilating nature, placing
the very existence of humanity at risk.
Second and in spite of the sufffering that its domination inflicts on con-
temporary society, capital in the form of a handful of gigantic multina-
tional corporations that control production and the world market, is
supposed to have risen victorious. This is expressed by the rather euphoric
tone of the discourse of its organic intellectuals. The working class and the
socialist project appear to have been defeated; the apologists of capital
claim this defeat is fĳinal, but those of us who examine the process and not
merely the moment, and who like Bloch (1986)2 have hope that humanity
still has a future, believe the defeat is merely transitory.
The contribution of this study is to give visibility to both the phenom-
enon of class domination (which, together with exploitation, is the object
of analysis most ignored and obscured by the dominant ideology) and
the subject that produces it; to help dispel its apparently natural character,
i.e., the presumed absence of a producer, all of which the dominant
ideology uses to “explain” the very disasters provoked by capital in con-
temporary society.
To examine the domination of capital, this book is divided into two
parts. The fĳirst part, consisting of four chapters, sets forth a conceptual
framework for the analysis of the general conditions of the domination of
capital over the working class, its basis and its forms, both logical and
historical.
In the fĳirst chapter, I analyze the content of the domination of capital –
operating as the support to capitalist exploitation by reducing the work-
ing class to obedience, subordinating it economically, politically and
ideologically – as a power built around a single basic social relation that
2 It should also be added, however, as Mokhiber and Weissman note, that “the future of
the scattered movement against the power of the corporations is uncertain. It is clear that
it has a long way to go before it overturns the iron rule of the corporations over society. But
our greatest hope lies in the task of saving our lives and our planet from the grip of the
corporations” (Mokhiber and Weissman, 2005b).
introduction 3
establishes and constitutes the essential factor in the capitalist world: the
capital relation, the relation that separates producers from the means of
production. The analysis of this essential relation – the relation between
capital and wage-labor, the concentration of the means of production and
subsistence into the hands of the capitalist class and, as a result, the dis-
possession and separation between producer and means of production
and subsistence – constitutes the organizing principle behind this entire
work, from the fĳirst to the last chapter.
In the second chapter, I identify the general forms, or logical principles,
of the domination of capital: its natural and its contained form. While the
content of domination is articulated through exploitation, the forms of
domination express a link between the two, defĳined in the conditions
organized by the capital relation itself.
This analysis is founded on one basic principle: that the exploitation of
the working class by the capitalist class is expressed as production and
appropriation of surplus-value. Capital is value that appreciates but,
unlike pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, which recognized a limit in the
use value and consumption of the exploiting class, the capitalist form of
exploitation has an insatiable need to appropriate the labor of others, as
“its constant tendency… [is its] appetite for the labor of others” (Marx,
1867: Ch. 15), which makes capital extremely reluctant to grant conces-
sions to the working class.
As this logic is the natural tendency of capital and organizes its immedi-
ate, direct and spontaneous movement, the natural form in capitalist
domination is the efffort to ensure the submission of the working class to
the need for the spontaneous movement of the exploitation and accumu-
lation of capital, stripping it of the conditions that make resistance and
bargaining possible; the aim is not merely to prevent workers from stop-
ping exploitation, but even from attempting to moderate it, to bargain or
negotiate the conditions of their exploitation, and to win some form of
concession from capital.
In contrast, in the contained form, capital is faced with a working class,
and a society in general, that has managed to establish a certain level of
containment of its spontaneous movement, and so adapts its domination
to these conditions. In this context, in its most immediate sense, the con-
tained form of domination derives from the struggle of the workers to
wrestle concessions from capital, to achieve some degree of recognition of
its material interests.
As we are dealing with general forms, not restricted to a particular
historical period but constructed through theoretical abstraction, it is
4 introduction
possible to work with them not as periods but as criteria for periodizing
the history of domination. These general forms may assume diffferent
modes of historical expression, thereby allowing us to consider the history
of capitalist domination not only as a succession of periods, but also as an
alternation of its general forms.
In the third chapter, I examine the concept of the pattern of domina-
tion as a historical expression of a general form of capitalist domination
which, while realizing in a specifĳic context the basic processes defĳined by
that general form, enables the delimitation of a historical period and,
therefore, the construction of a world history of capitalist domination,
correlated with a world history of capitalist economics.
The concept of the pattern of domination establishes an intermediate
fĳield of theoretical and historical analysis in a description moving from
the general to the specifĳic, between a general theory of capitalist domina-
tion and actual specifĳic national cases of domination. It defĳines a peri-
odization which, on the one hand, exhibits enough features to identify
and diffferentiate periods in the world history of capitalist domination, but
which, on the other hand, given the general nature of the features, allows
for a multiplicity and diversity of specifĳic forms of domination in diffferent
nation-states in the historical period concerned.
The intention behind the pattern of domination concept is thus to
identify a historical trend that may defĳine basic outlines in the prevailing
form of capitalist domination, to fĳind basic structures, broad cycles in the
history of domination that allow us to posit a periodization that can be
applied to a synthetic analysis of the historical evolution of capitalist
domination. This periodization would also allow the identifĳication,
beyond the infĳinite diversity that can be found among all the specifĳic
cases, of general tendencies in capitalist domination.
In the fourth chapter, examining the history of capitalist domination
from the perspective offfered by the concept of the pattern of domination,
three major periods are identifĳied, defĳined in their basic historical expres-
sion by developed capitalism; in the fĳirst, the natural form predominates,
in the second, the contained form and in the third, once again the natural
form.
In developed Western capitalism, these three periods are defĳined by
three patterns of domination: liberal, Keynesian and neoliberal. The fĳirst
and the third are historical manifestations of the natural form, while the
second is a historical manifestation of the contained form of capitalist
domination. The liberal pattern constitutes the fĳirst historical expression
of the natural form and the neoliberal pattern is its second expression,
while the Keynesian pattern is an expression of the contained form.
introduction 5
These three patterns of domination correspond to subordinate patterns

in Latin America, which are the oligarchic pattern, the developmentalist
pattern and the neoliberal pattern, respectively. The oligarchic and neolib-
eral patterns are the Latin American expression of the natural form in its
fĳirst and second historical emergence, while the developmentalist pattern
is the expression of the contained form of capitalist domination.
The fourth chapter constitutes an introduction – merely by way of an
overview, as it is not the central purpose of this work – to the study of the
liberal/oligarchic and Keynesian/developmentalist patterns of domina-
tion: their birth, development and decline.
The second part of the book is dedicated to the analysis of the neolib-
eral pattern of domination, the current form of capital domination. I have
attempted to summarize its general features in four processes which,
although amidst resistance and diverse internal contradictions, seem to
me to constitute the essence of its dynamic: the economy, the state, the
state administration of criminal activity and the intellectual and moral
leadership of neoliberal capital. Each of these processes constitutes a
complex object of study of a process in progress, open to future turns in
the course of history, although they are all intimately interrelated, and the
aim here is to capture their tendencies, their strategic purpose in the con-
text of the evolution of the capital/wage-labor relation, without limiting
them to a particular moment in their development. It is an analysis con-
ducted more on the logical plane than an attempt to defĳine a particular
historical manifestation, although the United States and Latin America
(particularly Mexico) will serve as specifĳic historical points of reference
to illustrate certain tendential lines of the process.
A chapter is dedicated to each of these processes in the second part of
the book, which begins with an examination of the transition from the
Keynesian to the neoliberal pattern in the fĳifth chapter. The sixth chapter
then examines the neoliberal economy, the seventh focuses on the neolib-
eral state, while the eighth examines the state administration of criminal
activity and chapter nine treats its intellectual and moral leadership.
Chapter Five begins with a general overview of the decline of Keynes-
ianism/developmentalism as modes of the contained form of domina-
tion. It is noted that a political structure that articulates forms of
organization and representation of the working class and forms of nego-
tiation between classes is only viable if, at the basic level of exploitation,
the capitalist class is able to assume the commitment to improve the living
conditions of the working class (by means of direct wages or redistribu-
tion of surplus-value by the state in the form of indirect wages) without
afffecting the rate of profĳit. In other words, to be viable, this structure of
6 introduction
domination requires a delicate balance between wages and profĳit that is

only possible in the context of a certain level of development of the pro-
ductive force of labor, and, therefore, a certain level of organic composi-
tion of capital. But this same circumstance says much about the limitations
of the contained form of domination, which enjoyed its peak during the
post-war boom and waned with the fall in the rate of profĳit when that
boom came to an end.
In the face of the crisis, capital imposed strategic initiatives aimed at
opening a new channel for the satisfaction of its insatiable appetite for the
labor of others and, just as the transition from the liberal to the Keynesian
form had occurred in its time, the transition from the Keynesian to the
neoliberal form took place.
There is, however, a radical diffference between the transitions that
marked the shift from the natural (liberal/oligarchic) form to the con-
tained (Keynesian/developmentalist) form and those of the return to the
natural (neoliberal) form; while the fĳirst meant that workers around the
world had managed to win some concessions from capital and improve
their working and living conditions (albeit within limits), the second
meant that capital resumed its normal role, rolling back the gains that the
workers had made with considerable struggle.
The fĳirst transition improved living and working conditions, while the
second was explicitly designed to worsen them: the reduction of direct
and indirect wages, the casualization of labor, increased unemployment,
and the resumption of direct control of underdeveloped nations. The
global wave that constituted the diffferent modalities of the contained
form of domination disappeared, giving way to a new emergence of the
natural form of capitalist domination that was imposed throughout the
world: the neoliberal pattern of domination.
The sixth chapter (The Neoliberal Economy) argues that, promoted
and institutionalized by organizations such as the FMI and the WTO, the
so-called globalization of big multinational fĳinancial capital (i.e. its free
mobility and the development of its global fĳinancial, commercial and pro-
duction networks, and the simultaneous expansion of the power of the
new technological revolution) constitutes a series of strategies to increase
the rate of surplus-value and concentrate its production and appropria-
tion, redefĳining the relation between capital and labor and between devel-
oped capitalism and the underdeveloped world.
In the seventh chapter (The Neoliberal State), I contend that, in
response to the globalization of capital, nation-states assumed as their
political priority the task of promoting the free mobility and global
introduction 7
competitiveness of their capital and of making themselves competitive

(i.e. attractive for the investment of global capital). The nation-states are
integrated into the global network of competitiveness and subordinated
to the dynamics of the globalization of big multinational capital. The
workers – particularly those of underdeveloped nations – are reduced to a
situation of virtual defenselessness because (contrary to the free mobility
of capital) they are denied the right to move about and organize them-
selves internationally and are held in national confĳinement, with nation-
states now dedicated to dismantling the concessions that the workers
achieved during the period of the Keynesian/developmentalist pattern of
domination and disabled as spaces for the negotiated regulation of the
capital-labor relation.
The eighth chapter examines what I refer to as state administration of
criminal activity and its function as a link between the economics and the
politics of neoliberal capital: the state administers the vacuum of life
options and the discontent provoked by neoliberal economics (casualiza-
tion, unemployment, poverty, illegal immigration, etc.), while also dis-
mantling the institutional channels for addressing the problems produced
by neoliberal politics. Faced with a systemic crisis that is expressed in a
multiplicity of crises (fĳinancial, fĳiscal, overproduction, underproduction,
labor, food, health, environmental, energy and other crises) which are
apparently individual and independent of one another, and with a univer-
sal crisis of legitimacy of the state permeating them all, capitalism today
constructs channels not to resolve the many economic, social and political
problems it generates, but to administrate them according to the logic of
the state administration of criminal activity, including the diverse variants
of what it calls the war on terrorism and the fĳight against crime.
The state administration of criminal activity is established in necessary
opposition to the growing chasm opening up between neoliberal econom-
ics and politics (both radically subordinated to the logic of capital) and
the needs of society. It is a strategy that attempts to legitimize to society
the development of a war which, based on the needs of capital, is waged
against that same society; in its specifĳic historical expression, this means
that big capital is not prepared to negotiate with labor, or to moderate its
voracity, or to recognize the relevance of any of the needs of the rest of
society, but, attending solely to its insatiable appetite for surplus-value, it
continues on its way, imposing its interests ever more violently.
While in the seventh chapter I examine how nation-states are net-
worked into the logic of the administration of competitiveness, in this
eighth chapter another dimension of the network is examined, this time
8 introduction
from the logic of the administration of criminal activity: the construction

of what are referred to as security alliances to combat terrorism, organized
crime and other emergent threats.
There is a systematic and constant efffort to develop the structure that
networks the nation-states – a structure that intertwines the promotion of
the free mobility of capital and the administration of competitiveness and
criminal activity. This efffort acquires its full meaning when it is examined
in relation to the dynamic of the establishment of a global fĳinancial oligar-
chy and the specifĳic form of state that it seeks to organize.
The ruling faction in neoliberal capitalism is global fĳinancial capital,
third-generation monopolies – the grandchildren of the national monop-
olies (which, associated with their respective nation-states, led after the
end of the 19th century to the imperialist division of the world and the two
world wars), and the children of the multinational monopolies of the post-
war period; it is the culmination (still in process) of the internal tendency
of capital towards concentration and centralization of the means of pro-
duction worldwide.
The transformations underway in the state and in the economy of capi-
talism are geared toward the creation of a global fĳinancial oligarchy which
personifĳies this global fĳinancial capital and which, amidst intense social
resistance and sharp internal contradictions, aspires to control the econ-
omy and politics of the world, seeking to complement free trade with the
development of a framework of networked states and a military position-
ing on a global scale. The economics of neoliberal capital is a device for
achieving its deepest and most private goal, i.e., to concentrate all of the
world’s wealth, and its politics is a systematic design to position nation-
states in accordance with the achievement of this purpose, establishing
spaces of global political power, under the direction of a central govern-
mental control commanding a network of subordinate nation-states,3
which guarantee the free movement of capital and the global administra-
tion of competitiveness and criminal activity, both to strengthen its eco-
nomics and its politics, and to resolve the problems of what it calls social
governance; i.e. the obstacles raised by social resistance.
3 It is obvious that the U.S. oligarchy is the one that most openly promotes its aspiration
to hold the central position in the power structure of globalization. And it is also clear that
there are many obstacles in its way, including, in addition to acute social resistance, oppo-
sition from other oligarchical conglomerates established through various economic and
political channels which may potentially lead to open military conflicts. But I must stress
that the purpose of this work is to study the capital-labor relation, and so the examination
of the development of inter-imperialist struggles, as important as it is, is not possible here.
introduction 9
The ninth chapter explores the project for the future that this global
fĳinancial oligarchy – already in an advanced state of gestation – offfers
humanity and according to which it exercises its intellectual and moral
leadership over contemporary society.
The fĳirst two sections of this chapter examine the general features of
this intellectual and moral leadership, constructed in a social environ-
ment founded on disorganization and reduction to isolation in order to
prevent the construction of interests that would transcend individual par-
ticularities and express the recognition of a social relation, a relation
between social classes, by alienating individuals in competitiveness and
criminal activity, in solitude and fear. A basic outline is presented to con-
nect economics, politics and ideology in the current historical context,
in order to round out the overview of the neoliberal pattern of domina-
tion and explain why the state administration of criminal activity is ulti-
mately established as the core of the whole system of the intellectual and
moral leadership of neoliberal capital: criminalizing and dissolving class
opposition against its domination, reducing society to powerlessness
and legitimizing its repression and its positioning of police and military
forces against society by presenting it as a response to a demand made by
society itself.
This increasing priority given to the state administration of criminal
activity in the ideological and practical framework of neoliberal capital is
neither accidental nor provisional, but necessary, as its future trajectory
requires the increasing development of necrophilia and genocide. The last
two sections of the chapter offfer a reflection on the project for the future,
the project of civilization that neoliberal capital offfers humanity, based on
which it exercises its intellectual and moral leadership and its economic,
political and ideological practices.
In its struggle to establish absolute monopoly – to consummate its sta-
tus as a global oligarchy concentrating all of the world’s means of produc-
tion and subsistence – it subordinates everything to its supreme purpose
and, as such, lacks the capacity for concern about anything as insignifĳicant
as the wellbeing or the lives of billions of human beings.
Any consideration or respect for life becomes irrelevant in the face of
the “magnifĳicence” of the dystopia that dazzles its contemporary personi-
fĳications,4 and subordinates them (following the concept developed by
4 “Human beings and life concepts disappear from economic concepts… the theory
and praxis of economics no longer take as their point of departure the real needs of men,
10 introduction
Marx) to an extreme fetishism; the contemporary world resembles a

spaceship5 driven by a “self-regulating system” which is “self-programmed
like an intelligent machine.”6 The logic of transnationalized capital is
imposed upon the nation-state in the privileged position of reason and
the public interest constructed by bourgeois political science and – paral-
lel to the lack of any institutional framework to replace it, except that
which capital itself has been establishing to promote its globalization –
the multitude of disasters which its domination produces and which
oppress contemporary society are simply opportunities to pursue the
development of that logic. The “alternatives” proposed by the voices of
capital always revolve around an argument for the unavoidable necessity
of further development of their policies, explaining that the problems are
the result of the invariably insufffĳicient application of those policies.
In keeping with this necessity, wholeheartedly assumed by its ideo-
logues and personifĳications, to unburden capital of any consideration that
opposes its self-regulation, they promote radical and total submission to
the logic of capital, dismissing the old discourses, which once constituted
valued political principles (human rights, humanism, justice, equality, the
social contract, the public interest), as obsolete and irrelevant, or steriliz-
ing them, stripping them of any critical potential and unleashing an active
hostility toward any criticism made of the logic of the fetish.
Thus, through the reconfĳiguration of its pattern of domination, framed
within a new, powerful and multifaceted technological revolution and
developed in the context of an aggressive economic, political and ideo-
logical offfensive, neoliberal capital has rendered large sectors of contem-
porary society defenseless and won resounding victories in the context of
the class struggle, and its domination appears to be permanently estab-
lished. However, belying this appearance, the current historical period of
the development of capitalism displays internal contradictions that are
acquiring an increasingly irresolvable nature, made evident in multiple
crises which are, in turn, necessarily expressed at the level of the class
society loses its primacy over economics and any reflection on society vanishes… Free
competition between individual economic interests is fĳinally replacing all forms of social
coexistence” (Kurnitzky, 2000).
5 The metaphor is inspired by a proposition offfered in Ianni, 1996.
6 According to Lyotard’s analysis of the post-modern condition, capital operates as a
“self-regulated system” that is “self-programmed like an intelligent machine”, which dis-
misses anything that opposes it, and which, although its logic aggravates society’s ills,
allows for no alternative or possibility for solutions to the problems it creates (Lyotard,
1984).
introduction 11
struggle, as capital tends to aggravate the social ills that it provokes, and
opposition to its domination is becoming as necessary and irrevocable as
the defense of life itself.
The purpose of the tenth chapter is to relate the historical succession of
patterns of domination to the tendencies that organize the long term or
life cycle of capitalism (the gestation, development and extinction of its
social classes), the period from its birth as a social mode of organizing
production to its death. For this analysis, there are just three periods to
consider: infancy, maturity and decline.
The essential point in this analysis is the fact that the capital relation,
the separation of producers from the means of production, develops
together with the development of the productive force of labor and
unleashes the profound tendencies, the general trends that shape the
future of capitalist society and point to its end: increased labor productiv-
ity, increased organic composition of capital, concentration and central-
ization of capital, expulsion of the work force from the labor process,
expansion of the industrial reserve army and worker overpopulation, and
fĳinally, as a result of the above, a drop in the rate of profĳit.
The theoretical space that allows us to link the pattern of domination
with the long term history of capitalism derives from the capital relation
and the development of its internal tendencies. The delimitation of each
of its periods is drawn from the decisive moments in the development of
the productive force of labor; i.e. from the decisive moments in the devel-
opment of the capital relation. In this development lies the common basis
for both the world history of capitalist economics and the world history of
capitalist domination.
The relation between the historical succession of patterns of domina-
tion and the long term history of capitalism is established in accordance
with the patterns of domination prevailing in developed capitalism, as it is
these that defĳine the basic features of the historical period. Thus, the lib-
eral pattern corresponds to the infancy of capitalism, while the Keynesian
pattern, the fĳirst and only historical expression of the contained form of
domination corresponds to its period of maturity.
The neoliberal pattern of domination, the second historical expression
of the natural form of domination, corresponds to its decline. For capital,
decline means an increasing organic composition and a decreasing rate of
profĳit, and as a result, a renewed need to increase the rate of surplus-value
in a fĳinal efffort to restore the level of the rate of profĳit, along with a renewed
hostility toward making concessions to the working class, becoming even
more intense as it draws closer to its end. For those dispossessed of the
12 introduction
means of production and subsistence, it means increasing hardships and

an urgent need to defeat capitalism.
The period of decline is the process moving toward the fĳinal crisis of the
capital relation. The new technological revolution, while providing the
basis for the restructuring of the pattern of domination, delimits the terri-
tory for the transition toward the end of capitalism. Capitalism today still
has the ability to integrate a signifĳicant percentage of the world’s popula-
tion into its structures, but it is increasingly turning into a machine
designed to produce a growing mass of human beings superfluous to it
and to promote all manner of conflicts that lead nowhere, producing only
more poverty, chaos, social degradation and death; such is the future that
capital domination offfers humanity.
The state administration of criminal activity has become a means of
managing its period of decline and of confĳiguring its governance. Thus,
the current personifĳications of capital promise an endless war, which they
claim to be against terrorism and organized crime, and insist that human-
kind must choose between the terrorists and them, the ones who (pre-
sumably) will fĳight the criminals.
It is of course an absurd and insane dilemma, the only purpose of which
is to confĳine humanity in an irresolvable labyrinth and in meaningless
conflicts with no future. It is like being made to choose from an array of
images in a house of mirrors, all of them reflections of the same thing. The
only expression of conflict that can offfer hope for the future and possibili-
ties for the construction of a new civilization is a class-based conflict
aimed at bringing an end to the capital relation.
There is a need implicit in the development of the relation between
capital and labor: to restore the connection between producers and the
means of production through the social reappropriation of those means,
and to use production to satisfy the needs of society rather than to profĳit a
small group. In this way, by economizing labor time, technological prog-
ress, rather than producing a redundant population, may reduce working
hours, providing more free time and work for all, and thus establish the
conditions for the full development of all individuals. In opposition to the
capitalist state, the historical need awaiting expression is the socialist
state, the organization of free associated producers (which is completely
unrelated to the state capitalism that gave itself the name of real socialism
in the 20th century), the essential task of which will be to guarantee the
connection between producers, organized as a worker collective, and the
means of production and subsistence.
introduction 13
The conflict between capital and labor entails its necessary negation.
The development of capital is neither eternal nor reducible to a scenario
of political wills and struggles between social classes, as these struggles
unfold in the context of objective conditions defĳined by the capital rela-
tion, which will ultimately lead to its end. It is a necessity contained in the
development of necessary relations that are independent of the will and
consciousness of men, but the form that this necessity takes will depend
on the class struggle: it is will and consciousness in action.
Anyone who has read the novel Moby Dick will probably agree that what
is outrageous about the story is not so much Captain Ahab’s obsession
with the great white whale, but the inability of the crew of the Pequod to
unite and save their own lives by casting the insanity into the sea, just as
humankind needs to do today with this increasingly insane Captain Ahab
that is the capital relation. Without the additional insanity of obedience to
a madman, Captain Ahab would be a harmless lunatic locked up in an
anonymous asylum, rather than the pilot of this increasingly bleak space-
ship of which we are all passengers.
But beyond the outrage, this situation poses a challenge: to understand
domination and how it prevents unity in the defense of the lives of the
vast, multifarious mass of human beings dispossessed of the means of pro-
duction and subsistence and divided in conflict and competition against
one another.
The concept of the pattern of domination, and particularly the neolib-
eral pattern of domination, is proposed as a means of identifying the dif-
fĳiculties to be overcome in order to organize, expand and win the battle
against the capital relation. It is constructed to examine the conditions of
the problem, not the conditions of the solution. But I believe that by
explaining one, we can go a long way toward comprehending the other, as
to a large extent the conditions of the problem contain those of the solu-
tion. It is to that comprehension that I wish to contribute this modest
work.
PART ONE
THE DOMINATION OF CAPITAL:

ITS LOGICAL AND HISTORICAL FORMS
CHAPTER ONE
THE BASIS OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION
“The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of inevitable

impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property… The theory of the
Communists may be summed up in this single sentence: Abolition of private
property.”
K. Marx and F. Engels
The Communist Manifesto
To examine the nature of capitalist class domination I will adopt a series

of approaches, moving from the general to the specifĳic, on a gradual path
towards the concrete. It is worth remembering that, if a trajectory moving
from the general to the specifĳic constitutes a means of getting closer to
concrete reality, it is because we can fĳind the most general and abstract
qualities, developed and redefĳined, in the most specifĳic situations.
As this entire work is articulated from the perspective of Marxist theory,
I will begin with a few notes related to the Marxist defĳinition of domina-
tion. It is not my purpose to offfer either a synthesis or a general review of
such an extraordinarily complex theoretical fĳield, but rather to identify a
few concepts that will facilitate the analysis that follows.
Domination and Obedience
Before entering the theoretical territory of Marxism, I believe it will be

useful to begin with a general idea of the meaning of domination. The
dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defĳines dominio
(“dominion” or “rule”) as “the power to use and dispose of one’s posses-
sions” (Real Academia Española, 1992). The term is thus expressed in rela-
tion to property; those who dominate use and dispose of something that
belongs to them; the thing dominated is used as a possession.
The Spanish UNESCO Diccionario de ciencias sociales defĳines domi-
nación (“domination”) as “socially established, recognized and compelling
power to control and dispose of any object: the right to use it, destroy it, or
transfer it to others. The domination relation is closely associated with
the institution of property” (UNESCO, 1987). Both of these dictionary
18 chapter one
defĳinitions, insofar as they associate domination with the ownership of

things, reserve the use of the term to defĳine relationships between people
and objects, not relationships between human beings. In other words, the
domination relation, according to the defĳinitions provided by both dic-
tionaries, appears to be something foreign to human relations.
This delimitation of the concept, with social relations excluded from its
defĳinition, is of little use in explaining domination as a relationship
between human beings. There can be no doubt that the crucial, essential
role of such a relation in contemporary society should not be overlooked
by any dictionary, however general it may be. But perhaps we expect too
much of such dictionaries; perhaps it is a topic confĳined to the realm of
political science. Yet a Spanish specialist dictionary in political science,
compiled by Norberto Bobbio and Nicola Matteucci, omits the term.
Apparently, they did not consider it sufffĳiciently important to include it in
their dictionary (Bobbio and Matteuci, 1981).
These omissions may be symptomatic of a lack of interest in clarifying
a topic which is crucial, but problematic, conflictive, unpleasant and, it
might be said, “irrelevant” for the dominant ideology. Domination is
imposed, administrated and developed but, from the perspective of the
dominators, it is neither necessary nor advisable to turn it into a topic of
discussion, interest or public reflection. It is essentially a topic of private
interest, exclusive to those who dominate. The dominated need not strain
their intellect studying and analyzing these types of questions.
The conversion of human beings into things, into objects belonging to
other human beings, is a notion associated with the social relations of
slavery. Nevertheless, in capitalism, the working class labor force is con-
verted into a commodity, an object that becomes the property of its pur-
chasers: the idea of treating the labor force as property is not alien to the
capital-labor relation. Thus even the dispassionate notions offfered by the
dictionaries mentioned above tend to evoke certain aspects of the domi-
nation relation between the classes of capitalist society and the right to
use, destroy and transfer, which the dominant class assumes it has over
certain dimensions of the lives of the dominated classes, or over certain
segments of those classes.1
1 There is no shortage of examples to illustrate this tendency to exercise property rights

over human beings. One need only consider, for example, the lack of protection and com-
plete absence of rights of illegal immigrants on the border between Mexico and the
United States, or the way the Mexican government has treated recent social uprisings in
Atenco and Oaxaca; men and women attacked and abused by authorities immune to
the basis of capitalist domination 19
Of course, my purpose here is not to explain domination as a relation

between human beings and objects, but as a relation between human
beings, between two groups in society; the dominant group that gives the
orders and the dominated group that obeys them. “Domination,” says
Sánchez Vázquez, “requires an assurance of its recognition on the part of
the dominated. This evidence that the other force is defeated or domi-
nated is its obedience. In the power relation, one group gives the orders
and the other obeys. Control is the quality of those who exercise the
power; obedience is the quality of the dominated. Power can only exist if
it dominates, and it only dominates if it is obeyed” (Sánchez Vázquez,
1999: 15–16).
Orders are not advice, or requests, or recommendations. Orders compel
because those giving them have the capacity to make others obey.
Social Classes in Capitalism
The aim here, however, is not to explore any relationship of rule and sub-
ordination, of control and obedience between any two groups of human
beings, but relations between social classes. The essential relationship
under capitalism, the underlying social relation between its classes, con-
sists in the separation between direct producers and the means of produc-
tion and subsistence: “the social form of production is determined fĳirst of
all by a particular relation between direct producers and the means of pro-
duction and subsistence. Under the regime of capital, ownership is merely
the manifestation of the separation between direct producers and their
means. When we speak of separation, we mean capitalists on one side and
paid workers on the other, and this is the essential relation under capital-
ism” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 8, emphasis added).
This is the essential social relation under capitalism, that which consti-
tutes the capitalist social form: the workers are apparently dispossessed of
the means of production and subsistence, which are set up against them
as an autonomous power. “It is this separation that constitutes the concept
of capital.”2 For Marx – and this is his general concept – the working
class is made up of people dispossessed of the means of production
punishment, who seek in this way to make clear who the masters of society really are.
Indeed, throughout the history of capitalism in general, and that of Latin America in par-
ticular, there is an abundance of evidence of the fragile line, in the eyes of the dominant
class, between the dignity of a human life and the banality of a worthless object.
2 From Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value (as quoted in Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 38).
20 chapter one
(and, therefore, of the means of subsistence), while the capitalist class are
the possessors of the means of production (expressed in legal terms as
property); in its basic, general sense, the working class is made up of that
great mass of human beings who lack means of production and subsis-
tence, and are required to sell their labor-power to capital for a wage in
order to survive and who are, therefore, constantly seeking to maximize
their own utility, to serve a function within the complex social framework
of capitalism.
This essential relation does not change according to the form taken by
this autonomous power with which the direct producer is faced. The varia-
tions may have a range of signifĳicant meanings, but in terms of their essen-
tial characteristics, as constituent parts of class relations in capitalism, it
matters little whether the means of production and subsistence are pre-
sented to workers distributed over multiple owners, as in the competitive
capitalism of the fĳirst two thirds of the 19th century, concentrated in the
hands of a few macro-capitalists, as in the great global monopolies of the
“globalized” capital of the late 20th century, in the hands of the state as
“nationalized” property, or in the hands of a state-organized collective
owner, as in the so-called “real socialism” of the 20th century. Of course,
the legal form that this separation takes is also of no real importance. In all
cases, the separation between producer and means of production and
subsistence remains the same and, with it, the class relation between capi-
talists and workers.3
If the constitution of the capitalist class allows variety and modifĳica-
tions in form without necessarily altering its essential content, the same
may be said of those dispossessed of the means of production and subsis-
tence.4 Their existence in capitalism takes on a wide variety of forms5
which, for the function they fulfĳill at the service of capital (at least with
3 From this we can conclude that the self-acclaimed “real socialism” of the 20th century
was merely a form of state capitalism managed by a collective of property owners orga-
nized into the “Communist Party”, and into a “Socialist State”, that the collapse of this sys-
tem simply represented a change in its capitalist structure, and that capitalism will only be
overcome with the efffective appropriation of its means of production and subsistence by
the producer class.
4 For this reason it is important to understand working class as referring to the dispos-
sessed as a group (a more inclusive concept which encompasses the diversity of forms
assumed by the dominated class in capitalism) and not only to the workers (which tends to
be associated with the industrial proletariat). On the other hand, the concepts of middle
classes and marginalized seem to me inconsistent and tendentious, and as such are ideo-
logically useful to the domination of capital.
5 “The idea of a more or less homogeneous mass of workers is as obsolete as the idea of
labor that thinks and plans as it acts” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 57).
regard to the relationship between the working class and production capi-
tal), could be grouped into a few basic categories: active workers – divided
into productive (general labor6 and immediate labor7) and non-produc-
tive (monitoring and supervision tasks8 and commodity circulation tasks);
and non-active workers (the industrial reserve army, the section of the
workforce that slips in and out of the dynamic of capital accumulation,
and the absolute surplus population, the section that is simply surplus to
the needs of capital with the many social forms that it adopts).
Not all are exploited, as not all produce surplus value, but all are domi-
nated, subordinated to the needs of capital, and all share the same basic
separation from their means of production and/or subsistence, compelled
to sell their only possession – their personal attributes – to survive.
Exploring diverse combinations of meanness and pettiness with wit and
creativity, whether in white collars or blue collars, denizens of the noisy,
sufffocating atmosphere of the factory or the neat and quiet space of the
offfĳice, cubicle or laboratory; tramps in the poor quarters of the cities,
street walkers or beggars; the fate of all the inhabitants of the kingdom of
capital is defĳined according to the same basic social relation – the capital
relation.
The defĳinition of domination given by UNESCO’s Diccionario de cien-
cias sociales, associated with the notion of an “ecological system,” offfers a
graphic image for the idea presented here: “domination is linked to con-
trol, which one species exercises over the material conditions of suste-
nance of the other species of the system. The dominant species organizes
the activities of the others, assigns to the subordinate species their
diffferent ranks, stabilizes, maintains order and permits the growth of the
system, integrates the activities of the diffferent species and performs
functions of coordination and control. This entails a center or focal
point from which influence is exerted and an area or territory in which
this control is imposed. The subordinate species are positioned in relation
6 The section of the workforce engaged in scientifĳic and technological research, and
general planning of production processes, made up of a diverse range of scientists and
professionals.
7 The section of the workforce engaged in operative tasks, those who directly produce
the merchandise, comprising the industrial proletariat in the strict sense of the term.
8 “At fĳirst, the capitalist is relieved of manual labor. Then, when his capital grows and
with it the collective labor that he exploits, he hands over the work of direct and constant
supervision of the individual workmen and groups of workmen to a special kind of wage-
laborer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires sub-
ordinate offfĳicers (managers, overlookers, foremen) who, while the work is being done,
command in the name of the capitalist” (Marx, 1867: Ch.13).
22 chapter one
to the center of domination and in relation to each other” (UNESCO,

1987:743–744).
The “dominant species” in the “ecological system” of capitalism, the
capitalist class, assigns ranks to diffferent segments of the “dominated spe-
cies,” diffferentiating them and placing them in opposition against one
another, which not only serves as a functional response to their needs for
domination and exploitation, but also their ultimate purpose: division,
opposition and competition between the dominated as a basic condition
for perpetuating their subordinate status.9
There is nothing absurd or irrational in this proclivity of the dominated
towards division and mutual competition. It is natural and necessary as
the aim is to serve capital and negotiate some form of reward in return.
The political project of unifĳication of the dominated can only take root
when the aim becomes not to serve, but to fĳight against capital. As every-
thing in public life is at the service of capital, it is natural that the diffferent
segments of the dominated, spread throughout the economic, political
and cultural framework of bourgeois society, would strive to demonstrate
their qualities and qualifĳications of servitude and compete against each
other for the positions and rewards that capital offfers.
The rewards accessible to the dominated for services rendered to the
domination and exploitation of capital, expressed in the context of the
capitalist relation, may vary in size. But even when the rewards are few,
they are not necessarily any less desirable or less provocative of division
and conflict among the dominated, creating what might be called the Ah
Q Syndrome.10
It is also clear that this predisposition towards division and competition
among the dominated becomes even more acute when there are limited
collective means of organizing their relationship with the domination
and exploitation of capital; that is, so limited that they are compelled to
9 “The essential condition for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is
the accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, the formation and augmentation
of capital. The condition for the existence of capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclu-
sively on competition between the laborers” (Marx and Engels, 1848, emphasis added).
10 Lu Xun’s tale, “The True Story of Ah Q”, illustrates a case which, although extreme, is
nonetheless common in our society. The story tells of two beggars fĳighting, with consider-
able fury but little energy due to their starving condition, for the privilege to beg on a “good”
street corner. Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” narrates the tragicomic effforts of a lower-level
bureaucrat to win the recognition of his superiors. Hundreds of examples of such scenar-
ios, all expressions of the Ah Q Syndrome, can be found by observing the behavior of sec-
tions of the dominated not only within “economic” institutions, such as capitalist
corporations, but also within cultural or political institutions, such as universities or politi-
cal parties.
negotiate their position in society individually. Under these conditions,

the inclination towards unconditional servitude to capital will be accentu-
ated, and individual positioning and the search for immediate alterna-
tives will be favored, whether or not it is recognized that these contribute
to the domination and exploitation of capital and, therefore, undermine
medium- and long-term group and even individual interests.
The greater the lack of political organization that would grant them
some level of identity and class consciousness, the greater the obligation
upon the dispossessed masses to provide human beings for the uncondi-
tional satisfaction of any need of capital; from supervisors and foremen
who represent it in direct labor relations to political employees who oper-
ate the state system, and including what might be called the degradation
professions (torturers, hired killers, drug producers and dealers, prosti-
tutes, sex offfenders and a long list of others) if opening such sources of
employment are in the interests of capital.
This is why the social structure preferable to capital is social atomiza-
tion; the reduction to individual units and to defenselessness in against its
domination. Bourgeois individualism is not based on a notion of each per-
son fully realizing his or her individual potential.11 For all of the members
of the capitalist class, individualism means promotion of their capital, of
their private property. For all of the members of the dominated class, indi-
vidualism means individual management of their place in the structure of
domination and exploitation of capital, defenselessness against and sub-
ordination to capital interests, in the hope of receiving some kind of
reward for placing themselves at the service of capital.
However, this diverse mass of human beings, divided, set at odds and in
competition against each other, shares the common traits of separation
from the means of production and subsistence, the need to sell themselves
or their personal attributes as the only way of gaining access to their
means of subsistence, and job insecurity due to their dispensable nature
from the perspective of capital. Both a foreman in a factory and a researcher
in a laboratory, each in his or her specifĳic sphere of activity, may be fĳierce
advocates for capital interests while working at its service; but, under cer-
tain conditions, either one may be cast out to join the unemployment
lines.12
11 In contrast, Marx proposed that “in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes
and class antagonisms, there will arise an association in which the free development of
each is the condition for the free development of all” (Marx and Engels, 1848).
12 There is no doubt that, depending on the level and complexity of their qualifĳications,
foremen are more dispensable than scientists. But scientists are not indispensable to
24 chapter one
Of course, this diversity and multiplicity of forms derives from the his-
torical evolution of capitalist society and from the diffferent positions
defĳined by the capitalist class for diffferent segments of the dominated
classes, according to its needs of exploitation and domination. However,
two points need to be added in this regard:
1. The relative importance of each of the sections of the labor force
referred to above is modifĳied by the evolution and behaviors of capital
accumulation; the composition of the working class changes with the
unfolding of the tendential laws of capitalist development.13
2. Capitalism is a global economic system, with its social classes orga-
nized on a global scale and, as such, the spatial distribution of the difffer-
ent sections of the working class needs to be observed.14
With this in mind, to examine the composition of the working class, we
need to consider its functional and spatial distribution at the global level,
as well as the circumstances of the historical period and the degree of
development of the tendential laws of capitalism.
Exploitation and Domination:

Capital Relation and Production Process
This same essential relation, the capital relation,15 the separation between
producers and their means of production and subsistence, which estab-
lishes the social classes in capitalism, constructs the basic articulation
between the economic, political and cultural dimensions of relations
capital; currently, certain types of highly qualifĳied personnel in Europe and the U.S. are
being displaced by competition from their colleagues in India, who offfer services of equal
quality at lower costs.
13 Thus, in the 19th century, the industrial proletariat, the section of the labor force that
performs immediate labor, was the predominant sector of the working class as a whole.
Over the course of the 20th century, the section responsible for scientifĳic and technological
research acquired greater strategic importance, which it continues to hold today. And cur-
rently, due to the very same dynamic of capitalism, and the development of productive
forces, the segment of the “excluded”, the surplus population, is assuming, at least quantita-
tively, increasing importance.
14 This perspective enables us to identify certain basic processes; for example, that the
section that performs general labor tends to be concentrated in developed countries, while
the industrial reserve army and surplus population tend to be concentrated in developing
countries.
15 Hereinafter, to avoid repetition, I will refer to this condition of separation between
producers and their means of production and subsistence, constituting the capital/wage
labor relation, as the capital relation.
between the classes.16 More specifĳically, it constitutes the core from

which it is possible to explain domination and to link it to capitalist
exploitation.
Exploitation, explained briefly, refers to the appropriation of the labor
of others: one part of society, constituting the exploiting social class,
appropriates the labor performed by another part of society, defĳined as
the exploited social class. Domination, as has been argued above, refers to
the fact that one part of society, constituting the dominant social class,
subordinates another part of society, defĳined as the dominated social
class, reducing it to obedience.
The basis of capitalist exploitation is the capital relation: workers sell
their labor-power because they lack the means of production and subsis-
tence. Capital pays the value of the labor-power and appropriates the
excess value produced by the laborer; the working class is exploited by the
capitalist class through appropriation of surplus value. Capital is value
that appreciates.
But the capital relation is also the basis of capitalist domination.
Workers sell their labor-power for a wage in order to acquire a means of
subsistence.17 Capitalists pay for the use of this labor-power; they pur-
chase control over it. From that moment, a relation not only of exploita-
tion, but of control and subordination, is established within the labor
process. It should also be noted that the domination relation is established
as a condition that is repeated with the simultaneous occurrence of vari-
ous circumstances.
The fĳirst of these circumstances is that the needs of workers are renewed
and, with them, the need to renew the sale of their labor-power; “The
laborer… will feel it to be a cruel nature-imposed necessity that his capac-
ity has cost for its production a defĳinite amount of the means of subsis-
tence and that it will continue to do so for its reproduction” (Marx
1867:Ch.6).
The second circumstance consists in the fact that the worker’s condi-
tion is one of constant uncertainty in the labor market, even more so
when, as a result of technological developments, that market operates in
16 “Debate in our societies is nothing more than the debate over specifĳic social relations,
which in turn constitute the common core of economic, political, cultural relations, etc.
The economic and political spheres are never separated, for the simple reason that they are
each no more than diffferent dimensions of a single process, the process of the social form
that constitutes the movement of societies” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 8).
17 “The proletariat, the class of modern laborers, who live only so long as they fĳind work,
and who fĳind work only so long as their labor increases capital” (Marx and Engels, 1848).
26 chapter one
the context of a large reserve army, promoting intense competition for

employment among workers.18
The third circumstance is founded in the progressive domination
acquired by capital over the labor process, which is evident in the con-
cepts and conditions relating to the shift from formal to real subordina-
tion of labor to capital and from the production of absolute surplus value
to the production of relative surplus value.
Capital separates general labor (production of scientifĳic and techno-
logical knowledge) from immediate labor, which becomes a sphere for the
application of science (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 41). Capitalist domina-
tion over the worker also now appears as subordination of the laborer to
the machine (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 31). Workers are deprived of many
of their productive faculties, just as before they were deprived of their
means of production; “these faculties reappear now as a quality of the col-
lective laborer and this, in turn, as a quality of capital,” as a form of exis-
tence of capital and, therefore, an alien power that dominates the worker
(Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 34). Laborers remain separate and alienated
from one another: “[they] are isolated persons, who enter into relations
with the capitalist, but not with one another. This cooperation begins
only with the labor process, but they have then ceased to belong to
themselves… they are but special modes of existence of capital” (Marx,
1867:Ch.13).
Technological progress, systematically promoted by capital and turned
into its private property, not only ensures the control of capital over the
labor process but also, by promoting a constant increase in labor produc-
tivity, enables the scale of production to be increased without proportion-
ate increases in the number of laborers. Technological progress becomes a
mechanism for progressive expulsion of the labor-power involved in the
labor process and, therefore, a mechanism for the creation, development
and consolidation of an industrial reserve army. In other words, it becomes
not only a mechanism for increasing the level of worker exploitation, but
also a mechanism central to class domination as it promotes competition
and division among the workers.
Thus, domination and exploitation in capitalism fĳind a point of connec-
tion in the capital relation and the production process itself; advances in
the conditions to develop the exploitation process are also advances in the
18 “The ‘despotism of the factory’ is imposed upon proletarians who are subjected to
market coercion, as they are dispossessed of everything except their own arms. And market
coercion entails employment uncertainty” (Brunhofff, 1980: 226).
domination process. In the hands of capital, the usefulness of any given

technology is defĳined in terms of its capacity to produce surplus value and,
at the same time, its capacity to increase the domination of capital over
labor: to ensure that capital maintains control of the production process
within the factory and to contribute to the creation of a reserve labor army
which will foster competition and division among workers and which
therefore establishes a general condition for the domination of capital
over labor.
Domination and exploitation are mutually interdependent and both
are constructed on a common foundation: the capital relation. Tech-
nological progress promoted by capital develops the capital relation, as
will be examined in some detail in the fĳinal chapter of this work. Once this
relation is established as the dominant force in society, accepted as the
social “norm,” the process acquires a certain “automatism”, and capital
builds its domination in the realm of production itself, in the economy in
general. Unlike relations between slaves and slaveholders or between ser-
vants and masters, whereby the immediate workers maintain a basic con-
nection with their means of production, relations between capitalists and
workers do not appear to require direct, constant political coercion.
And this “norm” is consolidated because, as Figueroa Sepúlveda
explains, the exploitation relation conceals its nature, being distorted so
as to present itself as something other than it really is: “the wage form thus
extinguishes every trace of the division of the working day into necessary
labor and surplus labor, into paid labor and unpaid labor. All labor appears
to be paid labor.”19
In this way, according to Figueroa Sepúlveda, the exploitation relation
vanishes behind the monetary relation. “We can therefore understand the
decisive importance of the transformation of the value and price of labor-
power into the form of wages, or into the value and price of labor itself. All
of the notions of justice to which both workers and capitalists adhere, all
of the mystifĳications of capitalism regarding freedom, all of the senseless
justifĳications of vulgar economics, have their basis in the form of expres-
sion referred to above, which makes the actual relation invisible and pres-
ents the exact opposite of that relation.”20 This makes it possible “to
dispense with the use of coercion at the level of production and to disas-
sociate the political from the economic” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 47).
19 Taken from Marx’s Capital (quoted in Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 47).

20 Also taken from Capital (quoted by Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 47).
28 chapter one
However, a long series of historical processes are necessary before this

appearance of “naturalness” can be established: “It takes centuries ere the
‘free’ laborer, thanks to the development of capitalist production, agrees,
i.e. is compelled by social conditions, to sell the whole of his active life, his
very capacity for work, for the price of the daily necessities of life” (Marx,
1867: Ch.10). And, as will be shown in the following sections, many pro-
cesses are needed to preserve this capitalist “norm.”
The Capitalist State and Social Power
Every state is a power organization of a class, a class that is organized as

the dominant class. Political power in the capitalist state is the power of
the whole capitalist class: “the executive of the modern state is but a com-
mittee for managing the common afffairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (Marx
and Engels, 1848). “The common afffairs of the whole bourgeoisie” cover a
wide range of matters, the analysis of which is beyond the purpose of this
investigation. In the following chapter, I will attempt to explore this fur-
ther, but in this chapter the aim is to focus on the basic point.
The basic point is that, in spite of its strength, this “automatism of the
market,” this quasi-automatic reproduction of the separation between
producers and their means of production and subsistence, is not a sufffĳi-
cient assurance to maintain the capital relation. The main “common afffair
of the whole bourgeoisie” is to preserve and develop the capital relation,
wherein politics and economics are interwoven.
It is intrinsic to the very nature of the capital relation that workers rec-
ognize in this separation the source of all their difffĳiculties as a class, and
seek to reestablish their connection with their means of production
and subsistence by destroying the capitalist relation, or, in a more
moderate, less ambitious scenario, seek to bargain, to negotiate the condi-
tions of their domination and exploitation with the constant threat of
hindering the “smooth running” of the afffairs of domination and exploita-
tion. And the essential task of the capitalist state is, fĳirstly, to prevent the
destruction of the capital relation and, secondly, to contribute to its
development.21
21 Its opposite, the historical necessity that has still yet to be realized, is the socialist
State, the organization of the working class, whose essential task would be to ensure unity
between producers, organized as a workers’ collective, and their means of production and
subsistence.
From the mid-19th century to the fĳirst decades of the 20th, the workers’
movement, not creating a project but rather contributing to the identi-
fĳication of a historical necessity, developed through Marxism an acute
awareness of the need to destroy the capital relation, and converted
this awareness into revolutionary attempts to transform capitalist society.
In that period, as in no other period since, this historical necessity
entailing the destruction of the capital relation through the social re-
appropriation of the means of production and subsistence acquired force
and intensity.
Over the course of the rest of the 20th century, the vicissitudes of the
class struggle numbed this awareness, but this is not to say that the domi-
nation of the state became irrelevant; subsequently, the workers’ move-
ment, not to destroy but rather to negotiate the conditions for capitalist
exploitation and domination, established complex bargaining and protest
processes that necessitated constant management by the state to regulate
and direct the conflicts. The state established itself as the force for order,
for the reconciliation of contradictions which, if not resolved, would have
led to societal paralysis.
Now in the early 21st century, as if waking from a long slumber, in an
awkward process of trial and error, spurred on by the renewed voracity of
capital, a new march is beginning, a long and complex march towards the
future. The struggles of this huge, complex, diverse, scattered, multifac-
eted, passionate and conflictive segment of humanity, separated from its
means of production and subsistence, articulated in the capital relation as
the exploited and/or dominated class, are not a topic belonging to the past
or specifĳic to any particular period in the history of capitalism. The vicis-
situdes of their struggle stretch across the whole history of capitalism; the
“automatism” of the market has never been sufffĳicient assurance of the
preservation of the capital relation, and in every period the state has been
guarantor of its continued existence and a constant manager of its
development.
As the essential task of the state is to prevent the destruction of the
capital relation, political domination is coordinated to support class
exploitation. In reality, the raison d’etre of political domination is to ensure
exploitation. “The young Marx,” argues Sánchez Vázquez, “focused his
attention on the state, but the discovery of what Hegel had mythologized
(the relations between state and civil society) led Marx to uncover the real
basis of the state. In doing so, he revealed the limitations of Hegelian the-
ory on the state, and the need to begin a critique of the real basis of social
division and political power: the economy” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 33,
30 chapter one
emphasis added). “Capital (Marx’s book),” he adds, “is not purely a work of
economics, unrelated to politics; it explains the real basis of politics.”22
Exploitation is not possible unless it is sustained through domination,
and domination has no purpose except as a support to exploitation. The
separation of domination from exploitation, according to Sánchez
Vázquez, fetishizes power:23 “if the political is founded on the social, the
anatomy of which is the economic, there can be no exclusively political
criticism (such criticism is unfounded and insufffĳicient on its own), but
only political criticism founded on economic criticism” (Sánchez Vázquez,
1999: 34).
Economics, politics, and ideology are not self-contained fĳields sepa-
rated one from the other. They all form part of a social power, the domina-
tion of one class over the other, based, in all its dimensions, on the same
social relation – the capital relation: “Against the tradition of bourgeois
thought, which views political power as absolute, Marx is a theorist of eco-
nomic power, considering it in relation to political and ideological pow-
ers” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 48).
The raison d’etre of the state, the power organization of the dominant
class, is to provide support for the exploitation perpetrated by that class.
Capitalist domination takes on diverse forms,24 but it is essentially based
on force, on the capacity of the dominant class to inflict violence upon the
dominated classes, while stripping them of their capacity for violent
response.
According to Lenin, “the standing army and the police are the chief
instruments of state power,” and, in this sense, the basic task assumed by
the state is to “deprive the oppressed classes of defĳinite means and
methods of struggle for the overthrow of the oppressors” (Lenin, 1918).
22 “Marx takes a new perspective on social thought, which, from Machiavelli to Hobbes
and Hegel, had examined power, while exploitation remained in the shadows” (Sánchez
Vázquez, 1999: 11).
23 This is the basis of his criticism of Marcuse and Foucault: for the fĳirst, he says, “the
rationale of power is technological. The technological logos develops in an inherent fash-
ion, whatever may be the relations of production,” and for Foucault, “the power relation
[is] a network of powers (factory, school, church, family, etc.); reticulate or capillary power,
which is everywhere; it is not localized in the state system or in its repressive function. He
objects to viewing this network of powers as a simple projection of political power, but
doesn’t recognize the nexus that unites this power to the relations of production, its nature
as a class and the role it plays in the class struggle” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 13).
24 The State has the “possibility of adopting diverse forms of power or of government
(authoritarian or democratic) to better serve, in specifĳic historical conditions, the interests
of the dominant class” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 38).
Domination is based, as a last resort, on violence, on the coercive capacity

of the state and of the dominant class.
Domination is always dictatorial: “it is not a question of the practice of
violence as the sole function or as one of several functions, but rather, of
what is at the very heart of power… whether it is a power legitimized by
the law (the so-called democracies) or a despotic or dictatorial power (not
subject to any law), there is no qualitative distinction in its nature; power
is based on force and on the institutions established to exercise it. Armed
forces, police forces and security forces exist to dominate those who might
resist or counteract them. Domination always fĳinds latent or efffective
opposition, actual or potential resistance. In the relation between the
dominant and the dominated, force is decisive, in its potential state as a
threat or in the act itself. Power is domination and domination is insepa-
rable from force” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 14).
Of course, this recognition of force as the basis of state power overrides
(but does not reduce the signifĳicance of) the form of enforcing obedience
and, therefore, the distinction between democratic and despotic power.
Whether power is democratic or despotic afffects the degrees of domina-
tion and the modes of obedience. An authoritarian and arbitrary regime
demands total obedience, with no restrictions or legal regulations. On the
other hand, democracies legalize and regulate the conditions for obedi-
ence, even granting freedoms and a certain legal margin for disobedience.
The diffference, of course, is highly signifĳicant, as signifĳicant as the difffer-
ence between a Hitler and a Roosevelt; nevertheless, bourgeois democracy
is still a means for bourgeois domination and in this we fĳind its limits; in
the world in general, and in Latin America in particular (consider Allende
in Chile), it is well-known that the commitment of the bourgeoisie to
democracy has strict limitations.25
Nor does this reduce the importance of ideological domination, i.e.
power based not only on force, but on the control of the consciousness of
the dominated. Marx, Engels and Lenin return constantly to the question
of the capacity of the capitalist class to establish ideological domination
25 “Bourgeois rule as the outcome and result of universal sufffrage, as the express act of
the sovereign will of the people; this is the meaning of the bourgeois constitution. It is the
duty of the bourgeoisie to regulate the right to sufffrage so that it wills the reasonable, that
is, its rule. Our dictatorship has hitherto existed by the will of the people; it must now be con-
solidated against the will of the people” (Marx, 1895); “The assertion that class rule is essen-
tially dictatorial does not mean that dictatorial methods are invariably used, but that these
methods are necessary for class rule in a sense in which constitutional methods are not”
(Moore, 1957: 30).
32 chapter one
over the dominated class;26 domination seeks to be accepted and assumed

by those it dominates. There is no domination more fĳirmly established
than that which is actively (or at least passively) accepted by the
dominated.
This would mean that the capitalist class, in certain circumstances, has
the capacity not only to dominate coercively, but also to obtain the con-
sent of the dominated through its ideological domination. Gramsci took
up this point and vested it with new dimensions by articulating a theoreti-
cal construction around the concept of “civil society.”
According to Gramsci’s analysis, the dominant class produces its ideol-
ogy, its general conception of the world, and disseminates it by means of
an ideological framework to society as a whole, adapting it to the condi-
tions of the diffferent social groups to ensure their association with, and
allegiance to, its “intellectual and moral leadership” (Portelli, 1998: 17); the
dominant class thus constitutes an ideological bloc under its hegemonic
direction (Portelli, 1998: 22).
For Gramsci, the ideological framework constitutes the “internal articu-
lation of civil society: an organization through which the governing class
disseminates its ideology. It is the material organization created to main-
tain, defend and develop the theoretical and ideological front, which
includes organizations whose function is to disseminate the ideology:
communications media, all the instruments that enable the influencing of
public opinion, libraries, circles, clubs, etc., cultural organizations (church,
schools, the press)” (Portelli, 1998: 24).
Capital domination cannot be disassociated from ideological domina-
tion. Capital presents its reasons for society as a whole to obey it.
Obedience “is presented as a rational matter… but it is power that deter-
mines the reasons and the criteria of the rationale, and the border between
what should and should not be obeyed is historically variable… Power
presents its particular interests, which it expresses as rational and univer-
sal… rational obedience is obedience for the reasons established by power”
(Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 20–21).
26 Ideological power “is exercised in the realm of ideologies. It contributes to the main-
tenance of political power and the economic and social bases that sustain that power…
Because of its capacity to mobilize consciousnesses, it contributes to the creation of a con-
sensus of approval of the political power, to its legitimization, and to the acceptance of the
general conditions of exploitation” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 48–49).
Obedience and Disobedience:

Dominant Class and Dominated Class
In capitalist society, economic, political and ideological domination and

exploitation are coordinated into a single social power, the rule of one
class over another, based, in all its dimensions, on the same social relation,
the capital relation. The maintenance of the capital relation guarantees
that the obedience of the dominated class is presented as something natu-
ral, normal, automatically assumed and reiterated. As long as the capital
relation is not socially questioned, the submission of the dominated oper-
ates as a form of “automatism”, and political power, particularly its violent
and repressive dimension, has no need to intervene. It is simply main-
tained, in an apparently exterior condition, as a possibility, as a reminder
that capitalist private ownership of the means of production and subsis-
tence is sacred and inviolable, as is afffĳirmed by all the political constitu-
tions of every bourgeois state in the world.
Paradoxically, the most recurring argument in bourgeois ideology to
consolidate its control in the consciousness and the activity of the domi-
nated, particularly in its versions for mass-consumption, is freedom: work-
ers are free to work or not to work for whomever they want, just as women
are free to buy or not to buy a particular brand of jeans; young people are
free to study whatever they want to fĳind a “good job” at the service of capi-
tal, just as the developing nations in the globalized world compete freely
to attract the investment of big capital. This is the freedom offfered by the
capitalist market, and its underlying social relations, transmuted into the
absolute concept of freedom.
The bourgeois ideology of freedom, presenting the dominated as free, is
founded on the systematic promotion in the consciousness of its victims
of a disconnection in their understanding of the link between the condi-
tions of their domination and their “freedom.” Its ideological efffectiveness
is contingent upon its ability to dull the perception in the consciousness
of the dominated of their social condition, and to develop their intellec-
tual disconnection from the reality of their situation. In this sense, partic-
ularly if the dominated do not question the capital relation and even more
so if their perception of that relation is dulled so as to remain beyond their
awareness, bourgeois domination not only admits but promotes a wide
variety of currents of thought, a wide range of “freedom of thought.”27
27 For example, in post-modern contemporary society there is a wide and increasing

range of all types of sects, some scientifĳic and philosophical, cultural or artistic, others
34 chapter one
The dominated must operate their margin of freedom within the fĳield
of domination structured by capital, perhaps without realizing, or perhaps
without caring very much. Nevertheless, the history of capitalism abounds
with evidence that, while in certain conditions capital is capable of domi-
nating with the active or passive acceptance of the dominated, in other
conditions the domination of capital does not appear to constitute a fĳield
of freedom, but a degree of oppression that is insuffferable in the eyes of a
certain number of its victims.28
In such conditions, the victims do not obey because they are convinced,
but because “they have no alternative: they obey in spite of their beliefs,
reasoning or better judgment… They do not wish to obey; in other
cases, obedience is internalized before it is externalized. Now there is the
alternative of disobedience; but certain conditions are needed for this
possibility to be realized, such as the willingness of the victim to assume
the risk in light of a power that could exercise its last resort – the use of
force. The revolutionary struggle is a kind of act of disobedience” (Sánchez
Vázquez, 1999: 21–22).
For those dispossessed of the means of production and subsistence,
obedience is a necessity, and to question it, to assume disobedience as a
historical possibility – not as a simple passive rejection of the power of
capital, but as an active struggle to destroy it – they must question the
capital relation and consider the historical conditions needed to over-
come it. The reality of their situation, their subordinate position in the
capital relation, cannot be resolved by a magic, illusory freedom, but by an
efffective, real transformation of the conditions that deprive them of the
means of production and subsistence and subject them to obedience, sub-
ordinating them to the control of capital.
Only changes occurring to the capital relation can alter the reality of
the condition of the exploited and/or dominated in capitalist society.
Everything aimed at diverting their attention from the central axis of
magical, metaphysical, mystical or religious, from which people may choose, freely, the one
that best meets their needs for intellectual, emotional and spiritual development.
28 However, the importance and complexity of ideological domination must not be
underestimated. Consider, for example, the extreme but increasingly common case in our
societies, of the surplus population; while little has been achieved to establish some sense
of class consciousness, not even the most influential of the mass media, the most impas-
sioned political discourse, the most brilliant formula of distinguished intellectuals will
convince them, as they watch their children starving, of the benefĳits of a society that has
provided them with everything so that they can “be free.”
articulation of social relations, whether presenting sublime expressions of

freedom or employing the most sophisticated intellectual theorems, can
only serve to consolidate the power of capital. “Freedom of the will,”
afffĳirms Engels, “means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with
knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in rela-
tion to a defĳinite question, the greater is the necessity with which the con-
tent of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded
on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many dif-
ferent and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is
not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control”
(Engels, 1878).29
Ideological,30 economic and political domination are not independent
variables. As components of the social power of a class, their fate is linked
to the evolution of the basic relation, the capital relation. It is therefore
necessary to examine – and this is the purpose of the chapters that
follow – how this basic relation evolves and how, with its evolution, it
transforms the conditions of the domination of the capitalist class, the
conditions of its social power. But fĳirst we need to consider, in a synthetic
approach, the concepts of dominant class and dominated class.
For Gramsci, the state, the site for the establishment of a dominant
class, is “political society plus civil society.” This concept links the condi-
tions of ideological domination with those of coercive domination, and
associates, at least as a general, initial proposition, the conditions for dom-
ination with those for exploitation. The state not only organizes the domi-
nation of the dominant class over the dominated, but also ensures the
cohesion of the dominant class: it provides the dominant class with
“homogeneity and awareness of its function not only at the economic
level but also at the social and political levels” (Portelli 1998: 49). It ensures
the “organic link that connects structure and superstructure, civil society
and political society” (Portelli 1998: 93).
29 And Engels adds: “Hegel was the fĳirst to state correctly the relation between freedom
and necessity. To him, freedom is the insight into necessity: ‘Necessity is blind only in so far
as it is not understood.’ Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from
natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws and in the possibility this gives of system-
atically making them work towards defĳinite ends” (Engels, 1878).
30 “What occurs in the consciousness of the individual also varies historically; what
passes through the consciousness is not a purely individual afffair, but is conditioned – as
every individual is a social being – by the forms of individuality determined by the difffer-
ent systems of social relations” (Sánchez Vázquez, 1999: 20).
36 chapter one
In contrast, what characterizes the dominated classes is their lack of

unity and homogeneity: “the subordinate classes, by defĳinition, have not
been unifĳied and cannot be unifĳied until they are able to become the
‘state’… their history is no more than a constantly renewed attempt to
unify and form a new hegemonic system and, therefore, a civil society”
(Portelli 1998: 90).
CHAPTER TWO
THE GENERAL FORMS OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION
What could possibly show better the character of the capitalist mode of produc-
tion, than the necessity that exists for forcing upon it, by Acts of Parliament, the
simplest appliances for maintaining cleanliness and health?
K. Marx
Capital
In the previous chapter, I examined the basic features of domination as

components of the domination relation that links the dominators and the
dominated class in capitalist society. These features were examined as
static elements, without capturing their movement, as if they were parts
of a building. But in capitalist society, nothing is ever static. As a meta-
phorical image, the idea of a building is inappropriate. It might better be
described as a boat, sailing constantly over stormy seas; like the Pequod,
commanded by the obsessive Captain Ahab, tirelessly and incessantly
chasing the great white whale of profĳit.I If the entire relation of domina-
tion and capitalist exploitation, that is, the class relation as a whole, is
expressed in the capital/wage-labor relation, in the separation between
producers from the means of production and subsistence, the key to all
movement in the class relation lies in the development of the capital
relation.
In this tireless chase after its Moby Dick, the capitalist class develops
the capital relation; it is therefore necessary to investigate how the rela-
tion develops and how, based on this, it is possible to understand the
movement of capital domination, to distinguish the basic forms that it
takes in that movement and to periodize its history. In the previous chap-
ter, I presented the content of capitalist domination. The aim here, based
on that content and on an initial analysis of the development of the capi-
tal/wage-labor relation, is to identify its general forms, and to use these in
the next chapter to propose how to examine and periodize the history of
capital domination. While the content of domination is articulated
through exploitation, the forms of domination express a link between the
two, defĳined in the conditions organized by the capital relation itself.
38 chapter two
The Development of the Capital Relation:

Tendencies and Time Periods
To examine the movement and development of the capital relation, there

are two propositions in Marx that I consider fundamental. The fĳirst of
these is found in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy, in which Marx asserts that, in the social production of their exis-
tence, men necessarily enter into social relations that are independent of
their will and consciousness.1 The second is found in the Communist
Manifesto, in which Marx states that “all history is the history of class
struggle.”2 Taken in isolation, the fĳirst proposition appears to be determin-
ist, while the second seems voluntarist. In reality, both fall within a single
theoretical framework that links exploitation and domination, economics
and politics; the necessary regularities, which are determined by objective
social relations, are developed through social practice. The necessary ten-
dencies of the development of capital unfold through the struggle between
social classes: basically, the struggle of the capitalist class to subordinate
the working class to the needs of capital, and the resistance of the working
class against that subordination. Thus, to understand the development of
capitalism, an analysis of the forms of exploitation and accumulation and
their developmental tendencies is as important as an analysis of the forms
of domination and resistance through which they unfold.
For the case of capitalism, Marx undertakes an analysis of these social
relations, “inevitable and independent of the will and consciousness of
men,” in Capital, in which he demonstrates that these relations can be bro-
ken down into various developmental tendencies, general trends that
organize the progress of capitalist society and that mark out its limits:
increased labor productivity, increased organic composition of capital,
the concentration and centralization of capital, the expulsion of labor-
power from the labor process, the expansion of the industrial reserve
army, and the consolidation of a worker surplus population; fĳinally, he
shows how these tendencies are expressed in downward pressure on the
rate of profĳit.
1 “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into defĳinite rela-
tions, which are independent of their will, namely, relations of production appropriate to a
given stage in the development of their material forces of production” (Marx, 1859: Preface).
2 “Ever since the dissolution of the primaeval communal ownership of land, all history
has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between
dominating and dominated classes…” (Marx and Engels, 1883).
the general forms of capitalist domination 39
He also suggests that the same tendencies that push down the rate of
profĳit generate counter-tendencies, such as constant reduction of capital
and an increase in its technical composition more intense than the
increase in its value-composition. The search for counter-tendencies by
capital to avoid the drop in the rate of profĳit covers a wide range of possi-
bilities, but the basic counter-tendency, which ultimately supports all
others, is to increase the rate of surplus-value. In this way, capitalist devel-
opment is, inevitably, development of the productive force of labor. This
development is expressed in the tendency of the rate of profĳit to fall, a
trend which must be slowed down or temporarily reversed through the
implementation of counter-tendencies. These tendencies, which organize
the historical time of capitalism, running from its birth as a social mode of
organizing production through to its death, articulate its long term; the
historical duration of the capitalist mode of production.
With this basic theoretical proposition, an fĳield of analysis has been
established3 for the study of the historical development of capitalism as a
series of phases of economic expansion, the fundamental condition for
which is the existence of a historical set of economic, political and ideo-
logical circumstances that ensure a rate of profĳit that is satisfactory for
capital, and phases of depression resulting from the exhaustion of the
conditions that ensured an increased rate of profĳit during the period of
expansion that preceded it. The effforts of the capitalist class during the
period of depression will therefore be focused on searching for new his-
torical modes to increase the rate of profĳit once again.
Between one stage and another there is a basic continuity in terms of
the tendential laws of capitalist development; each stage begins with the
levels of labor productivity, organic composition and concentration of
capital with which the previous stage ended. From that point, the capital-
ist class must undertake the task of historical restructuring in order to
reactivate the rate of profĳit.
This is how the new economic, political and ideological modes that will
ensure the profĳitability of capital are defĳined, and also how the members
of the capitalist class who will be able to operate successfully in the new
conditions are determined; each historical era defĳines the dominant fac-
tion of the capitalist class, the faction that will be able to operate in the
new circumstances. Ultimately, this is the faction which, by saving itself,
saves capitalism as a whole.
3 See, for example, Hirsch, 1979.

40 chapter two
These phases or stages make up the middle term of capitalism; based on

the analysis of the long cycle or Kondratiefff cycle,4 various authors have
proposed periodizations which generally outline four periods of expan-
sion (1770 to 1830; 1850 to 1873; 1896 to 1914 and 1945 to 1967) followed by
their corresponding periods of depression (1830 to 1850; 1873 to 1896; 1914
to 1945 and 1967 up to the present). Dabat associates the long Kondratiefff
cycle with the concept of historical stages, or the “structural historical
form of capitalist development in the industrial era” (Dabat 1993: 163).
According to his proposition, the phase of expansion of the Kondratiefff
cycle corresponds to a historical stage of capitalist development, while the
phase of depression corresponds to a period of transition between one
stage and another.
Thus, the development of the capital/wage-labor relation can be exam-
ined on diffferent analytical levels; the historical phase articulates the spe-
cifĳic conditions for the expansion of capital but, viewed in succession,
each phase constitutes a moment in the course of the overall historical
time of the life of the capital relation. The analysis of the middle term
offfers explanatory dimensions and precise historical meanings when con-
sidered in relation to the long term.
There is no doubt that the features produced by the conditions of the
long term and middle term in the development of capitalism are of great
signifĳicance for the analysis of the development of the domination of cap-
ital and its forms. Chapter 10 of this study is dedicated to the analysis of
these relations but, to identify the general forms of capitalist domination,
we need fĳirst to examine the most direct and immediate features of the
capital relation in the consciousness and practice of capitalists.
The Spontaneous Movement of Capital and the General Forms of

Its Domination
The exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class consists in the
appropriation of surplus-value; capital is value that appreciates. Unlike
pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, which recognized a limit on the use
value and the consumption of the exploiting class, the capitalist form of
exploitation has an insatiable need to appropriate the labor of others: “If
machinery be the most powerful means for increasing the productiveness
of labor, i.e., shortening the working time required for the production of a
4 See, for example, Amin, 1975.

commodity,” states Marx, “it becomes in the hands of capital the most pow-
erful means… for lengthening the working-day beyond all bounds set by
human nature. It creates, on the one hand, new conditions by which capital
is enabled to give free scope to this its constant tendency, and on the other,
new motives with which to whet capital’s appetite for the labor of others”
(Marx, 1867: Ch.15, emphasis added).
Value, as pure condensation of work-time, is separated from use value;
capitalists don’t exploit to consume, but to accumulate, and they accumu-
late to exploit further, thereby generating a necessary dynamic of develop-
ment, structured within a context of specifĳic social contradictions. The
capitalist and the capitalist class, the personifĳication of the exploiting
party in this social relation, is the personifĳication of capital. The contradic-
tions and needs of incessant appreciation and accumulation of capital are
assumed as interests of the capitalist class: “Strictly speaking, it is capital,
and not ‘the capitalists’, that governs the process, imprinting its global
logic on the decisions which, stoked by individual capitalists, are taken by
the state” (Thwaites Rey and Castillo, 1999).
The existence of the working class, the personifĳication of the exploited
party in this social relation, is an absolute condition for the existence of
capitalist society. Without an exploited class there can be no exploitation
or exploiters; there can be no capital, no capitalists, and no accumulation.
The two social classes are constituent parts of the capitalist social relation,
structured within a context of necessary relations, “independent of their
will and their consciousness.” However, the capitalist, as the attentive and
diligent personifĳication of capital, is necessarily active in this relation.
Capital accumulation is a contradictory process, fraught with hurdles and
obstacles that must constantly be removed for accumulation to continue,
until new obstacles appear. Capitalists must therefore necessarily estab-
lish themselves as an organized class. It is not enough that each individual
capitalist attend to the needs of reproduction and accumulation of his
own capital; the class as a whole must set up forms of organization that
will permit it to attend to the general needs of capital accumulation.
The main obstacle to exploitation and the accumulation which that
exploitation must produce is, of course, the resistance posed by the
exploited against their exploitation. The capitalist class organizes itself
into a state to pursue its own interests, i.e. to overcome the resistance of
the workers and attend to the needs of exploitation and capital accumula-
tion, whatever name it may give those interests and needs: progress, civili-
zation, or simply the laws of the market. By organizing itself into a state,
the exploiting class also becomes the dominant class, endowed with the
42 chapter two
conditions required for the creation of the social order it needs to pursue
its interests, imposing that order on the dominated class. From this per-
spective, the history of capitalism can be analyzed as the history of the
struggle of the capitalist class to create the social order that capital requires
for its development.
The capitalist social relation involves one pole, the dominant, capitalist
class, necessarily organized and active in pursuing its class interests, while
for the opposite pole, the dominated working class, the situation is more
complex. Depending on the modes of domination and resistance, the
working class, viewed from the perspective of its organization as a class,
will assume one of three general modes:
• Disorganized – the situation that Marx calls the “class in itself,” simply
existing as a reality in the system of production relations, as a basis for
capitalist relations of exploitation;
• Organized, with an independent class organization to fĳight for its class
interests – the situation that Marx calls the “class for itself”;
• Organized, under terms compatible with bourgeois domination,
restricted within the framework of what Lenin calls “trade unionism.”5
Thus, on the side of capital, we have the “appetite for the labor of others,”
a constant tendency, an insatiable need, a logic that organizes its sponta-
neous movement, present throughout its historical cycle, and each and
every one of the historical stages of its development, regardless of the
period analyzed, is a short or middle term; this logic, this tendency, orga-
nizes the immediate, direct, spontaneous movement of capital. On the
other side, we have the working class, which may assume diffferent modes
and levels of organization and of capacity for resistance, depending on the
circumstances of the class struggle in its economic, political and ideologi-
cal context.
Based on this dual set of circumstances, we can identify two logical
forms, two general forms of capitalist domination: its natural form and its
contained form. In its natural form, capital organizes a type of domination
5 The following quote of Kautsky’s, cited by Lenin, defĳines “trade unionism”: “The object
of the mass strike… cannot be to destroy state power; its only object can be to make the
government compliant on some specifĳic question, or to replace a government hostile to
the proletariat with one willing to meet it half-way. But never, under any circumstances,
can it (the proletarian victory over a hostile government) lead to the destruction of state
power; it can only lead to a certain shifting of the balance of forces within the state power”
(Lenin, 1918: Ch. 6).
appropriate to the needs of its spontaneous movement, as it is structured

based on the movement imposed by individual capitalists, while in its
contained form, capital is faced with a working class, and a society in gen-
eral, that has managed to establish a certain level of containment of its
spontaneous movement, and so adapts its domination to these condi-
tions. The general features of each of these forms of domination are exam-
ined in the following section.
The Natural Form of the Domination of Capital
The natural tendency of capitalist class domination is the efffort to ensure

the subjection of the working class to the needs of the spontaneous
movement of exploitation and capital accumulation, to ensure the obedi-
ence of the exploited class, its subordination to the needs and interests of
capital, divesting it of the conditions that would make any resistance or
bargaining capacity possible. This means not only preventing them from
stopping the exploitation, but even from attempting to moderate it, to
negotiate the conditions for their exploitation, or to win some concession
from capital.
In defense of its right to quench its insatiable need for the labor of oth-
ers, capital, like an old, meticulous spiritual guide, is hostile to any sin of
resistance, whether of thought, word or deed.6 However, given that the
basic condition for resistance is organization, the capitalist class is, at least
in principle, particularly hostile to any form of organization on the part of
the working class.7 Capital needs a flexible working class; malleable, man-
ageable, easily manipulated, constantly adapted and adaptable to the
diverse and changing needs of capital accumulation.8 Any resistance from
the working class is viewed by the capitalists as an intolerable obstacle “to
progress, civilization, and the laws of the market.” This form of domina-
tion requires certain conditions, assumes a certain dynamic and has cer-
tain limits.
6 “In the domain of Political Economy, free scientifĳic inquiry meets not merely the same
enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the materials it deals with, sum-
mons as foes into the fĳield of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the
human breast, the Furies of private interest” (Marx, 1867: Preface to the 1st German
Edition).
7 Organization, according to Poulantzas, is the condition for the exercise of a specifĳic
class practice (Poulantzas, 1973: 128).
8 It is no coincidence that the favorite slogan of capital in these times of globalization is
“to make labor relations more flexible.”
44 chapter two
The general conditions for this form of domination are the weakness
and lack of organization of the workers, on the one hand, and a state per-
missive of “private initiative” (i.e. spontaneous, individual movements of
capital by each individual capitalist) on the other. The workers have suf-
fered some political and ideological defeat, and capital has transformed
and developed the capital relation with some technological revolution
which, on the one hand, increases its control on manufacturing and, on
the other, increases the surplus worker population, superfluous to the
needs of capital appreciation. In light of the weakness of the working
class, the state assumes the role, as Marx and Engels describe it, of “a com-
mittee for managing the common afffairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (Marx
and Engels, 1848), as the mere expression of the logic of capital.
Under these conditions, each individual capitalist will search for the
strategies that best suit him to increase his rate of profĳitability, with no
concern as to whether the outcome degrades the workers, society in gen-
eral and the environment, because attending to his long-term preserva-
tion, although a condition for reproduction for capital itself, is not
necessarily worthwhile from the perspective of immediate profĳitability.
And, in so far as his actions yield competitive advantages over other capi-
talists, these others will imitate his practices and even outdo them;9 the
logic of competition between capitalists contributes to the activation of a
spiral of growing social degradation, even to the detriment of their own
long- and medium-term interests.
However, according to Marx, “capital, which has such ‘good reasons’ for
denying the suffferings of the legions of workers that surround it, is in prac-
tice moved as much or as little by the sight of the coming degradation and
fĳinal depopulation of the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth
into the sun” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10). By way of explanation, he adds, “looking
at things as a whole, all this does not, indeed, depend on the good or ill will
of the individual capitalist. Free competition brings out the inherent laws
of capitalist production, in the shape of external coercive laws having
power over every individual capitalist” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10). The more
the process is abandoned to the initiative of individual capitalists, i.e. the
more absent the capitalist state is in the regulation of their behavior, the
9 “The division of labor within the society brings into contact independent commodity
producers, who acknowledge no other authority but that of competition…. [and]
denounces with equal vigor every conscious attempt to socially control and regulate the
process of production” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 14).
less control capitalists actually have and the more capital governs the
process.
Because “the fĳirst birthright of capital is equal exploitation of labor-
power” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10), the individual capitalist who best embodies
the logic of capital – for example, the one who establishes the longest
working day (if, given the technical combinations between duration and
intensity, this proves a profĳitable option) or the one who best organizes
the army of workers at his disposition, “making labor relations more flex-
ible and globalized” – will be the one who sets the pattern for all other
capitalists to follow, regardless of the processes of degradation that these
initiatives may unleash upon society. The limits on this form of domina-
tion depend on the extremes to which capital itself will go before it places
the general conditions for its reproduction at risk and provokes the grow-
ing resistance of workers, of society in general and, ultimately, the inter-
vention of the state to moderate and regulate its actions.
The resistance of the workers must be organized in such a way so as to
compel the capitalist class as a whole; restraining one individual capitalist
would probably only result in his bankruptcy, without resolving anything
in terms of the general mode of class relations. The trade union battle,
bringing one group of workers into confrontation with one individual cap-
italist, is not enough. To break this form of domination, workers must
achieve a certain level of general organization in the form of class organi-
zation. When it reaches its limit, this form of domination offfers a number
of possible conclusions:
• The struggle of the workers provokes the capitalist state, representative
of the whole capitalist class, to regulate and moderate the excesses of
capitalists.
• The struggle of the workers ultimately destroys the capital relation.
• The workers fail in their attempt and capital continues its work of
destruction and degradation.
In the fĳirst case, the natural form of domination of capital shifts to a con-
tained form. In the second case, capitalist society moves towards social-
ism. In the third case, at least while the failure of the workers persists or
until the capitalist state itself reacts, society and nature will continue to
sufffer the efffects of a growing process of degradation.
In summary, with the natural form of domination, the spontaneous
movement of capital, the movement arising from its internal logic, from
its insatiable need for surplus-value, from its exclusive attention to its own
interests, in the absence of a “general public interest” being imposed upon
46 chapter two
them, degrades society and the environment and generates a feedback

loop that can only be contained through the establishment of social limits
imposed not merely on one individual capitalist, but on the capitalist class
in general; limits which, in a capitalist society, only the state can establish,
but which it will only impose as a result of the struggle of the workers.
The Contained Form of the Domination of Capital
The state, as the “capitalist collective,” as the representative of the general

interests of capital, may, on its own initiative, contain the excesses of pri-
vate capital, especially when these excesses have reached the extreme of
placing the reproduction of capital itself at risk. However, the theory and
history of capitalism show that large-scale intervention by the state to sys-
tematically regulate the excesses of capital only occurs as the result of a
prolonged struggle on the part of the workers.
A brief review of the chapters “The Working-Day,” “Cooperation” and
“Machinery and Modern Industry” in Marx’s Capital, eliminating all refer-
ences to specifĳic historical issues and processes, serves to identify the gen-
eral moments marking the introduction of the contained form of the
domination of capital:
“The creation of a normal working-day,” says Marx, “is the product of a pro-
tracted civil war… between the capitalist class and the working class… In the
capitalist, the greed for surplus-labor appears in the straining after an unlim-
ited extension of the working-day… ‘Après moi le déluge!’ [“After me, the
flood”] is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation.
Hence capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless
under compulsion from society” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10, emphasis in original).
Neither capital nor its state will transform, on its own initiative, the natu-
ral form of its domination into its contained form: “the capitalist ‘rational-
ity’ implied in the state as the ‘ideal capitalist collective’, which assumes
the reproduction of both poles of the capitalist social relation, cannot be
explained solely as a direct product of the needs of capital, but must be
understood as the result of the struggle and the relative strength or weak-
ness of the labor pole to impose the limits of its own reproduction as a
class… it is labor-power itself that compels capital to guarantee its repro-
duction, that awards ‘rationality’ to the capitalist state as a project of gen-
eral social reproduction, while at the same time providing the elements
for the continued existence of the system through their legitimation”
(Thwaites Rey and Castillo, 1999).
The fĳirst condition for the appearance of the contained form of the
domination of capital is thus a process of complex and intense worker
organization and struggle, a class struggle, which places the workers in
confrontation not (or not only) with individual capitalists, but with the
state, the general representative of capital. Secondly, as a result of this
struggle, the containment must be imposed on capital by the state, and
must assume a form that is binding, coercive and legal: “The English
Factory Acts… curb the passion of capital for a limitless draining of labor-
power, by forcibly limiting the working-day by state regulations, made by
a state that is ruled by capitalist and landlord” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10).
Thirdly, the restrictions will meet with violent opposition from capital-
ists: “The working-class was everywhere proclaimed, placed under a ban,
under a virtual law of suspects. The manufacturers had no need any longer
to restrain themselves. They broke out in open revolt… against the whole
of the legislation that since 1833 had aimed at restricting in some measure
the ‘free’ exploitation of labor-power” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10).
Fourth, if restrictions cannot be prevented, the capitalists afffected will
demand that they be imposed upon all, to prevent disparities in their
“right to equal conditions” in the exploitation of the workers and competi-
tive disadvantages. The Factory Acts in England, the fĳirst labor legislation
enacted by a capitalist state, began as a set of special laws for mechanical
spinning and weaving mills, but the industries subject to the regulations
wanted an even playing fĳield, since “the fĳirst birthright of capital is equal
exploitation of labor-power by all capitalists,” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10), and so
demanded the universal application of the legislation.
Fifth, the restrictions should include the workers themselves, to prevent
the possibility that competition between them, job uncertainty and
unemployment may compel them to submit defenselessly to the condi-
tions imposed by capital: “For protection… the laborers must put their
heads together and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful
barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling, by ‘voluntary con-
tract’, themselves and their families into slavery and death” (Marx, 1867:
Ch. 10, emphasis added).
These conditions are the fĳirst signs of the transition toward the con-
tained form of capitalist domination. But there is one other condition
essential to defĳining the possibility of consolidating this transition: “When
the barons of industry submitted to what they had not been able to pre-
vent, and even reconciled themselves to the outcome, the force of resis-
tance of capital began little by little to weaken” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 13). In
other words, capital fĳinds some kind of compensation: if the working day
48 chapter two
is restricted, the intensity of the work is increased; if wages are increased,

worker productivity increases. Capital does not easily accept a reduction
in its rate of profĳit and surplus-value but, when compelled by the circum-
stances, it agrees to share the fruit of new advances in labor productivity
and intensity.
This means that a crucial condition for the consolidation of the con-
tained form of domination is that it be supported by advances in labor
productivity, i.e. that the mediation concerned be supported by increased
rates of exploitation and profĳit. If capital cannot fĳind a form of compensa-
tion, it will maintain constant and incessant opposition to any limitation
upon “freedom” and “free enterprise” and will defend its unrestricted right
to exploit labor. These are the circumstances for the transition from the
natural form to the contained form of domination: “that fĳirst conscious
and methodical reaction of society against the spontaneously developed
form of the process of production,” and the workers win concessions,
wrestled with considerable struggle from capital (Marx, 1867: Ch. 15).
The dynamic of the contained form of domination then begins to
appear: “what strikes us, then, in the English legislation of 1867 is, on the
one hand, the necessity imposed upon the parliament of the ruling classes,
of adopting in principle measures so extraordinary, and on so great a scale,
against the excesses of capitalist exploitation; and, on the other hand, the
hesitation, repugnance and bad faith with which it lent itself to carrying
those measures into practice” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 15, emphasis added). As the
hesitation, repugnance and bad faith in the administration of the conces-
sions won by the workers shows, the contained form of domination does
not put an end to the class struggle, but establishes a structured frame-
work for constant bargaining between capital and labor, mediated by the
state, in which each concession made by capital to labor is disputed time
and again, inch by inch, denied whenever capital can deny it, and con-
ceded only when there is no alternative.
The state no longer appears here as the organized arm of capital, giving
full rein to the “free initiative” of the capitalists and nothing to the pro-
foundly subjugated initiative of the workers, but intervening, “mediating,”
regulating the dispute between workers and capitalists, defending the
“reasonable” and the “possible,” orchestrating a complex social framework
that channels, orders, structures and limits the bargaining between the
classes.
This form of domination reaches its limit when the accumulation of
capital is faced with a crisis situation, i.e. a reduction in the rate of profĳit:
“invariably, states Marx, the crises follow a period of a general rise in wages
when the working class receives a genuinely larger portion of the com-
modities produced for consumption each year. It seems, therefore, that
capitalist production entails conditions that do not depend on good or ill
will, conditions that only fleetingly tolerate this relative prosperity of the
working class, and always in the nature of a storm-bird, a harbinger of the
crisis.”10
A capitalist economic crisis is always, essentially, the result of a reduc-
tion in the rate of profĳit; whatever the specifĳic historical circumstances
may be that have brought about the crisis, capital and its state will turn on
the workers to raise the rate of surplus-value and restore the level of the
rate of profĳit and, in circumstances of a crisis in capital accumulation and
a drop in the rate of profĳit, they will consider it totally inadmissible and
absolutely impossible to grant concessions to the workers: “the recovery
from the state of crisis will always be accompanied by an intense attack on
the living conditions of the masses” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 133).
From that moment, capital and its state will make every efffort to dis-
mantle the system of concessions established during the period of the
contained form of domination. Workers will try to hold onto the conces-
sions, which represent veritable historic victories won with great efffort
and intense struggle, with blood shed and lives sacrifĳiced by whole genera-
tions; however, having reached its limit, the logical way out offfered by this
form of domination is a return to the natural form. The workers, after a
reasonably long period that placed them in a political and ideological con-
text in which they could negotiate with capital and its state rather than
struggle against them, are unlikely to fĳind the ideological and political
conditions necessary to turn this crisis in capital accumulation into a revo-
lutionary crisis that could bring about the destruction of the relation of
capital to wage-labor.
With the return to the natural form of domination, and in a context of
new historical circumstances, in a new stage of the life cycle of capitalism,
of its middle and long term, the workers once again fĳind very narrow ave-
nues for negotiation; capital unleashes its natural logic, its spontaneous
movement, and the workers will once again have the opportunity (and the
need) to struggle against capital, to disobey it, to oppose its economic,
political and ideological domination.
10 Quoting from Capital (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 133).

50 chapter two
The General Forms and the Basis for Distinguishing Them
The class struggle, under the conditions of the contained form of domina-
tion, acquires a distinct framework, a means of processing the conflict
between the classes that is diffferent from the means applied under the
conditions of the natural form of domination; this framework is con-
structed based on the conditions for negotiating the concessions that
capital is willing and able to grant the workers and/or that labor is able to
wrestle from the capitalists.
In the establishment of this framework, the relationship between domi-
nant and dominated is not necessarily democratic. What distinguishes
one general form of domination from the other is not their degree of dem-
ocratic or authoritarian development (although we may acknowledge its
importance), but the recognition (or lack thereof) of the material interests
of the workers; i.e, the distinction does not lie exclusively in the political
sphere, as it is deeply rooted in the economic sphere, in the conditions
for exploitation of the workers and in the development of the capital
relation.11
Nor does the distinction between the forms of domination lie in the
sphere of ideology; the hegemony of the bourgeoisie, although expressed
as “intellectual and moral leadership,” according to Gramsci’s analysis, is
not a purely ideological matter. This hegemony requires material support:
“for the dominant class to ‘convince’ the other classes that it is the ideal
group to ensure the development of society, that is, that its own interests
are mixed up with the interests of the general public, it is necessary to
foster, within the economic structure, the development of the forces of
production, and the (relative) improvement of the standard of living of the
masses” (Thwaites Rey, 1994, emphasis added).
Marx, Engels and Lenin analyze the capitalist state as essentially
founded on its coercive capacity, what Gramsci calls “political society.”
Gramsci uses the term “East” to defĳine societies under a backward form of
capitalism, with a gelatinous civil society. On the other hand, in the societ-
ies of advanced capitalism, in which the bourgeoisie has established a
11 A brief reference to the case of Mexico may clarify this idea: it is clear that Mexico’s
post-revolutionary, developmentalist “social authoritarian State” maintained a much
greater commitment to the interests and material needs of workers than the current “neo-
liberal State”, offfĳicially labeled “democratic” or, at least, “in transition toward democracy”
(see, for example De la Garza, 1988). We thus fĳind that “democracy”, restricted appropri-
ately, can prove more exclusionary than a form of “social authoritarianism” that regulates
social demands, negotiating, granting or rejecting them.
solid “civil society,” the phenomenon of domination appears much more

complex. The bourgeoisie has set itself up as the hegemonic power, capa-
ble of exercising intellectual and moral leadership over society as a whole.
This is Gramsci’s “West.”
East and West (although they have Eastern and Western Europe as spe-
cifĳic historical referents) do not refer to geographical territories; rather,
they constitute theoretical constructions that explain two diffferent forms
of domination in capitalism. In the East, the workers are ideologically, and
even politically and organically, distanced from the capitalist state. In the
West, they are closely associated with the state, organized under its hege-
mony through their integration into civil society; the dominant class exer-
cises its power not only through coercion, but also by constructing a series
of mechanisms for ideological transmission and successfully imposing its
world view, its philosophy, its morality, its customs and its “common
sense,” which fosters the consent of the dominated to their domination.
However, to understand Gramsci’s notion of “civil society” and the
“hegemony” of the dominant class as a simple framework for ideological
production and dissemination would be to disassociate politics from eco-
nomics, the “superstructure” from the “structure”; it would mean subscrib-
ing to an idealist approach to analyzing the relation between the social
classes.12 If the bourgeoisie in the West appears to be hegemonic, this is
not due simply to its capacity for ideological production and dissemina-
tion, but to the fact that it has established a social framework in which
ideological production and dissemination and the organization of “civil
society” are closely associated with bargaining for and granting better
material conditions in the lives of the workers.13
Thus, in the East, “coercion and force appear as a consequence of the
failure of the bourgeoisie to present itself to society as ‘society itself’, and
consequently to be able to fulfĳill commitments to other classes. Because
for the dominant class to be able to present the state as a body of the peo-
ple as a whole, this representation cannot be entirely false; the state must
12 Nevertheless, in many of Gramsci’s interpreters, the explicit analysis of the material

basis of consent is absent, as is the structural role that this should have in the analysis.
13 “Overcoming vulgar economics – which requires emphasizing the importance and
complexity of the ‘intellectual and moral’ dimensions of bourgeois supremacy – should not
mean falling into an idealist notion that assumes the possibility of the construction of
general consent, hegemonic production and non-coercive rule without any reference to
the material conditions in which social power relations are expressed” (Thwaites Rey,
1994).
52 chapter two
take on some of the interests of the dominated groups” (Thwaites Rey,

1994).
In the natural form of domination, as analyzed above, capital is reluc-
tant to assume any commitment to the interests of the dominated, result-
ing in a distancing and growing conflict between dominated and dominant.
In the contained form of domination, the state, compelled by the struggle
of the workers, assumes the task of regulating the relation between classes
and negotiating concessions for the workers.
What I refer to here as the natural form of domination can be under-
stood in part as Gramsci’s East and in the basic theoretical propositions of
Marx, Engels and Lenin,14 while to understand the contained form of
domination, Gramsci’s West offfers the best point of reference. However,
making an efffort at abstraction as I have attempted to do in this chapter
in order to identify general forms of domination, without merely focusing
on the description of periods, helps to resolve a number of additional
problems.
First, the natural form, unlike Gramsci’s East, does not necessarily refer
to a backward or outdated form of capitalism, belonging to a remote and
forgotten past;15 as a general form of capitalist domination it is not limited
to a specifĳic historical period, but may reappear at any time, and this pos-
sible reappearance will be pregnant with diffferent meanings if the time of
its reappearance is analyzed in relation to the life cycle of capitalism, with
the long term of the capitalist mode of production, which is addressed in
Chapter 10 of this work.
Second, the contained form of domination is, as even its name suggests,
provisional. Of course, viewed in historical time, all forms of domination
are necessarily provisional, but this is very much contrary to what capital,
by its nature, demands. We could not conclude that this is the form that
“came to stay,” the stable form of capital domination, as a misreading of
14 I refer here to Lenin insofar as the analysis of the form of domination is concerned.
With regard to the form of struggle and victory over capitalist domination, I feel that there
are crucial diffferences between Marx and Lenin, and that Gramsci is much more consis-
tent with Marx: there is a considerable distance between the Leninist “vanguard party”
(which represents, leads and, fĳinally “liberates” the proletariat) and the Marxist proposi-
tion (“the emancipation of the proletariat can only be the work of the proletariat itself”),
just as there is between state capitalism, now long gone (which referred to itself as “real
socialism”) and the efffective socialization of the means of production and means of subsis-
tence, i.e. the real destruction of the capital relation.
15 For example, Portelli associates the “East” with pre-capitalism (Portelli, 1998: 143),
which would mean there would be nothing to learn from the “East” to explain the forms of
domination of the present day.
Gramsci and his analysis of the West might lead us to assume. It is clearly
the strong form of capitalist domination – strong in the sense that it is the
form that is presented as legitimate to the dominated and is therefore the
most susceptible to ideological manipulation to the benefĳit of capital
domination. For this same reason it is more important, in theoretical, ide-
ological and political terms, to determine at what time and under what
conditions it appears in the life cycle of capital and whether it may possi-
bly reappear.
Third, my purpose is not simply to reproduce Gramsci’s East and West
with another name, but to seek out more general features, to attempt an
abstraction and to identify general forms of capitalist domination. If gen-
eral forms can be found (and not merely forms associated with specifĳic,
unrepeatable historical conditions), it will then be possible to examine
them, not as periods in the history of domination, but as criteria for the
periodization of the history of domination, or general forms subject to dif-
ferent modes of historical expression. We may thus consider the history of
capitalist domination not only as a series of periods, but also as an alterna-
tion of forms of domination which, in their succession, acquire diffferent
historical meanings, associated with their position in relation to the long
term, the life cycle of capital.
Fourth, if with these general forms we can periodize the history of dom-
ination, we can identify variants within the same period in which a par-
ticular general form pervades, diverse and specifĳic historical examples
which nevertheless correspond to the same period in the history of capi-
talist domination and share certain essential features; in other words, dif-
ferentiated examples sharing the same historical territory, the same
general form of domination. This will be explored further in the following
chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
THE PATTERN OF DOMINATION:

HISTORICAL FORMS OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION
Present-day bourgeois society, no less than its predecessors, [has been exposed]
as a grandiose institution for the exploitation of the huge majority of the people
by a small, ever-diminishing minority.
F. Engels
Karl Marx
In the work of Marx, as well as in that of Engels and other Marxists (Lenin
and Gramsci in particular), we can fĳind the basis for a general theory
of capitalist domination. On the other hand, there is a vast number of
individual studies of capitalist domination in specifĳic countries and in
particular periods. The natural space for the organization of capitalist
domination is the nation-state. It should therefore not be surprising that
the study of specifĳic examples of capitalist domination naturally entails
the study of specifĳic nation-states.
World History of Capitalist Domination
It is my belief that between these two extremes (a general theory of capi-

talist domination and specifĳic national cases of such domination) an
intermediate theoretical and historical framework can be established,
which would allow us to delimit general historical periods of capitalist
domination. This would involve a kind of periodization which, on the one
hand, exhibits enough features to clearly identify and diffferentiate histori-
cal periods, but which, on the other hand, given the general nature of
those features, allows for a multiplicity and diversity of forms of domina-
tion by nation-states in the historical period concerned. In other words, if
the theory and history of capitalism shows that this periodization is via-
ble, the periods identifĳied would allow us to explain, in a description mov-
ing from the general to the particular, the specifĳic features that the
phenomenon of domination assumes in diffferent situations, but all in the
context of a period of world history.
56 chapter three
A proposition of this type may seem wildly ambitious in a world where

the domination of capital appears spread across so many diffferent nation-
states, each one claiming to be a sovereign, autonomous, independent
product of its very particular past and absolute master of its future, sug-
gesting that each state should prove radically diffferent, with its own,
unique and exclusive history. However, in spite of this claim to individual-
ity, capitalist states all belong to the same historical time. There is no
doubt that each state organization has its specifĳic characteristics, but all
have a shared history, a world history of capitalist domination, which is
grounded in world capitalist economic history.1
The intention behind the construction of this fĳield of analysis is to iden-
tify a historical rhythm, to fĳind basic structures, broad cycles in the history
of domination that allow us to posit a periodization that can be applied to
a synthetic analysis of the historical evolution of capitalist domination.
This periodization would also allow the identifĳication, beyond the infĳinite
diversity that can be found among all the specifĳic cases, of general tenden-
cies in capitalist domination.
Pattern of Domination
If we assume this proposition as a starting point, the second challenge we

face lies in the construction of criteria for periodization of this still pre-
sumed world history of capitalist domination. This problem was partly
resolved in the previous chapter with the identifĳication of general forms of
capitalist domination with the capacity to operate as criteria for the peri-
odization of its history, while acknowledging that such criteria are prone
to adopt diffferent modalities of historical specifĳicity. General forms, while
enabling us to periodize the history of domination, also make it possible
to identify variants within the same period in which a particular general
form prevails; diverse and specifĳic historical examples which nevertheless
correspond to the same period in the history of capitalist domination and
share certain essential features. In other words, they allow us to identify
1 “Marxism views the global economy not as a simple sum of its national parts but as a
powerful, independent reality created by the international division of labor and by the
global market, which, in our times, dominates every national market. The forces of produc-
tion of capitalist society swept away national boundaries some time ago. (…) The specifĳic
features of a national economy, as important as they may be, constitute to an increasing
degree the elements of a higher unit known as the global economy, on which, ultimately,
internationalism is founded,” Leon Trotsky (as quoted in Ayala and Figueroa, 2001).
the pattern of domination 57
diffferentiated examples sharing the same historical territory, the same

general form of domination.
The general forms proposed permit us to periodize the history of domi-
nation because they assume a particular manifestation in a specifĳic period,
organized into a pattern of domination. This means that a pattern carries
out the basic processes defĳined by a general form of domination in a spe-
cifĳic manner. Pattern of domination is therefore the name that I propose
to designate the historical manifestation of the general form of capitalist
domination that prevails in (and so delimits) a particular historical period.
A pattern of domination shapes a specifĳic historical period in the world
history of capitalist domination.
In short, the proposition is based on the following premises:
1. It is possible to construct an object of study called world history of capi-
talist domination, grounded in world capitalist economic history; i.e., a
world history of the development of the relation between capital and
wage-labor.
2. This history can be periodized according to general forms of capitalist
domination.
3. The historical manifestation of a general form constitutes a pattern of
domination, and the period of its prevalence constitutes a period in the
world history of capitalist domination.
The general forms of capitalist domination, according to the analysis of
the previous chapter, are its natural form and its contained form. The
proposition thus assumes that, beyond the particular features of the
numerous nation-states, we can delimit periods in the world history of
capitalist domination in which either the natural form or the contained
form predominate, expressed in one or several patterns of domination.
These periods are like historical waves sweeping across a beach. One
wave washes up here, crashes against a rocky outcrop over there, pene-
trates deeply into one area while barely touching another, drifts offf to one
extreme while scarcely approaching the other. But in the end, this wave
washes over the whole beach, and is distinguishable from the one that
preceded it and from the one that follows.
Obviously, the viability of this proposition needs to be tested against
the political history of capitalism, which is what I will attempt to do in the
following chapters. However, to prevent the proposition from being
reduced to an essentially empirical, historicist discovery, it must be posi-
tioned in relation to the theory of capitalism, giving it theoretical ground-
ing. This will be the purpose of Chapter 10, to relate the periods of the
58 chapter three
world history of capitalist domination, the historical succession of pat-

terns of domination, with the tendencies that organize the long term, or
life cycle, of capitalism from its birth through to its death: infancy, matu-
rity and decline.
Imperialism: Development and Underdevelopment
Up to this point I have examined the possibility of constructing a theoreti-

cal and historical framework that would link the level of the pattern of
domination directly with the nation-state. However, the historical reality
of capitalism makes it necessary to introduce an intermediate level
between the two. Since the emergence of imperialism, the world has been
characterized by two poles: the developed pole and the underdeveloped
pole. My examination so far has been of relevance to the developed pole,
and so, to complete the panorama, it is necessary to consider the situation
in the underdeveloped pole.
According to Víctor Figueroa Sepúlveda, the developed/underdevel-
oped dichotomy characterizes “the essential relation of the imperialist
system” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 13), and the diffference between one
and the other constitutes the basic problem in the capital/wage-labor
relation, and the conditions for the development of that relation. In devel-
oped capitalism, capital separates general labor (scientifĳic and technologi-
cal research, creation of new media and processes, i.e. expansion of the
forces of production and growth of the productive power of labor) from
immediate labor (the implementation or operation of the products
designed by general labor).
In contrast, in underdeveloped capitalism, capital does not organize
general labor, which means that its relation with wage-labor is depen-
dent on the general labor produced in developed capitalism; it is a form
of capitalism that can only function by importing the products of the
technological development of developed capitalism – capital equipment,
intermediate goods, even consumer goods (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989:
53–55) – although, obviously, in order to be able to import, it needs to
export. This situation unleashes a range of processes; those of interest to
this study are outlined below.
Developed capitalism sells the products of both general labor and
immediate labor to underdeveloped capitalism, which only sells prod-
ucts of immediate labor. This asymmetrical relationship translates into a
systematic transfer of value from the underdeveloped to the developed
world. Underdeveloped capitalism contributes to the stimulation of accu-

mulation in developed capitalism, while its own accumulation is limited.
The result of this is that its capacity for absorption of labor-power is lower,
and a surplus population, superfluous to the needs of capital, will be a
constant in its societies; the imperialist relation thus organizes an “uneven
distribution of unemployment” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 149) around
the world.
Wages will tend to be permanently low, on the one hand because the
surplus population pushes them downward, and on the other because
keeping them low becomes one of the conditions that underdeveloped
capitalism needs to export and, therefore, to be able to import. “The abso-
lute surplus population in Latin America,” explains Figueroa, “not only
contributes to the establishment of a low level of the value of labor-power
as it imposes limitations on the demands of active workers, but also
contributes to shaping the life aspirations of the workers” (emphasis in
original). “Their demands tend to be limited to very elemental questions…
the workers of the active army use up much of their energy and their strug-
gle in defense of their jobs… while… at the heart of the absolute surplus
population… survival becomes the life aspiration” (Figueroa Sepúlveda,
1989: 114–115, emphasis added).
The nature of underdeveloped capitalism thus produces at least four
consequences at the political level that need to be emphasized:
1. As the bourgeoisie of the underdeveloped countries acquires the
means for both the exploitation of immediate labor and for their own
expansion from the developed countries (i.e. from the developed pole
of imperialism), this relationship with the developed pole contributes
to the position of the local capitalists as the dominant class. As such,
the underdeveloped bourgeoisie will tend to be pro-imperialist; impe-
rialism also creates a social and political base for its reproduction in the
underdeveloped countries;2
2. The bourgeoisie representing underdeveloped capital is always depen-
dent on the bourgeoisie representing developed capital. However, as
technological progress pushes the sectors in which the underdevel-
oped pole has its exports toward the developed pole, the tendency is
toward a constantly decreasing need on the part of developed capital
2 “Capital as personifĳied by the Latin American bourgeoisie is not capital in general, but
underdeveloped capital, which at the same time makes it the carrier of the relations repre-
sented by underdevelopment and its main social and political base of support” (Figueroa
Sepúlveda, 1989: 91).
60 chapter three
for underdeveloped capital, which thus faces increasing difffĳiculties in

making itself useful; in other words, increasing difffĳiculties in building
an export sector under the condition of underdevelopment;3
3. The economic and political weakness of underdeveloped capital com-
pared to developed capital will therefore tend to deepen, while devel-
oped capital will tend to take what it needs from the region of the world
“entrusted” to underdeveloped capital directly without the mediation
of the latter;
4. It is a given that in the underdeveloped pole of the imperialist system,
where unemployment and poverty reign and where life aspirations are
reduced to defending your job (if you are employed) or to surviving
(if you are unemployed), the political structures are fragile and unsta-
ble. The underdeveloped world appears to be a permanent inhabitant
of Gramsci’s East: “underdevelopment constitutes the weaker pole in
the system, which makes it possible for capital under imperialism to
concentrate the most palpable manifestations of its contradictions in
the underdeveloped world” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 149).
The Forms of Domination in the Underdeveloped World
The question is thus whether in the tragic world of underdevelopment it is

possible to diffferentiate patterns of domination; whether, in the state that
represents the political organization of underdeveloped capital, the natu-
ral form of domination is the only possible form, or whether there is
something that can reasonably be identifĳied with the contained form of
capitalist domination.
To answer this question, we need to review the theoretical produc-
tion that identifĳies the specifĳicities of capitalism in underdevelopment.
Figueroa Sepúlveda, examining the historical process of Latin America,
distinguishes two forms of economic growth in the conditions of underde-
velopment.4 The fĳirst he calls absolute or “outward” growth: absolute
because in the underdeveloped pole no growth is possible without
exporting in order to be able to import; export production is favored, the
3 Food and raw material production is still “evolving and is an object of progress… this
suggests that the region (Latin America) may be stagnating in the exportation of basic
products… Technical progress allows developed countries to reduce their dependence on
our countries” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 164–165).
4 Two forms of economic growth reflecting particular patterns of industrial colonialism,
historical forms that express the basic tendencies of underdeveloped production in a
particular way” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2001: 12).
fate of the economy is linked to the development of exports and the under-
developed economy does not control its own development. The second is
relative or “inward” growth: although it depends on the growth of exports,
accumulation is aimed at the internal market (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986:
153–155).
Of the features which, according to Figueroa Sepúlveda, characterize
each of these forms of growth, a few of relevance to our topic are outlined
below:
In conditions of absolute growth, as it involves the use of competi-
tive capacity at an international level, the predisposition toward open-
ness to and dependence on foreign capital is accentuated. The effforts of
the state are not focused on the unifĳication of the nation or on the devel-
opment of the internal market, but on clearing obstacles to interna-
tional trade; the design is strengthened to keep wage levels down, as this
becomes a “comparative advantage.” Because it needs to operate with a
high organic composition, the capacity for absorption of labor-power is
greatly reduced, unemployment rises and competition between workers
intensifĳies. This type of growth fosters a concentration of wealth and a
gap between the poles of rich and poor, and is characterized by authori-
tarianism in the political sphere and free trade in the economic sphere
(Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 154–159).
In relative growth, industrialization, aimed at the internal market,
diversifĳies the branches of immediate labor and expands internal demand;
the state establishes mechanisms for the protection of this industry, cre-
ates an infrastructure aimed at facilitating internal transactions and, in
general, unifĳies and fosters the development of the internal market. The
number of workers expands, their organization is strengthened within set
limits and, if the process displays a certain continuity, wages should grow,
albeit slowly. This form of growth is characterized by an interventionist
state that is developed in the manner of a direct capitalist (Figueroa
Sepúlveda, 1989: 160–164).
Thus, as described above, if the political sphere (i.e. the sphere of domi-
nation, of regulation of relations between social classes) is inseparable
from the forms of economic organization, and if the basic distinction
between the general forms of capitalist domination lies in the recogni-
tion or denial of the material interests of the workers, it is clear that the
only possibility in underdevelopment5 for some mode of the contained
5 At least in the Latin American case, which is the case examined here, although it is
highly probable that the whole underdeveloped world shares the same essential
characteristics.
62 chapter three
form of domination to arise is associated with the relative or “inward”

growth of its economy and the role taken by the nation-state in this form
of growth. In this case, the underdeveloped economy disconnects to a cer-
tain extent from the global market and the local state acquires a certain
capacity to regulate the dynamics of the national economy, and, therefore,
to regulate relations between social classes.
On the other hand, under conditions of absolute or “outward” growth,
workers will face enormous difffĳiculties in establishing a political space to
moderate capital, as at least three phenomena occur which render impos-
sible the creation of anything vaguely resembling the contained form of
capitalist domination:
1. The local state cannot establish institutions for the containment of
capital or negotiation between classes, as wage levels need to be kept
low as a “comparative advantage” to promote exports and as part of the
“offfer” to attract investment by foreign capital;
2. Local underdeveloped capital will itself face difffĳiculties due to compe-
tition with the developed pole, and it tends to be expendable for devel-
oped capital, which generally appropriates the economic sectors and
natural resources that interest it;
3. Underdeveloped capital tends to use all the mechanisms at its disposal
to extract greater surplus-value from the workers, in an efffort to survive
the competition posed by developed capital.
It is thus clear that the conditions of absolute or “outward” growth, struc-
tured in a context of “free trade” and openness to direct investment by
imperialist capital, require the establishment of the natural form of
domination.
Command of the Developed Pole of the Imperialist System
As the underdeveloped pole needs to import as a prerequisite for any pro-

cess of economic growth, its fate is tied to the behavior of its export sector,
while the fate of this sector in turn depends on the process unfolding at
the developed pole of the imperialist system. The transitions from one
form of economic growth to another are not the result of internally gener-
ated or internally controlled processes. They do not arise, as in the case
of developed capitalism, from the process of internal class struggle, nor
from a fall in the local rate of profĳit, but from a crisis occurring at the cen-
ter: “it is a fall in the rate of profĳit at the center that unleashes all the
contradictions inherent to accumulation in the underdeveloped pole in

their most extreme form. Recessions do very little or nothing, while the
crisis lasts, to restore conditions for growth, as this will depend on eco-
nomic developments at the center” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 194).
This means that since the form of domination in underdevelopment is
linked to its form of economic growth, which is in turn associated with
processes defĳined in developed capitalism, the patterns of domination at
the underdeveloped pole will tend to be connected, to correspond as a
subordinate form, to the patterns of domination at the developed pole, as
both are tied to the same global economy, under the command of the
developed pole of the imperialist system.
While the organization of the patterns of domination in developed cap-
italism is defĳined by its own internal dynamics of class struggle and eco-
nomic behavior, in underdeveloped capitalism the pattern of domination
is associated with economic dynamics that are neither generated nor con-
trolled internally, but by the development of the capital/wage-labor rela-
tion at the center; it is the developed pole of the imperialist system that
imposes the basic tendencies of capitalist domination at the global level.
The Centrality of the Relation between Capital and Labor
According to the above, the concept of pattern of domination to explain

our object of study (i.e. the way in which capital dominates labor) needs to
include at least three interconnected dimensions: the organization of the
relationship between the state and capitalists; the organization of compe-
tition between capitalists; and the way in which the developed pole of the
imperialist system organizes its relation with the underdeveloped pole.
To clear up any possible confusion, it is worth concluding this chapter
with some reflections on the nature of the relationship between these
dimensions and the object of study.
With regard to the fĳirst dimension – the relationship between the state
and capitalists – it is my belief that it is not the relation that defĳines the
form of domination, but rather, that the reverse is true: the form of domi-
nation defĳines the relation. It is the weakness or resistance of the workers
that determines whether the state will leave the management of class
relations to the free initiative of capitalists, to the supposed consensus
between capitalists and individual workers, as occurs in the natural form
of domination, or whether the state will intervene in these relations and
manage them, organizing a forum for negotiation between the classes, as
occurs in the contained form of domination.
64 chapter three
The second dimension – competition between capitalists – is, at least

in relation to the object of study here, a derivative of the fĳirst. The degree
to which the state will allow free competition between capitalists or
intervene to regulate that competition is determined by the form of domi-
nation. Under the conditions of the natural form of domination, competi-
tion is free; however, under the conditions of the contained form of
domination, competition must necessarily be regulated or channeled by
the state. It is therefore clear that it is not the form of competition between
capitalists that defĳines the form of domination, but rather the other way
round.
With regard to the third dimension – the relation between the devel-
oped and underdeveloped poles of the imperialist system – I indicated
above that it is the developed pole that establishes the pattern of domina-
tion at the underdeveloped pole, while the organization of the patterns of
domination at the developed pole are determined by its own internal
dynamics of class struggle and economic behavior. Therefore, it is ulti-
mately the form of domination at each pole that defĳines the relationship
between the two poles of the imperialist system, and not the other way
round. This means that the form of growth (relative or absolute), with
its full range of consequences, which the developed nations impose on
the underdeveloped world, is more closely linked to the struggle of the
workers at the global level than to capitalist and state management of
underdevelopment.
The Dominant Faction of Capital
The analysis of the historical succession of the patterns of domination also

entails an analysis of the successive dominant factions of the capitalist
class. Each pattern of domination is associated with the domination of a
dominant faction of the capitalist class. The concept not only requires an
understanding of the general form of domination of the period, but the
identifĳication of the specifĳic subject behind that domination.
While the general question for the analysis of the relations of domina-
tion is “How does the dominant class dominate?,” the basic question in the
analysis of the pattern of domination is “How does the hegemonic faction
of the dominant class dominate?.” If, in general, we view capitalist domi-
nation as a producer of the social order that the capitalist class needs to
pursue its interests, the concept of a pattern of domination raises the
question of how a specifĳic faction of the capitalist class, established as the
hegemonic force in a specifĳic period, organizes a particular social order.
The Production Workshop of Domination Strategies
A pattern of domination results from a combination of ideological, politi-

cal and economic circumstances and class practices that express wills
and intentions in conflict, operating in a context of structural relations
with a tendential development, independent of will and consciousness.
However, in this section my intention is to highlight the intentional, vol-
untary, conscious component of the pattern of domination; it is necessary
to examine the creation of political initiatives by the dominant class in
conflict with the resistance of the dominated, its strategic intentionality
and its political will, not as a spontaneous result of the activities of govern-
ment and private capital, but as a systematic efffort to establish a method-
ology of domination.
The problem exists in all periods of domination but, as will be shown in
the following chapters, the need for a concept that examines this becomes
more obvious as capital makes an increasingly systematic efffort to put sci-
ence at the service of its domination; class domination becomes a matter
of design and scientifĳic application, a result of something that might be
called the “production workshop of domination strategies.”
This concept is analogous to the workshop of technological progress
proposed by Víctor Figueroa Sepúlveda as a place “where the productive
applications of science are processed” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 41). For
the development of the productive force of labor (i.e. for the development
of the relation between capital and wage-labor), there comes a time when
purely empirical knowledge is not enough and it is necessary to organize
science to carry out general labor as a specifĳic form of productive labor, in
a task of growing complexity and magnitude. Similarly, the history of the
domination of capital demonstrates the inadequacy of purely empirical
knowledge, and the task of domination becomes a matter of scientifĳic
production and application with the establishment of a “production work-
shop of domination strategies” as a place where the political applications
of science are processed.
Capital turns to science for answers to its problems of both exploita-
tion and domination.6 Like the workshop of technological progress, the
6 Although the basis of the relation between capital and wage-labor lies in the separa-
tion of workers from the means of production and subsistence, capitalism makes a range
of other expropriations and constructs diverse needs of exploitation and domination that
require science for their development: “the separation of workers from the means of pro-
duction in the economy, from the means of war in the army, from material means of
administration in government, from the means of research in the academic institution and
66 chapter three
production workshop of domination strategies constitutes “a complete,

integrated network” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 42) connecting political
parties, trade unions, universities, business and professional associations,
think tanks and government departments. Its task is to provide capital
with mechanisms for domination and to promote incentives for competi-
tion and division among workers, thereby hindering the construction of
viable alternatives. It conducts scientifĳic and technological research with
military and law enforcement applications and produces everything from
geoeconomic and geopolitical designs to strategies for mind manipula-
tion. And at its helm is the state, increasingly connected to the major
monopolies, coordinating its strategic coherence.7
This concept is useful for analysis, but also for political purposes. It is
analytically useful because, if domination and its forms are not a sponta-
neous product but, at least in part, the result of strategic class designs, we
need a concept that enables us to identify where and how such designs are
structured. It is politically useful because examining the subject of the
process (the class, faction or power group) helps to expose the most basic
resource of bourgeois ideology: to present the order of capitalist society as
an expression of human nature, the needs of capital as natural needs and
the process of capital as a natural process without a subject, in order to
discourage inquiry by the dominated who seek the cause of and the solu-
tion to their woes. If, as their ideologues take for granted, the laws of the
operation of capital are as natural and eternal as the law of gravity, the
woes of the workers are natural, eternal and irremediable and the only
rational response is resignation.8 But if capital is a social and historical
product, resignation is not only irrational but impossible.
the laboratory, is a common decisive factor both to the modern military-state politi-
cal enterprise and to private capitalist economics” Max Weber (as quoted by Portantiero,
1981: 17).
7 “In the United States we fĳind… from the direct enlistment of intellectuals, scientists
and academics in State and Defense department programs (see the Report of the Panel on
Defense Social and Behavioral Sciences, Trans-action, May 1968), to the incorporation of
social scientists into operations designed and piloted by the Pentagon and the CIA against
revolutionary movements (Irving Louis Horowitz: “The Life and Death of Project Camelot”,
in Professing Sociology, Aldine, Chicago, 1968), and even the use of private foundations (the
Ford Foundation and many others) and ad hoc associations (Congress for Cultural
Freedom, etc.) efffectively coordinated by the U.S. Administration to organize both intel-
lectual and media initiatives in order to promote the objectives of the United States”
(Vidal-Beneyto, 2002).
8 The laws of the market are, in bourgeois discourse, analogous to the laws of nature and,
particularly in neoliberalism (which in reality is a theology), they have the same logical
structure as the laws of God.
For decades, capitalist states, particularly the imperialist ones, have

been developing the “production workshop of domination strategies,” per-
fecting the applications of science in designs of both domestic and foreign
policy.9 Every nation-state and every local government has its offfĳices of
experts, but organizations like the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon, accus-
tomed to designing strategies with global reach, are veritable repositories
of political wisdom, shining stars in the universe of the “production work-
shop of domination strategies.” As are the most sophisticated offfĳices of the
IMF and the World Bank which, particularly in the current period of neo-
liberal globalization, design global economic policy while their experts
prevent the social and political efffects of those economic policies and
defĳine what they refer to as governance and governability strategies (usu-
ally preceded by the elegant qualifĳier democratic); in other words, strate-
gies for imposing the economic policy that the major global corporations
need without inciting protest, or for defusing protest and reducing it to
irrelevance. These offfĳices issue instructions, particularly imperatives for
the governments of underdeveloped countries, both to design policies
that will make their countries more competitive and attract the invest-
ment of capital, and to fĳight extreme poverty, reform their education sys-
tems, empower “civil society” or strengthen “local governments.”
Moreover, all this wisdom, this monopoly of knowledge and informa-
tion, is concentrated in stable social groups removed from public scrutiny,
protected against any kind of democratic control, far from the vicissitudes
of political-electoral processes. In the United States, governments come
and go, Democrats and Republicans alternate in power, but the CIA, the
FBI, and similar organizations, remain as undisputed pillars of the “pro-
duction workshop of domination strategies,” and are constantly develop-
ing their knowledge.10
The state “penetrates more deeply into society and concentrates soci-
etal intelligence and the capacity for command, in a dual process of con-
centration of activity and monopolization of knowledge,” and the new
forms of organizing the relation between governors and governed
9 For example, the Cold War and the fĳight against “the communist threat” at the peak of
the post-war period offfered vast territories of experimentation and development, just as
the so-called “fĳight against organized crime” does today.
10 “The fact that the historical development of political and economic forms has seen
the rise of the ‘career’ civil servant, technically skilled in bureaucratic work (civil and mili-
tary), is of primordial importance in political science and in the history of forms of govern-
ment” Gramsci (as quoted by Portantiero, 1981: 49).
68 chapter three
“strengthen the relative position of the power of bureaucracy (civil and

military), of high fĳinance and of all authorities in general, relatively inde-
pendently of the fluctuations in public opinion” (Portantiero, 1981: 34–54).
Centralization of class power runs parallel to the concentration of capital
produced by fĳinancial capital,11 monopolization and imperialism; as capi-
talism develops, the organized forces of the major monopolies and the
state grip fĳirmly on the reins of economic and political power.
11 See Lenin’s defĳinition of the merging of banking and industrial capital (Lenin, 1916:
226).
CHAPTER FOUR
THE HISTORY OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION
In any given society, the striving of some of its members conflicts with the striv-
ing of others, [and] social life is full of contradictions. Marxism has provided
the guidance – i.e. the theory of the class struggle – for the discovery of the laws
governing this seeming maze and chaos.
V.I. Lenin
Karl Marx
In the previous chapter I argued that, beyond the specifĳic features of each
of the many diffferent nation-states, it is possible to identify periods in the
world history of capitalist domination in which either the natural form or
the contained form has predominated, and that the historical manifesta-
tion of a general form constitutes a pattern of domination in such a way
that its period of prevalence is efffectively a period in the world history of
capitalist domination. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the via-
bility of this proposition by analyzing the political history of capitalism (if
only in a general historical outline) in terms of the concept of the pattern
of domination.
Pattern of Domination and Periodization
If we look back over the history of capitalism, we fĳind a long historical

period of formation and consolidation of the capitalist relation as the
dominant relation, running from the 16th century (exploration of the
world, new discoveries, construction of the fĳirst colonial empires, develop-
ment of manufacturing and formation of a global market) up to the end of
the 18th century. This was the period of transition from feudalism to capi-
talism; the capitalist class, fĳirst under the direction of commercial capital
and later under that of productive capital, embarked on a process of trans-
formation from feudal society to establish the social order necessary for
the assertion and development of the capitalist production relation. As
interesting as it might be to analyze the modalities assumed in the estab-
lishment of the bourgeois class as the dominant class during the long
70 chapter four
process of transition from feudalism to capitalism, this is not my purpose

here.
If we consider the history of domination in capitalism once it had been
established as the dominant relation in the economic and political
spheres, i.e. from the end of the 18th century, beginning in England with
the Industrial Revolution, which lay the foundations of modern industry,
and with the bourgeois revolutions – particularly the French – which set
up the capitalist class as the dominant class (in other words, as the state),
up to the present, we fĳind three major periods in the history of capitalist
domination, defĳined in their basic historical expression by developed cap-
italism: in the fĳirst, the natural form of domination predominates; in
the second, the contained form, and in the third, once again the natural
form.
In developed Western capitalism, these three periods are defĳined by
three patterns of domination: the fĳirst by the liberal pattern, the second by
the Keynesian pattern and the third by the neoliberal pattern of domina-
tion. The fĳirst and the third are historical manifestations of the natural
form, while the second is a historical manifestation of the contained form
of capitalist domination. The liberal pattern constitutes the fĳirst historical
expression of the natural form while the neoliberal pattern is its second
expression. These three patterns of domination correspond in Latin
America to the oligarchic pattern, the developmentalist pattern and the
neoliberal pattern of domination, respectively. The oligarchic and neolib-
eral patterns are the Latin American expression of the natural form in its
fĳirst and second historical emergence, while the developmentalist pattern
is the contained form of capitalist domination.
In the previous chapter, I used the image of a wave washing over a beach
to explain how I understand the historical development of each pattern of
domination; my intention is not necessarily to suggest a homogeneous or
globally simultaneous situation, but to identify a historical trend that
could defĳine the basic features of the prevailing form of capitalist domina-
tion, to fĳind basic structures or general “cycles” in domination. The aim
here is to establish a kind of periodization which, beyond the infĳinite
diversity that can be found in the wide range of specifĳic features, will allow
the identifĳication of the general tendencies in capitalist domination. As
will be shown in Chapter Ten, these tendencies are associated with the
long term, the historical cycle of capitalism.
To provide further context for this study, what follows is a brief outline
of the characteristics of the fĳirst two of these periods in capitalist domina-
tion and of the patterns of domination that defĳine them (liberal and
the history of capitalist domination 71
oligarchic; Keynesian and developmentalist). The analysis of the neolib-

eral pattern will be taken up in Part Two.
The First Emergence of the Natural Form
As mentioned above, capitalism was established as the dominant relation

in the economic and political spheres in Western Europe towards the end
of the 18th century, beginning in England with the Industrial Revolution,
which laid the foundations of modern industry, and with the bourgeois
revolutions (particularly the French Revolution), which established the
capitalist class as the dominant class. From that point on, capitalism
began to transform the rest of the world, exporting commodities, export-
ing capital, importing commodities, transforming production structures
and, in short, transforming social relations around the world.
Capitalism was born in Western Europe, but once born, it would foster,
engender and condition its successive births in the rest of the world, trans-
forming but also combining with the local, “traditional” forms of domina-
tion and exploitation, in accordance with the historical pre-capitalist
forms in each region of the world where capital would be introduced.
Most of the products of these successive births, particularly those in which
capital developed into imperialism, would be deformed, incomplete forms
of capitalism: underdeveloped capitalism.
The general form assumed by this process is described by Marx in
Capital: .”..[I]n any given economic formation of society, where not the
exchange-value but the use-value of the product dominates, surplus-labor
will be limited by a given set of wants which may be greater or less, and
here no boundless thirst for surplus-labor arises from the nature of the
production itself. But as soon as people, whose production still moves
within the lower forms of slave-labor, corvee-labor, etc., are drawn into the
whirlpool of an international market dominated by the capitalistic mode
of production, the sale of their products for export becoming the principal
interest, the civilized horrors of over-work are grafted onto the barbaric
horrors of slavery, serfdom, etc.” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 10).
I believe that it is possible to demonstrate that the form of domination
that capital establishes around the world at its birth, and which develops
during the course of its infancy, corresponds to the characterization I have
offfered of the natural form, and that, as capitalism develops into imperial-
ism, in the gestation of underdeveloped capitalism the domination and
exploitation of capital comes into being by combining with the forms of
72 chapter four
domination and exploitation of the local pre-capitalist classes, at least

unless capital introduces its own specifĳic forms.
In Western Europe, this combination was the result of a compromise
between the nascent bourgeoisie and the feudal state which was settled
relatively quickly in favor of capitalist domination. Conversely, in the rest
of the world the combination was between an already globally dominant
bourgeoisie and local powers which, in this way, for better or for worse,
initiated their transition toward capitalism – underdeveloped, in almost
every case, apart from a few exceptions such as Japan – but which were
already associated with the accumulation of capital; as such, these are
forms of capitalist domination.
The result is that from its birth the form of domination in the underde-
veloped world was linked to its form of economic growth, and the patterns
of domination at the underdeveloped pole would tend to be connected, to
correspond as a subordinate form, to the patterns of domination at the
developed pole, as both are tied to the same global economy, under the
command of the developed pole of the imperialist system.
An example of this is the connection between European despotism and
Asian despotism, as analyzed by Marx in his examination of European
domination in India. This connection, which resulted from an insatiable
need of capital to appropriate the labor of others, which is uncontained in
the historical circumstances of its birth, gave rise to a particular historical
manifestation of the natural form of capitalist domination through its
combination with a specifĳic pre-capitalist form of domination: “to charac-
terize the working of the British East India Company,” explains Marx, “it is
sufffĳicient to literally repeat what Sir Stamford Rafffles… said of the old
Dutch East India Company: ‘…actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and
viewing their subjects with less regard or consideration than a West India
planter formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had
paid the purchase money of human property, which the other had not,
employed all the existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the
people their utmost mite of contribution, the last dregs of their labor…’”
(Marx, 1853).
The emergence of the natural form of domination as a general histori-
cal form (although it has assumed diverse modalities or patterns of domi-
nation, particularly diffferentiated between developed and underdeveloped
capitalism) marked the beginning of the historical cycle of capital, spread-
ing around the world as unevenly as the spread of capitalism itself. This
form was introduced wherever capitalism was born, over the course of a
period of time beginning in the late 18th century and running throughout
the 19th.
An examination of the spread of the natural form of capitalist domina-
tion, tracing its historical path from its birth and introduction around the
world, is beyond the scope of this study. I will therefore limit my study of
this historical panorama to the presentation of the general features that
this form assumed as the liberal pattern of domination in developed capi-
talism, particularly in England (which was the hegemonic state at the
global level during the period), and as the oligarchic pattern of domina-
tion in Latin America.
Liberal Pattern of Domination

The fĳirst real period of bourgeois domination was organized under the lib-
eral pattern, the prevailing pattern in developed capitalism, and the natu-
ral form, as a general historical form assuming diverse modalities or
patterns of domination, defĳines an entire period of world history: the
beginning of the historical cycle of industrial capital and its spread around
the world over a period of time beginning in the late 18th century and run-
ning throughout the 19th century.
This period begins with the Industrial Revolution; at the heart of the
production process, in the capitalist factory, labor had been efffectively
subsumed by capital,1 representing a major defeat for the worker. As I indi-
cated in the fĳirst chapter, capitalist domination over the worker by this
time also appeared as subordination of the laborer to the machine.
Workers were deprived of many of their productive faculties, just as before
they had been deprived of the means of production; by developing the
productivity of labor, capital created its own reserve army and intensifĳied
competition among workers.
In short, the Industrial Revolution stripped workers of the possibilities
of bargaining or negotiation with capital which they had achieved for
factory conditions. These transformations, occurring at the level of the
capital/wage-labor relation, in the relations of exploitation and domina-
tion as these were expressed within the sphere of production itself, were
complemented by transformations occurring in the sphere of politics and
ideology.
1 See Marx’s discussion of relative surplus-value (Marx, 1867) and his explanation of the
concepts of formal and real subsumption (Marx, 1863).
74 chapter four
The bourgeoisie had already established a specifĳically capitalist techni-

cal base – the machine – and was preparing to transform the productive
structure of Europe and of the whole world, as the Industrial Revolution
began to demonstrate its enormous transformative potential. In the politi-
cal sphere, the era of bourgeois revolutions began; throughout this period,
the bourgeoisie gradually consolidated itself as the dominant class in
Europe, essentially leaving behind the political forms of compromise with
the feudal classes – the absolutist state in particular – which had charac-
terized the last phases of the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
In these revolutionary processes, at least at their most radical moments
(particularly in France in the late 18th century), the bourgeoisie led the
people (i.e. of the oppressed and exploited classes) against feudal oppres-
sion and exploitation. It set itself up as the representative of a project of
civilization that offfered liberty, equality and fraternity in a context of con-
stant progress under the aegis of reason to manage relations with nature
and relations among human beings themselves. Afffairs among human
beings were no longer under the control of divine will: there is nothing
more than humanity. Humans have inalienable rights, and people agree
on the modes of their relations through a pact or contract to ensure a level
of order that guarantees well-being and happiness for all.
At the beginning of the liberal period, workers found themselves
defeated in the sphere of production and subsumed in the political, ideo-
logical and organic spheres, as part of the “people,” under the political and
ideological direction of the bourgeoisie. And on this foundation of worker
defenselessness, the liberal structure of domination was built. Since abso-
lutism, the bourgeoisie had already been fĳighting to establish “property
rights,” and its fĳirst act upon establishing the bourgeois state was to guar-
antee capitalist property, i.e. to give legal status to the relation that sepa-
rates direct producers from the means of production and subsistence.2 In
this way, the capital/wage-labor relation was afffĳirmed as the basis of the
new society, thereby bringing into efffect the whole range of the “necessary
relations, independent of the will and consciousness of men” that charac-
terize capitalism.
Having legally afffĳirmed the capital relation, the separation between
producer and means of production, as the inviolability of property, and
2 “Private property, which constitutes the basis of bourgeois society, occupied the cen-
tral position in liberal theory and the constitutional systems of the period: to ensure the
inviolable character of property and the power to dispose of it freely, guaranteeing the
unimpeded development of industry and commerce” (Kuhnl, 1978: 50).
reduced the workers to a state of defenselessness, the liberal pattern of

domination led to private agreements, to negotiation between free and
equal individuals, in the determination of the conditions of sale and use of
labor-power. According to Kuhnl, “the law had to be limited to the regula-
tion of formal relations between individuals; it could not hope to deter-
mine the content of the private sphere, including the area of production
and distribution of goods. The state and the law could only fulfĳill the func-
tion of guaranteeing the basis of bourgeois society – private property –
and of setting the general framework in which the free competition of
economic entities and opinions could occur. Individuals, legally free and
equal, had to regulate their mutual relations through freely determined
private agreements” (Kuhnl, 1978: 48).
“The state,” adds Kuhnl, “has the sole function of setting general rules
regarding the movement of private individuals and of protecting their
liberty and their property, but must remain neutral with regard to the
content of the agreements established between them (state as ‘night
watchman’). Bourgeois society was elevated to the sphere of private
autonomy, while public authority was subordinated to the needs of private
life” (Kuhnl, 1978: 53, emphasis added). In this way, according to the domi-
nant ideology of the era, an order is assured in which the people regulate
their afffairs freely themselves, without resorting to violence, in a rational
manner in which material justice would arise of its own accord (Kuhnl,
1978: 55); liberalism proclaims “liberty and progress” on behalf of all
human beings.
It is clear that relegating the regulation of relations between social
classes to “the private sphere” when the working class has no means of
defense efffectively hands control of the process over to private capital and
to the logic that organizes its spontaneous movement. There is no need to
explore here the terrible excesses produced by the private agreements, the
negotiations between free and equal individuals, in the forms of labor
exploitation imposed by capital: excessively long working days, reduction
of wages, health problems, abuse of female and child labor, etc. Marx doc-
uments these in detail, particularly in the chapters “The Working Day” and
“Machinery and Modern Industry” in Volume I of Capital.
The picture that characterizes the liberal pattern of domination is com-
pleted with liberal democracy and bourgeois individualism. With regard
to liberal democracy, there are three dimensions worth highlighting: the
delimitation made between the “public” and “private” spheres, the form of
expression of inter-bourgeois relations and the form of organization of the
political relation between capital and labor.
76 chapter four
The fĳirst aspect has already been partly addressed above. The public
sphere, which organizes the activities of the state, is clearly delimited; it
has the sole function of setting general rules regarding the movement of
private individuals and protecting their liberty and property. Everything
else falls within the private sphere and is beyond the authority of the state;
the state must remain neutral with regard to the content of the agree-
ments established between free and equal individuals.
It should be added here that democracy is a form of administration of
the public sphere – a form of administration of state activity. The limits of
the public sphere are therefore also the limits of the territory of democ-
racy; everything excluded from the public sphere is also excluded from the
administration of democracy. In other words, in the liberal state, the con-
tent of the agreements established between free and equal individuals are
not a public afffair, nor are they subject to any regulation arising from the
state’s administration of democracy. They are simply matters excluded
from the public agenda.
In relation to the second aspect – the form of organization and expres-
sion of inter-bourgeois relations – it should be noted fĳirst of all that, in this
fĳirst stage of the life cycle of capitalism, ownership of the means of pro-
duction and subsistence (i.e. the capital/wage-labor relation) was spread
out over a large number of capitalists. In its fĳirst stage, the liberal state was
the political expression of competitive capital, in the phase of free capital-
ist competition: it was this multiplicity of capital owners that gave rise to
the liberal state in its fĳirst stage, prior to the rise of imperialism in the last
third of the 19th century. The periodical elections of governments and
their control by legislative bodies reflected the conditions of inter-
capitalist competition and the need to prevent the state from being used
by individual capitalists to promote their accumulation over that of their
competitors.
Of course, the bourgeoisie has never been a homogeneous class at any
time in its history. It has always been divided into groups and factions, and
inter-bourgeois conflicts are reflected in the struggles for control of the
state. However, in this period (as never again in periods that followed), the
state was the state of the whole bourgeoisie, and its status as a democratic
institution, specifĳically the principle of the division of powers, operated
efffĳiciently. In the subsequent periods, as we will see later, the state favored
the interests of one faction of the capitalist class and, consequently, execu-
tive power acquired a clear preeminence over the other powers that con-
stitute the formal institutions of bourgeois democracy.
In relation to the third aspect – the form of organization of the political

relation between capital and labor – liberal democracy radically excluded
non-owners (i.e. the workers); it was democracy exclusively for the owners
(i.e. capitalists and landlords). Owners ensured their control of “private”
afffairs through private agreements between free and equal individuals, as
well as control of “public” afffairs. Civil rights were based on property and
income or revenue for three reasons: fĳirst, because property owners were
the ones who paid the taxes that the state had to decide how to spend,
thereby giving them the right to participate in the decisions that afffected
the public interest; second, because only an educated person could be
expected to have the capacity for discernment to decide on matters of
public interest, and access to education depended on having sufffĳicient
resources; third, because only property could provide men with the free
time necessary to be able to exercise their political rights (Kuhnl, 1978: 56).
In light of the above, it is no surprise that voting rights in liberal institu-
tions were limited to property owners “to avoid the perils of demagoguery”
and that universal sufffrage was viewed as “a favor done to ignorance, vul-
garization and brutalization of public life… an opportunity to unleash the
forces of stupidity, superstition, malignancy and lies, and selfĳish and vul-
gar interests,” which must be opposed by the “the upper classes, the prop-
erly instructed classes” (Kuhnl, 1978: 58). And, fĳinally, it should be noted
that bourgeois individualism3 on the one hand reflected the conditions
under which relations among capitalists themselves were established, the
nature of the relations of competition under which each property owner
necessarily operated; it was a society in which each individual attended to
his property, to his interests, and to the expansion of his capital.
However, analyzed from the perspective of the relation between capi-
talists and wage-laborers (and this is the fundamental aspect for the topic
examined here), bourgeois individualism constitutes a proposition to
erect a structure of domination. Faced with the organized economic,
political and ideological force of the capitalist class, laborers, relying only
on “their individual efffort,” as the liberal ideology proposes, are defense-
less: “The history of the regulation of the working day… prove[s] conclu-
sively that the isolated laborer… when capitalist production has once
3 The criticism of bourgeois individualism does not imply a denial of the importance of
the individual; in Marx, in clear contrast with the so-called “real socialism” of the 20th
century, a socialist project of liberation only has meaning if it guarantees the full realiza-
tion of the individual (See for example Fromm, 1978; Mészáros, 1978).
78 chapter four
attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance” (Marx,

1867: Ch. 10).
During the liberal era, there was clear and open hostility to any form of
working class organization. Individualism was nothing more than an ide-
ology, a conception of the world of which the bourgeoisie hoped to con-
vince the workers. It was not merely a recommendation or suggestion;
workers who were not convinced of the wondrous virtues of individualism
and, in spite of it, sought to promote unions or any other type of organiza-
tion, would have to face the aggressive, organized violence of the state.
Clearly, according to the logic of the liberal pattern of domination, worker
organization is an intolerable attack against liberty and against the order-
ing principle of social life: the private agreement between free and equal
individuals.4 With this situation, the best of all possible worlds had arrived
in the eyes of the bourgeoisie and, for the fĳirst time in capitalism, the end
of history was proclaimed. There were no more social classes, no more
oppression, no more exploitation; all these social curses belonged to the
feudal past. Now, each individual could carve out his own destiny by his
own efffort.
This was the discourse of modernity, the discourse of a class that was
quite clear about the exact limits of its identifĳication with the interests of
“all men”; but it was also an optimistic discourse of a class that believed
itself capable of managing progress and happiness for all, although, of
course, more for some than for others.5 However (and this is the point at
which an examination of the Keynesian pattern of domination begins),
the development of capitalism itself created the space in which the fĳirst
forms of working class organization and resistance would take shape. But
fĳirst, an examination is needed of the Latin American correlate of the lib-
eral pattern: the oligarchic pattern of domination.
4 “With the victory of liberalism, social assistance measures were suppressed due to
their incompatibility with the principles of free economic expansion, legal equality of per-
sons and non-intervention of the State in the economy; as a result the working-day grew
longer and female and child labor increased. As any form of labor association was prohibited
under very severe laws, the afffected parties accepted the work conditions imposed upon
them. The submission of the workers to discipline and obedience would not have been
possible without the help of the bourgeois State” (Kuhnl, 1978: 81, emphasis added).
5 “A class in an upward phase like the bourgeoisie tends to develop an optimistic inter-
pretation of its social function and of the world in general. The basis of the liberal concep-
tion of the world rests on the conviction that history constitutes a rational evolution
toward superior forms of life; man learns to dominate nature with increasing ability and
will ultimately subject the development of society to the demands of reason. Man is con-
ceived as naturally good and capable of attaining perfection; he only needs the opportu-
nity to develop freely. Together with the doctrine of natural rights and the natural
Oligarchic Pattern of Domination

During Latin America’s time as a Spanish colony, the predominant pro-
duction relation was slavery,6 although even then it was a slave-based
economy within a dynamic emerging from the global market, commanded
by commercial capital.7 The crisis of colonial domination was linked to
the crisis of commercial capital domination in the global market and the
emergence of productive capital; England and France’s defeat of Spain
was an expression of the defeat of commercial capital by productive
capital.
For the Latin American, essentially agro-mining oligarchies, indepen-
dence meant breaking the “colonial pact”; i.e. breaking the commercial
monopoly exercised by the Spanish crown over its colonies and, as such,
the possibility of opening up “freely” to global trade and diversifying its
external market. The project of the Latin American oligarchies consisted
in entering the global market; they viewed themselves, as they always had,
as export producers.8 And, since export production is organized to meet
needs that develop outside it, the oligarchy lacked a project of internal
transformation, other than the project of adapting to export needs.
This same lack of a project for internal transformation explains
why, during the fĳirst decades of the 19th century, with the global capitalist
equality of all men, optimism and humanism form part of this basic conception. This opti-
mistic, humanist faith in progress also characterized the philosophy of history in this
period” (Kuhnl, 1978 39). Needless to say, the bourgeois discourse in relation to history – the
discourse of “modernity” – contrasts violently with contemporary “post-modern”
discourse.
6 “The production relation that tended to be predominant and stable was slavery. This
constituted the basis of operations for large-scale production aimed at exportation; it
offfered the use of a massive work force that was compelled to work under the harshest
conditions… The Spanish colonial ‘mita’ or ‘cuatequil’ [systems of forced labor] difffered
from classical slavery, but nevertheless constituted slavery. The same is true of the peonage
or retainer… The ‘peón’ (general laborer) was not a free laborer with the ability to sell his
labor-power as a commodity, but a slave tied to the plantation and to the will of the land-
owner” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 211).
7 “In our case, the result of the Conquest and colonization could not have been a simple
slave-based economy. From the beginning, the aim was to organize the exploitation of
labor and production directly in order to increase exchange-value. What arose here was
therefore not a slave-based economy in the sense of the social relation represented by slav-
ery constituting the nucleus around which society is organized and its movement is deter-
mined; rather, slavery was set within another dynamic, which emerged from the developing
global market” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 212).
8 “The productive intentionality of the dominant classes continued to be export pro-
duction, both because there was no internal market and because they showed no interest
in developing local industry… production continued to depend on external demand”
(Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 219).
80 chapter four
economy in crisis and the development of the oligarchic export economy

blocked, the Latin American oligarchies, incapable of organizing them-
selves into nation-states,9 developing their internal markets and fostering
transformations to their productive structures and production relations,
took refuge on their rural estates and in their local regions, dedicating
themselves to destroying one another in internal conflicts,10 awaiting, like
a giant Macondo,11 the longed-for rise of the exporter age;12 this age would
not come until the second half of the 19th century, and would only be con-
solidated with the arrival of capitalist imperialism.
The Latin American oligarchies, the dominant class of this Macondo,
without an external market to give their production a purpose and a tar-
get, could only sufffocate in their solitude, carrying on for three quarters of
the 19th century with the same strategies and productive capacities that
operated in colonial times, trying to change as little as possible and to
profĳit as much as they could. According to Carmagnani, instead of renew-
ing the pre-existing economic, social, political and cultural structures, the
oligarchies tried to promote them and give them a new direction, seeking
to reconcile the old elements with the new, establishing a new order that
did not change a single fundamental mechanism already in place
(Carmagnani, 1984: 10, 12).
Only with the arrival of imperialist capital would signifĳicant changes
occur in the Latin American economy, although even then the oligarchies
attempted to preserve their basic forms of domination into the 20th
century. And in this way of constructing their historical project, although
slavery was legally abolished with independence, there was no room or
9 Indeed, several institutions of the colonial past defended by the conservative current
within the oligarchy, such as the military and ecclesiastical authorities, aided by the
absence of an internal market, operated as forces to block the process to establish a nation-
state. See, for example, Ricaurte Soler (as quoted in Cueva, 1993: 46).
10 The inter-oligarchic struggles did not end because an internal solution was found,
but as the result of the economic growth produced by demand in the countries of devel-
oped capitalism; the oligarchy on its own was never capable of fĳinding a way of establish-
ing itself as a nation-state or organizing a national economy. “After 1880, the new integration
of the Latin American economies into the global economy favored and strengthened all of
the oligarchies. Thanks to economic growth, inter-oligarchic struggles came to an end”
(Carmagnani, 1984: 98).
11 Macondo, the fĳictional town in Gabriel García Márquez’s epic novel One Hundred
Years of Solitude, has often been interpreted as a metaphor for Latin America in the 19th
and early 20th centuries.
12 “The weak and scattered effforts to promote capitalist production found no echo
among those who controlled economic power, who showed practically no interest whatso-
ever in the ‘nation’ in terms of its development. Rather, they sat waiting for the benefĳits
that independence might bring in terms of diversifĳication of the external market” (Figueroa
need to transform either the production relations, or the forms of domina-

tion that the oligarchy exercised over the workers. In other words, there
was no transformation of their immediate structure, because in a general
sense there were indeed enormous transformations; in the colonial era,
the global market was controlled by pre-capitalist commercial capital,
while from the Industrial Revolution on it was controlled by productive
capital and, more specifĳically, industrial capital, i.e. capital equipped with
machinery as the basic means of labor. And, by the end of the 19th century,
it was imperialist capital that commanded the global market.
Thus, analyzing the situation as a whole, oligarchic domination after
independence was not a pre-capitalist form of domination, but a capitalist
form, constituting the oligarchic pattern of capitalist domination, at the
service, initially, of industrial capital, and subsequently, toward the end of
the 19th century, of imperialist capital. It was the modality assumed by the
fĳirst emergence in Latin America of the natural form of capitalist domina-
tion: “The fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America
capitalists but that they are capitalists is based on their existence as anom-
alies within a world market based on free labor.”13
The oligarchic pattern created a structure of domination in which polit-
ical power appeared personifĳied and under which the dominated had no
rights or means of defense. According to Ianni, boss, chief, colonel, caci-
que, leader, etc. were the various names given to this personifĳied power
(Ianni, 1977a: 161). The natural home of the power fĳigure was the rural
estate, where it was embodied in the landowner and exercised over the
laborers. But in the mines and the few factories that existed at the time,
the boss also exercised this same type of power over his workers.14
The personifĳication of power means autonomy and free will in the exer-
cise of domination and the correlates of this personifĳication are: fĳirst, the
absence of a free market for labor-power, second, coercive recruitment of
labor-power by various means (advances, indebtedness, sharecropping,
agrarian contracts, etc.);15 third, work conditions characterized by an
13 From Marx’s Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (as quoted in Figueroa
Sepúlveda, 1986: 220). “This does not impede, but rather entails,” adds Figueroa Sepúlveda,
“their non-capitalist behavior in relation to the labor they exploit.”
14 Even the so-called “middle classes” had the quality of a bureaucratic or professional
“clientèle”, at the service of the oligarchic boss not only in terms of their employment but
also in social and political terms (Quijano, 1977: 148).
15 “Wherever free labor is the rule, the laws regulate the mode of terminating the con-
tract. In some States, particularly in Mexico, slavery is hidden under the form of ‘peonage’.
By means of advances, payable in labor, which are handed down from generation to gen-
eration, not only the individual laborer, but his family, become, de facto, the property of
other persons and their families” (Marx as quoted by Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 211).
82 chapter four
extremely long working day, obstacles to the organization of unions and a

total absence of social rights; fourth, worker consumption established in
accordance with their minimum physiological needs; and fĳifth, the use of
force by the state to support the personal power of the oligarchs.
This form of domination is expressed in the form assumed by the oligar-
chic economy. Unlike the bourgeois economy of the countries of devel-
oped capitalism, in Latin America neither the oligarchy nor the imperialist
bourgeoisie were interested in the development of an internal market; as
such, they had no interest in the complete liberation of the work-force or
the creation of a free labor-power market. Of course, they also had no
interest in producing any kind of political transformation even vaguely
resembling anything that could be defĳined as “bourgeois democracy,” and
they certainly had no interest in granting any kind of rights to the workers.
The crisis for this pattern of domination would originate in the struggles
of the workers and the breakdown of its economic substratum.
The oligarchic pattern of domination constitutes the political correlate
of the “primary export economy,” the fĳirst historical manifestation of abso-
lute growth or “outward growth,” with which Latin America would ulti-
mately be incorporated into the underdeveloped and dominated pole of
the imperialist system. I conclude this brief exploration of the characteris-
tics of the oligarchic pattern of domination with three fĳinal observations.
Firstly, with this form of growth, the Latin American economy assumed
an external focus, while internally its lack of organization was accentu-
ated: “The branches of primary-export production under imperialist and
incipient local capitalism were individually connected to and governed by
the needs of metropolitan capitalism” (Quijano, 1977: 117).
Secondly, foreign capital, particularly from the point at which U.S. capi-
talists replaced the British, ultimately appropriated all of the most profĳit-
able activities, thereby displacing the local oligarchies. Carmagnani points
out that, unlike the British, who concentrated their investments in the
business and fĳinancial structure, U.S. capital invested directly in the pro-
ductive structure (agriculture, livestock, oil and industry), displacing the
local oligarchy and reorganizing the productive structure to adapt it to its
own needs, to such an extent that the most profĳitable sectors of the Latin
American productive structure were in the hands of U.S. capital at the
onset of the crisis of 1929 (Carmagnani, 1984: 181, 186, 193). And the reality
is that, in the fĳinal analysis, the developed bourgeoisie is always necessary
for the underdeveloped bourgeoisie, while for the former the latter is
always, in principle, dispensable.
Thirdly, the forms of domination and exploitation and the brutal atti-
tude toward the working and living conditions of the laborers hardened
to the extreme, and workers were subjected to a process of absolute

impoverishment.
The Contained Form in History
The liberal pattern of capitalist domination (and its correlates in the

underdeveloped world) ultimately provoked a mobilization of workers
without precedent in history, and the early 20th century saw a worldwide
emergence of the masses and the birth of the mass society; the period
defĳined by the natural form had come to an end.
The second period of bourgeois domination was organized under the
Keynesian pattern, the prevailing pattern in developed capitalism, and the
contained form, as a general historical form assuming diverse modalities
or patterns of domination, defĳined a new era in world history. The transi-
tion from the natural form to the contained form covers a long period
beginning in the fĳinal decades of the 19th century and basically culminat-
ing in the 1930s. The contained form reached its mature expression with
the onset of World War II, and maintained its prevalence until the global
economic crisis that began at the end of the 1960s. This form assumed
three basic modalities: the Keynesian pattern in the U.S. and Western
Europe; the developmentalist pattern in Latin America and, with diffferent
variants and limitations, throughout what came to be called the Third
World – the portion of the underdeveloped world that underwent some
process of industrialization; and the third modality, constituted by what
we could call the Soviet pattern of domination, the variant of state capital-
ism constituted by “real socialism.”
Only the general features of the Keynesian pattern and the develop-
mentalist pattern in Latin America are examined here; but fĳirst, what fol-
lows is a brief outline of the process of transition from the liberal to the
Keynesian pattern both in Europe and the United States. This was the fun-
damental process that established the period of the contained form of
capitalist domination, the process that made room for the possibility of
both the developmentalist pattern and the Soviet pattern.
Transitions to the Contained Form: Western Europe
For over one hundred years, from the revolutions of 1848 to the popular
revolutions after World War II, and even into the 1950s, Europe would be
the stage for decisive confrontations between capital and labor, the con-
frontations that have defĳined the history of humanity up to this time.
84 chapter four
In Europe, for the fĳirst time in human history, the working class became
self-aware, creating its own “conception of the world” and its own “civil
society,” and organizing itself into a multitude of labor and political orga-
nizations that sought not only to improve their situation within the capi-
tal/wage-labor relation, but to destroy the relation itself. For the fĳirst time
in human history, the working class became a subject of history. But the
decisive events in this long struggle took place after World War I, over the
course of the 1920s – the “tragic decade” for the worker movement. Below
I attempt to outline the process leading to the key moments of that decade,
in order to situate my discussion in the context of the crisis and transfor-
mation of the liberal pattern of domination.
The liberal pattern of domination faced a crisis with the working class
struggle and, as the working class had become organized and established
as a subject of history, the crisis for this fĳirst emergence of the natural form
of capitalist domination had two possible conclusions: the revolutionary
transformation and destruction of capitalism, or the restructuring of the
forms of capitalist domination.
As discussed above, during the liberal era there was clear and open hos-
tility toward any form of working class organization. According to the
logic of the liberal pattern of domination, worker organization was an
intolerable attack against liberty and the ordering principle of social life:
the private agreement between free and equal individuals. However (and
this is a point stressed by Marx in the Communist Manifesto), the develop-
ment of capitalism itself created a space in which, inevitably, the fĳirst
forms of working class organization took shape: the factory. With the
expansion of capital, factories and the number of workers multiplied; the
expansion and the accumulation of capital also multiplied the number of
workers in a single factory, under the command of a single capitalist.
The proletariat was in the process of establishing itself as a revolution-
ary class, and this process, as Claudín points out, had two facets: on the
one hand, the constant deterioration – both absolute and relative – of the
living conditions of the proletariat, which compelled them to rebel; and
on the other, the factory as a breeding ground for unity, organization and
class consciousness (Claudín, 1976: 20–21). It should be noted that, accord-
ing to Marx’s analysis, the fĳirst aspect explains the condition of the need
for rebellion, a particularly intense need under the conditions of capitalist
liberal domination. The second aspect offfers the condition for the possi-
bility of rebellion.
At the beginning of the liberal period, the central goal of capitalist dom-
ination was expressed in the efffort to eliminate the possibility of worker
rebellion, specifĳically focusing on preventing the creation of forms of class

organization. Only when this efffort to prevent worker, union or party orga-
nization proved futile did the form of domination begin to undergo
changes, and the liberal pattern of domination in Western Europe began
to move toward new forms of domination, pushed by the struggle of the
workers and provoked by a series of economic transformations that were
underway.
At the end of the 19th century, capitalism in Western Europe entered its
imperialist phase. The structure of capital changed, the capitalist class
experienced a profound process of internal diffferentiation and a new
hegemonic faction emerged within it: the fĳinancial class, a product of the
merger of industrial capital and banking capital. Imperialism is, according
to Lenin’s classic defĳinition, monopoly capitalism, or fĳinancial capitalism
established as a monopoly (Lenin, 1916). As Figueroa Sepúlveda points
out, this is the period of a new division of labor: in the capitalist factory,
immediate labor, associated with operation, is separated from general, sci-
entifĳic labor, associated with processing the development of productive
forces (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986). This division of labor constituted the
basis for the rise of the imperialist phase of capitalism, as it redefĳined
three fundamental relations (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986):
1. In the relation between the capitalist class and the working class, the
real subsumption of labor changed its mode of operation with the appear-
ance of general labor in the fĳinal decades of the 19th century, and the pro-
duction of relative surplus-value was systematized thanks to this new
division of labor.
2. Competition between capitalists was resolved in favor of the capital-
ists who appropriated the conditions to ensure the renewal of their
technical mode of production, the development of productivity in
their enterprise; the monopolization of general labor and of its results to
promote technological development became the basis of capitalist
monopoly.
3. In the global capitalist social structure, two regions were consoli-
dated: a developed region, made up of countries where capital itself
generated the conditions for the establishment and renewal of its techni-
cal mode of production; and an underdeveloped region, which lacked
this capacity and had a constant need to turn to the developed region to
establish and renew its technical mode of production. The monopoly of
general labor held by the developed countries became the economic (and
even political and military) basis of the imperialist relation between the
developed and underdeveloped regions of the world.
86 chapter four
By the fĳinal decades of the 19th century, fĳinancial capital was already
structured and widespread, giving rise to the fĳinancial oligarchy, the fac-
tion of capital which, from that point on, would hold the reins of power in
capitalist society. From that time, the state was placed at the service of
fĳinancial capital, and the social order that the state would strive to create
would be in line with the interests of fĳinancial capital.
After the major revolutionary crises of 1848 and 1870, it became evident
that the liberal pattern of domination was coming to an end. To survive,
capitalist domination needed to be restructured; reform of the system of
domination was essential to prevent revolution, and the economic trans-
formations already underway would support this reconstruction of domi-
nation. In 1895, in his introduction to Marx’s book, The Class Struggles in
France, Engels made the fĳirst reference to the transformations that the
form of domination was undergoing. Considering that the main political
element of change was the organized presence of the masses throughout
Europe, he writes: “the mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete in every
respect.”
The arguments put forward by Engels to explain this obsolescence
cover a wide range of issues, including changes to the military dimension
of domination. However, there are two issues Engels mentions which
I believe are central to my analysis.
The fĳirst of these is the issue of democracy and the right to vote, as a
right seized by the workers from the capitalists with considerable struggle,
and the benefĳits they obtained from this right. In particular, the workers
and German social democracy “have used the franchise in a way which has
paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all
countries… [the franchise has been] transformed by them from a means
of deception, which it was before, into an instrument of emancipation”
(Engels, 1895).
The second is the new meaning of the nation-state and democratic
institutions in the class struggle. Until then, electoral democracy, limited
to the participation of property owners, had been a simple instrument for
organizing the dominant class; but now, according to Engels, with the
“successful utilization of universal sufffrage… an entirely new method of
proletarian struggle came into operation… It was found that the state
institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organized, offfer the
working class still further levers to fĳight these very state institutions”
(Engels, 1895).
It is clear that Engels, a revolutionary socialist, is not interested in bour-
geois democracy as a means of “improving” capitalism, but rather as a
path toward its revolutionary transformation. The “thousandfold” benefĳits

brought by the franchise are not recorded by Engels merely as improve-
ments to the situation of the proletariat within the capitalist system, but
as a framework for the spreading of the struggle for socialism under the
new conditions of bourgeois domination. As early as his discussion of the
Principles of Communism, he had written that “democracy would be wholly
valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for
putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring
the livelihood of the proletariat” (Engels, 1847).
For Engels, democracy is the space in which to convert the socialist
project into a project of the masses, assumed by and comprising the vast
majority, which was the only possible response to the new conditions of
bourgeois domination. In all revolutions up to 1848, says Engels, “one rul-
ing minority was overthrown, [and] another minority seized the helm of
the state in its stead and refashioned the state institutions to suit its own
interests… And these features… appeared applicable, also, to the struggle
of the proletariat for its emancipation; all the more applicable, since pre-
cisely in 1848 there were but a very few people who had any idea at all of
the direction in which this emancipation was to be sought” (Engels, 1895).
But fĳifty years later, afffĳirms Engels, “the time of surprise attacks, of revo-
lutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of
masses lacking consciousness is past. Where it is a question of a complete
transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must
also be in on it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake…
But in order that the masses understand what is to be done, long, persis-
tent work is required, and it is just this work that we are now pursuing…
everywhere the unprepared launching of an attack has been relegated to
the background… no lasting victory is possible for them [socialists] unless
they fĳirst win over the great mass of the people… Slow propaganda work
and parliamentary activity are recognized here, too, as the immediate
tasks of the party” (Engels, 1895).
It goes without saying that history has not taken the direction that
Engels expected. The social democratic parties in Western Europe ended
up directing reforms and abandoning the revolutionary project, and the
international workers’ movement sufffered an irremediable collapse in the
face of the revolutionary crisis that led to the fĳirst imperialist world war.
What should have been the construction of a space in which to promote
the independent organization of the working class was ultimately turned
into a space compatible with bourgeois domination, which complicated
that domination, but did not destroy it.
88 chapter four
To resolve the problem that the mobilization of the masses and the cri-
sis in the liberal pattern of domination posed for the bourgeoisie, it was
necessary to “abandon the concept of the linear relation of the individual
to the sovereign, and locate that relation within the analysis of the organi-
zations that ensure the reproduction of domination” (Portantiero, 1981:
16). The reality of capitalism at the beginning of the 20th century was “a
reality of groups and institutions and could not be tackled using the notion
of the individualist contract” (Portantiero, 1981: 12); the reconstruction of
capitalist domination could only be based on the recognition of the cen-
trality of the worker organizations.
In this context, in 1917, in the midst of a revolutionary crisis on the rise,
Max Weber outlined the basis for the reconstruction of the bourgeois
political system as a “state of the masses,” asserting that the political left
(social democracy and the unions) would have to play a central role. The
masses, mobilized and determined to participate politically, could not be
treated as passive objects of the administration; however, as they think in
immediate terms, they are exposed to emotional influences and tend to
practice “street democracy.” This meant that “rationally organized parties”
and a “mature trade unionism” were needed: “the best guarantee against
the fĳickle political moods of the ‘Spartacists’ was the integration of the
trade unions and of social democracy into the political system” (Portantiero,
1981: 14).
And indeed, the social democratic parties had been moving toward
“rationality and responsibility”; in the context of the imperialist war, they
had aligned themselves with their respective national bourgeoisies and
had concentrated their political effforts on modifying the forms of domina-
tion rather than destroying domination itself. For Bernstein, it was a pro-
cess of transition toward the “neutrality” of the state, while Cunow asserted
that “we are the state”; both viewed the capitalist state as a neutral space,
with “instrumental potential to protect diffferent social interests according
to the historically variable capacity manifested by whichever social sector
predominates in that originally empty space” (Portantiero, 1981: 28). For
Kautsky, the pressure of the organized masses modifĳied the essence of the
state itself: “if it becomes the instrument of an exploiting minority, this is
not due to the nature of the state but to that of the working classes, their
disunity, their ignorance, their lack of autonomy or their inability to strug-
gle” (Portantiero, 1981: 28).
Such was the path of gradual transformation of the pattern of domina-
tion taken by the processes of capitalist restructuring in the 1920s and
1930s in Western Europe. The crisis of 1929 produced two major political
responses: on the one hand, an advance in the process of transformation
of the liberal pattern toward a contained form of domination and, on the
other, the brutal response of fascism and the destruction of the best sec-
tors of the worker movement, while the parties of the Second International
attempted to consolidate new forms under capitalist domination and the
parties of the Third International led the workers from one defeat to
another, unable to make sense of the process of capitalist domination that
was taking place or of its political efffects on the masses.
Following World War II, with the fall of fascism, having overcome the
crisis produced by the emergence of “people’s democracies” in Eastern
Europe and with relations with “Sovietism” relatively stabilized, Western
Europe began to consolidate and develop the Keynesian pattern of domi-
nation. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, where the forms of domination
had been left untouched by the restructuring that had occurred in Western
Europe from the end of the 19th century onwards, the conditions of the old
liberal pattern of domination remained in efffect, and in Tsarist Russia, the
Bolsheviks, “a small conscious minority at the head of masses lacking con-
sciousness,” seized power and built societies based on state capitalism,
fĳirst in the former Russia and then in a wide region of Eastern Europe. The
Bolsheviks, after the elimination of a large portion of the old revolutionary
guard, turned into the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm16, a new form of
bourgeoisie.
Thus, in Western Europe, the restructuring of the forms of domination
allowed the bourgeoisie to defeat the proletariat in the revolutionary cri-
ses that occurred in the fĳirst decades of the 20th century, while in Eastern
Europe, specifĳically in Russia, the victories of the people’s revolutions
merely brought new forms of administration of capitalist development.
The working class was thus defeated on two fronts.
Nevertheless, a major change had occurred in the structures of domina-
tion; for the fĳirst time in the history of capitalism, the bourgeoisie recog-
nized the need to accept a compromise with the proletariat, and the
16 This analysis does not attempt to examine the peculiarities of the so-called “real
socialism” of the 20th century, but I believe its essence lies in the diffference between
nationalization, which reproduces the separation between workers and means of produc-
tion, and socialization, the genuine appropriation of the means of production directly by
the worker: “the fact that capital is entirely centralized under the command of a single
corporation does not negate its capitalist nature” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 56). In all other
respects, Orwell’s novella appears to me to be extraordinarily astute.
90 chapter four
“bipolarity” that emerged in the post-war world between “real socialism”

and “the Western democracies,” as they called themselves, would open up
the possibility for processes of “national liberation” in the former colonies
of the empires of the late 19th century and for the promotion of “develop-
mentalism” in part of the underdeveloped world. The post-war world thus
became the stage for the diffferent modalities assumed by the contained
form of domination around the globe, with every advance made the result
of major popular struggles.
The conditions of the fĳirst cycle of bourgeois domination were main-
tained for much of the 20th century in the backward nations of Europe
and the rest of the world, but the intense, generally popular and specifĳi-
cally working class struggles undertaken in this context resulted in par-
ticular modalities that introduced the conditions of the second cycle,
although in no case did they lead to socialism.
The proposition outlined by Engels to pursue the struggle for socialism
under the new conditions of bourgeois domination thus sank into obliv-
ion, and his theoretical framework would be developed only by the soli-
tary Gramsci, while locked away in a prison by the Italian fascists. In spite
of all that called itself “socialism” during the 20th century, from the cele-
brated leader who claimed that in its struggles for national liberation
Africa was moving “from tribalism to socialism” (Jafffe, 1976), to those who
celebrated any case of nationalization as “socialism,” the 20th century was
a century of capitalist development and restructuring of the forms of capi-
tal domination over the working class.
Capital not only expropriated the means of material production from
the working class, but also the means of intellectual production and the
administration of their collective afffairs. The basic problems of capitalist
domination and, therefore, of its defeat, relate to the separation of produc-
ers from the means of production as an essential characteristic, as dis-
cussed in the fĳirst chapter, but also to the separation between intellectual
and manual labor, between general and immediate labor, and the separa-
tion between governors and governed, as problems arising from the fĳirst
problem, while also constituting developments of it. Capitalism cannot be
overthrown with the replacement of one “elite” for another that repro-
duces the same basic conditions of domination; it is necessary for the
masses, the working class in itself, to appropriate the means of produc-
tion, of manual and intellectual labor and of government of society.
The “socialist” left of the 20th century fell far short of pursuing this true,
profound and radically revolutionary task. In the Soviet Union, the idea
of the establishment of the working class as the dominant class and
therefore of the conditions for the genuine defeat of capitalism and its
transformation into socialism disappeared from the moment that the
SUCP destroyed the Soviets as institutions of real power. From that
moment, the “representatives of the proletariat,” the self-declared “revolu-
tionary vanguard,” took charge of the administration of state capitalism.
With the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China in the 1960s, the notion
made a brief reappearance, which was radically concluded with the coup
d’état of the seventies after Mao’s death; today, the Chinese Communist
Party is an efffĳicient administrator of the development of neoliberal
capitalism.
Both the social democratic left (heirs to the Second International) and
the communist left (heirs to the Third International) were made up of
bourgeois elites; the social democrats orchestrated their inclusion in the
“political class” of Western capitalism while the communists became the
administrators of the state capitalism that they referred to as “real social-
ism.” However, both contributed to confĳigure a new form of capitalist
domination which, in spite of all the diffferences existing between its indi-
vidual modalities, has one feature that is common to all of them: the
acceptance by capital of a compromise with the working class. As a result
of working class and popular movements around the world, a profound
transformation in the pattern of domination occurred and, during the
height of the post-war period, capitalism showed the most civilized face it
has ever worn. In the history of capitalism, working class and popular
organization and struggle has been the basic condition, not for the trans-
formation of capitalism into socialism (a mission yet to be fulfĳilled), but
simply for the civilization of capitalism; without worker organization and
struggle there can be no revolution, but there can also be no reform that
improves the plight of the workers under the conditions of capitalist dom-
ination and exploitation.
The Transition in the United States

In the United States, the conflict between capitalists and workers did not
come close to the level of intensity that it had in Europe. According to
Coriat, the process in the United States was focused on the struggle
between capitalists and specialist workers organized under the AFL
(American Federation of Labor)17 and was resolved with the plundering of
17 The racist and xenophobic AFL, incapable of organizing a class struggle against capi-
tal was, on the other hand, an efffĳicient defender of the trades: “As a practice very much of
92 chapter four
worker knowledge and the systematic imposition of the forms of opera-

tion designed by the capitalists in the tradition of Taylorism and Fordism
(Coriat, 1992).
What is important to note here is that Taylorism and Fordism, the
“rationalized” workshop, the production line and continuous flow manu-
facturing would all play a signifĳicant role in the consolidation of the
Keynesian pattern of domination; with the rise in productivity and labor
intensity that they promoted and the consequent rises in the rates of sur-
plus-value and profĳit, the conditions were established for capital to grant
concessions to workers, while at the same time consolidating the domina-
tion of the former over the latter.
According to Taylor, “it will be possible to pay higher wages and reduce
the number of work hours,” evidently without reducing the rate and level
of profĳit (Coriat, 1992: 35), and indeed, even increasing them because, fur-
thermore, “cost prices would be reduced in such proportions that our
internal and external markets would expand considerably” (Coriat, 1992:
34). As Coriat notes, World War I created extraordinarily favorable condi-
tions for the establishment of Taylorism and Fordism, and set the United
States on the road toward becoming the biggest industrial power on the
planet.
The crash of 1929, the result of a “lack of adaptation between the new
production and consumption structures”,18 gave new impetus to the orga-
nization and the struggle of the workers in Europe and in the United States
itself: “the working class, whose strength had been broken, found in the
crisis a source of unity and recuperation… This new efffectiveness of
worker resistance must be considered in the interpretation of the huge
range of ‘social reforms’ that marked the initiation by the state of an
entirely new administration of labor-power and of the accumulation pro-
cess and, more precisely, of the relation between labor-power and capital
accumulation” (Coriat, 1992: 95).
Keynesian Pattern of Domination
According to Coriat, it was Keynes who would complete the picture. Taylor
and Ford created the theory and the practice of mass production in the
the working class aristocracy, the defense of the trades was pursued with the most impla-
cable sectarian spirit and selfĳishness… Racism and xenophobia were constituent parts of
the ideology of the AFL” (Coriat, 1992: 14).
18 “Mass production (the product of Taylorism and Fordism) requires the distribution of
sufffĳicient purchasing power in the form of wages and income” (Coriat, 1992: 93).
workshop, while Keynes created the theory and practice for the type of
state and regulation that mass production required (Coriat, 1992: 88); his
general theory “formalized the conditions for the existence and reproduc-
tion of the mechanisms of mass production” (Coriat, 1992: 97). For Keynes,
the demands of the workers were legitimate; the challenge lay in respond-
ing to those demands or perishing. A new method of administrating labor-
power was a political necessity (Coriat, 1992: 98).
The new content of “labor policy” assumed by the state was defĳined
during the “New Deal,” and during World War II this new content would
spread defĳinitively throughout the developed capitalist world: the mini-
mum wage, the reduction of the length of the working-day, compensation
for workplace accidents, and unemployment insurance (Coriat, 1992: 98).
The state was established as the general operator of the reproduction of
wage-labor, the general administrator of the concessions that capital
would grant labor; for the fĳirst time in its history, capitalism appeared to
acquire a certain ‘exteriority’ as a “system situated above social classes,”
establishing a legal framework which, fĳirstly, regulated the direct relation
of exploitation (the conditions for the purchase and use of labor-power,
such as the length of the working day, overtime, child labor, wages, etc.),
secondly, defĳined indirect wages (family allowances, health and education
services, medical insurance and retirement pensions) which ensured the
cheap reproduction of labor for capital, and thirdly, restructured unem-
ployment and disability assistance.
For the fĳirst time in the history of capitalism, wages (as the sum of direct
wages paid by the employer to the worker, and indirect wages, as value
redistributed by the state) paid for the full value of labor-power, at least for
one section of the working class. As Suzanne de Brunhofff notes, “direct
wages permit the ‘reconstitution’ of the worker during the period of
employment, but not for the ‘maintenance’ of the unemployed or the ill,
or for the costs of family maintenance”; direct wages are thus lower than
the value of labor-power (Brunhofff, 1980: 226).
Under the conditions of the liberal pattern of domination, whereby the
labor relation is abandoned to the “agreement between two free and equal
owners,” the laborer, owner of his labor-power, is responsible for his
own maintenance, and this defĳicit produced by unemployment, illness,
age and/or additional family responsibilities is compensated for by
community or family support for the worker, or by “the charity and benev-
olence of the employer,” as it is not considered a right of the worker, but a
donation made by the employer. Thus, also for the fĳirst time in the history
of capitalism, the labor relation ceased to be the result of the supposed
“free agreement between willing individuals” that the liberal pattern of
94 chapter four
domination had always postulated, and instead became a contract negoti-

ated collectively by workers’ unions; with the regulation of the state, class
relations and exploitation were given a contractual quality based on the
wage/productivity relation.
Collective contracts and negotiated agreements would place capitalist
practices in a new context in the management of labor-power. For the fĳirst
time in the history of capitalism, at the height of the crisis of 1929, the right
of workers to organize and collectively bargain their work conditions and
remuneration was recognized. Promoted by Roosevelt (with the opposi-
tion of the National Manufacturers Association) the National Industrial
Recovery Act established that “wage-laborers would have the right to orga-
nize and collectively bargain with the assistance of representatives of
their choice, free of obstacles or coercion on the part of employers or their
agents in the appointment of those representatives or in the organization
of unions or of any other concerted activity aimed at collective bargaining,
assistance or mutual protection” (Coriat, 1992: 100). Shooting at union
leaders and workers19 was no longer the preferred “bargaining strategy” or,
at least, was no longer the only strategy of the capitalists.
Of course, the conditions of the contained form of domination did not
eliminate employment uncertainty, the basic uncertainty inherent to the
condition of the worker in capitalism, but the establishment of worker
rights had the efffect of moderating the uncertainty of the workers and the
arbitrary acts of capital.
Developmentalist Pattern of Domination
In developed capitalism, Keynesianism offfered an economic response to

the crisis – a response that developed and acquired its defĳinitive outlines
after the crisis of 1929, reorganizing its conditions for exploitation and
accumulation – and a political response, addressing the situation of the
emergence of the masses by restructuring the pattern of domination. The
economic restructuring – a rise in labor productivity, in the rate of sur-
plus-value and in the rate of profĳit – provided the material circumstances
that allowed capital to make concessions to the workers and, on this basis,
to restructure their domination.
19 Coriat notes that in the United States, “the dominant phenomenon of the 1920s con-
tinued to be anti-worker violence… and during the crisis, union members were shot at in
Ford factories” (Coriat, 1992: 101). It is worth remembering that a decade later in Europe, the
Nazis massacred militant workers of both the Second and Third International.
In underdeveloped capitalism around the world, over the course of sev-

eral decades and in a general context of economic crisis, a process of
emergence of the masses also occurred, in some cases as a veritable insur-
rection against poverty, exploitation and oppression. The diffferent modal-
ities assumed by domination during the fĳirst stage of capitalism were no
longer capable of containing the rebellion of the masses; this marked the
erosion of the fĳirst emergence of the natural form of domination in the
underdeveloped world, and its movement toward the diffferent modalities
assumed by the contained form of domination in the underdeveloped
world. This emergence of the masses provoked a diverse range of responses,
but in all of them there is one essential player, the state, and two structural
axes: the initiation of industrialization processes and the restructuring of
the conditions for domination.
To industrialize the underdeveloped world of this period – that back-
ward, colonized world anchored in primary export production aimed at
the imperialist metropolises – it was necessary to reformulate their rela-
tions with the countries at the developed pole of the imperialist relation,
and to initiate a series of projects that only direct and decisive state inter-
vention in the economy could bring about. The result was a new type of
state, the product of the transformation or destruction of the state of the
fĳirst period of the natural form of domination; the uprising of the masses
provided the political impetus necessary to adapt or transform the old
state apparatuses and build new ones, with the capacity (although in vary-
ing degrees and modalities) to promote the implementation of new eco-
nomic and political projects. However, in all cases, in spite of this
emergence of the masses and of workers, and given the conditions of the
underdeveloped, largely agrarian economies, leadership of the process
remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie.
“Real socialism,” an extreme case of nationalization of capital (means of
production and subsistence) and of conversion of the capitalist state into
the main player, constituted one of the responses. It began with the
Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and expanded with the “socialist” revolutions
after World War II in Eastern Europe. Various countries in Africa and Asia,
subject to the colonial regime imposed by imperialist powers, saw the
rise after World War II of what were generically referred to as “national
liberation movements.” As a result of these struggles, some Asian coun-
tries (China, part of Korea and Vietnam) took the path of “real socialism,”
with variants of and even in conflict with the “Soviet model.” In the rest of
Asia and the regions of Africa that were able – some for the fĳirst time in
their history – to establish something resembling a “nation-state,” various
96 chapter four
nationalist and developmentalist projects were initiated.20 At least some

parts of the underdeveloped world in Asia and Africa achieved a notable
transformation and a certain degree of progress in the industrialization
process,21 although in most cases without overcoming their status as
underdeveloped nations.
In Latin America, the “populist” regimes (the governments of Getulio
Vargas in Brazil, Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and Lázaro Cárdenas in
Mexico being among the most signifĳicant), in the context of a growing
situation of emergence of the masses22 and of the efffects of the crisis of
1929 and the consequent collapse of the Latin American export sector,23
moved from the “primary export economy” (the fĳirst historical manifesta-
tion of the form of absolute or “outward” growth), to “import substitution
industrialization” (a form of relative or “inward” growth), and from the oli-
garchic pattern to the developmentalist pattern of domination. They thus
established new forms of economic growth and of domination that began
to stabilize in Latin America’s largest countries from the 1940s on. With the
export market closed, the local bourgeoisie had to develop the internal
market to continue their production and, at the same time, to face the
challenge of restructuring their domination over the workers.
It is worth recalling briefly here our earlier discussion that relative or
inward growth is characteristic of an interventionist state that assumes
the role of direct capitalist, and that industrialization aimed at the inter-
nal market diversifĳies the branches of immediate labor and expands inter-
nal needs; the state creates an infrastructure geared toward facilitating
20 “At the end of the war, African and Asian societies at the periphery of the global capi-
talist system were still subject to the colonial regime. The center/periphery polarization
had taken the form of a contrast between industrialized and non-industrialized regions.
The revolt of the peoples of Africa and Asia, the product of half a century of ideological and
political restructuring around the new notion of nationalism, began in 1945” (Amín,
2003b).
21 “After their political independence, the peripheries entered an era of industrializa-
tion, although their development was uneven… this gave rise to a growing diffferentiation
between a semi-industrialized ‘Third World’ and a Fourth World that had not yet begun to
industrialize” (Amín, 2003b).
22 In Mexico, the great rural worker uprising of 1910 had been defeated but not crushed,
and throughout Latin America the proletariat was growing in numbers and achieving cer-
tain levels of organization and combativeness: “The most solid cores of the working class
were consolidated fĳirst in export production. Driven by their poverty… they began their
campaigns for better working conditions very early” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 168).
23 “With the great crisis that began in 1929 and lasted until the Second World War…
export production collapsed and absolute growth fell into serious discredit” (Figueroa
internal transactions in general, unifying and facilitating the development

of the internal market while simultaneously promoting export production
as a crucial aim of “inward growth.” The number of workers expands, their
organization is strengthened within set limits and, if the process exhibits
a certain continuity, wages should grow, albeit slowly.
The dominant ideology is no longer “free trade,” but the promotion of
interventionism24 and a type of “nationalism” limited in two respects.
Firstly, this nationalism never meant overcoming either underdevelop-
ment or the subordination of the Latin American economies to the devel-
oped pole in the industrialist relation. Industrialization in the Latin
American countries that were able to initiate it took the form of “import
substitution,” operating on the basis of pre-existing needs and always rely-
ing on production processes designed by the developed pole, mainly the
United States. Secondly, what it did mean was a redefĳinition of the indus-
trialist relation marked by one basic fact: the crucial condition for relative
or inward growth is relative isolation from developed countries.
Based on these two conditions for the Latin American nationalism of
the era, the whole process of restructuring the pattern of domination can
be explained. The state, in redefĳining the relation with the imperialist
metropolises, achieved a margin of autonomy and of directorial capacity
over the national economy, and ensured its relative isolation from the
developed nations; the development of the internal market and of import
substitution industrialization permitted the diversifĳication of immediate
labor with the procedures of relative surplus-value production imported
from the developed countries. The process of redefĳining the relation with
the developed world was presented ideologically as anti-imperialist
nationalism or revolutionary nationalism. In this context, the pattern of
domination was restructured; the introduction of procedures of relative
surplus-value production and job growth enabled the negotiation of con-
cessions for the workers who at the same time were organized and
controlled by the state, in accordance with the requirements of national
unity as a supposed condition for addressing the needs of the so-called
anti-imperialist struggle. The conditions for restructuring domination also
defĳined its limitations and its fragility. This process is explored further
below.
24 “The state, instead of limiting itself to regulating and enforcing the standards of eco-
nomic activity, acts directly as an economic agent” (Ianni, 1984: 148).
98 chapter four
First of all, the Latin American developmentalist state not only estab-
lished mechanisms for the protection of national industry; it also nation-
alized foreign companies, specifĳically to take back control of key natural
resources in the structure of the export sector of the national economy,
and to ensure control of strategic sectors of the economy with state or
mixed companies, while reformulating the conditions for the entry and
exit of foreign capital and the conditions for its association with local
capital.
Only in this way can we understand descriptions like that offfered by
Ianni of the Mexican state in the era of President Cárdenas (1934–1940) as
the main decision-making center, with the capacity to expropriate and
redistribute assets for political and economic reasons determined by the
state, and to impose the modes of ownership and use on private, national
or foreign property in accordance with the national interest (Ianni, 1977b:
20).25 Ianni adds that during the Cárdenas presidency, government par-
ticipation in the national economy was expanded and systematized with
a global agricultural, industrial and educational plan, becoming the “orga-
nizing, dynamic and coordinated vanguard of production relations” and
of public and private accumulation (Ianni, 1977b: 14–15).
This margin of autonomy and of directorial capacity over the national
economy for the developmentalist state in Latin America could only occur
under conditions of relative or inward growth. It does not exist in condi-
tions of absolute or outward growth, as shown in the examination of the
oligarchic pattern, and as will be seen with the neoliberal pattern. In these
cases, the capacity of the state to direct the economy is practically nonex-
istent and the intervention of capitalists and imperialist states is direct;
imperialist capital directly appropriates the most profĳitable activities,
and the subordination of the underdeveloped economy to the needs of
the developed world is direct and immediate. Relative growth, while it
does not mean either overcoming underdevelopment or breaking with
imperialism (i.e. it does not constitute a national project26 in the strictest
25 This was the case not only for the Mexican state, but for all Latin American states that
were able to move toward developmentalism: “Between 1930 and 1950, government powers
related to the economy and the economic role of the Latin American nation-state grew
enormously” (Ianni, 1984: 135).
26 ‘National project’ here refers to “a program that brings together a range of anti-impe-
rialist measures with the aim of breaking the subordination of the nation and the econ-
omy… Substitution industrialization was merely a strategy adopted by the local bourgeoisie
driven by conditions which they did not create… it was not applied outside the context of
developed countries, and certainly not against their interests… Whether or not the capital-
ists of developed countries interfere directly in our afffairs is unrelated to the essence of
sense), it does mean that neither capitalists nor imperialist states inter-
vene directly in the direction of the national economy.
Secondly, the development of the internal market diversifĳied the
branches of immediate labor, expanded internal needs and allowed the
introduction of methods of production of relative surplus-value and job
growth. Under the conditions of the oligarchic pattern and of the predom-
inance of the primary export economy, the real subsumption of immedi-
ate labor spread in export production, but in goods consumed internally
(wage goods) there was no real subsumption or productivity-based growth.
“The production of relative surplus-value would come with relative growth
when the internal market took the central focus in the economy… It is in
this type of growth that the general tendency of capital toward the pro-
duction of relative surplus-value occurs… It constituted an element of the
fĳirst transition, which took place when the worker movement had risen up
in protest against the length of the working day and existed as an orga-
nized, expanding force” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 184).
Increased productivity, real subsumption of labor to capital, production
of relative surplus-value, a rise in the rate of surplus-value and the rate of
profĳit, in the context of the emergence of the masses, created the condi-
tions whereby capital (not without fĳirst complaining, resisting, and assur-
ing that the end of the world was nigh) could view the prospect of granting
concessions to workers as tolerable, as part of the process of restructuring
its mode of domination.
For the fĳirst time in the history of Latin America, “the government rec-
ognized the right of urban and rural workers to defend their interests and
to fĳight to have them respected” (Ianni, 1977b: 23). They recognized the
workers’ social, economic and political rights; rights as workers and rights
as citizens. Among these was the right to freedom of movement, which
liberated the workers from the forms of coercive labor relations that
predominated in the oligarchic pattern of domination. The labor market
was formalized, legislation was passed to regulate labor relations, and
education, safety and public health programs were introduced, along with
unionization, paid holidays, health care, protection for pregnant workers
and maternity leave, free elementary education and the right to vote in
elections (Ianni, 1984: 136, 139). The labor relation became a contractual
relation supervised by the state, offfering contract conditions on the length
underdevelopment and imperialism, and should be treated as a question relative to the

historical form” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 171–172).
100 chapter four
of the working day, a minimum wage and the rights to join a union and to
strike. Rights and duties were established for both wage-laborers and
employers. But in this process of granting concessions, the state also orga-
nized and controlled the workers.
The ideological framework upheld under the new form of domination
was developmentalist nationalism, which advocated harmony between
social classes in the name of the national struggle for economic emancipa-
tion and diversifĳication, against socioeconomic backwardness, oligarchy
and imperialism. Societal peace was presented as a prerequisite for achiev-
ing the economic emancipation of the country and bringing social welfare
to all of the people; to give the country back to the people, it was necessary
to strengthen cooperation between capital and labor and the arbitration
of the state (Ianni, 1984: 149). But an ideological framework in itself is
never a sufffĳicient condition for structuring domination. Populism, as a
starting point, as a moment of transition to the developmentalist pattern
of domination, constitutes a mode of direct and organic relation between
the state, the “populist” party and offfĳicial unionism.27 Unionism is bureau-
cratized and formalized: “The union structure is established as a bureau-
cracy tied to or dependent on the state apparatus; its possibilities of
organization, initiative and interpretation of the interests of the class it
represents are delimited… state unionism politicizes the proletariat
according to the guidelines and limitations established by the regime…
the state-party-union system is developed as a central column of populist
power” (Ianni, 1984: 146–147).
In Mexico, this system of political domination was stabilized and per-
fected more than in any other Latin American country. The (urban and
rural) worker masses were classifĳied in organizations directly linked to the
state, set up in opposition and mutual isolation so as to turn their diffferent
interests into instruments of control. All compromises were negotiated
with the union leaders, with no participation whatsoever by the worker
base. The leader, the benefactor responsible for everything achieved
“within the possibilities,” authoritatively directed “his” union. And the
leaders, as elite clientele, were offfered part of the booty (for this is really
what it amounted to) of the state: deputations, senate positions, etc.
27 “Priority is given to the union organization associated with the state apparatus…
non-populist union organizations are marginalized and even suppressed. At the same
time, the government reformulates the functional and organizational requirements of
unionism to keep it dependent on the state apparatus and limited to the purposes of popu-
list policy” (Ianni, 1984: 145).
The leaders were leaders because they had government support: “in the
defĳinition of the power held by the leaders themselves, their connection
with the state is decisive and therein lies the essence of corporatist domi-
nation” (Córdova, 1979: 36, emphasis added). The state supports the offfĳi-
cial leaders and represses any union movement organized against
corporatist domination in the hope of creating an independent union.
“What followed the conversion of the offfĳicial party into a corporate
machine,” adds Córdova, “was no more than a prolonged process of per-
fecting the system of domination by and through organization. Once the
mobilizations ended, organization, now turned into an instrument of
political power, rapidly developed into a veritable prison for the organized
workers, as a power that they could not question, invincible and insuper-
able” (Córdova, 1979: 34).
And for rural workers, whom the neoliberal governments had invited to
become agricultural entrepreneurs to compete with the multinational
agricultural corporations, the outcome was even worse. While it is true
that agrarian reform responded partially to a very old rural demand, “rural
workers became the most politically degraded sector of the masses. In the
very process of agrarian reform developed by the Cárdenas government, a
colossal institutional network was woven which organized their produc-
tion and their whole lives” (Córdova, 1979: 36).
“Such is, in general terms,” concludes Córdova, “the gigantic structure of
domination that weighs upon the worker masses” (Córdova, 1979: 38).
Nevertheless, organized workers, with certain recognized rights and more
or less secure and stable access to their means of subsistence, were, in fact,
the fortunate ones; alongside them co-existed millions of “marginal” work-
ers, the immense majority of the working class, who were not unionized.
This solid structure of domination ensured the Mexican State of
decades of political stability. But other Latin American states did not
attain the level of perfection achieved by the Mexico, and workers were
able to establish their own political organizations and make their demands
heard. Domination became unstable, and the states violently reasserted it;
even during the height of World War II, the period of maturity of the devel-
opmentalist pattern of domination, the history of Latin America was
plagued with coups d’etat and violent authoritarian regressions.
The core problem lay in a nationalism that never sought to overcome
underdevelopment, and in the fragility of underdevelopment itself,
which rendered the state incapable of establishing a stable form of domi-
nation that would mean, at least to some degree, an improvement in the
working and living conditions of the workers: “what accumulation in
102 chapter four
underdevelopment lacks most is continuity… Accumulation in underde-

velopment is constantly disrupted by the imbalances that are inherent to
it” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 164, 173).
And yet, the developmentalist pattern constitutes the most civilized
form that capitalism in Latin America has adopted to date and which,
most probably, it will ever adopt. In spite of its considerable limitations,
the developmentalist state created a political space that workers had
never enjoyed under the conditions of the oligarchic pattern, and which
they do not enjoy now under the neoliberal pattern of domination. For
this very reason, the military violence and coups d’etat were aimed at “put-
ting an end to processes of growth in which the decisive role of the state
apparatus in guiding development stimulated the growing activism of the
popular sectors” (Arceo, 2002, emphasis added).
State Administration of Concessions

The transformations that took place with the move from the direct, exclu-
sionary and brutal methods of the natural form of domination in the fĳirst
stage of industrial capitalism to those of the contained form (particularly
in the modality of the Keynesian pattern of domination), were so pro-
found that it is worth attempting to offfer a general outline of them.
The emergence of the masses provoked by the crisis in the natural form
in the fĳirst period of capitalist domination and, in particular, in the liberal
pattern of domination in the countries of developed capitalism, revealed
the inadequacy of purely empirical knowledge. Therefore, the task of
domination became a matter of scientifĳic study and application, with the
establishment of what I earlier proposed to call the “production workshop
of domination strategies,” the place where the political applications of sci-
ence are processed. What follows is a brief outline of how this workshop
operated under the conditions of the Keynesian pattern of domination.
The Capitalists and the Workers and Their Representatives
The underlying premise here is the recognition that “the main political
element of change is the organized presence of the masses” (Portantiero,
1981: 25); in the developed capitalist nations (and throughout the world),
what marked the shift from the natural form of domination to the con-
tained form was a situation of emergence of the masses. From that time
on, the capitalist state operated in association with an “organized worker
movement,” and expressed in that association is the basic design of domi-

nation as state administration of concessions.
Insofar as the capitalist state responded to some worker demands,
assuming the administration of some of the conditions for worker repro-
duction and organizing the institutional framework of negotiation
between the classes, it lost its exteriority to the organized workers: “this
modifĳied state could no longer be viewed narrowly as an ‘administrative
committee’ of the bourgeoisie” (Portantiero, 1981: 25). Worker organiza-
tions, parties and unions underwent a process of profound transforma-
tion; their purpose was no longer to struggle against, but to negotiate with
capital. Their nature, their scope and their structure were radically altered;
they lost their external, antagonistic position in relation to the capital
power structures and were institutionalized as elements of the state.
The construction of a space for negotiation between the classes requires,
according to Weber’s formulation, “rationally organized parties” and a
“mature unionism” (Portantiero, 1981: 14–15), and the agreement of these
parties and unions consists in “participating in the responsibility of gov-
ernment” and abandoning “the negative sterility toward the state to which
they had been driven by the intransigence of the system.” In other words,
the basic agreement consists in accepting the unquestionable nature of
the capitalist order.
Whether as a moment in the evolution of the struggle of capital against
independent, revolutionary worker organization, or as the result of the
defeat and destruction of revolutionary organizations, the workers were
channeled into “respectable” worker organizations28 which were recog-
nized by the state as agencies for political and labor representation of the
workers; the interests of the social classes and groups were organized and
represented at the national level in order to structure the dynamics of
negotiation and reconciliation of interests.
Antagonism between workers and capitalists, the revolution and the
socialist project were presented as things of the past. Now the “conflicts”
were subject to rules of bargaining between “negotiators.” The workers
(or rather, their organizations, parties and unions) became “rational nego-
tiators” with capital and were contained within the logic of capital itself;
the scope of “rationality” in the negotiation was limited by the level of
28 These organizations may have been pre-existing, like the European social demo-
cratic organizations, or created ad hoc by the State itself, as in the case of the state corporat-
ism of underdeveloped capitalism.
104 chapter four
capital’s rate of profĳit. A reduction in the rate of profĳit would inhibit invest-
ment, reduce employment and work against the interests of the workers;
the notion of “rationality” established a space for negotiation and of “com-
mon interest” between the classes.
The whole scope of negotiation was thus delimited by one basic prin-
ciple: a rise in wages (both direct and indirect) depends on an increase in
productivity and on the various imperatives arising from the needs of
restructuring, competitiveness or modernization of capital. In a certain
sense, the workers became co-responsible for the efffĳicient operation of
“their capital,” whether private or national; their interests appeared to be
tied to the efffective running of the company where they worked and the
economy of their country, in competition with other companies and other
countries.
Thus the agenda for negotiation and for what was negotiable also
acquired exact, predefĳined parameters. The public institutions that
administrate part of the value of labor-power, according to Suzanne de
Brunhofff, “are constantly the site of class confrontations with regard not
only to their establishment, but to their form and size, and are only devel-
oped through compromises between the classes… These institutions…
constantly orientate administration relative to the demands of the work”
(Brunhofff, 1980: 236, emphasis added).
This delimited territory provides the structure for the endless bargain-
ing that keeps worker organizations permanently occupied; not only do
they negotiate the rights of the workers and the defĳinition of the “rights
holders” (Brunhofff 1980: 248), but also, “the application of certain institu-
tional guarantees are the object of struggles… some of the capitalists act
outside the agreements of their class as a whole… and the uncertainty of
the outcome of the claims forms part of the insecurity of the proletariat.
There is no strictly progressive evolution in the integration of workers into the
system, not even in the case of the ‘stabilized’ sector of the proletariat”
(Brunhofff, 1980: 252).
Along with these transformations – not of form but of content – of
worker organizations, a separation occurred between the worker base and
the organizations representing it. There developed the widespread appli-
cation of what Coriat calls the policy of substitution, which “consisted in
depriving the unions of the general assistance functions that made them
popular with the workers” (Coriat, 1992: 55). Until this time, unions had
organized fĳirst aid and mutual assistance funds for accidents, illnesses or
unemployment, in an expression of class organization, cohesion, solidar-
ity and consciousness.
Now, state institutions offfered a better guarantee than what could be

offfered by the unions and their resistance practices, in terms of length of
the working-day, regularity in employment, collective life and disability
(illness or accident) insurance, old-age pensions, guarantees against
unemployment, illness and unjust practices; such guarantees no longer
came from working class organizations, even if it was the union that par-
ticipated in the negotiation process representing the interests of the
workers.
This is where a second point of separation occurred between the worker
base and its organizations; negotiation involved a bargaining process that
takes place between worker representatives and employers, with the regu-
lation of government representatives. In this process, the worker base is a
passive observer, with no role as an active player;29 to a large extent, union
practices and the outcomes obtained from them are alienated from the
participation, decisions and wishes of the worker masses. There is a policy
of alienation of workers from their organizations which is complemented
by the policy of substitution and the two converge into one strategic pur-
pose: to confĳine the worker masses to political passivity.
At the same time, the new modalities of capital accumulation, mass
production and consumption gave workers new reasons to appreciate,
regulate and protect their jobs. Under the new conditions, which included
not only labor and wage conditions but lifestyle conditions as well, capital
not only put an end to “the chronic state of insubordination,” but also
reduced the mobility and absenteeism of workers, as well as delays or
carelessness on the job, and “ensured the provision of a select and docile
work force” (Coriat, 1992: 57, 59). Credit systems were developed for the
purchase of durable consumer goods and workers acquired the conviction
that their jobs not only ensured their maintenance and well-being today,
but also in the future: “retirement is earned slowly, everyday, through sub-
mission and work” (Hatzfeld, as quoted in Coriat, 1992: 84).
While the industrial reserve army was incorporated, organized and con-
trolled, not abolished but kept on reserve, at the disposal of the fluctuating
needs of capital accumulation, the active industrial army was assured
of job stability, guarantees for the future and levels of consumption and
29 The conversion from active player into passive observer is constantly promoted by
bourgeois ideology. This is the meaning behind the ideology of the hero incessantly pro-
moted in U.S. cinema and, in general, the meaning behind all spectacles: soccer in England
was the sport of the workers until it was turned into a spectacle and the workers into
spectators.
106 chapter four
well-being that workers in the 19th century and early 20th had never even
dreamed of. Such is the reward for political apathy and submission in the
workplace. But political apathy and workplace submission have a more
solid basis that is not limited to real or supposed worker conformism. The
traditional forms of protection against unemployment and illness (the
union, the family, the community) also constituted the social territory
where, in the 19th century and fĳirst decades of the 20th, attitudes and
political positions were processed; in working class neighborhoods, in
their bars, in the heart of their family and community relations, the politi-
cal positions of the workers were defĳined in relation to the various social-
ist projects.
The transformations produced by the new mode of capitalist develop-
ment destroyed these social spaces and fragmented the social organiza-
tion of the workers; they were individualized, isolated, atomized,
disintegrated, and confĳined, in the best of cases, to the nuclear family.30
This left them with no social space in which to construct a political posi-
tion as a class. It was the transformation of the living conditions of the
workers that constituted the basis of the transformation of their values,
beliefs and attitudes, of their entire culture: “a new mass culture as a
reconstruction of a collective personality that required the introduction of
profound changes to everyday life” (Portantiero, 1981: 57).31
The risk that the emergence of the masses implied for the capitalist sys-
tem was resolved in a way that the liberals of the 19th century never would
have imagined. Its political design was centered on disorganizing, exclud-
ing and repressing the workers, while for Weber (according to Portantiero)
the problem of domination is a problem of the sociology of organiza-
tions: “contemporary reality is a reality of groups and institutions…
30 Hirsch identifĳies several processes that led to the disintegration of neighborhood,

professional and family relations and the replacement of the community with a conglom-
erate of isolated workers and consumers. The material and physical reproduction of work-
ers became more dependent on capitalist production of goods and services and
geographical and professional mobility, and the constant process of disqualifĳication and
re-qualifĳication, the intensifĳication of labor and constant unemployment all contributed
to the process of destruction of the traditional channels of production and lifestyles. In this
process lies “the genesis of the modern education system under strong political control;
social disintegration and the establishment of wage-labor required a special agency of
control that would not only provide certain qualifĳications, but also control the social con-
ditioning of youth. As the family, the community and the neighborhood lost their influ-
ence, they were replaced by institutions such as the police, the classroom and social work”
(Hirsch, 1996: 24–25).
31 Portantiero adds (quoting Gramsci) that “the new work methods are indissolubly
linked to a specifĳic way of living, thinking and feeling about life.”
This recognition of the central nature of groups and institutions as an ana-

lytical unit is the basis of his [Weber’s] conception that only with a socio-
logical perspective is it possible to penetrate the essence of the political
context” (Portantiero, 1981: 12).
As the masses “think in immediate terms,” Weber argues, “they are
exposed to emotional influences” and, when they are disorganized, they
tend to practice “street democracy”; however, “an uncoordinated mass can
never govern itself, but is governed, with the only change being to the
method of choosing the heads of government… ‘democratization’ does not
necessarily mean an increase in active participation by the dominated”
(Portantiero, 1981: 14, 18, emphasis added). The counterpart to this reduc-
tion of the masses to passivity and expectancy is the activity of “the lead-
ers.” As in the soccer spectacle, the players are the experts, the specialists,
the representatives of the workers, the capitalists and the government:
“the new corporatism did not seek consensus so much through the occa-
sional approval of the masses, but through continual negotiation between
organized interests… the stability of the system required a much more
bureaucratic and centralized kind of negotiation” (Portantiero, 1981: 21).
As Gramsci explains, “in modern civilization all practical activities have
become so complex and the sciences have become so intertwined with
daily life that every practical activity tends to require a school to produce
its own leaders and specialists… Any problem that needs to be resolved is
fĳirst examined by experts and analyzed scientifĳically” (as quoted in
Portantiero, 1981: 55).
The Science of Capital
The exploration above highlights the multifunctional nature that science

acquired in the design of capital domination and in the direction of the
strategic processes under the conditions of the Keynesian pattern: break-
ing up the workers, alienating them from their social environment, their
neighborhood, community and even family relations, destroying the space
in which their processes of class organization, cohesion, solidarity and
consciousness took place, reducing the worker masses to passivity and
separating leadership from the masses, defĳining those workers who could
act as representatives qualifĳied to bargain with capital and even defĳining
the scope of the negotiable between the classes and, in general, resolving
problems related to the “sociology of organizations.”
For example, “the state of chronic insubordination” of the workers, of
mobility, absenteeism, delays and carelessness in the workplace, was a
108 chapter four
problem which, at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th,
greatly preoccupied the capitalists and their hired intellectuals.32 For
Ford, the problem was resolved by influencing the living conditions of the
worker population. How to achieve this constituted a specifĳic object of
scientifĳic research. If experts on the topic did not exist, it would be neces-
sary to create them. Capital identifĳied its problems and looked for answers:
“This era marked the beginning of cooperation between academically
trained experts (sociologists, psychologists, psychotechnicians, etc.) and
business leaders. Ford set up a ‘sociology department’ and a body of moni-
tors and inspectors… Their basic mission was to go out to the homes of
workers and the places they frequented in order to monitor their general
behavior and, in particular, how they spent their wages” (Coriat, 1992: 57).
With the results of this research, Ford turned the wage rises into a
means of control over all of the living conditions of the workers; he deter-
mined which workers could benefĳit from higher wages (adults with at
least six months in the job, not women or underage workers); and he
established internal regulations to defĳine the conditions for hiring (includ-
ing impeccable morals, cleanliness, no alcohol, smoking, games or bars)
and fĳiring. The selection was strict and the benefĳits could be withdrawn at
any time (Coriat, 1992: 57, 59).33
Another example may further illustrate this idea. While the National
Association of Manufacturers, anchored in the past, proclaimed that “we,
the employers, are responsible for the work carried out by our workers”
and resorted to physical violence to “discipline” the workers, Taylor assured
that there was no need to assert employer authority; the personal army
of that authority was reduced or eliminated, as thenceforth enforcing
its authority was a “scientifĳic” exercise (Coriat, 1992: 32). Science, placed
at the service of capital domination not only investigated problems and
proposed solutions, but also, once the worker representatives had
renounced the possibility of a non-capitalist option and, together with the
representatives of capital and government, agreed to operate within
the scope of possibilities offfered by the logic of capital, science became
32 In both the U.S. and France, “the sessions and communications of the engineers were
focused fĳirst and foremost remuneration systems. At the beginning of the 20th century, the
use of wages seemed to be the least risky method of keeping laborers in their place” (Coriat,
1992: 52).
33 Gramsci also reflects on the meaning of the processes occurring at this time: “The
puritan initiatives (in sex life, in prohibition of alcohol, etc.) have this meaning in the U.S.:
to modify habits and customs in order to develop ‘the new type of person demanded by the
rationalization of production and labor’” (Portantiero, 1981: 57).
the spokesperson for the needs and possibilities of capital, entrusted with
the task of presenting the rationale of capital in irrefutable terms, not as a
capitalist whim but as a natural law, and thus became an indispensable
aid in discussions between the representatives of capital and of labor.
The capitalist use of science, overdetermined by the needs of exploita-
tion and domination, inevitably result in a concentration of knowledge;
Ford, while explaining the achievements attained through rationalization
in his factory, boasted that 95% of “his” workers specialized in “a single
operation that the stupidest individual would be capable of learning within
two days” (Coriat, 1992: 45, emphasis added). Indeed, from the perspective
of the logic of the needs of capital, to reduce the largest possible number
of workers to stupidity (i.e. to make them more easily manipulated) is no
small achievement if it contributes to a rise in labor productivity and in
the rate of surplus-value.34 There is a possibility of stupidity and produc-
tive capacity coming into conflict with one another; the problem would
then lie in fĳinding the optimal combination in accordance with the pre-
vailing technological designs and the composition of the collective of
laborers. But this is just what science is for – to solve these types of
problems.
The Working Class and Its Internal Relations
The transformation of relations between the working class and the capi-
talist was necessarily combined with a transformation in the relations
inside the class itself. The working class became more heterogeneous and
diffferentiated35 and, as a result, in the context of the processes underway
at this time, more incapable of initiating large-scale group actions. The
worker parties and unions were transformed from organizations promot-
ing the political interests of the class into bureaucratic apparatuses inte-
grating the masses that received legal privileges and public funding. They
fĳiltered and channeled demands, making them compatible with the con-
ditions of the system. They manipulated public opinion and tended to
34 The combination of Fordism and Taylorism means “a strict separation between the
conception of the production process (which is the task of the area of methods and orga-
nization) and the performance of standardized and formally prescribed tasks” (Lipietz,
1997); Taylorism takes capital appropriation of the conditions for the performance of
immediate labor to its most radical extreme.
35 Suzanne de Brunhofff distinguishes between an integrated proletariat that receives a
direct and indirect wage, one that receives only partial benefĳits, a lumpenproletariat that
receives assistance, migrant workers, etc. (Brunhofff, 1980: 244–245).
110 chapter four
concentrate their public monopoly, controlling the coordination of groups

and monopolizing their methods of organization (Hirsch, 1996: 29–30).
Within the unions and worker parties, a layer of technical and political
experts is created, conservative in nature and with its own interests.
Decisions are delegated, meaning that they pass from the base to the
“leader or representative,” and the union or party base, increasingly amor-
phous, has no means of control over its “representative.” The struggle for
leadership positions became sordid and brutal, the vertical structure pro-
moted corruption and irresponsibility among the leaders,36 who adminis-
trated concessions more and more for themselves and less and less for the
workers as a whole and who, together with the employer representatives
(in reality the representatives of the great monopolies) and the govern-
ment offfĳicials, ultimately constituted what Hirsch calls the corporatist
bureaucratic regulation cartel (Hirsch, 1996: 31).
The Strategic Proposition in the Keynesian Pattern of

Domination
The shift from the liberal pattern to the Keynesian pattern of domination
constituted what Gramsci calls a passive revolution: “a process of transfor-
mations from on high, recovering a portion of the demands of those below
while taking from the latter all autonomous political initiative” (as quoted
in Portantiero, 1981: 44). The concessions made to workers administrated
by the state did not address all of the problems, nor were they offfered to all
of the workers, but they allowed the state to restructure domination on a
global scale: “Only government initiative was capable of giving assistance
a strategic global character: maintenance of ghettos, of underemployment,
of poverty, not as breeding grounds for disorder, but as elements of capi-
talist reproduction”37 (Brunhofff, 1980: 245, emphasis added).
The worldwide emergence of the masses, which sparked the crisis
for the liberal pattern and all the modalities of the fĳirst emergence of the
natural form of domination and placed at risk the domination of capital
itself for the fĳirst and until now the only time in history, was resolved with
36 For a detailed description of this type of relation see Almeyra, 2004.

37 The fact that the system of worker assistance and security developed by the “welfare
state” achieved essentially political goals is demonstrated by its “cyclic rhythm”, which
“depends on its main functions: maintenance of social order and reinforcement of work-
place discipline… The system of assistance and security is not static, but expands and con-
tracts depending on the state of social relations.” When there is a mass strike combined
with social upheaval, public assistance expands (Brunhofff, 1980: 245–246).
a strategic initiative by the capitalist state to restructure its domination;

the administration of concessions for the workers acquired a strategic
global character to restructure and, for an entire historical period, pre-
serve the domination of capital without further challenges. The workers
did not fĳind their own strategy to oppose this strategy of capital and, since
then, the initiative, the control of the process, has been in the hands of
capital.
A brief summary of the discussion of this chapter will show how the
pincer was closed on the workers on two fronts:
1. The transformations produced by the new mode of capitalist develop-
ment fragmented the social organization of the workers; they were now
individualized, isolated, atomized, disintegrated, and confĳined to the
nuclear family;
2. Worker organizations, parties and unions underwent a process of
profound transformation. Their nature, their scope and their structure
were radically altered; they lost their external, antagonistic position in
relation to the capital power structures and were institutionalized as ele-
ments of the state. It was as if worker organizations had been expropriated
and turned into a part of the power that dominated them.
To these two it would be necessary to add a third front: the “production
workshop of domination strategies,” which organized the ideological
and cultural messages to be circulated in society, in conjunction with the
education system and the mass media. They monopolized the space for
public communication and developed scientifĳic applications to under-
stand and influence the culture, ideology and behavior of society: surveys,
interviews, publicity, propaganda, marketing, etc. Capital and its ideologi-
cal universe thus invaded the everyday world of the working class.
Following the great scare provoked by the uprising of the masses around
the world with the crisis of the fĳirst emergence of the natural form of dom-
ination came decades of learning for the capitalist state and of unlearning
for the workers who, by the end of the prevalence of the diffferent modali-
ties assumed by the contained form of domination, had forgotten much of
what they had learned during those extraordinary decades when they
tried to take heaven by storm. Of course, as has been and will be the case
throughout the history of capitalism, the struggle of the workers against
capital was still present, but it no longer reached the level of a hegemonic
dispute.
PART TWO
THE NEOLIBERAL PATTERN:

SECOND EMERGENCE OF THE NATURAL FORM OF DOMINATION
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TRANSITION TO THE NEOLIBERAL PATTERN OF DOMINATION
“Capitalist production comprises conditions independent of good or bad will,

conditions which permit the working class to enjoy that relative prosperity only
momentarily, and at that only as a harbinger of a coming crisis.”
Karl Marx
Capital, Vol. II
The End of the Contained Form of Domination
The Keynesian pattern of domination in particular (and the contained

form of domination in general) was the result of a particular set of eco-
nomic and political circumstances. First of all, it involved a transforma-
tion of the political institutions, whatever form they may have assumed –
“Western democracy,” “pluralism,” “real socialism,” “Third World populism
and developmentalism,” or “societal or state corporatism” (Schmitter,
1992) – which articulated some form of organization and representation
of the working class and which, therefore, coordinated some form of nego-
tiation between classes.
The capitalist state modifĳied its position within the structures of domi-
nation according to the needs of exploitation and the circumstances of
the class struggle. In the liberal pattern of domination, the state was the
focal point for the organization of the capitalist class, the regulation of
relations between capitalists and the repression of attempts at reform or
revolution on the part of the workers. Under this arrangement, domina-
tion gradually grew more complicated. When worker and popular strug-
gles infĳiltrated the space occupied by the nation-state, it became a space
where the diffferent modalities of the contained form of domination were
processed.
This is a point worth highlighting. Throughout the 19th century, the
socialist worker movement assumed a bourgeois-democratic1 mission: to
ensure the broadest and freest conditions of organization for the struggle
1 “They need political liberty in order to unite all the Russian workers extensively and
openly… but millions of people cannot unite unless there is political liberty” (Lenin, 1903).
116 chapter five
in order to improve the living conditions of workers under capitalism and

in the name of socialism, and to promote the rights of the people, freedom
of assembly, of speech and of the press, of residence and of occupation.
Political freedom, Lenin claimed, would not liberate the workers from
poverty, but it would provide them with the weapons to fĳight against it.
These weapons are the basic democratic rights which the capitalists
only recognized after massive worker struggles, in the context of the con-
tained form of domination, and which the natural form of domination did
not recognize, either in its expression as the liberal pattern or (although
on a diffferent scale) the neoliberal pattern.2
Secondly, it is important to note that a political structure of such a
nature is only viable if, at the basic level of exploitation, the capitalist class
is able to assume the commitment to improve the living conditions of the
working class, by means of direct wages or redistribution of surplus-value
by the state in the form of indirect wages, without afffecting the rate of
profĳit. In other words, to be viable, this structure of domination requires a
delicate balance between wages and profĳit that is only possible in the con-
text of a certain level of development of the productive force of labor, and,
therefore, a certain level of organic composition of capital. How this com-
plex balance was achieved is explained by Keynesianism and Fordism and
the basic principle of negotiation that they established: to make all wage
increases depend on an increase in productivity.
But this same circumstance says much about the limitations of the con-
tained form of domination, which enjoyed its peak during the post-war
boom and waned with the waning of the boom itself, when capital’s rate of
profĳit began to decrease. It must be added that, to affford the nation-state
sufffĳicient capacity to regulate class conflict through institutionalized
mechanisms within the state apparatus, it was necessary for it also to have
the capacity to regulate the economy, i.e. for the national economy to
operate, to a certain degree, under the regulation of the nation-state. The
basic condition that would make this possible was the “relative discon-
nection of the national economies from the global market by means of
political controls; economic sovereignty of nation-states and restricted
international mobility of capital” (Hirsch, 1996: 97). It is no coincidence
2 Lenin suggested that “nations are an inevitable product, an inevitable form, in the
bourgeois epoch of social development. The working class could not grow strong, become
mature and take shape without ‘constituting itself within the nation’, without being
‘national’ (though not in the bourgeois sense of the word)” (Lenin, 1914). Neoliberal “global-
ization” has invested the matter of belonging to a nation-state with new complexities, such
as the location of working class organization and struggle.
neoliberal pattern of domination 117
that, at the onset of the crisis that brought the end of the post-war boom,
capital called for “free international mobility.”
The Transition to the Neoliberal Pattern of Domination
Because the basic principle of negotiation between capitalists and work-

ers established among the conditions for all variants of the contained
form of domination was the tying of wage increases (direct and indirect)
to increases in productivity,3 the material support necessary for their
political structure was a gradual and sustained rise in labor productivity;
and as the technological structure that sustained Keynesianism in the
developed countries was Fordism, consistent increases in labor productiv-
ity were made possible through the nature of Fordism as a technological
system that would accept new incremental innovations.4 The crisis of
Fordism therefore meant that as a technological system it had exhausted
its possibilities for the development of incremental innovations and,
unless it could be replaced with a new technological system through a
new technological revolution (Pérez, 1986), labor productivity would
remain stagnant.
With productivity stagnating by the end of the 1960s, and an institu-
tionalized political structure that allowed workers to negotiate and
demand better wage, work and living conditions, the rates of surplus-value
and of profĳit began dropping notably in the mid-1970s and the capitalist
crisis, an expression of the fall in the rate of profĳit, became widespread.
With this crisis, the economic basis for the political model was broken and
the crisis of Fordism was expressed, at the level of the structures of domi-
nation, as a crisis in the Keynesian pattern of domination.
From that moment onward, the whole strategic design of the capitalist
class was constructed around one basic purpose: to reverse the drop in the
rate of profĳit and increase the rate of surplus-value. To do this, capital
needed to resolve two problems: fĳirst, to break out of the limitations of
Fordism as a technological system in order to raise labor productivity and
increase the rate of surplus-value (i.e. capital needed to introduce a new
technological revolution, to give a new boost to the development of the
capital/wage-labor relation); and second – what we might call its ulterior
3 In other words, any wage increase was contingent on an increase in the rate of sur-
plus-value and the rate of profĳit.
4 For an explanation of the concepts of technological system and incremental innova-
tion, see Pérez, 1986.
118 chapter five
motive, based on the tendential orientation of class interest – to reduce

the working class to defenselessness, destroying even the fragile shelter
represented by Keynesian institutionalism.
This was based on what for capital were three irrefutable facts: one, that
under the circumstances of the drop in the rate of profĳit, it was necessary
to cancel the gravy train and remove all the concessions granted to work-
ers during the Keynesian period; two, that workers must not hinder the
process of reorganization of the conditions for exploitation and accumu-
lation which the capitalists were compelled to carry out; and three, that
capital no longer had any interest, need or capacity to offfer concessions to
workers; on the contrary, it had to ensure that all new increases in produc-
tivity, intensity and/or working hours translated directly into rises in the
rates of surplus-value and profĳit.5
In other words, the drop in the rate of profĳit renewed the always insa-
tiable need of capital to appropriate the labor of others, and pushed it to
restore the natural form of its domination under the new historical condi-
tions. Moreover – and this is no minor detail – the political threat that
compelled capital to accept the Keynesian compromise no longer
appeared to exist. The unions and revolutionary worker parties that had
threatened capital in the late 19th and early 20th century were no more;
they had been eliminated by fascism or subsumed into the political struc-
tures of the Keynesian pattern of domination. Now they were unions and
parties whose purpose, in the context of capitalism (whatever modality it
might adopt), was to negotiate and administrate reforms, not to promote
revolutions.
It must be remembered that reformism is internal to capital and reform
is therefore subordinate to the needs of capital reproduction. Reformist
parties and unions respond to the needs of capitalism, and what capital-
ism needed, under the new historical circumstances, was to increase the
rate of surplus-value. There was no reason to expect them to pose any
efffective resistance against capital’s new strategic initiative. After some
inefffectual whining over the new misfortune of the working class (while
helping to defuse any serious attempt at resistance6), they dedicated
5 “The compatibility of capital profĳits and the well-being of the masses had come to an
end… and the bases for the compromises between social classes likewise disappeared”
(Hirsch, 1996: 88).
6 “The leaders of the socialist parties have become one of the main bastions of the new
order. The heads of the major unions have transformed into the biggest dampers on worker
and popular protest. The old communist parties are beating a retreat in the political wake
themselves to administrating their own transition from Keynesian corpo-

ratist bureaucratic regulation cartel to monolithic neoliberal party.7
With the collapse of the Keynesian pattern, the contained form of dom-
ination in developed capitalism, it wasn’t long before its subsidiary forms
likewise collapsed. The real socialism of the Soviet Union, with its econ-
omy stagnating from the late sixties onward, exhausted from the efffort of
maintaining the arms race imposed upon it by the United States during
the Cold War and unable to participate in the renewed technological race,
attempted to modernize its capitalism, and in so doing aggravated the
chaos and the crisis in its economy, causing serious deterioration to the
living conditions of the vast majority. This provoked more resentment
against the nomenclature and further discrediting of “real socialism.”
The nomenclature, the managing elite in real socialism, however, did
not lose either the political initiative or control of the process, and not
only was the discontent and mobilization of the workers (which lacked
political coordination) successfully defused, but the move from state capi-
talism to neoliberal capitalism was presented ideologically as a response
to a popular demand, a move toward “democracy and universal prosper-
ity.” The Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe didn’t take long to collapse, and the
rest of the “real socialist” world also underwent a shift toward neoliberal
capitalism (China did so with great success), abandoning in every case the
old forms of relations between social classes and the commitments to the
welfare of the workers.
As a historical form of capitalist development and as a modality of the
contained form of capitalist domination, “real socialism” was no better or
worse than others of the same period, and the positioning of the USSR as
a “superpower” helped to contain the voracity of the United States. The
tug of war between the two “superpowers” opened up a certain range of
possibilities for the underdeveloped nations in the area of international
policy, until then the exclusive territory of the imperialist countries. They
thus established the Non-Aligned Movement, demanding a New Inter-
national Economic Order that would allow them to industrialize and seek-
ing to negotiate the prices of their raw materials as a bloc. But the collapse
of the Soviet Union left the United States as the only “superpower” in the
military sphere and the underdeveloped nations’ room to maneuver was
drastically reduced with the new imperialist offfensive.
of the socialist parties, in parallel with the restorationist about-turn of the CPs in Russia
and the countries of the East” (Ayala and Figueroa, 2001).
7 Both expressions are taken from Hirsch, 1996.
120 chapter five
But as supposed “socialism,” its worst features and its collapse – enthu-
siastically cited as the “collapse of socialism” by the ideologues of the
bourgeoisie around the world – created serious confusion and disillusion-
ment among the workers who still show no sign of rising up in a new
formulation of the socialist project. The “fall of socialism,” converted by
the spokespeople of the bourgeoisie into the end of history, in supposed
confĳirmation of capitalism as the natural social organization of human-
kind, as its only possibility, helped to discourage and defuse any worker
response to the shift in the form of domination.
Meanwhile, Latin American developmentalism, which had never
sought to overcome underdevelopment, had also reached its limit. On the
one hand, the policy of import substitution, with the national market
relatively isolated from competition on the global market, had enabled
industrialization through the importing of obsolete production methods,
devalued in the developed world but still useful in the productive struc-
ture and market conditions of underdeveloped nations. In this way, indus-
trialization through import substitution reproduced, deepened and
perpetuated underdevelopment, creating an interminable spiral of import
needs.8
On the other hand, Latin American developmentalism opened up new
possibilities of appreciation for imperialist capital through the exporta-
tion of obsolete constant capital9 and the establishment of subsidiaries, in
alliance with local capital, within the Latin American economies. From
the mid-1950s on, the presence of subsidiaries of U.S. monopolies within
the Latin American economies – particularly the more industrialized
ones – was a growing trend. By the seventies, U.S. capital constituted the
hegemonic faction of capital within the most industrialized Latin
American countries, and, from within, it would pressure these countries to
adopt new modalities of growth.
By the end of the 1960s, Latin American developmentalism had reached
its limit with a process of industrialization that substituted imports, which
in fact required increasing quantities of imports, creating an industry
incapable of competing on the global market and therefore incapable
of exporting – that is, incapable of fĳinancing its import requirements.
8 “The internal production of goods substitutes their importation, but creates new
import needs for intermediate and capital goods” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 162).
9 “This is why the U.S. bourgeoisie wasted no time in attempting to promote industrial-
ization (in Latin America), based precisely on obsolete material in the countries them-
selves” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1986: 173).
From the end of the sixties on, the foreign debts of Latin American coun-
tries began to rise, and by the late seventies and early eighties, an external
debt crisis arose which, due to the increase in interest rates imposed by
the Reagan administration, reached astronomical proportions until Latin
America was forced to undertake “structural adjustment” programs.10
“Inward growth” became a new modality of “outward growth,” no longer as
“primary export economics,” but through the creation of a new pattern of
industrial colonialism (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2001), and the developmen-
talist pattern of domination disappeared to give way to the neoliberal
pattern.
In Latin America, as with the collapse of “real socialism,” the crisis in
developmentalism magnifĳied the negative image of this socioeconomic
system, thereby facilitating the presentation of the transition from devel-
opmentalism to neoliberalism as a “transition to democracy and moder-
nity.” With the military dictatorships in South America, capital achieved
two goals. First, it crushed the popular struggles that had taken advantage
of the political space opened up by developmentalism, at least to the
extent of recognizing certain worker rights, encouraging some form of
nationalism and questioning the fragility and weakness of the underdevel-
oped world, the chronically subordinate pole in the imperialist relation, to
guarantee better working and living conditions for workers. And second, it
paved the road for the emergence of the new pattern of domination and
exploitation.
With these goals achieved, these dictatorships (along with fĳinely-tuned
authoritarian corporatist regimes like that of Mexico) initiated what was
offfĳicially referred to as the transition to democracy; the era of the dictator-
ships, the spokespeople for capital announced festively, had come to an
end, and a new era of civic maturity and development of “civil society,”
progress, respect for human rights and diversity, etc., had begun.
Throughout Latin America, a new era of economic progress was pro-
claimed, while in Mexico the discourse went even further and, with the
signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. and
Canada, the government asserted, with unequivocal certainty, that the
10 “The process of change had one fundamental point of support: the debt crisis, which
had been stimulated by the United States and which was precipitated by the abrupt change
in its monetary policy. The actions of the IMF and the World Bank would thus prove deci-
sive, as they made the aid offfered to cope with the rise in interest rates on the debt and the
total paralysis of the voluntary flow of funds conditional upon trade liberalization, eco-
nomic deregulation and privatization of the public sector” (Arceo, 2002).
122 chapter five
country was leaving the ranks of the underdeveloped once and for all and
entering the “First World.”
The capitalists successfully presented their strategic initiatives, aimed
at opening a new avenue to satisfy their appetite for the labor of others, as
the solution to the social ills of the previous period (ills which they them-
selves had created), and thus won the support of society for their new
projects, at least until the new ills provoked by the new initiatives become
evident and the hope inspired by the “new solutions” begin to fade, at
which point the cycle is initiated once again, with the proposal of some
new “solution.”
There is, however, a radical diffference between the transitions that
marked the shift from the natural form to the contained form and those
of the return to the natural form. While the fĳirst meant that workers
around the world had managed to win some concessions from capital and
improve their working and living conditions (albeit within limits), the sec-
ond meant that capital resumed its normal role, rolling back the achieve-
ments that the workers had fought so hard to win.
The fĳirst transition improved living and working conditions, while the
second was explicitly designed to worsen them: the reduction of direct
and indirect wages, the casualization of labor, increased unemployment,
and the resumption of direct control of underdeveloped nations. The
global wave that constituted the diffferent modalities of the contained
form of domination disappeared, giving way to a new emergence of the
natural form of capitalist domination that was imposed throughout the
world: the neoliberal pattern of domination.
In order to examine the neoliberal pattern of domination, I have
attempted to synthesize its general features into four processes that
I believe constitute the core of its dynamic. Although they are intimately
related, each of these processes requires separate analysis, and each one
constitutes an object of study of a process in progress, open to future turns
in the course of history. The aim here is thus to capture their tendencies,
their strategic purpose in the context of the capital/wage-labor relation,
without tying them to a particular moment in their development. It is thus
more an analysis on the logical plane than an attempt to defĳine a historical
manifestation, although the United States and Latin America (particularly
Mexico) will serve as specifĳic historical points of reference to illustrate cer-
tain tendential lines of the process. Another chapter is dedicated to the
analysis of each of these processes later in this work.
In Chapter 6, I provide a review of neoliberal economics: the so-
called globalization of big multinational fĳinancial capital, based on free
international mobility of capital and the deployment of the power of the

new technological revolution, with special focus on the internationaliza-
tion of productive capital, as well as its translation into a new pattern of
industrial colonialism. This involves a complex series of processes whose
strategic purpose is to increase the rate of surplus-value and concentrate
its production and appropriation on a global scale, redefĳining the relation
between capital and labor and between developed and underdeveloped
capitalism.
Chapter 7 will then analyze neoliberal politics, the transformations pro-
duced by capital at the government level: nation-states are disabled as
spaces for the regulation of the capital-labor relation, dedicated to dis-
mantling the concessions won by the workers during the period of the
Keynesian-developmentalist pattern of domination and subordinated to
the dynamic of globalization of big multinational capital. The workers,
particularly those in underdeveloped countries, are reduced to a situation
of virtual defenselessness, as their right to move freely and organize them-
selves internationally is denied, and they are held in a kind of national
confĳinement.
In Chapter 8, I examine the intersection of the two previous points and
the response to neoliberalism. While neoliberal economics provokes
social discontent, neoliberal politics dismantles the institutional avenues
for its expression; the capitalism of today has established no avenues for
the resolution of many of the economic, social and political problems it
generates, but merely administrates them while continuing on its course.
State administration of crime replaces state administration of concessions
as the central pillar of the pattern of domination.
Chapter 9 then attempts to contribute to an understanding of the future
project, or project of civilization, which neoliberal capital offfers human-
kind, on the basis of which it exercises its intellectual and moral leader-
ship and applies its economic and political practices. This chapter also
completes the overview of the neoliberal pattern of domination by provid-
ing some basic outlines to link economics, politics and ideology in the his-
torical context of neoliberal capitalism.
CHAPTER SIX
THE NEOLIBERAL ECONOMY
News coverage and political discussion on social, economic and political

problems focused on just about everything but the corporation. That seemed
upside down to us… Not many of the world’s problems just happen. There’s usu-
ally a party responsible. And in many, many cases, that party is a multinational
corporation – or a group of multinationals.
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
“Self Interview: On the Rampage”
As always, the party directing the process was developed capital. Its fĳirst
responses were announced at the onset of the crisis in the late 1960s and,
from the 1980s onward with the initiation of a new technological revolu-
tion, big capital unleashed a strategic counterofffensive that would struc-
ture the new conditions for exploitation and accumulation and the new
conditions for domination. The neoliberal pattern of domination was
established as the political framework, the structure for domination, cor-
responding to the neoliberal economic model. Based on the proposition
of the concept of a pattern of domination as a general characterization of
capitalist domination in a specifĳic historical period, my purpose here is
to trace the broad outlines of the process, viewing them as trends in
progress, particularly with regard to class relations and the imperialist
relation in Latin America, without attempting to study their historical
manifestations.
It is worth clarifying at this point that, as the main purpose of this work
is to analyze the capital-labor relation, no more than a brief examination
is offfered of the efffect that the inter-imperialist struggle (with the devel-
oped pole of imperialism redefĳined in three major regional blocs) has had
in guiding the process, particularly through the initiatives of the United
States and its competitive strategies against the other blocs. It must be
stated, however, that as a result of a defĳiciency in state administration of
development (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1992), the United States has wasted no
time in launching strategies to compensate for its disadvantages and
increase competitiveness with its most efffĳicient rivals, characterized by a
drastic disregard for the efffects that the behavior of its corporations have
126 chapter six
on the environment, a seriously inequitable and exploitative attitude

toward its “backyard,” an aggressive policy to impose unstable and flexible
labor relations on workers and the use of military force as a resource in the
promotion of economic competitiveness. In today’s world, the United
States is an energetic and resolute promoter of barbarism.1
Neoliberalism is a global offfensive against the workers to reestablish the
conditions for the production of surplus-value, and this is the central
dimension of the process. But it is also necessarily an expression of an
intensely revived inter-capitalist and inter-imperialist battle to appropri-
ate surplus-value; without doubt, the specifĳic course being taken by the
dynamic of neoliberalism is partially explained on this level. However,
the systematic examination of this element is beyond the scope and the
purpose of this work.
Free Mobility:
Neoliberal Internationalization of Capital
In my analysis of the Keynesian pattern I stressed one basic fact: all of the
institutions that regulated the capital-labor relation were constructed at
the level of the nation-state. This is a feature shared by all of the diffferent
modalities assumed by the contained form of domination; the working
and popular classes found a voice in the space of the nation-state and, for
the fĳirst time in the history of capitalism, workers were affforded political,
economic and social rights, as well as relatively broad freedoms of organi-
zation, at least for negotiating better living conditions under capitalism.
Throughout the world, the working class and workers in general made
gains in terms of organization and their capacity for struggle in order to
wrestle concessions from capital, which were coordinated within their
respective nation-states.
I also stressed that, to affford the nation-state sufffĳicient capacity to regu-
late class conflict through institutionalized mechanisms within the state
apparatus, it was necessary for it also to have the capacity to regulate the
economy (i.e. for the national economy to operate, to a certain degree,
under the regulation of the nation-state), and that a relative disconnec-
tion of the national economies from the global market was necessary, as
1 For an interesting examination of the contributions of the United States to the ram-
pant barbarism of today’s world, see Saxe-Fernández, 2006.
the neoliberal economy 127
well as the regulation of the international mobility of capital by means of

political controls.2
It is true that during the post-war boom, fĳinancial capital, particularly
that of the United States, reached a new stage in its process of internation-
alization, and the subsidiaries of its big monopolies spread throughout the
world – to Europe, Japan, and, of course, Latin America. But this occurred
within the context of the international regulation system defĳined by
the Bretton Woods Agreement, which gave the nation-state the capacity
to organize its own national regulation system.3 In other words, the inter-
nationalization of big fĳinancial capital during the post-war boom did
not destroy Keynesian regulation of the nation-state, but rather operated
within the framework organized by that regulation. However, Keynesian
internationalization was established on the basis of neoliberal inter-
nationalization.4 In efffect, faced with the crisis provoked by the drop in
the rate of profĳit, and constricted by an institutionalism coordinated at
the level of nation-states, capital needed a diffferent kind of international-
ism from that offfered by Keynesianism, an internationalism that would
allow it to restore the conditions of the natural form of its domination: an
internationalization founded on its free international mobility.
The strategy of big fĳinancial capital (particularly its most international-
ized form) and of the imperialist states (particularly the United States) to
destroy the Keynesian pattern of domination consisted precisely in
destroying the nation-state’s capacity for economic regulation (specifĳi-
cally, its capacity to regulate relations between capital and wage-labor)
by promoting the free international mobility of capital: “the more liberal-
ized the markets are, the narrower the political room for state action will
be” (Hirsch, 1996: 75). Specifĳically, free mobility of capital involves deregu-
lation and the removal of all hindrances to free enterprise, but it does not
mean no state intervention. The offfensive of the fĳinancial oligarchy calling
2 “Fordism was basically organized under the nation-state structure. It revolved around
the expansion of internal markets on the basis of broad state intervention and institution-
alized class compromises” (Hirsch, 1996: 88).
3 “The institutions established under Bretton Woods – according to which macroeco-
nomic tensions were basically resolved at the national level, as each State could employ its
own monetary and fĳiscal instruments to pursue full employment, but had to ensure levels
of growth of demand and prices compatible with the external balance” (Arceo, 2002).
4 “The interpenetration of capital on a collective scale shattered national production
systems and initiated their restructuring as segments of a globalized production system”
(Amín, 2003b).
128 chapter six
for free mobility sought to ensure the transition from Keynesian state reg-
ulation to regulation “by the markets,” that is, by the direct and immediate
needs of capital appreciation. The state would continue to intervene in
class relations, but its intervention would no longer be under the auspices
of a political pact; rather, it would be overdetermined – regulated, it could
be said – by “the markets,” by the interests of big internationalized capital.
The intention was thus to reestablish a state that not only permits but
vigorously supports the actions of “private initiative” (i.e. the actions of
the big international monopolies); a state adapted to the conditions of the
natural form of domination, to weaken and disorganize the workers and
destroy the diffferent modalities of the “social pact” that were structured
during the era of the contained form of domination.
The Keynesian state was transformed into the neoliberal state and
quickly began implementing the project that drove it: “all the conquests of
civilization that gave shape to the modern state (which today capitalism
destroys or negates) were the result of huge and bloody struggles. Through
the worldwide defeat inflicted by Capital on Labor by the end of the 1980s,
fĳinancial capital was crudely reproducing, on a scale never seen before
and with advanced technology, many of the prevailing features of the last
quarter of the 19th century, from the imperialist wars of colonial conquest
to child slavery, the return of 10–12 hour work-days and the elimination of
labor regulations. It has been reconquering the space it had been forced to
give up, and reducing the political spaces of those whom it exploits,
oppresses and dominates. Only social resistance, which varies from coun-
try to country, places any limits on it” (Almeyra, 2007).
Money-Capital and Commodity-Capital
This section examines the nature of this new internationalization of

capital, based on its free mobility. For this examination, it is necessary
to distinguish between the diffferent functional forms of capital –
money-capital, commodity-capital and productive capital – not only
because they follow distinct rhythms and processes, but because they
have diffferent meanings in the global structure of capital domination. In
this section, I will review the internationalization of money-capital and
commodity-capital, leaving productive-capital for the following section.
Money-Capital
Arceo examines the general framework which, by imposition of the
United States, the IMF and the World Bank, led to the “replacement of
the institutions agreed in Bretton Woods with a new system based on

the deregulation of international fĳinancial markets and flexible rates of
exchange” (Arceo, 2002), freeing up geographical and functional competi-
tion between diffferent types of fĳinancial institutions, progressively dis-
mantling the barriers to the international movement of capital and
the internal regulations for fĳinancial markets and foreign currency trans-
actions, and increasing the importance of the funds controlled by the mul-
tinationals. But what is important to highlight is that there is, at least,
a twofold political meaning behind this process:
First, “in this system, the discipline imposed by the system of fĳixed
exchange rates is replaced by the discipline imposed by the private capital
market through the threat of a massive withdrawal of funds” (Arceo, 2002,
emphasis added). Assured of the free mobility of capital, the market and
not the state is now the one setting the rules of the game; the mode of rela-
tion between state and capital is radically redefĳined.
Second, the Bretton Woods system, which “aimed at making it possible
in each country to control fĳinancial capital and award a central role to
productive capital (by virtue of the commitment to guarantee full employ-
ment for the working class), was replaced by another system, in which…
big fĳinancial capital regains a central position within the bloc of dominant
classes”; in other words, fĳinancial capital is favored over productive
capital.5
It should be noted that Arceo is clearly not speaking of fĳinancial capital
in the broadest sense, as capital resulting from the merger of banking capi-
tal and industrial capital, but in a limited sense, as money-capital and its
various functions (credit markets, stock markets, derivative exchanges,
etc.). Financial capital in the limited sense may be a functional mode of
fĳinancial capital in the broadest sense or it may be a diffferentiated faction
of capital, but what is important here is that under the neoliberal system
the fĳinancial function of capital is favored over the productive, which
means that fĳinancial modes of appropriation of surplus-value are favored
5 The relation between productive capital and fĳinancial capital in this phase of capital-
ist development has particular features which are beyond the scope of this analysis: “a
crucial aspect of the constitution of global information capitalism is the contradictory
interrelation that has been established between production and fĳinancial circulation.
There would seem to be a lack of correspondence or counterpoint between these two
spheres, as exchange rate speculation and volatility have translated into a series of regional
fĳinancial crises, some of which have created momentary systemic instability that afffects
the growth of global production. However, the increasingly globalized fĳinancial system has
come to play a key role in guaranteeing the cyclical reproduction of the new production
base, whose turnover rates have been considerably accelerated with an extremely high
potential for overproduction or overaccumulation” (Dabat et al, 2004).
130 chapter six
over the modes of production of surplus-value and this results in the

breakdown of the Keynesian pact.6 Having been liberated from govern-
ment regulation and assured of free international mobility, a global
money-capital market was established and big fĳinancial capital discov-
ered wonderful opportunities to appropriate value in extraordinary
quantities.
In the 1970s and 1980s, in the context of the stagnation of productivity
and the reduction of the rate of profĳit, companies responded by raising the
prices of their products, speculating on foreign currencies, shifting their
capital, provoking devaluations and inflation, and raising the interest rates
to their debtors (Latin American governments being a notable case).
While shattering the Keynesian strategies of state regulation of the econ-
omy, these actions provoked a massive transference of riches (both public
and private) and the deterioration of the living conditions of the masses.
And with governments closing the pincer by freezing wages while compa-
nies raised prices and profĳits, real wages dropped and a signifĳicant propor-
tion of wage funds was converted into profĳit for capital.
The results were so satisfactory for big capital that, even while produc-
tive capital was restructured and the efffects of the new technological revo-
lution unfolded, the same recipe continued to be applied. In 1995, a major
speculative attack7 occurred and the world fĳilled up with phantoms –
dragons, tequilas, sambas, tangos, all with the generic surname efffect (i.e.
the Dragon Efffect, the Tequila Efffect, etc.) – as savage as the legendary
monster known as the chupacabra, the fĳirst reports of which also emerged
in the mid-1990s. No government could explain where these phantoms
came from or how to control them but, in a matter of minutes, just as the
chupacabra sucks the blood of its victims, they sucked up savings and
wealth, leaving poverty and debt in their wake.
Capital thus found a means of appropriating wealth which was
wonderful in one sense, but also plagued with internal contradictions.
At the same time, it began to erect the framework of the new form of
6 “Article 6 of the [Bretton Woods] agreement made it possible to control the interna-
tional movement of capital; this control was considered by its creators to be a central ele-
ment in order to prevent the interests of productive capital and of each society from
becoming subject to the demands of fĳinancial capital, as had occurred in the period prior
to the Great Depression” (Arceo, 2002).
7 Speculative attacks that translate into major mass expropriations and conversions of
public and private resources which, before and after 1995 and with diverse variants, have
occurred periodically, coming to form part of what David Harvey calls “accumulation by
dispossession” (Harvey, 2004).
domination. The liberalization of the international movement of capital

and the processes that it provoked gave rise to the construction of a “new”
form of political discourse: the omnipotence of market forces, which no
human power could possibly oppose, according to the explanation offfered
by confounded governments to their dismayed and depressed citizens. It
was exactly the same explanation that the Old Testament prophets used
for the power of God, only now it was not God’s design that ruled us, but
market indicators.
The ideology promoted by capital, grounded in the new form assumed
by social relations, hearkened back to the eras before the Enlightenment
and the great cultural movements of the 18th century, in a move toward
new versions of medieval obscurantism.8 The logic of capital was placed
above the state, the privileged position of reason and the public interest
constructed by bourgeois political science, and the door was opened to
allow the wildest irrationality to be unleashed. Human beings, individu-
ally or collectively, governing or governed, no longer directed the process
that constituted the essence of their social reality; capital appeared to be
beyond the control of human will. More than ever, it was capital and not
capitalists that governed.
Under the conditions of neoliberalism, class relations appear to be
regulated by the market – i.e. by an abstract entity; neither capital, nor
its personifĳication, the capitalist, appear directly or immediately involved.
It is now necessary to search for them in order to identify them and to
restore the knowledge and awareness of the social relation between the
capitalist class and the working class, which is being expressed in this
behavior of the markets. This is the result of the permissiveness, accep-
tance and resolute support of any initiative by capital to increase the level
and rate of profĳit of a liberal state, which gives way (to capital); this is why
the fĳirst task assumed by the neoliberal state is the dismantling of practi-
cally all political controls over the activities of capital. The economy
was “autonomized,” converted, in accordance with the natural form of
domination, into an “independent” sphere, regulated only by the immedi-
ate and insatiable thirst for surplus-value.
Under the conditions of the liberal pattern, workers had before their
eyes, as in the novels of Dickens, Balzac and Zola, the personifĳication of
8 Thus we fĳind God becoming increasingly present in neoliberal discourse, legitimizing

government decisions, particularly (but not exclusively) in the United States: politics, a
matter between human beings as it has been understood since Machiavelli, is now being
converted back into theology, at least in the discourse for mass consumption.
132 chapter six
the social relation that dominated and exploited them: the despotic, cruel,
fat-bellied capitalist with the black suit and gold chain. Under the condi-
tions of the Keynesian pattern, the visible party responsible for the behav-
ior of capital was the state and its governors. But now, the producer of the
workers’ hardships has disappeared and there is nobody to blame or to
fĳight against; where does this Mr. Market live, exactly?
This transmutation of the world of social relations into a divinized
world of things, this extreme fetishization that has occurred under the
conditions of the neoliberal pattern and the use that domination by capi-
tal makes of it, must be borne in mind during the discussion that follows.
In redefĳining its relation with the nation-state, with the liberalization of
fĳinancial capital as the starting point, capital redefĳined the whole struc-
ture of its economic, political and ideological domination.
Commodity-Capital
The process of freeing up the circulation of commodity-capital has been
rather more uneven and turbulent. On the one hand, there has been a
trend toward an increased opening up of national economies in order to
permit access to manufactured commodities on the international market.
This trend points to the shaping of a global capitalist market in line with
the interests of big internationalized capital as a whole, an expression of
its need and aspiration to have one single, unifĳied world market at its dis-
posal. The fulfĳillment of this purpose was the aim of the GATT, and of its
successor, the World Trade Organization.
But on the other hand, the current conditions of inter-imperialist com-
petition have led to the shaping of three regional blocs, each with their
own “spheres of influence,” and to the stagnation of the general advances
negotiated in the GATT and the WTO; so far, what has occurred in this area
is not so much globalization as regionalization, and its future develop-
ment will continue to depend on inter-imperialist competition. Even the
United States, the biggest advocate of free trade, “the form under which it
promotes the establishment of international regulations aimed at ensur-
ing the liberalization of trade and investments, is… strictly controlled by
an agenda that reflects the priority and interests of ‘its’ capital” (Arceo,
2002). For example, it simultaneously promotes “free trade” where and
how it suits its aims, and the establishment of Latin America as an area of
its exclusive influence.
The free mobility of commodity capital, less spectacular in its imme-
diate results than has been its twin, money capital, is nevertheless
associated with much deeper consequences. The restructuring of the

markets goes hand in hand with the restructuring of production: the
technological revolution and global rationalization of production,
the destruction or absorption of non-competitive capital, the redistribu-
tion of production on a global scale and, therefore, of industrial employ-
ment and unemployment and, in the losing regions and countries, mass
migration, hunger, and a desperate search for ways to survive. Thus, to
complete the picture, it is necessary also to engage in an examination
of productive capital.
Global Productive Capital
The above discussion makes it clear that the new modality of internation-
alization of money-capital and commodity-capital, while bringing pro-
found changes to the relation between capital and the state, constitutes
one of the pincers with which the pattern of domination will be radically
altered. What follows is an examination of the other pincer, the transfor-
mation of productive capital. I have given this phenomenon its own sec-
tion because it is here in the direct production relation where the essence
of the capital/wage-labor relation lies. The behavior of money capital and
commodity capital express the struggle for the appropriation of surplus-
value, but it is only in production that surplus-value is produced; the stra-
tegic purpose of the offfensive of capital lies in the restructuring of the
conditions for exploitation of the workers.
Although it may seem unnecessary, it is worth recalling here a few basic
truths, which should really be common sense but which tend to be over-
looked in the habitual ideological discourse of the neoliberal world, which
fosters the notion that capital appreciates without the need for workers.
Money-capital, particularly if it operates in speculative global waves, is
extraordinarily profĳitable, but it can only transfer value; and for it to be
transferred value must fĳirst exist – it must fĳirst have been produced. And
to take control of the commodity market, it is fĳirst necessary to produce
commodities. The secret of the whole capitalist universe, as Marx
explained, lies in the production of surplus-value, and the transformations
to the mode of operation of money-capital and commodity-capital only
fĳind their true meaning when they are linked to transformations to pro-
ductive capital, re-establishing the unity of the M-C-M cycle which defĳines
the unity (albeit with mediating and contradictory factors) between the
three forms of capital.
134 chapter six
The fĳirst steps in the new internationalization of productive capital

were actually made as early as the late 1960s and, since then, the strategic
purposes pursued by capital in this process have gradually taken shape.
While in those years, capital in the developed nations was being sufffo-
cated by the institutions created under the conditions of the Keynesian
pattern of domination, outside, in the underdeveloped world, were huge
reserves of labor-power: “These reserves were practically inexhaustible, as
capital could rely on hundreds of millions of workers in Asia, Africa, Latin
America and even the ‘socialist’ countries” (Fröbel et al, 1981: 39). The tally
of “competitive and comparative advantages,” of treasures simply waiting
to be plundered, was truly stunning. In this wondrous collection of coun-
tries, real wages were between 70% and 80% lower than those paid in
developed countries, the working day was considerably longer, labor pro-
ductivity was equivalent for similar processes, the work force could be
hired and fĳired virtually at whim, a greater labor intensity could be
imposed and the size of the reserve army allowed “optimal” selection of
the work force.9 Moreover, a global labor-power market would constitute
such efffective competition against workers in developed countries that,
with a little care, the labor and wage conditions in developed countries
could be brought as close as possible to those of the underdeveloped
nations.
The strategic purposes of capital are now clearly delineated: to create
the political conditions, on one hand, and the technical conditions on
the other, to convert these reserves of labor-power into a veritable world-
wide industrial reserve army. The technical conditions to make this possi-
ble were already present, at least in embryonic form, in Taylorism and
Fordism: “the development and refĳining of the technology, which enables
the deconstruction of complex production processes into elemental units
to the point that even an unqualifĳied work force could be adapted, with-
out difffĳiculties and within a short period of time, to carry out the frag-
mented tasks” (Fröbel et al, 1981: 40).
In this way, a central aim for the organization of the subsequent techno-
logical development would be the growth of this capacity to organize the
production process for the efffĳicient exploitation of this potential world-
wide industrial army reserve: “technology that allows the choice of
location for industrial production to be less dependent on geographical
distances. This technology includes modern transport systems for rapid
9 For a list of the “wonders” see Fröbel et al, 1981: 39–40.

and relatively economical transportation between the points of fĳinal or

intermediate production and the centers of consumption… and also
included are the telecommunications systems, data processing systems
and other means of organizing production” (Fröbel et al, 1981: 41). “Under
the imperative of capital appreciation, it became necessary to reorganize
(at the global level) the manufacture of those commodities whose produc-
tion process could be broken up into elements… and to compare… from
the perspective of cost, all of the possible subdivisions of the production
process, in order to fĳind the subdivision that would allow the lowest pro-
duction costs with a global optimization, as well as the development of
the most suitable production technology” (Fröbel et al, 1981: 45).
After centuries of evolution, capital, realizing a long-cherished dream,
now had the technical capacity to organize its production process on a
global scale and, with the technical solution already in place, it was on the
verge of overcoming the political challenge: to break the resistance of the
workers and ensure free mobility for productive capital. A certain level of
technological development allowed it to initiate the political offfensive,
and its political success enabled it to launch the technological offfensive:
“the implementation of new technologies,” says Hirsch, “is not the origin
or cause, but the purpose of globalization” (Hirsch, 1986: 89); and, he adds,
“the capitalist reaction to the crisis of Fordism consisted in a technological
offfensive, the political economic condition for which was the globaliza-
tion of capitalist relations and the associated modifĳication of class rela-
tions on an international scale” (Hirsch, 1986: 109).10
From the end of the 1960s on, the big corporations of the developed
nations began to relocate segments of their production processes – the
most labor-intensive and least demanding in terms of technical qualifĳica-
tions – to underdeveloped countries, especially to those where there was
political stability (in some cases the product of a coup d’etat and a subse-
quent military dictatorship), and where the unions were weak, labor-
power was abundant and wages were low. Thus, in a pincer motion, they
exploited the reserve army of underdeveloped countries and weakened
the worker movement of the developed nations: on the one hand, because
they produced unemployment and, when this began to rise, employed
workers tended to feel privileged, to moderate their demands and to try to
10 Hirsch asserts that “the radical liberalization of commodities, services, money and
capital is the necessary prior condition for the renewed systematic rationalization of the
labor process in capitalist production, and this, in turn, is associated with the destruction
of the Fordist class compromise and its institutional bases” (Hirsch, 1986:89).
136 chapter six
avoid placing their jobs in jeopardy; and on the other, because the reloca-
tion had not only technical but political criteria: “a series of industrial
restructuring projects were implemented, aimed explicitly at relocating
the work force away from branches or regions that had shown the highest
combative force in the battles of the late sixties” (Thwaites Rey and Castillo,
1999, emphasis added).
This is an essential point which needs to be emphasized. The interna-
tionalization of money-capital and commodity-capital can operate
equally among developed countries and between developed and underde-
veloped countries. But the internationalization of productive capital must
necessarily operate in such a way that it links developed capital with the
reserve army of labor in the underdeveloped countries; its raison d’être
essentially lies in the promotion of opposition between the workers of the
developed and underdeveloped worlds. As this new capital initiative met
with success (i.e. as the bureaucracies ruling the unions and worker par-
ties showed their inability to challenge capital’s offfensive), it took on larger
dimensions, and the free trade zones which were negotiated in the late
1960s as restricted areas for the establishment of assembly plants11 began
to expand. In the 1980s, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the developed nations began to organize their expanded free trade zones
in the underdeveloped world encompassing whole countries and regions,
and the formation of an international labor-power market and access to
an international industrial reserve army became competition factors in
the inter-imperialist struggle.
In their respective spheres of influence, to ensure free mobility for their
productive capital, the developed nations promoted the elimination of
trade barriers, not only for the movement of commodities and capital but
for raw materials and equipment, as well as changes to customs systems to
make corporate imports and exports exempt of taxes. These were the nec-
essary conditions for the work force of the underdeveloped world to
become the real (and not merely the potential) industrial reserve army for
the capital of the developed countries.
With the advance and development of this process, its vast scope began
to be recognized: “as a long-term strategy, the free worldwide circulation
of capital was established as an unprecedented weapon for conditioning
the labor pole. As in capitalism no investment means no generation of
11 For example, the United States and Mexico negotiated parts of their border zone,
Europe relocated assembly plants to northern Africa, and Japan did the same in Southeast
Asia.
productive activity and therefore no work, the shortage of capital for

production is managed as a form of blackmail against workers: ‘if you don’t
acquiesce to the new conditions that we believe necessary to recover
profĳits, we won’t invest, ergo, you have no work, ergo, you cannot repro-
duce your living conditions’… The fragmentation, flexibilization and
casualization of labor are thus correlates to the loss of bargaining power of
the classical industrial worker” (Thwaites Rey and Castillo, 1999). While
capital was internationalized, the working class was not; it remained
trapped in an institutional space, defĳined by the nation-state, which had
been emptied of content, and was no longer capable of organizing an
efffective space for negotiation between the classes. And, in the absence of
any form of institutionalism that could organize an international forum
for negotiation, the working class was trapped in a situation of virtual
defenselessness.
Capital took control back again; the conditions for purchase and use of
labor-power were no longer open to negotiation. Capital sought to assume
direct control of working conditions and establish its conditions unilater-
ally. With its globalizing offfensive, unilateral regulation by capital was
reestablished. The victories of the working class, which seemed fĳirmly
established under the conditions of the contained form of domination,
have been virtually destroyed under the conditions of the neoliberal pat-
tern of domination. As productive capital has ensured its free interna-
tional mobility, decisions regarding the location of its segments are made
based on an analysis of the global (not the national) situation12 and corpo-
rations organize a worldwide production network: “what is original about
this imperialist phase is not that capital reaches beyond national borders.
Nor is it the fact that the multinationals invest massively in manufactur-
ing, both in semi-colonial countries and within the imperialist countries
themselves. What is new is that the industrial units of the big corpora-
tions, which operate in a disconnected manner, have come to form a
worldwide production network, redefĳining the dimension of the indus-
trial processes… This means that the conception of the product, the
fĳinancing, advertising, marketing and production of the diffferent parts
of the product and its assembly are distributed throughout diffferent coun-
tries and at the same time integrated into a single structure that uses
12 “The gigantic multinational corporations organized product manufacturing in com-

bined form in various parts of the world, taking advantage of the inequalities of each coun-
try, and particularly the diffferences in wages and work conditions… surplus profĳits are
based on the use of inequalities between nations” (Ayala and Figueroa, 2001).
138 chapter six
the conditions for production around the world to maximize profĳits”

(Lipietz, 1991).
With the political challenge overcome, worker resistance neutralized or
weakened and capital’s free international mobility assured, with open
access to the work force of diffferent countries (a global labor-power mar-
ket resulting from a combination of workers from both the developed and
underdeveloped worlds), capital was able to proceed with the technical
rationalization and defĳinition of the optimal composition of its worker
collective, taking advantage of the diffferences offfered by a nationally seg-
mented labor-power market. Technical needs in the sphere of the com-
pany, like market indicators in the sphere of society, became the impersonal
and irrefutable voices for the logic of capital. After a rigorous technical,
scientifĳic examination of the worldwide range of options for alternative
locations for each fragment of the production process, made possible by
the free international mobility of capital, the optimal location is deter-
mined; the criterion, of course, is maximum global profĳitability.13
Multinational fĳinancial capital, the dominant faction of the Keynesian
pattern of domination, has now become global fĳinancial capital and the
“relay subsidiaries” have been transformed into “workshop-subsidiaries”
(Arceo, 2002) – subsidiaries responsible for handling one part of the pro-
duction process, while the fĳinal product is assembled at a central location.
The product of each of the subsidiaries is not merchandise, but elements
of its production capital that are circulated from one point to another as a
result of the technical division of labor in the company’s production pro-
cess; thus, a signifĳicant part of “international trade” has come to involve
the circulation of products within corporations. The companies’ location
criteria are fĳine-tuned with sophisticated mathematical procedures in
order to determine the optimal combination, considering the technology
employed, the location of the other subsidiaries, markets, competition,
availability of natural resources and raw material supply sources, etc. But
what is signifĳicant here is the position of the workers in this new scale of
technical rationalization established by capital, as the strategic purpose of
neoliberal globalization is to change the relation between the capitalist
class and the working class and to increase the rate of surplus-value in
order to restore the rate of profĳit.
13 “The spatial deconstruction of corporate functions has led to a decisive strategy of

rationalization and maximization of profĳits” (Hirsch, 1996: 74).
The new technology, unlike the rigid production structure of Fordism, is

flexible, as its means of production are less specialized and can be recon-
fĳigured quickly to carry out diffferent tasks or to change from the produc-
tion of one model or product to another14 – microelectronics, numerically
controlled machine tools, robots, automation of transformation activities
and auxiliary or peripheral activities, programmable equipment that
allows flexible production of a varied and constantly changing range of
goods and services. “Diversity and flexibility have replaced the uniformity
and repetitiveness” typical of Fordism and mass production (Pérez, 1986).
Flexibility in production has changed business management and, together
with telecommunications, organizes new conditions for competition
and competitiveness between companies: total quality and just-in-time
management, zero stocks, and synchrony between all of the production
functions and the market. And this, in turn, changes the combination of
machines and workers in production. There is a constant search for greater
mobility and a more fluid capacity for response to variations in the market
and in competition. Technological change has become more dynamic;
computerized design is integrated into the production process, reducing
costs and times between innovations. Product life cycles are growing
shorter, with the appearance of successive products and families of prod-
ucts, and productivity and innovation have become everyday, decisive
aspects of competitiveness. “Research, development and design engineer-
ing centers tend to be integrated with one another and to be associated
with the production process and with short- and medium-term strategic
management and programming” (Pérez, 1986).
In response to all of these possibilities (which the dynamic of competi-
tion turns into demands) for flexibility, the big global monopolies have
established worldwide production and distribution networks, with plants
of diffferent sizes in diffferent locations, including flexible and intercon-
nected contractors and subcontractors, with an interconnection that
“involves the transcontinental and interregional generation of flows, the
14 “A new generation of less specialized means of production, through numerical con-
trol, the incorporation of microprocessors in the control of machine tools and the resulting
redesign of those tools… Thanks to the possibilities opened up by microprocessors, the
machine designed to carry out one given task on the production line for a specifĳic product
is replaced by a tool that can be confĳigured quickly to perform diffferent tasks, making it
possible to go from the production of one model or product to another and obtain high
rates of productivity with lower costs per product” (Revelli, 2004).
140 chapter six
daisy chaining of activities into networks and constant interaction

between a growing number of participating agents” (Dabat et al, 2004: 39).
The free international mobility of capital enabled the initiation of a tech-
nological revolution which, in turn, is consolidating and demanding ever
greater mobility: “the historic transformation that global capitalism is
experiencing has its main driving force in the revolutionary changes to the
technology base, which are opening up huge possibilities of interconnec-
tion of human activities in diffferent continents, countries and locations.
Innovations in the fĳields of information technology and telecommunica-
tions have brought about a structural and spatial-temporal change that
encourages a new form of organization of social, economic and political
activities, characterized by its capacity to have repercussions over large
distances in a form of interconnection that is increasingly intense, system-
atic and rapid” (Dabat et al, 2004: 39). Having thus flexibilized the opera-
tion of productive capital, free from the technological rigidity of Fordism,
it is clear that capital would need flexible labor-power, free of the contrac-
tual rigidity of Keynesianism.
The new structure of productive capital is incompatible with a single
market and labor contract in which all the workers enjoy stability and the
same labor and social rights, as was structured under Keynesian regula-
tion; instead, it requires a new labor market that is flexible and segmented.
The international mobility of capital, its free access to a global market of
nationally segmented labor-power, enables it to create this ideal labor
market; the political offfensive and the technological offfensive come
together and the worker collective is segmented, flexibilized and global-
ized. As capital fĳinds diffferent types of workers in diffferent parts of the
world, and given that the diffferent stages in the production process require
diffferent worker qualifĳications, the geographical location of the diffferent
segments of productive capital are defĳined to a signifĳicant extent by the
professional and political status of the workers.
General labor will tend to remain concentrated in the developed coun-
tries as always, while immediate labor, depending on its level of complex-
ity, will tend to be relocated in underdeveloped countries – not for the
production of independent commodities, but as segments of the technical
division of labor in a company’s production process. And, in keeping with
this segmented and globalized labor market, capital will generally orga-
nize diffferent contractual conditions. In the segments that require work-
ers with greater technical ability, autonomy, responsibility and cooperation,
capital will offfer better labor and contractual conditions, including job
stability, and these positions will usually be concentrated in the developed
nations.
On the other hand, for the segments that require easily replaceable
workers, those with fewer technical requirements, capital generally rejects
any compromise with labor and establishes what Lipietz calls bloody
Taylorism: external and hierarchical control of the labor process according
to the classical Taylorist method, but “without the social compensations of
the golden age of Fordism” (Lipietz, 1997), and these positions will usually
be concentrated in the underdeveloped nations. In these cases, flexibil-
ity15, a real or supposed technical necessity, often quickly turns into casu-
alization: “to make companies more competitive at the expense of job
security standards, increasing labor intensity and deregulating the condi-
tions of worker protection” (Sotelo Valencia, 1999: 118–119). This means
debased employment and wage conditions, job instability, the absence of
legal protection, and the nonexistence of union activity.
Thus, in the context of a segmented and globalized worker collective, a
single company can combine diffferent strategies within the same produc-
tion process, with a technological design coordinating the whole, for the
extraction of surplus-value ranging from the most barbaric and primitive
modes of production of absolute surplus-value to the most refĳined strate-
gies for the production of relative surplus-value. For example, subcon-
tracting schemes often serve not only for technical flexibilization, but
also for worker casualization; imposing working days over the legal limit,
liberalizing severance procedures and evading employer obligations such
as the provision of medical insurance, holiday pay, profĳit sharing, over-
time, etc.
In this way, a polarized labor market is established. At one end is a rela-
tively small core of qualifĳied workers who enjoy social security, usually
guaranteed by the company itself, as a reward (given that it is no longer a
right) for their loyalty and membership of “the family.” At the other end is
“an army of ‘soldiers of fortune’, a work force ‘external’ to the corporate
community, extremely mobile, in certain aspects ‘nomadic’ and deprived
of job guarantees; workers with no identifying references, a solitary crowd
of freelancers with minimal qualifĳications, prepared to accept employ-
ment according to the logic of the auction” (Revelli, 2004). Revelli suggests
that this tends to constitute “a ‘caste-based’ labor market, structured into
‘separate bodies’, each one with a diffferentiated legal status” (Revelli,
2004).
15 Flexibility: “the adaptation of labor markets to technological innovations and the

changing rhythms of the economic cycle… accompanied by… training and relocation of
workers” (Sotelo Valencia, 1999: 118).
142 chapter six
So far, I have analyzed the neoliberal offfensive as a two-stage process. In

the fĳirst stage, a technological foundation essentially inherited from
Fordism and Taylorism enabled an initial political offfensive in the late
1960s and early 1970s, with the relocation of segments of the work process
to free trade zones in underdeveloped countries in order to weaken worker
unionism in the developed nations and, in general, to shatter the institu-
tionalism that coordinated the Keynesian pattern of domination. The suc-
cess of this offfensive allowed the initiation of a second stage in the 1980s,
with the full deployment of the technological offfensive, internationalizing
productive capital, restructuring it with the results of the new technologi-
cal revolution, and turning the underdeveloped nations into something
like a (more or less) global free trade zone, to turn their surplus population
into an industrial reserve army and organize a (more or less) global labor-
power market.
A general overview of the political results obtained with the launching
of its technological offfensive shows that the outcome could not have been
more satisfactory for capital. The composition of the active industrial
army has been profoundly transformed and now bears hardly any resem-
blance at all to the relatively homogeneous masses of workers who all
shared the same rights under Fordism. Now it is made up of castes of work-
ers who, on the one hand, establish diffferentiated labor and contractual
relations with capital and who, on the other hand, are of diffferent nation-
alities, which means that, as belonging to a nation and a nation-state
involves diffferentiated histories and structures, they are subject to difffer-
entiated social, cultural and political confĳigurations.
Capital has been globalized, appropriating the monopoly of free mobil-
ity in the globalized world, excluding the workers; this monopoly and its
preservation forms the basis of the neoliberal pattern of domination. This
is why capital, which is such a globalphile with respect to the globalization
of its afffairs, is so profoundly globalphobic in relation to any attempt at
globalizing worker resistance and struggle.16 The nation-state, a space of
oppression and exclusion under the conditions of the liberal pattern, was
transformed by the struggle of the workers into a place of negotiation and
16 Former Mexican presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox affforded us highly
graphic and educational illustrations of how the State functions in its current natural form
of domination. Zedillo taught the world that to be a true “globalphile” in all issues related
to the “globalization” of capital means being totally “globalphobic” toward the “globaliza-
tion” of worker issues. Fox taught us how to respond to any call for social justice: “And
what’s it got to do with me?”
institutionalized debate between the classes under the conditions of the

Keynesian pattern. Under the conditions of the neoliberal pattern, partic-
ularly in the underdeveloped nations, it was turned into a prison for
detaining and immobilizing workers, reducing them to virtual impotence
against a capital that moved freely around the world.
In reality it is, on a diffferent scale and under a new set of historical cir-
cumstances, a return to the 19th century, when the worker movement
assumed a bourgeois-democratic mission, as discussed in the introduc-
tion to this chapter. The workers of the 21st century face the need to fĳight
once again for the recognition of their basic freedoms of residence and
occupation, of assembly, of speech and of the press, so that they are no
longer deemed illegal aliens or criminals when they commit the offfense of
doing something that only capital is authorized to do: to move around.
The unions, limited to the national arena (added to the fact that they tend
to be controlled by a bureaucracy more concerned with defending its
caste interests than producing a class policy17), do not have the capacity to
organize all of the workers, or negotiate with the company, but only with a
section of it, a segment which, like the lizard’s tail, is dispensable for capi-
tal if the need arises.
Neoliberalism has revoked the workers’ right, formally recognized since
1929, to “organize and collectively bargain their work and pay conditions.”
The workers of the 21st century lack the basic conditions for organization
to open even the tiniest space for collective bargaining with capital, much
less to fĳight for better living conditions under capitalism. And in light of
this inability of the workers – so far – to organize a global resistance, capi-
tal systematically organizes global competition between groups of work-
ers,18 violently exacerbated by an unprecedented expansion not of the
reserve army but of the surplus population on a global scale, as a result of
technological change, the new internationalization of capital and the
destruction of the production structure based on the old technology, all
with particularly catastrophic efffects for the underdeveloped nations.
17 For example, in Mexico nobody in their right mind would even dream that the
bureaucracy of the Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos (Confederation of Mexican
Workers) might be interested in producing an efffective policy for the defense of workers’
rights.
18 “The opportunities for ‘relocation’ to countries with low wage costs allows a capital
with no territorial ties to set up work forces tied to diffferent countries into competition
against one another and to override national labor legislation and collective wage agree-
ments” (Romero, 1998).
144 chapter six
The workers of the underdeveloped countries compete with one

another (wages in Mexico prove excessively high, so the ‘maquiladoras’
are relocated to China19) while also competing with the workers of the
developed countries, who are forced to accept the freezing or lowering of
their wages and the worsening of their working conditions (fewer bene-
fĳits) to prevent the company from relocating to some underdeveloped
country brimming over with starving unemployed workers. Under these
conditions, the only trend to be expected is one of continued decline.
Under the Keynesian pattern, labor legislation and union action prevented
employers from unilaterally imposing their conditions but, if there is no
containment, no social mechanism of defense, necessity will compel the
workers to accept increasingly worse work and wage conditions.
The trend is exacerbated because the corporations and imperialist
blocs (especially the United States with its reserves of labor-power in Latin
America) use low wages as a deliberate competitive strategy: “competition
from the NICs of Asia and even of Latin America appears to have the
power to impose a single standard upon the whole world: constantly fall-
ing wages and increasingly flexible wage contracts… which will provoke a
general erosion of social protection (social dumping)” (Lipietz, 1997). Even
in Europe, where the worker struggles of the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies reached a higher level of intensity than in any other part of the
world, and where governments appeared more cautious in the disman-
tling of the Keynesian pact, the trend pushing a “downward adjustment” is
visible and the spokespeople for capital announce that “the welfare state
has become a threat to the future… it is too expensive if compared on a
global scale” (Martin and Schumann, 1997: 12–13).
The alternative that capital offfers everywhere is to reduce wages, dis-
mantle social security, eliminate severance payment costs, etc., i.e. to
make the degradation of labor rights universal in order to “be competitive”
and preserve existing jobs.20 Or to share the poverty, for example, using
19 “From the year 2000, a process of gradual dismantling (of maquiladoras) began due to
their migration to other countries in spite of the fact that Mexican labor is among the
cheapest in the world, and that the work conditions are, for 70% of the workers, exhaust-
ing, inadequate and extremely hazardous to their health… in China they are paying wages
of 50 U.S. cents per hour, without benefĳits, unions or other obligations, in comparison with
the 2.50 dollars paid on average in Mexico” (Villegas Dávalos, 2004: 29).
20 In Mexico, according to the newspaper La Jornada on Wednesday, December 21,
2005, the president of the National Minimum Wage Committee “acknowledged that
Mexican workers have to choose between a very low wage increase and unemployment
and added that ‘the fĳirst is preferable’.”
“part-time employment”; instead of one worker with an eight-hour work-

day, two with a half work-day and (of course) half pay. The fact is that what
the few need is so much (Warren Bufffett has only 62 billion dollars, Carlos
Slim a mere 60 billion, and Bill Gates as little as 58 billion)21 that what they
can offfer the many is little. Thus, the only realistic solution from the per-
spective of capital is that the luckiest workers should share this little with
the less fortunate.
At a time when humankind enjoys the most impressive productive
capacity ever dreamed of, the reality is that there is very little for many.
And, as these many, in response to the distribution of this little, have so far
been unable to establish a united front of labor against capital, it is natural
that the distribution of the little should become a point of opposition and
conflict between groups of workers: the Ah Q Syndrome, as explained in
earlier, becomes universal.22
Workers in developed countries in particular, lacking even a minimal
political vision of class, have initiated a fĳight to defend their privileges over
the hordes of Third World immigrants. This fĳight is doomed to failure
because it confuses the enemy and the nature of the process, so that all
that is achieved is a fĳight against their own interests and the revival of the
most perverse manifestations of racism and xenophobia, playing into the
hands of right-wing parties and, in extreme cases, the neo-Nazi ultra-right.
But it cannot be otherwise while the workers continue to play with the
cards that capital has dealt them.
Industrial Colonialism: The Subordinate Region of Global Capitalism

In the preceding sections, I have argued that the neoliberal pattern of
domination took shape as an offfensive by capital against labor, which was
initiated in the developed countries against the workers of the developed
countries, in response to the reduction of the rate of profĳit that brought
an end to the post-war boom – and with it, the Keynesian pact – and
which had the basic objective of establishing a global labor-power market
21 According to the report in the magazine Forbes of the richest men in the world in
2008.
22 “The fĳight for the increasingly scarce resources changes the nature of confrontations:
previously, for example, workers confronted their employers to obtain better wages, in a
vertical relation, but now, regions or groups confront one another to redirect the lean bud-
get offfered to others toward them instead, and this horizontal conflict, instead of creating
solidarity as in the case of vertical conflict, creates animosities and violence that tend to
breed and grow” (Almeira, n.d.).
146 chapter six
through the conversion of the surplus population of the underdeveloped

nations into an industrial reserve army for the capital of the developed
nations. To do this, capital launched a new internationalization strategy
based on the free international mobility of productive capital and on a
new technological revolution, thereby destroying the basis of the
Keynesian pattern of domination and initiating a massive process of
global historical dimensions in an attempt to increase the productivity of
labor, the rate of surplus-value and the rate of profĳit. I have posited that
the essential purpose of the internationalization of productive capital lies
in the promotion of opposition between workers in the developed and
underdeveloped worlds.23
However, while globalization began as an offfensive against the workers,
it also quickly became an offfensive against underdeveloped capital (and
the underdeveloped state) in order to concentrate and centralize the pro-
duction and appropriation of surplus-value. For example, U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell explained the noble purposes driving their government
in relation to Latin America as follows: “Our objective with the FTAA is to
ensure control for American corporations of a territory that runs from the
North Pole to the Antarctic; free access, without any hindrance or difffĳi-
culty for our products, services, technology and capital throughout the
hemisphere.”24 His words neatly express the trend in the world today: sup-
ported by the developed states, developed capital seeks to appropriate the
entire underdeveloped world as a space for production and appropriation
of surplus-value.
A necessary step for the internationalization of productive capital, of
course, is to persuade the underdeveloped countries of the benefĳits of
opening up to the free circulation of capital and, therefore, of dismantling
all forms of protection of local industry and state regulation established
during the period of the developmentalist or “socialist” pattern of domina-
tion. The uneven results of this varied task of persuasion (which has
ranged from coups d’état and military invasions to fĳinancial crises and
restrictions followed by generations of structural adjustment plans) and
23 “The expansion of the new order to the periphery has been one of the fundamental
pillars of the process of capital transnationalization. It is the capacity of capital to organize
a production process on a global scale, locating each of its phases where its cost is lowest,
that has facilitated the gradual recovery of the rate of profĳit through an offfensive against
labor, driven by competition between workers with markedly diffferent wage levels and the
expansion of the industrial reserve army in the areas of greatest resistance to the deteriora-
tion of living and working conditions” (Arceo, 2002).
24 As quoted in Dimas, 2002.
the diffferent forms of resistance posed against the process are indicative
of the uneven advances in the process of liberalization of the underdevel-
oped world to developed capital in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern
Europe. The FTAA project expresses the trend, with regard to the U.S.
approach to Latin America, but with uneven levels of development in dif-
ferent parts of the Americas, NAFTA being its most fĳinished product.
However, with at least part of the underdeveloped world brought within
range of free mobility, capital’s next step is to select where to establish
what segment of its productive capital. Diverse factors influence this deci-
sion, including geoeconomic and geopolitical factors arising from compe-
tition between the three major imperialist blocs, administration by the
local state to create a “good economic and political environment” for mul-
tinational corporations (i.e. public investment in constant and variable
capital), industrial organization, transport costs and the location of mar-
kets, and the availability of natural resources in the country or region in
question.
In this regard, there are two factors of particular signifĳicance. The fĳirst
relates to the diffferent national conditions of labor-power, which essen-
tially defĳine the location and segmentation strategies for productive capi-
tal; the aim is to coordinate the optimal combination of worker collectives
in terms of wage levels, labor rights, technical qualifĳications and skills,
lack of political organization, worker discipline, etc. The second involves
the possibilities of industrialization in the underdeveloped world, which
have come to depend on the location strategies of the big multinationals
and, therefore, as the other side of the coin, on the countries’ ability to
make themselves attractive to those multinationals.
All of the underdeveloped countries that have opened up to the free
international mobility of capital have left behind the industrialization
strategy of import substitution. Now, it is basically the administration of
the work force made available to big multinational capital that determines
the possibilities of industrial development in the underdeveloped world:
“it is a new kind of enclave economy, through the development of an
updated version of the peripheral exporter model, in which the exploita-
tion of natural resources is replaced, with similar results, by cheap labor”
(Arceo, 2002, emphasis added).
For example, U.S. multinationals have an interest in NAFTA, an agree-
ment that is typical of inter-imperialist contradictions, as part of a com-
petitive strategy against the European and Japanese multinationals within
the U.S. market, but based on cheap labor in Mexico: “the MNCs looked for
competitive advantages in Mexico to win back positions in the heart of the
148 chapter six
U.S. market… The form adopted by the new pattern of industrial colonial-
ism in Mexico is directly in line with the interests of big U.S. corporations
in relation to competition within their own national market… U.S. corpo-
rate investment takes the form of the annexation of a strip of Mexico to its
own internal market as low wages and other advantages justify dealing with
other countries” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2001: 26, emphasis added).
In the previous section, I analyzed the internationalization of produc-
tive capital as a global offfensive against workers. My purpose in this sec-
tion is to highlight a diffferent dimension: the internationalization of
productive capital and its strategies of profĳit maximization as central to
the possibilities of industrialization in underdeveloped nations and the
efffects of this dynamic on their production structure. From now on, their
possibilities of industrialization will depend on being chosen by the big
corporations as the location for some segment of their production pro-
cesses, and this situation becomes more drastic the more open the under-
developed country is to the free mobility of capital in all its forms (not just
in production, but also money-capital) and, as a result, the more drastic its
renunciation is of any attempt to maintain an autonomous strategy of
industrialization and protection of its internal market. China is an exam-
ple of selective openness to production capital and commodity capital,
while Mexico is an example of indiscriminate openness.
Opening up to the productive capital and commodity-capital of the
developed nations necessarily involves a process that contributes to the
destruction of the local industrial base, as underdeveloped capital is not
competitive.25 It therefore means mortgaging the future to become an
attractive option for the establishment of segments of multinational pro-
ductive capital and to compete with other countries in a similar situation
in terms of their cheap labor-power, their basic source of international
competitiveness; under these conditions, competition is inevitably based
on constantly falling wages and increasing casualization of labor. Social
dumping thus becomes a basic competitive strategy.
What were known in the now long forgotten days of Keynesianism and
developmentalism as developing countries have disappeared, and in their
25 In Mexico, it is easy to document hundreds of cases of whole companies and indus-
trial sectors that have disappeared as a result of trade liberalization. One of these is
the production of automotive harnesses: “the independent producers of harnesses estab-
lished in Mexico during the phase of import substitution industrialization… disappeared
or moved into the spare parts market. Mustafá Mohatarem comments that ‘small, inefffĳi-
cient and corrupt Mexican producers have gotten out of the game.’” (Carrillo and Hinojosa,
2003).
place appear what are referred to as newly industrialized countries (NICs),

industrialized in pieces, with fragments of production processes: “work-
shop-subsidiaries within the global strategy of the multinationals – in
their worldwide production network – which maintain minimal ties with
the local economy as they do not form part of a wide network of local sup-
pliers” (Arceo, 2002). Developmentalism, whose inability to overcome
underdevelopment constituted its limitations and its crisis, was replaced
with a new pattern of industrial colonialism (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2001),26
which, as it develops, distances the underdeveloped countries even more
than before from the conditions for the performance of general labor, as it
involves a reduction even more drastic than before of the performance of
immediate labor. Under developmentalism, commodities were produced;
under neoliberalism, only a segment of the production process of a com-
modity is assumed.
However, as an industrialization strategy, Lipietz claims with a hint of
irony, it has its advantages: “the technical composition of capital in these
companies is particularly low. This industrialization strategy thus avoids
one of the drawbacks of the import substitution strategy: the cost of
importing capital goods” (Lipietz, 1997). And this is as it must be, because
the purpose is precisely to take advantage of cheap labor by relocating the
more labor-intensive segments of the production process. The one small
problem with such an advantageous strategy is that the production struc-
ture of the underdeveloped countries is radically transformed, increasing
economic and political subordination to the needs and interests of the
developed pole of the imperialist relation while the working and living
conditions of the workers are severely deteriorated. If, as I explained in the
fĳirst chapter, domination defĳines a basic relation in which one group
orders and others obey, with the conditions of the neoliberal pattern of
industrial colonialism, developed capital sought to establish new and
powerful reasons to be obeyed in the underdeveloped world.
The separation of producers from the means of production and subsis-
tence, the separation that constitutes the capital/wage-labor relation,
acquires a new dimension. While developmentalism was founded on
a specifĳic confĳiguration in the distribution of the means of production
which gave a special place to the state and to underdeveloped capital,
neoliberalism promotes a massive process of concentration of the means
26 A brief description of the “pattern of industrial colonialism” is offfered in Section 3.4
of this work.
150 chapter six
of worldwide production into the hands of the big capital of the developed
countries; the big multinationals are leading a process aimed at destroying
underdeveloped private capital, privatizing and transforming state
capital and deindustrializing the underdeveloped nations, turning them
into maquiladoras for partial production processes, subordinate links in
the production chain (Gerefffĳi, 2006) that makes up their global factory.
Manufacturing activities have been concentrated into a few sectors
and a few corporations – basically big multinational monopolies or
oligopolies – and, after fĳifty years of developmentalist effforts, the old
industrialization has been destroyed and any attempt to build a national
industrial system has been abandoned.
Capital and the state in the underdeveloped countries have even lost
control of primary production and the capacity to ensure national produc-
tion of the foods their population needs, as well as control of their basic
resources. Not only do the agri-food multinationals enjoy the conditions
and possibilities for organizing the production and marketing of all food
products worldwide, but also, as they control global scientifĳic and techno-
logical research (biotechnology, genetic manipulation, nanotechnology,
etc.), they have a plan to control and monopolize worldwide food produc-
tion; in their strategic project, they seek to ensure a monopoly in food pro-
duction from the beginning, from seed production, thereby disabling any
other source of production. The development of this project represents,
for the fĳirst time in history, a drastic break away from traditional agricul-
tural production, the production that has fed mankind since the dawn of
civilization.27 Inward growth, which has its political correlate in the devel-
opmentalist pattern of domination, has been replaced by a new modality
of outward growth, with a strict, direct subordination to the needs of the
developed pole, no longer as producers of raw materials and food prod-
ucts, but of labor-power, and the neoliberal pattern of domination pro-
vides the political framework for the new form of exploitation and
accumulation.
The imperialist relation between development and underdevelopment
has been redefĳined, determined by the process of neoliberal internation-
alization of the capital of the developed nations (particularly by the inter-
nationalization of productive capital) and, although it is a process in
27 The huge importance, not only economic but political, of this control of both
food production and strategic natural resources worldwide should not be underestimated
(see, for example, Klare, 2002 and ETC Group, 2008).
progress that is arousing growing popular opposition and resistance, it has

generated trends in its development that can be summarized as follows:
First, as it de-industrializes underdeveloped countries (i.e. destroys the
industrial production plant that they constituted during the developmen-
talist period), it produces a new industrialization, no longer anchored in
underdeveloped capital, but associated with the internationalization of
the productive capital of the big monopolies and their criteria of profĳit-
ability, and set within a process of concentration and centralization of
capital, concentration of production and appropriation of surplus-value
worldwide.
Second, the workers of the underdeveloped world are converted into an
industrial reserve army for the developed world, and subjected to a strat-
egy of internal division and competition, in a downward adjustment pro-
cess that also drags down the workers of the developed world.
Third, with the new levels of labor productivity worldwide (a product of
the development of the efffects of a multifaceted new technological revolu-
tion, together with de-industrialization and the destruction of traditional
agricultural economies in underdeveloped countries), there has been a
widespread increase in unemployment, in the surplus population and in
social exclusion, leading to various processes of social degradation and
desperate searches for ways to survive.
The historical cycle of underdeveloped capital is coming to an end and
this is one of the processes that defĳine the trajectory of neoliberalism as a
specifĳic historical period. Although with uneven results, depending on the
resistance encountered along the way (popular resistance more than resis-
tance from underdeveloped capital itself or from its state), developed
capital has initiated a massive process of enormous historical signifĳicance,
to take direct control of everything of interest to it in the region of the
world historically subjected to the rule of underdeveloped capital.
Developed capital, which for centuries has coexisted with its underdevel-
oped counterpart, now has sufffĳicient power to transform the production
structure of the whole world. Viewing the process within the broader his-
torical landscape, the death of underdeveloped capital should not be a
reason for anyone to mourn. However, it should be borne in mind that
under developmentalism, for all its faults, the complex framework of pro-
duction in the underdeveloped world which connected private and state
capital, together with non-capitalist forms of production such as tradi-
tional agricultural production, provided a means of subsistence for many
millions of human beings. The well-advanced process of its destruction is
provoking an enormous social upheaval, not only due to the crisis between
152 chapter six
underdeveloped capital and labor, but because it will inevitably lead to a

crisis situation for the capital/wage-labor relation as a whole.
There are still remnants of traditional agricultural production and
underdeveloped private and state capital in the production chains of the
big multinationals, but, as the process develops, these countries cease to
be underdeveloped (i.e. administrators of underdeveloped capital difffer-
entiated from developed capital) and become something that we might
call the subordinate region of global capitalism, which tends to unite the
negative characteristics of their underdeveloped past with new ones
derived from their increased vulnerability to the developed pole of
imperialism.
Capital and the Global Financial Oligarchy
At this point it would be useful to turn briefly to the agents of the process,
the producers and benefĳiciaries of the neoliberal order – the dominant
faction of the neoliberal pattern of domination. As has been shown, the
freeing up of the international movement of all functional forms of capital
(money, commodities and production) has tended to develop in degrees,
in modalities and at rates which, to a large extent, result from the circum-
stances of inter-imperialist competition. The establishment of a truly
global market is unlikely until the inter-imperialist struggle is resolved one
way or another.
However, with the development of this global market, although still in
its infancy, it is worth noting that, within the space of “free mobility”
opened up for big capital, competition has been exacerbated28 and, to
deal with it, an intense process of corporate reorganization and global
centralization and concentration of capital has begun, with mergers and
acquisitions between big monopolies – manifestations of an intensifĳied
fĳight for production and appropriation of surplus-value.29 The number of
corporations is constantly shrinking while their size and market share
28 “The wind of competition has become a storm, and the real hurricane still lies ahead
of us” (Heinrich von Pierer, President of the Siemens global consortium, as quoted in
Martin and Schumann, 1999: 15).
29 “In the decade from 1990 to 2000, the rate of mergers and acquisitions increased to a
level never seen before, beginning in 1990 with a total of 462 billion and closing in the year
2000 with an incredible peak of 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars, representing an increase of 7.5
times the initial level” (Ribeiro, 2007).
grows, leaving a handful of huge global oligopolies controlling the econ-

omy of the planet.
According to a report published by the Action Group on Erosion,
Technology and Concentration in 2004, of the 100 biggest economies in
the world, 51 were companies and the rest were countries. The combined
sales of the 200 biggest corporations in the world represented 29% of
worldwide economic activity, and the global value of corporate mergers
and acquisitions jumped to 1 trillion, 950 billion U.S. dollars – a leap of
40% compared with 1 trillion 380 billion dollars in 2003: “it’s no secret that
transnational corporations wield unprecedented power to shape social,
economic and trade policies” (ETC Group, 2005b); they are the tyranno-
saurs of the world market, deciding on everything from who produces and
where, to what reaches the consumer, with what quality and at what
price.30 Far from slowing down, the rate of capital concentration and cen-
tralization continues to accelerate: “according to the market analysis fĳirm
Thomson Financial, the total value of corporate mergers and acquisitions
in 2006 reached 3.79 trillion U.S. dollars, representing a 38 percent rise in
these types of transactions over 2005. According to the fĳirm Dealogics, the
total value was even greater, topping 3.98 trillion” (Ribeiro, 2007).
The intensity of competition demands a faster dynamic of technologi-
cal change. The positioning of the oligopolies in the market is the result of
the rapid introduction of innovations, and the strategies to protect their
technological monopoly intensify: “often overlooked,” notes Silvia Ribeiro,
“but with enormous power, is the growth of market dominance through
intellectual property oligopolies, manipulating patent expiration
with minimal modifĳications to extend the life of patents, and, associated
with this, the strengthening of global technology cartels” (Ribeiro, 2007).
Competition revolves around “economies of scale” (optimization of
the product range), “economies of location” (proximity and response
speed) and “economies of specialization” (market niches), and for a single
30 Wal-Mart, for example, according to the report, “is the world’s largest corporation
and the world’s largest purveyor of food. A titanic power in global retailing, its corporate
conduct afffects business practices (labor, trade, environment and technology) all over the
planet. The company has 1.7 million employees; an estimated 138 million people shop at
Wal-Mart every week.” It is no coincidence that, as the report adds: “thirteen years ago, due
to pressure from the United States, the UN Center on Transnational Corporations in New
York was shut down and the intergovernmental community lost its capacity to monitor
global corporate activity. The United States is undoubtedly less enthusiastic today about
corporate monitoring than it was in 1993… ETC Group notes that access to corporate intel-
ligence is increasingly harder to come by” (ETC Group, 2005b).
154 chapter six
corporate giant to achieve these three types of “economies,” it must struc-

ture flexible global networks with plants of diffferent sizes in diffferent loca-
tions (Pérez, 1986).
Financial capital (in the strict sense), commercial capital and produc-
tive capital comprise the global fĳinancial capital that organizes its process
of domination and exploitation with an internationalization that is quali-
tatively diffferent from that developed during the Keynesian pattern of
domination; it is the dominant capitalist faction in the era of the neolib-
eral pattern of domination, which acts “in global markets through global
transactions, with global visions and perspectives, with a global composi-
tion of capital and a global distribution of profĳits” (Arceo, 2002).
These are third generation monopolies: the grandchildren of the
national monopolies which, established by their respective nation-states
in the late 19th century, led to the imperialist division of the world and the
two world wars, and the children of the multinational monopolies of the
post-war period. The fĳinancial oligarchy that personifĳies this global fĳinan-
cial capital constitutes what Petras calls the global ruling class, the select
club of billionaires who control the economy and the politics of the world,
who have been joined by the nouveau riche billionaires, made wealthy by
the processes of privatization of the underdeveloped and ex-socialist
countries (Petras, 2007).
Together with the “front line politicians and scientifĳic leaders of the fĳive
continents,” these billionaires constitute “the new ‘global brain-trusts’
who will point the way ‘toward a new civilization’… the new lords of the
planet… the global players” (Martin and Schuman, 1999:35).31
31 Martin and Schumann add: “358 multimillionaires put together are as rich as two bil-
lion fĳive hundred million people – nearly half the world’s population” (Martin and
Schumann, 1999: 35).
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE NEOLIBERAL STATE
A compact ruling elite seeks to plan, direct, structure and order all human
activity on the planet, backed up by their huge economic and fĳinancial power.
So vast is this power that these elites no longer even think in terms of the planet,
as they consider the whole world to be their planet.
Salbuchi, Adrian,
El Cerebro del Mundo: La cara oculta de la Globalización
The neoliberal economy is associated, in a logical interrelation, with a

mode of positioning of the state and a mode of confĳiguration of the social
sphere; a model designed with the purpose of concentrating all of the
world’s wealth (regardless of the poverty, unemployment and degradation
of working and social conditions that this may cause) is what defĳines the
neoliberal state and its social order. In the preceding chapters, I examined
the essential dynamic of the neoliberal pattern of domination as an offfen-
sive launched by the capital of the developed nations against the workers
of their own countries, with free international mobility of capital as a con-
dition for reestablishing (on a new scale) the conditions for the natural
form of domination, and the necessary inclusion of the underdeveloped
world (Latin America for the purposes of this analysis) as a condition for
the conversion of its surplus population into an industrial reserve army for
the big capital of the developed countries. Neoliberalism is a radical offfen-
sive on the part of big fĳinancial capital against the working class of the
whole world and, given that it seeks to concentrate the production and
appropriation of surplus-value into the hands of the big capital of the
developed world, it also constitutes an offfensive against underdeveloped
capital.
This offfensive assigns to the states of the developed pole in the imperi-
alist relation the task of ensuring free mobility for their big capital, at
least in the underdeveloped region that constitutes the sphere of influ-
ence of each imperialist bloc. Hirsch describes the neoliberal state as a
156 chapter seven
competition-based nation-state1. But its competitiveness is a feature aris-

ing from its basic nature: its permissiveness, its acceptance and its resolute
support of all capital initiatives to increase the mass and rate of profĳit. This
is why the fĳirst task assumed by the neoliberal state (as discussed in the
previous chapter) is to dismantle practically all of the political controls
over the activities of capital.2 The economy is “autonomized,” converted,
in accordance with the natural form of domination, into an “independent”
sphere, regulated only by the immediate and insatiable thirst for surplus-
value. Only when free international mobility for capital has been assured
do states compete against one another to make themselves attractive to
capital investment; capital moves freely from one country to another,
nation-states compete to attract it, and the workers, lacking an institu-
tional structure that would enable them to negotiate with international-
ized capital, are trapped in institutions restricted to the sphere of the
nation-state.3 Nation-states, which were once places for the economic and
political coordination of national capital, now acquire a new function: to
assure, within their respective territories, the conditions for the reproduc-
tion of global capital by imposing a specifĳic political order on their work-
ing class, thereby preventing the globalization of the workers from
accompanying the globalization of the capitalists.
In efffect, the result is a return to the absence of political, economic and
social rights for workers. In the 19th century, under the liberal pattern of
domination, the workers lacked rights at the level of the nation-state. At
the end of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st, capital and the impe-
rialist states are organized internationally and, once again, the workers are
confĳined to the ghettos that are the dwelling places of the world’s pariahs,
people with no rights – only now those ghettos are nation-states.4
1 “The State in globalized capitalism may be defĳined as a ‘competition-based nation-

state’. This is a State whose policy and internal structures are determined decisively by the
pressures of ‘international competition for the optimal position’” (Hirsch, 1996: 99).
2 Hirsch himself points out that “States abandon political control over the markets…
and the interests of internationalized capital become direct determining factors for
national government policy” (Hirsch, 1996: 97).
3 “Although the relations of exploitation are global, the conditions for those relations are
established nationally” (Thwaites Rey and Castillo, 1999).
4 “The globalization of capital,” says Hirsch, “relies on competitive nation-states and on
the inequalities arising from them,” and he adds that “the basic meaning of the nation-state
type of political organization for the capitalist class [is]: it confĳines populations within
national borders, but not capital… it creates the structural possibility of politically and
economically dividing human beings and social classes to set them up in confrontation
against each other… The political organization of the individual state can be manipulated
by dividing the holders of labor-power and setting them up in confrontation against each
the neoliberal state 157
What follows is a brief outline of how this new confĳinement of workers

to the ghetto of the people with no rights occurs. Firstly, I will examine the
state in the developed world, with particular reference to the United
States; I will then turn to the underdeveloped world (which has now
become the subordinate region of global capitalism), with particular refer-
ence to Latin America and Mexico. There is no need to explore the absurd
theory that “globalization” represents the “end of the nation-state”5; all the
conditions for the new stage of capitalist development necessarily require
the strengthening of nation-states – particularly imperialist ones – as they
are the political instruments of the big multinational corporations.
On the one hand, we have the organization of inter- and supra-state
institutions and mechanisms over which there is no public control, as they
exist outside the public controls established within the framework of the
nation-state; national governments and international institutions cooper-
ate with multinational companies to organize the process of global accu-
mulation, consolidating its basic condition – free international mobility
for capital.6 Of course, this is not a question of nations but of classes. The
states of both developed and underdeveloped nations are emptied of
democratic content: “the ‘spaces’ and institutions that defĳine the basic
parameters of an economy that cannot be understood except on a global
scale are now the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the ‘tech-
nical’ bodies of the European Economic Community, etc.; centers, for all
intents and purposes, removed from the ‘democratic’ decision-making
mechanism… The result is the tendential ‘political’ emptying of the ‘state-
form’… its transformation into a body that executes decisions made in the
headquarters of the ‘multinationals’” (Revelli, 2004).
On the other hand, the regulation of class relations remains fĳirmly tied
to the nation-state and tends to become more authoritarian the more lim-
ited the state’s capacity is to mediate and contain the voracity and pillag-
ing of capital and the more international competition forces the trend of
downward adjustment. Although the three imperialist blocs (the U.S.,
Japan and the European Union) seek to create their own international
institutional frameworks, adapted to the expansion of their capital, the
other… this enables the reciprocal and systematic oppression of national populations”
(Hirsch, 1996: 76, 98–99).
5 For an example of the defenders of this idea, see Ohmae, 1997.
6 “The most fundamental political decisions are disconnected from the democratic pro-
cesses of determination of the will and the interests of the people… political decisions are
made in direct negotiations between governments and powerful multinational consortia”
(Hirsch, 1996: 100).
158 chapter seven
United States, the surviving “superpower” of the previous period, is the

main promoter of international institutions and standards; its effforts have
been aimed at redefĳining the functions of the old Bretton Woods institu-
tions (the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank and NATO) in which it holds a hegemonic position and veto
powers, in order to promote its international interests, while also promot-
ing the creation of new institutions such as the World Trade Organization
(which emerged from the now defunct GATT).
Through these international institutions, the United States has gradu-
ally appropriated the “right” to limit the activities of other states (includ-
ing developed states) and to decide which government – especially in the
case of underdeveloped nations – is compatible with the international
order promoted by the U.S. itself. It has thus been gradually turning into
an imperialist state that recognizes no law but its own.7 Nevertheless, at
least until the inter-imperialist struggle is resolved or takes a diffferent
turn, insofar as developed countries are concerned, these institutions are
the forum in which their agreements and disagreements are processed.
On the other hand, the relation they seek to establish with underdevel-
oped nations is one of direct command and obedience, under penalty of
condemning the disobedient states to the dangerous world of the (as the
U.S. calls them) rogue states, the axis of evil, the terrorist states8; the world
of the potential victims of one of the preventive wars unilaterally declared
by the United States, as recently occurred in the case of Iraq.
The governments of the underdeveloped nations are given instructions,
required to provide guarantees of obedience, and positioned in competi-
tion against each other, and their good or bad behavior is evaluated and
endorsed. And through this paternal and loving tutelage, they make the
transition to democracy, in spite of the fact that the social base of the
imperialist relation within the underdeveloped countries – their local
7 With regard to the ‘national security strategy of the United States of America’, Rossana
Rossanda notes that the U.S. “has buried the period following the Second World War when
the United Nations and its Charter became the only forum for decision making and the
only source of legitimation of relations between States. The United States denies both the
content and the method; they are the ones who decide the universally valid ends, identify
the dangers and proceed to impose them by any means necessary. It is better if others fol-
low them, but not essential.” Rossanda, 2003.
8 In this world of disobedient States can currently be found – for diffferent reasons,
undergoing distinct processes and not forming any kind of common front – North Korea,
Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc., while others (Afghanistan and Iraq, for example) have
been punished and, with their rebellion, have become a problem that seems unresolvable
for the U.S. government.
agents – is a constantly shrinking minority, more distanced from society,

exhibiting increasingly authoritarian behavior and more and more depen-
dent on domination strategies designed abroad.9 This extreme subordina-
tion of the underdeveloped pole to the developed pole in the imperialist
relation is the political expression of the economic transformations that
the underdeveloped world has experienced10 under the neoliberal pattern
of industrial colonialism, as examined earlier.
Regalado Álvarez stresses that it is an offfensive launched by the imperi-
alist nations “against the principles of sovereignty, self-determination
and independence of (underdeveloped) nation-states, which are sub-
jected to a growing number of transnational legal frameworks and corre-
sponding coercive mechanisms to guarantee their compliance” (Regalado
Álvarez, 1999); the imperialist states – the United States in particular –
transnationalize their legislative, executive and judicial functions through
so-called transnational laws that are “unilateral” or “extraterritorial,” and
impose international treaties and supranational institutions (both global
and regional). The result of all this is a drastic reduction of the sovereignty
of these states and, along with verifĳication, control and penalizing mecha-
nisms, the organization of what is known as international “governance”11,
which applies not only to matters concerning international relations, but
also the internal functioning of states. Much more than during the previ-
ous period, the “production workshop of domination strategies” is located
outside the underdeveloped countries, as the imperialist states assume
direct control over the underdeveloped world.
9 In reality, there is no contradiction in describing increasingly authoritarian regimes

as making a “transition to democracy” if it is taken into account that, in the neoliberal
dictionary, “democracy” essentially means “agreeable to the United States.” Thus, for exam-
ple, Iraq was invaded, as President George Bush explained repeatedly, to “restore democ-
racy.” On the other hand, “terrorist” is defĳined as “troublesome to the United States”; in the
“new U.S. police State… the government decides who the terrorist is and does not need to
present evidence to support its decision… The central principle is that anyone can be or
cease to be a terrorist at any moment, depending on changes to foreign policy or in busi-
ness” (Saxe-Fernández, 2006: 239).
10 “Although over the course of the history of neocolonialism in Latin America and the
Caribbean, the national bourgeoisies enjoyed certain spaces undisputed by imperialism
for their reproduction as a social class, and held at least a portion of the power of the
nation-state, these bourgeoisies are now being absorbed and destroyed by the multina-
tional fĳinancial oligarchy and, consequently, the level of political power they are able to
exercise is being reduced” (Regalado Álvarez, 1999)
11 “The ‘governance’ of international institutions reduces the essential functions (of the
underdeveloped State)… dividing and distributing the functions of the State and putting
padlocks on its economic role” (Almeyra, n.d.).
160 chapter seven
In the case of Latin America, in addition to the institutions, treaties and

agreements that perform global functions (the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the UN General
Assembly, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, etc.), others of a
regional character, promoted directly by the United States, also have an
influence. The “Washington Consensus,” the OAS General Assembly, the
Initiative for the Americas, the FTAA, NAFTA, and others12 are in many
cases simple transmission channels for decisions made in increasingly
private and centralized locations, increasingly distant from the control of
the societies of either developed or underdeveloped countries. Underlying
the new institutionalism of bourgeois domination is a private “produc-
tion workshop of domination strategies” that defĳines public government
policies.13
In underdeveloped countries, the result is dramatic: “the ‘formal democ-
racies’ are increasingly formal, to the point that they no longer decide any-
thing of importance. Customs policy is determined by the WTO; economic
and fĳinancial policy is determined by the IMF and the ‘national develop-
ment plans’ have turned into the ‘structural adjustment plans’ of the World
Bank” (Ayala and Figueroa, 2001). Once the line of command and obedi-
ence in the imperialist relation between developed and underdeveloped
poles is established, the developed nations demand guarantees of obedi-
ence from the underdeveloped. The fĳirst of these guarantees is, of course,
free mobility for their capital, the establishment of a trade system that is
as open as possible, and the removal of any government restrictions on the
degree of integration of local production with multinational productive
capital.
This is followed by a cascade of as many additional demands as the
submissiveness of the local government and the resistance of the public
will allow,14 including guarantees against the risk of expropriation,
12 To even attempt a list of the webs that the United States has woven around Latin
America – particularly Mexico – in the social, economic, political and military spheres is
beyond the scope of this work; it is also important to note that to a great extent, many of
the projects developed in this area are not disclosed to the public (see, for example, Saxe
Fernandez, 2007). Regarding U.S. military positioning in Latin America, see Petras, 2002.
13 The role played by so-called ‘think tanks’ in the development of public policy should
also be considered. See, for example, the strategic guidelines for the U.S. government in
relation to Latin America proposed in the Santa Fe documents (Committee of Santa Fe,
1980; 1988), and the articles by Abu-Tarbush, 2005 and Salbuchi, 1999.
14 The projects for the FTAA and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
reveal that the big multinationals certainly don’t lack imagination in establishing
their demands. The FTAA, according to Estay, ensures “the most complete facilities and
unrestricted remittance of profĳits, the elimination of any restrictions on

the activity of transnational capital, the reduction of taxes, the provision
of an adequate infrastructure, the resolution of problems related to trans-
port, customs barriers, etc., and, of course, the flexibilization of labor leg-
islation, which means the reduction to as close to zero as possible of all
workers’ rights.
Among the wide range of demands that may be imposed on underde-
veloped states, there are two that require particular attention. The fĳirst is
the demand to privatize public goods and services, which were the sup-
port and basis of national development during the developmentalist
period. This demand has two objectives: an economic one, as the state
transfers profĳitable businesses to fĳinancial capital, usually at bargain
prices. But there is also a political motive: to ensure regulation by the mar-
ket, dismantle the regulatory capacity of the state, reduce its intervention
and, in this way, defuse electoral risks. The levers of the economy are priva-
tized and delivered to multinationals, and the state is deprived of a signifĳi-
cant source of revenue which, together with the tax privileges offfered to
the multinationals,15 aggravates its fĳinancial crisis, making it more depen-
dent on foreign fĳinancing and virtually destroying any degree of national
independence.16 The state loses the capacity not only to direct the econ-
omy but even to fĳinance it, resulting in a fĳiscal and budgetary crisis, larger
debts and greater dependence on international fĳinancial capital.
guarantees to foreign capital, and in particular to the major corporations of the hemi-
sphere (the vast majority of which are U.S. companies), putting these companies in a posi-
tion to establish the best of all possible scenarios for their full penetration into the
economies of Latin America and the Caribbean” (Estay, 2004). And the MAI, according to
Borón, “proposes no less than the unconditional surrender of society, represented by the
State, to all the dictates of capital… it is a kind of one-sided ‘International Treaty of Investor
Rights’ and a constitutional charter that sets forth the conditions for the full hegemony of
transnational capital” (Borón, 2001).
15 The result of these tax privileges for multinationals is, on the one hand, that taxes on
wages increase while taxes on profĳits fall and “tax havens” abound: “the Cayman Islands,
with its 14 square kilometers and its 14,000 inhabitants, has fĳive hundred banks and thou-
sands of registered companies and, of course, is the meeting place of a veritable Who’s Who
of barely disguised captains of fĳinance and industry. In this way, capital evades national
jurisdiction” (Almeyra, n.d.)
16 “If the threatened denationalization of electricity and petroleum – already decapital-
ized and disconnected from the economy and the scientifĳic and technological develop-
ment of the nation – were carried out, it would fatally accentuate the State’s budgetary
crisis and increase even more the dependence of companies and the government on the
policies of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the U.S. Offfĳice of the
Treasurer. In other words, it would plunge Mexico into a payments crisis, subjected to insis-
tent demands from globalization and neoimperialism for the delivery of more wealth,
resources and territory” (González Casanova, 2000).
162 chapter seven
This loss of capacity to direct the economy imposed on underdeveloped

states is complemented by a second demand: to “autonomize,” to change
the mode of operation and decision-making in key institutions related to
the design of government economic policy; in other words, to discon-
nect them from local decisions and tie them to external institutions, as
part of the “governance” of international institutions.17 A reflection offfered
by González Casanova illustrates the point: “the autonomy of central
banking from the Mexican government and its integration into the net-
work led by the World Bank increased the authority of the international
organizations and major powers over investment and public spending
programs in Mexico… The autonomy of central banking deprived Mexico
of the possibility of facing the crisis with a monetary and investment pol-
icy aimed at promoting the growth of the internal market” (González
Casanova, 2000).
During the period of the developmentalist pattern of domination, the
bourgeoisie of the Latin American nations was assigned the role of pro-
moting a relatively autonomous process, although always within the limits
of underdevelopment, and the local states were given some capacity to
direct the process. But under the neoliberal pattern, through the imposi-
tion of the “generations of reforms and structural adjustments” that con-
stituted successive adaptations to the demands of big capital, the
imperialist bourgeoisie has taken direct control of the most profĳitable
activities in the economies of underdeveloped countries, and local states
have generally turned into offfĳices at the service of transnational monopoly
capital, reduced to managing the development of the general operating
conditions and the supply of labor that each country offfers to transna-
tional capital.
With these conditions established,18 it is evident that states – particu-
larly the underdeveloped ones – are positioned as “competition-based
nation-states,” according to Hirsch’s defĳinition. And this need to compete
to attract transnational capital is imposed by the state on all groups and
social classes (with the exception of course of transnational capital itself),
while at the same time any opposition to it is repressed. States compete to
17 This is, of course, part of a systematic strategy to sterilize democracy, as the local
spokespeople for globalization themselves admit: “it is the necessary institutional armor of
democracy against the distrust aroused by its seasonal and fast-paced politicians” (Luis
F. Aguilar, as quoted in Camil, 2005).
18 “Winning competitive capacity became the aim of States from the moment that big
capital had successfully imposed its free market system” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2001: 21,
emphasis added).
attract global capital, making the creation of optimal conditions for that
capital their fundamental political priority and becoming caught in a spi-
ral which – viewed from the logic of capital – has no limits, as capital will
always demand more and will always seek out, among the diffferent
national scenarios, the one that offfers it more.19 Its establishment within
specifĳic national boundaries is always provisional and, the moment a bet-
ter offfer appears, it will move on without any regret whatsoever; the chief
concern of the states thus becomes not only attracting investment from
global capital, but preventing it from leaving.20
The circle is closed with the evaluation (and the corresponding reward
or penalty) not only of the obedience of local governments, but of their
initiative and active involvement in responding to the needs of capital.
There is a direct and brutal manner of evaluating the behavior of states,
which is simply withdrawing from the territory of a state that has failed:
“the activity of the market itself, if there is full freedom of international
activity at the global level, tends by its own nature to give fĳinancial capital
greater disciplinary power… Its mass withdrawal from countries open to
its activity in response to a policy that it rejects brings penalties which are
greatly feared in terms of exchange and fĳinancial crises and contraction of
the real economy” (Arceo, 2002).21
Capital flight from a country is the most extreme consequence of a neg-
ative evaluation, but capital has designed detailed procedures to inform
the states of their desires and needs, i.e. their criteria for a positive evalua-
tion. Ultimately, the main intention is not to punish, but to foster appro-
priate government behavior and, to this end, clear and exact instructions
are required, as well as flexible adaptation and corrective mechanisms
19 “The struggle to attract investments is at the same time a constant efffort to deepen
the impoverishment of the workers and move resources toward big business… In this way,
the fĳinancial oligarchy reproduces its world, as if its ravenous hunger for profĳit could never
be satiated” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2003: 40).
20 For example, in spite of its geographical proximity and the existence of NAFTA, U.S.
companies decided to move their maquiladoras from Mexico to China, in search of labor-
power that is even cheaper than that offfered by Mexican workers: “How could Mexico
respond to this new situation? By reinforcing the same old mechanisms; i.e. pushing down
the cost of its labor, introducing ‘pending’ reforms related to opening up to foreign invest-
ment and enhancing tax incentives to attract that investment” (Figueroa Sepúlveda,
2001: 40).
21 On the same topic, Hirsch points out that the threatened response to any measure
that afffects capital profĳitability is the flight of that capital: “this reaction of capital has been
made possible because there are now almost no political barriers to its international
mobility, and because the technical conditions for the flexible relocation of production are
constantly improving” (Hirsch, 1996: 98).
164 chapter seven
that will bring about specifĳic day-to-day practices in government institu-

tions. The general recipe for success, according to the experts on the topic,
consists of the following: “companies and government institutions need to
be agile, quick to change processes, intelligent in their ability to under-
stand customer needs and demands, and mentally prepared to accept new
concepts and offfer original services” (Cortada and Hargraves, 1999: vii). It
goes without saying that, for neoliberal states, the most important (and
almost the only) customer is the multinational corporation.
Thus, following the instructions of their priority customer, they embark
on an endless search for what they call excellence, quality, relevance, inte-
gration into the globalized world; in a word, a search for competitiveness,
defĳined as “the country’s ability to attract and retain investment.”22 But it
is also an assessable competitiveness: “it is not enough to be competitive,
it is necessary to be assessed,” i.e. to be recognized by the customer as
competitive. And to be assessed, it is necessary to specify the assessment
criteria. Various hardworking institutions contribute to this specifĳication
process, including the World Economic Forum, the World Competitiveness
Center and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
The World Economic Forum, created “thanks to the contribution of the
world’s 1,000 foremost corporations, contributes to economic growth and
social progress, with an entrepreneurial spirit, in the global public inter-
est… The Forum serves its members and society by promoting collabora-
tion between entrepreneurs, politicians, and other leaders in society, with
the aim of defĳining and discussing fundamental issues on the global
agenda… In 1995, the World Economic Forum was recognized as a consult-
ing body by the United Nations Economic and Social Council.”23 And, as
an outstanding contribution to the fulfĳillment of its noble goals, every year
the Forum publishes its Global Competitiveness Report.
The World Competitiveness Center24 whose annual report, “the most
renowned and comprehensive report on national competitiveness,”
assesses 61 national economies using 312 diffferent criteria, grouped into
four competitiveness factors. A basic obstacle to competitiveness high-
lighted in its reports is “institutional inefffĳiciency”; i.e. the existence of
“barriers that make it impossible for global capital to establish itself in a
22 This is the defĳinition of “competitiveness” offfered by the Mexican Institute for

Competitiveness (IMCO). See their website: http://www.imco.org.mx/
23 The information included here has been taken from the World Economic Forum
website: www.weforum.org
24 http://www.imd.ch/research/centers/wcc/index.cfm
particular region,” and the general formula to overcome this lack of com-
petitiveness lies in offfering “moderate working costs, more flexible work
conditions, less environmentally rigorous legislation, and a certain level of
political stability with institutions that offfer confĳidence and infrastruc-
ture” (Rosselet-McCauley, 2010).
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in response
to an agreement by the World Trade Organization, produces international
industrial and business standards (ISO standards), the purpose of which is
the coordination of national standards in order to facilitate trade and
information exchange: “in the context of competitiveness policy, the aim
is to adapt goods and services to international standards.”25 ISO 9000 and
9001 standards organize processes for “continuous improvement in the
customer and market relation focus… afffecting quality management of
products and services… establishes a comprehensive system by support-
ing competitiveness through quality management,” and it is expected that
they will be adopted not only by companies, but by government, educa-
tional and other institutions. Competitiveness thus becomes measurable
and assessable; the rules of “competitiveness,” the desires of the “cus-
tomer,” are specifĳied exactly. External assessment becomes a mechanism
for the imposition of decisions, and the criteria and assessment scales
become instructions or public policy templates, the primary source from
which the policies of every state are drawn. But thanks to new information
technologies, the states of underdeveloped countries are subjected to a
level of supervision never seen before, placed on a network – on the inter-
national competitiveness network. But the process of international inter-
connection doesn’t stop there, as the external assessment criteria are
taken on as their own by the governments of the countries. In Latin
America, several diffferent governments have promoted the creation of
local replicas of the World Competitiveness Center in order to perform
their own internal evaluations applying the center’s criteria. Some exam-
ples are offfered below.
The Corporación Andina de Fomento26 for the development of what it
calls its strategic project, the Competitiveness Support Program, received
assistance from Harvard University’s Center for International Develop-
ment to set out the conceptual base for its activities and, “under the lead-
ership of Professors Michael Porter and Jefffrey Sachs, the center provided
25 The quotes in this paragraph have been taken from the ISO website (http://www.iso
.org/iso/en/ISOOnline.frontpage)
26 http://www.caf.com/view/index.asp
166 chapter seven
the research and documentation necessary for the creation of a competi-

tiveness agenda and the discussion of public policy.”27 In Mexico, in
February 2004, on the occasion of the opening of the Mexican Institute for
Competitiveness (IMC), then President Vicente Fox declared: “I share the
vision of this group of entrepreneurs. I believe that this will be of great
strategic use to our country, in order to make competitiveness the top pri-
ority on the economic agenda and turn this instrument into a true com-
petitive advantage” (Fox, 2004, emphasis added).
In a report prepared by the IMC, this valuable institution “of great stra-
tegic use” which, as indicated above, defĳines competitiveness as “a coun-
try’s ability to attract and retain investment,” asserts that “in recent years
Mexico’s competitive position has deteriorated,” and among the causes of
this grave situation, highlights that the “lack of flexibility of labor regula-
tions provokes the growth of the informal sector, as it is more costly and
complicated to execute contracts in accordance with the law” (Instituto
Mexicano para la Competividad, 2003). It is not surprising that the fĳind-
ings of Mexico’s competitiveness institute regarding the country’s lack
of competitiveness coincide fully with the recommendations of the
International Monetary Fund: “To increase potential growth and maintain
competitiveness, it is essential to reform the energy and telecommunica-
tions sector and the labor market, including the reduction of obstacles to
the hiring and fĳiring of workers and the reduction of non-wage costs”
(Cason and Brooks, 2004b).
Guatemala’s National Competitiveness Program (PRONACOM), which
is supported by various international organizations, such as the World
Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Inter-
American Development Bank, describes competitiveness as a global pro-
posal for civilization, as the true reason, discovered at last, for human
existence. The program explains that competitiveness has a macro level
(all of the general policies: exchange, monetary, fĳinancial, taxation, tarifffs,
and security and justice, among others); a meso level (joint work activities
involving public, production, labor and academic sectors); a micro level
(training and citizen organization needs for proactive confrontation of the
diffferent challenges posed), and concludes by presenting its meta level:
“the construction of an environment suitable for competitiveness at the
level of ideas, culture, and social and political organization, in which the
27 Information obtained from their website (http://www.caf.com/view/index.asp?).

diffferent social groups share the same values and attitudes.”28 And, as a
fĳitting reward for so much efffort, Latin America has its own Competitiveness
Report. In 2002, the fĳirst Latin American Competitiveness Report was
published “in collaboration with Harvard University’s Center for
International Development,” with the purpose of “complementing the
World Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum”
(Revista Inter-Forum, 2001).
All of these centers promoting competitiveness assert that it is “a task
involving everyone” (each and every one of us is human capital and, if we
take on the task appropriately, we constitute social capital), which means
that all of society is subordinated to the supreme goal of becoming attrac-
tive to transnational capital. For example, the Latin American Center for
Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (CLACDS) considers it
necessary “to promote changes in public policies, corporate strategies
and civil society initiatives” (Fernández Lagraña, 2006). And to promote
this “task involving everyone,” they establish what might be labeled Com-
petitiveness Promotion Brigades. In the suburbs, offfĳices, schools, universi-
ties, government departments, political parties and unions, those most
prone to catching the Ah Q Syndrome virus are recruited, motivated by the
expectation of winning some reward, in imitation of the zeal and diligence
of Jehovah’s Witnesses, to preach the supreme command: be competitive.
In a quasi-religious ritual, which generally follows the same pattern, they
assert with fearful solemnity that “globalization is a risk” but, they add
with a smile from ear to ear, “it is also an opportunity.” They then go on to
explain in detail what to do to take full advantage of this wonderful
opportunity.
The task of the brigades (the due fulfĳillment of which is periodically
subjected to external assessment to determine whether they are still wor-
thy of being rewarded) is to translate the needs of global capital, the
desires of the customer, into guidelines for organizing the daily activities
of their community and, in order to prevent any dissidence, to represent
the reality principle (‘this is what we need’), while promising some kind of
reward (‘if we develop ourselves as human capital and as social capital’).
The brigades constitute a social scafffolding which, supported by the net-
works of power deployed from the think tanks and global institutions
in an environment characterized by the destruction or absence of a
collective construction of alternatives, result in a relatively efffective social
28 Information taken from the PRONACOM website, http://pronacom.org/web/index

.php.
168 chapter seven
leadership. In Gramsci’s terms, they form part of the civil society of neolib-
eralism; part of the downward network that disseminates the neoliberal
conception of the world and connects.
To complete the panorama of the submission to their interests that the
multinational corporations demand of nation-states, we should also con-
sider the concept of risk rating, defĳined as “an opinion on the solvency and
security of a particular fĳinancial instrument issued by a given institution”
(BBV, n.d.). Country risk is supposedly an objective measurement of the
capacity of a country to assume its fĳinancial debt commitments at the
international level; the rating is issued by Risk Rating Companies – Dufff &
Phelps, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, Goldman Sachs, and
Chase-JP Morgan being among the most important. The greater the risk,
the more expensive the credit for the country that assumes the commit-
ments. However, it is also a means of political positioning of international
fĳinancial capital, and raising the risk rating can function as a warning or as
a reprisal from investors for some political behavior that disturbs them.29
And in the context of the panorama of submission and external assess-
ment, it should also be remembered that the U.S. government (the only
indispensable state in the world is the United States) implements unilat-
eral certifĳication processes for the “good” or “bad” conduct of sovereign
nations, reports on the human rights situation in other countries, and
demands alignment with its policies regarding the “war on drugs,” the “war
on terrorism,” “preventive wars,” etc.
The offfĳicial name for this whole process of submission to the interests
of transnational fĳinancial capital and – in the case of Latin America –
submission to U.S. government supervision, is transition to democracy.
Around the world, neoliberalism proposes as a political model the estab-
lishment of formal democracy; although the institutions and processes of
liberal democracy continue to operate, “the essential political decisions
are disconnected from the democratic processes” (Hirsch, 1996: 100).
Neoliberal democracy is, in reality, “a new historical form of author-
itarian state” (Hirsch, 1996: 101), operating on the basis of one basic
29 Two brief examples illustrate this idea: Standard & Poor’s gave its customers a timely
warning and raised a yellow alert based on the possibility that if leftist candidate Andrés
Manuel López Obrador and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) won the
Mexican presidency, the country’s economic policies could sufffer dramatic changes
(Consuegra, 2006); and Goldman Sachs established a ‘Lula-meter’ tracing a connection
between country risk and the increasing likelihood of Lula Da Silva assuming the Brazilian
presidency, with the malicious intention of frightening part of the electorate (Dudley,
2002).
restriction: a drastic restriction of choice. The states cannot and must not
do anything other than ensure free mobility for capital, compete to attract
it and administrate the work force entrusted to them. A rigid conditioning
is imposed, as inescapable as if it were a divine law; according to neolib-
eral ideology, nobody controls globalization, it cannot be modifĳied in any
way, everything must be adapted to its demands and there is no other pos-
sibility of progress. Neoliberal democracy is democracy that de-politicizes
and de-citizen-izes, if by politics we mean (in the theoretical tradition dat-
ing back to Rousseau) a collective efffort to defĳine and construct a social
order that guarantees all individual rights, and by citizenship we mean the
right to participate in the defĳinition of the social order. It produces democ-
racies that are sterile, unstable, and incapable of contributing to the con-
stitution of the social order.
In liberal democracy, citizens are legally defĳined as the owners of the
means of production, and workers are excluded from this right. In what we
could call Keynesian democracy, the workers, through the construction of
a corporate forum of negotiation between the classes, acquire a certain
degree of citizenship. But neoliberal democracy establishes two types of
citizens; fĳirst-class or real citizens, who make the decisions that defĳine the
social order, and second-class or imaginary citizens, who merely vote to
choose the political personnel that will administrate the social order
defĳined by the fĳirst-class citizens.
The real citizens are hard to fĳind because, being modest by nature, they
shy away from unnecessary publicity. But I have already examined how all
important political decisions aim at the creation of a system of organiza-
tions and political institutions beyond the scope of democratic control,
and how the states have become subordinate to the interests of transna-
tional capital and the institutionalized structures that it has created (the
World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank,
etc.), shaping a “hierarchically structured framework of states, interna-
tional organizations, multinational consortia and mafĳia-type criminal
organizations,” (Hirsch, 2000), a “compact ruling elite that seeks to plan,
direct, structure and order all human activity on the planet, backed up by
their huge economic and fĳinancial power. So vast is this power that these
elites no longer even think in terms of the planet, as they consider the
whole world to be their planet” (Salbuchi, 1999).
The imaginary citizens have a fleeting and cyclical existence. They
appear during each electoral period, vote and then disappear again.
But thanks to them, the rulers within the so-called political class are cho-
sen; those entrusted with the administration of the local governments,
170 chapter seven
responsible for offfering the most profĳitable conditions possible to capital

at the expense of the well-being of their societies. Although all members
of the political class (who are “uniform in appearance and conscience, pri-
marily concerned with material privileges and their own private interests,”
free of ideology, as for them “politics is a ‘job’, a vehicle for pursuing a
career and an opportunity for personal enrichment”) belong to the “mono-
lithic neoliberal party” (Hirsch, 2000), they are segmented into secondary
parties in order to organize electoral competitions and win the votes of
the imaginary citizens, thereby creating “a branch of mass media show
business.”30
In the electoral competitions, the parties make promises that cannot be
kept, their social base disintegrates or is distanced from them, and “the
negative image and breakdown of state institutions are accentuated, along
with the separation of real politics from the electoral process” (Regalado,
1999).31 In the developed nations, Hirsch notes, the political class seeks
legitimacy by promoting a kind of racist and nationalist “welfare chauvin-
ism”32, calling for solidarity among “those who have and earn more”
against the enemy, the outsiders, particularly immigrant workers; immi-
grant bashing is thus a popular campaign strategy. The goal is not for the
workers in developed countries to improve their working and living condi-
tions by reorganizing their mode of relating to and their capacity for nego-
tiating with capital, but to defend and preserve what’s left by fĳighting
immigrant workers.
But in the underdeveloped countries, where the level of class conflict is
necessarily more acute, specifĳically in Latin America, even neoliberal
democracy represents a certain degree of risk and discomfort for the mas-
ters of the world, especially when social movements break the electoral
monopoly of the political class. Such has not been the case in Mexico,
fĳirstly because the political class that rules the country – the local version
of the monolithic neoliberal party, organized into three main parties (in
simple terms, the right-wing PAN, the centrist PRI and the leftist PRD) – is
30 “In the competition between party machines, the primary aim is to diffferentiate the
product using commercial propaganda industry techniques, and to organize and promote
show fĳights with high viewer ratings, whose presentation and realization poorly conceal
the basic conspiracy between the opponents” (Hirsch, 2000).
31 Almeyra suggests that “merely institutional politics, when parliamentary institutions
don’t count, leads to the integration of the parties into the state machine and into the logic
of capital: corruption, seizing good positions, and unprincipled voting” Almeyra, 2004).
32 “They are transformed into apartheid regimes, which exhaust all their energy in the
militant repulsion of anyone who might threaten the privileges that still remain” (Hirsch,
2000).
increasingly disconnected from the needs of Mexican society,33 as its

political priority is to do business,34 which is why the members of the
political class belong to the parties.35 Their political activity depends more
on the mass media than their connection with the citizens,36 is based on
advice from the United States,37 is lacking in principles38 and fails to
resolve national problems.39 But it is also because this same political class
33 “Political reforms have led the country to the creation of a political class that only
represents itself, distanced from the life of its society and of its voters. This political class
does not feel compelled to explain to society its view of the world and the future, or to
account for the empty promises made by its members when the time comes for them to
commit to the insipid hollowness of fĳighting to the death for political seats and for posi-
tions and budgets” (Blanco, 2006).
34 “The law permits the creation and operation of political parties to turn into a busi-
ness with funds from the treasury and no relation to the public function that defĳines them”
(Bendesky, 2003).
35 “Under ‘normal’ political conditions, the internal conflicts of the parties would
already have given rise to new formations, as they are irresolvable. But this doesn’t happen
because of the persistence of the monopoly on registration, the key to all prerogatives. The
result is that the diversity that actually exists is not expressed institutionally, but instead
has the efffect of paralyzing the internal organization of these parties, or is fabricated to
reflect the position of their candidates. Can a grouping of individuals with no ideology,
prepared to sell out to the highest bidder, be called a ‘national’ party?” (Sánchez Rebolledo,
36 “The parties and the sphere of politics are out of touch with the problems that con-
cern society, as their analyses and proposals have been reduced to campaign spots”
(Zermeño, 2003); “they see the democratic game as an exercise in image and marketing”
(Sánchez Rebolledo, 2003); “the television duopoly will receive close to 8 billion pesos from
the political class in payment for air-time to broadcast their campaign spots” (Rascón,
2005).
37 “Under the pretext of “‘democratizing’ Mexican public life, diffferent U.S. government
departments – and in particular the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the
International Republican Institute (IRI), international arms of the two main parties in the
United States – have been advising Mexico’s three main parties for at least four years, and
for [the elections in] 2006, the U.S. Agency for International Development will provide
them with technical, political and fĳinancial support” (Garrido, 2005).
38 “That Mexican democratic politics has turned into a circus says much about the
speed of adaptation of the local politicians to international trends, and much as well about
the surprising degree of disintegration of the ruling groups that command Mexico’s
longest-standing political formations” (Cordera Campos, 2006); “abundant use of unde-
clared income, derived from the treasury, but also from organized groups with illegal inter-
ests, open buying of the vote, shameless electoral mobilization and manipulation, and
forced abstention… what is worrying is the apparent apathy of the public toward extreme
displays of political immorality and, at the same time, the victorious reassertion that the
traditional mechanisms to prevent electoral fraud have a future.” (Hernández López, 2006).
39 The Editorial of the Mexican daily La Jornada on Thursday, January 19, 2006, offfered
a harsh examination of Mexican democracy, asserting that “democratic processes, when
they have existed, have not translated into responses to the serious social problems in the
country, which remain unresolved, if not exacerbated… the parties have made a great dis-
play of ineptitude, a lack of principles and the widespread deterioration of their internal
organization.”
172 chapter seven
has been very careful to keep social movements excluded from real access
to electoral contests, which is to be expected of the right or the center,
although somewhat surprising in the case of the left. Yet in spite of the
existence of a strong social opposition to neoliberalism, the priorities of
the leftist PRD do not go as far as the construction of a politically unifĳied
anti-neoliberal front;40 rather, the party is highly susceptible to the Ah Q
Syndrome.41
Nevertheless, all evidence points to the fact that a majority of Mexicans
have voted in two presidential elections for candidates of the left, more
out of disgust with the center and the right than for the merits of the left
itself; the fĳirst was Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988 and the second was
López Obrador in 2006. But in neither case did the left show either the
capacity or the willingness to oppose the frauds perpetrated by the other
members of the political class, being satisfĳied simply to be members of
that class – second-class members – but members nevertheless.42 Under
these circumstances, elections are merely a source of discouragement and
will only serve either to roll back processes to construct collective alterna-
tives by promoting the individualist cry of “every man for himself” (in a
scream or a whimper) as the only option, or to push society forward in
search of new spaces for organization, resulting in an increased concen-
tration of politics in social movements.43 Nevertheless, according to the
U.S. government, Mexican democracy is worthy of praise.44 In other coun-
tries – Bolivia and Venezuela, for example – active social movements have
40 For example, Comandante Tacho of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

(EZLN) explained that PRD senators voted against the Cocopa Law, “because if a peace
agreement had been reached, the Zapatistas would have entered open politics,” and “they
thought that they would lose all their customers” (Bellinghausen, 2003). Meanwhile,
Subcomandante Marcos offfers a long list of insults inflicted by the PRD on the EZLN
(Marcos, 2005).
41 Luis Hernández Navarro explains how politics operates with the PRD in the Mexican
state of Oaxaca, home of the resistance movement the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of
Oaxaca (APPO): “Among the techniques that a former governor of Oaxaca claims to have
put in practice to control the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the state is to
give away minivans to its leaders. ‘It never fails,’ he says. ‘The group that ends up with noth-
ing fĳights to the death with the one who takes the minivan. The ones who win owe you a
favor. The others mention it to their colleagues. You kill two birds with one stone…’”
(Hernández Navarro, 2007).
42 For a reflection on the political signifĳicance and forms of operation of these kinds of
parties in the current climate, see Petras, 2007.
43 For an explanation of this phenomenon, see Almeyra, 2003a.
44 “The president of the United States, George W. Bush, received the president elect of
Mexico, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, describing the elections of July 2 as ‘open and honest’…
Bush welcomed Calderón warmly and even stated that he was ‘very proud’ of the presiden-
tial elections in Mexico” (Herrera and Brooks, 2006).
participated in electoral processes and have won them, establishing gov-

ernments which, in a context fraught with limitations and difffĳiculties (as
the pathways open to the underdeveloped world are rough and narrow),
endeavor to develop a political agenda diffferentiated from neoliberalism.
For the U.S. government, these effforts constitute an emerging threat, com-
plementary to “narcoterrorism, corruption and organized crime” (Cason
and Brooks, 2004a).
Thus, from the perspective of the U.S. government, in Latin America
(and, it could be said generally, in the underdeveloped world as a whole)
there are two fundamental socio-political trajectories: one that consti-
tutes a quasi-perfect democracy (i.e. that has successfully blocked social
resistance to the neoliberal design) and one that constitutes an emerging
threat (where some public space has been structured to seek out alterna-
tives to neoliberal domination).
However, not only from the U.S. perspective but from the perspective of
neoliberal capital in general, democracies, both in the developed and
underdeveloped world – even the quasi-perfect ones – are fragile and
need additional support to keep them from turning into emerging threats.
This is a point worthy of a more detailed examination. In the following
chapter, I will discuss the form assumed by this additional support, aimed
at ensuring the order that neoliberalism imposes on society.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE STATE ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITY
Police everywhere, justice nowhere.

Students of the Sorbonne in 2007
In the preceding chapters, I have examined neoliberalism as a process

launched on a global scale by the capitalist class, specifĳically by its domi-
nant faction, to ensure the transition from Keynesian state regulation to
regulation “by the markets,” i.e. by the direct and immediate needs of capi-
tal appreciation. Its fundamental principle is that the direct and immedi-
ate needs of capital appreciation regulate everything and are not regulated
by anything: practically all the political controls on transnational capital
activities are dismantled, and the economy is “autonomized,” turned into
an “independent” sphere as required for the natural form of domination,
regulated only by the immediate, insatiable thirst for surplus-value. As its
purpose is both to raise the rate of surplus-value and to concentrate the
sources of its production and appropriation, neoliberalism produces a
radical transformation in relations both between capital and labor world-
wide and between the developed and underdeveloped worlds in the con-
text of the imperialist relation.
Imperialist capital rationalizes its cycle on a global scale, and this results
(in addition to direct intervention in the political management of the
underdeveloped nations) in the establishment of a new pattern of indus-
trial colonialism (which, as its unfolds, tends toward the destruction of the
industry built during the developmentalist period and the annexation of
the underdeveloped countries to the economy of the developed world,
thereby turning them into assembly plant countries), and in the organiza-
tion of global competition between workers by establishing a nationally
segmented global work force.
The neoliberal economy and its state are mutually related and comple-
mentary, but they also constitute a basic structural contradiction: while
the neoliberal economy provokes profound social problems, the neolib-
eral state dismantles the institutional channels that would be capable of
processing alternative solutions to these social ills. In spite of the excessive
growth of problems affflicting society, the state is systematically disabled
176 chapter eight
as a space for the regulation of the capital-labor relation, dedicated instead

to dismantling the concessions won by the workers during the period of
the Keynesian-developmentalist pattern of domination and subordinated
to the dynamic of globalization of big multinational capital. The result is a
lack of spaces for processing solutions to the problems which, as they
develop, tend to produce diffferent degrees of political crisis. In the follow-
ing two sections (the neoliberal construction of society and the neoliberal
ghetto), I offfer a review of the general conditions for this contradiction,
while the third (state administration of criminal activity) will be dedi-
cated to an analysis of the form that neoliberal capitalism has assumed in
order to operate with it.
Neoliberal Construction of Society
I will begin with a brief review of society under the conditions of neolib-
eral domination. To this end, it is worth highlighting two of the outcomes
of the processes examined previously: fĳirst, the workers are ‘atomized’,
reduced to managing their relation with capital individually and to seek-
ing out individual options for subsistence; second, many workers sufffer a
severe decline in living and work conditions, both in developed and in
underdeveloped nations, although much worse in the case of the latter.
Neoliberal Individualism
The fĳirst outcome is associated with the basis of the neoliberal pattern of
domination: while in the previous stage (the diffferent modalities of the
contained form of domination) capital organized workers corporately, in
this stage, capital disorganizes, atomizes and pulverizes in order to domi-
nate the workers, particularly in underdeveloped countries. In these coun-
tries, opening up to markets results in the collapse of the industry
established during the developmentalist period, replaced with the maqui-
ladora or offfshore assembly plant as a predominant form in industry, and
with unemployment on the one hand and casual employment without
labor rights on the other. This provokes the growth of the informal sector
and of exclusion and, as necessary correlates, chaos, anomie, and social
disorder.
Zermeño describes the situation created by neoliberalism as the spread
of “the assembly plant economy with its appalling implications for human,
working and living conditions, its broken and impoverished families, and
the state administration of criminal activity 177
its devastated natural environment,” leading to a situation of “adversity

and disorganization, rife with unhappiness… unemployment, violence
and crime… anomie, decadence, destructiveness, disintegration, savagery,
chaos, negativity, anti-social perspectives… depression, desperation, a
lack of future… poverty as dehumanization, as deterioration of the human
individual, as a return to barbarism… The formal world of manufacturing,
trade and services stagnated, becoming regressive and throwing huge con-
tingents of workers, employees, merchants, businessmen and almost all
youth into the informal sector, into any kind of business, contraband,
piracy, begging, stealing, drugs and crime” (Zermeño, 2005: 15, 16, 20, 21);
the world created by neoliberalism is “a world with destroyed players and
without progress, but rife with clans, mafĳia bosses and submissive gangs
made up of ragged youth terrifĳied by insecurity and unemployment”
(Zermeño, 2005: 23).1
Under the conditions of the new correlation of forces between social
classes, capital is not prepared to tolerate dialogue with organized work-
ers: “neoliberalism… seeks to command a society of atomized individuals.
It doesn’t want negotiators; it wants solitary sellers of their individual
labor-power and citizens defĳined by the consumption of commodities
rather than by their entitlement to rights” (Gilly, 2004). To this end, neolib-
eralism proposes a new version of the old, well-known bourgeois individu-
alism, aimed at three diffferent types of individuals: the employed, the
unemployed, and the company.
Among the fortunate ones, those who have employment, individual
rights are disassociated from the social order and turned into privileges
granted by capital, and a new form of domination is constructed which
replaces organized negotiators with atomized individuals. It is not merely
that, with the weakness of unions and the proliferation of flexible and
casual employment, each worker has to negotiate work and pay condi-
tions individually with the company, but that, to become worthy of this
privilege, workers must surrender all consciousness of diffferentiation
from capital; capital requires workers to belong to the company, and to
build their identity with the company.2
1 “Growing numbers of people in our societies, particularly in countries of uncontrolled

openness like Mexico, have been disconnected, their patterns of cohesion and culture vio-
lently afffected, disordered, atomized and pushed to extreme situations of anomie, violence
and degradation” (Zermeño, 2005: 29).
2 While “the Taylorist factory was based on the idea of a separation and structural
counterpoint between the main parties involved in production… in the ‘integrated fac-
tory’… workers must, consciously and voluntarily, ‘surrender’ their own intelligence in the
178 chapter eight
There is no longer any place for workers to organize, oppose or diffferen-

tiate themselves from capital, or even to build a forum for discussion and
negotiation; in this sense, the relation between the classes is depoliticized,
reduced to individual particularities, and any sense of universality is bro-
ken, as the construction of interests that would transcend individual par-
ticularities, that would express the recognition of a social relation or a
relation between social classes, is rendered fragile, if not impossible. While
among those with employment neoliberal individualism promotes a situ-
ation of submission, defenselessness and reduction to individual negotia-
tion, for the unemployed and marginalized it results in an anomic, desperate
search for forms of subsistence, including crime, illegal migration and the
“informal” sector. This issue will be discussed in more detail later.
Capital universalizes the discourse of “individual rights” and, as a logi-
cal consequence (according to its particular logic) it only allows dialogue
between individuals, between equals; the individual company negotiates
with the individual worker and, more generally, the individual company
claims its rights as an individual. This is the rationale behind the assertion
by General James T. Hill, commander of the United States Southern
Command, that “radical populism” (identifĳied as one of the “emerging
threats”) “undermines the democratic process, as it reduces, rather than
increases, individual rights” (Cason and Brooks, 2004a); obviously, the
“individuals” he is referring to are the big corporations with more eco-
nomic and political power than whole nations. Of course, the problem is
not that companies, even the huge multinationals, call themselves indi-
viduals, but that they impose a legal and political structure that treats
them as such; the discourse of “individual freedom” and “individual rights”
thus becomes a simple construction of the domain of the most powerful
as unregulated space, the simple use of economic, legal and political force3
and the reduction of the workers to defenselessness.
The core of neoliberal domination lies in its capacity to break up the
social domain and promote individualism (in its neoliberal version) and
production process. Between the labor-power system and company management there
must be established a cultural, existential continuity, a common perspective that allows no
fractures… ‘to build’ a totally new collective identity, rooted in the territory of the factory…
to secure loyalty and availability…. to subsume the existential dimension of labor-power
itself under capital… to identify the subjectivity of the work with the subjectivity of capi-
tal…. to make belonging to the company the only subjectivity possible” (Revelli, 2004).
3 Mokhiber and Weissman consider it necessary to remind us that corporations are not
individuals: “In spite of the fact that the law often treats corporations as if they were real
human beings, and in spite of the effforts of corporations to present themselves as part of
the community, corporations are essentially and fundamentally diffferent from real people
and should not be granted the same rights as people of flesh and blood… For example,
free competition (i.e. not subject to any legal regulation) between workers
(between employed workers and other employed workers, between
employed and unemployed workers, and between workers in developed
countries and workers in underdeveloped countries). As it destroys the
social regulation of the class relation, neoliberalism hinders the construc-
tion of a collective order and promotes a wide range of particularities with
one basic purpose: to prevent any chance of structuring a class-based
political front by pushing class conflict out of view and rendering it harm-
less to neoliberal domination.
The Global Depreciation and Degradation of Labor

The second outcome mentioned above is so self-evident that it hardly
needs emphasizing.4 “Considered in its most abstract expression,” remarks
Gilly, “neoliberal capital expansion that is not subject to any controls or
laws can be summarized as a universal, global process… of depreciation of
labor-power on a worldwide scale, through the incorporation of hundreds
and hundreds of millions of new human beings into the capitalist labor
market, and the disqualifĳication or expulsion from that same market of
millions of others whose labor has become as obsolete or superfluous as
the machinery that is also replaced. Competition without laws or regula-
tion of workers within the global wage-labor market and its consequent
global depreciation in relation to the mass of commodities produced
would thus be the ultimate meaning of neoliberal deregulation” (Gilly,
2004).
The workers are subjected to a dynamic aimed at breaking legal restric-
tions and regulations, which, together with the technological transforma-
tions and the reorganization of transnational productive capital on a
global scale, generates poverty5 and unemployment, while a large propor-
tion of the employment that survives is casualized.6
[in the United States] they have managed to evade a large number of reasonable regula-
tions related to advertising by claiming that they violate individual rights under the First
Amendment” (Mokhiber and Weissman, 2005b).
4 For a systematic exploration of this topic, see Chossudovsky, 2002.
5 Even as questionable as their criteria for measurement are, the fĳigures provided by the
World Bank illustrate the enormous dimensions that poverty has reached in the world
today: in the year 2000, 1.1 billion people in the world were living on less than one U.S. dol-
lar a day, and 2.74 billion on less than 2 dollars; together this represents two thirds of
humanity (World Bank, 2003). According to data published by the FAO, 224 million people
in Latin America and the Caribbean live below the poverty line and more than 55 million
sufffer from malnutrition.
6 According to the International Labor Organization, “the number of unemployed
remained at an all time high of 195.2 million in 2006,” and “the ILO reported only modest
180 chapter eight
The Neoliberal Ghetto
The issue of the dismantling of state institutions as viable spaces for work-
ers to coordinate some form of political defense against the voracity of
capital needs to be examined on two levels: fĳirst, at the level of the nation-
state, especially those of underdeveloped nations; and second, at the
international level. In relation to the nation-state, again the evidence
speaks for itself. In chapters 6 and 7 of this work, I analyzed the process
that has led to the dismantling of the government forms of the previous
period and the establishment of the forms of the neoliberal state, and
I pointed out that the purpose of these transformations is, specifĳically, to
destroy any space for capital to compromise with labor and to make the
state increasingly impervious to any democratic recourse whereby work-
ers might be able to express their interests and needs.
The result of this is what some authors have referred to as the “crisis of
the political”7: the breakdown of the system of public representation and
the rejection of the political class, made up of corrupt, servile, dishonest
and irremediable politicians who invariably go unpunished. Social prob-
lems increase while the “politicos” fĳight for the popular vote by making
promises that nobody believes and playing their trump card of fĳiltering
information to the media to create scandals that demonstrate that their
opponent is worse than they are.8 In terms of the second level, the lack of
gains in lifting some of the world’s 1.37 billion working poor – those working but living on
the equivalent of US$2 per person, per day – out of poverty… there weren’t enough decent
and productive jobs to raise them and their families above the US$2 poverty line” (ILO,
2007). This means that unemployment and casual employment that yields an utterly inad-
equate income for the worker afffects a total of more than 1.5 billion workers. Added to this
is child labor: 246 million children in the world work and some 171 million do so in hazard-
ous situations, subjected to various forms of slavery, prostitution and pornography, or in
armed conflicts, among other illegal activities. 1.2 million children are enlisted in forced
exploitation in the sex trade, which in Latin America is mostly aimed at tourists (UNICEF,
2005).
7 In Europe, Castells explains, “there is much talk of personal insecurity, crime, vio-
lence, loss of national identity (threatened by the invasion of immigrants and the suprana-
tional nature of the European Union), of jobs in danger and social security without a
future, of a world dominated by multinationals, of lives alienated by technology, of govern-
ments dominated by arrogant bureaucracies in Brussels or in Washington, of an American
superpower out of control, of a European Union that is faint-hearted globally and techno-
cratic in Europe, of fĳinancial markets where our savings evaporate without explanation, of
media dominated by sensationalism, and of corrupt, servile and dishonest politicians”
(Castells, 2001).
8 The political class staggers from one scandal to the next, but nothing is ever corrected
or punished. They are simply scandals that are useful to the media: “the media has placed
itself at the very heart of politics, where the opinions and decisions of the public are
an international institutional framework whereby workers can express

their interests is such that even an institution like the International Labor
Organization acknowledges what it refers to as the “defĳiciencies in gover-
nance” of globalization: “the global markets have grown rapidly without
the parallel development of economic and social institutions necessary
for their smooth and equitable functioning… market opening measures
and fĳinancial and economic considerations predominate over social
ones… these rules and policies are the outcome of a system of global gov-
ernance largely shaped by powerful countries and powerful players. There
is a serious democratic defĳicit at the heart of the system. Most developing
countries still have very limited influence in global negotiations on rules
and in determining the policies of key fĳinancial institutions. Similarly,
workers and the poor have little or no voice in this governance process”
(World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, 2004,
emphasis added).
Of course, it is not surprising that at the international level there is no
institutional framework whereby workers can express their interests,
either as citizens or as workers, as globalization is a class-based design. It
is structured precisely to deprive the rights of workers, not to recognize
them; the whole design is globalphilic in relation to the interests of big
capital and globalphobic where the interests of workers are concerned.9
formed… politics has to be adapted to a media language that has three rules: simplifĳication
of the message, personalization of policy, and the predominance of negative messages dis-
crediting the opposition over positive messages with little credibility. All of this leads to
scandal politics as a basic weapon for gaining power by taking out the opponent… all the
parties have made the denunciation of corruption a favorite weapon” (Castells, 2001). In
Mexico, this institutional disablement has reached spectacular levels in the federal govern-
ment in cases such as the Savings Protection Banking Fund (FOBAPROA) and in state gov-
ernments in cases such as that of Mario Marín, the “gober precioso” (“dear governor”) of
Puebla, and Ulises Ruiz, governor of Oaxaca: “the large-scale disintegration of society, as
can be seen in the way in which political and economic power is exercised… moral decline
on public display… Impunity is what prevails, along with its counterpart, the increasingly
conspicuous absence of fĳirm measures by the State to protect its citizens. In the face of the
evidence, practically all discourse rings hollow. The gobers preciosos are now a metaphor in
Puebla for the networks of complicity, abuse and arbitrariness that are rampant…. the out-
breaks of violence, the persistence of insecurity, the con artists and swindlers on every
corner and in every public offfĳice” (Bendesky, 2006).
9 The spokesperson for these concepts par excellence is former Mexican president
Ernesto Zedillo, who, while a radical globalphile, proved profoundly globalphobic, arch-
nationalist and even xenophobic, on issues not related to the interests of big transnational
capital: outraged by the presence in Chiapas of an international human rights commit-
tee, Zedillo asserted that “these ‘progressives’ from abroad who consider Mexico a country
of ‘oppression, persecution, injustice and mistreatment of indigenous people’ need to
understand that it’s up to Mexicans to establish their own laws and resolve their internal
182 chapter eight
Even in the realm of the unions, where the capacity of the workers to com-
pel capital to negotiate once seemed an irreversible achievement, the
obstacles are enormous. Gallin explains that the incorporation of the
work force of the so-called “former socialist” and “former developing”
nations has added billions of workers to the global labor market con-
trolled by transnational capital, who have entered that market with their
own particular political backgrounds (“it would have taken a miracle
for the international union movement to rise above the weaknesses of
its members; it would have needed to wipe out forty years of history”),
some social democratic, others Stalinist, and the rest repressed and/or
corporatist: “the countries that play an important role in the global labor
market and that determine the conditions on the bottom of the scale
are countries where the people were severely repressed, such as China,
Vietnam or Indonesia, or where they are sufffering the consequences of
a tough repression in their recent historical past, as in Russia, Brazil
or Central America. Or they are ‘hard democracies’, countries where dem-
ocratic forms are observed but where social power relations are estab-
lished according to undemocratic rules, such as India, Mexico or Turkey”
(Gallin, 2000).10
On the level of civil rights, the construction of a framework of interna-
tional governability that would civilize neoliberal globalization, resolve its
“serious democratic defĳicit” and give rise to the “social considerations”
that have so far been ignored, has been a constant proposal of the interna-
tional social movement, for example, at the World Social Forum, which
has identifĳied “the need for a global governability to regulate the new
international economic powers… and to fĳight for the globalization of
social rights,” (Díaz-Salazar, 2004), and has proposed “a diffferent globaliza-
tion that includes solidarity from the bottom up, the globalization of
human rights, the socialization of democracy as a universal value…
problems… “we Mexicans are quite right to be outraged and upset by this situation… the
solution to the problems in Chiapas will be internal… we Mexicans, without the need of
intervention, without the need of foreign interference, will resolve our own problems.’”
(Vargas, 1998; Urrutia, 1998). Thanks to this selective globalphilia, after completing his term
as president he joined the board of directors of three multinational corporations which
had benefĳited during his presidency (Union Pacifĳic Corp, Procter & Gamble and Grupo
Desc) as well as being appointed chairman of a UN committee (Villamil, 2010).
10 To this already complicated panorama should be added the fact that “the global rate
of unionization is below 13% (163 million union members out of 1.3 billion wage-laborers,
and this rate would drop to half as much or less if we also take workers in the informal sec-
tor into account)” (Gallin, 2000).
the universalization of care for the Earth and its ecosystems” (Bofff, 2003).
But the inequity that plagues neoliberal globalization, both between
social classes and between developed and underdeveloped nations, is not
due to “defĳiciencies in its governance”; on the contrary, its governance is
designed to make this inequity governable, denying workers not only
rights as citizens but even as laborers, while capital organizes its domina-
tion on a global scale.
It is a political design created by capital, personifĳied by the big multina-
tionals and by the nations of developed capitalism, particularly the United
States (the “powerful countries and powerful players” to which the ILO
makes a vague reference), the result of a systematic and explicit efffort on
the part of what I have named the production workshop of domination
strategies. For example, in response to the social mobilization of the 1960s,
an analysis published in 1975 titled “The Crisis of Democracy: Report on
the Governability of Democracies” (Crozier et al, 1975), ordered by the
Trilateral Commission, an initiative of David Rockefeller that brought
together the big business leaders of the U.S., Europe and Japan, asserted
that “the social expectations of citizens and their demands on the state
have risen considerably, while the capacity and resources of the latter to
satisfy them have fallen, generating frustration and rejection. Therefore, to
propose greater participation by citizens in public life and demand greater
responsibility and involvement by the state, far from making our democra-
cies more governable, aggravates their defĳiciencies… Thus the solution
consists in reducing civic participation, modernizing the management of
society and entrusting it to social players (companies, associations, inter-
est groups) and a few institutions which, by coordinating their interac-
tions, will be able more easily to reconcile their antagonisms and resolve
their conflicts” (Vidal-Beneyto, 2002).
Inequality and anti-democracy in neoliberal globalization cannot be
understood as a problem of “defĳiciencies of governance,” as there is no
intention to correct this supposed defĳiciency by strengthening democracy
and incorporating “social considerations” or the interests of “the workers
and the poor” as the ILO suggests. The question that preoccupies neolib-
eral capital is not how to incorporate the interests of the workers, but how
to pursue its effforts to satisfy its interminable hunger for surplus-value
without placing its domination at risk. Although this is a question that
admits varying responses (it is, after all, a work in progress), in the follow-
ing section I will examine how neoliberal domination has been structur-
ing its response so far.
184 chapter eight
State Administration of Criminal Activity
From the foregoing examination of the general features of the contradic-

tion generated by the interrelation of neoliberal economics and neoliberal
politics, one basic conclusion can be drawn: neoliberal economics pro-
vokes social discontent and neoliberal politics dismantles the institutional
channels to address that discontent and seek alternative solutions for
society’s ills. Neoliberal capitalism does not build avenues to facilitate the
resolution of the many economic, social and political problems it gener-
ates. If the voracity of capital is not met with any restrictions or initiatives
to moderate or civilize it, and it is not prepared to contain the savagery
that it unleashes, it will lead, as the logical conclusion to its internal ten-
dencies, to increasing savagery, and its political effforts will be essentially
aimed at preventing the problems and social unrest from crystallizing into
opposition and resistance by the dominated. It is therefore necessary to
examine the basic components of the response that neoliberal domina-
tion has been developing, to construct, as a complement to its economic
and political dimensions, a mechanism designed to administrate the
problems that neoliberal capital creates and fails to resolve: state adminis-
tration of criminal activity as a pillar of the pattern of domination, replac-
ing state administration of concessions.
Production of Criminals
It is easy enough to demonstrate that, if there is anything in which neolib-

eralism is extraordinarily efffĳicient, it is in the production of criminals11
and the organization of what is offfĳicially referred to as the war on crime.
But the purpose here is to demonstrate that crime is essentially produced
by the neoliberal economic, political and ideological dynamic and that
the war against it serves to support the development of that same dynamic;
the neoliberal state organizes both the production of and the war on
crime, and this dual function acquires strategic importance in neoliberal
capital domination and the preservation of the order that it imposes on
society.
11 Examining the rate of construction of new prisons in Great Britain, Bauman observes
that “it is higher than any other sector of the British economy,” and nevertheless “as impres-
sive as the prison construction boom may be in Great Britain, it is nothing compared to
that of the United States” (Bauman, 1999: 22).
This process is based on a transmutation that is characteristic of neolib-

eral domination: social problems become criminal problems, and social
effforts to fĳind solutions to these problems are substituted and blocked
by the war on crime. Neoliberal domination thus sets up a dynamic that
enables it to operate with the savagery that it produces, using it as a means
of support for the continued production of savagery. Thus it is necessary to
examine the methods whereby criminals are produced and to show how
the diffferent methods of criminal production, together with their corre-
sponding forms of crime fĳighting, ultimately converge, becoming politi-
cally functional as complements to neoliberal governance so that, in the
absence of a working class front to oppose it, the logic of capital can domi-
nate the stage of social organization and close offf all avenues of escape.
It is possible to identify four major methods for the production of crimi-
nals in neoliberal society: illegal migration, individual crime, organized
crime and international terrorism. The core of the state administration of
criminal activity is the promotion and war on organized crime, which has
been extended to the war on international terrorism, particularly since
September 11, 2001 and the imposition of the U.S. anti-terrorist agenda on
the rest of the world. All are part of the state administration of criminal
activity and constituent elements of the neoliberal pattern of domination.
All fĳind their social basis, the objective condition for their establishment,
in the processes analyzed above: economic and political transformations12
that sterilize democratic institutions as viable forums for defending rights,
while also producing unemployment and debasing the living and work
conditions of a signifĳicant proportion of workers, atomizing them and
reducing them to the desperate search for individual options of subsis-
tence.13 But they also have developmental goals with diffferentiated politi-
cal, social and even economic dimensions.
12 “Half of the workers of the world – close to 1.4 billion impoverished workers –
currently live on less than 2 U.S. dollars per day per person. They work in the vast informal
sector – from agricultural operations to fĳishing, from farms to city streets – without bene-
fĳits, social security or social assistance… Unemployment, in terms of people currently
without jobs, is at its highest levels and continues to rise. In the last ten years, offfĳicial
unemployment grew by more than 25 per cent and now afffects close to 192 million people
in the world, or 6% of the total work force” (Rudnik and Goransky, 2007).
13 In its own way, even the World Bank recognizes the profound economic inequality
that currently prevails as a source of violence: “in its World Development Report for 2005,
the World Bank suggests that the growing economic inequality between the diffferent
regions of the world and within countries themselves is a decisive factor in violence and
the risk of [civil] war, and doubts that it would be possible even to come close to, much less
to reach, the goal for the millennium set by the 1995 World Summit in Copenhagen to cut
world poverty in half” (Krätke, 2007).
186 chapter eight
Illegal Migration
The more developed free trade and free capital mobility become,
particularly between developed and underdeveloped countries, the more
unemployment, casualization and marginality grow, especially in the
underdeveloped world14, and, as a necessary correlate, the greater the
numbers are of people migrating to the developed world in search of
employment and a means of existence.15 Faced with this wave of poverty
and migration, capital has positioned itself on both sides of the process to
close the pincer on the workers.
On the side of the underdeveloped countries, transnational capital and
its administrators (the United States, the IMF, the World Bank, etc.),
together with their local delegates (the local political class), promote
openness and competitiveness in the country in question to make it
attractive to transnational capital investment – the only possible way,
they claim, of generating the employment that the country so desper-
ately needs. In the discourse and in neoliberal practice, to oppose this
process, which subordinates everything to the supreme purpose of
being attractive to foreign capital, would be madness and, probably, a
criminal act.
On the side of the developed countries, the same capital represented by
the same global administrators accuses migrants of being the main cause
of the deterioration of the living conditions of local workers, and its politi-
cal class, particularly the segment on the right of the political spectrum,
coordinates the defense of their privileges while promoting hatred of
14 “A signifĳicant portion of the periphery is afffected by a process of deindustrialization

and deconstruction of production that translates into an unprecedented expansion of
unemployment and marginalization” (Arceo, 2002).
15 “The increased exploitation of dependent countries and the concentration of wealth
and employment opportunities in industrialized countries and regions provoke huge
waves of migration of the most energetic, well-trained and youthful sectors of the labor
force from the regions punished by neoliberal policies” (Almeyra, 2005). According to the
UN, international migration reached 191 million worldwide in 2005: Europe was home to
34 per cent of total migrants, North America to 23 percent and Asia to 28 percent. Only 9
percent lived in Africa, 3 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean and another 3 per-
cent in Oceania” (UN, 2006). As for Mexico, 400,000 Mexicans immigrate each year to the
United States, which is home to 20 million legal or undocumented Mexican migrants.
(Román, 2005). Mexico, following its promised entry into the “First World” thanks to
NAFTA, has now become the world champion in this fĳield: “The World Bank, in its ‘World
Development Report 2006: Equity and Development’, ranks Mexico in fĳirst place out of 134
nations for the number of international migrants, with a total of 2 million for the period
1995–2000. In second place was China with 1.95 million, and in third was the Democratic
Republic of Congo, followed by India” (Castro, 2006).
migrants.16 Thus workers are trapped in a spiral of racism and xenophobia

which takes shape in neo-Nazi political projects; one of the preferred plat-
forms for winning votes among right-wing extremists consists in attacking
immigrants.
In reality – at least up to now – the solution has not been a radical
closure of borders to the flow of undocumented migrants, but the promo-
tion of the incorporation of migrant workers into the economy under
conditions of “illegality.”17 This tends to lead to the creation, within the
developed countries, of a segment of workers without political or labor
rights, who are denied the opportunity of permanent residency or citizen-
ship, who live in permanent fear and who, in their defenselessness, are
easily made to work under extremely casual labor conditions. This group
of workers, whose most persecuted members will accept the lowest wages,
thus becomes an inexhaustible supply of defenseless labor that can be
regulated at will, allowing capital greater control over the labor market in
developed countries.18
Globalization began with the capital of the developed nations crossing
borders in search of the surplus population of the underdeveloped
nations; now the circle has closed as this growing surplus population is
laying siege to the developed countries and infĳiltrating them.19 So far inca-
pable of presenting a common political front against capital, workers
are compelled to compete with each other and to hate one another, fĳight-
ing for the crumbs that capital leaves them.20 In the developed world,
16 “Metropolitan democracies are transformed into apartheid regimes, which exhaust

all their energy in the militant repulsion of any who might threaten the privileges that still
remain” (Hirsch, 2000).
17 According to Sergio Zermeño, in spite of all the controls on the border between
Mexico and the United States, every day “4,600 illegals jump the wall, of which around half
succeed in making a home north of the border” (Zermeño, 2005b).
18 “Involuntary facilitators of the expansion of the informal economy, of deregulation of
the work force, and of the elimination of rights, undocumented workers help to maintain
the competitiveness of the developed economies” (Hernández Navarro, 2005b).
19 “In the industrialized nations, the working class not only has two sexes, but many
nationalities. Willing to work more hours for lower wages and without social security,
undocumented workers make it possible for the wealthy nations to prosper.” (Hernández
Navarro, 2005a).
20 Playing the cards that capital deals them, workers fĳind it increasingly hard to improve
the circumstances of the most underprivileged without this entailing a regression in the
conditions of the most “privileged.” For example, to reduce unemployment, capital has
proposed, under certain conditions, to reduce the working-day… with a proportionate
reduction in wages; its best offfer thus consists in a strategy whereby workers must share the
poverty which, of course, is unacceptable. Something similar occurred in France with the
initiative to promote youth employment by legally establishing their casualization with
the so-called First Employment Contract (see Iturriaga, 2006).
188 chapter eight
while their own poverty increases, workers watch as whatever remains

of what were once their rights turn into privileges which they must
defend against the starving hordes of immigrants. Reduced to destitution
in the underdeveloped world and forced to migrate, lacking citizen
and worker rights in the developed world, migrant workers are labeled
illegal and, with the reinforcement of the barrier that the poverty of the
underdeveloped world establishes around the privileged, they are trans-
formed into criminals, threats to national security for the developed
nations.
In the United States, laws are proposed which “locate immigration
squarely within the purview of the war against terrorism” (Carlsen, 2006),
turning what was previously a civil offfense into a crime, limiting access to
federal courts for those who wish to appeal deportation orders, speeding
up the expulsion of undocumented migrants and criminalizing people
who help them; meanwhile, the government orders the construction of
reinforced barriers with cameras, lights and sensors on the Mexican bor-
der in zones with the highest levels of migrant crossings (Brooks, 2005):
“the politicians of this country built by immigrants have chosen to divide
families, persecute workers as if they were criminals and deny those who
have no papers the right to work, forcing them to live in the shadows”
(Brooks, 2007).
In Europe, as Mireille Mendès France and Hugo Ruiz Diaz explain, mul-
tilateral treaties are promoted to reinforce cross-border cooperation with
a view to fĳight against terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal immigra-
tion, all in a single package, pointing to a policy that has the objective of
fostering confusion between immigration, social movements, terrorism
and crime, while legitimizing and legalizing liberticidal practices contrary
to all European and international regulations on human rights protection,
institutionalizing xenophobia and seeking to anchor in the collective
unconscious the idea that immigrants are “natural” carriers of the virus of
terrorism and crime. “Fortress Europe… fully adopts the logic of the U.S.
government on the clash of civilizations, legitimizing the state of interna-
tional exception established by the powers against the people” (Mendés and
Ruiz Diaz, 2007, emphasis added).
Individual Crime
As the basic challenge for a growing sector of the population in contempo-
rary capitalism is the challenge to survive, migration and integration into
the so-called “informal economy,” as well as organized or individual crime,
constitute possible survival options21, although these last two are rein-
forced because neoliberalism produces not only unemployment but dete-
rioration of the whole social fabric. In a downward spiral aggravated by
migration, families and communities disintegrate, the fabric of mediation
and social and political cohesion is devastated22 and the social construc-
tion of ethical reference points is likewise destroyed. The need to survive
and the destruction of ethical reference points, promoted by the mass
media of big transnational capital, transform criminal activity into some-
thing that could be called a normal employment option for many unem-
ployed workers.
For the purposes of this analysis, further exploration of individual crime
is unnecessary, beyond the recognition that it is clearly a survival strategy
for homeless delinquents. What is of interest to this study is how this indi-
vidual crime establishes a social basis, a source of labor it might be said,
for organized crime.
Organized Crime
Between individual and organized crime there is a qualitative diffference.
The fĳirst is a means of individual and family survival; the second is a capi-
tal accumulation strategy; organized crime constitutes a capitalist enter-
prise, necessarily tied in with the framework of the capitalist economy.23
Organized crime constitutes a successful cluster, the most profĳitable and
dynamic production and commercial chain in the world economy today,
the jewel in the crown of neoliberal capitalism, covering a wide range of
21 “Hand in hand with unemployment and an unpromising future, crime, gangs and
drug addiction have grown among youth” (Hernández Navarro, 2006).
22 “Conflicts between the various communities tend to be resolved by violence, due to
the decreased possibility of mediation by offfĳicial institutions, such as political parties, the
diffferent churches, the unions… Conflicts within families are also intensifĳied due to the
obligation upon women, children and the elderly to look outside the family unit for
the supplementary income they need to survive… Violence against women and children
has become endemic, the bonds between neighbors and in small communities are broken,
crime grows, and so does fear, which in turn provokes violent reactions” (Almeyra, n.d.).
23 For example, between the women who sell drugs in the street as a means of income
to maintain their family because they do not have access to paid employment, or rural
workers who grow coca because they are unable to fĳind any other reasonably profĳitable
crop, and the gangster, there is a diffference similar to that which exists between the
employer (the entrepreneur) and his employees: the latter appropriates the profĳit while the
former receive a relatively high wage (possible thanks to the high profĳitability of the enter-
prise) for work subject to high professional risks. Of course, prisons are fĳilled with the for-
mer, while the latter are much harder to catch, and even if imprisoned they maintain a
privileged status.
190 chapter eight
entrepreneurial options, offfĳicially labeled criminal activities: illicit drug

handling (production, trafffĳicking and consumption); arms trading and
human trafffĳicking (women, children, illegal immigrants24, slaves); diverse
forms of kidnapping, extortion and blackmail; theft and marketing of sto-
len goods (especially automobiles); human organ trafffĳicking, and all kinds
of illegal products (contraband, robbery, piracy); prostitution; imposition
of protection fees on small and medium businesses; etc.
This is the illegal branch of the neoliberal economy, closely associated
with the most dynamic elements of its legal branch, directly linked to
arms trafffĳicking and money laundering, which constitutes the fundamen-
tal condition for its existence (where would organized crime be without
guns and money?), and expanding its influence over the global economy
as a whole. The key factor behind these criminal operations, on the scale
that they have reached, is their extremely high profĳitability, and money
laundering and “tax havens” constitute their institutional framework (glo-
balization brothels as Sader calls them25). Tax havens are another clear
illustration (if one is needed) of the fact that “global capital” and the entire
institutional framework placed at its service have the basic objective of
24 In the south of Mexico, as in many parts of the world, organized crime has discovered
how profĳitable the poorest of the poor can be. Migrant women (“more than 20,000 Central
American women are currently working as prostitutes in brothels, hideaways and bars in
Mexico’s south-southeast”), especially the young and attractive ones, are kidnapped and
subjected to diffferent production processes involving a wide range of commodities charac-
teristic of the neoliberal free market: they are fĳilmed while being raped to produce porno
fĳilms which have high market demand; sold by kidnappers to bars and clandestine brothels
often owned by “local politicians, bankers and people with economic power, operating in
the shadows and earning a signifĳicant income,” where “they are held against their will in a
situation of slavery, forced to take drugs, to cover their food and accommodation expenses”
and to work as prostitutes, thereby becoming part of the tourist package offfered to the
customer. In some cases, their captors will negotiate with their family members for their
release or to pay the cost of a pollero (smuggler) who will ultimately take them to the
United States. Others less fortunate are sold as slave labor to clandestine factories, thereby
closing their productive cycle (Hernández, 2009). According to the UN Offfĳice on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) human trafffĳicking has become “a highly lucrative activity of transnational
organized crime, associated and/or competing with drug and arms trafffĳicking” (UNODC,
2009b).
25 “[Tax havens] are micro-territories or States with loose or non-existent tax legisla-
tion, which engage in the anonymous receipt of capital through a kind of marketing of
their sovereignty. Numerous banks located in these places – Switzerland, Monaco, the
Cayman Islands, the Bahamas or Luxembourg, to name a few of the 60 to 90 that exist in
the world – receive money from anywhere on the planet, from any person or company,
without having to justify the origin of the funds. They are located on the peripheries of the
major economic centers of the world – the United States, Europe and Asia… They are efffec-
tively factories for laundering the money of mafĳias, corrupt political leaders and corpora-
tions” (Sader, 2004.)
facilitating immediate profĳitability, with no concern whatsoever for any

other type of consideration.
On the one hand, tax havens are associated with the strategy designed
by big multinational corporations to evade taxes26 and, on the other, with
money laundering, “the indisputable reality of tax havens as a safe refuge
for illicit funds… crimes of corruption, fraud, laundering, swindles, high
technology crime, etc.” (Jiménez, 2004). However, according to strict neo-
liberal logic, these tax havens are respectable places of residence of fĳinan-
cial and banking institutions which, as a customer service, offfer forms of
investment which simply avoid the identifĳication of the actual investors,
taking advantage of both the laxity of local legislation (wherein lies the
strategy of establishing tax havens to achieve international competitive-
ness) and the tolerance of the international institutions27 interested in
preserving the free flow of international capital, a basic condition of the
whole neoliberal economic framework.
In this way, the criminal branch of the neoliberal economy is interwo-
ven with its legal branch and the huge resources derived from the former28
contribute to dynamize the latter, particularly at the hegemonic level.29
The world leader in the laundering of money originating from this crimi-
nal branch is the United States. For example, in the case of narco-dollars,
26 The pernicious and degrading efffects of tax evasion on society as a whole are numer-
ous: “tax havens and harmful preferential tax regimes afffect the location of tax activities
and other services, erode the tax bases of other countries, distort trade and investment
patterns and undermine justice, neutrality and broad social acceptance of tax systems in
general…. they reduce global welfare and weaken the confĳidence of tax payers in the integ-
rity of taxation systems… thereby contributing to the ‘normalization’ of a profoundly
unjust and regressive tax regime, which causes so much damage to the wellbeing and com-
munity of all the world’s citizens” (Jiménez, 2004).
27 “The OECD and the FATF, a body associated with the OECD, not only fail to launch
any concerted action against tax havens, but in fact tolerate and accept them… European
and international conventions continue to omit express reference to tax havens as spaces
outside the law where all kinds of undeclared income are hidden. All of this facilitates the
preservation of these territories outside the international legal framework with absolute
impunity… There is a global tendency toward formal and real tolerance, if not toward the
integration of tax havens into the international community” (Jiménez, 2004).
28 “The profĳits derived from criminal activities such as drug or arms trafffĳicking, terror-
ism, kidnapping, crimes against the fĳinancial system, diversion of pubic funds or the result
of the activities of any illegal organization, before being used by the holders, must pass
through an operation that disassociates the funds from their illicit origin. This process is
commonly referred to as money laundering and involves 2% to 5% of the annual gross
domestic product of the world, which represents 600 billion to 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars per
year, according to data from the IMF” (ATTAC, 2004).
29 The literature that can be reviewed to document the interconnection between the
criminal and legal branches of the neoliberal economy is now quite extensive. For an oper-
ative, empirical and concrete view of the question, see Saviano, 2007.
192 chapter eight
Catherine Austin Fitts asserts that “the U.S. launders about $500 billion to
$1 trillion annually… this explains the importance that this money has on
the New York stock exchange, its interest in keeping it circulating in the
market and the threat to its interests represented by any attempt to
decriminalize narcotics trafffĳicking” (Austin Fitts, 2001).
From this perspective, it is evident that the “war on drugs” launched by
the United States around the world has purposes distinct from those
ascribed to it in the offfĳicial discourse. For example, Plan Colombia has,
among other objectives, the purpose of ensuring that narco-dollars con-
tinue circulating within the U.S. economy: “Plan Colombia is proceeding
apace to try to move narco-deposits out of FARC’s control and back to the
control of our traditional allies and, even if that does not work, to move
Citibank’s market share and that of the other large U.S. banks and fĳinan-
cial institutions steadily up in Latin America” (Austin Fitts, 2001). The
criminal branch of the neoliberal economy, like any other industry, par-
ticularly those that are globalized, produces and/or acquires its basic
supplies, transforms them into fĳinished products, transports them and
markets them, forming a chain running backwards to its suppliers (con-
struction, chemical and pharmaceutical, automotive industries, etc.) and
forwards to its transport, marketing and consumption networks; it gener-
ates employment and invests in the banking system and the stock market,
and engages with government authorities at national and international
levels. The interests associated with organized crime are many, and very
powerful, and it seems unlikely that within the top levels of neoliberal
political and economic power there exists any serious intention of putting
an end to it – in the United States much less than anywhere else – at least,
as made evident above, not in terms of control of money laundering. What
follows below is a brief overview of the arms trafffĳicking sector of this
industry, at least in the case of the United States.
In the U.S., the opposition of the powerful National Rifle Association
(which unites the main arms producers in the country) against any
attempt to regulate arms sales is well known. Cason and Brooks explain
that at “arms fairs” the purchase of arms requires no customer record
check and that “critics of the weak gun control laws warn that the alleged
terrorists are also buying them in the United States to use them against
citizens of this country… For the terrorists of the world, the United
States is the great arms bazaar.”30 Nevertheless, Cason and Brooks add,
30 “When U.S. troops searched the Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, they found a train-
ing manual that informed its operatives that it is ‘perfectly legal’ to buy high-powered
“Attorney General John Ashcroft has been a fĳierce opponent against the
application of greater controls on sales and possession of fĳirearms in this
country,” which is understandable, given that the election campaign of his
boss, President George W. Bush, had been fĳinanced – at least in part – by
funds provided by none other than the National Rifle Association.31
Arms manufacturers, like bankers who launder money and any other
legal industry linked to the criminal branch, are interested in selling their
products and making profĳits; their customers are anyone with money.
They don’t ask them who they are, or what they want them for; whether
they are thugs or terrorists is no business of theirs. The impact of the crim-
inal branch of the neoliberal economy is not only economic. Its politico-
electoral influence is also clear; its capacity to make “donations” and
fĳinance political campaigns, particularly now that electoral processes are
increasingly a matter of political marketing and costly media publicity,
enables it to influence the critical moment of neoliberal democracy – the
electoral moment. As a result, it may influence the composition of the
stafff who administrate the government apparatus.
According to Catherine Austin Fitts, the four U.S. states with the largest
market share in drug trafffĳicking and money laundering of narco-profĳits
and other profĳits of organized crime, well known as banking power strong-
holds, are New York, California, Texas and Florida. Austin Fitts then raises
the question: “Who were the governors of these four states in 1996? Well,
let’s see. Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida. Governor Jeb was the son of
George H.W. Bush, the former head of an oil company in Texas and Mexico,
the former head of the CIA and the former head of the various drug
enforcement effforts as vice president and president. Then George W. Bush,
also the son of George H. W. Bush, was the governor of Texas. So the gover-
nors of the two largest narco dollar market share states just happen to be
the sons of the former chief of the secret police” (Austin Fitts, 2001).
With so many economic and political interests articulated around the
criminal branch of the neoliberal economy, it is not surprising that this
fĳirearms in the United States, and advised Osama bin Laden’s followers to ‘take advantage
of the weak U.S. fĳirearms laws to acquire training as snipers and participate in military
exercises’” (Cason and Brooks, 2001). For the case of Mexico, the Washington Post published
a series of articles documenting the trafffĳic of arms from the U.S. to the Mexican cartels (see
for example, Grimaldi and Horwitz, 2010).
31 During the 2004 election campaign, “Kerry accused Bush of giving into the National
Rifle Association, which supports the president’s election campaign,” while Bush “pro-
posed the granting of immunity in civil trials to arms manufacturers and… supported
moves by Congress to allow the expiration of the prohibition on assault weapons imposed
by Bill Clinton 10 years ago” (Clarín, 2004).
194 chapter eight
branch would become an afffair of state. Austin Fitts tells of a notorious

criminal in New York who, when interrogated regarding whether he was
involved in narcotics trafffĳicking, replied “no, who can compete with the
government?” and adds that “according to the CIA’s own Inspector General,
the government has been facilitating drug trafffĳicking… the CIA and the
DOJ [Department of Justice] created a memorandum of understanding
that permitted the CIA to help its allies and assets to trafffĳic in drugs and
not have to report it” (Austin Fitts, 2001). Chossudovsky explains that the
Bush administration projects an increase in its military expenditure to “an
astounding 451 billion dollars,” and adds that “This colossal amount of
money allocated to America’s war machine does not include the enor-
mous budget of the Central Intelligence Agency allocated from both “offfĳi-
cial” and undisclosed sources to fĳinance its covert operations… this
amount excludes the multi-billion dollar earnings from narcotics accruing
to CIA shell companies and front organizations” (Chossudovsky, 2002c,
emphasis added).
Nor is it surprising that, with these priorities, the truly important ones
for today’s world rulers, no concern is given to the side efffects (collateral
damages, they might be called) of the operations of the criminal branch;
for example, that hundreds of millions of youth around the world destroy
their lives through drug addiction, that corruption invades the govern-
ment infrastructure, or that society is ethically and culturally debased.
As Austin Fitts explains, “you’ve got to have an underworld. If it does not
exist, you need to outlaw some things to get one going… Imagine what
would happen to the economy in Philadelphia if this stock market value
suddenly disappeared because all the teenagers in Philadelphia stopped
dealing or buying drugs… what would happen to the stock market if we
decriminalized or legalized drugs? The stock market would crash… What
would happen to fĳinancing the government defĳicit if we enforced all
money-laundering laws?” (Austin Fitts, 2001).
Legality and Criminality
Examining the process in this way from the perspective of social relations
and relations, it is evident that criminal activity, which in a diverse and
complex array of modalities has been spreading throughout the social
framework of neoliberal capitalism, is a product wholly produced by
fĳinancial capital, the dominant faction of contemporary capitalism. When
I examined neoliberal democracy (Chapter 7) from the perspective of
social class analysis, I proposed a distinction between real citizens, the

global fĳinancial oligarchy who make the decisions that defĳine the social
order, and imaginary citizens, who merely vote to choose the political per-
sonnel who will administrate the social order defĳined by the real citizens.
In the examination of neoliberal crime, it is also necessary to distinguish
between employer and employee; in capitalism the former always pro-
duces the latter. Earlier, I explained in some detail how the class of those
dispossessed of the means of production and subsistence, compelled to
sell their labor-power to capital for a wage in order to survive, are on a
constant search to make themselves useful, a search for a function to fulfĳill
within the complex social structure of capitalism, and that it is the capital-
ist class that assigns a place to the diffferent segments of the dominated
class, according to its needs of domination and exploitation, and distrib-
utes them throughout the economic, political and cultural structure of
bourgeois society – which, it should be added, has both legal and illegal
elements.
Capital produces the employees it needs; the greater the vulnerability
of the employees, the greater ease capital will have in producing them. In
the same section, I indicated that without a political organization that
would give them some degree of identity and class consciousness and
enable them to build some kind of defense mechanism, the dispossessed
will be compelled to offfer themselves up to the unconditional satisfaction
of any capital need. In the sphere of democracy, the distinction between
real citizens and imaginary citizens is signifĳicant. In the sphere of neolib-
eral crime, there is an important distinction between criminal capital and
criminal employees produced by that capital; the crime that affflicts con-
temporary society is the product of the domination of neoliberal capital.
It should be added here in passing that this is not the fĳirst time in its his-
tory that capital has undertaken large-scale criminal activities, even as
state policy. A mere few examples (as an exhaustive list would require
whole volumes) are the piracy of the 17th and 18th centuries and the black
slave and drug trades of the 19th century; these examples illustrate the
complex nature of the large-scale criminal activities of capital and their
signifĳicance not only in economic terms of the search for immediate
profĳit, but also in terms of the development of wide-ranging strategies
with economic, political, ideological, geopolitical and geoeconomic
dimensions.
However, while recognizing its long and extensive experience in the
fĳield, it must be admitted that never before in the history of capital had the
development of criminal activity reached the global scale that it has today,
196 chapter eight
nor has its consequences been as oppressive upon world society as a whole
as they are now. It is with good reason that the authors of the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court remark that “during this century”
(referring to the 20th century, not yet having witnessed the promising start
of the 21st, which looks certain to outdo its predecessor in the production
of barbarism), “millions of children, women and men have been victims of
atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity” (ICRC, 1998).
Even within the legal branch of the neoliberal economy, it is not unusual
to fĳind illegal activities. Although they may be disguised with an appear-
ance of legality, many of the activities in this branch in fact represent seri-
ous crimes; one need only compare many of the habitual practices of the
big multinational corporations and their states against the defĳinitions of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes provided by the Rome
Statute to appreciate the extraordinary dimensions of the problem. The
criminal activity of neoliberal capital and the impunity with which it
operates are reaching truly outrageous levels.32 Although tracing its devel-
opment is a task far beyond the intentions and possibilities of this work,
two cases are worth noting here.
During 2008, successive waves of speculation on food products, energy
and mortgage loans led to a profound global economic crisis and a process
of conversion of public resources into private hands at a rate without prec-
edent in history. In spite of the recurrence of these speculative surges –
which gravely afffect the living conditions of our society – no serious efffort
has been made to contain them. Even former senior offfĳicials including
Jacques Delors acknowledge that “fĳinancial markets have become increas-
ingly opaque… The size of the lightly or not-at-all regulated ‘shadow bank-
ing sector’ has constantly increased in the past twenty years… Inadequate
incentive schemes, short-termism and blatant conflicts of interest have
enhanced speculative trading… epitomizing the loss of business ethics!”
(Delors et al, 2008, emphasis added). Meanwhile, as a result of these spec-
ulative dealings in the context of a systematic efffort to destroy rural pro-
duction in favor of the agri-food multinationals, famine (a product of food
shortages and increased food prices) is devastating the most impoverished
regions of the world.33
32 According to the preamble of the Statute, it is necessary “to put an end to impunity
for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such
crimes”; without doubt it is necessary, but the current correlation of forces between social
classes, far from reducing crime and impunity, actually increases them.
33 For a particularly enlightening view on this topic, see Bello, 2008.
More or less simultaneously, the world has begun sufffering from a new
emerging threat, the so-called swine flu, a new product of the criminal
activity of neoliberal capital with the complicity of the state: “Authorities
knew of the pandemic threat, but gave no importance to the warnings of
scientifĳic institutions and social organizations as they did not wish to inter-
fere with the economic interests of the huge farm and livestock industry and
the pharmaceutical and biotechnology multinationals that profĳit from
diseases. To this end, fragmentary focuses that do not question the causes
of the problem are useful, such as taking emergency measures when the
dead and sick can no longer be overlooked, while asserting that the crisis
can be resolved with more technology controlled by the multinationals.
For any new viruses, new vaccines will be found – patented and sold by
corporations. Even if a vaccine is found against the latest virus, the indus-
trial breeding of animals continues to be a time bomb for the creation of
more new viruses… Instead of attacking the causes of the epidemic, those
who produced it are rewarded” (Ribeiro, 2009b, emphasis added). A threat
to the lives of an undetermined number of human beings is rendered sec-
ondary to the interests of big capital; there can be no clearer defĳinition –
and this is but one among a thousand examples – of what matters to
neoliberal capital.
The Multifunctional Nature of Organized Crime and Crime Fighting

The preceding sections have provided a general overview of how big global
capital and its institutions shape the basic conditions for the existence of
all the criminal activities characteristic of the neoliberal world, and par-
ticularly how the top levels of neoliberal political and economic power are
closely associated with organized crime. The legal branch, which is becom-
ing increasingly criminal, engages with the criminal branch and vice versa;
their respective production chains and business networks are interlinked
at diverse points, and it is becoming increasingly difffĳicult to distinguish
one from the other.34
Neoliberal capital and its institutions work to promote (it is not merely
a question of tolerance, and certainly not of powerlessness, as its ideo-
logues claim) and to appropriate the profĳits produced by organized crime.
However, in an apparent paradox, they also work to fĳight organized crime,
which raises an obvious dilemma: if, as I have argued, the criminal branch
is so interconnected with the legal branch that to eradicate the former
34 For a detailed examination of these cross-links, see Chossudovsky, 2007b.

198 chapter eight
would have catastrophic consequences for the neoliberal economic

network, and if, therefore, capital has no intention of eliminating orga-
nized crime, we must ask what the purpose of the so-called war on
organized crime really is.
Two points require clarifĳication before attempting an answer to this
question. The fĳirst is to recall that this analysis of the neoliberal pattern of
domination is not so concerned with the economic impact of the criminal
branch of the neoliberal economy, or even with its influence on political
elections, but with how it is shaped, through the war on crime and in the
context of the state administration of criminal activity, into a political
design that closes the pincer on the structure of class domination, com-
plementing the elements examined in the previous two chapters. The sec-
ond is to stress that, although the offfĳicial discourse presents criminal
activity as “the great problem of our time,” and although it can be reason-
ably argued that it has dysfunctional dimensions for the reproduction of
capital viewed as a whole, my priority here is to analyze its basic func-
tional dimensions in terms of the pattern of domination.
The state administration of criminal activity is associated with a histori-
cal form of domination which, like all forms, is provisional, following a
specifĳic course and then coming to an end. The fact that it is a mechanism
plagued with contradictions and that it ultimately aggravates the internal
contradictions of capital does not mean that it is not, under certain condi-
tions and for a certain time, functional for capital domination and, more
specifĳically, for the domination of the hegemonic faction of capital. It con-
stitutes the form that neoliberal capital has established to operate in the
context of its basic contradictions: “The change to functions of the state is
the form in which the contradiction between increasing socialization of
productive forces and private appropriation can operate provisionally; it
does not make the contradiction disappear, but creates the form in which
it can operate; this is the only means of resolving real contradictions”35
(Hirsch, 1979: 64, emphasis added).
35 For example, keeping criminal activity restricted to the margins of what is functional
for capital accumulation and domination is problematic: organized crime, the product of
private initiative, like any normal business, seeks to expand the scale of its operations and
its markets and diversify its products, and it will not hesitate to levy charges, to kidnap for
ransom and even to kill other business leaders, especially those of small and medium busi-
nesses, terrorizing and virtually paralyzing whole cities and segments of economic activity.
But these are collateral damages – like the uncontrolled surge in the speculative activities
of big fĳinancial capital which drain billions of dollars of public funds – which do not
threaten the basic principle of neoliberalism: freedom for private enterprise.
Having offfered these clarifĳications, I will now attempt to provide a sche-

matic view of the meaning of the so-called fĳight against organized crime,
and of its multifunctional nature in the structure of neoliberal domina-
tion. I have already made reference to the extremely high profĳitability of
the criminal branch of the neoliberal economy and, at least as a general
idea, that this extraordinary profĳitability is guaranteed by the state itself;
one of the functions of the state administration of criminal activity is the
production of extraordinary profĳits, particularly for the international
fĳinancial sector and for the armaments industry.
The issue is so important in the current neoliberal economy that the
phenomenon needs to be placed in relation to the basic tendencies of
capitalist development and considered as a particular historical form, pro-
moted and used by big neoliberal capital, in a counter-tendency to the
tendency of the rate of profĳit to fall, the importance of which becomes
more acute in moments of economic crisis. According to the World Report
on Drugs for 2009 issued by the UN Offfĳice on Drugs and Crime, “money
laundering is rampant and practically unopposed, at a time when inter-
bank lending has dried up. The recommendations devised to prevent the use
of fĳinancial institutions to launder money today are honored mostly in the
breach. At a time of major bank failures, ‘money doesn’t smell,’ the bankers
seem to believe” (UNODC, 2009a, emphasis added).
According to ATTAC, money held in “tax havens” amounts to a total of
7 trillion U.S. dollars, which is 13 percent of world GDP, while “according to
the IMF, 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars derived from activities with organized
criminal groups, tax fraud and corruption, are laundered each year in
these havens.” ATTAC also notes that “the European Union estimates that
if drug trafffĳicking activity were halted the U.S. economy would shrink by
19% to 22%. The lack of willingness on the part of economic and political
authorities to take action against tax havens is therefore understandable”
(Serrano, 2009, emphasis added).
Moreover, this extraordinary profĳit, under conditions of labor casu-
alization and growing unemployment, enables the “economic” (labor
and wage) management of part of the surplus population; these activ-
ities offfer relatively high wages36 and create expectations (of obtaining
36 This capacity of the criminal branch of the neoliberal economy to produce employment
and high wages is modifĳied as the branch itself is transformed according to the general
logic of capitalist production; for example, the employment and remuneration opportuni-
ties for rural workers who participate in it shrink as drug production becomes more indus-
trialized and natural drugs are replaced with synthetic varieties.
200 chapter eight
wealth, women, etc.)37 among certain segments of the excluded popula-

tion. As the commercial and production chain associated with crim-
inal activities expands, veritable social frameworks are constructed in
urban districts and neighborhoods and in rural towns – what might be
referred to as Crime Promotion Brigades. For example, the so-called tien-
ditas (stores where drugs are sold to consumers) often work in tandem
with local police and, in some cases, with bodies that are supposed
to liaise between local residents and the municipal authority, such as
the Citizen Action Committees. This process is sometimes associated
with the promotion of the so-called urban tribes and gangs and the
conflicts between them.38 The result is that the possibility of organizing
spaces for cohesion and solidarity among those excluded by capital is
undermined from within, and ordinary citizens – those who are neither
criminals nor police offfĳicers – are reduced to a state of isolation and
defenselessness.
Whereas in the previous period, under the Keynesian pattern of
domination, the legitimacy of the state was built on the administration of
concessions, under the neoliberal pattern the state administration
of criminal activity constitutes the new strategy for the construction of
legitimacy for the bourgeois states. The fĳirst step is the development of
public demand: “in the face of so much terrible, shocking insecurity,”
runs the offfĳicial discourse, “our society demands security.” And in efffect,
society is restricted to demanding the minimum: security. Simply not
to be killed while crossing a street, not to be mugged, not to be kidnapped
are the new demands of society, while any demands (employment, prog-
ress, justice, welfare, equity) which during the Keynesian period were
37 It is common to hear among young males in excluded communities, or at least those
who still seek opportunities within the law, complain of “girls who prefer drug dealers.”
38 Consider, for example, the following news article on a conflict between youth gangs:
“The emos, whether we like it or not, are a new generation, but I don’t think that it will be
the anarcho-punks or the goths who attack them… the conscious objective is to divide
them [youth], because they can’t be offfered expectations for the future… The violence
between diffferent youth gangs is nothing new; it has always existed, but now it has
increased considerably. This campaign is dangerous and could grow… The government
prefers to have youth divided rather than critical and demanding… the levels of frustration
and rage keep growing in the country and suddenly they look around not to fĳind ‘who did
this to me’, but ‘who will pay for it’. In Latin America there are nearly 30 million youth who
don’t have the chance to study or work, and their logic, viewing it more as survival than
crime, is inclined toward drug dealing, piracy or contraband. Unless the State addresses the
employment and education problem, there will be more conflict” (Vargas and Olivares,
2008). According to this logic, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and skinheads are extreme
cases.
considered reasonable and desirable, even by capital itself, are now

forgotten.
The state closes the pincer by offfering security, the war on crime, zero
tolerance, and similar initiatives.39 However, of course, insecurity is not
generally reduced by this approach; on the contrary, it increases. With an
audacity that works by virtue of the extreme ideological defenselessness
that prevails today at the societal pole of the dominated, neoliberal
capital uses its own brutality to build a particular space of legitimation
that allows it to commit more brutality, not only free of the widespread
condemnation of society but even with the approval of one sector. This
“legitimacy” constructed through the state administration of criminal
activity fĳinds various ways of complementing and reinforcing itself. As
capitalism today lurches from one crisis to another (environmental, eco-
nomic, public health and other crises), capital itself attempts to exploit
each of these crises to its economic, political and ideological advantage.
Regardless of how they arise, whether they were planned in the centers
of power or the simple result of spontaneous capital activity, nobody
knows better than neoliberal capital that every crisis is an opportunity:
“Today’s preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multi-
national corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and
disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis”
(Klein, 2008a).
Even public health crises, like the swine flu epidemic, offfer signifĳicant
lessons and possibilities: “With the support of the main radio and televi-
sion networks under monopolistic control, acting in the current environ-
ment as a power mechanism for the contemporary structure of class
domination, the government succeeded in removing millions of Mexicans
from public spaces and quarantining them in their houses, passive prison-
ers of the television duopoly and its talking heads… In another clear action
of media terrorism, the opinion makers once again sowed alarmism, fear
and desolation, and helped to construct in the collective imagination
the idea of a new, devastating hidden enemy. In this manufactured envi-
ronment, Calderón’s health care dictatorship successfully enforced a de
facto curfew without any formal declaration or tanks in the streets – an
39 That this strategy of constructing legitimacy can prove highly efffective is clearly
proven by the political strategy adopted by U.S. President George Bush following September
11, 2001. In Mexico, President Felipe Calderón’s strategy to legitimize his government has
been none other than the war on organized crime. However, it is also a strategy with a lim-
ited life, as indicated by the growing difffĳiculties experienced by the U.S. government to
convince its citizens of the need to continue the war on terrorism.
202 chapter eight
extraordinary experiment in population control and social discipline” (Fazio,

2009, emphasis added).40
Dragged from one crisis to another and from one scare to another; all
indications are that this is the future that awaits humanity for as long as it
remains subjugated to the domination of neoliberal capital. These crises
are the result of the profound contradictions faced by capitalism today;
but such crises are also viewed as opportunities by capital, which not only
fails to solve the problems it creates, but also bases its economic expan-
sion and domination on the promotion of a brutality that is compounded
exponentially. And, although it may be obvious, it is worth reiterating
(because there are many people who, out of naivety or malice, declare the
end of neoliberalism every time the state intervenes in the economy) that
what defĳines neoliberalism is not the alleged opposition/mutual exclusion
of the state and the market (in reality the neoliberal state is radically inter-
ventionist), but a power structure involving a specifĳic faction of the capi-
talist class. It is a whole historical period, which may only be brought to an
end through a profound change in the relation between social classes,
between capital and labor. Neoliberalism will not be brought to an end
because a frankly sinister U.S. president is replaced by a pleasant one; this
change may be signifĳicant if it is truly indicative of a moment of change in
the correlation of forces between social classes, but it may simply be a case
of capital shedding some dead weight, just as trees periodically shed their
dead leaves. Nor will neoliberalism be defeated because, in the face of the
magnitude of the bankruptcies provoked by fĳinancial speculation, the
neoliberal states abandon the free market and, according to Le Monde,
“turn socialist” (London, 2008).41
International Terrorism
International terrorism, its promotion and the war against it (although it

has specifĳic dimensions, particularly in terms of the global geopolitical
40 “Beyond the comparative theories, all the elements of the shock doctrine are present
in Mexico. This includes economic shock therapy, the words used last week in the United
States by Mexico’s treasurer, Agustín Carstens; the minister said that shock therapy worked
during the Mexican flu emergency, and that the government is preparing additional struc-
tural reforms for the second part of the year. After the elections in July – another fear
campaign – the worst will be unleashed, including, perhaps, another timely outbreak of
the H1N1 virus, our new Al Qaeda” (Fazio, 2009).
41 In reality, this article by Frédéric London makes fun of the idea, but the lack of con-
ceptual rigor in its discussion of “neoliberalism”, “socialism”, etc. does little to help clarify
and geoeconomic strategy of the United States42, the analysis of which

goes beyond the purposes of this work), constitutes an extension of the
war on organized crime, an element of the state administration of crimi-
nal activity. With the war on organized crime, particularly when extended
to the so-called war on international terrorism, society is reduced to
choosing between freedom or security (“if you want security, you must
renounce your freedom” is the basic argument of the U.S. Patriot Act)
and is subjected to a new institutional framework which, while subordi-
nating the human rights and civil rights enshrined in every bourgeois con-
stitution since the great revolutions of the 18th century to the supreme
objective of fĳighting organized crime and terrorism, grants a whole new
framework of repressive powers to the neoliberal state.43
The state administration of criminal activity is a strategy to wage and
legitimize in the eyes of society a war against society itself: big capital and
its states, while maintaining a complex, multi-dimensional domination
strategy, are preparing a violent challenge to the increasing resistance of a
growing number of people who reject the domination of capital and its
efffects.44 In its specifĳic historical sense, the so-called war on organized
crime and its extension to the war on international terrorism means that
big capital is not prepared to negotiate with labor, to moderate its voracity,
or to make concessions to the rest of society, but is determined, consider-
ing only its insatiable hunger for surplus-value, to pursue its purpose while
violently imposing its interests.45
This explains why the repressive strategy of big capital has been escalat-
ing and acquiring added dimensions and increasing complexity. It would
thus be possible to establish a line of continuity – not only logical but
the issue. In the same edition and with the same flippancy, Ibrahim Warde speaks of
“a change of epoch.”
42 How useful the war on international terrorism has been in helping big U.S. capital to
appropriate strategic natural resources, such as Iraqi oil, should not be underestimated.
But more generally, while free trade has furnished the conditions for the spread of the new
technological revolution, the war on terrorism has furnished the conditions for the spread
of the U.S. military revolution, the most convincing of its arguments for establishing its
hegemony in “the new American century.”
43 It is clear that the consequences of the anti-terrorism strategies expressed, for exam-
ple, in the Patriot Act, Plan Mexico or the SPPNA (Security and Prosperity Partnership of
North America) represent a very real military and repressive framework.
44 Recommended reading on this topic includes Zibechi, 2008 and Davis, 2007.
45 This is the meaning behind the open debate at the core of military intelligence, par-
ticularly in the United States, regarding “the three dominant theories on the war of the
future that are currently being discussed in military magazines – the Fourth Generation
War, the Third Wave War and the Fourth Epoch War” (Bunker, 2006).
204 chapter eight
by means of a specifĳic process which, although involving innumerable

threats46 at its basic level – running from the war on drug-trafffĳicking (the
preferred branch for publicizing the war on organized crime) to the war
on terrorism. And within this process, there is in turn a clear path that
can be traced from the “selective deterrence” of the Reagan era to
September 11, 2001, encompassing the Carter Doctrine of 1980 and the
“Project for a New American Century” drafted in 1992: a “tendency, explicit
since September 11 and implicit before it, which seeks to establish the
issue of terrorism and security as one of the core issues on the agendas of
the multilateral bodies, government meetings and defense and security
programs of the industrialized nations” (Contreras Natera, 2007).
What began decades ago as the war on organized crime, and in particu-
lar, the war on drug trafffĳicking, has now been interwoven with the war on
terrorism and, ultimately, with a whole design based around what is
labeled the war of the future; at the core of this war, according to its theo-
rists, “lies a universal crisis of legitimacy of the state, and that crisis means
many countries will evolve Fourth Generation war on their soil” (Lind,
Free trade is complemented by a preventive military positioning
according to a strategy outlined in 1996 by William Perry, then U.S. Defense
Secretary: “our defense strategy can be summed up in three words:
prevent, deter and defeat… today there is a greater role for preventive
defense measures, as more opportunities exist to prevent the conditions
for conflict, and therefore to create the conditions for peace” (Perry, 1996).
According to Perry, this preventive military positioning requires the con-
struction of what he calls security alliances: “One of the most efffective
ways of creating the conditions for peace is to develop working relation-
ships between military and national defense institutions around the
world, including all levels from defense secretaries to sergeants in the
fĳield… We want to build security alliances in all regions, both in the Asia-
Pacifĳic region and here in our own hemisphere. And we want to promote
openness, trust and cooperation between all countries with mutual secu-
rity interests, cooperation which may lead to joint activities such as peace
46 “Many big businesses promote crime and live offf crime. There has never before been
so much economic concentration and scientifĳic and technological knowledge dedicated to
the production of death. The countries that sell the most arms are the same countries
responsible for world peace. Fortunately for them, the threat of peace is weakening, and its
dark clouds are rolling away, while the war market recovers and offfers promising prospects
of profĳitable slaughter. The armaments factories are working as hard as the factories that
manufacture enemies tailored to their needs.” (Galeano, 2006, emphasis added).
operations training, exercises and even military operations in coalitions…

This is crucial for the stability of the region and for continued economic
growth” (Perry, 1996).
The state administration of criminal activity operates as a constituent
part of the political space which, while enabling the development of pre-
ventive military positioning, consolidates the networking of nation-states,
and particularly the submission of the nations of the underdeveloped
world. In Chapter 7 we saw how, as a result of the characteristics of the free
market, nations are networked to compete to attract foreign investment;
but the state administration of criminal activity represents another step in
this process, as nation-states are networked to fĳight organized crime, ter-
rorism and the countless new emerging threats that arise each day47:
“Until the events of September 11, the U.S. military conception for Latin
America was based on the defĳinition of drug trafffĳicking as the main threat
to democratization and security in the hemisphere, although battle
maneuvers had been applied to unleash low-intensity wars in the most
conflictive zones of the region… In general terms, the ‘war on drugs’ was
supposed to lead to the formation of a multinational army under suprana-
tional control; in other words, with the Pentagon in the role of commander-
in-chief, and the local armed forces acting as internal police, concentrat-
ing on ‘support tasks’… on October 1, 2002, a new military structure came
into operation, with serious geopolitical consequences for Mexico, in the
form of a joint military force to ‘defend’ North America: the so-called
Northern Command, responsible for homeland defense in the United
States against ‘new threats’ arising from unconventional enemies… which
is complemented by the Southern Command, responsible for the Plan
Colombia / Andean Regional Initiative” (Fazio, 2003).
This networking of nation-states through the construction of security
alliances to fĳight terrorism and other emerging threats is evident in the
influence of the organization and business management models devel-
oped by the big multinationals. Klein speaks of “companies that used to
produce products announcing with great fanfare that they don’t produce
products anymore, they produce brands, they produce images, and they
47 “Possible threats to the West are broadened to include phenomena such as terrorism,
drug trafffĳicking, immigration and cultural conflicts… The potential sources of threats to
the global security system of the emerging New World Order were located in third world
countries as a consequence of the multiple causes of conflict existing in such countries
(economic disparity, nationalist interests, religious intolerance, racial hatred, demographic
pressure and extreme weather conditions), which might, if their problems spill beyond
their borders, threaten the security of the global community” (Contreras Natera, 2007).
206 chapter eight
can let other people, sort of lesser contractors, do the dirty work of actu-
ally making stufff. And that was the sort of revolution in outsourcing, and
that was the paradigm of the hollow corporation.” And, she adds, “Rumsfeld
very much comes out of that tradition. And when he came on board as
Defense Secretary, he rode in like a new economy CEO that was going to
do one of these radical restructures. But what he was doing is he was tak-
ing this philosophy of this revolution in the corporate world and applying
it to the military. And what he oversaw was the hollowing out of the
American military, where essentially the role of the army is branding, is
marketing, is projecting the image of strength and dominance on the
globe… but outsourcing every function” (Klein, 2007b).
Corresponding to the global fĳinancial oligarchy, its governing group
(particularly the top-level political bureaucracy of the United States)
views itself as the administration of a global government, which it designs
in the image and semblance of the global company, as a network with stra-
tegic alliances, senior partners and junior partners, designs for relocation
and outsourcing, etc., in competition for world supremacy. These are the
global players of the world government.
The “Universal Crisis of Legitimacy of the State”
The state administration of criminal activity fĳinds its deepest meaning in

the effforts of neoliberal capital to blur the class struggle, trapping society
in an alleged war on criminal activity, dissolving the class conflict in a
huge multiplicity of conflicts, supposedly formless, lacking any structur-
ing focus, so that, in the absence of a united working class front to oppose
it, the logic of capital can dominate the stage of social organization and
close offf all avenues of escape.
“In the Fourth Generation War,” argues Lind, “the state loses its monop-
oly on war… it is a return to the style of war prior to the creation of the
state. Now, as then, many diffferent entities, not just governments of states,
will wage war. They will wage war for many diffferent reasons… And they
will use many diffferent tools to fĳight war… What will characterize it are not
vast changes in how the enemy fĳights, but rather in who fĳights and what
they fĳight for. The change in who fĳights makes it difffĳicult for us to tell friend
from foe… The change in what our enemies fĳight for makes impossible the
political compromises that are necessary to ending any war. We fĳind that
when it comes to making peace, we have no one to talk to and nothing to
talk about” (Lind, 2004, emphasis added).
Signifĳicant among the points made in the quote above is the notion that
“the war of the future” is basically a war not between states, but between
states and what Lind calls a “wide variety of non-state actors.” If we con-
sider that wars between states have been the expression of conflicts
between national bourgeoisies, Lind’s suggestion means that the global
bourgeoisie sees itself as lacking signifĳicant national rivals, and what it is
really concerned about is the opposition of the working class under its
domination, although this concern is obscured behind all manner of crim-
inals and terrorists. Thus, for big capital “there is nobody to talk to and
nothing to talk about”; in other words, it does not recognize the legitimacy
of any social interest in opposition to it. By this logic, the state administra-
tion of criminal activity will inevitably develop into the administration of
chaos and brutality.
Joxe, examining “the political consequences of the absolute militarism
of the United States” with reference to the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan,
raises the question: “Might it not in fact be a total chaos strategy? … The
quick victory will no doubt turn into a lasting source of hostility against
the ‘liberators’, condemned to the status of occupiers… The huge imperial
power appears to be committed to separating the military objective from
the political objective… This beginning of the ‘war without end’ declared
by the Bush administration is a war without victory and without peace,
and probably without reconstruction” (Joxe, 2003b). Although the “total
chaos strategy” is particularly visible in cases like Iraq and Afghanistan, in
reality it is the logical result of the development of the state administra-
tion of criminal activity, just as this itself is the result of the destruction of
the institutional spaces that defĳined the contained form of capitalist dom-
ination (as explained at the beginning of this chapter). With the neoliberal
pattern of domination, which constitutes a return to the natural form of
capitalist domination, an increasing number of spaces for social organiza-
tion around the world are being fĳilled by the logic of the state administra-
tion of criminal activity and the “total chaos strategy.”
The reason behind this “total chaos strategy,” in terms of immediate
interests, is identifĳied by Joxe himself: “Whatever is necessary will be done
to ensure that both destruction and reconstruction are sources of corpo-
rate profĳits, thereby saving corporate morale at the expense of political
morale and intelligence” (Joxe, 2003b). But Lind goes beyond immediate
interests and, as we saw above, makes it clear that at the core of what he
calls the Fourth Generation War “lies a crisis of legitimacy of the state.”
However, he expresses no interest in exploring the factors behind this
“universal crisis,” or what the solutions might be to remedy it. Instead, he
208 chapter eight
asserts without the slightest qualm that “invasion by immigration can be at

least as dangerous as invasion by a state army” (emphasis added) and poses
questions that clearly illustrate his intellectual concerns: “What can the
U.S. military team learn from cops? How would the mafĳia do an occupa-
tion?” (Lind, 2004). This is his class perspective for understanding the
problem, and this is the solution he offfers: Fourth Generation War and the
mafĳia as examples to follow in the construction of a social and political
order.
CHAPTER NINE
IDEOLOGICAL DOMINATION – A REFLECTION ON THE

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL LEADERSHIP OF
NEOLIBERAL CAPITAL
Contemporary hardships and suffferings are fragmented, dispersed and scat-

tered; and so is the dissent which they spawn. The dispersion of dissent, the
difffĳiculty of condensing and anchoring it in a common cause and directing it
against a common culprit, only makes the pain more bitter. The contemporary
world is a container full to the brim with free-floating fear and frustration, des-
perately seeking outlets.
Zygmunt Bauman
In Search of Politics
Earlier, I noted that, for Gramsci, the state is “political society plus civil
society,” connecting the conditions of political and economic domination
with those of ideological domination, and those of consensual domina-
tion with coercive domination. The state relates the conditions of domina-
tion to the conditions of exploitation and establishes an organic link
between structure and superstructure. Moreover, I remarked that the
dominant class produces its own ideology according to Gramsci’s analysis.
Its general conception of the world is a necessary condition for its homo-
geneity and consciousness of its own function in the economic and politi-
cal spheres and, therefore, for its cohesion as a class. This ideology is not
external either to the economics or the politics of the capitalist class, as
class practices (economic and political) are interconnected, and mutually
determined, with an awareness of class.
Ideology is constructed and performed, made visible and present,
within the economic and political practices of the dominant class and,
although it preserves its basic principles and its class-based nature
throughout the history of capitalism, it evolves and is transformed along
with the development of capitalism, with the emergence of new domi-
nant factions and new challenges that arise. But this ideological produc-
tion not only gives cohesion to the dominant class; it also constitutes
a level (along with the economic and political levels) of class-based
210 chapter nine
domination. The dominant class spreads its ideology to society as a whole,

adapting it to the conditions of diffferent social groups, organizing the cul-
ture1 to ensure that the dominated class, as a whole and in its diversity, is
subject to its “intellectual and moral direction.”
The ideology of the dominant class, developed for internal consump-
tion, examines the current circumstances from the perspective of its class
interests, and develops initiatives for the future, aimed at directing
decision-making in the class’s centers of power. Much of this work is
strictly private, undertaken by the most exclusive sectors of the produc-
tion workshop of domination strategies, and may even take the form of
state secrets. However, adapted for consumption by the dominated class,
whose interests are always placed in opposition to those of the dominant
class, the function of ideology is to conceal the actual contradictions and
prevent any possibility of “developing alternative responses to overcome
the conditions of subjection in which [the dominated] fĳind themselves…
The situation of alienation in which they live is fed constantly to prevent a
rediscovery of themselves, a new awareness of their situation and a pro-
found reflection that would enable them to break out of the structure that
oppresses and dominates them” (Aruj, 2000).
By its very nature, the social reality of capitalism appears fetishized2,
superfĳicial and fragmented, and, on this basis, the ideological structure of
capital establishes its intellectual and moral leadership. Its goal is to
achieve consensus (active or at least passive) among the dominated by
presenting its projects as being in the general interests of society, as the
best for society or, at least, as a necessary evil, aimed at preventing worse
evils, with the assurance that there is no other option: “individuals face
reality… from a perspective developed by the dominant classes to conceal
from them the real circumstances of their existence” (Tagarelli, 2009). In
contrast, according to Tagarelli, “the task of science consists in uncovering
the dominant material relations underlying the dominant ideas in order
to recover the real connections of the theory throughout the social and
1 “Domination is a political relation which, on the one hand, is organized and repro-
duced as the State; but it is also something that is established through the organization of
the culture of a society or nation. Political power is produced in the process of organization
of the culture… ‘Common sense’ is a political production and part of the struggle for hege-
mony… Politics is a collection of practices instituting the shape of the social; that is, as a
process that occurs as organization of the culture, involving the organization and develop-
ment of the state as well as of a historical block” (Tapia, 2008).
2 The third section of this chapter explores the issue of the fethishization of social rela-
tions in capitalism and its connection to ideological domination.
ideological domination 211
material process.”3 Meanwhile, popular culture, the purpose of which is

“to comprehend and transform the social structure,” is necessarily con-
structed in constant tension with the dominant ideology, and its function
is to “reveal those elements that [the dominant ideology] uses to conceal
a contradictory social reality and expose an oppressive and unequal real-
ity, plagued with contradictions,” as a condition for processes of unity
among the dominated, in order to “aid in the establishment of classes and
individuals as a popular force, converting the divided classes and sepa-
rated groups – divided and separated as much by culture as by other
factors – into a popular cultural force” (Tagarelli, 2009).
Clearly, Gramsci’s theoretical proposition covers an extremely vast
object of study, the general aspects of which include the examination of
ideology as a construction aimed fĳirstly at fostering internal cohesion
within the dominant class, and secondly at fostering ideological domina-
tion, as well as the examination of counter-hegemonic oppositions and/or
constructions developed by the dominated class. It is not possible to
review this complex topic here, as the purpose of this chapter is rather
more modest.
The fĳirst two sections of this chapter will therefore be limited to a gen-
eral outline of the intellectual and moral leadership that capital exercises
over contemporary society, in order to complete my overview of the neo-
liberal pattern of domination, with a basic sketch that brings together eco-
nomics, politics and ideology in the current historical context; i.e. the link
between the economics and politics of neoliberal capital and its intellec-
tual and moral leadership. The last two sections constitute a reflection on
neoliberal capital’s project for the future, the project of civilization that it
offfers humanity, based on which it exercises its intellectual and moral
leadership and its economic, political and ideological practices, in order
to contextualize the project of an increasingly necrophiliac and genocidal
capitalist class that believes itself to be at the end of history and preparing
the advent of the last man.
From Collective Bargaining to Individual Competition:

Neoliberal Life Options
I earlier explained how a pattern of domination results from a combina-

tion of ideological, political and economic circumstances and class
3 This necessarily entails, under the conditions of capitalism, the representation of the
“real” social order as conflictive, “that is, combative by nature” (Tagarelli, 2009).
212 chapter nine
practices that express wills and intentions in conflict, operating in a con-

text of structural relations with a tendential development independent of
the will and consciousness. The chapters examining the neoliberal pattern
of domination include reflections which defĳine this as a class project with
an intentional, voluntary and conscious component, i.e. as the result
(at least in part) of the creation by the hegemonic faction of the dominant
class of an ideology that promotes political initiatives to control decision-
making in its centers of power and foster the cohesion (although with
internal conflicts) of capitalists as a class. I further discussed how the proj-
ects of neoliberal capital are presented ideologically to promote consen-
sus among (or at least to defuse the resistance of) the dominated class; for
example, by promoting globalization and the free market as a “response
to the world economic crisis” and promising “a new era of wellbeing and
economic growth,” or by presenting the transformations undergone by the
Keynesian state in its conversion into a neoliberal state as a “transition to
democracy,” or by defĳining state administration of criminal activity as a
“fĳight against organized crime and terrorism to guarantee the security of
all citizens.”
The aim of this chapter is to examine the structural characteristics of
the intellectual and moral leadership of neoliberal capital in some detail,
beginning with a brief reflection on its role at the time of transition from
the Keynesian to the neoliberal pattern of domination, followed by an
analysis of the basic features of this leadership once it had been fully
established.
The Transition to the Neoliberal Pattern

Ideological domination requires the articulation of a conception of the
world and of the era and a project arising from that conception; it requires
the establishment of intellectual and moral direction. In Chapter 5,
I explained how, in the context defĳined by the world economic crisis, both
“real socialism” and Latin American developmentalism, which had
become obstacles to the neoliberal restructuring of world capitalism,4
were subjected to an intense process of ideological vilifĳication, accused of
being the sources of infĳinite evils. With this attack, neoliberal capital was
4 “The strengthening and democratization of these nation-states became obstacles to

the processes and strategies of exploitation and domination of the centers of world capital-
ist accumulation… neoliberalism is a strategy to dismantle the complex political construc-
tions of the 20th century which had turned into restrictions on transnational capitalist
accumulation” (Tapia, 2008).
able to present its strategic initiatives as the solution to the evils of the
previous period, thereby winning public support for its new projects.
The transition of the Soviet bloc from state capitalism (self-acclaimed
“real socialism”) to neoliberal capitalism was presented as a response to a
“popular demand for democracy and universal prosperity.” In the devel-
oped capitalist states of the West, this process was argued to be a “victory
for democracy and the free world,” and “the end of history.”5 In Latin
America, the economic crisis aggravated the loss of prestige of the devel-
opmentalist state, thereby facilitating the presentation of the transition
from developmentalism to neoliberalism as the solution to its defĳiciencies
and as a “transition to democracy and modernity.”
On the level of ideological domination, the key to the Latin American
transition lies in the vilifĳication of the developmentalist state; on this
basis, neoliberalism launched an offfensive to “replace the predominantly
nationalist beliefs, through which the majority of the population orga-
nized its understanding of the country, the region and the political and
economic world,” with the goal of “making the privatizing content of the
new economic policies compatible with the cultural and political compo-
sition of the civil societies that would have to support the new confĳigura-
tions of capitalism in Latin America,” and promoting a new common
sense, “which revolved around the idea of a global market, efffĳiciency,
competitiveness and denationalization” (Tapia, 2008).6
The Neoliberal Pattern
Ideological domination contributes to the viability of the economic

and political projects of the dominant class; that is, it contributes to the
production of real transformations. However, as these transformations
develop, the conditions of ideological domination itself are reconfĳigured.
5 “At the level of the conception of the world and of knowledge, neoliberalism articu-
lated a discourse as a strategy to explain the contemporary context… a normative eco-
nomic discourse – which, under the pretext of rationality, eliminates the possibility of
considering alternatives from among which the best way of satisfying social needs might
be chosen – and a political discourse that also argued for the superiority of the political
culture and competitive party system of liberalism as the synthesis of all political history”
(Tapia, 2008).
6 “To legitimize the privatization processes, it was necessary to create a new common
sense; that is, people needed to view the world as a dynamic of production, circulation and
consumption of commodities in highly depoliticized processes, and, therefore, to assess
the facts and the meaning of those facts according to this mercantile culture” (Tapia, 2008).
214 chapter nine
Thus, for example in Latin America, “the fĳirst years were ones of public
and discursive resistance and confrontation. But as privatization pro-
cesses advanced, and the processes of deconstruction of the nation-states
dismantled the material conditions that enabled the maintenance of
nationalist beliefs, the people gradually began replacing their beliefs with
others that were liberal and neoliberal in nature, particularly in the urban
centers where the greatest economic modernization occurred.”7
The neoliberal ideology, with the conception of the era that it proposed
(its explanations of the past and of the problems of the present, as well
as its proposed solutions and promises for the future), played its role
throughout the period of transition. But once the structures of the previ-
ous forms of domination were dismantled, a new reality was imposed on
the relation between capital and labor, and new ideological content
emerged. The point of departure in the examination of the neoliberal pat-
tern of ideological domination is thus the new historical, economic and
political situation, which is confĳigured in the relation between capital and
labor. In particular, it is worth recalling here the point made earlier that
while in the previous stage (the various modes of the contained form of
domination) capital organized corporately, in this stage capital disorga-
nizes, atomizes and pulverizes in order to dominate the workers, particu-
larly in underdeveloped countries. The neoliberal state abandoned the
state administration of concessions (which characterized the contained
form) as the core element of domination, thereby bringing about the col-
lapse of the old institutional framework constructed to organize and regu-
late bargaining between capital and labor – parties and unions.
This context of disorganization and reduction to individual isolation
engenders the ideological (and political) defenselessness of the working
class, allowing neoliberal capital, in spite of its unprecedented capacity
to generate inequality, injustice and savagery,8 to deregulate its relation
with labor, to impose submission to its needs and its logic, to promote
7 Neoliberalism “provoked the disorganization of the material conditions for national

regulation and government of the economies and countries of Latin America… The dis-
mantling of the economic and political structures that upheld the limits and processes of
national coordination and the production and exercise of social and political power from
within led people to gradually replace their beliefs, maintaining national and nationalist
notions for a time as a memory but no longer as a goal or project” (Tapia, 2008).
8 “The alchemy between market, hyper-individualist values, media sensationalism,
social fragmentation, widespread privatization and disintegration of the public sphere
made it possible, among other things, for a model unprecedented in its capacity to gener-
ate inequality and injustice to become an essential, genuine reference point for a society
seized by the most diverse forms of prejudice and suspicion” (Forster, 2009).
competitiveness and criminal activity as basic features in the construction

of its new intellectual and moral leadership, and to produce alienation
and fear. Competitiveness, with alienation as its correlate, shapes the life
project accessible to the integrated sector of the working class and
expresses the level of ideological submission that capital has imposed on
contemporary society. Criminal activity – and the fear that it entails –
develops on two fronts: as the ideological framework associated with the
only life option that capital makes available to a growing segment of the
human population, and because, as argued in the following section (tak-
ing up the argument of the previous chapter), state administration of
criminal activity ultimately replaces state administration of concessions
to establish itself as the core of the whole system of the intellectual and
moral leadership of neoliberal capital.
Ideological Defenselessness and the Mass Media

The fĳirst phenomenon that can be identifĳied in any examination of ideo-
logical domination under the conditions of the neoliberal pattern is
an increase (in comparison with previous periods of capitalist domina-
tion) in the ideological defenselessness of the working class9 and, in turn,
increased control exercised by neoliberal capital. Contributing to this
is the development of new and powerful scientifĳic and technological
resources at the disposition of capital, expressed in various ways, such as
the huge influence that the communications media have acquired in the
neoliberal world.
Neoliberalism, which generally fosters the concentration of wealth, also
fosters the concentration of ownership and control of media outlets10,
turning them into monopolies for the production and dissemination
of ideology, organizing the production of public opinion and the con-
struction of what is important to society.11 These monopolies control all of
9 After reading various analyses on the topic, one might be tempted to classify it as
absolute defenselessness, but there are many initiatives in process, the germination of con-
siderable social resistance, which compel us to consider the ideological power of capital in
the contemporary world in relative terms.
10 The monopolization process underway afffects not only “traditional” media (the
press, television, etc.) but also new media: “Google is quickly turning into a megacorpora-
tion of the future, buying up the competition (Blogger, YouTube), making users dependent
on its advertising system, monopolizing the search for information, and becoming the larg-
est database in history, storing virtually everything… Users, without realizing, are being
gradually trapped in Google’s web…” (Colectivo Troyano, 2009a).
11 “Most people are guided by the information provided by the big mass media outlets,
but these outlets depend too much on the big economic powers, which in turn depend on
216 chapter nine
society’s avenues of information transmission and communication, and,

as a result, acquire the capacity to manipulate information and distort
reality in keeping with the interests of the dominant class. In the context
of a globalized world and an atomized society, they are able to replace the
real world with the media world with considerable success.12
Capital now has access to knowledge accumulated over many years13,
rooted in extensive experience in the manipulation of information and of
the spectacle, and in the evolution of social psychology and marketing.
Added to this arsenal of technical and scientifĳic resources are “the lessons
learned from the appropriation made by fascism of audiovisual technolo-
gies as the core of its propaganda activity,” with which it has been able to
“influence the production of a new way of conceiving the world and life,
penetrating to the very depths of the consciousnesses of the era” (Forster,
2009). But this increased power of the media as a factor in ideological
domination14 is explained not only by the new scientifĳic and technological
instruments at its disposition to monopolize and manipulate communica-
tion and information in society, but also, and above all, by the new histori-
cal situation in the capital-labor relation: the new correlation of force
the politicians. Information passes through fĳilters, corporate parameters and self-
censorship (direct threats or fear of losing their jobs), or comes so directly from govern-
ment sources that the fĳinal product could be called ‘disinformation’… it is the mass media
communications system itself, so tied up with the interests of big corporations, that pre-
vents the transmission of genuine information, establishing a system of propaganda rather
than information – inculcating the world view of those who hold economic and political
power… the propaganda model dominates the media” (Colectivo Yachay Red Científĳica
Peruana, 2002).
12 “The violence of information has made the real world disappear… the sense of reality
is disintegrated, creating a diffferent reality… the massive trade in images demonstrates a
huge indiffference toward the real world… it smothers Homo-Televisus, whose inhuman
passiveness supports the cruel aesthetic of the spectacle of the destruction of the most
sacred moral values… the formidable machine of propaganda, simulation, concealment
and rhetoric makes it impossible for people to feel anything” (Jean Baudrillard, as quoted
in Marelli, 2007).
13 The Keynesian period produced a wealth of experience in the fĳield of ideological
domination; in Section 4.3.4, I pointed out that during this period the “production work-
shop of domination strategies,” in conjunction with the education system and the mass
media, organized the ideological and cultural messages that circulated in society, monopo-
lizing the spaces for public communication and adapting scientifĳic applications to discern
and influence culture, ideology and the behavior of society: surveys, interviews, advertising,
propaganda, marketing, etc. From that time, capital and its ideological universe began
working out how to invade the daily world of the working class, although not to the degree
that it has today.
14 The literature on the topic is extraordinarily extensive, but, of the texts I’m familiar
with, I would recommend Chiesa, 2008; Valqui Cachi and Pastor Bastán, 2009; and Revuelta,
2008.
between the classes and the new general conditions of domination of

capital over labor.
At its deepest level, the defenselessness of the working class today – i.e.
its submission to the intellectual and moral leadership of the ruling class
and its inability to develop a popular culture and a counter-hegemonic
project – is the result of the defeat sufffered during the revolutionary crisis
provoked by the collapse of the natural form of domination in its fĳirst
emergence and the subsequent transition to the contained form. But in
immediate terms, it is associated with a two-pronged process entailing, on
one hand, the dismantling of the organizational structure that made pos-
sible and gave meaning to the political and ideological activity of the
workers under the conditions of the contained form of domination and,
on the other, the atomization of the workers as a result of this dismantling,
which has left them with no forum for organization (either revolutionary,
or even trade unionist)15 where they could construct a conception of the
era, identities of class, opinions about the problems affflicting them or a
project to solve them, at least until they can reconstruct themselves as a
class and establish new fĳields of class organization.
Even traditional institutions such as the family, the school and the
church, which once constituted spaces for social bonding, are increasingly
being positioned so as to contribute to the promotion of individualism
and social atomization. The social network centered on the extended fam-
ily, so important for the reproduction of the working class throughout the
19th and early 20th century, has practically disappeared, and even the
nuclear family has been severely undermined. The status of churches as
producers of social collectives has also been severely reduced, and in the
place of institutionalized forms, individualized forms of spirituality are
promoted, positing the individual construction of the relationship with
God. Meanwhile, schools are dedicated to fostering individualism and
competition, and urban tribes and cliques emerge as the new forms of
socializing according to post-modernist psychologists.16 Under these con-
ditions, the media move in to fĳill the void: “the articulating axis of mean-
ing, the mortar that seals the blocs of domination, has shifted from the old
politico-ideological structures, what were traditionally called political
parties, to the communication-information machine which, through this
15 Disorganized, existing simply as a “class in itself”, as a reality in the system of produc-

tion relations, as a basis for the capitalist relations of exploitation, as explained in
Section 2.2.
16 See, for example, Mafffesoli, 1996.
218 chapter nine
economic-cultural turn, became the guarantor of the reproduction of the

system and of its logic” (Forster, 2009).17
Competitiveness
In Chapter 7, I explained the increased importance given to the promo-
tion of competitiveness, i.e. skills, knowledge and feelings directed fully
and energetically at serving capital, in a world where capital reigns virtu-
ally unchallenged and where so many human beings are superfluous, all
are forced to compete, and all are subordinated to the supreme goal of
being useful and attractive to capital. In the same chapter, I explained how
the Competitiveness Promotion Brigades constitute a social framework
that forms part of the civil society of neoliberalism, part of the downward
network that disseminates the neoliberal conception of the world and
connects society to the intellectual and moral leadership of neoliberal
capital. With the transition from the Keynesian pattern of domination to
the neoliberal pattern, the core of the capital-labor relation has shifted
from collective bargaining to individual competitiveness.
Even as unemployment rises, as long as the state maintains minimal
regulations (in terms of wages, the work day and working conditions) and
the unions preserve some capacity for negotiation, some restrictions on
the voracity of capital remain. But if, as is the case under the conditions
that neoliberalism tends to establish, the state allows the regulations
restricting the behavior of capital to become increasingly lax and the bar-
gaining capacity of the unions continues to shrink, the workers will be
thrust, as isolated individuals, into the world of free competition, forced to
compete on two levels: fĳirst, in an individual efffort to be useful to capital,
although the reward offfered – employment and a wage – is scarce and
generally poor in quality; second, to compete against all other workers,
both the employed and the unemployed (competing to keep their jobs if
they have them and to get one if they don’t), the integrated and the
excluded. The lack of socially constructed alternatives drives workers
toward a suicidal persistence to strive to serve capital, clinging to the
increasingly implausible illusion (for a growing number of superfluous
workers) promising that, ultimately, wellbeing and employment will be
17 “It was the media corporations, the big entertainment and communications compa-
nies, that assumed the huge task of generating a new ‘public opinion’ that could be identi-
fĳied with the values arising from the neoliberal form assumed by contemporary capitalism”
(Forster, 2009).
won, or to the illusions propagated by the media that “present a world

of prosperity, luxury and abundance which we all can and must attain.
A world of big winners in which the losers also win, as they never give in
but keep on competing” (Aruj, 2000).
In the Keynesian pattern, the ideological perception constructed
around the state administration of concessions linked the fate of the indi-
vidual to that of the collective, at least in the realm organized by the cor-
porate structures and the various individual positions admitted by those
structures; it included social restraints on the voracity of capital and
encouraged effforts to increase the capacity for negotiation and, therefore,
the organization, if only under trade unions, of the workers. However, in
the neoliberal pattern, according to the ideological perception and the
immediate or apparent reality on which it is founded, the fate of the indi-
vidual appears not merely disassociated from that of the collective, but
even in opposition to it; the rationale is “for me to succeed, I must ride on
the failure of others.” But what this ideology and appearance conceal is
that it is essentially the whole that defĳines the fate of the part. The situa-
tion of one class is defĳined by its relation to the other, and the economic,
political and ideological conditions that organize the relations between
classes are what determine that the fate of an individual belonging to the
working class can appear linked to the collective in one case, and disasso-
ciated from it in the other.
The relation between classes in neoliberalism ensures that the striving
of the individual to please capital contributes to the erosion of the
position of the class, and actually results in the deterioration of indi-
vidual possibilities of winning concessions from capital. Thanks to this
dynamic, capital has discovered new conditions under which to impose
harsher demands on workers (who are forced to double their effforts
to please it) and to foster the emergence of abundant new reasons for
new chasms and oppositions, conflicts and hatred among them, both
among individuals and among groups (ethnic, national, professional,
etc.). Thus, the more workers strive to please capital, the more they
facilitate the development of its insatiable need for surplus labor. But
this is a dynamic which workers as individuals are unable to stop or chal-
lenge; it can only be overcome when workers stop looking to capital in
their aim to please it, and look instead to one another, to work together to
establish conditions that will make a project of opposition to capital
a viable proposition. Until this happens, the workers (subjected to a
series of mechanisms that foster their separation and disassociation) will
sufffocate in their alienation and in a state of unrest that grows, but that
220 chapter nine
fails to crystallize into the construction of a collective will and a collective

project.18
Alienation
Alienation19 is the necessary correlate to the submission to the demands

of competitiveness at the service of capital. Earlier, I outlined two pro-
cesses that contribute to the alienation of workers from the rest of their
class, confĳining them in their solitude. Firstly, unlike the Taylorist factory
(which allowed for a separation and counterpoint between capital and
labor), the neoliberal “integrated factory” requires workers to identify the
subjectivity of labor with the subjectivity of capital, to make belonging to
the company the only subjectivity possible; to think of belonging to a
class, diffferentiated from the class of capital, is dangerous and unaccept-
able. Secondly, as it destroys the social regulation of the class relation,
neoliberalism fractures the construction of a collective order and pro-
motes a wide range of particularities in the class relation, with one basic
purpose: to prevent any chance of structuring a class-based political front
by pushing class conflict out of view and presenting it as harmless in order
to dominate it.
In this way, the class relation is depoliticized, reduced to individual par-
ticularities, and any sense of universality is fractured, as the construction
of any interests that could transcend individual particularities and bring
them together in the recognition of a social relation or relation between
social classes is rendered tenuous, if not impossible. According to Alain
Touraine, neoliberalism produces processes of “de-normativization” and
de-institutionalization (weakening or disappearance of codifĳied norms
upheld by legal mechanisms) which, according to the logic of the deregu-
lated free market, tend to invade every aspect of society, shaping “de-
institutionalized” societies in which norms are diluted, promoting “behav-
ioral diversity,” and arguing in favor of “individual rights and interests.”
As a result, economic and cultural behavior becomes anti-institutional
and anomic (as quoted in Messina, 2009).
18 “Although many express their discontent, when it comes to participating, to mobiliz-

ing, to proposing or supporting some kind of transformation, the absence of a collective
will leads them to paralysis, producing a progressive annihilation of their subjectivity and
turning them into ‘actors’ who let themselves be led by events” (Aruj, 2000).
19 It could be argued that alienation tends to invade all spheres of life under neoliberal-
ism, but the purpose here is to identify a process of isolation and estrangement among
workers that renders impossible the construction of a working class front in opposition to
capital.
In this society made up of individual particularities and anomic behav-

ior, as it eliminates any vestige of class identity and solidarity, destroys
ethical referents and promotes meanness and pettiness,20 workers relate
to each other with fear and suspicion:21 the other tends to be either an
unscrupulous competitor submissive to capital or an anomic criminal.
Among the working class, neoliberal domination produces individuals
with no defense against economic, political and ideological domination,
split offf from their own kind, alienated from the rest of their class, and
uninterested in any possibility of collective construction.22
In addition to these factors, which constitute the obstacles created
by neoliberalism to prevent the construction of projects of political
unity among workers and which help explain the individual alienation
of those who have been dispossessed of their means of production
in contemporary society, we must also consider those explored in
Chapter 7, related to the transformations to the state brought about by
neoliberalism. Nation-states are positioned to ensure the conditions for
reproduction of global capital within their national borders, and to keep
the globalization of the workers from accompanying the globalization of
the capitalists. Workers remain trapped in institutions restricted to the
realm of the nation-state, deprived of an institutional framework that
would enable them to negotiate with internationalized capital, resulting
in a regression to the absence of political, economic and social rights and
to growing difffĳiculties in the construction of viable projects to oppose
capital.
Neoliberalism thus establishes new conditions to reinforce the alien-
ation of workers and their restriction to individual negotiation in one
20 Neoliberalism, as a proliferation of the offfshore manufacturing economy, produces

a situation of “adversity and disorganization, rife with unhappiness… unemployment,
violence and crime… anomie, decadence, destructiveness, disintegration, savagery,
chaos, negativity, anti-social behavior… depression, hopelessness, the absence of a
future… poverty as dehumanization, as deterioration of the human person, as a return to
barbarism” (Zermeño, 2005: 15, 16, 20, 21).
21 Although they attribute widely diffferent meanings to it, the issue may be viewed from
various theoretical approaches, even those sympathetic to neoliberalism: “How can we
construct basic notions of ‘trust’ (Giddens, 1994) when ‘the modern ideal of subordination
of the individual to rational collective rules has been pulverized,’ when hedonistic and
personalized individualism has become legitimate?’ (Lipovetsky, 1995: 7–9) How can we
reconstruct social capital, in the words of Putnam, the organic solidarity of Durkheim?”
(Messina, 2009).
22 “Neoliberalism produced a kind of common sense that contained a strong inclina-
tion toward pessimism regarding almost any sort of collective initiative… The ideological
development of the 1980s and 1990s led to a belief that nothing collective was possible,
desirable or feasible” (Tapia, 2008).
222 chapter nine
region of the world.23 According to Aruj, neoliberalism imposes globaliza-

tion through fragmentation and is dedicated to preventing those sub-
jected to it from reconstructing their bonds of solidarity and working
toward a transformation: “uncertainty about the future provokes a rejec-
tion of association with any project that places full confĳidence in a
solution based on own initiative and a distrust of collective projects” (Aruj,
2000). Alienation feeds back into fear, uncertainty, resignation24 and the
refusal to develop their own conception of the world, their own counter-
hegemonic class project. According to Luis Tapia, ideological domination
is a process of “disorganization of social awareness” with “a core that con-
sists of two types of relations… the relation between disorganization and
unawareness and the relation between disorganization and awareness;” in
the “processes of disorganization as strategies of domination and unaware-
ness and of self-organization as a process of social or inter-subjective
awareness, bringing about a moral and intellectual reform… [d]omination
asserts itself through a process of disorganization of the social, political and
cultural conditions whereby the diffferent social subjects could achieve self-
awareness by relating with other subjects in the context of national and
international processes” (Tapia, 2008, emphasis added).25
Criminal Activity
The shift from collective bargaining to individual competitiveness result-

ing from the transition from the Keynesian pattern of domination to the
23 “The fact that many Latin American countries have now lived through two decades
of neoliberalism means that the new generations have been educated in an atmosphere of
liberal beliefs and liberal common sense; they have learned these beliefs in every sphere –
in their schools, their parents’ workplace, the media and the news” (Tapia, 2008). For a part
of today’s society – perhaps more among the young – life appears reduced to the individual
and the individual to the sexual, to “those few surviving enclaves… where a pleasure and
playfulness not wholly under the heel of power might still be relished,” so that “one would
accordingly anticipate an enormous inflation of interest in these matters,” although “some
thinkers would caution how discourse and sexuality were themselves policed, regulated,
heavy with power…” (Eagleton, 1996: 4).
24 In Chapter 6, I examined how the liberalization of the international movement of
fĳinancial capital and the processes that it provokes have given rise to the construction of a
form of political discourse that promotes resignation among the dominated; no human
power could possibly oppose the omnipotence of market forces. I will return to this point
later.
25 “Domination is based on ignorance and on the socialization of intellectual patterns
that incorporate subordination, hierarchy and subalternity into the constitution of the
subjects… Domination involves disorganizing the conditions for recognition among social
subjects, especially in the world of workers. Disorganization produces unawareness – of
neoliberal pattern means that workers are forced into increasingly deregu-
lated submission to the ever greater demands of capital, and that the
search for options of employment and subsistence become increasingly
disordered and chaotic, as do the searches undertaken by capital for prof-
itable activities and the employment options that it offfers, including
unlawful and criminal activities.
Before, I pointed out that the extraordinary profĳits yielded by organized
crime employers enables them, given the conditions of labor casualiza-
tion and rising unemployment, to provide privileged labor and wage
conditions to their employees, offfering them relatively high wages and
creating expectations of status for a segment of the excluded population
so that, as the commercial and production chain associated with criminal
activities expands, a genuine social framework is constructed in urban dis-
tricts and neighborhoods and in rural centers, constituting what I referred
to as Crime Promotion Brigades. In the world of neoliberal capital, crime
is a normal work option that attracts a growing number of applicants
and creates jobs26 with much more dynamism than any other branch of
the contemporary economy. Obviously, the problem is also one of ethics
and social cohesion; if large masses of the unemployed are turning to
crime, society is sufffering from a serious breakdown in the mechanisms of
social cohesion and the construction of ethical referents. Neoliberalism
does not construct any consistent form of social cohesion, but rather fos-
ters the destruction of all ethical referents as it promotes individualism,
competition and unscrupulousness, as much among workers as among
capitalists.27
themselves as individual and collective subjects, of other subjects, of the nation and of the
world” (Tapia, 2008).
26 For example, the National Drug Threat Assessment 2009, a report issued by the U.S.
Department of Justice’s National Drug Intelligence Center, asserts that drug trafffĳicking
organizations (but one sector of the crime economy) generate 450,000 jobs in Mexico alone.
This information in fact aroused terrible indignation among Mexican political party lead-
ers, to such an extent that the national leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Party
(PRD), Jesús Ortega, accused the U.S. government of meddling (!), asserting that the U.S.
intelligence report was “a frankly rude declaration that meddles in the country’s afffairs”
and, in a forceful rejoinder (!), claimed that there are 50 times as many U.S. citizens living offf
drug trafffĳicking (Bravo and Padilla, 2009).
27 “In the current neoliberal era, there is a clear breakdown in compliance with existing
legal frameworks, at both national and international levels… The violation of the rule of
law has a domino efffect… As federal, state and municipal authorities, the political and the
business class in general are the fĳirst to violate the rule of law, citizens, professional groups
and unions also often assume unlawful practices, taking control of public spaces for
their own purposes, infringing basic administrative regulations for urban and rural coexis-
tence, stealing union fees, corrupting and being corrupted. Cynicism, arrogance and the
224 chapter nine
Neoliberal capital has set up criminal activity and the degradation it

produces as a normal lifestyle option, as a part of daily life in contempo-
rary society28, devastating the ethical referents which, even in the previ-
ous periods of capital domination, would have fostered a mass response of
indignation from society. If status and social recognition are acquired with
money, it doesn’t matter where the money comes from. It is a simple ques-
tion of success or failure: if you have money and they haven’t killed or
imprisoned you, you are a winner.The neoliberal world issues a constant
call to break the law, flout ethical and moral standards, and engage in total
depravity. It is hard to fĳind a reasonably informed citizen who does not
recognize that organized crime is closely tied to government and corpo-
rate corruption and impunity and to the criminal defense of privileges, but
the social rejection of crime – especially the version promoted in the
media – is based on fear provoked by its violence and its most brutal
expressions, not on its success or merit as a business. The hypocrisy and
cynicism of neoliberal capital, which simultaneously promotes and com-
bats organized crime, ultimately permeates society.
Neoliberal capital creates the cultural framework and the common
sense it needs to develop unhindered; it thus receives understanding and
tolerance, and even approval and support, at least from the segment of
society most permeated by the degradation it fosters.
Fear
Neoliberal capital is also an enormous factory of fears. In addition to those
produced by health, ecological and environmental crises, its economics
generates fear because, as a threat or as a reality, it deprives many of access
to their means of subsistence, and its politics provokes fear by generating
defenselessness and a lack of forums in which solutions could be sought.29
supremacy of private over collective interests take the place of civil responsibility and col-
lective empowerment; a popular culture of corruption is constructed, in which honesty is
synonymous with stupidity” (López y Rivas, 2005).
28 “Crime spreads like a cancer… Impunity has created a vicious circle revolving around
the perception that in our society turning to crime is a low-risk business which, as such, is
increasingly attractive in a social stew seasoned with unemployment and poverty” (Iruegas,
2005.)
29 “The fears may be or appear irrational, but they are not unwarranted. There are fears
arising from the uncertainties generated by global processes, such as employment casual-
ization and unemployment, the depreciation of skills and specializations, the loss of limits
and referents in the territories inhabited, the absence or weakness of institutions or orga-
nizations of social integration, and the general crisis afffecting many services of the welfare
state” (Borja, 2007).
In the drive to be competitive there is a strong dose of fear, and the crimi-
nal activity fostered under neoliberalism produces fear among those out-
side the growing underworld of crime and feel threatened by it, but also
among the criminals themselves. All of these fears are produced by the
domination of neoliberal capital. But at the same time, with the state
administration of criminal activity, neoliberal capital creates fĳields in
which these fears are condensed, which serve to perpetuate its domina-
tion; it creates culprits and solutions as well as new fears. Fears produced
by neoliberal economics and politics go much further than those directly
associated with criminal activity, but neoliberal domination condenses
them and disperses them, fĳirstly because it constructs illusory culprits,
and secondly because it encapsulates society in an illusory solution: secu-
rity. The ideological defenselessness of the workers and the media ensure
that the true culprits and the real solutions remain outside the focus of
perception and social inquiry.
This construction of illusory culprits and solutions operates both in
developed and underdeveloped countries. Around the world, fear (of ter-
rorism, of violence, of crime, etc.) and the offfer of security has become the
discursive core of neoliberal politics. In developed countries, the focus is
on the threat of terrorism, while in underdeveloped countries it is the
threat of crime, although in both cases the pattern is flexible, allowing
variants, a multiplicity of threats, some of which emerge while others dis-
appear; what matters is that there must always be one on hand when
needed. Fortunately, to ensure the solid development of the ideological
domination of neoliberal capital, there are many threats, ranging from
criminal gangs like Mara Salvatrucha30 to the prospect of China and India
as emerging superpowers, the battle against terrorism and counterinsur-
gency, climate change and its potential geopolitical consequences, failed
or fractured states, cyberspace as a new terrain of conflict, the rise of new
powers, the growing influence of non-state actors, the spread of weapons
of mass-destruction and other destructive technologies.31 With such an
overabundance of threats we can comfort ourselves with the certainty
30 “The U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, declared that the war against Central
American youth gangs in general, and against the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) in particular,
is second only in importance to the war against al-Qaeda… the evidence indicates that the
‘maras’… have become larger, meaner and better organized, raising the threat that they rep-
resent to Central America and the United States to an alarming level” (Díaz, 2007, emphasis
added).
31 The U.S. Defense Department, in its “Quadrennial Defense Review” presented in
February 2010, reports new supranational threats (see Brooks, 2010).
226 chapter nine
that the state administration of criminal activity is here to stay, at least

from the point of view of the representatives of neoliberal capital; our
security is in good hands and is guaranteed… our well-being is not, but at
this point nobody remembers such minor details.
The state administration of criminal activity, erected on the fear that
permeates contemporary society, constructs a mechanism of externaliza-
tion of the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism: the ideological view
that promotes the slogan that contemporary society is essentially healthy.
The problem is a group external to it: criminals and terrorists. This enables
the construction of the culprit, which becomes a catalyst and focal point
of fear32 with a solution developed by capital itself, amalgamating fears
and intolerance and turning the fears of the public (at least in the dis-
course) a political priority.33 This externalization of its internal contradic-
tions is particularly visible in developed capitalist countries where the
construction of culprits focuses on criminalizing immigrants, accusing
them of being criminals, terrorists and threats to social welfare.
The result is of course the opposite of the supposed aim, but capital cre-
ates new conditions to impose its intellectual and moral leadership on
society, based on “the most reactionary thought, which denies the possi-
bility of a social transformation that could overcome the exclusions of the
present, and also denies the legitimacy of sectors that express the contra-
dictions of contemporary society. Consequently, it seeks to eliminate them
from the public stage” (Borja, 2007).34 Violence and insecurity tend to
grow but, far from seeking to rectify the situation, neoliberal capital uses
this failure as grounds for escalating the war on crime with the support of
32 “The fears and consequent demands for public security have provoked offfĳicial
responses, populist in character, which arouse the irrational dimension of fear, generically
designating social collectives as potentially dangerous, upon which fĳirst falls public stigma,
and then preemptive repression. It goes without saying that these policies are aimed
at producing perverse efffects, helping to arouse the most irrational fears and provoking
growing demands for more security” (Borja, 2007).
33 Borja explains this dynamic with what he calls reactionary populism, “equivalent at
the local level to that used by the Bush government at the global level”; the fĳirst step is to
make a political priority out of the fears of the people, integrated but worried about the
uncertainties and worked up by the campaigns of conservative politicians and some media
outlets; then, to construct a discourse that threatens anything that is bothersome, and
fĳinally, to pass laws that impose penalties on anyone capable of offfending normal citizens
by their presence in the public space” (Borja, 2007).
34 The result of this is that “any behavior contrary to the established order” is deemed
“illegitimate and dangerous to coexistence”, thereby justifying “repressive action against
any unpleasant or disagreeable social groups, which are confused with criminal or violent
minorities” (Borja, 2007).
a segment of the public that is increasingly terrifĳied and anxious for secu-
rity; “it is a long war,” they claim, “but we cannot abandon it and one day
we will win.”
In reality, the very nature of this war means it will never be won;35 but,
indeed, it cannot be abandoned. In the previous chapter, I examined the
state administration of criminal activity and its role in linking the
economics and politics of neoliberal capital, noting that on the level of
ideological domination it allows the promotion of a world view that exter-
nalizes its internal contradictions, criminalizing and dissolving the class
opposition against its domination, reducing society to powerlessness and
legitimizing36 its preventive positioning of police and military forces
against society. The ideological defenselessness of contemporary society is
such that the repression imposed on it is presented as a response to its
own demands.
In the state administration of criminal activity, neoliberal capital
encodes its most precious hopes – economic, political and ideological. It
had been waiting too long to waste the opportunity to bring them to frui-
tion when it fĳinally came: “what the U.S. needed to be able to dominate
much of humanity and the world’s resources was ‘some catastrophic and
catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor’. The attacks of 11 September
2001 provided the ‘new Pearl Harbor’ described as ‘the opportunity of
ages.’ The extremists who have since exploited 11 September come from
the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and ‘think tanks’ were
established to avenge the American ‘defeat’ in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there
was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a ‘peace dividend’ following
the Cold War. The Project for the New American Century was formed,
along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and
others that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan administration
35 These policies, explains Borja, are aimed at producing perverse efffects; the repressive
logic leads to preemptive repression of entire social collectives, turning a once innocent
populace into criminals, fostering greater injustice and aggravating the very problems of
coexistence that it is supposed to resolve, generating more violence than existed previ-
ously, contributing to the arousal of the most irrational fears and provoking increased
demands for more security (Borja, 2007).
36 Fear “is a way of postulating the future, perhaps the contemporary way of forging
consensus on the dictates of time… it has become a kind of metagram that organizes the
subjectivity of every aspect of life… Strictly speaking, the big modern States no longer
require political repression to ‘maintain order’, as we were accustomed to seeing up until
the 1980s. The society of fear established in the proliferation of trafffĳicking seeks to introject
into each citizen the security guard of his own civil impotence… the exception turned into
the rule. How can we explain the origins of this new form that legitimizes order based on
the routine collapse of order itself?” (Semo, 2005).
228 chapter nine
with those of the current Bush regime” (Pilger, 2002).37 Thus, it is simply
too useful to be abandoned, at least not willingly. Only intense social pres-
sure could force it to do so.
The Organization of the Intellectual and Moral Leadership

of Neoliberal Capital
Over the course of the historical development of the liberal pattern, the
workers were processing their ideological, political and organic separation
from the capitalist state, until they were forced to make the transition to
the contained form of domination. During the Keynesian period they
were closely connected to the state, organized under its hegemony through
their integration into civil society; capitalist domination organized a social
framework in which ideological creation and dissemination, that is, the
organization of civil society, were closely associated with bargaining for
and granting improved material conditions in the lives of the workers. In
the Keynesian pattern of domination the framework of the state adminis-
tration of concessions was established as the setting in which ideological
domination is organized. In the neoliberal pattern, this setting is occupied
by state administration of both competitiveness and criminal activity.
The Crime Promotion Brigades constitute, in the sub-world of criminal
activity, the equivalent of the Competitiveness Promotion Brigades in the
sub-world of legal activity. Both are internal to the ideology of neoliberal
capital, an expression of a dominated society incapable of making an ide-
ological break with capital. They complete the downward network which,
by promoting the life options offfered by neoliberal capital, disseminates
its conception of the world and binds society to its intellectual and moral
leadership. However, as the historical trajectory of the neoliberal pattern
advances, this framework organizing the structure of its civil society
becomes increasingly tied up with the state administration of criminal
activity, fĳirstly because, although competition and alienation (and the dis-
content they provoke) are mutually connected and reinforced, they are
ultimately subsumed in crime and the fear it produces, and secondly,
because the future trajectory of neoliberal capital inevitably fosters
increasing criminal activity, as will be shown later in this chapter.
It hardly needs stating that the intellectual and moral leadership of
neoliberal capital is not of the same progressive nature that characterized
37 Others have compared September 11 with the Reichstag fĳire (Kagarlitsky, 2001).
the Keynesian pattern, but regressive, fostering degradation and break-

down, insecurity and fear, in a context of fragmentation and social atomi-
zation, but functional for fostering its sole priority – the insatiable search
for profĳit – and clearly efffective for maintaining its ideological hold over a
signifĳicant segment of society. At least up to now, although there is a
trend toward increasing exclusion, capital has maintained the capacity
to integrate a segment of the workers, even recruiting them into the
Competitiveness or Crime Promotion Brigades, and has maintained its
intellectual and moral leadership even while becoming increasingly struc-
tured around the state administration of criminal activity and sustained
by alienation and fear.
Capital has found a way of producing a particular kind of intellectual
and moral leadership (which is actually anti-intellectual and immoral)
that recalls the nightmarish worlds created by George Orwell and Aldous
Huxley, and has erected a complex apparatus, efffective up to now, for
maintaining its ideological domination. Meanwhile, as a class, in spite of
an abundance of opposition groups, the working class has not been able to
distance itself ideologically and politically, or to produce new forms of
organization that would create the conditions necessary to launch new
projects in opposition to capital. Whether, how and when the working
class is able to do so will determine the direction that the process will take
over the course of the 21st century.
The ideological domination of capital is not a simple matter of “ideas.”
Competitiveness and alienation, as the implementation of its ideology, are
based on economic and political realities. In Chapter 6, I explained how,
in redefĳining its relationship with the nation-state, capital redefĳined its
structure of economic, political and ideological domination. And the
organization of the state administration of criminal activity is not only
grounded in propaganda but also in real threats to the lives of ordinary
everyday citizens.38 The neoliberal state, perfected and globalized, adopts
the same structure assumed by its older brother, the Nazi State, in its day.
The success of Nazi propaganda lay in the combination of “the clever
application of propaganda techniques” with the help of “a complex
propaganda machine afffecting all spheres of German life, appropriately
38 Bearing witness to the reality of criminal activity fostered by neoliberal capital are
the nearly 20,000 deaths in 5 years in Mexico (Sánchez, 2010), although these are related
only to the war on drugs, the soft version of criminal activity. In Iraq and Afghanistan,
where the war on terrorism is being waged (the hard version of criminal activity), the deaths
have surpassed 850,000, as well as more than 1.5 million injured (Dufour, 2008).
230 chapter nine
planned and with an exhaustive application,” which “completely immersed

the German people, numbing the senses of the population, restricting
each of the activities of individual daily life, submerging them in an unreal
world… based on fear and repression… In this way, the German people
were subject not only to continuous psychological but also physical vio-
lence” (Rodero, 2000).
The rule of capital is imposed as a reality that must be overcome ideo-
logically through a counter-hegemonic construction, but that must also be
overcome really as a construction with the efffective capacity to transform
the relationship between classes, possible both through the resistance
posed by workers and through capital’s entrapment in its own restrictions
and internal contradictions, as will be discussed in the next and fĳinal
chapter.
The Hegemony of Neoliberal Capital
Neoliberal capital, like its predecessors, liberal and Keynesian capital, in

their day, is hegemonic because it successfully imposes its philosophy, its
moral perspective and its habits, and because it is able to orchestrate a
social framework within which to develop and disseminate its conception
of the world, to promulgate the life options it offfers, to bind society to its
intellectual and moral leadership and to defĳine the “common sense” of its
subalterns. It must be stressed, however, that there is a qualitative difffer-
ence: the hegemony of its predecessors was progressive, while that of
neoliberal capital is increasingly regressive. In the liberal period, the
bourgeoisie, which rose up revolutionary and victorious from among the
ashes of feudalism, basked in the glory of the promise of modernity, taking
command of reason and marching purposefully toward progress39, while
in the Keynesian period capital set itself up as benefactor and guarantor of
the welfare of its subalterns. In both these periods the capitalist class had
reasonably solid arguments (as solid as its nature would allow) to present
itself as the class best suited to ensure the development of society.
39 “The revolutionary element that constituted Modernity was the break from the theo-
logical world view of the social order and the constitution of a new world view in which
Reason, as an attribute of man, was an instrument of transformation of the world, through
which he could reflect on himself in his subjectivity… The individual became conscious
and objective, and things lost any quality of mystery. Man creates himself and becomes
self-referential… the notion of perfection lies ahead… For modernity, there are no limits.
It is Man who constructs the meaning of his own actions. There is no prior external orches-
tration. Individuals are lords of their own actions” (Aruj, 2000).
Neoliberal capital has come into being – as its own intellectuals

explain – in the era of postmodernity (i.e. the era of the failure of
modernity), the period which gave it life and defĳined the promises that
lent legitimacy to its rule and gave meaning to its infancy. Having now
grown old, capital renounces those promises40, declaring the collapse of
modernity’s institutions and the failure of its ideology, and building its
particular intellectual and moral leadership on the administration of com-
petitiveness and criminal activity, on alienation and fear. The arguments
supporting its claim as the class best suited to continue leading society are
not at all convincing. Nevertheless, it maintains its hegemony over much
of contemporary society. In spite of the factors examined so far, the fact of
this hegemony is still extraordinary, and requires at least two additional
considerations. The fĳirst involves what might be called (paraphrasing
Marx) flowers on the chain and their complex relationship with the thana-
tophilia promoted by the cultural design of neoliberalism, while the sec-
ond involves fetishism as a natural condition of the capitalist social
relation and a constant support upholding its ideological domination
which, under the conditions of neoliberal domination, makes humanity
look like passengers on a spaceship running on autopilot.
Flowers on the Chain
Even under the most oppressive conditions, human beings need to fĳind
reasons for living that make life tolerable and livable. In the world of neo-
liberal capital, some of these reasons are provided by capital itself. It sells
these reasons (because it never gives anything away) and, therefore, they
are only accessible to people who are integrated (either through competi-
tiveness or criminal activity), who are able to function as consumers.
They are plastic flowers, which nevertheless give some color to the oppres-
sive bleakness of real life and help explain the continued success of
capital domination. There are also real flowers, grown by life itself, which
(although capital attempts to appropriate them and present them as
40 “Vattimo considers that the philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger are the founda-
tions for all future ideology. Using these authors, he constructs what he calls the philoso-
phies of diffference, which are based on fragmentation and multiplicity, in opposition to
the dialectic vision as a globalizing vision based on Hegel and Marx. This perspective is also
referred to as ‘weak thought’ or the post-modern condition, and is defĳined as a distancing
from the basic ideals of modernity: progress, avant-gardism, critical thinking and sur-
mounting of obstacles. The crisis of modernity thus afffects all aesthetic, cultural and social
values” (Palenga, n.d.).
232 chapter nine
products of its garden, mixing the plastic flowers with the live ones, so that
the former might sap some of the life of the latter) grow not because of,
but in spite of capital.
Heading the list of flowers sold by capital is consumption itself41 and, in
particular, an increasingly spectacular array of electronic products, such
as the computer and Internet with their many possibilities, as well as a
diverse range of software and virtual games, capable of immersing their
many users in a matrix, an illusory, simulated world. The social world is
perceived through the virtual communities and replaced with video addic-
tions and second-life websites, to such an extent that normal life and vir-
tual existence become confused, and it almost seems possible to construct
one’s entire existence around the computer and its range of associated
products, provided that one has the real money to buy them and to satisfy
all the old necessities which are neither virtual nor admit virtual solutions,
such as food, housing and clothing.
Unlike the conventional media that previously monopolized public
entertainment and recreation (fĳilm, radio and television), which are one-
way, admitting spectators only, these new media forms are interactive,
offfering a reasonably wide margin for users to participate in the creation
of their own virtual products within which they may weave something of
their own vitality: from on-line chat and making virtual friends and even
lovers (which, according to the experts, may potentially convert into real
ones) to creating their own spaces for information, reflection and amuse-
ment. This universe of electronics and its potential to produce a huge
quantity of virtual products is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon with
a vast range of open possibilities for the future. The Internet in particular
has even turned into a site of conflict between opposing perspectives,
from its conversion into a simple commodity at the service of the consoli-
dation and enrichment of the new giant monopolies (IBM, Microsoft,
Intel, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and Google) or free access for the free
exchange of use value, music, books, images, etc., to its use as a resource
for the global connection of social movements42 or for the purposes of
41 “When night falls, when the lights of the shopping malls go out and the neon world
disappears, the individual takes refuge in his house, opens the shopping bags (the only
daily moment of pleasure) and feels a sense of fulfĳillment of the consumer status awarded
by the market. As this pleasure is momentary – lasting only as long as the act itself – a few
minutes later, in solitude, he returns to his natural state of inaction: the passivity typical of
the democratic societies of the 21st century” (Toledano, 2008).
42 “The Internet allows the organization of local alternative projects through global pro-
tests, which ultimately take place in a particular place, for example, in Seattle, Washington,
police control, as will be discussed below. However, in the context and

from the perspective examined here – a world dominated by capital, with
a disintegrated and ideologically defenseless working class – the Internet
plays a role similar to that attributed by Marx to religion: an illusory hap-
piness, an expression of a social reality in need of illusions.43 The presen-
tation of mass spectacles (music and sports events, with soccer as the
most outstanding example), the communications and entertainment
media and this conglomeration of interactive electronic products go hand
in hand with religion as producers of illusions, in some cases replacing it,
in others complementing it.
Other flowers on the chain, currently in danger of extinction, are survi-
vors from the Keynesian past (employment stability and the recognition
of basic rights to education, health, leisure44, etc.) duly regulated by capi-
tal and only accessible to a segment of fortunate ones who have yet to
sufffer the fate of either labor casualization or unemployment. However, as
general propositions, the old useful promises such as progress, develop-
ment and welfare have fallen completely out of use.
Last of all are those flowers that bloom without external intervention,
as life itself produces reasons for fĳinding a sense of purpose. Grandparents
are touched by the fĳirst steps of their grandchildren, parents proudly wit-
ness the growth of their offfspring, lovers explore one another (virtually
and physically), couples share their dreams and fears, friends offfer care
and sympathy, and even street children fĳind reasons to play and laugh as
they beg for change, simply because they are children. Even under
the most oppressive conditions, as the Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquín
Sabina suggests, life fĳinds “more than a hundred words, more than a hun-
dred reasons, to hold back the blade from our wrists, more than a hundred
pupils in which we can see ourselves alive, more than a hundred lies that
make life worthwhile.”45
Prague, etc., but which are established, organized and developed via the online connec-
tion, i.e. the global connection, of local movements and local experiences. The Internet is
the global-local connection, which is the new form of control and social mobilization in
our society” (Castells, 2003).
43 “To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real
happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of afffairs is the demand
to give up a state of afffairs which needs illusions” (Marx, 1844: Abstract).
44 “Reality has been masked under the blue veil of anti-depressants, and social cohe-
sion depends on the work calendar: holidays, long weekends and public entertainment
events” (Toledano, 2008).
45 “Más de cien palabras, más de cien motivos, para no cortarse de un tajo las venas, más
de cien pupilas donde vernos vivos, más de cien mentiras que valen la pena” (Joaquín Sabina,
“Mas de cien mentiras”, 1994).
234 chapter nine
Social Anchoring, “Creative Destruction” and Thanatophilia

This voracity of life for self-preservation has been extremely useful to
capital because, while “the maintenance and reproduction of the
working class is, and must ever be, a necessary condition to the reproduc-
tion of capital,” explains Marx, “the capitalist may safely leave its fulfĳill-
ment to the laborer’s instincts of self-preservation and of propagation”
(Marx, 1867: Ch. 23).46 Capital needs to leave some margin, some degree of
chaos, for life to develop its own motivations. Thus, in its fĳirst period, the
domination of capital was intertwined with the extended working
class family, the rural community and the urban working class neighbor-
hood. With the arrival of the second period, this space for socialization
(which made the initial domination of capital bearable, but which was
also the framework for the resistance against it) was destroyed, and was
interwoven with the nuclear family, with capital even presenting itself as
its protector until, with the advent of neoliberalism, it determined that to
continue playing this role was costly and unnecessary.
As it ultimately destroys what it had once supported, capital resorts to
the strategy of presenting the damage it causes to society in the same light
in which it presents damage done in the realm of production: as creative
destruction. Thus, now that the nuclear family has been largely destroyed
by the social disaster fostered by neoliberalism, capital declares it obsolete
and in decline47 and, in search of a new focal point for society, offfers the
recognition of rights to diverse groups and minorities and presents itself
as promoter of individual freedom, diversity and multiculturalism (ecolo-
gists, feminists, homosexuals, ethnic minorities, etc.). However, in the
hands of capital these issues are useful only insofar as they promote asso-
ciation with multiple identities, with the aim of denying the only identity
that troubles it – class identity;48 anyone who discovers their connections
46 “The fact that the laborer consumes his means of subsistence for his own purposes,
and not to please the capitalist, has no bearing on the matter. The consumption of food by
a beast of burden is none the less a necessary factor in the process of production because
the beast enjoys what it eats” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 23).
47 Consider, for example, this exemplary reasoning: “Marriage is an outdated institu-
tion, created by the nobility at a time when human life expectancy was 35 years; as such,
today in the 21st century, if we want a more just and equitable society, we need to transform
the conjugal bond and create a system that truly gives us greater freedom and dignity”
(Norandi, 2010). According to this line of reasoning, marriage is to blame for the problems
produced by neoliberalism and, of course, if that is where the cause is, the solution is to be
found there also.
48 “The battle, the open fĳield, is the place where the multiple identities invented by
capitalism, the mermaid songs of plural subjectivity, disappear, and identity of class, of
to class relations will be suppressed, and even more so if they go in search

of those responsible (in terms of social relations) for their affflictions.
No serious analysis can examine, for example, ecological disasters and
the rights of children, women and indigenous peoples in Latin America, or
of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the United States, without linking
them to class relations. Thus, if individual freedom, diversity and multicul-
turalism manage to prosper, it will not be thanks to capital but, like many
other signs of life, in spite of it, as was once the case with the extended
family and its community, and subsequently the nuclear family. It is also
worth noting that, although capital and the class it represents need the
reproduction of the working class, they have never been particularly con-
cerned about the death or the hardships of specifĳic individuals, as great as
their number may be. Indeed, for neoliberals, more than for their prede-
cessors, the liberals and the Keynesians, a large proportion of the human
race is superfluous. As a result, respect for human life, which has in any
case been a fragile notion in every historical period of capitalism, is drasti-
cally reduced, and the nature of that respect becomes increasingly com-
plex; on the one hand, neoliberalism leaves glimmers of life, while on the
other it repudiates the human drive to live and promotes a cultural design
which, in multiple forms, fosters thanatophilia.
Drug addiction, which afffects millions of young people around the
world, is one of these forms; but the whole framework of the state admin-
istration of criminal activity is profoundly thanatophilic. For example, in
Mexico there is a long history of femicides, to which has been added a
new craze of neoliberal culture: juvenicides.49 This is not only the product
of external aggression killing young people; youth are learning how to
be victims of and victimize one another; for example with practices
such as cyber-bullying50 as a way of relating between friends and peers,
undermining any vestige of emotional support or solidarity. They thus
become accustomed to living in a world that attacks them from with-
out and from within. Even the presentation of the spectacles offfered by
belonging to a specifĳic historic subject, acquires the dimension of political discourse”

(Toledano, 2008).
49 “It isn’t bullets; it’s a perverse state policy at political economic, social and cultural
levels which is killing our youth. In Juárez, but not only in Juárez, throughout the nation,
whether they are the murderers or the murdered, all of our youth are victims” (Quintana,
2010).
50 “Among the new mechanisms of harassment and victimization is so-called cyber-
bullying, whereby cell phones and the Internet are used to ‘record humiliating acts and
broadcast them, with the purpose of causing the social death of the victim via the social
networks.” (Velasco, 2010).
236 chapter nine
capital – innocent spaces for amusement – is impregnated with this cul-

ture of death; in soccer, for example, the fans of a team turn into veritable
religious fanatics, willing to beat and even kill the infĳidels, that is, fans of
the opposing team.
The thanatophilia of neoliberal capital promotes and trivializes death.
It vulgarizes death to the point of offfering death pornography as a new
cultural product:
“A war unleashed by a Global Empire against a globalized world necessitates
the desacralization of death. This war is global because (among other rea-
sons) it is preemptive. The United States decides where the enemy is, who it
is and how to fĳight it. Nobody knows when they will be transformed into an
‘enemy’ of the Global Empire and be included in its ‘preemptive war’. If the
war covers the planet, death must be depicted (through the mass media) as an
‘everyday landscape’. War is the legalization of death. The ‘war’ is that space
within which killing is permitted and required. To kill ‘in’ the war is to be a
hero. ‘Out’ of it, it is to be a murderer. Therefore, the war must be seen. That
is, it must be made obscene. The obscene is fully visible, as is the porno-
graphic. Pornography is boring because its brutal naturalism is overwhelm-
ing and quickly tiring. Eroticism, which appeals to creativity, to the
imagination, is infĳinite. What is needed then is to show death pornographi-
cally. The cause: this whole planet at war should assume that death is a spec-
tacle. One more. One among many. Something that is out there; on the front
page of the daily papers. And which we will forget about as soon as we turn
the page” (Feinmann, 2005, emphasis added).
Finally, because profĳit is all that matters, neoliberal culture is a design of
global trivialization, of sex, love, life and death, as well as of politics or
philosophy: “Just as the reality show fosters the pornographic exploitation
of life, the information phenomenon, by and large, appears to play the
same role for death… Ultimately, ‘sex pornography will be succeeded by
death pornography’… What the infĳinite production of audiovisual events
focused on death does (just as pornography does with sex) is feed a con-
sumerist logic… Death is one of the indispensable stars in the spectacle
of the image” (Pacheco Benites, 2008). This turn taken by history might
prompt us to recall an observation of Marx, that “[c]riticism has torn up
the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the
unadorned, bleak chain, but so that he will shake offf the chain and pluck
the living flower” (Marx, 1844).51 The chain is real and heavy, and life
requires an increasing efffort to adorn it with flowers that make it livable.
51 “To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to
give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo,
the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo” (Marx, 1844).
The Spaceship
Associated with this dearth of colors to adorn its domination is a peculiar,

paradoxical fact: neoliberal capital denies its role as the producer of its
own product. A brief example will serve to illustrate a few general features
of the technique it has developed.
At the meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to
assess the results of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce fossil fuel consumption,
the U.S. president, George W. Bush deemed the question closed: “Let’s quit
the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by
natural causes; let’s just focus on technologies that deal with the issue”
(ETC Group, 2007, emphasis added). In other words, when a problem
becomes undeniable, the fĳirst step is to open a debate about its causes; in
step two, it proves impossible to reach agreement about the causes and,
therefore, about those responsible; in step three, the search for causes and
culprits is abandoned and the focus turns to solutions, for which the
appropriate package has already been prepared. Of course, this technique
can be combined with the shock doctrine explored by Naomi Klein as
mentioned earlier. But what is signifĳicant here is that the producer
vanishes: the product (the problem) is orphaned. While liberals and
Keynesians could show their products with a certain pride to all mankind
and afffĳirm emphatically “this is my work,” under the conditions of
neoliberalism, viewing the situation as whole, there is not much to boast
about.
The result is that when globalization becomes overwhelmed with
problems – including excessive concentration of wealth, unemployment,
poverty, hunger, migration and social uprooting, crime, economic, and
environmental and public health crises – the producer vanishes, and the
promised global village – a global community, a world without borders,
with progressive harmonization and homogenization (Ianni, 1996: 5–6) –
quickly turns into a spaceship traveling without a pilot, destination
unknown, transporting individuals who are lost, in decline, and threat-
ened with extinction (Ianni, 1996: 8–9).
The Fetishism of Capital
The renunciation of the pleasures and responsibilities of paternity should

not be mistaken for mere cynical trickery or misplaced modesty. In this
apparent lack of a producer, there is an acknowledgment of a profound
reality: it is not the capitalists, but capital, that is guiding the process.
238 chapter nine
The examination of capital, rather than capitalists, as the controlling

force behind the process, is closely tied to the issue of fetishism. I will
examine here three of the properties attributed to it by Marx: in capital-
ism, as things (commodities, money, means of production and subsis-
tence), are turned into agents and functional forms of a social relation,
fĳirstly, they are invested with social properties; secondly, they acquire
autonomous action, independent of the will and consciousness of human
beings, and, thirdly, in acquiring their own action, they assume command
over producers, and over society as a whole.
In Chapter I of Capital, Volume I, Marx explains how, when the product
of labor assumes the form of a commodity, it appears to acquire a life of its
own and to assume, as a thing, an inanimate object, social properties and
autonomous action52: “this I call the fetishism which attaches itself to the
products of labor, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which
is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities” (Marx, 1867:
Ch. 1, Sect. 4). Fetishism, as Marx indicates when he revisits the topic in
Chapter 48 of Capital Volume 3, “transforms the social relations for which
the material elements of wealth serve as bearers in production, into prop-
erties of these things themselves (commodities) and still more pro-
nouncedly transforms the production relation itself into a thing (money)”
(Marx, 1894: Ch. 48, emphasis added). This fetishism, explains Marx, arises
from the fact that commodities are products of private labors exercised
independently from one another. These private labors taken collectively
are what constitute the global social labor and as producers do not enter
into social contact until they exchange the products of their labor, the spe-
cifĳically social attributes of these private labors are expressed only within
the framework of that exchange.53
To producers, therefore, “the relations connecting the labor of one indi-
vidual with that of the rest appear not as direct social relations between
individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between
persons and social relations between things” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48, emphasis
52 In the commodity form, the “social character of men’s labor appears to them as an
objective character stamped upon the product of that labor; properties pertaining to them
by nature, as objective determinations of the products of labor themselves… reflecting the
social relation which mediates between producers and global labor, as a social relation
between objects, existing outside the producers” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1, Sect. 4).
53 “The category of ‘abstract labor’ is closely associated with the critical theory of fetish-
ism because it is the indirect sociability, performed a posteriori, of global social labor that
is reifĳied in the products that take on lives of their own and ultimately take over in the capi-
talism of our times” (Kohan, 2007).
added). And in the chapter “The Trinity Formula,” Marx notes that “all
forms of society, in so far as they reach the stage of commodity-production
and money circulation, take part in this perversion. But under the capital-
ist mode of production and in the case of capital, which forms its domi-
nant category, its determining production relation, this enchanted and
perverted world develops still more” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48). It is not only that
things (products) acquire social properties, but that they acquire autono-
mous action, independent of the will and the consciousness of their pro-
ducers. Thus, for example, quantities in commodity exchange relations
“vary continually, independently of the will, foresight and action of the
producers” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48). And in this action, producers fall under
the command of their products; the social action of the producers “takes
the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being
ruled by them” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48, emphasis added).
As the processes unfold, the more mediations intervene, the more the
internal connection – “the nexus, the link and the passage between two
moments of development and the action” (Kohan, 2009) – that joins them
is concealed, the more the action of things shifts beyond the control of the
producers and the more accentuated the command of these things over
their producers becomes. Marx traces a line that follows the general devel-
opment of this process. In “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret
Thereof” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1), he examines the difffĳiculties associated with
identifying the internal connection between value and the value form,
while in “The Trinity Formula” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48) he takes the same
approach to identify the internal connection between the product of value
and its distribution in profĳit, income and wages.
In the direct production process, he notes, the relation is still very sim-
ple, and “the actual connection impresses itself upon the bearers of this
process, the capitalists themselves, and remains in their consciousness.
The violent struggle over the limits of the working-day demonstrates this
strikingly. But even within this non-mediated sphere, the sphere of direct
action between labor and capital, matters do not rest in this simplicity.
With the development of relative surplus-value… whereby the productive
powers of social labor are developed, these productive powers and the
social interrelations of labor in the direct labor process seem transferred
from labor to capital. Capital thus becomes a very mystic being since all of
labor’s social productive forces appear to be due to capital, rather than
labor as such…” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48). And he adds: “Then the process of
circulation intervenes, with its changes of substance and form, on which
all parts of capital, even agricultural capital, devolve… This is a sphere
240 chapter nine
where the relations under which value is originally produced are pushed
completely into the background… the surplus-value contained in the
commodities seem not merely to be realized in the circulation, but actu-
ally to arise from it… This sphere is the sphere of competition which, con-
sidered in each individual case, is dominated by chance; where, then, the
inner law, which prevails in these accidents and regulates them, is only
visible when these accidents are grouped together in large numbers,
where it remains therefore invisible and unintelligible to the individual
agents in production” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48).
To sum up, “the actual process of production, as a unity of the direct
production process and the circulation process, gives rise to new forma-
tions, in which the vein of internal connections is increasingly lost, the
production relations are rendered independent of one another, and
the component values become ossifĳied into forms independent of one
another… the inner connection [is] completely disrupted… precisely
because the relations of production, which are bound to the various mate-
rial elements of the production process, have been rendered mutually
independent… we have the complete mystifĳication of the capitalist mode
of production, the conversion of social relations into things… it is an
enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48).
Fetishism and Ideology
The concept of fetishism, which explains how things acquire social prop-
erties, autonomous action and command over human beings, reflects a
reality generated by the capitalist relations of production; it is an appear-
ance that necessarily corresponds to an essence, which is modifĳied only
when that essence changes.54 This fetishized form of social relations,
according to Kosik’s analysis, shapes the world of the pseudo-concrete,
made up of the diffferent phenomena that crowd the everyday environ-
ment, which with their regularity, immediacy and self-evidence penetrate
54 “Whence, then,” asks Marx, “arises the enigmatical character of the product of labor,
so soon as it assumes the form of commodities? Clearly from this form itself… fetishism…
attaches itself to the products of labor so soon as they are produced as commodities, and…
is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.” And he adds: “The recent
scientifĳic discovery, that the products of labor, [in] so far as they are values, are but material
expressions of the human labor spent in their production, marks, indeed, an epoch in the
history of the development of the human race, but by no means dissipates the mist through
which the social character of labor appears to us to be an objective character of the prod-
ucts themselves” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1).
the consciousness of individuals, assuming an independent and natural

quality; it is the world of the external phenomena, of procuring and
manipulation (fetishized praxis) of ordinary representations, of the fĳixed
objects that appear to be natural conditions and are not immediately rec-
ognizable as the result of social activity (Kosik, 1976: 2).
Individuals create their representations of things and a system of “con-
cepts” (a set of representations or categories of “routine thinking”) with
which they capture and fĳix the phenomenal aspect of reality. However, as
Kosik explains, “these phenomenal forms of reality are diverse and often
contradict the law of the phenomenon, the structure of the thing, i.e. its
essential inner kernel, and the corresponding concept… Immediate utili-
tarian praxis and corresponding routine thinking allow people to fĳind
their way about in the world, to feel familiar with things and to manipulate
them, but it does not provide them with a comprehension of things and of
reality” (Kosik, 1976: 1–2). The phenomenon simultaneously reveals and
conceals the essence. The essence is manifested in the phenomenon only
partially; mediated by the phenomenon, it is shown as something other
than what it is. The real contradictions and connections between the part
and the whole, the appearance and the essence, remain concealed, and
only scientifĳic investigation can uncover the link the joins them: as Marx
notes, “all science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and
the essence of things directly coincided” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48).55
Fetishism is not a simple ideological construction, but the necessary
form assumed by social relations in capitalism. However, insofar as this
appearance expresses the command of things, i.e. of the logic of capital, it
is an appearance assumed by the capitalist – who “is merely capital per-
sonifĳied and functions in the process of production solely as the agent of
capital” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48) – who at once becomes the spokesperson for
the command of capital, while fetishism becomes a permanent condition
of the ideology of capitalism (and opposition to the command of things is
established as criticism of fetishism). As high priests of the capital-god, all
the intellectual effforts of capitalists are dedicated to responding to control
by capital, to diligently monitor and study the market indicators so as to
follow to the letter the instructions of the invisible hand; in short, to codify
55 On this basis, Marx contrasts classical political economics with vulgar economics:
.“..by Classical Political Economy, I understand that economy which, since the time of
William Petty, has investigated the real relations of production in bourgeois society, in
contradistinction to vulgar economy, which deals with appearances only…” (Marx, 1894:
Ch. 48, fn 33).
242 chapter nine
the command of ‘things’ over human beings. Their ideology, designed to

explain their mission to themselves and afffĳirm their credibility to the
dominated, is based on a fetishized reality created, as Marx explains, by
vulgar economics, which “does no more than interpret, systematize and
defend in doctrinaire fashion the conceptions of the agents of bourgeois
production,” who are themselves prisoners of bourgeois production rela-
tions: “vulgar economy feels particularly at home in the estranged out-
ward appearances of economic relations… these relations seem the more
self-evident the more their internal relationships are concealed from it,
although they are understandable to the popular mind… As soon as the
vulgar economist arrives at this incommensurable relation, everything
becomes clear to him, and he no longer feels the need for further thought.
For he has arrived precisely at the ‘rational’ in bourgeois conception”
(Marx, 1894: Ch. 48).56
The Spaceship and Its Pilot
Although fetishism is a general condition of social relations under capital-

ism, the capacity for rule developed by the logic of capital is afffected by
various conditions. First of all, fetishism is more greatly accentuated when
the activity developed in social relations becomes more complex and
mediated: “In our description of how production relations are converted
into entities and rendered independent in relation to the agents of pro-
duction, we leave aside the manner in which the interrelations, due to the
world-market, its conjunctures, movements of market prices, periods of
credit, industrial and commercial cycles, alternations of prosperity and
crisis, appear to them as overwhelming natural laws that irresistibly enforce
their will over them, and confront them as blind necessity” (Marx, 1894:
Ch. 48, emphasis added).
Secondly, it is also more greatly accentuated as the development of the
logic of capital becomes more uncontrolled, as the natural form of domi-
nation is more fĳirmly established, and as subjects lose “their autonomy,
their rationality, their capacity for democratic planning of social relations
and their control over their conditions of existence and coexistence with
their environment” (Kohan, 2007). These two conditions appear to be fully
56 According to Kosik, “agents of social conditions feel at ease, as fĳish do in water, in the
world of phenomenal forms that are alienated from their internal connections and are in
such isolation absolutely senseless” (Kosik, 1976: 2, emphasis added).
developed under the conditions of neoliberal capital domination, which

brings together the circumstances of globalized capital which, as it spreads
around the world, has efffectively taken apart all of the controls constructed
under Keynesianism and has returned to the conditions of the natural
form of domination. The spaceship does not lack a pilot; it is governed by
the logic of fetishized things, by the logic of capital.57
In the fĳinal section of this chapter, I will examine the direction being
taken by this ship, at least according to the spokespeople for the pilot who,
as its personifĳications, are convinced that their master is immortal58 and,
as such, humankind and its historical development have no alternative
but to submit to the command of the fetish.59 But fĳirst, I will offfer a reflec-
tion on the power of the fetish in the neoliberal world.
The Command of the Fetish
In the previous section, I examined three of the properties of the fetishism

of capital, related to how things acquire social properties, autonomous
action and command over producers. To these properties, a fourth must
be added: capitalist production relations are presented as eternal.
“Capital,” says Marx, “is not a thing, but rather a defĳinite social produc-
tion relation, belonging to a defĳinite historical formation of society, which
is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specifĳic social character.
Capital is not the sum of the material and produced means of production.
Capital is rather the means of production transformed into capital, which
in themselves are no more capital than gold or silver in itself is money”
(Marx, 1894: Ch. 48, emphasis added). The means of production and labor
are eternal conditions for human production, unlike the social relation,
57 According to Ianni, the metaphor of the spaceship carries with it the idea of the
decline of the status of individuals, either singular or collective, as a subject of reason and
of history, now reduced to “producing the material and spiritual conditions of their subor-
dination and probable dissolution.” And he adds, quoting Robert Kurz: “Universal reason,
supposedly absolute, has been debased to mere functional rationality at the service of the
process of appreciation of money (which has no subject), even to the point of the contem-
porary unconditional capitulation of the so-called sciences of the spirit” (Ianni, 1996: 8).
58 “These formulae, which bear it stamped upon them in unmistakable letters that they
belong to a state of society in which the process of production has the mastery over man
instead of being controlled by him… appear to the bourgeois intellect to be as much a self-
evident necessity imposed by Nature as productive labor itself” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1).
59 In contrast with this submission to the fetish, Marx asserts that “the life-process of
society, which is based on the material process or production, does not strip offf its mystical
veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated
by them in accordance with a settled plan” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1, Sect. 4).
244 chapter nine
which converts them into capital, and converts capital into wage-labor.
But fetishism identifĳies the social relation with the thing itself, and the
latter thus appears just as eternal as the former.
Fetishism, as a support to the eternal nature of capitalism, is the ulti-
mate basis of bourgeois ideology: the social properties, autonomous action
and command over producers associated with things are not, to the
fetishizing mind, individual conditions of a moment in the history of
humanity, but their general, immutable and eternal conditions60 and, as
such, are insuperable: “The formal independence of these conditions of
labor in relation to labor, the unique form of this independence with
respect to wage-labor, is then a property inseparable from them as things,
as material conditions of production, an inherent, immanent, intrinsic
character of them as elements of production. Their defĳinite social charac-
ter in the process of capitalist production bearing the stamp of a defĳinite
historical epoch is a natural and intrinsic substantive character belonging
to them, as it were, from time immemorial, as elements of the production
process” (Marx, 1894: Ch. 48, emphasis added).
Thus, at least for those who are ideological prisoners of capitalist pro-
duction relations, against the power of the fetish there is nothing that can
be done. Consequently, the starting point for emancipation from the ideo-
logical domination of capital consists in social questioning of capitalist
ownership, the abandonment of the fetishist perception of its eternal
nature and of the need to submit to its command. Once we break free of
this fetishism, we fĳind that both the competitiveness and criminal activity
that dominate the world today are at the service of the fetish, that their
needs are derived from the needs of the fetish. Thus, at least on the ideo-
logical level, we experience a radical liberation which is necessary,
although by no means sufffĳicient, to give the working class the capacity to
oppose the power of capital (economic, political and ideological).61
60 “The changed form of the conditions of labor, i.e. alienated from labor and confront-
ing it independently, whereby the produced means of production are thus transformed
into capital, and the land into monopolized land, or landed property – this form belonging
to a defĳinite historical period thereby coincides with the existence and function of the pro-
duced means of production and of the land in the process of production in general… [I]f
labor as wage-labor is taken as the point of departure, so that the identity of labor in gen-
eral with wage-labor appears to be self-evident, then capital and monopolized land must
also appear as the natural form of the conditions of labor in relation to labor in general”
(Marx, 1894: Ch. 48).
61 “The recent scientifĳic discovery, that the products of labor, [in] so far as they are val-
ues, are but material expressions of the human labor spent in their production, marks,
indeed, an epoch in the history of the development of the human race, but, by no means
In the following chapter, I will examine the general conditions for this
process, but it is worth noting here that liberation from the ideological
domination of capital is associated with a general process of decline of
capitalism that makes it necessary to overcome it by transforming it into a
society of freely associated human beings who submit the material pro-
duction process to their planned and conscious control, “instead of being
ruled by it as by a blind power.” However, in the world today we are faced
with a paradox: the same conditions that are making it increasingly urgent
to break free of the domination of capital are also rendering that libera-
tion more difffĳicult. The fetish is weakened but at the same time increas-
ingly fĳierce and threatening, like an old man refusing to die, forcing
humanity to pay the heavy price of sufffering a long and destructive termi-
nal phase.
The defeat of capitalism as the fulfĳillment of a historic need is an open
process, involving the conditions under which the transformation may
take place, that is, the degree to which the logic of the fetish will develop
before humanity frees itself from its command, and the possibility that
such liberation may be thwarted if the fetish and its personifĳications end
up destroying humanity, as warn some of the more pessimistic assessors of
both the magnitude of the destructive capacity that capital has attained in
the contemporary world and the growing and increasingly radical con-
tempt it shows for life.
Globalization: The Enhanced Power of the Fetish

In previous chapters, I examined the economics of neoliberal capital as an
apparatus employed to achieve its most basic and intimate goal, to con-
centrate all of the world’s wealth, and its politics as a systematic design to
position nation-states in line with this purpose by establishing them as
spaces of global political power that guarantee the free movement of capi-
tal and the global administration of competitiveness and criminal activity,
both to strengthen its economics and its politics and to resolve the prob-
lems of what it calls social governance, meaning the obstacles raised by
social resistance.
dissipates the mist through which the social character of labor appears to us to be an objective
character of the products themselves… The fact that in the particular form of production
with which we are dealing, viz., the production of commodities, the specifĳic social charac-
ter of private labor carried on independently, consists in the equality of every kind of that
labor, by virtue of its being human labor, which character, therefore, assumes in the prod-
uct the form of value – this fact appears to the producers, notwithstanding the discovery
above referred to, to be… real and fĳinal” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 1, Sect. 4, emphasis added).
246 chapter nine
In dismantling the nation-state as the historic space for the regulation

of its behavior,62 neoliberal capital established conditions unparalleled
in the history of capitalism for the full deployment of the power of the
fetish and gave rise to “economic forces that impose on society the quest
for profĳit as an absolute priority… a fĳinancial and economic system that
has been placed out of the reach of any social and political intervention”
(Touraine, 2010, emphasis added).
Subjugated more than ever before in the history of capitalism to the
command of the fetish, “human beings and concepts of life are disappear-
ing from economic concepts… the theory and the praxis of economics no
longer has the real needs of humanity as its point of departure; society
loses its primacy over economics and any reflection on society has van-
ished” (Kurnitsky, 2000).63 In the words of Samir Amín, “capitalism… has
done away with any system of human values, replacing it with the exclu-
sive exigencies of submission to the supposed laws of the market;” (Amin,
2003a) and, according to Kohan, “it is the capitalist mercantile society –
which today has reached truly global dimensions, although potentially it
has had such dimensions since its infancy – which erases human beings,
eliminates any possibility of their deciding rationally on the social order,
annihilates their political sovereignty and exercises a despotic control
over their daily lives and their mental health” (Kohan, 2007).64
Problems… Without Solutions
Under these conditions problems are plentiful, and perusing any newspa-
per can reveal what daily life has turned into in this world dominated
by neoliberal capital: on almost any day in the last two years, in any of
the countries of the world, the menu of news includes competitiveness,
poverty, unemployment, terrorism, crime, and crises of various kinds
(economic, environmental, health crises, etc.). Opinions of the spokespeo-
ple for neoliberal capital abound, invariably focused on arguing for
62 “Freeing up trade and industry from any state protection or control is today the aim
openly stated by politicians and big industrialists” (Kurnitzky, 2000).
63 “Free competition of private economic interests is ultimately replacing all forms of
social coexistence” (Kurnitsky, 2000).
64 “The apparent ‘absolute objectivity’ of the social order ends up predominating over
the subjectivities subjugated to the fetishist order… The rules governing the life of this
objectivity, which are beyond all human control, assume absolute autonomy and take the
helm of the ship of society. They become independent of the collective conscience and
will” (Kohan, 2007).
the unavoidable need to pursue and develop their policies, explaining

that the problems are due to their constantly inadequate application.65
In some periodicals at least, reflective opinions also appear. For exam-
ple, Touraine examines the economic and environmental crises and
asserts that
“we have to acknowledge that we have reached the limits of the possible try-
ing to maintain our way of life and our methods of fĳinancial management.
The combination of these two orders of problems places us indisputably
under a risk of a greater catastrophe. To this must be added a third crisis – a
crisis of political action… We fĳind ourselves facing three crises that mutually
reinforce one another, and there is currently no assurance that we will be
capable of fĳinding a solution to any of them. In other words, instead of
dreaming irresponsibly of a way out of the crisis which tends to be defĳined,
all too cheerfully, according to the recovery of profĳits by the banks, we need
to acknowledge the need to renew and transform political life so that it may be
capable of mobilizing all the forces possible against several fatal threats”
(Touraine, 2010, emphasis added).66
Fetishism and Postmodernity
But what is alarming is not only the magnitude of the problems but the
inability to resolve them: “in the near future, in the next ten years, we run
the risk of becoming victims of new economic crises, of an exacerbation of
the ecological hazard and of increasing political confusion… If we had to
say today what the most likely future is, the exacerbation of the crises or
the conception and construction of a new type of society based on respect
for human rights by the vast majority, we would have to respond honestly
that the pessimistic hypothesis is more probable than the optimistic
option, which places its confĳidence in the capacity of human beings to
save their own future” (Touraine, 2010).
65 Consider, for example, the following from two articles published in the January 6,
2010 edition of the Spanish newspaper El País: “They didn’t need three hours to work out
that they were in agreement on the basic point: to strengthen the economic government of
Europe, because this is the only possibility that the Old Continent has to compete with the
United States and emerging powers like Brazil, China and India” (Aizpeolea, 2010); “the
unsuccessful attempt of the suicide bomber has prompted the introduction of a controver-
sial system of body scanning… In 30 seconds, the traveler is stripped naked… The White
House has been quick to remind us that the loss of privacy may be a minor necessary evil in
the great struggle against terrorism” (Oppenheimer and Alandete, 2010, emphasis added).
66 This quote is taken from an article published on the same day as the two quoted
above.
248 chapter nine
I have already examined how this inability to resolve the problems

it generates is structurally grounded in the domination of neoliberal
capital, deriving from the fact that strategies are not designed to resolve
them but to administrate them, and the fact that neoliberal capital
defĳines the problems it creates as opportunities to pursue the develop-
ment of its logic. It should also be noted that postmodernity, which has
become the offfĳicial ideology of neoliberal capital, is used to construct a
discourse hostile to the search for solutions; a profoundly fetishized dis-
course, carefully elaborated to confĳirm the power of the fetish. Although
postmodernity pervades the work of many authors and (either as an
explicit theme or as implicit content) virtually all branches of knowledge
today, in some of its versions, such as that of Lyotard (1984), one of its
main theorists (and the one I will refer to here because, apart from
his consistent and systematic approach, his work has the advantage
of dealing specifĳically with the question of knowledge, and thus has
a direct afffĳinity with the subject of my analysis), we fĳind the examination
of capitalism as a “self-regulated system” that is “self-programmed like
an intelligent machine,” which dismisses what opposes it and which,
although its logic exacerbates society’s affflictions, offfers no alternative or
possibility of solution to the problems it creates: the post-modern narra-
tive, to put it in his own language, is the narrative of the ultimate victory of
the fetish.
Eliminating Dead Weight
According to Lyotard, “in the 1950s with Parsons’s conception of society as

a self-regulating system… the theoretical and even material model is no
longer the living organism; it is provided by cybernetics.” But in Parsons’s
work, “the principle behind the system is still, if I may say so, optimistic; it
corresponds to the stabilization of growth economies and societies of
abundance under the aegis of a moderate Welfare State” (Lyotard, 1984: 11).
In contrast, says Lyotard, “in the work of contemporary German theorists,
Systemtheorie is technocratic, even cynical, not to mention despairing; the
harmony between the needs and hopes of individuals or groups and the
functions guaranteed by the system is now only a secondary component
of its functioning; the true goal of the system, the reason it programs itself
like a computer, is the optimization of the global relationship between
input and output, in other words, performativity” (Lyotard, 1984: 11, empha-
sis added).
Liberal capitalism, says Lyotard, after having been subdued by

Keynesianism, has reasserted itself and, at its height, has eliminated both
Keynesianism and the “communist alternative”67 (Lyotard, 1984: 5). Under
these new conditions, “knowledge has become the principal force of pro-
duction… In the postindustrial and postmodern age, science will maintain
and no doubt strengthen its preeminence… [it] is already, and will con-
tinue to be, a major – perhaps the major – stake in the worldwide compe-
tition for power,” and the process “goes hand in hand with a change in the
function of the state… functions of regulation, and therefore of reproduc-
tion, are being and will be further withdrawn from administrators and
entrusted to machines” (Lyotard, 1984: 14, emphasis added).
Subjugated to the new exigencies of power and competition, knowl-
edge can no longer be legitimated by the narrative of speculation favored
by truth68, or by the narrative of emancipation favored by justice69, and
even less by a narrative that attempts a synthesis of truth and justice,
whereby “the scientifĳic search for true causes always coincides with the
pursuit of just ends in moral and political life… the only role positive
knowledge [denotative utterances referring to what is true] can play is to
inform the practical subject about the reality within which the execution
of the prescription is to be inscribed [referring to what is just]” (Lyotard,
1984: 32, 36). Thus, in the context of the fall of Keynesianism and of the
“communist alternative” and as an “efffect of the blossoming of techniques
and technologies… which has shifted emphasis from the ends of action to
its means… the grand narrative has lost its credibility… the project of the
system-subject is a failure, the goal of emancipation has nothing to do
with science” (Lyotard, 1984: 37, 41).
The modern alternative (legitimation by truth and by justice) is dis-
missed, and rising up in its place, defĳining “the nature of the social bond”,70
67 This obviously refers to the form of state capitalism that claimed the title of “real
socialism”, to which I referred in Chapters 4 and 5.
68 Science seeks “knowledge for its own sake… science obeys its own rules… Speculation
is here the name given the discourse on the legitimation of scientifĳic discourse… that is to
say, philosophical. Philosophy must restore unity to learning, which has been scattered
into separate sciences… to realize this project of totalization” (Lyotard, 1984, 32, 33, 34).
69 “The subject… is humanity as the hero of liberty. All peoples have a right to science…
The State receives its legitimacy not from itself but from the people… the State… assumes
direct control over the training of the ‘people’ under the name of the ‘nation’ in order to
point them down the path to progress… knowledge fĳinds its validity not within itself… but
in a practical subject – humanity… its epic is the story of its emancipation from everything
that prevents it from governing itself” (Lyotard, 1984: 31, 32, 35).
70 This is the title of Chapters 4 and 5 of Lyotard’s book.
250 chapter nine
is the postmodern form of legitimation, legitimation by performativity: “it

was more the desire for wealth than the desire for knowledge that initially
enforced upon technology the imperative of performance improvement…
the goal is no longer truth, but performativity71 – that is, the best possible
input/output equation. The state and/or company must abandon the ide-
alist or humanist narratives of legitimation in order to justify the new goal:
in the discourse of today’s fĳinancial backers of research, the only credible
goal is power. Instruments are purchased not to fĳind the truth, but to aug-
ment power…. The question posed by the state or institutions of higher
education is no longer ‘Is it true?’ but ‘What use is it?’ In the context of the
mercantilization of knowledge, more often than not this question is equiv-
alent to ‘Is it saleable?’ And in the context of power-growth: ‘Is it efffĳicient?’”
(Lyotard, 1984: 45, 46, 51, emphasis added).
Even the variant explored by Lyotard, which he calls “legitimation by
paralogy” (postmodern science as research into instabilities, which “per se
has little afffĳinity with the quest for performativity,” as the expansion of
science is not achieved “by means of the positivism of efffĳiciency,” but
through searching and inventing), is ultimately subjugated to legitimation
by performativity: “permissiveness toward the various games is made condi-
tional on performativity. The redefĳinition of the norms of life consists in
enhancing the system’s competence for power,” unless the scientist refuses
to “cooperate with the authorities,” and makes “a move in the direction
of counterculture, with the attendant risk that all possibility for research
will be foreclosed due to lack of funding” (Lyotard, 1984: 54, 64, emphasis
added).
The personifĳications of capital, the decision makers72 to use Lyotard’s
term, attempt to adapt all social life “to input/output matrices, following a
logic which implies that their elements are commensurable and that the
whole is determinable. They allocate our lives for the growth of power. In
matters of social justice and of scientifĳic truth alike, the legitimation of
71 According to Lyotard, the terms performance and performativity (of a system) refer to
“optimal performance and measurable efffĳiciency in input/output relations” and he adds
that, unlike a denotative utterance (in which “the addressee is put in a position of having
to give or refuse his assent”), the distinctive feature of a performative utterance “is that its
efffect upon the referent coincides with its enunciation… [it] is not subject to discussion or
verifĳication on the part of the addressee, who is immediately placed in the new context cre-
ated by the utterance” (Lyotard, 1984: 26, emphasis added).
72 “The ruling class is and will continue to be the class of the ‘decision makers’. It is no
longer composed of the traditional political class, but of a composite layer by corporate
leaders, high-level administrators, and the heads of the major professional, labor, political
and religious organizations” (Lyotard, 1984: 35).
that power is based on its optimizing the system’s performance –

efffĳiciency. The application of this criterion to all of our games necessarily
entails a certain terror, whether soft or hard” (Lyotard, 1984: 10).73
In the postmodern form of legitimation, legitimation by performativity,
it is easy enough to identify a radical submission to the logic of the fetish.
Capital does away with the dead wood represented by the old, obsolete
narratives and banalities such as truth and justice. However, more gener-
ally, what Lyotard’s examination reveals is the need, wholeheartedly
assumed by both its ideologues and its personifĳications, to unburden
capital of any consideration that is opposed to its self-regulation.
Rejecting Humanism
If the legitimation of postmodern knowledge is constituted by the perfor-

mativity of the fetish, it is a given that the old discourses – such as human-
ism or the political principle of the general public interest, which were
appealed to when seeking solutions to the problems affflicting humankind
(and now more than ever our problems truly afffect all of humankind) –
would be dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant. Although throughout this
study I have been advocating not only the relevance of, but the urgent
need for, an examination of the reality of the contemporary world from
the perspective of the analysis of class and from the position of those dis-
possessed of the means of production, the gravity of the problems afffect-
ing contemporary society, the risk that they represent to all human beings,
prompts consideration of the need to examine them from a humanist,74
universalist perspective.
Edward Said defended humanism as “the only, and I would go so far as
saying the fĳinal resistance we have against the inhuman practices and
injustices that disfĳigure human history” and the recovery of “the rational
interpretative skills that are the legacy of humanistic education… as
the active practice of a worldly secular, rational discourse” (Said, 2003).
73 Lyotard defĳines terror as “the efffĳiciency gained by the elimination or by the threat of
elimination of a ‘player’ from the language game one shares with him. He is silenced or
consents, not because he has been refuted, but because his ability to participate has been
threatened…” There are many ways in which he might be deprived of this ability. The threat
is essentially: “Adapt your aspirations to our ends, or else…” (Lyotard, 1984: 64).
74 The basic principle of humanism, according to Sader, is that “men make their own
history, even when they are not aware of the fact” (Sader, 2007). This allows criticism of
views that displace people as the center of the world, with its problems, but also with its
solutions, in favor of diverse fetishes (including capital, which is what concerns us here).
252 chapter nine
According to Touraine, the search for solutions “must have a universalist

character, as it represents the defense of the whole of humanity… We
appeal to human rights against economic globalization… We speak less
and less of interests and more and more of rights. Such is the chief trans-
formation of our society. It is so deep that it is hard for us to perceive it,
and, above all, we lack the institutional means necessary to resolve our
problems” (Touraine, 2010). And indeed, if we step back and remove the
blinders with which the fetishism of neoliberal ideology obscures our
vision, we will be struck by the profound irrationality that pervades the
contemporary world in relation to human needs: “everything is organized,
planned, prevented or induced with profĳit in mind,” a profĳit enjoyed only
by “the small number holding power, and for whom human lives outside
their private circle… have no existence… except as utilitarian assets”
(Forrester, 1999: 13, 126).75 The logic that capital imposes on society is in
profound contradiction with any humanist construction that we have,
even the most impoverished.
Of course, the perspective of the capitalist class is always biased
and hostile toward universalist integration but, given the nature of the
problems – at least those that threaten the very survival of humanity – it
should be more receptive and tolerant, yet it is not; Said himself com-
plained of the scornful dismissal of the humanism he defended “by sophis-
ticated postmodern critics” (Said, 2003). This should not greatly surprise
us; capital is far too concerned with its own afffairs – the gestation of the
last man absorbs all its energy – and lacks the time, interest and condi-
tions to concern itself with the afffairs of humanity. What is new, however,
lies in the fact that there is not only a virtual contempt, but a detailed
theoretical elaboration to dismiss any concern for anything as irrelevant
as humanity: “This swaggering boastfulness of a deregulated capitalism,
as the best of all possible worlds, is a novelty of the current hegemonic
system” (Anderson, 2004: 36).
In fact, far from viewing it as a contribution to possible solutions to
problems, they see in humanism a threat: Gustavo Ogarrio remarks on the
“attack of a kind of postmodernity against humanism, identifĳied without
nuances or contextual framing, which views any formulation departing
from any of the dimensions of the concepts of historicity and subject as a
75 “While social ferocity always existed, it had imperative limits, because labor resulting
from human lives was indispensable to those who held power… Never has humanity as a
whole been so threatened in its survival… human beings until now were always given a
guarantee: they were essential to the function of the planet” (Forrester, 1999: 126).
metanarrative or transcendentalist temptation” (Ogarrio, 2003). And

indeed, a humanism like the one proposed by Said is extremely dangerous,
as he describes it as “the ability to use one’s mind historically and ratio-
nally for the purposes of reflective understanding,” in opposition to “the
tightening of the grip of demeaning generalization and triumphalist cli-
ché, the dominance of crude power allied with simplistic contempt for
dissenters and “others,” on the part of “our leaders and their intellectual
lackeys” (Said, 2003).76
Rejecting Politics
In Chapters 7 and 8 I examined how nation-states – particularly underde-

veloped ones – have been systematically disabled as spaces for regulating
the behavior of capital in deference to a supreme principle: the all-
powerful market forces, which no human power can oppose. Capital rules
all and is ruled by nothing. The logic and rationale of transnationalized
capital is imposed upon the nation-state in the privileged position of rea-
son and the public interest constructed by bourgeois political science and,
in the absence of any institutional framework to replace it, the door is left
open for the wildest irrationality and particularization to be unleashed:
“to free the economy from the protection of the state means to free the
economy from the primacy of politics.
In so doing, democracy, the social contract, the rule of law and human
rights are cancelled, and the conquests of the French Revolution are all
rolled back. Because the French Revolution not only brought down abso-
lute monarchy; its historic conquest also consisted in making society mas-
ter of its own house, making representatives elected by universal sufffrage
those who made the decisions on the forms of social coexistence based
on a social contract, and creating a rule of law whereby society could
decide on the structure of its economy” (Kurnitsky, 2000). Neoliberal
76 In Latin America, although the development of antagonisms has been less intense
than in the Arab world, there is no shortage of authors who offfer a more extreme descrip-
tion of the danger that humanism represents for neoliberalism: “the countries of ALBA
[Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas] are building an economic system without precedent,
with the human being at the heart, based on solidarity, cooperation, redistribution and
complementariness. In contrast, the government and legislature of the United States retain
only a few remnants of a humanist and humanitarian vision of political economics. It is
worth examining this contrast further, because it clarifĳies the basic motive behind the
imperialist military aggression of the United States and its allies, which will probably lead
the region into war” (Solo, 2009, emphasis added).
254 chapter nine
capital, while provoking the disorganization of the material conditions for

national regulation and economic governance, has introduced a new com-
mon sense: “people needed to view the world as a dynamic of production,
circulation and consumption of commodities in highly depoliticized pro-
cesses and, therefore, to assess the facts and the meaning of those facts
according to this mercantile culture” (Tapia, 2008, emphasis added).
Politics and reflection on the public sphere is replaced, according to
Tapia, “by a culture of ‘entertainment’, where every politician, rather than
offfering a project for life and society, tries to appeal most to the audience,”
and by the mass media as forums for expression and production of public
opinion. The public sphere is just a show because it does not matter,
because its purpose is precisely to reinforce the conviction that it is irrel-
evant, that the important decisions have already been taken and the
course of history is already determined. Politics is thus rejected by neolib-
eral capital as a producer of solutions to the problems it generates, thereby
producing a crisis in the political sphere as a sphere of reflection, of pro-
posals of projects for existence with the capacity to make a real impact on
the regulation of relations between social classes. The irrationality of the
whole coexists with the rationality of the part as society as a whole is frag-
mented into unconnected segments.
If politics is, as Moulian argues, “the art of choosing goals” and “always
involves critical discussion, both historically and contextually, of the goals
that society adopts,” neoliberalism has eliminated it and, in doing so, has
eliminated the discussion of alternatives: “politics has been reduced to
administration… nobody seriously considers the replacement of any of
the core aspects of the system” (Moulian, 2000). This sterilization even
afffects philosophy. Most philosophers, according to Mario Bunge, “do not
address new problems, or explore what is happening in science and
technology, or concern themselves with the main problems confronting
humanity. Ontologists imagine possible worlds but ignore the only real
one; moral philosophers debate the problem of abortion in depth, but
overlook the much more serious problems of hunger, oppression and
fanaticism. Exaggerated attention to mini-problems and academic games;
insubstantial formalism and formless substantiality; fragmentarism and
aphorism… postmodernism, and, in particular, so-called ‘weak thought’,
have wreaked havoc in humanities departments” (Bunge, 2003).
In this way, the depoliticization fostered by the domination of neolib-
eral capital is permeating all branches of knowledge and expanding
throughout the citizenry of its democracy. The model citizen, solidly inte-
grated into the Competitiveness Promotion Brigades, does not reflect on
the hierarchy of society’s goals; but then neither does the pariah, the crim-
inal, the informal worker, the illegal immigrant, or the racist, xenophobic
neo-Nazi.77
Turning Dead Wood into Input
Let us return now to Lyotard to observe how dead wood like truth and
justice (although the same procedure can be extended to any uncomfort-
able narrative, such as humanism, democracy or the political theories of
the social contract or the common good) can be turned into input that
enhances the performativity of capital. But fĳirst, to avoid any confusion, it
is worth reiterating where the absolute priority lies: “Having competence
in a performative-oriented skill does indeed seem saleable… and it is efffĳi-
cient by defĳinition. What no longer makes the grade is competence as defĳined
by other criteria, such as true/false, just/unjust, etc.” (Lyotard, 1984: 51,
emphasis added). Nevertheless, in relation to truth, it is important to recall
a few salient points.
Firstly (as is obvious), that the aim is not to reject the production of
knowledge in general, but to encourage the production of relevant knowl-
edge. Those who have resources to fund research, even for the dissemina-
tion of the knowledge, are the state and the companies, but the funds are
allocated “in accordance with this logic of power growth. Research sectors
that are unable to argue that they contribute… to the optimization of the
system’s performance are abandoned… The criterion of performance is
explicitly invoked by the authorities to justify their refusal to subsidize
certain research centers… The desired goal becomes… the best performativ-
ity of the social system… The general efffect [of the performativity
principle] is to subordinate the institutions of higher learning to the
authorities” (Lyotard, 1984: 47–48, emphasis added).
Secondly, this truth, which is partial, biased and relevant only to the
logic of the development of the fetish, can be promoted to the category of
the socially prevailing truth: “No money, no proof – and that means… no
truth. The games of scientifĳic language become the games of the rich, in
which whoever is wealthiest has the best chance of being right” (Lyotard,
1984: 45).
77 “Life is lived in immediate terms, never thinking in perspective; the world has no
future, [because] ‘the future is already here’. History has no meaning in relation to what lies
ahead” (Aruj, 2000).
256 chapter nine
Thirdly, a circle is closed around wealth, performativity and truth: “An

equation between wealth, efffĳiciency and truth is thus established… no
technology without wealth, but no wealth without technology… science
becomes a force of production, in other words, a moment in the circula-
tion of capital… since performativity increases the ability to produce
proof, it also increases the ability to be right: the technical criterion,
introduced on a massive scale into scientifĳic knowledge, cannot fail to
influence the truth criterion” (Lyotard, 1984: 84, 86).78 It is thus clear
that the aim is to establish a relevant relation between truth and
performance.
In Chapter 7, I examined how democracy is turned into neoliberal
democracy, i.e. stripped of all of its critical potential, of all that might
hinder the development of the logic of the fetish; reduced in theory to a
procedural issue disconnected from any construction of socioeconomic
totality and in practice to the act of fĳilling in and submitting a ballot paper,
it becomes a “performative” democracy, an input that enhances the
performativity of capital. And once the technique has been acquired, the
procedure79 can be applied, in general terms, to various objects. For exam-
ple, with regard to “the relationship between justice and performance: the
probability that an order would be pronounced just was said to increase
with its chances of being implemented, which would in turn increase with
the performance capability of the prescriber,” with the result that “the nor-
mativity of laws is replaced by the performativity of procedures” (Lyotard,
1984: 46, emphasis added).
Rejecting Criticism
Thus, the postmodern program does not reject truth, justice, humanism,
the common good, democracy, or the social contract in general. What it
explicitly posits is the concept of the relevant relationship between these
narratives and the performativity of capital. It is thus concerned with
78 “Whence its credibility: it has the means to become a reality, and that is all the proof
it needs. This is what Horkheimer called the ‘paranoia’ of reason” (Lyotard, 1984: 12).
79 “This procedure operates within the following framework: since ‘reality’ is what pro-
vides the evidence used as proof in scientifĳic argumentation, and also provides prescrip-
tions and promises of a juridical, ethical and political nature with results, one can master
all of these games by mastering ‘reality’. That is precisely what technology can do. By rein-
forcing technology, one reinforces ‘reality’ and one’s chances of being just and right
increase accordingly” (Lyotard, 1984: 47).
turning them from dead wood into input that will enhance this performa-
tivity. In other words, it is concerned with eliminating criticism made from
these perspectives of the logic of the fetish, eliminating any construction
based on them that might be turned into a project of emancipation, in
order to make them relevant to the development of the logic of the fetish.
“[T]his realism of systematic self-regulation, and this perfectly sealed cir-
cle of facts and interpretations” Lyotard argues “can be judged paranoid
only if one has, or claims to have, at one’s disposal a viewpoint that is in
principle immune from their allure. This is the function of the principle of
class struggle in theories of society based on the work of Marx” (Lyotard,
1984: 12).
Thus, if this viewpoint is eliminated (i.e. if Marxism is eliminated80), we
will be happily settled in this paranoid realism of the systematic self-
regulation of the fetish: “This is how legitimation by power takes shape.
Power is not only good performativity, but also efffective verifĳication and
good verdicts… It is self-legitimating, in the same way a system organized
around performance maximization seems to be” (Lyotard, 1984: 47). The
elimination of this viewpoint thus becomes the core purpose of the post-
modernist narrative.
This viewpoint, as I indicated in the fĳirst chapters of this work, was
constructed by Marx from two intersecting perspectives: the fĳirst refers to
necessary relations, independent of the will and consciousness of human
beings, relations which have a tendential development and which neces-
sarily lead to the end of the capitalist mode of production, while the sec-
ond relates to the struggle of the classes. Lyotard, as will be shown below,
does not commit the vulgarity of declaring the internal contradictions
of capitalism resolved, as do some other postmodernists, but positions
his argument that the critical model has been invalidated at the level of
the class struggle. The delegitimation of the emancipation narrative is
based on the retreat of Keynesianism and the defeat of “the communist
alternative.” According to his assessment of Marxism, “in the countries
with liberal or advanced liberal management,” the struggles inspired by
Marxism have been transformed into “regulators of the system,” while
“in communist countries, the totalizing model and its totalitarian efffect
80 Although the discourse of “the decline of the unifying and legitimating power of the
grand narratives” is targeted at any criticism of the logic of the fetish, its privileged target is
Marxism. According to Lyotard, “it would be easy to show that Marxism has wavered
between the two models of narrative legitimation [of speculation and emancipation]”
(Lyotard, 1984: 36).
258 chapter nine
have made a comeback in the name of Marxism itself, and the struggles
in question have simply been deprived of the right to exist” (Lyotard,
1984: 13).81
In this way – and this is his fĳinal argument – “the social foundation of
the principle of division, or class struggle, was blurred to the point of los-
ing all of its radicality; we cannot conceal the fact that the critical model
in the end lost its theoretical standing and was reduced to the status of a
‘utopia’ or ‘hope’, a token protest raised in the name of man or reason or
creativity, or again of some social category – such as the Third World or the
students – on which is conferred in extremis the henceforth improbable
function of critical subject” (Lyotard, 1984: 13). In contrast with the post-
modernist position, over the course of these chapters I have explained
the historical trajectory taken by the diffferent eras of capitalist domina-
tion, and the conclusion that can be drawn from this examination
(particularly in the case of the neoliberal pattern) – the need to further
develop this criticism – is exactly the opposite of that put forward by the
postmodernists.
The domination pattern concept is useful for analysis, but also for polit-
ical purposes. It is useful for analysis because it links the history of domi-
nation to the tendencies that have directed the historical development of
capitalism and to the circumstances of the class struggle. It is useful for
political purposes because it reveals the subject of the process (class or a
faction thereof), helping to dismantle the most intrinsic tactic of bour-
geois ideology aimed at defusing any inquiry by the dominated classes
who seek the cause of and the solution to their woes: to present the order
of capitalist society as an expression of human nature, the needs of capital
as natural needs and the process of capital as natural, as a process without
a subject. If, as its ideologues take for granted, the laws governing the oper-
ation of capital are as natural and eternal as the law of gravity, the affflic-
tions of the workers are natural, eternal and irremediable and the only
rational response is resignation. But as capital is in fact a product of soci-
ety and history, resignation is not only irrational but impossible and,
although for Lyotard it is merely a “token protest raised in the name of
man,” the project of emancipation of humanity from the power of the
fetish – the incorrigible utopia referred to in a song by Spanish songwriter
81 “Everywhere the Critique of political economy (the subtitle of Marx’s Capital) and its
correlate, the critique of alienated society, are used in one way or another as aids in pro-
gramming the system” (Lyotard, 1984: 13).
Joan Manuel Serrat,82 which “is not satisfĳied with the possible,” and “raises
hurricanes of rebellion” – is as inalienable a feature of the working class as
the will to live itself. “Without utopia, life would be a rehearsal for death”
sings Serrat, and he is right for two reasons.
First, because the class struggle in capitalism remains unaltered: the
weakness and defeat of those dispossessed of the means of production,
which under the current circumstances has resulted in their resistance
being “blurred to the point of losing all of its radicality,” has as a necessary
correlate the reinforcement and the fĳierce radicalization of the struggle on
the side of capital. Second, because with its development, capital tends to
aggravate the social ills that it provokes, as Lyotard himself acknowledges:
“The logic of maximum performance is no doubt inconsistent in many
ways, particularly with respect to contradiction in the socioeconomic
fĳield: it demands both less work (to lower production costs) and more (to
lessen the social burden of the idle population). But,” he adds, in keeping
with a discourse convinced of the eternal nature of the fetish, “our incre-
dulity is now such that we no longer expect salvation to rise from these
inconsistencies, as did Marx” (Lyotard, 1984: xxiv). He subsequently con-
fĳirms this point of view: “Even when its rules are in the process of changing
and innovations are occurring, even when its dysfunctions (such as strikes,
crises, unemployment, or political revolutions) inspire hope and lead to
belief in an alternative, what is actually taking place is an internal read-
justment, and its result can be no more than an increase in the system’s
‘viability’. The only alternative to this kind of performance improvement is
entropy, or decline” (Lyotard, 1984: 11–12).
Eternalizing the Impotence
The invalidation of criticism is precisely the eternalization of the subjuga-

tion of humanity to the logic of the fetish, and its resigned submission to
decline, at the mercy of the entropy of the system, with all the enthusiasm
for necrophilia and genocide that this entails. And postmodernism pur-
sues its work in relation to this declared supreme purpose and goes a step
further: if the working class has been expelled from the position it had
reached under Keynesianism, and “real socialism” and its collapse in the
current historical context constitute arguments to abandon all criticism
82 “¡Ay! Utopía incorregible que no tiene bastante con lo posible… que levanta hura-
canes de rebeldía… Sin utopía, la vida sería un ensayo para la muerte.” (Joan Manuel Serrat,
“Utopía”, 1992).
260 chapter nine
of the logic of capital forever, what follows is the eternalization of the

workers’ fallen status, maintaining them in a condition of isolation and
atomization.
I have already examined how the globalization of capital is constructed
on the basis of the fragmentation of the working class; after destroying
the corporate structures that upheld the forms of socialization under
Keynesianism and confĳining the working class in conditions of competi-
tivity and alienation, oppressed by crime and fear, capital discovers the
wonders of fragmentation (the local, the micronarrative, the isolated and
the separate) and tribalization as companions to steer the spaceship and
as counterparts to the supposed death of the metanarratives of modernity,
i.e. Marxism, which is the only metanarrative that really worries the per-
sonifĳications of capital.
Kohan argues that “the critical view of domination and capitalist exploi-
tation underwent a shift… from the grand theory – centered, for example,
on the explanatory concept of the ‘mode of production’ understood as an
articulated whole of social relations in history – to the micronarrative,
from the questioning of the classist nature of the state apparatus to the
description of the individual confrontation and the ‘autonomy’ of politics,
from the attempt to politically transcend the immediate consciousness of
social subjects to the populist apology for specifĳic discourses belonging to
each segment of society” (Kohan, 2007).
Postmodernism, as an “ideology legitimizing political impotence,”
explains Kohan, has promoted a “fetishist dismemberment”,83 isolating
the diffferent instances of social relations, separating them rather than
locating them as integral parts of a social whole, which, through their cal-
culated dispersal, prevents the comprehension of capitalism as an orga-
nized entity and eliminates the very notion of social class. The subject84 is
replaced “by a proliferation of multiplicities, or ‘agents’, with no unitary
83 “The instances and segments that comprise the social framework become absolutely
‘autonomous’… The local fragment takes on a life of its own. The micro-unit began to
claim autonomy and turn its back on any logic of struggle at a global level. The specifĳic
code of each rebellion (the code of the colonized, of ethnicity, of an oppressed community
or people, of gender, of a sexual or generational minority, etc.) no longer recognized
any level of connection with the others… Each instance of domination… could only be
challenged from its own particular context, turned into an isolated ghetto and into a ‘lan-
guage game’ disconnected from any global perspective or universal translation” (Kohan,
2007).
84 “The subject of Marxism is a collective subject that is constituted as such (incorpo-
rating the multiple individualities and group identities) in the struggle against its historic
enemy. It is the working class as a whole, and thus constitutes a subject that is not only
individual, but collective” (Kohan, 2007).
meaning connecting them or structuring them as a collective identity

based on class consciousness and experiences of struggle… With history
forgotten and the class struggle negated, the subject also vanishes, his
identity is annulled and his memory fĳiled away; in other words, any possi-
bility of criticism of or radical opposition to capitalism is eliminated”
(Kohan, 2007).85
Situated in this recognized and acceptable fĳield of conflict are the so-
called “new social movements” (ecologists, feminists, homosexuals and
lesbians, ethnic minorities, etc.). But if capitalist society is eternal, con-
flicts are merely “skirmishes and protests at a local level, in a micro-world
of social movements,”86 or “external and alien to the core of capitalist
social relations” and as such can be solved or overcome without afffecting
the capitalist regime. The constant in postmodernist discourse is, as
Kohan astutely notes, the transformation of political logic “into an infĳinite
collection of diverse, fragmented and brutally scattered logics,” (Kohan,
2007) whether this social fragmentation is considered to express multiple
conflicts and a plurality of struggles87 or as sites for the construction of
festive and emotional expression.
For example, in relation to the so-called urban tribes, analyses are con-
structed that interpret them as sites of conflict. According to Carlos Reina,
heavy metal is an expression of an urban society that offfers few alterna-
tives to its youth: “it channels the violence that the world offfers young
people. As a result, they assume a violent appearance, expressing them-
selves in this way… Metal lovers do not present themselves as the perpe-
trators of violence, but as its victims. They are trying to show what adults
have done to them and to the world… This is exactly what metal is all
about: the wars, the pollution, the corruption, the political violence, and
the death that plague the individual daily because of the irrationality of
people, of religions and of systems of domination. Metal and the ‘metaller’
are a reflection of the world that surrounds us… It is thus not a widespread
85 “If there is no longer a central power to fĳight, if there no longer exists a privileged
space of confrontation where the diverse collective of exploiters and oppressors fĳind a
common fortifĳication to guarantee the reproduction of the social order, then there is no
way of forming a radical opposition to fĳight for complete changes to the system” (Kohan,
2007).
86 “But with the condition that each one must remain confĳined to its own issues and
that all maintain a mutual distance from one another” (Kohan, 2007).
87 “Instead of the universalist aspirations of socialism and the integrating politics of the
struggle against class exploitation, we have a plurality of essentially disconnected individ-
ual struggles, leading to submission to capitalism… an excuse for disintegrating the resis-
tance to capitalism” (Ellen Meiksins Wood, as quoted in Kohan, 2007).
262 chapter nine
form of anarchy, but a critique of society, although in reality it rarely pro-

poses solutions to the problems it exposes” (Reina, 2006).
Other authors interpret these tribes as places for recreational or emo-
tional expression: instead of faith in the future, they argue, we fĳind an
emphasis on the present, and instead of the predominance of reason, we
witness the return of the emotions, of feelings and festivity.88 Society is
crumbling, the institutions have collapsed, ideologies have lost their force,
and, in the place of a society of the masses, new fĳigures take shape, pre-
senting a richly complex, multifarious society: the old social contract, they
argue, has been replaced by the idea of belonging to a group, to a tribe;
feelings and emotions replace the ideals of reason and the logic of identity
gives way to the logic of belonging. We thus witness the rise of the time of
the tribes (sexual, musical, artistic, sporting, cultural, religious), of the
networks, of the factions, of the fleeting, evanescent groupings and of
nomadic beings who wander from one tribe to another, who have no sin-
gle ideological, sexual, professional or class identity, who do not allow
themselves to be pigeon-holed in roles that were once defĳinitive, and who
can belong to various tribes simultaneously.89
However, the enthusiasm produced by tribalism and its charms90
should not allow us to forget (in the world of ideas, because in practice
they are imposed as an unavoidable reality) certain minor details such as
the following: (1) the basic condition of the existence of social classes
under capitalism is not altered by this “richly complex, multifarious soci-
ety”; (2) the members of the tribes still need a means of subsistence and
can only obtain them, as in the old pre-postmodern times of capitalism,
88 “In opposition to reason, which proposes that individuals unite for a common proj-
ect that is reasonable and logical for all… in postmodernity we fĳind a ‘being together’ that
is informed by a sensitive, erotic reason, that is, a ‘being together’ out of sentimental inter-
est, not common interest in a political or religious project… In opposition to a faith in the
future of modernity, there appears in postmodernity a special attention to the present, to
the experience of here and now… Tribes are junctions that form part of a network – a net-
work that connects them to each other. This network is the masses… an entity unto itself,
i.e. without a purpose… by which it may be diffferentiated from the notion of society, in
which it was understood that specifĳic common purposes existed… the masses breaks up
constantly into tribes” (Cassián et al, 2006).
89 This line of interpretation can be found in works of authors such as Michel Mafffesoli
(see Mafffesoli, 1996) or the interviews he has given to the newspapers La Nación (Corradini,
2005) and El Clarín (Martiniuk, 2009).
90 “The term ‘identifĳication’ implies a process of participation, somewhat magic or mys-
tical. You lose yourself; when I lose myself in a particular tribe, I experience ecstasy. I am no
longer myself – I am the group. Through the multiplicity of facets I will participate in a
multiplicity of tribes and the interlinking chain of these tribes makes up the masses”
(Mafffesoli, as quoted in Martiniuk, 2009).
through profĳits, income or wages; and, (3) in a world with billions of

human beings wallowing in poverty, unemployment and labor casualiza-
tion, competitivity and/or criminal activity constitute the only real life
options that neoliberal capital offfers to those who, although they may be
tribalized, continue to be its modern slaves and, while they may move
freely from one tribe to another, nomadic wandering from class to class is
impossible, except in the highly unlikely event that the tribe of the world-
wide fĳinancial oligarchy, perhaps out of boredom91, should dissolve of its
own volition, convert into something with a more relaxed, personal char-
acter, and place the means of production and subsistence that it has con-
centrated at the service of the satisfaction of the needs of humanity.
Without a doubt, this imaginary generous disposition of capital would
be gratefully welcomed, but, as it has not happened nor is it at all likely to
happen in the future, what capital actually offfers in cultural terms is clear.
While it continues to globalize, the rest of humanity, in order to escape
individual alienation, must tribalize; the tribes may be festive and
amorous or sinister and necrophiliac, or even conflictive and rebellious.
The argument of weak thought is aimed at fostering an unhealthy
weakness in critical thinking, and the death of the metanarrative of eman-
cipation is joyously celebrated in order to strengthen the metanarrative of
capital. The only thing that is forbidden, from the perspective of the
personifĳications and ideologues of capital, is the recovery and develop-
ment of a criticism of the logic of the fetish that would create the condi-
tions for reestablishing the political viability of the project of human
emancipation.
In terms of ideological domination, the discourse of postmodernity
asserts the hegemony of neoliberal capital in opposition to a counter-
hegemonic cultural proposal by the working class: “the homogeneity of
the consciousness of a social collective and the disintegration of its enemy
takes place precisely in the territory of the cultural battle… Hegemony is a
process of articulation and organic unifĳication of diverse heterogeneous,
scattered, fragmentary struggles, within which specifĳic groups are able
to shape a perspective of unitary confrontation on the basis of a politi-
cal strategy and a cultural direction… Through hegemony, a social collec-
tive (national or international) can broaden the confrontation against
91 Mafffesoli contrasts the myth of Dionysus, god of festivity, with the myth of
Prometheus, god of progress: “The citizens of the booming modern, progressive, hard-
working metropolis, dying of boredom, end up opening their doors to let in Dionysus”
(as quoted by Corradini, 2005).
264 chapter nine
its enemy by threading together many diffferent individual rebellions”

(Kohan, 2007).
Project for the Future:

The End of History and the “Gestation of the Last Man”
Up to this point I have examined the neoliberal pattern of domination on

a level of abstraction corresponding to the concept, with a greater focus
on its general features and its internal logic than its actual manifestation
in history. I now hope to offfer some reflections on the project for the future
that this logic entails: the mission and vision of neoliberal capital, to use
the terminology currently in fashion.
The End of History
A basic and undisputed component of this vision is the eternal nature of

capital and, consequently, the end of history. According to Francis
Fukuyama, liberal democracy – which has conquered “rival ideologies like
hereditary monarchy, fascism and most recently communism,” represents
“the end point in mankind’s ideological evolution,” the “fĳinal form of gov-
ernment and, as such, constitutes the end of history.” As it is “free from
fundamental internal contradictions” (as its problems are due more to
“incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equal-
ity” on which it is based than to any fault in the principles themselves),
“the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved upon.” And, as the
evolution of human societies was not infĳinite, but ended when mankind
achieved “a form of society that satisfĳied its deepest and most fundamen-
tal longings… there would be no further progress in the development of
underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big ques-
tions had been settled” (Fukuyama, 1992: xi-xii).
This dimension of its vision is not at all surprising given that we know
that it is an eternal92 characteristic of the fetishist ideology to view the
92 More than 160 years ago, Marx wrote: “Economists have a singular method of proce-
dure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them: artifĳicial and natural. The institu-
tions of feudalism are artifĳicial institutions; those of the bourgeoisie are natural institutions.
In this they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every
religion which is not theirs is a religion of men, while their own is an emanation from
God… Thus there has been history, but there is no longer any” (Marx, 1847: Ch. 2, emphasis
added).
social relations of capitalism as eternal, and as we have seen how the shift
from the contained form to the natural form of its domination is cele-
brated as a great triumph – an eternal triumph over the working class.
“The Last Man”
It is nevertheless worth pausing briefly to examine the notion of the last

man. Following Mafffesoli, we might think of this as referring to those
Dionysian, nomadic peoples who happily wander from one tribe to
another. But as Mafffesoli does not discuss the concept explicitly, I will turn
back to Fukuyama, who argues that, as we have reached the end of history,
of the ideological evolution of humanity and the fĳinal form of govern-
ment, and that “liberal principles in economics – the ‘free market’ – have
spread, and have succeeded in producing unprecedented levels of mate-
rial prosperity,” (Fukuyama, 1992: xiii) modern man – “those who live in
the old age of mankind” – is the last man: “preoccupied with material
gain… devoted to the satisfaction of the myriad small needs of the body …
disabused of the possibility of a direct experience of values… [with] a cer-
tain tendency toward relativism, that is, the doctrine that all horizons and
value systems are relative to their time and place, and that none are true
but reflect the prejudices or interests of those who advance them”
(Fukuyama, 1992: 305–307). Yet neither Mafffesoli’s Dionysian nomadic
men nor this modern man explicitly posited by Fukuyama constitute the
last man that is being gestated by neoliberal capitalism.
We ought to recall that Lyotard himself repeatedly reminds us who is in
charge, and makes it clear that, from the perspective of the one in charge,
these little men, Dionysian and/or disillusioned, are of no importance,
making it difffĳicult to identify them as the last man. The system is the one
in charge and, as Lyotard points out, it is concerned only with its own per-
formativity: “it must induce the adaptation of individual aspirations to its
own ends… to guide individual aspirations… in order to make them com-
patible with the system’s decisions.” To put it more clearly, the system’s
decisions “do not have to respect individuals’ aspirations: the aspirations
have to aspire to the decisions… Administrative procedures should make
individuals ‘want’ what the system needs in order to perform well”
(Lyotard, 1984: 62, emphasis added).93 As far as the system is concerned,
93 Elsewhere, Lyotard quotes Claus Mueller: “In advanced industrial society, legal-
rational legitimation is replaced by a technocratic legitimation that does not accord any
importance to the beliefs of the citizen or to morality per se” (Lyotard, 1984: 97, emphasis
added).
266 chapter nine
the aspirations, demands and sufffering of individuals – the modern

nomadic little men – have no legitimacy: “Within the framework of the
power criterion, a request (that is, a form of prescription) gains nothing in
legitimacy by virtue of being based on the hardship of an unmet need.” Or,
expressed more clearly: “The technocrats declare that they cannot trust
what society designates as its needs… society cannot know its own needs
since they are not variables independent of the new technologies… soci-
ety can only be aware of the needs it feels in the present state of its tech-
nological milieu. It is the nature of the basic sciences to discover unknown
properties which remodel the technical milieu and create unpredictable
needs” (Lyotard, 1984: 63, 101).
In this way, Lyotard, clearly and with brutal sincerity, invites us to take
note of what is important from the perspective of the logic of the fetish:
“Rights do not flow from hardship, but from the fact that the alleviation of
hardship improves the system’s performance. The needs of the most
underprivileged should not be used as a system regulator as a matter of
principle… [as] their actual satisfaction will not improve the system’s per-
formance, but only increase its expenditures… It is against the nature of
force to be ruled by weakness” (Lyotard, 1984: 63). Thus, there is only one
situation in which the system will take an interest in aspirations, requests
or hardship: “The only counterindication is that not satisfying them can
destabilize the whole” (Lyotard, 1984: 63); in other words, when social
pressure forces the system to divert its valuable resources to attend to a
demand in order to avoid the risk of a greater conflict that could reduce its
performativity.
Mafffesoli’s happy nomad and Fukuyama’s last man share the common
feature of lacking class characteristics, as well as a lack of interest in the
narrative of emancipation, in those grand narratives that Lyotard, Vattimo
(1991) and others have dismissed. It is quite clear that what would least
please the master is that slaves should become interested in their own
emancipation, but it is equally clear that the capitalist system’s last man
cannot reside among the disdainfully treated little men whose half-
smiling, half-terrifĳied faces resemble more that of a slave who adapts his
aspirations to what his master wants of him, hoping for a pat on the
back and an encouraging word in return: “You couldn’t be happier, kid!”94
94 According to Vega, the paradox of the political pessimism of postmodernism “lies in

the fact that, at the same time, it is based on a very optimistic interpretation of the opera-
tion of the capitalist system, or more exactly, on the possibilities offfered by its prosperity
and the widespread nature of mass consumption… they appear still to be living in ‘Les
Thus, in essence, the subject is the fetish and the capitalist is merely its
personifĳication; its incarnation must be sought for elsewhere.
According to Marx, “it is only because his money constantly functions
as capital that the economic guise of a capitalist attaches to a man…
Except as personifĳied capital, the capitalist has no historical value, and no
right to that historical existence… And so far only is the necessity for his
own transitory existence implied in the transitory necessity for the capi-
talist mode of production” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 23, 24). The right to existence
must be defended in competition with other capitalists to earn the right
to reach the fĳinishing line; if the subject of the process of capitalist
development is the flourishing of the fetish, the last man is its fĳinal incar-
nation, the incarnation of Absolute Monopoly of the means of production
and subsistence, i.e. the result of the full development of its internal
tendencies.
Following the thought of Heidegger, Roberto Aruj suggests that post-
modernism “eliminates the historic subject as the reconstructor of reality,
as reconstructor of history… Subjects do not exist; rather, there are beings
that become Being, in the sense of an entity involved in a transformation in
which the subject is the recipient of the dynamic” (emphasis added). And
these individuals turning into Being, that is, capitalists chosen by the
Being to be incarnated, “attempt to maintain their status through compe-
tition with no restrictions on its development… Their ultimate goal is to
stay in the game because only those who can integrate and adapt to the
dynamic established by the system will make it through the elimination
rounds. The rest will vanish… the lives of millions of people is worth noth-
ing.” (Aruj, 2000)95 According to Kurnitzky, neoliberalism proclaims that
“might is right,” and total competition under the precepts of laissez faire
turns society into a battleground of individual economic interests, with
no limit on the actions of “the ablest and the fĳittest” (Kurnitzky, 2000).
Treinte Glorieuses’ (1945–1975), when European and global capitalism experienced a

golden age of booming prosperity, expressed in the politics of the Welfare State, full
employment and the material improvement of signifĳicant sectors of the population in
Western countries… the fundamental ahistoricism of postmodern authors is such that, for
them, the golden age of capitalism has continued up to the present day, and they boldly
continue to consider its benefĳits, but not its huge contradictions… they believe that the
‘market economy’ can only be judged from the comfortable point of view of the few who
benefĳit from capitalism and not from the vast majority that sufffers its costs” (Vega, 1997).
95 It is worth recalling here that according to Marx, the actions of the capitalist “are a
mere function of capital – endowed, as capitalism is, in his person, with consciousness and
a will,” and that “competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt
by each individual capitalist as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly
extending his capital, in order to preserve it…” (Marx, 1867: Ch. 24).
268 chapter nine
Earlier on, I offfered an analysis of the global fĳinancial oligarchy, the per-
sonifĳication of global fĳinancial capital, which aims to concentrate all the
world’s wealth, while in Chapter 7 I explained how its ruling group (par-
ticularly the high-level political bureaucracy of the United States) views
itself as the administration of a global government, responsible for bring-
ing all the nation-states into the network in its global administration of
competitivity and criminal activity, to compete in the provision of the
most profĳitable conditions and to fĳight everything that threatens the
unhindered development of the free market and the domination of fĳinan-
cial capital and the global fĳinancial oligarchy. The implementation of this
project of economic and political expansion of global fĳinancial capital is
the project for the future that neoliberal capital offfers humanity and is
what explains why it bases its ideological domination on the promotion of
competitivity, alienation, criminal activity and fear, and why it is so radi-
cally hostile to any opposition to the logic of the fetish.
In this global oligarchy, still in fĳierce competition with itself and in a
voracious pursuit of the means of production and subsistence that remain
outside its control, lies neoliberal capital’s last man, still seeking the full
implementation of his mission and vision, i.e. Absolute Monopoly. No
doubt, he will continue this pursuit to the extent that society and the proj-
ect’s own internal contradictions allow. Unless the power of the fetish is
contained, its logic, and the development of its internal tendencies, will
continue to grow.
The Gestation of the Last Man
The gestation of Absolute Monopoly, the last man of neoliberal capital,

the implementation of his mission and vision, has various goals, including
concentration of wealth and competition, preservation of its intellectual
and moral leadership, degradation, surveillance and murder. All of these
goals are contained in the development of the productive force of labor
and scientifĳic and technological research, and are a basic condition for the
development of capitalist relations of production. The fĳirst of the above-
mentioned goals, concentration of wealth, refers to the substance of capi-
talist relations. From the fĳirst chapters of this work, I have examined how
the essence of the power of capital over labor lies in the appropriation of
the means of production, offfering an analysis of neoliberal economics
as an instrument that pursues, as its ultimate goal, the concentration of
all the means of production in the world. The notion of the last man as
Absolute Monopoly relates to this internal impulse toward concentration
and centralization that constitutes one of the essential dimensions of the

development of capitalism.
The second goal, competition, is the necessary correlate of the fĳirst.
Monopoly is constructed in conflict with the dispersal of the means of
production. Like the fĳirst, it is a permanent condition in the history of
capitalism which although it appears to be aimed at transforming the
internal relations of capital, is in fact the cause and efffect of the transfor-
mation of the capital/wage-labor relation, initiated because the form of
competition is overdetermined by the relation between capital and labor;
to be able to compete unhindered, capital needs to be freed from restric-
tions in its relations with labor.
In neoliberalism, in contrast with Keynesianism, capitalist competition
has two peculiarities: fĳirst, it is generally established without state regula-
tion (as deregulated, privatized free market and free competition econom-
ics)96 and second, it is ideologically constructed as a mechanism of
self-legitimation. The fĳirst aspect has already been examined in this work,
and so I will add just a brief note here regarding the second: it is not just
that capitalists compete, but that their competitivity is constructed as
synonymous with legitimacy.
This issue is explicitly addressed by Lyotard. Since performativity is
what matters, the question is whether this discourse of power “can consti-
tute a legitimation.” According to Lyotard, “[a]t fĳirst glance, it is prevented
from doing so by the traditional distinction between force and right,
between force and wisdom – in other words, between what is strong, what
is just and what is true.” But (postmodernist) “force” does not appear to be
derived from anything more than the “technical game (in which the crite-
rion is the efffĳicient/inefffĳicient distinction)… ‘Context control’, in other
96 Competition, according to De Brie, “has little to do with the tournaments between

brave knights who move to the beat of the drum of the liberal movement, in which the
winner, touched by the grace of the Market-God, is the best product and the best service at
the best price. As in the battles of feudal times, anything goes in the economic war, and
hitting below the waist is the preferred tactic. The wide array of weapons is in good supply:
agreements and cartels, abuse of high positions, social dumping and forced sales, crimes of
insider trading and speculation, mergers and dismantling of competitors, false balance
sheets, fĳiddling with accounts and transfer values, tax fraud and evasion through offfshore
afffĳiliates and shell corporations, embezzlement of public funds and distorted markets, cor-
ruption and covert commissions, undeclared earnings and abuse of company assets, sur-
veillance and espionage, blackmail and betrayal, violation of regulations related to the
right to work, the freedom of the unions, safety and hygiene, partner contributions and the
environment… added to which are the practices in place in the free trade zones that have
multiplied around the world… zones that are totally or partially outside the law, especially
in terms of corporate, tax or fĳinancial regulations” (De Brie, 2000).
270 chapter nine
words, performance improvement won at the expense of the partner or

partners constituting that context (be they ‘nature’ or men) can pass for a
kind of legitimation. De facto legitimation” (Lyotard, 1984: 86–87). Thus,
having eliminated irrelevant distinctions (right, wisdom, etc.), competi-
tive efffĳiciency provides the specifĳic legitimacy of neoliberal capital: a de
facto legitimacy based on force.
Preservation of Its Intellectual and Moral Leadership
In relation to this third goal, there is also little to add, except to note that
as the gestation of the last man progresses and the irreconcilable contra-
diction that exists between him and the rest of humanity becomes more
brutally evident, the use of the mass media to manipulate, control and
direct social behavior for political purposes, based on the argument of a
situation of a permanent global war on terrorism and organized crime,
becomes increasingly perverse and cynical.
We can fĳind an example of this in the war on terrorism, although
it could also easily be found in the war on organized crime or, more
generally, in any situation in which neoliberal capital seeks to promote
its anti-popular or pernicious projects. Rouleau suggests that, “with
the pretext of ‘communicating’, all governments – to varying degrees –
practice disinformation,” but in times of war, “manipulation of informa-
tion becomes common currency, whether through the dissemination of
half-truths or lies, commission through omission or the spreading of
unverifĳiable rumors.” Thus, in preparation for the war against Iraq and to
generate a climate of confĳidence and support for the government’s anti-
terrorist policy among Americans, there flourished “in the White House
and in the Pentagon, in the CIA and in the Department of State” a multi-
tude of “communication departments” and “public relations” advisers
and, “in the greatest of secrecy,” the Pentagon created “an Offfĳice of Strategic
Influence, whose mission was to misguide public opinion – a supreme
skill – through non-U.S. press agencies (chiefly, the Agence France Presse
and Reuters)” (Rouleau, 2003).
It is certainly not surprising that the Pentagon has “decided that even
lying is valid,” given that “these types of techniques have always been used
by the CIA in disinformation campaigns and operations to destabilize for-
eign governments, for example, in Cuba or Iraq” (Baron, 2002). But there is
one substantial diffference between past and present models: these cam-
paigns were once directed against foreign enemy governments; now they
are directed against the whole world. “According to an article published on
the front page of the New York Times, the newly created Offfĳice of Strategic
Influence is planning to disseminate information to international agen-
cies and media outlets as part of an efffort aimed at influencing public opin-
ion in the heart not only of enemy countries but also of those considered to be
friends, with the aim that all the information broadcast by agencies such
as Reuters or Agence France Press ends up published in the American dai-
lies”97 (Baron, 2002, emphasis added).
In February 2002, a scandal broke out when the existence of the Offfĳice
of Strategic Influence was made public: “in the face of the outrage gener-
ated in the Congress and in the press, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of
Defense, was compelled to offfer his apologies and announce the closure of
the department, which was quickly replaced by another bearing the more
discrete name of Offfĳice of Special Plans” (Rouleau, 2003, emphasis added).
However (and this point is of particular signifĳicance), “one of Washington’s
most notorious ‘hawks’ and a personal friend of Rumsfeld, Frank Gafffney,
published a virulent attack against a ‘left’ that sought to deprive the United
States of an indispensable instrument of war” (Rouleau, 2003, emphasis
added). In fact, as the gestation of the last man progresses, what is clear
above all else is the war that this last man has launched against the rest of
humanity; the outstanding feature of the state administration of criminal
activity is combat and its establishment as a situation of permanent war
(on organized crime and/or international terrorism and/or any useful
enemy), which means, as a logical correlate, that everything – from human
and civil rights to information and communication98 – is submitted to
the rules of war, thereby legitimating (at least for the personifĳications
of capital) the planned use of propaganda aimed at social and political
control.99
97 “The main target would be the moderate Islamic Arabic nations, where the discon-
tent and unease provoked by the anti-terrorist war is on the rise and, according to the
Pentagon, threatens to destabilize the whole region. But the information, or rather, disin-
formation, would also be aimed at allied nations in Europe, Asia and Latin America”
(Baron, 2002), and at U.S. society itself.
98 Information and communication via all forms of media, including the Internet,
which has increasing priority: “For decades, the battle of ideas has been waged on radio
and television. Today, that battle has entered a new dimension. It is now being waged on
the World Wide Web, as demonstrated by two websites sponsored by the United States
European Command” (Coon, 2007).
99 When questioned about illegal spying on U.S. citizens, President Bush refused to
comment: “We don’t talk about ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country…
Any sources and methods of intelligence will remain guarded in secret,” and he explained
that the “reason” was that “there is an enemy stalking us who would like to know exactly
what we’re doing in order to stop it” (AFP, 2005).
272 chapter nine
The necessity for lies is itself grounded in lies100 and the circle is thus
closed; who, other than the enemy, would be opposed to misleading the
enemy? In a state of war, normal democratic conditions cannot be estab-
lished, as lying, misleading and concealing are necessities of war and true
information is only available to Chiefs of Stafff; troops and civilians must
simply place their trust in the commands, as inquiring into the truth is
equated with serving the enemy. And as the enemy also misleads, i.e. there
is no nor can there be any reliable, verifĳiable information on the enemy,
about whom we only know what the authorities tell us,101 society is
trapped in a truly Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” (which, to reduce the obvi-
ousness of its fĳilial association with Big Brother, might well be named the
Offfĳice of Strategic Influence or Special Plans).
With a design that echoes the media manipulation presented in the
fĳilm Wag the Dog or the story lines of comic strips like Batman and his
arch-criminal enemies, or the fĳilms depicting James Bond’s struggle
against the diabolical organization SPECTRE led by the supervillain
Blofeld, mythical enemies of the free world can be created, like Goldstein
en 1984 or Bin Laden and Al Qaeda102 after 9/11, or any other enemy that
may appear in the future once the media efffectiveness of the existing
supervillains has been exhausted.
Having established the war on terrorism, the next natural, logical step is
to feed the fear, multiplying infĳinitely the efffects of terrorism “through the
manipulation and spin of mass media presentation around the globe”
(Freytas, 2007).103 The use of “media terrorism” (media operations directed
100 “Covert propaganda… produces devastating results, given that the mass audiences
of television, radio and newspapers consume it unaware of the interests and political
objectives that drive it, believing that it has no other purpose than to inform” (Guevara,
2005).
101 “In the real world, there are no precise data on the existence or the death of Bin
Laden, and nobody has yet revealed how he was able to escape from the military siege and
missiles in Afghanistan. Nobody questions why the CIA, with its countless networks of
infĳiltration into Islamic terrorism, has not been able to detect or assassinate him, nor even
why Osama has disappeared without a trace in spite of the fact that offfĳicially every intelli-
gence service in the world is searching for him night and day” (Freytas, 2006a).
102 Chossudovsky reminds us that “the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, Saudi-born
Osama Bin Laden, was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war, ironically under the aus-
pices of the CIA, to fĳight Soviet invaders” (Chossudovsky, 2008a). See also Chossudovsky,
2001 and Tarpley, 2004.
103 “The ‘fear of terrorism’ process is in turn fed by the major international agencies and
networks responsible for the worldwide broadcasting (as if taken from the pages of a spy
novel) of stories, leaks, press releases, letters, videos with new threats, ‘secret information’
on terrorist groups, leads, etc… and keeping the ‘terrorism of Al Qaeda’ up their sleeve like
a trump card to be pulled out whenever the international (or local) situation so requires”
(Freytas, 2007).
by experts in mass communications and mass psychology for the social,

political and military purposes of “terrorism”) has become widespread as
an “advanced system and strategy of manipulation and social control”
(Freytas, 2006c).
According to Naomi Klein, “remaking people, shocking them into
obedience” is a powerful idea that as early as the 1950s caught the atten-
tion of the CIA, which funded a series of experiments and produced a
secret handbook on how to break down prisoners using shock treatment
to reduce them to a childlike state: “but these techniques don’t only
work on individuals; they can work on whole societies: a collective
trauma, a war, a coup, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack puts us all into a
state of shock. And in the aftermath, like the prisoner in the interrogation
chamber, we, too, become childlike, more inclined to follow leaders who
claim to protect us” (Klein, 2007b). The situation of permanent war (on
terrorism or on organized crime) established by neoliberal capital is a
strategy to keep society in a permanent state of shock and malleable at
will.104
There is, incidentally, a friendly exchange of technology between the
world powers on this point. For example, Russia learns from the United
States, and vice versa. According to Pineda, “the doctrine of the ‘Revolution
in Military Afffairs’, the emphasis of which is on information warfare
and the presentation of force, arose in the former Soviet Union in the
late 1970s… this approach was offfĳicially adopted and developed by the
U.S. army and… in reciprocal fashion, the Russian military has adopted
the information warfare designs developed by the United States” (Pineda,
2003). After the failure of the war against Chechnya in 1994, Pineda
explains, Russian army commanders concluded (like Nixon after Vietnam)
that they had lost the information war, as they had not been able to pres-
ent the Chechen armed resistance as a band of criminals and terrorists
and that, for this reason, they had not been able to win over public opin-
ion. Consequently, they sought to “reprogram” the propaganda, with so
much success that while 82 percent of Russians accepted Chechnya’s inde-
pendence in 1998, by November 1999, 63 percent supported the idea of
104 For this reason, for example, Bin Laden makes periodical reappearances: “he threat-
ens Europe and the United States with a holy war, promises attacks and mass murders with
chemical and biological weapons, and then disappears as mysteriously as he came… Al
Jazeera shows the videos with his communiqués and threats, the U.S. and European net-
works broadcast them around the world, and the CIA – along with the rest of the intelli-
gence services of the central powers – announces all kinds of terrorist catastrophes
looming, mainly in the United States or Europe” (Freytas, 2006a).
274 chapter nine
conducting armed operations until the Chechen combatants were com-

pletely annihilated.105
It is worth reflecting briefly on this idea of total annihilation. If the
identity and rationality of people struggling for independence is denied
and the enemy is presented as an irrational, satanic, dangerous threat
looming over the innocent (“they attacked us” is the key idea), the logical
solution is their extermination, and it is easy to shift “from the defensive to
the offfensive, that is, from the acceptable idea of ensuring security to the
will to annihilate” (Pineda, 2003).106 The aim of extermination develops
more clearly in the case of terrorism, but is also present in the case of the
war on drugs, especially when this war is associated with guerrilla move-
ments, as in Colombia, or with violence spilling over borders as in Mexico.
More generally, it is necessary to examine the link with the thanatophilia
promoted by neoliberal capital discussed earlier. The reality is, viewing
the situation as a whole and even including conflicts between bourgeois
nation-states, that the enemy of neoliberal capital is the working class,
some segments of which need to be exterminated, while others need to be
misled into supporting the extermination of the fĳirst.
In these circumstances, it is no surprise that the sufffering and extermi-
nation of whole peoples is perceived by the segments of the working class
that support it as an image that produces a mild sensation of satisfaction
and security, at the same time mixed with increased fear and insecurity:
a threat was annihilated, but others will follow it until, possibly, their turn
comes to be treated as threats to the free world, i.e. as hindrances to the
gestation of the last man.107
105 It is not hard to see the similarity between the pattern followed by Russia in
Chechnya and that followed by the United States in Afghanistan: “The tactic that radically
tipped the balance in favor of the new war was the propaganda on the explosions in
Moscow. The presentation of these events had a dramatic efffect on public opinion. The
reports underlined the idea that Chechnya was a nation of bandits, with no law or order,
and that kidnappings were commonplace; therefore, the country was a direct threat to the
Russian population… and society would never be safe until the Chechen threat was elimi-
nated completely… The propaganda put the Chechen independence leader, Shamil
Basayev, in fĳirst place among the men most hated by Russia’s urban population” (Pineda,
2003).
106 This shift occurs even more easily if blame is added to the mix: “The intolerable rise
of crime in Russian cities was associated with the image of ‘bandits’ attributed not only to
the guerrillas but to the whole Chechen population” (Pineda, 2003).
107 “What is wrong with the human race, that it can be moved to crying over 22 hired
men running behind a ball, and yet doesn’t shed a single tear over the mass murder of its
own species? How did we come to this aberration, this atrocious individualism, this dehu-
manization, this indiffference to life and death, where the only forces of collective mobili-
zation are sports idols and entertainment fĳigures?” (Freytas, 2006b).
Degradation
The global spread of social degradation is the necessary correlate to a

world in which free competition, war and crime are set up as dominant
daily forms of social coexistence moving toward the gestation of the last
man. What follows are some examples related to specifĳic issues, countries
and regions, with no intention other than to illustrate the process.
In Mexico, according to Gilberto López y Rivas’s analysis, laws are
amended or violated to favor transnational corporate interests and ensure
the prevalence of private profĳit. Justice enters the market as merely
another commodity and the violation of the rule of law has a domino
efffect: “As federal, state and municipal authorities, the political and the
business class in general are the fĳirst to violate the rule of law, citizens,
professional groups and unions also often assume unlawful practices,
taking control of public spaces for their own purposes, infringing basic
administrative regulations for urban and rural coexistence, stealing union
fees, corrupting and being corrupted. Cynicism, arrogance and the
supremacy of private over collective interests take the place of civil
responsibility and collective empowerment; a popular culture of corrup-
tion is constructed, in which honesty is synonymous with stupidity”
(López y Rivas, 2005).
Yet in the face of all kinds of growing problems, Mexico’s so-called polit-
ical class responds with scandals. According to Castaingts, calm, rational
communication, which seeks to comprehend in order to guide actions, is
nonexistent. There is only what is expressed in terms of political scandal;
and the television and radio media, which foster outrage over the scandal,
merely exacerbate the situation. “The result is clear: civil society harbors a
growing distrust of political society and government… We live under the
rule of mediocrity, lacking analysis, in the absence of serious proposals.
The language of scandal not only destroys political society, but also afffects
civil society, which, subjected to economic stagnation, the poor distribu-
tion of wealth, exclusion, growing crime, the deterioration of the idea of
nation and of state, and bombarded by scandals, sufffers the deterioration
of its ties and bonds, and faces growing problems in its reproduction and
cohesion as it is pushed toward disorder or anomie” (Castaingts, 2004).
I will not dwell further on Mexico or on the so-called war on drug
trafffĳicking launched by President Calderón, with its wide range of per-
verse consequences, but will turn to Colombia, which illustrates certain
dimensions of this war that are of great relevance to the topic that con-
cerns us. According to Hernando Calvo Ospina, the strategy adopted by
276 chapter nine
the Colombian government in its attempt to defeat the country’s guerrilla

organizations has been to destroy, or neutralize, the social fabric that
really, supposedly or potentially supports it. To achieve this objective,
Colombia has become one of the biggest violators of human rights in the
world: “This ‘dirty war’… has rested on two fundamental pillars: covert or
secret operations by the Military Forces and paramilitary actions… the
clandestine, illegal arm of the government” (Calvo Ospina, 2003).
The military high command, involved liberal and conservative party
bosses, landowners and mafĳia gangsters in the development of paramili-
tary structures that perpetrated the crimes, thus initiating one of the
bloodiest, most macabre marriages of convenience in Colombia’s recent
political history: “The organization Human Rights Watch, in its 1996
report, reveals that the CIA and the Pentagon aided in the reorganization
of ‘the intelligence systems that resulted in the creation of networks of hit-
men who identify and murder civilians suspected of aiding the guerrillas’,
networks of hired killers at the service of the drug trafffĳickers and land-
owners… a new form of exercising unlimited legal repression, which some
analysts have dubbed ‘violence by delegation’” (Calvo Ospina, 2003).
According to Calvo Ospina, these networks are what make up the so-
called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC, for its initials in
Spanish), with more than 11,000 members spread across the country,
chiefly in strategic zones where multinational corporations are present
and major projects are being planned. Their leader, Carlos Castaño, “in
addition to acknowledging that he received training from the Israeli and
Colombian armies… accepts without reservation that not only is the AUC
fĳinanced by drug trafffĳicking, but that it manages a signifĳicant proportion
of the drug trade. This has not prevented the AUC from enjoying ‘friendly’
relations with the DEA and the CIA in the persecution of other drug traf-
fĳickers such as, for example, Pablo Escobar… With the disappearance or
imprisonment of the leaders of the drug cartels in Medellín and Cali… the
AUC took over control of drug processing and exportation… it is now a
new militarized mafĳia cartel, the world’s biggest cocaine exporter with an
anti-guerrilla discourse” (Calvo Ospina, 2003).
In August 2002, a landowner whose father had a background in the drug
trade, Alvaro Uribe Vélez (“the man closest to our philosophy,” according
to the head of the AUC), became president of Colombia. His central
goal, explains Calvo Ospina, is the total paramilitarization of the state
and of society: the recruitment of up to one million Colombians as inform-
ers; the creation of a contingent of 25,000 rural workers and indigenous
people who, after receiving military training, are reintegrated into their
communities in a manner reminiscent of the Civil Patrols in Guatemala;

the establishment of local security fronts in neighborhoods and busi-
nesses, etc. And, to serve as an example to other countries (like Mexico),
in case anyone had failed to work out the right way to wage the war on
drugs, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell enthusiastically congratulated
President Uribe during a visit to Colombia, declaring that Colombia had
“created a great strategy and assembled all the pieces needed to fĳight the
phenomenon of insecurity and terrorism” (Calvo Ospina, 2003).
This is not surprising as, “by the mid-nineties, state terrorism, making
use of paramilitarism (referred to as ‘hit teams’, ‘death squads’ or any of the
many other names given to them to conceal their true identity) had killed
or ‘disappeared’ 25,000 leftists and prominent progressives… for which
Colombia has been charged by the United Nations with ‘political geno-
cide’. Not even the dictators of the Southern Cone went so far” (Calvo Ospina,
2003, emphasis added). It is also no surprise that whenever a Colombian
president (fĳirst Betancur and then Andrés Pastrana) agrees to engage in
dialogue with guerrilla groups, paramilitary violence multiplies to sabo-
tage the attempt: “In keeping with the terms of the National Security
Doctrine, the effforts to fĳind a non-violent or political solution to Colombia’s
internal conflict have been perceived by the military high command as
advances by the ‘communist guerrilla forces’ in their attack on power”
(Calvo Ospina, 2003). And this is but one of many examples of the world
created by neoliberal capital.108
While in Latin America the kidnapping industry and other related
industries continue to grow to the point that they represent the most
successful of all of the region’s industrial districts,109 in Afghanistan and
Iran the mafĳia economy is being globalized. The West, the biggest con-
sumer of drugs, forces them to embark on a useless war (“we’ll do every-
thing possible, but we cannot control the whole border”) that costs them
108 It is not my purpose to explore the topic further here, but for more information see
the Washington Offfĳice on Latin America, 2008, and Rojas Aravena, 2008, among many
others.
109 “Mass poverty is incompatible with social harmony and public stability. Latin
America has become a flagrant example of this. Added to organized crime, the illegal levies
of paramilitary groups and the practices or deviations of some guerrilla forces, the outra-
geous gap between rich and poor, the cynicism of the elite, the widespread corruption of
the police, or the disrepute of the justice system (due, among other factors, to the impunity
that has accompanied so many state crimes), have weakened civic values, undermined
social solidarity and fostered a wave of crime which, in some countries, is characterized by
the multiplication of sexually motivated kidnappings… symptomatic of societies in crisis,
and of an accelerated societal breakdown” (Prolongeau and Rampal, 1997).
278 chapter nine
lives (“our martyrs bear witness to it”), erodes their government structures
(“the temptation that the manna of trafffĳicking must represent to a poorly
paid government employee”) and their productive and social structures:
“in Afghanistan, there is nothing but opium. What is needed is to pull this
country out of poverty and develop alternatives for rural workers… the
U.S. offfensive has only encouraged the option of poppy growing, which is
the means of subsistence for 3.3 million Afghans” (Gouverneur, 2002).
In Iraq, local corruption is entwined with corruption in the West110 and
they have been working together, even since before the war in 2003, to ruin
the country. The sanctions against Baghdad, in force since August 1990,
had a devastating efffect on Iraqi society: in addition to “problems in
obtaining food and medicine, the infrastructure began to deteriorate,111
essential services for the population, ministries, electrical power plants,
drinking water, all dropped to extremely precarious levels… Corruption,
which until then had been nonexistent, began to develop at every level.
Crime grew at a dizzying rate… Much of the middle class emigrated and
the country lost its professionals. The education system, which previously
covered all children, recorded a spike in student dropouts, as many had to
work to help their families survive, thereby producing a semi-illiterate
generation… The country took a fĳifteen-year leap backwards, which will
take a lot of work to redress… they destabilized one of the most important
states in the region and increased its chances of fragmentation. Who will
be judged for these errors? What commission will assess these mistakes
for which the whole Middle East pays so dearly?” (Gresh, 2005).
Up to this point, the examples offfered have been taken from the
defenseless underdeveloped world (although always with the enthusiastic
collaboration of developed nations). Not included in this analysis are the
many other notable cases of social degradation in the contemporary
world, such as the recurring humanitarian crises that especially afffect the
110 “Between 1996 and 2003, the ‘Oil for Food’ program allowed Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein to divert hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, several high offfĳicials in
the United Nations (UN) pocketed large commissions… Moreover, foreign political leaders,
chiefly French, have also taken advantage of the system” (Gresh, 2005).
111 “And, in the midst of this collapse, the desire of the United States to monopolize all
of the reconstruction contracts should not be underestimated. To be able to reestablish
electricity, it would have been necessary to turn to the corporations from Germany
(Siemens) and Switzerland (ABB) that had installed the modern electrical grid in place in
Iraq. To repair the phone lines, the best option was to call Alcatel (a French fĳirm), which
had installed the existing system and was familiar with the terrain. But Washington wanted
to punish the governments of Old Europe, and at the same time guarantee the juicy con-
tracts to companies that funded the Republican Party” (Gresh, 2005).
countries of Southern Africa and the Horn of Africa, or the shocking work-
ing conditions sufffered by large numbers of workers in India and China.
However, examples can also be found in the developed world. In France,
while they expand the “law-free zones handed over to the parallel econ-
omy and the law of the gangs” and their suburbs appear to have become
their biggest threat,112 they are exploring the best responses to their prob-
lems: “We are witnessing a massive expansion of penalization of behaviors
which until now were not prosecuted under the law, as well as a toughen-
ing up of the penalties imposed for minor crimes… we have shifted from a
global approach to problems (social development of neighborhoods, con-
struction improvement and crime prevention), that is, from the idea that
these problems have social causes, to the idea of the individual responsi-
bility of offfenders and their capacity to choose rationally” (Bonelli, 2003).
Indeed, in France, as around the world, “they are working hard on the
task of social demolition,” eliminating 10,000 jobs in education while
simultaneously hiring 10,000 prison guards, and amending a range of laws
(related to dismissal, reduction of work hours and control of public funds
allocated to businesses), “all of which are considered detestable obstacles
to the ‘liberation of the forces that be’, i.e. employer arbitrariness” (de Brie,
2003).113 The French Right “is committed to the policy of the right to plun-
der, developed under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO),
which negotiates – under the framework of the General Agreement of
Trade in Services (GATS) – for the progressive submission of all public ser-
vices, including health and education, to the law of the market.” De Brie
explains in detail the method used in these cases, whereby the “extrem-
ists” call for exaggerated reforms and the government, after sizing up
the terrain, offfers reasonable, moderate measures: “they use the proven
method of cutting the problem into slices; social demolition in stages”
(de Brie, 2003).
But this is not only happening in France. Throughout the European
Union social dumping is being legitimated in the common market, estab-
lishing “a clear hierarchy between the rights of companies and social
112 “Against a background of spikes in crime, self-proclaimed security experts prophesy

about the advent of a kingdom of criminals who are increasingly young, recidivist and
violent… youths can no longer be integrated into a world in marked decline, nor can they
accept the new under-qualifĳied jobs that their lack of qualifĳications makes them objec-
tively fĳit for” (Bonelli, 2003).
113 The only justifĳication for this demolition, de Brie suggests, “is to meet the demands
of the employer lobby, align France together with countries with less social support, and
integrate it into the policy of forced globalization that capitalism seeks to impose on the
whole world.”
280 chapter nine
norms, in which the former prevail over the latter,” and although the Court
of Justice of the European Communities “admits that union action consti-
tutes a ‘fundamental right’ (which is indeed an advance in the social
wasteland of Europe) it immediately empties it of content by subjecting it
to the obligation of not ‘hindering’ the freedom of establishment or the
free provision of service of the companies in the common market… the
defense of the minimum wage thus proves incompatible with European
law if it is likely to make the conditions offfered to companies of another
member state ‘less attractive, or more difffĳicult’” (Robert, 2010). And since
the EU is fĳilled with “millions of voters who are victims of the brutalities
engendered by globalization in the postindustrial world… with multitudes
of disposable workers, suburban new poor, mileuristas, the excluded, retir-
ees in the prime of their lives, casualized youth, middle-class families on
the brink of poverty… the many common people who have fallen victim to
neoliberal shock treatment,” the social democratic parties, which in
2002 governed in 15 countries while in 2010, “in spite of the fact that
the fĳinancial crisis has demonstrated the moral, social and ecological
impasse of ultra-liberalism, govern in only fĳive nations (Spain, Greece,
Hungary, Portugal and the United Kingdom) because they have not
known how to take advantage of the failure of neoliberalism. And the
governments of three of these countries – Spain, Greece and Portugal,
attacked by the fĳinancial markets and afffected by the ‘debt crisis’ – will
fall into discredit and lose their popular support when they begin, with
an iron hand, to implement the austerity programs and unpopular
policies demanded by the logic of the EU and its main gatekeepers”
(Ramonet, 2010).
“Some time ago,” adds Ramonet, “Europe’s social democrats decided to
encourage privatization, promote the reduction of government budgets at
the expense of the public, push up the retirement age and dismantle the
public sector, while spurring on the concentrations and mergers of mega-
corporations and allowing the banks to do as they pleased. For years they
have been accepting, without much regret, a shift toward social liberalism.
They no longer view as priorities any of the objectives that once formed
part of their ideological DNA, for example, full employment, the defense
of the social benefĳits won in the past, the development of public services
or the eradication of poverty” (Ramonet, 2010). It is thus no surprise that,
in light of this vacuum of options, right, extreme right and even neo-Nazi
projects thrive.
The United States offfers a great deal of material for analysis in this
area, but I will limit myself to a brief overview drawn from a report issued
by the Truth Commission for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in

the U.S.114 With regard to what could be called “foreign policy,” the
Commission echoes the “growing concern of the international public
opinion about the United States government[’s] obvious contempt for
national sovereignty and the peaceful international coexistence rules
which have allowed for balances, although rather formal, in the post-war
world; amidst the public and notorious will of the United States govern-
ment to refuse to limit its actions, as decided by most of the nations, by
instruments intended to avoid the impunity of War Crimes and Crimes
Against Humanity.”
With regard to “domestic policy,” the report points to the “existence of
more than 31 million American citizens living under the poverty level, and
about 45 million people with no access to healthcare” and has “reached
the general conclusion that human, economic, social and cultural rights
are indeed violated in the United States of America; the Federal
Government, the legislative and judicial authorities, and the private mega-
companies can be identifĳied as those responsible for these violations;
[and] that such human rights violations were in most cases totally pre-
ventable.” In the face of “this alarming panorama of deterioration, it was
necessary to suggest proposals to the audience,” and this was made all the
more urgent by the fact that “amidst the enactment of domestic laws, such
as the Patriotic Act, that limit individual and political rights and legitimize
endangering democracy in their own territory, the situation of the eco-
nomic, social and cultural rights of the poor in the United States of
America still remains invisible” (Truth Commission, 2006).
Indeed, in the neoliberal context, all myths – even the most devoutly
cultivated – vanish into thin air: “The ‘American dream’ is very simply
defĳined: that the next generation should enjoy a better standard of living
than the last one. But this fundamental myth in the United States is quickly
vanishing” (Brooks, 2008). And as the myths vanish, even in the country of
myths, and that country’s political class lurches from one scandal to the
114 In preparing this report, the members of the commission reviewed “documentation
and listened to dozens of emblematic testimonies by poor, white and black, Latin and
Asian, young and old women and men, veterans of Iraq and mothers who had lost their
children in that war of occupation, homeless people, victims of the Katrina hurricane,
unemployed, migrants against whom walls are built and restrictions are implemented,
while their work and human exploitation is legitimized under neo-slavery conditions,
physically handicapped people, mothers whose children have been unjustly removed by
the State because of their poverty, and citizens with no healthcare, among various sectors
in American society” (Truth Commission, 2006).
282 chapter nine
next,115 its government has no qualms about arguing that it has the right to
deny the rights of others,116 including, of course, its own people: “The U.S.
government has responded to the evidence being arrayed against its out-
landish 9/11 conspiracy theory by redefĳining the war on terror from exter-
nal to internal enemies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
said on February 21 that American extremists are now as big a concern as
international terrorists. Extremists, of course, are people who get in the
way of the government’s agenda” (Roberts, 2010, emphasis added).
It isn’t for nothing that the oligarchy of the United States is the one that
most openly promotes its own candidacy for the honor of last man as,
according to Samir Amín, “deprived of the tradition in which social demo-
cratic workers’ and communist parties marked the formation of modern
European political culture, U.S. society lacks the ideological instruments
that would enable it to resist the unchallenged dictatorship of capital…
and it is capital that shapes the society’s mode of thinking in all its dimen-
sions” (Amin, 2003a). But even under these conditions of the society’s
ideological and political weakness, the project of the U.S. oligarchy “can-
not for long be sustained without active repressions, or even tyranny, at
home” and without doing substantial damage to its internal democratic
institutions: “The popular tradition within the United States is anti-
colonial and anti-imperial and it has taken a very substantial conjuring
trick, if not outright deception, to mask the imperial role of the US in
world afffairs or at least to clothe it in grand humanitarian intentions over
the past few decades. It is not clear that the US population will generally
support an overt turn to any long-term militarized Empire (any more than
it ended up supporting the Vietnam War). Nor will it accept for long the
price, already substantial given the repressive clauses inserted into the
Patriot and Homeland Security Acts, that has to be paid at home in terms
of civil liberties, rights and general freedoms” (Harvey, 2004: 82).
In short, social degradation, which dislocates communities, affflicting
them with multiple conflicts and isolating them in contained fury and
impotence, acting like a cancer that gradually spreads throughout the
whole body of society, is not accidental or circumstantial, but rooted in
profound tendencies of neoliberal capital related to the gestation of the
last man and, more generally (as will be shown in the last chapter) to the
115 For a few examples of the scandals, see Brooks, 2005a and Brooks, 2006. U.S. Senator
John McCain, with an undeniable hint of humor, remarks of Washington that “this town
has become very corrupt, there’s no doubt about it” (as quoted in Brooks, 2006).
116 For an exploration of this question, see Chomsky, 2005.
period of decline of capitalism. According to the UN Offfĳice on Drugs and

Crime, “transnational organized crime, illegal drug trafffĳicking and terror-
ism have become social, political and economic forces capable of altering
the fates of nations and whole regions… and… have given rise to the
appearance of phenomena such as widespread bribery of public offfĳicials,
the growth of ‘crime multinationals’, human trading and the use of terror-
ism to intimidate communities large and small” (UNODC, 2008).
The gestation of the last man is not an act of creation of life but the
trajectory of the last survivor: an aging capitalism no longer has the
strength to support life, and its last offfspring staggers onward, killing its
surviving siblings and anything that opposes it, hinders it, or is simply
superfluous to it. The last oligarchies of globalization fĳight over living
space in an efffort to consummate their status as the last man and, as
they energetically and fĳiercely pursue the goals yet to be examined –
surveillance and murder – they learn how to thrive in the midst of the
chaos and butchery. According to Klein, the economic prosperity of Israel
is based on the fact it “has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset,
pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian
people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror’… Israel has
struck oil. The oil is the war on terror, the state of constant fear that creates
a bottomless global demand for devices that watch, listen, contain and
target ‘suspects’. And fear, it turns out, is the ultimate renewable resource”
(Klein, 2007a).117
Surveillance
The contenders for the title of last man monitor one another on a global
scale as a necessity of competition, but they also monitor their slaves in
order to prevent (or, when required, to repress) any outbreak of resistance
or rebellion. To address this point and take note of the trend (a growing
systematic efffort to enhance surveillance capacities, and the use of scien-
tifĳic and technological research and development for espionage and soci-
etal control), highlighting its signifĳicance and relevance and outlining
117 “Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a
fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day show-
room – a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war” (Klein, 2007a).
Among other successful products and services, these salespeople offfer high-tech fences for
an apartheid planet, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear,
air passenger profĳiling and prisoner interrogation systems. “Palestinians,” says Klein, “are
no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs….” in laboratories “where the terrifying tools of
our security states are being tested” (Klein, 2007a).
284 chapter nine
some of its dimensions without going into an exhaustive exploration,

I draw chiefly from the report “An Appraisal of Technologies of Political
Control,” a study commissioned by Science and Technology Options
Assessment (STOA), a European Parliament committee established to
assess public policy options in science and technology.
According to this report, “surveillance technology can be defĳined as
devices or systems which can monitor, track and assess the movements of
individuals, their property and other assets” (STOA, 1998). The report dis-
cusses the growing prominence of a form of pre-emptive policing known
as “data-veillance,” based on military models for gathering huge amounts
of low-grade intelligence, and the wide range of surveillance technologies
that have been developed, including night-vision goggles, parabolic micro-
phones to detect conversations over a kilometer away and laser versions
that can pick up any conversation from a closed window in line of sight,
the Danish Jai stroboscopic camera, which can take hundreds of pictures
in a matter of seconds and individually photograph all the participants in
a demonstration or march, and automatic vehicle recognition systems,
which can track a car around a city using a computerized geographic
information system.
The document indicates that most surveillance up until the 1960s was
extremely low-tech, but by the 1980s new forms of electronic surveillance
began to emerge, many of which aimed at the automation of communica-
tions interception. The report goes on to cover the following general topics
in the development of technologies of political control:
Algorithmic surveillance systems: systems that can scan crowds and match
faces against a database of images held in a remote computer. It has now
become possible to analyze data using complex algorithms which enable
automatic recognition and tracking. There are also vehicle recognition sys-
tems that can see both night and day, to identify a vehicle number plate and
then track it around a city.
Bugging and tapping devices: a wide range of devices for recording con-
versations and intercepting telecommunications trafffĳic. Lap top computers
are adapted to tune into mobile phones active in the area simply by moving
the cursor over their number.
National and international communications interception networks:
global surveillance systems that facilitate the mass supervision of all tele-
communications including telephone, email and fax transmissions.
Under this last heading, the report examines two global surveillance sys-
tems in particular: the UK/USA system and EU-FBI system. The UK/USA
System: is employed by U.S. military intelligence agencies such as NSA-
CIA and operates on a system known as ECHELON, “a global surveillance
system that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of
the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world’s satellite phone
calls, Internet, email, faxes and telexes” (STOA, 1998). According to the
report, this system works by indiscriminately intercepting huge quantities
of communications, and then picks out those of value using artifĳicial intel-
ligence aids.
ECHELON routinely intercepts all telecommunications in the European
Union, is designed for primarily non-military purposes (governments,
organizations and businesses) and has been used to obtain privileged
information which – and this is what truly outraged European business
and political leaders118 – has benefĳited U.S. companies involved in arms
deals and strengthened Washington’s position in crucial World Trade
Organization talks with Europe. But while ECHELON exhibits features
that tie in with the competitive strategies of the U.S. oligarchies119 in rela-
tion to their European counterparts, in the case of the EU-FBI the two
sides are in cooperation:
The EU-FBI Global Telecommunications Surveillance System: links the
diffferent police authorities of the European Union with the FBI. According
to a Statewatch report, the EU accepted the “requirements” established by
the FBI focusing on the systematic recording and storage of all informa-
tion trafffĳic in telecommunications: “every phone call, every mobile phone
call, every fax, every e-mail, every website’s contents, all internet usage,
from anywhere, by everyone, to be recorded, archived and be accessible
for least seven years,” in addition to making it compulsory for network and
service providers to provide law enforcement agencies with data from
intercepted communications and real-time access to transmissions
(Statewatch, 2001).120 Included as part of this deployment of technological
resources to monitor and control society is direct intervention into per-
sonal computers: “it is now totally possible to gain remote access to any
118 According to Ornelas Bernal, “ECHELON is at the center of conflict between the

United States and Europe… The disputes have been reignited as a result of various cases in
which ‘privileged information’ enabled U.S. companies to take contracts away from their
European competitors… The existence of international espionage has shifted from being
an element of the ‘Western alliance in defense of the free world’, to a factor of confronta-
tion between the dominant powers” (Ornelas Bernal, 2000).
119 “The U.S. government – in collaboration with its Anglo-Saxon allies – designed and
implemented an intelligence instrument known as ECHELON… a vast system capable of
intercepting all kinds of communications and appropriating key information (mainly eco-
nomic and political) used to support the interests of the family of Anglo-Saxon states, with
the U.S. at the head” (Memoria, 2002).
120 For more information on this topic, see Moeche, 1999 and Mathiesen, 2000.
286 chapter nine
computer with an Internet connection (and other devices such as mobile

phones, electronic diaries…) and not only to see their content; with the
right program, it is also possible to manipulate it, modify it and/or activate
controls without its user realizing” (Ateneu, 2010).121
The so-called cloud computing technologies constitute a huge step in
this direction; user information is stored permanently in online servers
(controlled by major corporations in the industry like Microsoft and
Google) instead of being stored in their personal computers. Thus, as
the use of these technologies continues to spread, it will not even be
necessary to tap into personal computers to access all kinds of informa-
tion about the user; the incalculable “power that this represents for
corporations and governments of the First World to access the details,
interests, preferences, friendships, habits, culture, ideas and photographs
of millions of people around the world” is patently obvious (Colectivo
Troyano, 2009b).
Included among these interceptable devices and services is Facebook
and the other so-called social networks, which constitute “a mine of infor-
mation on their users that will wind up on the hard drives of the U.S. intel-
ligence community, used with equal enthusiasm on both the internal and
external ‘enemy’ since the Bush era” (Carmona, 2009).122 Lisandro Pardo
notes that “the information available on social networks is constantly
growing. This source of data is a goldmine for any on-line business project,
but it also constitutes a real-time information source that no intelligence
agency can affford to ignore,” and he adds: “it would be a very interesting
exercise to try to ascertain the point at which a simple case of data monitor-
ing can turn into full-scale surveillance” (Pardo, 2009, emphasis added).
Also included in this category are video surveillance systems:123 cameras
installed on streets and highways, and inside and outside public buildings.
Using closed-circuit cameras, companies spy on their employees and gov-
ernments on their citizens, but with the webcams installed on personal
121 “At the end of 2001, the American television network MSNBC leaked that the FBI was
using the Magic Lantern virus to spy on computers. This Trojan virus and others like Back
Orifĳice, Netbus and Sub7 can be introduced into the computer via any online operation:
downloading a song, receiving an email, opening a picture… once installed, the computer
is accessible to the virus owner, who not only can see what is happening on it, but even
intervene and usurp the identity of its users, passwords included” (Ateneu, 2010).
122 For more information on this topic, see also Rodríguez, 2009 and Alandete, 2009.
123 “We understand video surveillance systems to refer to any systems equipped at least
with a camera connected to a screen where the image is viewed… All such cameras and
those who operate them come under social control, forming part of the para-policing infra-
structure” (Ateneu, 2010).
computers it is possible to monitor any user connected to the Internet, if

his or her computer has been previously tapped (Ateneu, 2010).
Of course, this vast array of surveillance devices is not deployed without
resistance and contradictions: the same Statewatch report notes “the
enormity of the threat to data protection, individual privacy and funda-
mental freedoms” and “the battle between the Data Protection offfĳicials
and the law enforcement agencies over the retention of data.” Law enforce-
ment agencies structure their agenda “in quasi-secret international fora,”
and the governments of the EU “tell the European Commission (and
European Parliament) that the demands of the law enforcement agencies
take precedence over the privacy and freedoms of people” (Statewatch,
2001).124 Ultimately, these agencies are relying on their capacity to mold
the minds of the public: “what one generation perceives as repression, the
next accepts as a necessary part of an increasingly complex everyday life”
(Ateneu, 2010).
The threat that these surveillance systems represent should not be
underestimated. According to Statewatch, “it is the interface of the
ECHELON system and its potential development on phone calls com-
bined with the standardization of ‘tappable’ telecommunications centers
and equipment being sponsored by the EU and the USA which presents a
truly global threat over which there are no legal or democratic controls”
(Statewatch, 2001, emphasis added). What is troubling is the “trend toward
convergence and integration of the diffferent recording and surveillance
systems… On the horizon we can glimpse the features of an extensive,
increasingly integrated multinational recording and surveillance system…
Furthermore, there is international cooperation on telecommunications
surveillance… Both the EU-FBI system and Echelon can be partially or
wholly integrated very easily; the advanced technology of Echelon is
expanding and soon it will be able to be used by the EU-FBI system. The
technological similarities overlap and exchanges of personnel encourage
integration” (Mathieson, 2000).
124 According to the UK’s Data Protection Commissioner, “the routine long-term preser-
vation of data by ISPs [Internet Service Providers] for law enforcement purposes would be
disproportionate general surveillance of communications.” Nevertheless, “the EU has
agreed in secret on the creation of an international phone tapping network through a
secret network of committees and the EU’s network and service providers will be required
to install ‘interceptable’ systems, and to put any person or group under surveillance when-
ever they receive an interception order… These plans have never been submitted for review
to a European government, nor to the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties,
in spite of the evident issues of public freedoms posed by such an uncontrolled system. The
decision to go ahead was simply adopted in secret” (Statewatch, 2001).
288 chapter nine
Murder
Earlier in this chapter, I indicated that in dismantling the nation-state as

the historic space regulation of its behavior, capital established conditions
without precedent in its history for the full deployment of the power of
the fetish. According to Kurnitzky, “the expansion of unlimited economic
power… [and] making free competition the regulator of society means
making violence the universal method in social confrontations… Around
the world a vacuum has been created in which violence can be intensifĳied
without limits: everyday violence, civil and gang warfare, religious or eth-
nic warfare, violence arising from mafĳias and cartels and the violence with
which the economic powers impose their interests worldwide on all soci-
eties” (Kurnitzky, 2000, emphasis added).
The gestation of the last man is necessarily conflictive and, although
the main purpose is not necessarily to kill but to pursue the logic of capital
and the gestation of the absolute monopoly of the means of production
and subsistence, murder is a necessary component of the march toward
the goal and, as the march goes on, it tends to become capital’s most uni-
versal approach: to kill those who hinder it, those superfluous to it, those
who resist it, its competitors; to kill as a direct condition for the pursuit of
its goal of gestation or as a collateral efffect, as simple incidental damage;
to kill in situations of war or other military operations, but also as
the result of “broad economic, social and institutional mechanisms, as
well as the environmental consequences of war and economic collapse”
(Chossudovksy, 2007a).
Without doubt, the economic and political oligarchy of the United
States, which most explicitly manifests its aspiration to establish as abso-
lute monopoly and the last man, is the world champion in this area. What
follows is a brief review of its evolution to illustrate the developing trend.
The Underdeveloped World and the Promotion of Conflicts
Throughout the neoliberal period so far, the pursuit of the goal has been
very intense in underdeveloped countries: “Countries are destroyed,
often transformed into territories, sovereignty is foregone, national
institutions collapse, the national economy is destroyed through the
imposition of ‘free market’ reforms, unemployment becomes rampant,
social services are dismantled, wages collapse, and people are impover-
ished… In turn, the nation’s assets and natural resources are transferred
into the hands of foreign investors through a privatization program
imposed by the invading forces” (Chossudovsky, 2007a). These processes
of destruction, with varying degrees of intensity and coordination between

nation-state and national economy – dismantling the capacities of state
regulation to facilitate the concentration of wealth into the hands of
neoliberal capital and promote tribalism to help neutralize resistance –
have already been examined in the chapters on the neoliberal economy
and the neoliberal state, where it was noted that they constitute a promo-
tion of death, linking together with the state administration of criminal
activity and/or direct military aggression.
But in relation to the issue that concerns us here, it is worth recalling
that in the neoliberal period so far the United States has asserted itself as
the military superpower of globalization and, while the global powers
have not confronted one another militarily (although this possibility is not
excluded for the future, depending on the number of competitor oligar-
chies that survive and how far they are willing to go toward mutual exter-
mination), they have used the underdeveloped nations to compete against
each other, seeking to position them as sites of conflict where they can
wear out their rivals. The underdeveloped world has thus revealed its use-
fulness not only as a source of resources, markets and cheap labor, but also
as a source of conflicts which, appropriately handled, may be of consider-
able competitive value. Up to now, the deaths – an already enormous heap
of corpses – have occurred mainly among the populations of underdevel-
oped countries as a result of the strategies for the gestation of the last man
implemented by the developed nations.
For example, as Chossudovsky explains, to wear down the former Soviet
Union, Washington deliberately provoked a civil war in Afghanistan that
lasted for more than 25 years. In fact, the ‘Militant Islamic Network’ “was
created by the CIA. The ‘Islamic Jihad’ (or holy war against the Soviets)
became an integral part of the CIA’s intelligence ploy. It was supported by
the United States and Saudi Arabia, with a signifĳicant part of the funding
generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade… The history of the drug
trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations”
(Chossudovksy, 2008a).125 Chossudovksy also points out that after the
125 According to Chossudovsky, when Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President

Jimmy Carter, was asked in an interview whether he regretted having supported Islamic
fundamentalism, giving arms and advice to future terrorists, he responded: “Regret what?
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the efffect of drawing the Russians into
the Afghan trap… The day that the Soviets offfĳicially crossed the border, I wrote to President
Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for
almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict
that brought about the demoralization and fĳinally the breakup of the Soviet empire”
(Chossudovsky, 2008a).
290 chapter nine
Cold War, the CIA continued to support Islamic brigades that served “as a
catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of
six new Muslim republics in Central Asia,” but that would also operate in
Bosnia and Chechnya and promote secessionist Islamic insurgencies in
India’s Kashmir and on China’s western border with Afghanistan and
Pakistan, while at the same time separatist forces in Tibet have received
support from the United States.126
The fostering of conflicts, while aimed at debilitating the competitors,
also seeks to organize new economic benefĳits by appropriating strate-
gic resources like oil,127 and creating highly profĳitable business sectors
such as the drug trade.128 Chossudovksy explains that what he calls
“Washington’s hidden agenda,” which “consists in sustaining rather than
combating international terrorism, with a view to destabilizing national
societies and preventing the articulation of genuine secular social move-
ments directed against the American Empire… Washington continues to
support—through CIA covert operations—the development of Islamic
fundamentalism, throughout the Middle East, in the former Soviet Union
as well in China and India… Throughout the developing world, the growth
of sectarian, fundamentalist and other such organizations tends to serve
U.S. interests. These various organizations and armed insurgents have
been developed, particularly in countries where state institutions have
collapsed under the brunt of the IMF-sponsored economic reforms”
(Chossudovsky, 2008a).
126 In the case of China, “Washington is attempting to trigger a broader process of politi-
cal destabilization and fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these
various covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan and in
several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China’s Western border” (Chossudovsky,
2008a).
127 “Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite
Washington’s condemnation of ‘Islamic terrorism’, the indirect benefĳiciaries of the wars in
Chechnya are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for complete control
over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin” (Chossudovsky,
2008a).
128 Afghanistan “is a strategic hub in Central Asia… it is also strategic for its opium pro-
duction, which today, according to UN sources, supplies more than 90% of the world’s
heroin market, representing multi-billion dollar revenues for business syndicates, fĳinancial
institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime… Protected by the CIA, a new surge
in opium production unfolded in the post-Cold War era. Since the October 2001 US inva-
sion of Afghanistan, opium production has increased 33 fold… The Golden Crescent drug
trade was also being used to fĳinance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the
early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)… Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart
of the ‘Balkan Route’ that links the ‘Golden Crescent’ of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the
drug markets of Europe” (Chossudovsky, 2008a).
Constructing the Future
It is also important to note that the need for murder entailed in the gesta-
tion of the last man defĳines the prospects for the future and the plans of
the personifĳications of neoliberal capital in several senses:
First, as an extension of the “global war on terrorism” declared by the
United States; Chossudovksy explains that, according to U.S. military doc-
trine, “[a] terrorist attack on American soil of the size and nature of
September 11, would lead – according to former US Central Command
(USCENTCOM) Commander, General Tommy Franks, who led the inva-
sion of Iraq in 2003 – to the demise of Constitutional government.” Such
an event “would be used to galvanize U.S. public opinion in support of a
military government and police state. The resulting crisis, the social tur-
moil and public indignation would facilitate a major shift in US political,
social and institutional structures” (Chossudovsky, 2008a). Thus we fĳind
that, while “supporting international terrorism,”129 U.S. government agen-
cies (according to the logic of the shock doctrine) are preparing their
preemptive plan for a terrorist attack: “General Franks was not giving
a personal opinion on this issue. His statement is consistent with the
dominant viewpoint both in the Pentagon and the Homeland Security
Department as to how events might unfold in the case of a national
emergency… The ‘massive casualty producing event’ is an integral part of
military doctrine” which is used to “create conditions of collective fear
and intimidation, which facilitate the derogation of civil liberties and
the introduction of police state measures” and allow the government to
“to galvanize public opinion in support of a global military agenda”
(Chossudovsky, 2008a).130
Second, as an extension of the notion of the “enemy” being anyone who
gets in the way: Chossudovksy explains that in March 2005, the Pentagon
released the summary of a document that outlines the U.S. government’s
agenda for global military domination, which “calls for a more ‘proactive’
approach to warfare, beyond the weaker notion of ‘preemptive’ and
defensive actions, where military operations are launched against a
129 And this is true, according to Chossudovsky, both before and after September 11: “the
‘Islamic terror network’ is a creation of the U.S. intelligence apparatus… There is ample
evidence that Al Qaeda remains a U.S. sponsored intelligence asset… [which] remains
fĳirmly under the control of the U.S. intelligence apparatus” (Chossudovsky, 2008a).
130 In another article, Chossudovsky quotes David Rockefeller: “We are on the verge of
global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the
New World Order” (Chossudovsky, 2007a).
292 chapter nine
‘declared enemy’ with a view to ‘preserving the peace’ and ‘defending

America’. The document explicitly acknowledges America’s global mili-
tary mandate… This mandate also includes military operations directed
against countries, which are not hostile to America, but which are considered
strategic from the point of view of US interests” (Chossudovsky, 2005, empha-
sis added). Third, as an extension of the global arms race: the aforemen-
tioned Pentagon document of March 2005 “points to shifts in weapons
systems as well as the need for a global deployment of US forces in acts of
worldwide military policing and intervention” (Chossudovsky, 2005).
With this panorama before us, it is no surprise that the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has reported that world-
wide military expenses have been increasing constantly since 1998,131 or,
as Jules Dufour asserts, “the worldwide rearmament process is happily
moving forward in 2009 as military expenses continue to rise, taking a sig-
nifĳicant part of the resources that should be used for human development.
At the same time, the fĳinancial crisis that is having such a harsh efffect
around the world is prompting governments to dedicate astronomical
amounts of their national budgets to saving the assets of the richest.
These two phenomena combined are causing a process of widespread
impoverishment and contributing to the disintegration of whole societies”
(Dufour, 2009, emphasis added).
Dufour adds that both the rescue plans and the military expenditure
could be used for other purposes. Without even including military
expenditure, “the resources assigned to rescue the global fĳinancial system
[during the 2008 crisis] would be sufffĳicient to end world poverty for the next
50 years” (emphasis added), and he concludes: “with the great rearma-
ment and the fĳinancial crisis, the world has entered a spiral of huge defĳi-
cits and public debt that places the protection of human rights and
fundamental freedoms at risk. More than ever, the process of impoverish-
ment of the majority appears to be developing at an accelerated rate
because the solutions adopted by the governments only serve to accentuate
the dynamic of this spiral of precariousness, slavery, sickness and death, and
131 According to the 2009 SIPRI Yearbook, worldwide military expenditure in 2007

reached a total of 1.339 trillion dollars, of which 45% was spent by the U.S., with an invest-
ment of 541 billion dollars – 3.4% more than in 2006. Great Britain held second place with
an expenditure of 59.7 billion dollars. China was next with around 58.3 billion, followed by
France with an expenditure of 53.6 billion. In 2008, the national defense budget in the
United States amounted to a total of 604.4 billion dollars (Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, 2009).
all with the exclusive aim of safeguarding the assets and increasing the
power of the richest people on the planet” (Dufour, 2009, emphasis added).
There is no doubt that (as Dufour points out) investments in education,
health and environmental conservation and recovery would be much
more profĳitable and benefĳicial for all, but this is not in the script of neolib-
eral capital, which is becoming increasingly necrophiliac and genocidal as
complements to its unbridled globalphilia. The UN millennium develop-
ment goals are not the goals of neoliberal capital.
Science and Technology for Death
Of course, this vocation for war and death, which goes hand in hand with
its voracious desire to concentrate control of the means of production and
subsistence, has never been foreign to the spirit of capitalism,132 but what
is signifĳicant is the qualitative diffference between the development of this
general tendency of capital throughout its previous history and its current
level. This diffference does not consist in the current personifĳications of
capital having a greater inclination toward killing to pursue their interests
than their predecessors had, but in the level of development of science
and technology and their use in the pursuit of the interests of capital.
To illustrate this point, it will be sufffĳicient to cite a few brief examples
related to global warming, worldwide pollution, and the proposition of
geoengineering, i.e. technologies for restructuring the stratosphere and/or
the oceans, as a solution: “the manipulation of the planet as a whole, or of
large slabs of the planet or whole ecosystems in order to, theoretically,
slow down climate change” (Ribeiro, 2009a). The reports of the ETC Group
assert that geoengineering uses additional technology to counteract col-
lateral damage without eliminating the problem that causes it; its applica-
tion ensures that the industry will continue to pollute the planet and
makes the problem more complex by contributing massively to particle
pollution (ETC Group, 2007). According to the research, “all these projects
entail a hazard to the natural balance of ecosystems and further upset the
climate” (Ribeiro, 2009a) as they involve “experiments that tinker with the
132 Including during its golden era, the post-war boom: “What is referred euphemisti-
cally as the ‘post war era’ is in fact a period of continuous war and militarization. Since the
end of the Second World War, this ‘long war’ seeks to establish US hegemony worldwide…
This entire ‘post war period’ [1945 up to the present] is marked by extensive war crimes
resulting in the death of more than ten million people… This fĳigure does not include those
who perished as a result of poverty, starvation and disease” (Chossudovsky, 2007a).
294 chapter nine
planet’s complex climate system” (ETC Group, 2010). Put simply, “its ben-
efĳits are speculative and its risks are planetary… geoengineering is deadly
serious” (ETC Group, 2009, emphasis added).
Nevertheless, it is the solution preferred by the United States, which
didn’t care for the “focus on the negative efffects” of a report drafted by
the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or for its “rejection
of voluntary agreements,” and pushed for “techno-fĳix strategies to be
given a prominent place in the fĳinal report’s recommendations” (ETC
Group, 2007). The reason for this, according to the ETC Group, is that the
large-scale nature of all geoengineering technologies means they are
highly centralized, and have commercial applications as well as a
strong potential for military application (ETC Group, 2009). In business
terms this technology is “incredibly lucrative,” so much so that “it’s
really more of a business experiment than a scientifĳic experiment” (ETC
Group, 2007).
It is worth digressing briefly here to consider further the potential mili-
tary uses of this technology. The ETC Group explains that the potential
for using environmental modifĳication technologies as a weapon against
other nations makes weather control “fascinating” to many of the
world’s military powers: “A US Air Force report entitled ‘Weather as a
Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025’ concluded that the weather
‘can provide battlespace dominance to a degree never before imagined,’
including the ability to thwart an enemy’s operations by enhancing
a storm or by inducing drought and making fresh water scarce” (ETC
Group, 2007).
According to Chossudovsky, “the US military has developed advanced
capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The tech-
nology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral
Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense
Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of
mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of
destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems around the world…
Weather-modifĳication, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025
Final Report, ‘offfers the war fĳighter a wide range of possible options to
defeat or coerce an adversary’, capabilities, it says, [which] extend to the
triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes: Weather modi-
fĳication will become a part of domestic and international security and
could be done unilaterally… It could have offfensive and defensive applica-
tions and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate
precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and
the production of artifĳicial weather all are a part of an integrated set of

[military] technologies” (Chossudovsky, 2007c).
HAARP “is a weapon of mass destruction… an instrument of conquest
capable of selectively destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems of
entire regions,” and also has several associated uses: “HAARP could con-
tribute to climate change by intensively bombarding the atmosphere with
high-frequency rays… Returning low-frequency waves at high intensity
could also afffect people’s brains, and efffects on tectonic movements can-
not be ruled out. More generally, HAARP has the ability of modifying the
world’s electro-magnetic fĳield. It is part of an arsenal of ‘electronic weap-
ons’ which US military researchers consider a ‘gentler and kinder warfare’”
(Chossudovksy, 2002d).
As an aside, it is worth considering Chossudovsky’s argument that
“[a]lready in the 1970s, former National Security advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski had foreseen in his book Between Two Ages that ‘technology will
make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting
secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be
apprised” (Chossudovsky, 2002b, emphasis added). This reminds us that,
for capital, human beings are a necessary but undesirable evil and that,
both in the factory and in the army, as in any other sector of society, it is
working tirelessly to dispose of them.133 Thus, considering the huge
economic and political-military potential of geoengineering, it is obvious
why geoengineers should wish to continue with their research and
experiments – even those that constitute “high risk planet-altering
schemes,” such as “‘solar radiation management’ (SRM), a way of ‘cooling
down the planet’s thermostat’ by reflecting a portion of the sun’s rays
back to outer space, through a variety of techniques ranging from sun-
shades in space, to aerosol sulfates in the stratosphere, to whitening
clouds” (ETC Group, 2010).
All of these schemes, which, informed by the logic of the gestation
of the last man, place the natural balance of ecosystems at risk and
further destabilize climatic conditions, are gambling with the life of the
whole planet. Even a slight increase in the Earth’s temperatures could
unleash a crisis that could “afffect the water and food supplies of more than
2 billion people” (ETC Group, 2010). But the neoliberal doctrine is more
133 Clearly, U.S. oligarchs have not forgotten that, at least at one point during the
Vietnam War, “their” youth refused to go and kill and die for them, and they have been
implementing a range of schemes (which are not explored here) to ensure that it doesn’t
happen again.
296 chapter nine
than clear: risks, appropriately taken, are opportunities. “It is not a ques-
tion of identifying the causes of the problems in order to resolve them, but
to make use of the crises and the disasters as new sources of business, even
when the proposed ‘solutions’ pose even greater threats to the environ-
ment, ecosystems, health and life” (Ribeiro, 2009a).
For example, by combining geoengineering with genetic engineering,
an environmental crisis transformed into a food crisis could result in a
need to abandon all precautions and allow the proliferation of genetically
enhanced crops. “Claiming concern about contamination, companies will
insist on using ‘Terminator’ (sterile seed) technology. Global food security
will depend on a handful of agribusinesses” (ETC Group, 2007: 2).134
Promoting transgenics means handing food sovereignty over to a handful
of transnationals, as all GM products are patented and owned by six com-
panies: “to hand over seed sovereignty is to give these companies the key
to the entire food chain” (Ribeiro, 2009a). This would be a way of consoli-
dating the excessive power that transnationals have acquired in this sector
in recent decades: “they have increasing power to decide what is planted,
what we eat, what quality (or lack thereof) it will have, etc. Transgenic
crops are the greatest expression of this corporate control; all are patented
and inevitably contaminate other crops – which turns into a crime for the
victims, because they are accused of ‘unauthorized use’ of their patented
genes” (Ribeiro 2009a).135
In light of the above, we shouldn’t be surprised by the fĳierceness with
which Monsanto attacks farmers around the world – including those of
the United States – to keep them “and everyone else from having any
access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of normal seeds” (Cohen-
Cole, 2009), or that “there is a large group of conservative think tanks with
strong links to big oil that have abandoned the old tactic of denying cli-
mate change and joined the chorus in favor of a techno-fĳix… At any point
the climate engineers feel they’ve got a geoengineering scheme ready
to audition on the world stage, they’ve got ample data showing that the
climate emergency is already underway” (ETC Group, 2009).
134 Of course, “the world’s 1.4 billion people who depend on farmer-saved seed – most
of whom farm on marginal lands – will be left to fend for themselves,” (ETC Group, 2007: 2),
but this is insignifĳicant “collateral damage.”
135 ”All agribusinesses… have enjoyed extremely high profĳits since the food crisis was
announced in 2007, much higher than in previous years… The same companies that cre-
ated and benefĳit from this debacle, which now with the food crisis have immorally
increased their profĳits, promise us more of the same, or worse: further expansion of indus-
trial, transgenic, polluting agriculture, to continue raking in profĳits… They are veritable
vultures of hunger” (Ribeiro, 2009a).
Privatization and Death
Examples of neoliberal capital’s contemptuous indiffference toward

human life are so great in number that a whole library would not be big
enough to record them, but it is worth adding a few particularly signifĳicant
cases here:
It is well-known that disease is a simple matter of business for pharma-
ceutical companies, and that the more diseases there are the better. For
example, flu vaccines “are big business because the viruses are constantly
mutating, and companies see in this an endless (what we might cynically
call ‘renewable’) source of profĳits… mass vaccination will not be very use-
ful to public health, as the virus will keep mutating, but the government
purchases and the drain on public resources to the benefĳit of the transna-
tionals are excellent business… With the offfĳicially orchestrated hysteria to
vaccinate the whole world, fast-track approvals are being processed for
new vaccine production methods that have not been properly evaluated
and could have very hazardous consequences, as they are experimental
methods which in most cases involve the use of transgenic organisms and
manipulated viruses, adding new risks as yet unknown” (Ribeiro, 2009a,
emphasis added).
It is also worth noting that “synthetic biology” – the production of
synthetic living organisms or the alteration of existing organisms with
synthetic DNA – “entails an exponential increase in risks and dangers
to the environment and to health posed by transgenics,”136 and that
“nanotechnology” – manipulation of living or inert matter at the scale of
the nanometer (one millionth of a millimeter) – has a high toxicity poten-
tial for living organisms: “it is the size that is the riskiest aspect: the
immune systems of living organisms have no way of detecting synthetic
nanoparticles, which therefore pass unnoticed, with the potential to harm
the DNA” (Ribeiro, 2009a). But perhaps the most hazardous of all, accord-
ing to Silvia Ribeiro and the ETC Group, is the convergence of new tech-
nologies promoted by the U.S. Government’s National Science Foundation
(NSF): “In the USA, senior science policy makers and industry players” are
devising a project whose aim is “to combine biotechnology, information
technology and cognitive (neural) science with atom technology at the
nano scale… The fundamental building blocks of bio, info and neuro are
136 “Unlike transgenics, which take genes from existing organisms and insert them into
other existing organisms, synthetic biology aims at creating artifĳicial genes and living
organisms, wholly created in a laboratory” (Ribeiro, 2009a).
298 chapter nine
‘materially unifĳied’ at the nano-scale and therefore can be combined, or

otherwise manipulated through atom technology… Merging these tech-
nologies into one, proponents say, will drive a huge industrial revolution
and a societal “renaissance” that will guarantee American dominance –
military and economic – through the 21st century… [the] theory seeks to
wire together tools that could extend human control over all matter, life,
knowledge and even the collective mind – fundamentally changing nature
and society in the process… [it] could be about the end of society and
nature as we know them” (ETC Group, 2003: 7, emphasis added).137
The ETC Group warns about the extreme signifĳicance of these theories
of technological convergence: “there is sufffĳicient scientifĳic reality and
political muscle [behind the concept of converging technologies] to take
it very seriously. We have entered a point in history where technologies are
so powerful and their risks so great that government/industry cohabita-
tion will be seen as essential for security and progress. Converging tech-
nologies make almost everything possible or (worse) plausible. In such a
world, our focus must not be on techno-toys, but on governance and social
self-defense” (ETC Group, 2003: 6–7). While it may sound like science
fĳiction, the risks and threats are real, and even more alarming when we
consider: (1) all of capital’s scientifĳic and technological advances are devel-
oped without any degree of control by society; (2) for capital, anything
that can be appropriated is automatically its property; and (3) not only is
capital unconcerned with safeguarding life, but what it deems to be excess
population is viewed as a threat to its interests.
In relation to the fĳirst point (society’s lack of supervision or control over
the scientifĳic and technological ventures of capital), the various reports
issued by the ETC Group point emphatically and repeatedly to “the urgent
need for an international framework to evaluate new technologies, so
that governments, in consultation with civil society and the scientifĳic
community, can make reasoned and equitable decisions regarding their
possible development” (ETC Group, 2009: 7). According to the ETC Group,
137 Among the projects included is the “Socio-Tech” or “predictive science of social

behavior” project, which would enable users to “identify drivers for a wide range of socially
disruptive events and allow us to put mitigating or preventive strategies in place before the
fact,” or the “memetic engineering” project, which would allow the prediction and admin-
istration of cultural issues and “could help us deal with challenges to American cultural
supremacy.” The report “places enormous importance on the use of converging technolo-
gies for military and police purposes. The belief is that the proliferation of unmanned
vehicles, remote sensors, and augmented biological and chemical technologies will reduce
the likelihood of war by providing an ‘overwhelming US technological advantage’” (ETC
Group, 2003: 4).
governments need to tell the big transnationals that they do not have the
right to redesign the planet, but instead of doing so, they have “opted for
an ‘inverted’ principle of caution: as long as there are enormous scientifĳic
uncertainties and a lack of public awareness, nothing should prevent cor-
porations from continuing to use everyone as their guinea pigs” (Ribeiro,
2009a, emphasis added). This means that “the scientifĳic debate and the
government/commercial experimentation is taking place, once again, in
the absence of public discussion” (ETC Group, 2007: 1), while big corpora-
tions engage in “dangerous planet-tinkering schemes with minimal trans-
parency and even less public participation” (ETC Group, 2009: 1). As Silvia
Ribeiro points out, “there are no regulations applicable to nanotechnology
anywhere in the world, and governments continue to allow it to be mar-
keted ‘in the meantime’” (Ribeiro, 2009a).138
Worse still, capitalist governments, plagued by mutual distrust (as no
government believes that international negotiations will be able to halt
climate change) and trapped in a competitive dynamic, are part of the
problem rather than the solution: “one of the most dangerous aspects of
geoengineering is that it could be unilaterally deployed. A single country,
corporation or individual, or some coalition of the willing convened by
those who possess the technology, could conceivably attempt to geoengi-
neer the planet… It’s not hard to imagine diffferent countries wanting to
control the climate’s thermostat in conflicting ways. Multilateralism is the
only option here” (ETC Group, 2009: 6).
As for the second point (capital’s increasingly voracious push for
privatization), public resources continue to be sold offf regardless of how
hazardous this may be to the general conditions of human life.
Chossudovsky, for example, examines the effforts to privatize food, water
and fuel corporations: “These three essential goods or commodities, which
in a real sense determine the reproduction of economic and social life on
planet Earth, are under the control of a small number of global corpora-
tions and fĳinancial institutions… The fate of millions of human beings is
138 This is why the recommendations of the ETC Group are so important: “There is an
urgent need to engage all sectors of society in a comprehensive debate about the future
that is being planned for them. The sweeping economic, social and political issues raised
by converging technologies range far beyond the boundaries of any single country and
must be debated worldwide through the United Nations. The international community
must have the capacity to monitor and regulate the public and private governance [i.e. to
control governments and participate in key decisions] as well as control and ownership of
technologies… Beyond governance, the international community must create the capacity
to track, evaluate and accept or reject new technologies and their products through an
International Convention on the Evaluation of New Technologies” (ETC Group, 2003: 6).
300 chapter nine
managed behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms as part of

a profĳit driven agenda… We are at the crossroads of the most serious
economic and social crisis in modern history. The process of global impov-
erishment… has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultane-
ous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing world”
(Chossudovsky, 2008b).
One of the legal methods of privatizing public resources consists in
intellectual property systems – “which have nothing to do with public
acknowledgment of those who created something in particular” – and
particularly patents: “knowledge is common property; each of us relies
on the knowledge of others, and we are all interdependent… The idea
of privatizing this reciprocal flow, inherent and basic to the subsistence of
human societies, is absurd and perverse. In reality they are systems to
privatize and restrict access to resources and knowledge” (Ribeiro, 2009a).
It is no coincidence, as Ribeiro notes, that 97% of the world’s patents are
in OECD countries, that 90% of them are the property of transnational
corporations, or that two thirds of what is patented is never ultimately
used (Ribeiro, 2009a); patents exist to prevent others from having access
to the object of the patent.
But to all this it is necessary to add two circumstances peculiar to the
period. Firstly, that the advances of science and technology have made
previously unimagined elements of nature prone to control. Secondly,
that everything that scientifĳic and technological advances enable us to
control is privatized and “patented” by capital, from living organisms to
seeds, plants, animals and their genetic codes to the elements of the peri-
odic table (thanks to nanotechnology): “the grab for patents on nano-scale
products and processes could mean mega-monopolies on the basic ele-
ments that are the building blocks of the entire natural world. If current
trends continue, nanoscale technologies will further concentrate eco-
nomic power in the hands of multinational corporations” (ETC Group,
2005a: 5–6).139 All of the common property of mankind, the very basis
of human life throughout its history, is in the process of being appropri-
ated by capital: “in a world where privatization of science and unprece-
dented corporate concentration prevail, democracy and human rights
are being eroded and national sovereignty is undermined” (ETC Group,
2005a: 5).
139 The report adds that “almost as soon as scientists fĳigured out how to manipulate life
through genetic engineering, corporations fĳigured out how to monopolize it” (ETC Group,
2005a: 6).
According to Chossudovsky, “in the more advanced phase of water

privatization, the actual ownership of lakes and rivers by private corpora-
tions is contemplated” (Chossudovsky, 2008b). By this logic, it is not sur-
prising that there are moves to privatize and sell air,140 to expand the
promising market for oxygen, and, based on the principle that “every crisis
is an opportunity,” it makes sense to allow pollution to flourish until the air
provided by nature is unbreathable so that it will become essential for
“private initiative” to resolve the problem.
It would be a simple variant of the modus operandi employed by capi-
tal, for example, to privatize the water supply. The World Bank demands
austerity measures of countries in debt, which it uses to foster the deterio-
ration of water supply systems; as a result, a “crisis” occurs, which is to be
resolved by privatizing the water supply: “The World Bank serves the inter-
ests of water companies… through its regular loan programs to govern-
ments, which often come with conditions that explicitly require the
privatization of water provision… The privatization of water under World
Bank auspices feeds on the collapse of the system of public distribution of
safe tap drinking water” (Chossudovsky, 2008b). And with regard to the
third point, it should be noted that, on the one hand, this voracious push
for privatization is not only a matter of business but a basic part of capi-
tal’s whole power structure, and, on the other, as I indicated above, not
only is capital unconcerned with safeguarding life, but, given that what it
deems to be excess population is viewed as a threat to its interests, the
implementation of the power structure itself encompasses the aims of
protecting itself against this threat and disposing of this excess.
According to Chossudovsky, the agenda had already been laid out by
Henry Kissinger as early as the 1970s – “Control oil and you control nations;
control food and you control the people” (Chossudovsky, 2008b, empha-
sis added) – as part of an explicit design to dispose of those who are
140 According to an advertising portal on the Internet, “cans of oxygen are sold in many
stores in Japan. Each can costs 600 yen. There are various flavors in case you get bored
with the taste of ‘regular oxygen’, and they come with a comfortable adapter to enable to
absorption without a problem. The business of the future!” “They shudder,” remarked
an anonymous source, “because our great grandparents say they never paid a single penny
for water…” (García, 2006). A search confĳirms that this is now an emerging market with a
lot of potential in Latin America. “The experts at the service of the transnationals have
demonstrated an unlimited capacity for invention to better serve their employers. For
them, nothing is impossible, absurd, or immoral. Among their most recent achievements
is their success in putting nature itself on sale, disguised as so-called ‘environmental
services’. Expressions such as ‘oxygen sales’ and ‘carbon sink sales’ are now common cur-
rency, particularly in the countries of the South” (Movimiento Mundial por los Bosques
Tropicales, 2006).
302 chapter nine
superfluous (and, as such, a hindrance) to capital: “President Richard

Nixon at the outset of his term in offfĳice in 1969 asserted ‘his belief
that overpopulation gravely threatens world peace and stability.’ Henry
Kissinger, who at the time was Nixon’s National Security adviser, directed
various agencies of government to jointly undertake ‘a study of the impact
of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas interests’…
Although the NSSM 200 [National Security Study Memorandum: Impli-
cations of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas
Interests] report did not assign, for obvious reasons, an explicit policy role
to famine formation, it nonetheless intimated that the occurrence of fam-
ines could, under certain circumstances, provide a de facto solution to
overpopulation” (Chossudovsky, 2008b).
There is no doubt that the implementation of this de facto solution has
produced satisfactory results and that its future looks extremely promis-
ing, if we also consider, for example, wars for natural resources, among
other equally promising concepts that could be applied in the near future.
Michael T. Klare reports that “British Defense Secretary John Reid warned
that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combin-
ing to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and
energy… With sea levels rising, water and energy becoming increasingly
scarce and prime agricultural lands turning into deserts, internecine
warfare over access to vital resources will become a global phenomenon”
(Klare, 2006, emphasis added). According to Klare, “the greatest danger
posed by global climate change is not the degradation of ecosystems per
se, but rather the disintegration of entire human societies, producing
wholesale starvation, mass migrations and recurring conflict over
resources,” and he quotes a Pentagon report which asserts that “[a]s fam-
ine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt climate
change… many countries’ needs will exceed their carrying capacity,”
i.e. “their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human
survival.” This “will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead
to offfensive aggression” against countries with a greater stock of vital
resources (Klare, 2006).141
Thus, Klare points out, together with the “concern over the inadequate
capacity of poor and unstable countries to cope with the efffects of
climate change, and the resulting risk of state collapse, civil war and mass
141 Klare quotes here from a 2003 Pentagon Report “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario
and Its Implications for United States National Security.” The full text of this report is avail-
able at: http://www.climate.org/PDF/clim_change_scenario.pdf
migration,” there is “a growing trend in strategic circles to view environmen-

tal and resource efffects – rather than political orientation and ideology –
as the most potent source of armed conflict in the decades to come… a
major shift in strategic thinking may be under way. Environmental perils
may soon dominate the world security agenda” (Klare, 2006, emphasis
added).142
Capital’s Rights
In short, neoliberal capital has decided that it has rights of ownership over
life and death all over the planet. The project for the future which neolib-
eralism (i.e. capitalism in its gestation of the last man of the end of his-
tory) offfers humanity is expressed in widespread necrophilia and war as
its increasingly dominant form (war on what it identifĳies as organized
crime or international terrorism, war for natural resources, etc.) because it
seeks not to solve the problems it creates, but to turn them into opportuni-
ties for profĳit and the deployment of force.
Its mission and vision require a radical and increasing abandonment of
any commitment to life on the planet: it is dismantling the framework
constructed during the Keynesian period to attend to the most basic
needs of society, destroying the environment and privatizing nature. Its
intellectual and moral leadership consists in submerging humanity in
savagery, leading it into all kinds of sterile wars in order to keep it at the
service of the perverse and criminal logic of the fetish and its insane
personifĳications.
But this insanity is anchored in a reality. Underlying the situation is a
crisis in the capital/wage-labor relation, a single crisis disguised as multi-
ple crises (health, economic and fĳinancial, overproduction, realization,
underproduction, food, climate, environmental, etc.). The march toward
Absolute Monopoly is transforming the relation among capitalists them-
selves and between capitalists and the working class – it is the march
toward the Last Man. But it also confĳirms that society has reached the end
of capitalism itself, its period of decline, as will be argued in the following
chapter. And here we fĳind a great paradox: the conditions that indicate
that we have reached the end of the capitalist relation are defĳined by capi-
tal as the end of life itself and, in an attempt to prolong its own life at the
142 And, as if that weren’t enough, the Pentagon report predicts: “In this world of war-
ring States… nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable” (as quoted in Klare, 2006).
304 chapter nine
expense of human life, it imposes a dictatorship that is increasingly

cynical, grotesque, brutal and predatory.143
In the fĳirst chapter, I explained the central role played by the develop-
ment of science and technology in the structure of the capital/wage-labor
relation and in the constitution of the social power of capital (economic,
political and ideological). This question will be revisited in the following
chapter, but by way of conclusion here, I offfer the following reflections:
1. The development of the productive force of labor resulting from the
advances in science and technology sets the parameters for the devel-
opment of the capital/wage-labor relation and marks the end of the
capitalist relation.
2. This development of the productive force of labor and of science and
technology in general is still – and will continue to be until the working
class efffectively challenges it – the property of capital.
3. It has become a principle of neoliberal capital, personifĳied in a rapidly
shrinking number of human beings, to make use of its as yet undis-
puted ownership of this development to promote its dystopia and to
display its willingness to turn the crisis of the end of its history into the
end of the history of humanity.
4. Neoliberal capital is set in opposition to the vast majority of humanity,
which has not yet managed to develop a sense of separation from capi-
talist domination, to build a united political front and outline a project
of its own for the future that would enable the initiation of a new phase
of history, leaving behind the savagery and destructive chaos of the
present one.
143 A few decades ago, Spanish fĳilmmaker Luis Buñuel found the bourgeoisie to possess
a discreet charm: cynical, perverse, drug-addicted, drug-dealing and criminal… Clearly,
their discretion has diminished and their charm has been somewhat refĳined.
PART THREE
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER TEN
THE PATTERN OF DOMINATION AND HISTORICAL

CYCLE OF CAPITAL
This absolute contradiction between the technical necessities of modern indus-

try and the social character inherent in its capitalist form dispels all fĳixity and
security in the situation of the laborer… This antagonism vents its rage… in the
most reckless squandering of labor power and in the devastation caused by a
social anarchy that turns every economic progress into a social calamity… But
the historical development of the antagonisms, immanent in a given form of
production, is the only way in which that form of production can be dissolved
and a new form established.
Karl Marx
Capital
Although the main purpose of this work has been to elaborate a theoreti-
cal framework for the examination of the forms of capitalist domination
and an introduction to their historical analysis, with a special focus on the
neoliberal form of domination, it is fĳitting to conclude by presenting a
note (as I proposed in the third chapter) on the relation between the his-
torical succession of patterns of domination and the long-term trends
they produce in the life cycle of capitalism.
To this end and remaining always at the level of abstraction on which
this work has been developed, as an intermediate theoretical fĳield between
general theory – the analysis of the forces that generate, develop and pro-
duce the disintegration of capitalism – and its specifĳic manifestations in
history, I will turn my attention again to the relation between capital and
wage-labor, the essential relation under capitalism, which has served as
the basis for everything discussed so far; the theoretical space that allows
us to link the pattern of domination to the long-term history of capitalism
derives from the capital relation.
Social Power and the Capital Relation
In the fĳirst chapter, I explained that the essential relation under capital-
ism, the underlying social relation of its social classes, consists in the
308 chapter ten
separation between direct producers and the means of production and

subsistence, and the fact that this same essential relation, the capital
relation, constructs the basic articulation between economic, political
and ideological dimensions of class relations. The class relation consti-
tutes the core from which it is possible to explain domination and to link
it to capitalist exploitation. Domination and exploitation are mutually
interdependent and both are constructed on this common foundation:
the capital relation. Exploitation is not possible unless it is sustained
through domination, and domination has no purpose except to support
exploitation.
I also argued that, insofar as the capital relation organizes a form of
social power, the rule of one class over another, founded in all its dimen-
sions (economic, political and ideological) on the same social relation, the
basic distinction between the general forms of capitalist domination must
arise from a point of articulation between domination and exploitation
based on the capital relation itself. I therefore proposed that this basic
distinction must consist in the recognition or denial of the material inter-
ests of the workers, the willingness or capacity of the capitalists (always
under the pressure of worker resistance) to give concessions to the work-
ers to moderate the exploitation, i.e. the degree to which capital is willing
or able to share the product of value, that is, the value created by the work-
ing class itself.
While the content of domination consists in supporting exploitation,
its form derives from the nature of its relationship with exploitation. Based
on this proposition, I distinguished two general forms of capitalist domi-
nation: the natural form and the contained form. There is a link between
exploitation and domination, between the economic and the political,
built around the conditions in which the capitalist class is likely to grant
concessions to the working class. And although these conditions arise
from two sources – the struggle of the workers and the evolution of the
capital relation itself – it is the second of these, its evolution, which defĳines
the objective conditions in which concessions from the capitalist class are
likely. Ideological, economic and political domination are not indepen-
dent variables. As components of the social power of a class, their fate is
tied to the basic relation (the capital relation), which, as it evolves, trans-
forms the conditions of domination of the capitalist class, the conditions
of its social power; the capital relation develops, and this is the essential
point.
the pattern of domination and historical cycle 309
The Development of the Capital Relation
The development of the relation between capital and wage-labor, and the
development of the capital relation itself, depends on the development of
the productive force of labor. In Chapter 2, I noted that in Capital, Marx
demonstrates that the capital relation articulates tendencies of develop-
ment, general trends that organize the future of capitalist society: an
increase in the productivity of labor and an increase in the organic com-
position of capital; expulsion of the work force from the labor process,
expansion of the industrial reserve army and the creation of an absolute
surplus population; and concentration and centralization of capital.
Moreover, Marx shows how these tendencies are expressed in downward
pressure on the rate of profĳit and that the same tendencies that provoke
the reduction of the rate of profĳit generate counter-tendencies that slow
down the development of the tendency to its fullest, with a constant
reduction of capital and an increase in its technical composition that is
more intense than the increase in its value composition. Capital’s search
for counter-tendencies to prevent the drop in the rate of profĳit includes a
wide range of possibilities, the examination of which reveals the particu-
lar features of each historical period, but the basic counter-tendency
sought, which ultimately supports all others, is to increase the rate of sur-
plus-value. These counter-tendencies, it should be noted, slow down but
do not stop the main tendency.
Capitalist development, the development of the capital relation, is thus
necessarily the development of the productive force of labor. Marx con-
structs the concept of the organic composition of capital and its tendency
toward growth as a synthetic expression of this process. From this per-
spective, the tendencies toward reduction of the rate of profĳit and expul-
sion of the work force from the labor process become clearly visible. As
I had further pointed out in the second chapter, the development of the
capital/wage-labor relation can be investigated on diffferent analytical lev-
els, constructed on the basis of the examination of the development of its
tendencies over time; that is, the examination of the historical process of
capitalism and its articulation in the short, medium and long term.
I argued that it is necessary to begin with the most direct and immediate
features of the capital relation in the consciousness and the practice of
capitalists in order to identify the general forms of capitalist domination;
the forms which, in their specifĳic historical manifestations, appear as
310 chapter ten
patterns of domination, but which, to appreciate the historical signifĳi-

cance of each pattern of domination, need to be placed in relation with
the medium- and long-term history of capitalism.
The Medium Term in the Development of Capital
The general features of the medium term in the history of capitalism – and
the corresponding periodization – were also explained in the second
chapter. The historical development of capitalism appears as a series of
phases of economic expansion, the fundamental condition for which is
the existence of a historical set of economic, political and ideological cir-
cumstances that ensure a rate of profĳit satisfactory for capital, and phases
of depression that express the exhaustion of the conditions that ensured
an increased rate of profĳit during the period of expansion that preceded it
and the search for new counter-tendencies.
If we compare the periodization of the medium term in the history of
capitalism with what I proposed as the period of prevalence of each pat-
tern of domination, we will fĳind that the liberal pattern covers the fĳirst
three expansive periods (1770–1830, 1850–1873 and 1896–1914) followed
by two corresponding periods of depression (1830–1850 and 1873–1896)
and the decisive shift to the Keynesian pattern did not occur until the mid-
dle of the third period of depression from 1914 to 1945 (with the stimulus
of the crisis of 1929), although in Western Europe this shift had been devel-
oping since the second period of depression (1873–1896).
On the other hand, the Keynesian pattern, at least as a relatively general
form of capitalist domination, had a much shorter life, which, in the strict-
est sense, not including its prolonged and turbulent process of transition,
is limited to the period of expansion after World War II (1945–1967); with
the onset of the subsequent period of depression (from 1967 onward), the
shift began toward the currently prevailing neoliberal pattern.
The Long Term in the Development of Capital
It is worth reiterating here that between one stage and another in the
medium term there is a basic continuity in terms of the tendential laws of
capitalist development; each stage begins with the levels of labor produc-
tivity, organic composition and concentration of capital with which the
previous stage ended. The return to a phase of expansion after one of
depression is not circular but might better be described as a spiral: the
long term, the full historical duration of the capitalist mode of production,
develops over the course of the stages that make up its medium term. Thus
the analysis of the medium term offfers explanatory dimensions and pre-
cise historical meanings when placed in relation to the long term.
The long term of capitalism covers the period from its birth as a social
model for organizing production until its death. From the perspective of
this analysis there are only three periods to consider: infancy, maturity
and decline. And the delimitation of each of these periods should be
drawn from the decisive moments in the productive force of labor, i.e.
decisive moments in the development of the capital relation.
In the infancy of capitalism, formal subsumption and absolute surplus
value prevailed; the fĳirst industrial revolution had just begun to make its
efffects felt in some countries and certain sectors, and ownership of capi-
tal, i.e. of the means of production and subsistence of the workers, was
spread out among many capitalists. The move toward its maturity began at
the end of the 19th century in Western Europe, culminating in the techno-
logical transformations fostered by Fordism. Real subsumption and rela-
tive surplus value dominated the scene; science became the decisive
productive force with the establishment of what Figueroa calls the work-
shop of technological progress, and general labor and immediate labor
were separated. The dispersed nature of the ownership of capital that
typifĳied the previous period was transformed and replaced by a clear ten-
dency toward concentration and centralization, although the separation
between producers and the means of production and subsistence assumed
a wide variety of forms, from extreme nationalization of capital in real
socialism to a combination of state and private monopoly capital in the
rest of the world, with priority given to private monopolies in the devel-
oped nations and state capital in the underdeveloped world.
The decline of capitalism (which will be examined below) corresponds
to the current period, with its technological revolution and its extreme
concentration of capital in the hands of a handful of gigantic transna-
tional monopolies. A correspondence can thus be identifĳied between the
long-term periods of the history of capitalism and the historical sequence
of patterns of domination.
The fĳirst pattern of domination was the liberal pattern (the fĳirst histori-
cal expression of the natural form of domination), which represented
the infancy of capitalism, characterized by the powerlessness of workers
faced with a capital that had yet to fully stabilize the forms of extraction
of relative surplus value and that unleashed its voracious appetite for
growth.
312 chapter ten
The second pattern of domination was the Keynesian pattern (the fĳirst
and only historical expression of the contained form of domination),
which represented capitalism in maturity; a rise in productivity derived
from advances in scientifĳic research and their conversion into technology
coupled with the developments of Fordism and Taylorism, under condi-
tions of a certain degree of development of the organic composition of
capital, allowed for the construction of a delicate balance that permitted
the granting of concessions to workers together with increases in the rate
of profĳit.1
The neoliberal pattern of domination, the second historical expression
of the natural form of domination, represents the decline of capitalism.
Decline of Capitalism and the Neoliberal Pattern
I will not go any further here to argue for the correspondence between
historical periods and the liberal and Keynesian patterns. However, still
without leaving the level of abstraction on which this work is developed, it
is necessary to further explain the argument for the relationship between
the decline of capitalism and the neoliberal pattern, beginning on the logi-
cal plane and concluding on the historical plane.
The Logical Plane
First of all, it must be remembered, as Figueroa Sepúlveda notes, the basic

theoretical proposition of Marxism lies in the demonstration of the histo-
ricity of capitalism: “the notion of the collapse of capital arises directly
from dialectical materialism. According to this method, capitalism is his-
torically determined production, one mode among others, with a begin-
ning and an end… If Marx addressed the study of capital in a historical
mode, we would expect to fĳind in his work at least the basic elements for a
theory of its collapse, and that theory should be constructed chiefly on the
basis of the contradiction between the development of productive forces
and production relations” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 12–13).2
1 In the second chapter, I indicated that the crucial condition for the consolidation of
the contained form of domination was that it was supported by advances in labor produc-
tivity, i.e. with the relevant mediation, by advances in the rate of exploitation and the rate
of profĳit. If capital cannot fĳind a form of compensation, it will maintain constant and inces-
sant opposition to any limitation upon “freedom” and “free enterprise” and will defend its
unrestricted right to exploit labor.
2 This is of course the explicit proposition that Marx sets forth in what he calls his “guid-
ing principle” (see Marx, 1859: Preface).
Secondly, Figueroa Sepúlveda distinguishes between crises and col-

lapse. The fĳirst “occur in conditions in which the development of the
productive forces still admit the presence of capitalist production rela-
tions” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 25), while “a theory of collapse is simply
a theory of the transformation of this conflict into an insoluble problem,
forcing a change to a new social form of production. In other words, it
difffers from the theory of other manifestations of the same conflict that
may be solved or overcome within the context of capitalist production”
(Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 14).
Thirdly, the concept of crisis is associated with the medium-term his-
tory of capitalism, while the collapse is associated with the historical end
of capitalism. It is also necessary to distinguish between the collapse and
decline of capitalism, as the latter of these two is associated with the move
toward the end and, as such, constitutes the fĳinal period in the history of
capitalism.
Fourth, on the logical plane, the conditions of the period of decline are
represented in the natural form of domination. For capital, decline means
an increasing organic composition and a decreasing rate of profĳit, and as a
result, a renewed need to increase the rate of surplus-value in a fĳinal efffort
to reestablish the level of the rate of profĳit, and a renewed hostility toward
making concessions to the working class, becoming ever more intense as
it draws closer to its end.
In this sense, the development of the relation between capital and
wage-labor, the relation that separates producers from the means of pro-
duction and subsistence, entails its necessary negation. The conflict
between capital and labor is not eternal, nor is the development of capital-
ism limited to a scenario of struggles between the political wills of social
classes in a perpetual dispute over concessions, as these struggles unfold
in the context of objective conditions defĳined by the capital relation,
which lead toward its end and which determine that, in the period of its
decline, capital should become particularly hostile toward granting con-
cessions to workers.
The Historical Plane
As mentioned above, the decline of capitalism is the characteristic of

the current period, with its technological revolution and its extreme
concentration of capital in the hands of a handful of gigantic transna-
tional monopolies. The particular features of this new boost in labor pro-
ductivity provided by the current technological revolution, with their
314 chapter ten
consequences of the increased organic composition of capital, the expul-

sion of the work force from the labor process, the concentration and
centralization of capital and its efffects on the rate of profĳit, constitute
the general context of the neoliberal pattern of domination, as noted
throughout this analysis. However, a detailed examination of these
features in their current manifestations is beyond the scope of my study.
Therefore, returning to the central idea with regard to the capital/wage-
labor relation – that the development of this relation is contingent
upon the development of the productive force of labor – I will point to just
a few features that seem particularly relevant to the analysis proposed
here.
First, with regard to the potential of the new technologies to increase
the intensity of labor and exploitation, while expelling the work force
from the labor process, it is patently clear that “since the beginning of
the 1980s the increase in productivity and exploitation – intensifĳication of
the pace of work, falling wages, the loss of the social advances made previ-
ously – has provoked a huge shift of value from labor to capital” (Astarita,
1997), and, as Luis Gómez notes, the confluence of the development of
microelectronics, electromechanics, hydraulics, pneumatics, new materi-
als, energetics, robotics and organizational theories has facilitated the
emergence of the concept of flexibility, a concept referring to the techni-
cal, real, concrete possibility for the fĳirst time in history of the design of
completely automated production systems (without direct human labor).
Electronic components make it possible to introduce full-scale produc-
tion process control technology, encompassing control, command and
regulation (which were previously handled by qualifĳied workers). Robotics
and flexible production systems represent an articulation between the
production of means of production that design traditional automation
systems (electromechanics, hydraulics and pneumatics) and the industry
of computerized means of production for control and command of the
production processes. The mechanical machine is transformed into an
automated machine, the relation between operating machines and com-
mand and control machines is given priority, and the trend toward making
the machine independent of direct labor (qualifĳied and unqualifĳied) is
consolidated, thereby enhancing the transformational power of automa-
tion systems (transformation of material, loading and unloading, and even
control of maintenance and cleaning processes) that depend on another
type of intellectual, abstract labor, focused on the development of micro-
electronics, information technology and design and programming: com-
mand and regulation, orders and running procedures.
The most complex innovations are produced in the experimentation

laboratories of the big corporations. The operator is removed from direct
supervision of the machine to supervision via control panels, involving a
new form of labor organization, with the use of central computers for the
operational coordination of machine-tools and a reformulation of the
concept of a workshop, which is transformed from a collection of indi-
vidual machines organized in systems of production lines into computer-
ized networks of machine-tools organized in modules covering individual
complete processes. The aim of the flexible workshop is to achieve consis-
tency in production systems by giving the relation between machines pri-
ority over the relation between humans and machines; this is its essential
diffference from Taylorism and Fordism (Gómez E., 1993).
Second, with regard to the potential of the new technologies to orga-
nize production on a global scale and, as a result, to promote the concen-
tration and centralization of capital on that scale, as Dabat, Rivera and
Suárez note, “the historic transformation that global capitalism is experi-
encing has its main driving force in the revolutionary changes to the tech-
nological base, which are opening up huge possibilities of interconnection
of human activities on diffferent continents, in diffferent countries and cit-
ies. The innovations in the fĳields of information technology and telecom-
munications have brought about a structural and spatial-temporal change
that encourages a new form of organization of social, economic and politi-
cal activities, characterized by its capacity to have repercussions over large
distances in a form of interconnection that is increasingly intense, system-
atic and rapid” (Dabat et al, 2004: 39).
And according to Fröbel, Heinrichs and Kreye, “it was capital itself
which in its centuries-long development created the set of conditions for
its own appreciation and accumulation, particularly a worldwide indus-
trial reserve army, widespread fragmentation of the production process
and efffĳicient transportation and communications technology… This
whole set of new conditions for capital appreciation and accumulation
became decisive for the fĳirst time in the 1960s. It has created a global work
force market and a global market of production centers which, for the fĳirst
time, integrate both the traditional industrialized countries and the
underdeveloped nations. The individual capitalists who are faced with
this set of conditions are able to enjoy increased profĳits with the appropri-
ate reorganization of their production, by making use of the industrial
reserve army at a global level through the fragmentation of the production
process and advanced technology in transportation and communications.
The demands of competition turn this possibility into a necessity… in
316 chapter ten
order to guarantee the appreciation of individual capital” (Fröbel et al,

1981: 49, 50).
The selected features of the new technologies – the potential to inten-
sify labor and, at the same time, to expel the work force from the labor
process, as well as to promote the concentration and centralization of
capital on a global scale – are directly associated with the basic trend pres-
ent in the development of the relation between capital and wage-labor,
the trend that guides the fate of the social classes, capital and labor under
capitalism, which Marx considers to be the general law of capitalist accu-
mulation (Marx, 1867: Ch. 25): extreme concentration of the means of pro-
duction and subsistence on the side of the capitalist class, and exploitation
and extremely intense competition in the workplace among the fortunate
workers who have jobs, coupled with exclusion and extreme poverty
among the industrial reserve army and a growing absolute surplus popula-
tion on the side of the working class.3
The capital relation articulates developmental tendencies, general
trends that shape the future of capitalist society and which, although they
have a common foundation, unfold in two directions that are clearly dif-
ferentiated, both of which are relevant to a reflection on the period of
decline and the course taken toward the end of capitalism as a social mode
of organizing production. The fĳirst guides the fate of the working class,
while the second guides the fate of the capitalist class. The increase in
labor productivity and in the organic composition of capital means, for
the working class, expulsion from the labor process, expansion of the
industrial reserve army and the creation of an absolute surplus popula-
tion, while for the capitalist class it means concentration and centraliza-
tion of capital and a reduction in the rate of profĳit.
The Social Limit
The fĳirst of these two directions is associated with what might be called
the social limit of capitalism – the limit imposed on capital by the working
3 Figueroa Sepúlveda distinguishes between relative surplus population (equivalent to

the industrial reserve army, the worker population superfluous to the needs of the capital
in operation, but necessary to the expansion of production) and absolute surplus popula-
tion: “the general tendency of capital culminates in the creation of a consolidated surplus
population that must arise in an advanced stage of production as a result of the extension
of the relative surplus population beyond the point at which it efffectively constitutes a
need for appreciation” (Figueroa Sepúlveda, 2008). Here we are speaking of an absolute
surplus population.
class – and this limit in turn has a relative and an absolute dimension. The
relative social limit of capitalism is the efffect of the working class struggle
and operates in direct relation with the efffectiveness of workers in oppos-
ing and destroying the domination of capital. The absolute social limit lies
in the growing inability of the bourgeoisie to ensure the reproduction of
life of its slaves: “in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be
assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence…
the bourgeoisie is unfĳit any longer to be the ruling class in society… It is
unfĳit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave
within his slavery… Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in
other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society” (Marx and
Engels, 1848: I). The absolute social limit is reached when the relative
social limit proves incapable of converting the decline of capitalism into
the transition to socialism. In this case, the bourgeoisie “cannot help let-
ting [its slave] sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of
being fed by him” (Marx and Engels, 1848: I) and/or leave an increasing
percentage of the excess slaves to die or simply kill them offf.
It would not be possible to overstate the current dimensions or the
worsening trends of the diverse phenomena characteristic of the period:
unemployment, the billions of people lacking the most basic elements of
life, the famines affflicting growing masses of people, the huge dimensions
of the migratory movements of human beings who wander the world in a
desperate search for a place to survive, along with the increasing necro-
philia of the neoliberal bourgeoisie. As Joachim Hirsh notes:
“Viewed globally, ever greater numbers of human beings are no longer useful
to capital, even as objects of exploitation, and are left to their fate by govern-
ments and, in the worst cases, are treated only as objects to be monitored,
controlled and attacked with counter-insurgency strategies involving police
intervention… The fact that an increasing number of human beings are mar-
ginalized and excluded from the formal context of appreciation at the same
time means a new context of socio-political crisis: the less assured the rela-
tion between capital, labor and sustenance is, the more superfluous capital
becomes” (Hirsch, 2000).
And according to Samir Amin:
“The new organization of labor (the so-called ‘network society’) entails a
dramatic reduction in total labor, made possible thanks to the use of new
technologies or, to put it another way, to their increased productivity. But
in the actual operation of the system this economy of the labor factor is
accompanied, through exclusion, by a brutal reduction in the number of
workers used by capital… The theory of the supporters of capitalism is that
those excluded today could be working tomorrow, thanks to the expansion
318 chapter ten
of markets… [but] in its senility, capitalism cannot produce anything other

than growing exclusion… Today, a subsequent expansion of capital in the
peripheries (even a marginal one) entails destruction of unimaginable
scope… The only prospects it offfers are a world of shanty towns and of fĳive
billion excess, surplus human beings… Capitalism has entered its declining
senile phase, as the logic that governs this system is no longer capable of
assuring the most basic survival of half of humanity. Capitalism is turning
into savagery, directly inviting genocide” (Amin, 2009).
The Internal Limit
The other limit, as mentioned earlier, is associated with the tendency of

the rate of profĳit to fall and is also connected to the development of the
capital relation through the development of the productive force of labor;
the limit of capital is capital itself. Capitalism is exhausted through the
unfolding of the laws of its own development, and contains a tendency, as
shown above, toward collapse.4 In the context of contemporary capital-
ism, the behavior of the rate of profĳit has been examined by Anwar Shaikh
(1990), Fred Moseley (2005) and Robert Brenner (2009a), among others.
Brenner in particular identifĳies a “long fall” – a period of prolonged stagna-
tion and crisis beginning as early as the late 1960s and continuing up to the
present – in the rate of growth of the global GDP, the basic reason for
which lies in the prolonged decline of the average rate of profĳit in the pri-
vate sector as a whole.
Chris Harman identifĳies diverse attempts to calculate the long-term
behavior of the rate of profĳit: “the results” he says “are not always fully
compatible with each other, since there are diffferent ways of measuring
investment in fĳixed capital, and the information on profĳits provided by
companies and governments are subject to enormous distortions.”
Nevertheless, he adds, “there is general agreement that profĳit rates fell
from the late 1960s,” and that the partial recoveries revealed an inability to
produce a lasting reversal of the trend, even when they had been contex-
tually signifĳicant. Although “it is wrong to describe the situation as one of
permanent crisis – rather it is one of recurrent economic crises,” capital-
ism has not been able “to return to the ‘golden age’ and it will not be able
4 According to Katz, the declining trend in the rate of profĳit is a necessary process that
is not a contingent occurrence or a passing phase, but an internal result of the process of
accumulation, whose evolution responds to a predictable pattern of development (Katz,
2002).
to do so in future. It may not be in permanent crisis, but it is in a phase of

repeated crises from which it cannot escape, and these will necessarily be
political and social as well as economic” (Harman, 2007).
This behavior of the rate of profĳit provokes a complex array of conse-
quences associated with diverse problems of overaccumulation, overpro-
duction, underconsumption, fĳinancial parasitism, overextended credit,
and the new place of the state in the economy, among others. The response
should not be “limited to merely recording a statistic [of the level of the
fall in the rate of profĳit], but should consider every conclusion on the his-
torical conditions under which capital accumulation develops. The fall in
profĳitability is, more than anything, a qualitative indicator, in other words,
whether we are in the presence of a system that is maturing or developing
or in full decline and disintegration… If the law holds, the decline in the
rate of profĳit must result in increasing obstacles, ever more insuperable for
capital appreciation. And this is what we are witnessing in the economy
today.”5
“Flexibilizing” the Internal Limit
However, although it will ultimately exacerbate the systemic problems, a

general reduction in the rate of profĳit is relatively compatible with an
increased rate of profĳit for a handful of capitalists if that handful can, on
the one hand, demonstrate the ability to concentrate the production and
appropriation of worldwide surplus-value into their hands, and on the
other, prove capable of unleashing truly global assaults in order to appro-
priate the world’s wealth.
The sixth chapter of this study was dedicated to an examination of the
strategies of neoliberal capital to concentrate production and appropria-
tion of surplus-value. According to Wim Dierckxsens, “with a low rate of
profĳit in the production sector, capital seeks accumulation not through
economic growth, but through the concentration of existing income.”
Neoliberalism has thus focused on increasing transnational and fĳinancial
capital at the expense of the redistribution of income and of national and
5 “All these contradictions, which have acquired explosive characteristics, are a mea-
surement of the capitalist impasse. The excess of unsaleable products that flood the mar-
kets, whatever the sector or activity considered, and of surplus capital unable to fĳind
profĳitable employment, is an indicator of the current relevance of the law formulated by
Marx that makes his work truly exploratory, in spite of what his detractors may say” (Heller,
2003).
320 chapter ten
local markets. A veritable economic war was unleashed by the existing

markets on behalf of transnational corporations, leading to exclusion,
increased levels of labor exploitation and the plundering of the econo-
mies of the periphery: “accumulating capital without economic growth is
only possible by means of the concentration of income… The concentra-
tion of markets and of global income into fewer hands has succeeded in
saving the rate of profĳit of the transnationals, but has deteriorated
the demand for products and services of immense majorities… Now it
threatens growth even in the superpowers themselves… A distribution of
global income in decline only serves to aggravate the world recession…
This cannot be a sustainable long-term project as its fĳinal result will
be economic contraction, i.e. recession” (Dierckxsens, 2002: 13).6 Associ-
ated with this logic of concentration of wealth (and this explains
the importance they have acquired in the neoliberal world) are diverse
forms of accumulation ranging from speculation to flagrant crimes, and
including what David Harvey calls “accumulation by dispossession”
(Harvey, 2004).
With regard to accumulation by speculation, Dierckxsens explains that
“accumulation based on concentration of income essentially consists in
making money with money without creating wealth. The most profĳit-
able methods are stock market and currency speculation… This form
of unproductive accumulation was fostered in the 1970s when the
Keynesian policies expressed in the Welfare State took a backwards step.
During the post-war period, investment was closely tied to the production
process through a whole arsenal of economic regulations… The falling
rate of profĳit in the sphere of production towards the late 1970s gave rise
to neoliberalism, which liberated capital flows from these restraints”
(Dierckxsens, 2002).
According to Harvey, these recurring speculative raids are orchestrated
by “a powerful Wall Street/U.S. Treasury fĳinancial regime… with control-
ling powers over global fĳinancial institutions (such as the IMF) and able to
make or break many weak economies through credit manipulations and
6 “The policies of structural adjustment fostered the replacement of national markets

with transnational ones, the replacement of public companies with transnationals, the
acquisition of companies, the mergers of transnationals and currency speculation in the
periphery… All these measures contributed to saving the rate of profĳit of transnational and
fĳinancial capital… All these investments do not generate new wealth, or expand the total
market, or foster growth; they only foster the redistribution of income and the existing
market in the world” (Dierckxsens 2002).
debt management practices” (Harvey, 2004: 70).7 Harvey argues that these
raids form part of the strategy of accumulation by dispossession, “a ‘vul-
ture capitalism’ dedicated to the appropriation and devaluation of assets,
rather than to building them up through productive investments” (Harvey,
2004: 72), which is characterized by violence, swindling, oppression, pil-
laging and fraud. He adds that “wholly new mechanisms of accumulation
by dispossession have also opened up,” among which he notes biopiracy
and the pillaging of the world’s stockpile of genetic resources by a few
large multinational companies, the depletion of the global environmental
commons (land, air, water) and the proliferation of environmental degra-
dation, the privatization of water and other public services (constituting a
new wave of “enclosing the commons”), and the reversion to the private
domain of common property rights won through past class struggles (the
right to a state pension, to welfare, to education or to national health care)
(Harvey, 2004: 75).
As far as unlawful forms of accumulation are concerned, the excellent
business represented by diverse modes of “organized crime” has already
been explored. Jorge Beinstein suggests that the rise of “gangster capital-
ism” needs to be viewed in connection with widespread deregulation and
the complicity of the state in forms of accumulation that encourage social
pillaging in its broadest sense: “we could identify a kind of ‘logical
sequence’ based on the diversion of funds originating in the productive
sector (with decreasing profĳitability) towards ‘classical’ fĳinancial opera-
tions (purchase of public deeds, shares, etc.) and from there (once these
operations were saturated) towards new, increasingly fast and complex
forms of speculation (‘derivative’ products, etc.), ultimately leading to ille-
gal businesses, plundering, etc. (from dismantling public companies in the
periphery to drug trafffĳicking)” (Beinstein, 2000).
7 Harvey suggests that the structured destruction of assets by means of inflation, the
promotion of indebtedness levels which even in the advanced capitalist countries reduce
whole populations to servitude through debt, corporate fraud and dispossession of assets
like pension funds constitute “central features of what contemporary capitalism is about”
(Harvey, 2004: 75). But above all, he says, “we have to look at the speculative raiding carried
out by hedge funds and other major institutions of fĳinance capital as the cutting edge of
accumulation by dispossession in recent times.” He illustrates this point with the case of
Southeast Asia: “by creating a liquidity crisis throughout Southeast Asia, the hedge funds
forced profĳitable businesses into bankruptcy. These businesses could be purchased at fĳire-
sale prices by surplus capitals in the core countries, thus engineering what Wade and
Veneroso refer to as ‘the biggest peacetime transfer of assets from domestic (i.e. Southeast
Asian) to foreign (i.e. U.S. and Japanese) owners in the past few years anywhere in the
world’” (Harvey, 2004: 75).
322 chapter ten
Disdain for the Absolute Social Limit
From the above we may conclude that the absolute priority of neoliberal-
ism has been to ensure that, even in the midst of economic stagnation,
transnational capital thrives8, regardless of the social consequences that
such a priority entails. All these barbaric forms of accumulation to which
neoliberal capital resorts to compensate for the drop in the rate of profĳit
increase the damage to the lives and wellbeing of virtually every sector of
the people dispossessed of the means of production and subsistence.
But as long as these forms aid accumulation, capital will continue to
use them, will intensify them if it can9 and will have no qualms about
resorting to other even more barbarous measures. In the decline of capi-
talism, a perverse logic is taking root: the harder it becomes to maintain
capital accumulation, the more brutal its compensatory strategies become,
and the more destructive these strategies are, the more problematic a
reasonably sustainable accumulation becomes. István Mészáros describes
it as a “structural crisis of the system,” which is spreading everywhere,
undermining the basic conditions for the survival of the human species
(Mészáros, 2010).10
However, the move toward what I have called the absolute social limit
of capitalism by leaving a growing number of its slaves to die, fostering
homicide among them and/or killing them is not something that will
cause much concern for a genocidal capital, in the embryonic phase of
Absolute Monopoly, which is preoccupied only with effforts to raise the
relative social limit. Although I have systematically excluded an analysis of
the inter-imperialist contradictions from this reflection in order to con-
centrate on the analysis of the capital-labor relation, it is essential to bear
in mind that “a distribution of global income in decline only aggravates
the global recession… With a low rate of profĳit in the sphere of production,
capital does not seek to accumulate through economic growth but through
8 “We have therefore witnessed for the last dozen years or so the extraordinary specta-
cle of a world economy in which the continuation of capital accumulation has come liter-
ally to depend upon historic waves of speculation, carefully nurtured and rationalized by
state policy makers” (Brenner, 2009b).
9 “In the absence of any strong revival of sustained accumulation through expanded
reproduction, this will entail a deepening politics of accumulation by dispossession
throughout the world in order to keep the motor of accumulation from stalling entirely”
(Harvey, 2004: 81).
10 “The enormous expansion of fĳinancial adventurism… is by its nature inseparable
from the deepening of the crisis in the productive branches of industry as well as from the
ensuing troubles arising from the utterly sluggish capital accumulation” (Mészáros, 2010).
the concentration of existing income… as the world market is divided up

among an ever smaller number of transnationals, the new distribution of
the existing market becomes increasingly disputed, even more so when
this market is shrinking due to a fall in global demand. As sales contract,
so do profĳits… To postpone this crisis in a nation is possible, but it requires
more than just an economic confrontation. The war for the market
becomes total… The continuous division of the global market will not pro-
vide a way out for all transnational capital. The war for the global market
requires extra-economic measures in order to emerge victorious. This
means a threat of war at the global level” (Dierckxsens, 2002, emphasis
added).
Nobody is preparing more keenly than the U.S. oligarchy to resolve
the fĳinal dispute for Absolute Monopoly with war. According to
Chossudovsky, its “killing machine is deployed at a global level, within the
framework of the unifĳied combat command structure… It is part of the
Pentagon’s ‘long war’, a profĳit driven war without borders, a project of
world domination… upheld by the institutions of government, the corpo-
rate media and the mandarins and intellectuals of the New World Order
in Washington’s think tanks and strategic studies research institutes”
(Chossudovsky, 2010).11
Thus, the priority given to the rate of profĳit by the transnationals con-
fĳirms the genocidal vocation of neoliberal capital and its characterization
as capitalism in gestation toward the last man. As long as it maintains this
direction, that is, as long as what I’ve called the relative social limit of capi-
talism (working class resistance) fails to impose another option, capital
will continue on its course toward the absolute social limit, constructing
its “criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profĳit is
the overriding force” (Chossudovsky, 2010). It is thus no surprise to fĳind
that, as Dufour notes, “the Earth’s surface is being conceived as a wide
battlefĳield… an integrated network of military bases and installations
which covers the entire planet (continents, oceans and outer space)… dis-
tributed according to a command structure divided up into fĳive spatial
units and four unifĳied combatant commands” (Dufour, 2007).
Quoting Iraklis Tsavdaridis, Secretary of the World Peace Council,
Dufour adds that “the establishment of U.S. military bases should not of
course be seen simply in terms of direct military ends. They are always
11 “The medium term strategic objective is to target Iran and neutralize Iran’s allies,
through gunboat diplomacy. The longer term military objective is to directly target China
and Russia” (Chossudovsky, 2010).
324 chapter ten
used to promote the economic and political objectives of U.S. capitalism.”

This is the dynamic imposed by the logic of the fetish, even though it is
directed toward total destruction. According to Dierckxsens, “in a war for
the global market basically for the benefĳit of the big capital of one nation,
an increasing number of countries are joining the recession. There is no
country that can escape it – not even the winning nation, as it destroys its
own environment. To win in the short term means a more profound reces-
sion in the future” (Dierckxsens, 2002, emphasis added).12
Mészáros comments that “the objective of the feasible war at the pres-
ent phase of historical development, in accordance with the objective
requirements of imperialism – world domination by capital’s most power-
ful state, in tune with its own political design of ruthless authoritarian ‘glo-
balization’ (dressed up as ‘free exchange’ in a U.S.-ruled global market) – is
ultimately unwinnable, foreshadowing, instead, the destruction of human-
kind… envisaging war as the mechanism of global government in today’s
world underlines the fact that we fĳind ourselves at the precipice of abso-
lute irrationality from which there can be no return if we accept the ongo-
ing course of development” (Mészáros, 2003).13
Dierckxsens describes this as “the setting for war: there is not even
enough room for all the transnationals. The division of the world must
be redefĳined by force” (Dierckxsens as quoted in Rodríguez Derivet,
2003, emphasis added). However, the cynical command still exercised by
capital over humankind is such that, according to Chossudovsky, the
“main architects [of war] are rewarded for their contributions to world
peace… realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down:
the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented
as the protagonists of war… When the lie becomes the truth there is no
turning backwards. When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, jus-
tice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down:
pacifĳism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. Opposing the war
becomes a criminal act” (Chossudovsky, 2010).
12 “The basic contradiction in the existing rationale is that capitalism has reached the
historic moment where it is impossible to return to linking investment with production in
a profĳitable way. A greater development of productive forces, in other words, is no longer
possible under the existing economic rationale and social relations. This contradiction will
become visible in the thwarted attempts to solve it” (Dierckxsens, 2002).
13 “The weapons already available for waging the war or wars of the twenty-fĳirst century
are capable of exterminating not only the adversary but the whole of humanity, for the fĳirst
time ever in history. Nor should we have the illusion that the existing weaponry marks the
very end of the road. Others, even more instantly lethal ones, might appear tomorrow or
the day after tomorrow” (Mészáros, 2003).
At present, according to Enrique Dussel, the prevailing project is one of

“perpetual war”: “the state of war is a permanent, universal state of exis-
tence.” It constitutes an ontology of death in which the “cynical reasoning”
of the empire defĳines what a terrorist act is, and declares specifĳically who
the terrorists are: “this tautological judgment ‘legitimately’ authorizes (for
the judge and military command enforcing the sentence) ‘the total
destruction of the terrorist.’ It has become totally irrational. The Totalized
Totality issues a judgment on its own grounds. The Other has been annihi-
lated for being other” (Dussel, 2002).
The Working Class and the Relative Social Limit
It is worth reiterating here that the period of decline does not represent
the sudden collapse of capitalism, but a course toward its end. The neolib-
eral form of organizing the capital-labor relation admits variants, and in
capitalism today a signifĳicant section of humankind still fĳinds a place
within the social relations organized by capital. It is what we might call a
“flexible” domination; in contrast to previous periods, with a basically
homogeneous design in class relations, capital now fosters competitive-
ness and criminal activity and “flexibilizes” its design according to its eco-
nomic and political needs and strategies.
Some workers, particularly illegal immigrants, are radically deprived of
any kind of rights (labor, social or political), while labor and wage conces-
sions are granted to a constantly shrinking segment of highly qualifĳied
workers, and division and conflict within the working class is fostered to
the extreme of assigning certain segments the explicit task of exterminat-
ing others by cultivating racism, xenophobia and the whole framework of
the state administration of criminal activity. Within the general design to
disable nation-states as spaces for the regulation of class relations, vari-
ants are also admitted; the most radical diffferences are found between
developed and developing nations, although even in the latter case the
so-called “transition to democracy” allows for political tinkering and
diverse margins of negotiation between diffferent national and class
interests.
However, from the perspective of the long-term trends and the current
historical period of capital, the world of the worker surplus population,
the waves of illegal migration, the underworld of criminal activity and its
professional sector (torturers, hired killers, human trafffĳickers, etc.) and the
assault on the living conditions of the whole class dispossessed of the
326 chapter ten
means of production and subsistence, must all inevitably grow: “The anxi-
ety shared by the vast masses in virtually every part of the world arises
from the discovery made by the working class, the youth and the oppressed
masses of the rapid degradation of the conditions of their existence: a
return to or continued unemployment, the precarious nature of their
basic living conditions, destruction of social welfare, a return to hunger or,
even where hunger is absent, a return to both individual and social decay,
and the arrogance of the property owner classes and of a society that once
again shamelessly exposes the wealth of the few before the eyes of the
many who have none” (Chesnais, 1996).14
Such is the logical result of the renewed eagerness of capital to increase
the rate of surplus-value – in the current combinations of dealings with
workers, capital embraces any means of producing surplus-value, whether
relative or absolute15 – and to concentrate its production and appropria-
tion in the hands of a few huge and insatiable monopolies that dominate
production and the global market. Under these conditions, the develop-
ment of the period of decline must be marked by a growing rebellion of
those dispossessed of their means of production and subsistence, and by
the increasing fragility of the hegemony of capital: “what is new in this
phase of globalization directed by fĳinancial capital is the appearance,
among vast sectors of the world’s population, of cracks in the domination,
in the absorption by the dominated classes of capitalist ideas and values
and in the fatalistic notion that there is no alternative to neoliberal poli-
tics since it is the only possible option” (Almeyra, 2007).
Rebellion and Revolution
Nevertheless, we need to bear in mind that rebellion is not revolution, nor

does hegemonic weakness mean resources are lacking to prolong capital
domination. “According to Gramsci, we can dismiss the idea that eco-
nomic crises in themselves produce groundbreaking events: they can only
14 According to Raúl Zibechi, “a UN study estimates that 1 billion people live in periph-
eral slum districts of third-world cities, and that the poor in the world’s big cities have hit
two billion, one third of humankind. These fĳigures will double in the next 15 to 20 years, as
the growth of the world’s population will occur entirely in the cities and 95% will be seen
in the suburbs of the cities of the South” (Zibechi, 2008).
15 “This consists in the bloodthirstiness with which employers oppose the reduction of
working hours and seek to dismantle the legal frameworks of labor: employers want to
overturn what for them represent hindrances to the appropriation of absolute surplus-
value” (Chesnais, 1997).
create more favorable ground for the dissemination of certain ways of think-
ing, of proposing and resolving the questions that inform all subsequent gov-
ernment activity… By defĳinition, it is a long process that should not be
confused with its episodic manifestations… The crisis consists precisely in
the death of the old and the birth of the new; on these grounds the most
diverse gruesome phenomena are tested” (Portantiero, 1981: 51, 52, empha-
sis added). The development of science at the service of capital, in its pro-
ductive, political and military applications, elaborated in what I have
called the production workshop of domination strategies, provides capital
with new mechanisms for domination and new motivations for competi-
tion and division of workers, hindering the construction of viable alterna-
tives to capital domination.16
It thus turns out that the very thing that makes the destruction of the
capital relation increasingly necessary also makes that destruction difffĳi-
cult: advances in science and technology, being conditions for deepening
the exploitation process and enforcing its tendential laws, pushing capital
toward its end, are also advances in the domination of the capitalist class
over the working class. Capital can thus prolong its domination and, the
more its period of decline is prolonged, the more threatening its capacity
for brutality and genocide becomes.17
To turn into a revolution, it is necessary for rebellion to give rise to the
construction of a counterhegemonic project – with economic, political
and cultural dimensions – which can coordinate an efffort to distance the
working class from capital domination, challenge the appropriation of sci-
entifĳic and technological developments and allow the creation of a united
political front with its own blueprint for the future that will lead to the
social appropriation of the material means of production and scientifĳic
and technological knowledge to be used to meet the needs of humanity
and care for the environment.
16 “What continues to stabilize and ideologically legitimate it are not the promises,
exposed long ago in practice, of a better, more peaceful ‘world society’, but the difffĳiculty
associated with developing specifĳic socio-political alternatives under the changed condi-
tions of globalized capitalism, and in the face of the failure of traditional state-socialist and
social democratic concepts” (Hirsch, 2000).
17 Iraq, since the U.S. army invaded it to “bring democracy” in 2003, is a good example of
the capacity for brutality displayed by contemporary capitalism; more than a million
deaths (IraqSolidaridad, 2008), without the Christian rulers of the United States losing any
sleep or registering in their consciousness any recollection of the old Mosaic command-
ment “thou shalt not kill.” Dante could scarcely have imagined more faithful and diligent
servers of Satan, the symbolic construction of evil, than neoliberal capital and its current
personifĳications.
328 chapter ten
Dussel asserts that the “cynical reasoning” of those who dominate,

exploit and kill needs to be opposed with both a material and critical argu-
mentation that would constitute the basis of a critical consensus of the
oppressed (discovering arguments, communicating and sharing experi-
ences that will help to break the “morale” of the powers that be) as a politi-
cal organization of material and critical power of the oppressed (Dussel,
2002).18 Under the conditions of neoliberal domination, an obstacle to the
construction of this “political organization of the material and critical
power of the oppressed” consists in the new role played by nation-states,
which are set up as restraints, in macro-ghettos, designed to foster isola-
tion, competition and conflict among the workers, who are also deprived
of rights and lack a political organization that extends beyond nation-
states and their institutional structures.
The important decisions are made at supranational levels, while the
regulation of class relations remains tied to the institutions of the nation-
state: “In the face of the growing power of supranational entities in
national afffairs, there appears to be no other alternative than to link local
struggles to global ones. International unity will then no longer be a mere
utopia of the past, but a necessity imposed by the present, although to
become a reality it is still necessary to give new meaning to national strug-
gles” (Thwaites and Castillo, 1999). While in its birth the bourgeoisie pro-
moted the political centralization of a nation-state19, in its decline it
promotes – in a highly conflictive manner, as we have seen – the transfor-
mation of nations into provincial governments at the service of big
transnational capital, aimed at keeping the working class isolated and
deprived of rights.And to construct the “critical consensus of the
oppressed” and restore their capacity to develop a political initiative, it is
necessary to break the ideological and political barriers within which cap-
ital confĳines them. Until the working class can break out of the framework
18 “It is not the dominator who has the right to ‘judge’ the Other, his victim. It is the
consensual and critical community, through its presence and exposure of the side of the
victims, that has the duty to judge the despotic dominating power.” Dussel also reminds us
that “there can be no representation or consensus without ‘living citizens’, and in the post-
colonial peripheral world this is not by any means guaranteed” (Dussel, 2002).
19 “The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the
population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population,
centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The
necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely
connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation,
became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one
national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tarifff” (Marx and Engels, 1848: I).
that prevents it from believing that humanity’s problems have a solution

outside the logic of the fetish and develops its own design, capital will
enjoy universal ubiquity, appearing to defĳine both the problems and the
solutions and subjugating society to the eternal omnipotence of the
fetish.20
The ideological helplessness and lack of political initiative of the work-
ing class is associated with its confĳinement to the ghetto of the nation-
state. As discussed earlier, the current situation of workers is reminiscent
of Lenin’s descriptions of Tsarist Russia in the late 19th and early 20th cen-
tury, when workers demanded freedom of residence and occupation, free-
dom to move wherever and whenever they wanted, as a basic condition
for their organization and political education, to articulate their interests
and develop their class-consciousness. This freedom, which was won with
great struggles at the level of the nation-state, has been lost again in the
globalized world.21
Globalization, according to Piqueras, “is a general offfensive by capital,
coordinated for the fĳirst time as an entity on a global scale… It breaks
national boundaries of social regulation in a search for global space…
As an increasingly conscious and contriving entity, in the last 25 years
it has successfully destroyed, subjugated or co-opted the major labor
organizations and entities across the planet… It confĳines many of the pre-
viously large labor entities or movements within ever smaller contexts,
with self-limiting claims and immediate objectives that hardly ever con-
template social universality… Micro-entities expressed in groupings of
extremely small dimensions, with a highly limited radius of action and
20 For example, we have seen how big transnational capital imposes “free trade” on
developing countries, thereby destroying the local economy while at the same time pro-
moting the solution to the problem: more concessions to big capital in order to attract
investment. This is also the case of the so-called “transition to democracy” that serves to
increase subordination of politico-electoral concerns to the interests and needs of big
transnational capital: the precarious nature of the transition to democracy is resolved with
new reforms to further the “transition.” Economic problems are explained as due to a lack of
competitivity, and political problems as due to insufffĳicient implementation of the transition
to democracy. An agenda is thus organized and imposed on society, whereby, viewed in
terms of class relations, big capital is situated on both extremes: it produces the problem
and offfers the solution. Other cases have also been examined, such as the migration of
undocumented workers, climate change, food production, etc.
21 “The political institutionalization of class commitments and the guarantee of demo-
cratic freedoms have historically been achieved in the context of the national state…
Political universalism requires a redefĳinition that can establish a new version of the tradi-
tional meaning, which was coined in the nation-state context, of freedom, equality, democ-
racy and human rights… to move beyond the historic relation between nation-state and
citizenry” (Hirsch, 1996: 44, 49).
330 chapter ten
socio-political influence… On the other hand, the deepening of the

politico-ideological domination of [the capitalist] class has the paradoxi-
cal efffect of preventing most of the population from perceiving reality in
terms of class, resulting in a widespread sense of ideological helplessness”
(Piqueras, 2005, emphasis added).
It is clear that the shift from rebellion to revolution and the construc-
tion of a counterhegemonic project poses some difffĳiculties (the whole
concept of the neoliberal pattern of domination is considered in order to
identify the difffĳiculties to be overcome in order to successfully organize,
expand and consolidate the struggle against capital), but they are not
insuperable difffĳiculties in a historical context of structural economic crisis
that is expanding and fostering a growing rebellion. Thus, while the fact
that rebellion is not revolution and the difffĳiculties that the transition from
one to the other entails must be acknowledged, it is also important to note
that the decline of capitalism is constantly fostering rebellion because
what is at stake is survival itself; as Piqueras suggests, “the radical offfensive
of capital against humanity puts humankind in motion almost by neces-
sity” (Piqueras, 2005). In the fĳirst chapter, I pointed out that, following
Marx, the basis of domination is the division of the dominated, and that
this is produced by the need the dominated experience to serve capital;
neoliberalism produces division and conflict among them, but it also
invites them to struggle against capital and, therefore, to unite. And even
as an efffect of the defense of life, of the basic and essential level of rebel-
lion, even if it still appears to lack a counterhegemonic expression, the
system of domination tends toward instability. Rebellion produces diverse
forms of resistance against the vast and multifaceted genocidal deploy-
ment of capital and struggles associated with a wide range of social
demands to which the system of domination and exploitation does not
respond, nor does it show any disposition toward restoring previous forms
of negotiation and concession.
Mabel Thwaites Rey suggests that “capitalism constitutes a social
order that needs to validate itself. By means of material reproduction it
attempts (generally with success) to legitimate itself by integrating all of
society into a hierarchical structure… [but] when capitalism as a social-
economic system fails to socialize the whole population in a given terri-
tory, cracks appear in the nation-state as an articulating force, unleashing
political, economic, social, ideological and cultural crises” (Thwaites Rey
and Castillo, 1999).
The recourse to violence on the part of the capitalist class is an expres-
sion of its weakness, of its inability to preserve its hegemonic control over
society. It needs to resort to violence because it can no longer present its

state as representative of the societal whole: “coercion and force appear as
a consequence of the inability of the bourgeoisie to present itself to soci-
ety as ‘society itself’, and in doing so to engage in compromises with other
classes. Because for the dominant class to present the state as the repre-
sentative body of the people as a whole, this representation cannot be
entirely false; the state needs to assume some of the interests of the domi-
nated groups” (Thwaites Rey, 1994).
Rebellion and revolution represent two distinct but connected phe-
nomena and, in the context of a structural economic crisis of capitalism,
one can – indeed must, because the defense of life demands it – lead to the
other: “The possibility itself of exercising ‘hegemonic supremacy’ and not
mere rule ultimately depends on the chances of ensuring the advance-
ment of society as a whole, of ensuring the ‘incorporation’ of the popular
strata into social-economic development. And it is on this point that it
cannot be denied that Gramsci’s formula necessarily refers to the struc-
tural moment in its most profound sense. The truly hegemonic class would
therefore be the one that can present itself as developing productive forces
‘in the historical sense’, thereby making its particular class interests appear
to be the general public interest, to the extent that there is not an absolute,
obvious gap between the two. Otherwise, there may open up a yawning
chasm through which the organic crisis may enter” (Thwaites Rey, 1994,
emphasis added).
Period of Decline and the Historical Cycle of Capital
In the second chapter I examined the basic principle of the theoretical

framework set forth by Marx in his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique
of Political Economy, which is the underlying concept throughout Capital:
the relation between direct producers and their means of production
defĳines historical eras, and this relation develops together with the devel-
opment of productive forces, ultimately coming into contradiction with
the new level reached by those forces. Feudalism was characterized by the
unity between direct producers and the means of production. Small-scale
production (household and handicrafts industries) disperses the owner-
ship and/or possession of the social means of production among many
producers. The historical development of feudalism is the development of
this basic relation and unfolds as the development of land rent over three
stages or phases of development, until its dissolution and conversion into
332 chapter ten
capitalism: payment in labor, payment in kind and, fĳinally, monetary

payment.
Capitalist social relations are also historical relations, just as historical
as feudal relations, and their long term is associated with the historical
cycle of their classes, the process that creates, develops and dissolves
them. Capitalism unites and concentrates the means of production under
a single command: it destroys small-scale production, separates direct
producers from the means of production and concentrates the means of
production and workers under its command, thereby socializing produc-
tion. Concentration and centralization make capital grow; i.e. they develop
the capital-labor relation, the separation between producer and the means
of production. But essentially this separation develops together with the
development of labor productivity. Marx’s examination of the path lead-
ing from cooperation to manufacturing, to machinery and modern indus-
try, identifĳies progressions in the socialization of production, as well as
technical and social transformations: the transition from formal to real
subsumption and the division of labor into immediate labor and general
labor.
The successive developments in labor productivity mark out the his-
torical course of capitalism, from infancy to maturity and decline, with the
forms of exploitation and domination corresponding to each one (liberal,
Keynesian and neoliberal). At the same time, an essential contradiction
develops, contained in capitalist production relations: the greater soci-
ety’s wealth, the more redundant workers tend to become. This is what
constitutes the general law of capitalist accumulation and the tendency of
capital to create a worker surplus population:
“The category of consolidated surplus population was developed by Marx to
designate a logical result of the development of capitalism at the level of the
essential production relation. Capital represents historicity viewed from the
perspective of a particular mode of production. The object of study is not a
particular stage of this mode of production, but the analysis of capital in
general, and includes the analysis of the forces that create and develop it and
provoke its disintegration. Moreover, Marx presented his theory of surplus
population after introducing his thesis on the concentration and centraliza-
tion of capital. A consolidated surplus population is one of the elements that
inform the process of disconnecting the social relation from production and
its contradiction with the development of productive forces” (Figueroa
Sepúlveda, 2008).
The period of the decline of capitalism is the process leading to the
fĳinal crisis of the capital relation, the social relation that separates pro-
ducers from the means of production. There is a need implicit in the
development of this relation: to restore the connection between produc-

ers and the means of production through the social re-appropriation of
those means, and to use production to satisfy the needs of the producers.
In this way, by economizing labor time, technological progress, rather
than producing a redundant population, may reduce working hours, pro-
viding more free time and work for all, and thus establish the conditions
for the full development of all individuals.
The fulfĳillment of this need is also the fulfĳillment of freedom22 in two
senses: freedom in relation to nature – exercise of rational control over
nature achieved through the development of science and technology –
and freedom from domination by things, leading to self-determination
and the establishment of human beings as the agents and authors of his-
tory – overcoming the logic of the fetish and replacing market mecha-
nisms with “production by freely associated men, consciously regulated by
them in accordance with a settled plan.”
In opposition to the capitalist state, the historical need still awaiting
fulfĳillment is the socialist state, the organization of the working class,
whose basic task is to ensure a connection between producers, organized
as a worker collective, and the means of production and subsistence. It is
a need contained in the development of necessary relations, independent
of the will and consciousness of human beings, but the form that this need
takes will depend on the class struggle, on the will and consciousness that
develop. The specifĳic historical process results from the articulation
between objective and subjective; the tendential laws of the development
of capitalism do not organize a mechanical trajectory, but spaces of pos-
sibilities for action by the subjects.
Among those who personify the ruling faction of capital today, there is
a systematic efffort to prolong its domination; they are not passively await-
ing its collapse. Ultimately, of course, necessity prevails23 and, just as all
the feudal societies and pre-capitalist societies in general, through a long
and complex process, made a transition to capitalism, capitalism itself
22 According to Walicki the conception of freedom – understood as collective freedom –

in Marx has two aspects: fĳirst, the capacity to dominate nature, through the development
of productive forces, and second, to eliminate power from reifĳied, alienated social rela-
tions. “In this way, man is the one who is in control. Man is the only actor and author of
history. Freedom determines its own destiny; freedom is self-determination” (Walicki,
1988).
23 “Necessity makes its way amid a multitude of contingent manifestations and estab-
lishes itself as a unit of potential, of contingency, and of contradiction between the two”
(De Gortari, 1972: 128).
334 chapter ten
will make the transition to socialism, although the form and duration of
this transition is no minor matter. In the 19th century, Marx believed that,
if it could identify the law that governs its development, a society could
shorten and lessen the birth pangs thereof.24 Perhaps the 21st century will
justify this optimism, shortening the period of decline and lessening the
birth pangs of socialism.
24 “And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural
laws of its movement – and it is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the economic law
of motion of modern society – it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enact-
ments, the obstacles offfered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can
shorten and lessen the birth pangs” (Marx, 1867: Preface to the First German Edition).
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SUBJECT INDEX
absolute growth 61, 82, 96 economics 4, 11, 66

outward growth 60, 62, 82, 96, 98, exploitation 2, 25, 29, 37, 48, 260, 308
121, 150 mode of production 37, 39, 52, 239, 240,
accumulation 3, 21, 22, 24, 38, 41, 43, 48, 49, 257, 267, 311
59, 61, 63, 72, 76, 84, 92, 94, 98, 101, 102, casualization 6, 7, 122, 137, 141, 148, 186, 187,
105, 118, 125, 129, 130, 150, 157, 189, 198, 212, 199, 223, 224, 233, 263
315, 316, 318–322, 332 centralization of capital 11, 38, 151, 309,
administration of competitiveness 7, 8, 314–316, 332
231, 245 China 91, 95, 119, 144, 148, 163, 182, 186, 225,
Afghanistan 158, 192, 207, 229, 272, 274, 247, 279, 290, 292, 323
277–290 civil society 29, 32, 35, 36, 50, 51, 67, 84, 121,
AFL 91, 92 167, 168, 209, 218, 228, 275, 298
Africa 90, 95, 96, 134, 136, 147, 186, 279 class
Ah Q Syndrome 22, 145, 167, 172 domination 1, 2, 17, 26, 43, 65, 198, 201
alienation 105, 210, 215, 219–222, 228, organization 42, 45, 78, 84, 85, 104, 105,
229, 231, 260, 263, 268 107, 116, 217
American Federation of Labor 91 relation 20, 37, 45, 63, 94, 125, 128, 131,
annihilation 220, 274 135, 157, 179, 220, 235, 308, 325, 328, 329
Argentina 96 struggle 10, 13, 29, 30, 38, 42, 47, 48, 50,
authoritarianism 50, 61 62–64, 69, 84, 86, 90, 91, 115, 206,
257–259, 261, 317, 321, 333
Bolshevik revolution 95 class-based conflict 12
Bolsheviks 89 collective bargaining 94, 143, 211, 218, 222
bourgeoisie 28, 31, 44, 50, 51, 59, 72, 74, 76, Colombia 192, 205, 274–277
78, 82, 86, 88, 89, 95, 96, 98, 103, 120, 159, commodity 18, 21, 41, 44, 79, 128, 132, 133,
162, 207, 230, 264, 304, 317, 328, 331 136, 148, 149, 232, 238, 239, 275
Brazil 96, 168, 182, 247 commodity-capital 128, 132, 133, 136, 148
Bretton Woods Agreement 127 Communist 1, 17, 20, 38, 67, 84, 91, 118, 249,
Bretton Woods system 129 257, 277, 282
competitiveness 7, 8, 9, 104, 125, 126, 139,
Canada 121 148, 156, 164–167, 186, 187, 191, 213, 215,
Capital 1–13, 17–35, 37–53, 55–111, 115–123, 218, 220, 222, 228, 229, 231, 244–246,
125–138, 140–157, 160–164, 167–170, 173, 254, 325
173, 175–191, 194–203, 206, 207, 209–246, Competitiveness Promotion Brigades 167,
248–274, 277279, 282, 283, 288, 289, 291, 218, 228, 254
293, 295, 297–304, 307–333 consciousness 13, 23, 31–35, 38, 40, 41, 65,
capital relation 3, 11–13, 21, 24–30, 33, 34, 74, 84, 87, 89, 104, 107, 177, 195, 209, 212,
35, 37, 38, 40, 44, 45, 50, 52, 74, 216, 238, 239, 241, 257, 260, 261, 263, 267,
307–309, 311, 313, 316, 318, 327, 332 309, 327, 329, 333
capital/wage-labor relation 5, 24, 37, 40, contained form
50, 63, 73, 74, 76, 84, 117, 122, 133, 149, of capital 4, 5, 47, 60, 62, 70, 83, 119, 207
152, 269, 303, 304, 309 of domination 3, 5, 6, 11, 48, 49, 50, 52,
capitalist 63, 64, 89, 90, 94, 95, 111, 115–117, 119,
accumulation 212, 316, 332 122, 126, 128, 137, 176, 214, 217, 228, 312
collective 46 contradiction 1, 5, 8, 10, 29, 41, 60, 63, 69,
domination 3–6, 11, 26, 30, 40, 47, 52, 53, 130, 147, 159, 175, 176, 184, 198, 202, 210,
55–58, 60–64, 69, 70, 72, 73, 81, 83, 84, 211, 226, 227, 230, 241, 252, 257, 259, 264,
86, 88–91, 102, 119, 122, 125, 207, 215, 267, 268, 270, 287, 307, 312, 319, 322, 324,
228, 258, 304, 307–310 331–333
352 subject index
corruption 110, 170, 173, 181, 191, 194, 199, economic 209

224, 261, 269, 275, 277, 278 Keynesian pattern of domination 78,
creative destruction 234 89, 92, 102, 110, 115, 117, 118, 127, 134, 138,
crime 7, 8, 12, 67, 123, 173, 177, 178, 180, 184, 142, 146, 154, 200, 218, 222, 228
185, 188–193, 195–201, 203–205, 212, 221, ideological domination 31–35, 49, 132,
223–226, 228, 229, 237, 246, 260, 269–271, 209–216, 221, 222, 225, 227–229, 231,
273–279, 281, 283, 290, 293, 296, 303, 244, 245, 263, 268, 330
320, 321 liberal pattern of domination 73, 75, 78,
against humanity 196, 281 84–86, 88, 89, 93, 102, 115, 156
Crime Promotion Brigades 200, 223, natural form of domination 11, 42, 45,
228, 229 46, 49, 50, 52, 60, 62–64, 69, 72, 95,
criminal branch of the neoliberal 102, 110, 111, 116, 128, 131, 142, 155, 156,
economy 191–193, 198, 199 175, 217, 242, 243, 311–313
crisis of legitimacy 7, 204, 206, 207 neoliberal patterns of domination 173,
Cultural Revolution 91 176, 178, 179, 183–185, 199, 221, 225,
culture 106, 111, 166, 177, 210, 211, 213, 216, 231, 328
217, 224, 235, 236, 250, 254, 275, 282, 286 pattern of domination 4–7, 9–13, 55–59,
cycle of capitalism 11, 49, 52, 70, 76, 307 61, 63–65, 67, 69, 70, 73, 75, 78, 79,
82–86, 88, 89, 91–94, 96, 97, 99–102,
dead wood 251, 255, 257 110, 115, 117–119, 121–123, 125, 127, 133,
decline of capitalism 245, 283, 311–313, 317, 134, 137, 138, 142, 145, 146, 150, 152,
322, 330, 332 154–156, 162, 176, 184, 185, 198, 200, 207,
democracy 31, 50, 75, 76, 77, 82, 86–88, 107, 211, 212, 218, 222, 228, 264, 307, 309–315,
115, 119, 121, 158, 159, 162, 168–173, 182, 183, 317, 319, 321, 323, 325, 327, 329–331, 333
193–195, 212, 213, 253–256, 264, 281, 300, Soviet pattern of domination 83
325, 327, 329 Eastern Europe 89, 95, 119, 147
democratic institutions 86, 185, 282
depoliticization 254 ECHELON 284, 285, 287
developed nation 6, 7, 64, 96, 97, 119, 120, ecological system of capitalism 21, 22
122, 134–136, 140–143, 146, 148, 150, 155, economic
157, 158, 160, 170, 175, 176, 180, 183, 187, depression 39, 40, 310
188, 278, 289, 311, 315 expansion 39, 78, 202, 310
developing nation states 33, 182, 325 emancipation 52, 86, 87, 100, 244, 249, 257,
developmentalism 5, 90, 98, 115, 120, 121, 258, 263, 266
148, 149, 151, 212, 213 emergent threats 8
developmentalist end of history 78, 120, 211, 213, 264, 265, 303
pattern 5, 7, 70, 83, 94, 96, 100–102, 121, England 47, 70, 71, 73, 79, 105
123, 150, 162, 176 environmental policy 165–167, 269, 293, 327
State 98, 102, 213 ETC group 150, 153, 237, 293, 294, 297299
dictatorships 121 EU 280, 284, 285, 287
dilemma 12, 197 Europe 24, 51, 71, 72, 74, 83–87, 89–92, 94,
disobedience 31, 33, 34 95, 103, 119, 127, 136, 144, 147, 157, 180, 183,
division of labor 44, 56, 85, 138, 140, 332 186, 188, 190, 191, 199, 247, 267, 271, 273,
dominant faction of the capitalist class 278–280, 282, 284, 285, 287, 290, 310, 311
39, 64 exploitation 2, 3, 5, 22–30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38,
domination 1–7, 9–13, 15, 17–35, 37, 38, 40, 40–43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 55, 59, 65, 71–75, 78,
40, 42–53, 55–58, 60–67, 69–75, 77–97, 79, 82, 91, 93–95, 109, 115, 116, 118, 121, 125,
99–103, 106–111, 115–123, 125–128, 131–134, 133, 134, 147, 150, 154, 156, 180, 186, 195,
137, 138, 142, 145, 146, 149, 150, 152, 154, 209, 212, 217, 236, 260, 261, 281, 308, 312,
154–156, 159, 160, 162, 173, 175–179, 314, 316, 317, 320, 327, 330, 332
183–185, 195, 198–203, 207, 209–218, 221,
222, 224, 225, 227–229, 231, 234, 237, fascism 89, 118, 216, 264
242–245, 248, 254, 258, 260, 261, 263–265, fetishism 10, 231, 237, 238–244, 247, 252
268, 291, 304, 307–314, 317, 323–328, 330, fetishization 132
332, 333 Feudalism 69, 70, 74, 230, 264, 331
subject index 353
FMI 6 Industrial Revolution 70, 71, 73, 74, 81,

Fordism 92, 109, 116, 117, 127, 134, 135, 298, 311
139–142, 311, 312, 315 industrialization 61, 83, 95–98, 120,
forms of labor 75 147–151, 186
Fourth Generation war 203, 204, 206–208 intellectual and moral leadership 5, 9, 32,
free market 81, 162, 190, 202, 205, 212, 220, 50, 51, 123, 209–212, 215, 217, 218, 226,
265, 268, 269, 288 228–231, 268, 270, 303
free mobility internal contradictions 5, 8, 10, 130, 198,
of capital 7, 8, 127, 129, 148 226, 227, 230, 257, 264, 268
free trade 8, 61, 62, 97, 121, 132, 136, 142, 186, International Organization for
203, 204, 269, 329 Standardization (ISO) 164, 165
zones 136, 142, 269 internationalization 123, 126–128, 133, 134,
French Revolution 71, 253 136, 143, 146, 148, 150, 151, 154
interventionist state 61, 96
GATT 132, 158 Iraq 158, 159, 203, 207, 229, 270, 278, 281,
general labor 21, 24, 26, 58, 65, 79, 85, 140, 291, 327
149, 311, 332 Italian Fascists 90
geoengineering 293–296, 299
German social democracy 86 Japan 72, 127, 136, 147, 157, 183, 301, 321
ghetto 110, 156, 157, 176, 180, 260, 328, 329
global fĳinancial oligarchy 152 Keynesian 4–7, 11, 70, 71, 78, 83, 89, 92,
globalization 6–8, 10, 43, 67, 116, 122, 123, 94, 102, 107, 110, 115–119, 123, 126, 127, 128,
132, 135, 138, 142, 146, 156, 157, 161, 162, 167, 130,132, 134, 138, 140, 142–146, 148, 154,
169, 176, 181–183, 187, 190, 212, 221, 222, 169, 175, 176, 200, 212, 216, 218, 219, 222,
237, 245, 252, 260, 279, 280, 283, 289, 324, 228–230, 233, 235, 237, 243, 249, 257,
326, 329 259, 260, 269, 303, 310, 312, 320, 332
Kondratiefff cycle 40
hegemonic 1, 32, 36, 51, 64, 73, 85, 111, 120,
158, 191, 198, 211, 212, 217, 222, 230, 252, labor policy 93
263, 326, 327, 330, 331 labor-power 20, 25, 26, 46, 47, 59, 61, 75, 79,
hegemonic system 36, 252 81, 82, 92–94, 104, 134, 136–138, 140, 144,
hegemony 50, 51, 161, 203, 210, 228, 230, 231, 145, 147, 148, 150, 156, 177–179, 195
263, 293, 326 last man 211, 252, 264–268, 270, 271, 274,
historical cycle of capitalism 70 275, 282, 283, 288, 289, 291, 295, 303, 323
historical stages 40, 42 legitimacy 7, 170, 200, 201, 204, 206, 207,
human rights 10, 121, 168, 181, 182, 188, 203, 226, 231, 249, 266, 269, 270
247, 252, 253, 276, 281, 292, 300, 329 liberal democracy 75, 77, 168–170, 193, 194,
crimes 196, 221, 276, 281 256, 264
humanism 10, 79, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256 life cycle of capitalism 11, 49, 52, 76, 307
logic of the fetish 10, 245, 251, 256, 257, 259,
ideology 1, 2, 9, 18, 30, 32, 33, 50, 66, 73, 263, 266, 268, 303, 324, 329, 333
75, 77, 78, 92, 97, 105, 111, 123, 131, 169, long cycle 40
170, 171, 209–212, 214–216, 219, 228, 229,
231, 240–242, 244, 248, 252, 258, 260, Marxist theory 17
264, 303 mass society 83
IMF 67, 121, 128, 160, 186, 191, 199, 290, 320 means of production 3, 8, 9, 11–13, 19–21,
immediate labor 21, 24, 26, 58, 59, 61, 85, 23–29, 33, 34, 37, 52, 65, 73, 74, 76, 89, 90,
90, 96, 97, 99, 109, 140, 149, 311, 332 95, 139, 149, 169, 195, 221, 238, 243, 244,
immigration 7, 188, 205, 208 251, 259, 263, 267–269, 288, 293, 308, 311,
India 24, 72, 182, 186, 225, 247, 279, 290 313, 314, 316, 322, 326–328, 331–333
industrial media 32, 34, 58, 66, 111, 170, 171, 180, 181,
colonialism 60, 121, 123, 145, 148, 149, 189, 193, 201, 214–219, 222, 224–226, 232,
159, 175 233, 236, 254, 270, 271, 272, 275, 323
reserve army 11, 21, 24, 26, 38, 105, 134, metanarratives 1, 260
136, 142, 146, 151, 155, 309, 315, 316 methodology of domination 65
354 subject index
Mexico 5, 18, 50, 81, 96, 100, 101, 121, 122, oppressed 2, 30, 74, 260, 326, 328
136, 143, 144, 147, 148, 157, 160–163, 166, organized crime 8, 12, 67, 173, 185, 189, 190,
170–172, 177, 181, 182, 186, 187, 190, 193, 192, 193, 197–199, 201, 203–205, 212, 223,
201–203, 205, 223, 229, 235, 274, 275, 277 224, 270, 271, 273, 277, 283, 290, 303, 321
middle term of capitalism 40
modern state 28, 128, 227 period of decline 12, 283, 303, 313, 316,
modes of domination and resistance 42 325–327, 331, 334
money-capital 128–130, 133, 136, 148 periodization 4, 40, 53, 55, 56, 69, 70, 310
monopolies 8, 20, 66, 68, 110, 120, 127, 128, political
139, 150–152, 154, 215, 232, 300, 311, 313, 326 class 91, 169–172, 180, 186, 250, 275, 281
multinational monopolies 8, 150, 154 domination 29, 35, 100, 308
multiple crises 10, 303 society 35, 50, 209, 275
mystifĳications 27, 240 postmodern 231, 247–252, 254–263, 266,
267, 269
narratives 1, 250, 251, 256, 257, 260, 266 postmodernist 257, 258, 261, 269
National Industrial Recovery Act 94 private sphere 75, 76
National Manufacturers Association 94 production workshop of domination
national monopolies 8, 128, 150, 154, strategies 65–67, 102, 111, 159, 160, 183,
311, 313 210, 216, 327
nationalism 96, 97, 100, 101, 121 productive capital 69, 79, 81, 123, 128–130,
nationalization 89, 90, 95 133–137, 140, 142, 146–148, 150, 151, 154,
nation-state 4, 6–8, 10, 55, 57, 58, 62, 67, 160, 179
69, 80, 86, 95, 98, 115, 116, 123, 126, 127, proletariat 20, 21, 24, 25, 42, 52, 84, 87, 89,
132, 137, 142, 154, 156, 157, 159, 162, 168, 91, 96, 100, 104, 109
180, 205, 212, 214, 221, 229, 245, 246, 253, public sphere 76, 214, 254
268, 274, 288, 289, 325, 328, 329, 330
Nazi 94, 145, 187, 229, 255, 280 rationality 46, 88, 103, 104, 131, 213, 242,
Neoliberal 4–11, 13, 50, 66, 67, 70, 71, 91, 98, 243, 252–254, 261, 274, 324
101, 102, 113, 116, 117, 119, 121–123, 125–129, rebellion 84, 85, 95, 158, 259, 260, 264, 283,
131–133, 137, 138, 142, 143, 145, 149–152, 326, 327, 330, 331
154–156, 159, 162, 164, 168–170, 172, 173, and revolution 330, 331
175–180, 182–186, 189–203, 206, 207, 209, relative growth (internal growth) 61,
211–215, 218–231, 234–237, 243, 245, 246, 98, 99
248, 252–254, 256, 258, 263, 264, 265, repression 9, 115, 182, 226, 227, 230, 276,
267–270, 273, 274, 277, 280–282, 288, 282, 287
289, 291, 293, 295, 297, 303, 304, 307, 310, resistance 3, 5, 8, 31, 38, 41–43, 45, 47, 63,
312, 314, 317, 319, 320, 322, 323, 325–328, 65, 78, 92, 105, 118, 128, 135, 138, 142, 143,
330, 332 146, 147, 151, 160, 172, 173, 184, 203, 212,
democracy 168–170, 193, 194, 256 214, 215, 230, 234, 245, 251, 259, 261, 273,
economy 5, 6, 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 283, 287, 289, 308, 323, 330
137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 149, 151, 153, revolution 6, 10, 12, 29, 34, 44, 49, 50, 66,
155, 175, 190–193, 196, 198, 199, 289 70, 71, 73, 74, 81, 83, 84, 86–91, 95, 97, 103,
ideology 169, 214, 252 110, 115, 117, 118, 123, 125, 130, 133, 140, 142,
state 5, 6, 50, 128, 131, 155–157, 159, 161, 146, 151, 168, 172, 203, 206, 217, 223, 230,
163–165, 167, 169, 171, 173, 175, 180, 184, 253, 259, 273, 298, 311, 313, 315, 326, 327,
202, 203, 212, 214, 229, 289 330, 331
neo-Nazi 145, 187, 255, 280 revolutionary class 84
networked States 8
North American Free Trade Agreement science of capital 107
(NAFTA) 121, 147, 160, 163, 186 security alliances 8, 204, 205
slavery 18, 47, 71, 79–81, 128, 180, 190, 281,
obedience 2, 13, 17, 19, 25, 31–34, 43, 78, 158, 292, 317
160, 163, 273 social
oligarchic pattern 5, 70, 73, 78, 79, 81, 82, class 1, 9, 11, 13, 19, 24, 25, 38, 41, 51, 61, 62,
96, 98, 99, 102 75, 78, 93, 100, 103, 118, 119, 156, 159, 162,
subject index 355
177, 178, 183, 195, 196, 202, 220, 254, transition to democracy 121, 158, 159, 168,
260, 262, 307, 313, 316 212, 213, 325, 329
governance 8, 245 transnationalized capital 10, 253
limit of capitalism 316, 317, 322, 323 tribalize 263
movements 170, 172, 188, 232, 261, 290 tribes 200, 217, 261–263
relation 2, 9, 18, 19, 21, 25, 30, 33, 35, Tsarist Russia 89, 329
38, 41, 42, 46, 71, 79, 110, 131, 132, 178,
194, 210, 220, 231, 235, 238, 240–244, underdeveloped capitalism 58, 59, 63, 71,
260, 261, 265, 307, 308, 324, 325, 72, 95, 103, 123
332, 333 underdeveloped nation 6, 7, 96, 119, 120,
socialism 1, 12, 20, 45, 52, 77, 83, 87, 89–91, 122, 134, 141–143, 146, 148, 150, 157, 158,
95, 115, 116, 119–121, 202, 212, 213, 249, 259, 175, 176, 180, 183, 187, 289, 315
261, 311, 317, 334 unemployment 6, 7, 23, 47, 59–61, 93,
Soviet Union 90, 119, 136, 273, 289, 290 104–106, 122, 133, 135, 144, 151, 155, 176,
state administration 5, 7, 9, 12, 102, 103, 123, 177, 179, 180, 185–187, 189, 199, 218, 221,
125, 175176, 184, 185, 199–201, 203, 223, 224, 233, 237, 246, 259, 263, 288,
205–207, 212, 214, 215, 219, 225–229, 235, 317, 326
271, 289, 325 unions 66, 78, 82, 88, 94, 103–105, 109–111,
of concessions 103, 123, 214, 215, 228 118, 135, 136, 143, 144, 167, 177, 182, 189, 214,
of crime 123 218, 219, 223, 269, 275
of criminal activity 5, 7, 9, 12, 176, 184, United States 5, 18, 66, 67, 83, 91, 92, 94,
185, 198–201, 203, 205–207, 212, 214, 97, 119, 121, 122, 125–128, 131, 132, 136, 144,
215, 225–229, 235, 271, 289, 325 153, 157–160, 168, 171, 172, 178, 179, 183,
state capitalism 12, 20, 52, 83, 89, 91, 119, 184, 186–188, 190–193, 202, 203, 205–207,
213, 249 225, 235, 236, 247, 253, 268, 271, 273, 274,
subsistence 3, 9, 12, 13, 19–21, 23–25, 28, 29, 278, 280–282, 285, 288–292, 294, 296,
33, 34, 37, 52, 65, 74, 76, 95, 101, 149, 151, 302, 327
176, 178, 185, 195, 223, 224, 234, 238, 262, use value 3, 40, 41, 232
263, 267, 268, 278, 288, 293, 300, 308, 311, USSR 1, 119, 289
313, 316, 322, 326, 333
superstructure 35, 51, 209 Venezuela 158, 172
surplus 21, 24, 34, 38, 44, 46, 59, 71, 137, 142,
143, 146, 151, 155, 156, 187, 199, 219, 309, war crimes 196, 281, 293
316, 318, 319, 321, 325, 332 war on drugs 168, 192, 205, 229, 274, 277
surplus-value 3, 5–7, 11, 39, 40, 45, 48, 49, Western capitalism 4, 70, 91
62, 73, 85, 97, 99, 109, 116–118, 123, 126, Western Europe 51, 71, 72, 83, 85, 87, 89,
129–131, 133, 138, 141, 146, 151, 152, 155, 175, 310, 311
183, 203, 239, 240, 313, 319, 326 worker movement 84, 89, 99, 115, 135, 143
surveillance 268, 269, 283–287 worker organization 47, 78, 84, 88, 91, 103,
synthetic analysis 4, 56 104, 111
systemic crisis 7 working class 2, 3, 5, 11, 18–21, 24, 25, 28, 38,
40–44, 46, 49, 75, 78, 84–93, 96, 101, 105,
Taylorism 92, 109, 134, 141, 142, 312, 315 106, 109, 111, 115, 116, 118, 126, 129, 131, 137,
technological revolution 6, 10, 12, 44, 117, 138, 155, 156, 185, 187, 206, 207, 214–217,
123, 125, 130, 133, 140, 142, 146, 151, 203, 219–221, 229, 233–235, 244, 259, 260, 263,
311, 313 265, 274, 303, 304, 308, 313, 316, 317, 323,
terrorism 1, 7, 8, 12, 168, 173, 185, 188, 191, 325–329, 333
201–205, 212, 225, 229, 246, 247, 270–274, World Bank 67, 121, 128, 157, 158, 160–162,
277, 283, 290, 291, 303 166, 169, 179, 185, 186, 301
Thanatophilia 231, 234, 235, 236, 274 World Competitiveness Center 164, 165
The Factory Acts 47 World Economic Forum 164, 167
The New Deal 93 World Trade Organization (WTO) 6, 132,
Third International 89, 91, 94 158, 160, 165, 169, 279, 285
third-generation monopolies 8 World War I 84, 92
trade unionism, 42, 88 World War II 83, 89, 93, 95, 101, 310
INDEX OF AUTHORITIES
Amin, Samir 40, 96, 127, 282, 317, 318 Lenin, Vladimir 30, 31, 42, 50, 52, 55, 68, 69,
Arceo, Enrique 102, 121, 127–130, 132, 138, 85, 115, 116, 329
146, 147, 149, 154, 163, 186 Lipietz, Alain 109, 138, 141, 144, 149
Lyotard, Jean-Francois 1, 10, 248–251,
Bauman, Zygmunt 184, 209 255–259, 265, 266, 269, 270
Bloch, Ernst 2
Mao 91
Carmagnani, Marcello 80, 82 Marx, Karl 3, 10, 17, 19, 21–23, 25–31, 37, 38,
Chossudovksy, Michel 288–291, 295 41–48, 50, 52, 55, 56, 69, 71–73, 75, 77, 78,
Córdova, Arnaldo 101 81, 84, 86, 115, 133, 231, 233, 234, 236,
Coriat, Benjamín 91–94, 104, 105, 108, 109 238–245, 257–260, 264, 267, 307, 309, 312,
316, 317, 319, 328, 330–334
Figueroa Sepúlveda, Víctor 19, 20, 25–27, 49, Mexico 5, 18, 50, 81, 96, 100, 101, 121, 122,
58–61, 63, 65, 66, 79, 80, 81, 85, 89, 96, 99, 136, 143, 144, 147, 148, 157, 160–163,
102, 120, 121, 125, 148, 149, 162, 163, 312, 313, 166, 170–172, 177, 181, 182, 186, 187, 190,
316, 332 193, 201–203, 205, 223, 229, 235, 274,
Fukuyama, Francis 1, 264–266 275, 277
Morin, Edgar 1
Gramsci, Antonio 1, 32, 35, 50–53, 55, 60, 67,
90, 106, 107, 108, 110, 168, 209, 211, 326, 331 Portantiero, Juan Carlos 66–68, 88, 102,
103, 106–108, 110, 327
Hirsch, Joachim 39, 106, 110, 116, 118, 119,
127, 135, 138, 155–157, 162, 163, 168–170, Roosevelt, Franklin 31, 94
187, 198, 317, 327, 329
Huntington, Samuel 1 Sánchez Vázquez 19, 29–32, 34, 35
Keynes, John 92, 93 Thurow, Lester 1

Kuhnl, Reinhard 74, 75, 77–79
Kurnitsky, Horst 246, 253 Weber, Max 66, 88, 103, 106, 107

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The Neoliberal Pattern of Domination

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/scss

Capital’s Reign in Decline

José Manuel Sánchez Bermúdez

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sánchez Bermúdez, José Manuel.

Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

1. The Basis of Capitalist Domination ............................................................. 17

5. The Transition to the Neoliberal Pattern of Domination .....................115

10. The Pattern of Domination and Historical Cycle of Capital ..............307

Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico

With publication of this book by the distinguished Mexican economist

discussion of their northern counterparts such as Samir Amin, Zygmund

capital accumulation regardless of growing social conflicts and raging

R.A. Dello Buono

In contemporary society, it is a favorite argument of the ruling ideology

1 See, for example, Fukuyama, 1992.

These three patterns of domination correspond to subordinate patterns

domination requires a delicate balance between wages and profĳit that is

competitiveness of their capital and of making themselves competitive

from the logic of the administration of criminal activity: the construction

Marx) to an extreme fetishism; the contemporary world resembles a

means of production and subsistence, it means increasing hardships and

THE DOMINATION OF CAPITAL:

THE BASIS OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION

“The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of inevitable

To examine the nature of capitalist class domination I will adopt a series

Domination and Obedience

Before entering the theoretical territory of Marxism, I believe it will be

defĳinitions, insofar as they associate domination with the ownership of

1 There is no shortage of examples to illustrate this tendency to exercise property rights

Of course, my purpose here is not to explain domination as a relation

Social Classes in Capitalism

to the center of domination and in relation to each other” (UNESCO,

negotiate their position in society individually. Under these conditions,

Exploitation and Domination:

between the classes.16 More specifĳically, it constitutes the core from

the context of a large reserve army, promoting intense competition for

domination process. In the hands of capital, the usefulness of any given

19 Taken from Marx’s Capital (quoted in Figueroa Sepúlveda, 1989: 47).

However, a long series of historical processes are necessary before this

The Capitalist State and Social Power

Every state is a power organization of a class, a class that is organized as

Domination is based, as a last resort, on violence, on the coercive capacity

over the dominated class;26 domination seeks to be accepted and assumed

Obedience and Disobedience:

In capitalist society, economic, political and ideological domination and

27 For example, in post-modern contemporary society there is a wide and increasing

articulation of social relations, whether presenting sublime expressions of

In contrast, what characterizes the dominated classes is their lack of

THE GENERAL FORMS OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION

In the previous chapter, I examined the basic features of domination as

The Development of the Capital Relation:

To examine the movement and development of the capital relation, there

3 See, for example, Hirsch, 1979.

These phases or stages make up the middle term of capitalism; based on

The Spontaneous Movement of Capital and the General Forms of