Imperialist carnage develops in Europe (full text)

The slaughter of 55 workers and the wounding of 700 hundred more on the 7th July followed by the attempted bombings of 21st July have confirmed the fears of millions that they risk being blown to bits on the way to or from work. The slaughter and the debilitating fear are the terrible price paid by the working class for the deepening of the impact of decomposition in the heartlands of capitalism. London, the oldest capital city of capitalism, has become part of the carnage that has spread around the globe and which is fuelled by the imperialist chaos in Iraq. It is a glimpse of the future that capitalism has in store for humanity.

In Baghdad many hundreds have been killed with equal brutality since July 7th. Children, drawn out by the offer sweets from American soldiers; men and women trying to find food to survive; young men forced by poverty and hunger to join the Iraqi police; the hundreds of Shias crushed to death during a religious procession in Baghdad, where the panic had been fuelled by earlier mortar attacks on the march. The deaths caused by the occupying armies are carefully concealed behind the bombings of the ‘resistance’, but estimates of the total killed are rising towards 100,000.

The London bombings have been followed by an ideological assault by the state and its hired hacks. The working class is being subjected to endless 'revelations', 'breaking news' and pointless speculation; all of which leave it confused and very threatened. The only consistent messages from this propaganda barrage are that there is a real possibility of more attacks by Islamic extremists and that only the state can protect us. The arrest of the four alleged bombers of July 21st is a spectacular ‘victory’ intended to drive home the point. 

The execution of the Jean-Charles de Menezes, his head ripped apart by numerous bullets, has also contributed to this horrendous spectacle, although he had nothing to do with terrorism.[1] On the one hand it has rammed home the message that the state is ready to “shoot to kill to protect”, along with terrifying speculation on what would have happened if the police had hesitated to shoot if their victim had not been ‘the wrong man’. On the other hand the leaked revelations that the initial police report was nothing but a pack of lies have given the bourgeoisie plenty of scope to continue the campaign, complete with London Mayor Ken Livingstone defending Sir Ian Blair as a ‘reforming’ chief constable who should be supported against those who leak against him. Whatever else the enquiry finally comes up with, we can be sure it will include the need for more resources to the police and their intelligence.

The British state has undoubtedly gained some immediate benefit from the bombings with the idea that the police and secret police are all that stand between us and chaos, that democracy is the only defence against terror, that there needs to be national unity behind our way of life. And at the same time, the ruling class can also find advantages in the increase in terror, suspicion and hatred within the population, leading to a significant increase in attacks on people perceived as ‘Muslims’: all this can be used to heighten divisions within the working class and divert attention away from any serious questioning of the present social order But there is without doubt another dimension at work here: the bourgeoisie’s growing loss of control, the fact that the chaotic imperialist barbarity that has been pulling apart any form of civil society in Iraq is now spreading directly to Britain and other countries in the heartlands of capitalism.

This point was underlined by the International Herald Tribune a week after the first attacks: “If it is confirmed, as the British police have indicated, that the London bombers were suicide terrorists of British nationality, then…something very new has hit Europe, the sort of suicide attacks heretofore believed to be a problem for Israel and Iraq, and, in one spectacular instance, on Sept 11 2001, the United States” (15/7/2005).

New York, Madrid, London: the spiral into imperialist chaos

The trail of bloodshed and destruction from New York, through Madrid and to London has brought the effects of the decomposition of capitalist society into the very centre of the capitalist system. 

The destruction of the Twin Towers by suicide bombers in September 2001 marked the opening of a new phase in the growth of barbarism and chaos. This terrible massacre was used as a pretext by US imperialism to launch a much more direct military offensive to try and maintain its world leadership. However, as we have repeatedly shown, this was not a matter of choice: the US has no other option than to impose its leadership through brutal military might, leading to the inevitable response from its rivals.

The slaughter of nearly 200 workers and the injuring of many others in Madrid marked a further deepening of decomposition. The fact that the instability generated by the war in Iraq spilled over into Western Europe expressed the acceleration of chaos. The anti-US fraction in Spain used the bombings in Madrid to achieve a new imperialist orientation. Contrary to what the left says, this is not a turn towards peace or an expression of the will of the people, but simply a change in imperialist strategy that will reinforce violence and chaos as much as the previous strategy.

The London bombings of July 7th marked yet another step in the descent into imperialist barbarism. They showed that within one of the main countries of capitalism there are more and more elements reduced to such despair that they can see no future but death; a future where their own self-destruction is the consciously planned means for the slaughter of as many of their fellow human beings as possible. It is the negation of a virtue that has been celebrated throughout human history: the sacrifice of oneself for one’s fellow human beings.

The attempted bombings on the 21st demonstrated that this was not a one-off event, but the opening up of a spiral of such events carried out by 'home grown' cannon-fodder using the same methods as in Baghdad. We are seeing a fusion between the chaos that finds its strongest and most enduring expression in the Middle East, and the advancing decay of social life in the heartlands of capitalism, especially in Britain. This link was confirmed in the days and weeks after the bombings by a number of horrific random murders which show that the streets and transport systems of Britain are becoming increasingly dangerous places: a young black man in Liverpool killed with an axe after being subject to racist taunts; another young man, who had just lost a friend in the July bombings, stabbed to death on a London bus because he tried to stop someone throwing food at passengers; a young woman shot dead while holding a baby as thieves raided a christening service in south London. The suicide bombers are only a more ‘politicised’ form of this growing cult of violence and death.   

 The deepening and spread of decomposition

To fully understand the implications of these events we need to go back to the analysis of decomposition.

In the 1980s the ICC identified a number of apparently irrational developments within capitalism:

• the setting up of a theocracy in Iran;
• the collapse of Lebanon into a cauldron of intra-fractional bloodbaths;
• the emergence of an increasing use of terrorist attacks  (for example the bombs in the streets of Paris during 1986-87),  which were essentially the responsibility of third or fourth-rate states such as Syria, Libya, or Iran, using terrorism as the ‘poor man’s atom bomb’.

The effort to understand these events led the ICC to develop the analysis of the decomposition of capitalism.[2] The collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 prompted a further development within the framework of the marxist analysis of the decadence of previous modes of production. We recognised that the present phase of decomposition “is fundamentally determined by unprecedented and unexpected historical conditions: a situation of temporary ‘social stalemate’ due to the mutual ‘neutralisation’ of the two fundamental classes, each preventing the other from providing a definitive response to the capitalist crisis” (“Decomposition, final phase of the decadence of capitalism”, International Review 62. Reprinted in International Review 107). Many of the elements we identified then can be seen in the recent events:

• “the development of terrorism, or the seizure of hostages, as methods of warfare between states…
• “the constant increase in criminality, insecurity and urban violence…
• “the development of nihilism, despair, and suicide amongst young people…and of…hatred and xenophobia…
• “the profusion of sects, the renewal of the religious spirit including in the advanced countries...
• “the invasion of the…media by the spectacle of violence, horror, blood, massacres…
• “the attitude of ‘every man for himself’, marginalisation, the atomisation of the individual, the destruction of family relationships…

“All these signs of the social putrefaction which is invading every pore of human society on a scale never seen before, can only express one thing: not only the dislocation of bourgeois society, but the destruction of the very principle of collective life in a society devoid of the slightest project or perspective, even in the short term, and however illusory.” (ibid).

Following the attacks in New York, the bombing in Bali, the Beslan siege, the war in Iraq and then the Madrid bombings last year, we made an important development of this analysis: “Fifteen years later, the rise of so-called “Islamist” terrorism presents us with a new phenomenon: the disintegration of the states themselves, and the appearance of warlords using young kamikazes, whose only perspective in life is death, to advance their interests on the international chessboard.

Whatever the details – which still remain obscure – of the attack in Madrid, it is obviously linked to the American occupation in Iraq. Presumably, those who ordered the attack intended to ‘punish’ the Spanish ‘crusaders’ for their participation in the occupation of Iraq. However, the war in Iraq today is far from being a simple movement of resistance to the occupation conducted by a few irreconcilable supporters of Saddam Hussein. On the contrary, this war is entering a new phase, that of a kind of international civil war which is spreading throughout the Middle East. In Iraq itself, there are increasingly frequent confrontations not only between the ‘resistance’ and US forces, but also between the ‘Saddamites’, Wahhabite Sunnis (the sect which gave birth to Bin Laden), Shiites, Kurds, and even Turkmen. In Pakistan, a discreet civil war is in progress, with the bomb attack against a Shiite procession (40 dead), and a large-scale military operation in progress as we write in Waziristan. In Afghanistan, all the reassuring declarations about the consolidation of the Kabul government cannot hide the fact that the latter’s writ runs no farther than Kabul itself, and that only with difficulty, while civil war continues to rage throughout the southern part of the country. In Israel and Palestine, the situation is going from bad to worse, as Hamas has started to use young children to carry its bombs. In Europe itself, the resurgence of violence between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo is a sign that the wars in ex-Yugoslavia have not come to an end, but have merely been smothered temporarily by the massive presence of occupying troops.

“We are no longer faced here with an imperialist war of the ‘classic’ sort, but with a general disintegration of society into warring bands. […] This tendency towards the disintegration of capitalist society will in no way hinder the strengthening of state capitalism, still less will it transform the imperialist states into society's protectors. Contrary to what the ruling class in the developed countries would like to make us believe – for example by calling the Spanish population to vote ‘against terrorism’ or ‘against war’– the great powers are in no way ‘ramparts’ against terrorism and social decomposition. On the contrary, they are the prime culprits. Let us not forget that today’s ‘Axis of Evil’ (Bin Laden and his kind) are yesterday’s ‘freedom fighters’ against the ‘Evil Empire’ of the USSR, armed and financed by the Western bloc. And this is not finished, far from it: in Afghanistan, the United States used the unsavoury warlords of the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban, and in Iraq the Kurdish peshmergas. Contrary to what they would like us to think, the capitalist state will be increasingly armoured against external military threats and internal centrifugal tendencies, and the imperialist powers – whether they be first-, fourth-, or nth-rate – will never hesitate to use warlords and terrorist gangs to their own advantage.

“The decomposition of capitalist society, precisely because of capitalism’s worldwide domination and its vastly superior dynamism in transforming society compared to all previous social forms, takes on more terrible forms than ever in the past. We will highlight just one of them here: the terrible obsession with death weighing on the young generations. Le Monde of 26th March quotes a Gaza psychologist: ‘a quarter of young boys over 12 have only one dream – to die as a martyr’. The article continues: ‘The kamikaze has become a respected figure in the streets of Gaza, and young children dress up in play explosive waistcoats in imitation of their elders’.

 (“Bombing in Madrid: Capitalism sows death”, International Review 117)

The London bombings fully confirm this and demonstrated that this new phenomenon is not confined to the peripheries. The “general disintegration of society into warring bands” is now finding expression in the heartlands, and the warlords can now find those willing to defend their interests within the terrain of their enemy.

Fundamentalism: the product of capitalist decomposition.

The bombings in London have been used to try and divide the population, and the working class in particular, by developing suspicion and hatred against the Muslim community. Behind the soft words about the wonders of British ‘multiculturalism’ the state has spread the idea that the ‘Muslim community’ contains a dangerous threat to the whole of society. According to Tony Blair “it is not a clash of civilisations - all civilised people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. But it is a global struggle and it is a battle of ideas, hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it...its roots are not superficial, but deep, in the Madrassas of Pakistan, in the extreme forms of Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in the former training camps of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; in the cauldron of Chechnya; in parts of the politics of most countries of the Middle East and many in Asia; in the extremist minority that now in every European city preach hatred of the West and our way of life.

“This is what we are up against. It cannot be beaten except by confronting it, symptoms and causes, head-on. Without compromise and without delusion.” (Speech to the Labour Party national conference 16/7/05).

There are many analyses of the growth of Islamic fundamentalism around. The crude version, peddled in the mass media and by populist politicians, is that it is a clash between democracy, with its virtues of freedom and equality, and those who hate it. A more sophisticated version, peddled by the left, such as the SWP and Respect, is that the actions of the ‘West’, usually meaning the US and Britain, have built up a ‘swamp of hatred and despair’ that leads young men to see suicide bombing as the only way to get even. In this case, ‘analysis’, partly based on the truth, soon gives way to justification. Such explanations are essentially attempts to get workers to choose one imperialist faction over another, no matter how many crocodile tears are spilt over the dead and injured.

The growth of Islamic fundamentalism is a particular expression of some of the tendencies identified in the analysis of decomposition. In particular, it brings together the disintegration of imperialist struggle into factional gangsterism and the individual’s loss of hope: “To the ruined petty bourgeois, to the slum dwellers with no hope of a job, even to elements from the working class, it offers the mirage of a 'return' to the allegedly pure state founded by Muhammad, which supposedly protected the poor and prevented the rich from making too much profit. In other words, this state is presented as an 'anti-capitalist' social order. Typically, Islamist groups assert that they are neither capitalist nor socialist, but 'Islamic', and fight for an Islamic state on the model of the old Caliphate. But this whole argument makes a mockery of history: the original Muslim state existed long before the capitalist epoch. It was based on a form of class exploitation, but, like western feudalism, had not perfected the enslavement of man to profit in the way that capitalism has, nor could it have done within its historical limitation. Today, however, whenever radical Islamic groups take control of a state, they have no alternative but to become the overseers of capitalist social relations and thus to strive for the maximisation of national profit. Neither the Iranian mullahs nor the Taliban could escape from this iron law.

This perverted 'anti-capitalism' goes along with an equally perverted 'Muslim internationalism’: the radical Islamic groups of the world claim to owe no allegiance to any particular nation state and call for the unity of all Muslim brothers across the world. Here again both these groups and their bourgeois opponents portray them as something unique - as an ideology and a movement that transcends national frontiers to form a fearsome new 'bloc', threatening the West in a similar way to the old 'Communist' bloc. In part, this is because they are virtually inseparable from the international criminal networks: gun-running (which now almost certainly includes the trade in 'weapons of mass destruction' - chemical and nuclear means) and the drug trade. Afghanistan in particular is a pivotal link here… Within this, bin Laden's 'imperialist warlordism' might be seen by some as a new offshoot of 'globalisation' (i.e., transcending national barriers). But this is true only in so far as it expresses a certain tendency towards the disintegration of the weakest national units. The 'global' Muslim state can never exist, for it will always founder on the rock of competing Islamic bourgeoisies. This is why, in order to fight for this chimera, the 'mujahadeen' are always obliged to join in with the imperialist great game, which remains one of competing national states.

“The 'holy war' proclaimed by the Islamic gangs is really a cover for the old unholy war fought by competing imperialist powers.” (‘The resurgence of Islam: a symptom of the decomposition of capitalist social relations’, International Review 109).

What is most significant about Islamic fundamentalism is not its specific characteristics but what it shares with capitalism as a whole. In the final analysis it is not Islamic fundamentalism that produces despair and terror, but the despair and terror created by rotting capitalism that produces Islamic fundamentalism. In other parts of capitalism such despair and terror take other forms, such as the Japanese cult that released poison in the Tokyo underground. The Middle East is at the centre of the current deepening of decomposition because the loss of hope in the future and the imperialist barbarism that characterise capitalism as a whole coexist particularly strongly in this geographical area, reinforce each other and take the particular form of the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber is thus not the essence of Islamic fundamentalism but of decomposing capitalism.

British imperialist strategy and Islamic fundamentalism

Why was Britain the target of the first suicide bombings in Western Europe? As we have seen, those who want the working class to take sides in this imperialist struggle offer their reasons: For Blair there is the clash between democracy, freedom and its enemies. For the leftists there is the anger stirred up by Britain’s foreign policy and its link to the US above all else. For the Islamic fundamentalists themselves there is the Jihad against the ‘crusaders’ and the corrupt, godless West. For marxists, there are two aspects: imperialist strategy and the social situation, both of which have to be understood in the context of decomposition.

Following the collapse of the blocs in 1989, Britain’s imperialist policy has been to defend its interests by playing the US against Europe, since it wishes to be dominated by neither. It had some success in this during the Balkans war in the 1990s, but more recently has come under immense pressure. This was increased after the bombing of the Twin Towers and forced the British bourgeoisie to lean more towards the US than previously: “British policy has continued to be to position itself between the US and the European powers but, today, the point of equilibrium has moved… The tack to the US is the adaptation of the existing policy to new conditions” (‘British imperialism between a rock and a hard place’, World Revolution 280). The main part of the British ruling class backed the war with Iraq but with varying levels of concern over how close to get to the US. The Hutton and Butler inquiries that came out of the war were a means to put pressure on Blair not to get too close to Washington; they were never intended to get rid of him. However, Britain has been increasingly drawn into the chaos now reigning in Iraq and the unease within the ruling class has grown. The execution of the British hostage Ken Bigley was a sign that Britain had become a target. Fundamentalist websites warned that Britain would pay. The London bombings only confirm the fact shown in every war over the last fifteen years, that the main targets of war, the first victims, are ordinary people, workers above all, whether the killing is done in the name of ethnic cleansing, the defence of democracy, or Jihad.

One aspect of British imperialist strategy that the bourgeoisie is particularly discreet about is its part in the development of Islamic fundamentalism. In the 1980's the British secret service, along with the CIA, poured money into funding the jihadis against the Russians in Afghanistan. Then the likes of Bin Laden were ‘freedom fighters’, ‘heroes for freedom’. Jihad was not a word to strike fear into the population with, but something ‘noble’ to be encouraged and financed. As long as this ideology could recruit cannon fodder for the killing fields of Afghanistan it was financed. When the Russians withdrew at the end of the 1980s, we caught a glimpse of the dragon’s teeth they had sown, as these ‘noble gentlemen’ laid waste to those parts of Afghanistan that had not already been destroyed. And still the 'democratic West' gave money to the warlords in order to use them to defend their own interests.

The lessons taught by the CIA and MI5 in the ’80s were put to good use in the ’90s in the terror unleashed by the fundamentalists of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) in Algeria. 50,000 were slaughtered, including the mass throat-slitting of train passengers and entire villages. The leaders and members of these extremist Islamic groups found sanctuary in England, and were allowed to go about their business: “As long as these individuals presented no threat to British National security, MI5 and MI6 were more than happy to have them here because they were a ready source of intelligence about what became known as 'political Islam’. From 1991 Algeria was embroiled in bloody civil war...Although the conflict spilled over into France, the British authorities embarked on a bold experiment by allowing opposition activists into the country” (The Observer 17/7/05). These fundamentalists were not simply a source of information; they were also a means to put pressure on French imperialism and other imperialisms in the Middle East and elsewhere. Thus, whilst Blair and the rest of the bourgeoisie warn of the dangers of 'evil extremists', it is they that gave birth to the warlords who today have turned on them.

The impact of decomposition in Britain

It is no accident that it was in Britain that fundamentalist ideology was able to inspire the first suicide bombings in Western Europe. British capitalism has been the most affected by the last 30 years of crisis and has been unable to escape the disintegrating effects of decomposition. Since the late 1970s unemployment has increased and remained high, albeit hidden behind a mass of statistical manipulations. In some parts of the country generations have grown up with no prospect of any real work. Above all this has weighed on young people. The 1970's saw the development of the punk ideology of ‘no future’; the 1980s saw riots in several major cities, animated by the disaffected and despairing young. Twenty years later, the angry ideology and the open anger has gone, or rather has been turned inwards with significant numbers of young people raging against each other and life itself in a culture of violence where only gang loyalty links people together.

The ethnic minorities have fared even worse, enduring the highest rates of unemployment and the worst living conditions. Whole sections of society have been marginalised. Muslim communities have been ghettoised, especially in the North of England where there has been a deliberate policy of keeping communities separated and thus stoking up tensions. For the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie of Asian origin this has generated despair and hopelessness, which have spilled over into parts of the working class, especially the youth faced with unemployment.

The bombings have accentuated tensions within the British bourgeoisie

The immediate response of the British ruling class to the bombings was to make a show of unity. This marked the start of a conscious campaign to draw the working class behind the ‘nation’ and forget any struggle for its own interests. The campaign also allowed Blair to try and quell some of the anxiety within the bourgeoisie at being drawn into the quagmire of Iraq. Beginning on the day of the bombing, there has been a sophisticated media campaign to rubbish any idea that the bombings have anything to do with Iraq. The 'unity' this has produced between the main political parties is an expression of the common understanding that the bombings express a very serious problem for the British state.

This 'unity' is unlikely to be long-lived as regards imperialist strategy because the bombings have accentuated the fears within the British bourgeoisie about the impact of the war. Despite all the talk of 'national unity' it is clear that the bombings express the weakness of British imperialism rather than its strength. And those in the British bourgeoisie opposed to the war are infuriated by the terrible problems that these bombings are generating and will generate for the control of its political life.

One expression of this concern, of the anger of a part of the ruling class, came only a week after the bombings in a report from a group of former senior Foreign Office, military, political and intelligence personal entitled Riding Pillion for Tackling Terrorism is a High-risk Policy. This refuted the claim that the bombings had nothing to do with Iraq: “There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism. It gave a boost to the Al-Qaeda network's propaganda, recruitment and fund raising, caused a major split in the coalition, provided an ideal targeting and training area for Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, and deflected resources and assistance that could have been deployed to assist the Karzi government and to bring Bin Laden to justice. Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and US military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure, and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism campaign”. The recent leaked letter written in May last year by Sir Michael Jay, head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, expressed the same concern that British foreign policy would aid recruitment by ‘extremist’ organisations.

This situation can only increase the tension within the British ruling class. It sharpens the dilemma that British imperialism has had to endure for many years: the attempt to play the US against Europe has ended with Britain being squeezed between the two.

 The impact on the working class

The immediate impact on the working class has been one of shock and disorientation. The war in Iraq has become ever more unpopular as ‘liberation’ has turned into nightmare, and there is real reflection in the class about the nature of the war. The bombing will initially hold back this reflection because of the terrible fear and uncertainty that has been generated. However, this is not likely to last very long. The initial response has not been marked by the nationalist and patriotic fervour that swept over the US after 9/11. Rather there is a sense of shock and very real fear. The ruling class has tried to use this to boost the image of the state as the only thing that can defend the population both against terrorism and a racist backlash. The fast pace of the campaign, with arrests and revelations announced daily, has reinforced the image of the state as the protector of the weak.

There has been much talk in the media about the spirit of the Blitz and the Second World War, of defending our way of life against the terrorists and so on. However, today we are not in the very depths of the counter-revolution, and people are not willing to be dragged to war. People are scared, confused, and disoriented. This is partly because the working class is only just beginning to find its path again and its sense of itself. They go to work because they have to, not because they are mobilised for democracy against terror. Amongst a minority there is active reflection on the situation they face, a situation that can take in the war as well. More widely there is a hidden, subterranean, development of consciousness underway, that may reveal itself unexpectedly as the attacks develop. This is the difference between a period of defeat and today.

The propaganda of the bourgeoisie has sought to calm the situation and to pacify workers and prevent them from acting and thinking on their own behalf. It portrays the authorities as being in control of the situation. This is their main concern, not the safety of the population.

The action of some of the London tube drivers was potentially very significant. On Thursday 21st the Bakerloo line and Northern Line were shut down because drivers refused to take the trains out after the bomb scares. But the RMT union soon got on top of the situation, stressing the need for armed police on the trains, for functioning radios in the drivers’ cabs etc. Bob Crow, the RMT leader, said that the union would defend any driver who refused to drive, thus isolating the workers action. So the unions managed to nip in the bud any general class thinking and action and turn it into a sectional aspect of civil defence.

The deepening of decomposition in the very centres of world capitalism shows how important if is for the proletariat to rediscover its class identity – which ultimately means seeing itself as a class with the only answer to this growing bloody chaos. The strike by workers at Gate Gourmet in early August, and the solidarity strike by workers at BA, are not only an inspiring example of what working class identity and solidarity are; they also showed that despite all the campaigns about ‘national unity’ after the bombings, workers are still ready to defend their interests as workers.

These bombings have raised the stakes for the working class not only in Britain but also internationally. They show that if the class is unable to develop its struggle to the level necessary to challenge capitalism, the future will witness the heartlands plunging into the levels of chaos previously only seen in Bosnia, Iraq or Africa.
World Revolution, 3/9/05.

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[1] See the statement on our website: “Execution at Stockwell, London: Today’s democratic ‘shoot to kill’ policy prepares tomorrows death squads”. However, his death isn’t really a problem since we have now been told that was an illegal immigrant.

[2] See: “The decomposition of capitalism” in International Review 57.