Editorial

Working People Must Reject Narrow, Bourgeois Nationalism

As the federal election campaign gets underway, the candidates from every political party are vying with each other to convince people that their particular party is best able to protect Canadians from American bullying. Even Conservative leader Stephen Harper is trying to distance himself from the Bush regime. There is also a chorus of trade union leaders calling on Canadian workers to vote for the Liberals, NDP or some other party in order to save their jobs. Some candidates have gone so far as to suggest that there are some local monopoly capitalist corporations that are part of the social fabric of Canada and that it is in the national interest to ensure that they not only remain in business, but also that they remain out of the hands of their foreign competitors. Regardless of the political stripe of those who are suggesting such things, they are all trying to sell the Canadian working class and people a bill of goods. The central tenet of this line is the myth that Canadian monopoly capitalism is superior to American monopoly capitalism, that Canadian capitalism is more humane, more pro-social and more pro-worker and that the interests of Canada are synonymous with the interests of the Canadian capitalist class.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no such thing as “good” monopoly capitalists and “bad” monopoly capitalists. They all have exactly the same motivation – the realization of maximum capitalist profit – and they will do anything to achieve it. There is no such thing as a patriotic Canadian monopoly capitalist, a monopoly capitalist who puts the interests of the workers, the community or the country above the interest of maximum capitalist profit. Whether they have Canadian or American or some other citizenship, monopoly capitalists are “nationalists” only in so far as they can use a particular national state to advance their own narrow interests against the narrow interests of their competitors. If shutting down a factory in Canada and opening one in China, Mexico or some other country results in higher profits, then they will do so without a moment’s hesitation regardless of the impact such a decision may have on “their” workers or “their” community. To suggest otherwise is to create serious illusions about the fundamental nature of capitalism in its highest and final stage of monopoly capitalism.

The Canadian economy is dominated by monopoly capital. This capital is both domestic and foreign, and, regardless of its origin, monopoly capital in Canada has the motive of extracting maximum profit out of the land and labour of the Canadian people. Furthermore, all monopoly capitalists in Canada, whether domestic or foreign, see their interests served both by maintaining Canada’s dependence on and subservience to the United States and by maintaining the supremacy of the U.S. internationally. Put another way, the economic and social base for the domination of Canada by U.S. imperialism is the Canadian state and the Canadian monopoly capitalist class.

The Canadian people have gone through two decades of a most vicious anti-social offensive. It cannot be said that this anti-social offensive has been pushed by some “bad” American capitalists while various “good” Canadian capitalists opposed it. The Liberals and Conservatives, the main federal parties of monopoly capital in Canada, have been the main parties pushing this policy nationally, while every party in power provincially, including the NDP and Parti Quebecois, have pursued similar policies at that level. Similarly, regardless of what they say, every political party in power at the federal or provincial level is pursuing ever greater integration of the Canadian economy with the American economy.

In other words, the struggle of the Canadian working class and people for independence, sovereignty and pro-social policies is a struggle which must be directed against both “Canadian” and foreign monopoly capital. To suggest that the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada can be ended without simultaneously overthrowing the monopoly capitalist system in Canada is just as ludicrous as suggesting that “Canadian” monopoly capital can be overthrown without simultaneously putting an end to the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada. The former creates illusions about “Canadian” capitalism and attempts to line up the Canadian working class and people behind “their own” capitalists, while the latter seeks to undermine the struggle against imperialism in general. Both views are united in defence of the status quo and in opposition to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the creation of an independent, sovereign and socialist Canada.

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