VAX / No-VAX

The bourgeoisie does science in spite of itself, it is forced to do so to the extent necessary to continue making profits. But it has always wavered in its regard for the scientific method and in its confidence in the practical applications of its discoveries. When in the ascendant phase of the economic cycle, it has gone from idolising the progress of knowledge, from which all classes would benefit, to rejecting science as such in times of crisis and general insecurity, and even to adopting pessimistic and agnostic attitudes.

Today, in times of epidemics, the Vax and the No-vax are aligned on these two opposing fronts.

We wrote in 1977 in “Defending the revolutionary theory is defending the future of the proletariat”, “The problem, both practical and theoretical, has always kept the revolutionary communist theory vividly engaged, while the bourgeoisie and opportunism, in alternating and contradictory phases, have now exalted the experimental scientific achievements, now they have preferred to make them preceded by idealistic, subjectivist and instrumental fumblings.

“Bourgeois science takes on the characteristics of subjectivism and metaphysics, more or less evident, when the need to preserve class privileges takes precedence over the need to wrest from nature its secrets for the growth of the productive forces and the accumulation of surplus value.

“We deny the bourgeoisie – which never before has shown itself to be selfish and blind, bloodthirsty and incapable of setting itself general human objectives – the right to present itself as the author and dispenser of true science. That is why we are fighting for its violent end and the establishment of communism”.

The position of Marxism is well known, opposite and far superior to both these fallacious bourgeois conceptions. Science and technology, which progress intertwined and push each other forward, are indeed the result of the perfecting of the productive forces, including the forces of labour, and of the work of the brain, but they are likewise subservient to the class of the holders of the means of production.

Hence the permanent and historically growing contrast between the forces of thought, science and technology, which tend to grow, and the relations of production.

This is despite the fact that the dominant thought, with its essentially ideological and anti-dialectical approaches, does not fail to penetrate the skulls of even the greatest researchers, holding them back and diverting them from fully representing the reality.

As early as 1898, science had clearly described the origin of asbestosis, generated by the inhalation of asbestos crystals; the same can be said for the damage caused by tobacco smoke, or the lead poisoning generated by lead vapours. It was Capital, for its own exclusive interests, that ignored all warnings for almost a century. Because not ’philosophers’, in this case biologists, are in power in a class society.

In dealing with the Covid, therefore, we wrote immediately “what does not work in order to preserve the health of the species is capitalism”, not in the sense that science can already cure all ills, but that capital also prevents the full application of what science can already teach.

There is no, it is not possible for there to exist, in present class society, an ’alternative’ science, an anti or post-bourgeois knowledge, to which the better informed proletarians can have access. The only non-bourgeois science is that of the party, Marxism, pertaining to the field of human societies; we do not yet have our own communist science, except that of history and revolution. The party, from our great Frederick onwards, has always kept abreast of every new discovery and theory in the natural sciences, but not even we communists can know more. We only criticise bourgeois science, the science of our centuries, which are bourgeois centuries. Because there can be no other science today.

But it is the science “of the multinationals”! Sure, and whose science should it be? By now, universities have been reduced to such hiding places of know-nothing, copy-and-paste ignorance and careerism that research and science is carried out directly by capital. Do you want the ’national’ vaccine, or from your local pharmacy?

This dying society, a victim of its own conflicting interests, is also incapable of getting its slave science to give it a definite direction. So it pretends to appeal to the will of the people and the individual freedom of citizens. Not only is he unable and unwilling to clarify matters, but he continues to wreak havoc and misinformation. Even what would be a healthy and necessary debate between medical and clinical schools of thought is degraded to a television show, somewhere between hilarious and terrorist. Will Vax or No-vax win tonight?

But the No-vaxers add: it’s all a conspiracy, and all the numbers they’re giving us are false, manipulated!

Of course. But just as we use bourgeois statistics to great advantage in our studies of economics, even though we know that they are rigged, we are obliged to do the same in all fields of knowledge. We have to start from these data, which are the least worst we have.

Moreover, the world’s bourgeoisies are not so prescient, omnipotent, united and disciplined. Just the opposite. There is no hidden director who writes the script and controls the actors. Instead, it is a tangle of scoundrels and liars, but who, historically and contingently, have the world against them and must defend themselves against it. The bourgeoisie, in its current comatose state, cannot be expected to make effectively rational choices and behave rationally; it is struggling to stay afloat.

But, they object, the No-vax, petit-bourgeois for the most part, in various countries have even taken to the streets to demonstrate against vaccination and health cards. Certainly they are the expression of a malaise within the popular strata, which has been going on for several decades now, of a state of suffering due to their conditions, precariousness, relative impoverishment, etc., But it cannot be defined as a resumption of class struggle every kind of rebellionist demonstration, from the No-vax to the yellow vests. The class struggle – which is and can only be proletariat against bourgeoisie – is expressed, developed and organised in a completely different way. The rebels, the discontented of all the intermediate classes will join the proletarian movement, but only when it is strong and wins the social battle. Otherwise, petty-bourgeois movements are born and remain counter-revolutionary.

Finally, we come to the everyday and the practical, of course, in this largely involuntary bourgeois shambles, complicated by the more than legitimate suspicion that the directives issued by the health institutions of the states are not the best, that the use of ineffective treatments is neglected or delayed for criminal reasons of commercial interest, or imposed as unsafe. How can proletarian families defend themselves against the epidemic? Who should they listen to? To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

There is no individual escape from bourgeois society and culture. Neither can this be denied or opposed by individual goodwill or ’more conscious’ behaviour. Nor can the working class as a whole, except partially in the practice of its defensive action. Only the party in its revolutionary programme and its militant structure escapes it. Proletarians can only be treated in this society according to its science, which is bourgeois science. We will certainly not invite them to blindly rely on the cares of the state, but neither on the dementia of television talk shows, nor on the self-medication on the Internet, typical of the individual bourgeois solitude.

The proletarians, in the absence of class welfare structures, which could emanate from the trade unions, will treat themselves as they have always done and could not fail to do, by consulting the health workers of the health structures of the present society, workers devoted to science and medical practice, mostly proletarians, and certainly the least ignorant and most disinterested to turn to.

Finally, then, it is clear that communists are neither Vax nor No-vax.