Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality - Part 10 of 14

Contrary to the theory of the subjectivists, and neoclassical economists, therefore, it is not the consumer/demand that determines value/price on the basis that something is only ever worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Rather, the consumer must accept, for any commodity they demand, the price that the seller is asking, and that price is, also, not arbitrary, but determined by its value/price of production. The buyer may, of course, on that basis, decide that, at that price, it does not represent use-value for them. They withdraw their demand for it. The consequence of this withdrawal of demand can only be to reduce the level of supply, not to determine the value/price of the commodity.

The reduction of demand, will cause, in the short-term, an excess of supply over demand, and consequent fall in market price, to clear the excess.   Mill, Say and Ricardo did not deny the possibility of such overproduction of some commodities, but denied it could be the case for all commodities simultaneously.  But, they failed to recognise that money (as opposed to currency/money tokens) is also a commodity.  It is a requirement of money that it be a commodity, i.e. have both a use-value, and a value, for it to become money in the first place, which is why money tokens/currency, or things like Bitcoin, are not money.  Money is the general commodity, but, as such, in acting as money, rather than as a commodity in its own right, it must give up its role as commodity.  To be used as money, gold (not all gold, but only that acting as money, i.e. universal equivalent) has to give up its use-value as commodity, for example its use in jewellery.

Gold as money, as the general commodity, can be demanded as money, but then, unlike other commodities is not consumed, or necessarily exchanged.  It can be hoarded or held on to.  So, Marx points out an overproduction of all commodities, can, occur simultaneously, other than for money itself.

He notes,

“At a given moment, the supply of all commodities can be greater than the demand for all commodities, since the demand for the general commodity, money, exchange-value, is greater than the demand for all particular commodities, in other words the motive to turn the commodity into money, to realise its exchange-value, prevails over the motive to transform the commodity again into use-value.”

(Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 17)

Because subjectivists, and neoclassical economics make no distinction between market price, and market value, they interpret this fall in market price, as a fall in the value of the commodity, induced by the subjective valuation of it by the consumer. But, then, some of those marginal producers, who were barely making any margin of profit, sell at a loss. Some go bust, and their supply disappears, itself, helping to clear the market. Others will reduce their supply by moving to the production of some other commodity, others by simply closing down some of their business.

The result, therefore, is not a change in the value/price of the commodity, but, simply, a reduction in its supply, and the extent of that new level will still be determined by the market value of the commodity, i.e. the level of supply that can all be sold at that market value, and so produce the average annual rate of profit. However, the market value, as set out earlier, is itself an average of the individual values of all the different producers of that commodity. If the reduced level of demand, results in reduced supply, brought about by the failure of the least efficient producers (who have the highest individual values for their production), then this also means a lower market value.

On that basis, a a lower market value/price of the commodity is consistent with producers, in aggregate, making the average annual rate of profit, on the overall reduced level of supply. To put that in context, if all the firms in this industry operated at the same level of efficiency/rate of profit, the reduction in supply, brought about by whatever means, would have no such effect on the market value, and so price. It would result only in a reduced supply, with the price remaining the same. Indeed, if all firms stayed in production, but, each, simply reduced their output, they would all lose some of the benefits of economies of scale, and so the social cost of production, for each of them would rise, resulting not in a fall in market value/price, but a rise, at this lower level of demand and supply.

In other words, a full understanding requires an understanding of value and use-value, and their role in determining supply and demand, but, then, also, requires an understanding of the whole of the interaction of supply and demand to form market prices, and the role of demand in determining the level of supply, as well as the level of supply/scale of production, and so, to value. As Marx puts it in Capital III, Chapter 10,

“Supply and demand determine the market-price, and so does the market-price, and the market-value in the further analysis, determine supply and demand. This is obvious in the case of demand, since it moves in a direction opposite to prices, swelling when prices fall, and vice versa. But this is also true of supply. Because the prices of means of production incorporated in the offered commodities determine the demand for these means of production, and thus the supply of commodities whose supply embraces the demand for these means of production. The prices of cotton are determinants in the supply of cotton goods.

To this confusion — determining prices through demand and supply, and, at the same time, determining supply and demand through prices — must be added that demand determines supply, just as supply determines demand, and production determines the market, as well as the market determines production.”

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Brexit Britain's Bridge To Nowhere - Part 5

With Trump and Putin carving up Ukraine for the purpose of their own imperialist interests there is no reason Trump is going to sanction any kind of European “coalition of the willing” to insert itself into Ukraine, UK led or otherwise, whatever Starmer and Macron might desire. What is more, although Starmer has tried, with the help of the Brexit media, to present himself as a new Churchill leading the EU – whilst being outside it! - the reality is that the EU have, again, inevitably, burst that bubble, by excluding Brexit Britain from their discussions on the EU's future defence arrangements, and procurement. They will make those decisions, themselves, and present them to Britain, as with any other such internal EU decision making, as a fait accompli.  And, of course, as Brexit Britain, sees its mini-Trump, seek to obtain crumbs from the US table, in the form of some concessions on tariffs, and yet another disadvantageous trade deal, the more that will make it clear that it is an unreliable partner of the EU, which Trump has turned into his main target for ire, along with China.

Yet, the reality is, also, that, in the UK, and across the EU, decades of austerity, as governments sought to keep borrowing, and, thereby, interest rates at unsustainably low levels, so as to prevent further crashes in the inflated prices of assets, has meant that infrastructure is crumbling, and the same applies in the US and North America. But, as I have written, over the last 20 years, that has become impossible to maintain, even with the attempts to, also, hold back economic growth so as to hold back the demand for capital, to hold down interest rates.

At every point, the laws of capital poke holes in the dam. The demand for labour-power continues to rise, household incomes rise, aggregate demand rises, causing firms to have to accumulate capital. Everywhere, across the globe, real interest rates are rising, despite attempts by central banks to reduce their short term policy rates, and, in the EU, and UK, any additional spending on weapons, will cause borrowing to rise further, and already that is seen in rising government yields. It amounts, also, to throwing money into the fire, and acts to reduce capital accumulation and growth. To expect that, in conditions like those, today, of labour shortages, which are the opposite of those in the 1980's, that workers, across Europe, are going to passively sit back and accept cuts in welfare, pensions and so on, whilst governments ramp up spending on weapons is not realistic. Already, the German government has had to change the constitution to scrap its own borrowing constraints, not only to cover its spending on arms, but also to cover the inevitable spending German workers will demand on Germany's crumbling roads, railways, bridges and other infrastructure.  That spending on infrastructure, as against the spending on weapons, will stimulate further growth and capital accumulation in the EU, with a consequent further rise in demand for labour, rise in wages, and increasing squeeze on profits.

These conditions are the opposite of those in the 1980's, when the microchip revolution had raised productivity, and put workers on the back foot, as well as on the dole, and which, also, raised the rate of surplus-value, and rate of profit, by reducing the value of constant and variable capital. It created a huge release of capital, not least as a result of the moral depreciation of large amounts of fixed capital. As the supply of money-capital from realised profits increased at a much faster rate than the demand for that money-capital, so interest rates fell, and that secular trend of falling rates continued for another 30 years. The falling interest rates caused asset prices to rocket, and each time they fell, the state intervened to protect the global ruling-class, a class of coupon-clippers and speculators, which owns it wealth in the form of those assets – fictitious capital.

In today's conditions, which are more like those of the early 1960's, we have high levels of profits, and a high rate of profit, which has not yet been seriously impinged by rising relative wages. But labour shortages mean that relative wages will rise, and the consequence is also that interest rates will rise, as the demand for money-capital rises relative to the supply of it from profits. Rising interest rates mean falling asset prices, and it is only the certainty of continually rising asset prices, underpinned by the state and central banks, which has meant that money continued to pour into such speculation, rather than into real capital investment. The idea put forward, for example, by Jack Conrad, in the Weekly Worker, that “the world is awash with surplus capital - capital that cannot be profitably invested in the production of surplus value” is false.

Profits and the rate of profit remains high, and so does the rate of surplus value, because workers have not yet been able to turn the growing labour shortages into rising relative wages. They remain weak, and currently pose no threat to capital, even in the way they did in the 1980's, which is why not only does capital not need to turn to fascism, but fascism, which is based upon the petty-bourgeoisie, is, currently, detrimental to its interests, meaning that so are those, like Trump et al, that, also, represent the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie. What Conrad does, as with Varoufakis, whom he quotes, is to “sanewash” the idiocy of Trumpist/Brexitist/Starmerist policies. They follow in the shadow of bourgeois commentators like Gillian Tett of the FT, who have an ideological interest in perpetuating the myth that there is some clever logic behind Trump's obviously moronic behaviour, as also Brad DeLong has described. There is, of course, a logic to both Brexit, and to Trump's actions, but that logic is one driven by the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, not the interests of capital, nor even of the ruling-class and its fictitious-capital. But, given that the global economy functions according to the laws of capital, the reality is that policies designed for the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie are both utopian and reactionary, and bound to fail. They are, therefore, indeed, idiotic.

As I wrote, previously, in relation to the argument by Varoufakis,

“Incidentally, its important to, also, note the error of Yanis Varoufakis, in this respect, when he says that the US will suck capital in from the rest of the world, as money flows into Wall Street. That money, what used to be called “hot money”, is not real capital, but simply money flowing in, speculatively, to buy up financial assets, i.e. fictitious capital. It does nothing to raise capital accumulation in the US, or to raise US output and profits. It does push up the Dollar, making US exports more expensive, and imports from elsewhere, cheaper, which itself is contrary to Trump's aim of reducing the trade deficit. But, its not clear, also, that this process, seen in the past, will continue. The hot money flow into US assets, was a “safe haven” flow, and its not at all clear that markets will see Trump's moronic behaviour as providing any such safe haven.”

The rise in the price of gold, to record highs, shows that the global ruling class of speculators, as well as the world's central banks are already finding alternatives to the Dollar into which to deposit their money, as a safe haven.

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Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality - Part 9 of 14

Before setting out Engels' response to that, I want to focus on the preceding statement about “all must be sought in each and each in all”. I want to examine Marx's analysis of value and price, and supply and demand, of value and use-value, in this context. Marx shows that value, and, consequently, prices cannot be explained by supply and demand. Rather, supply is a function of value, and demand a function of use-value. This is set out, in detail, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20. Producers will only continue to produce commodities if the price they obtain for them provides the average annual rate of profit on the capital advanced. What determines that is the value of the commodity, i.e. its social cost of production, as against the demand for it at that price.

If the demand for the commodity, at that price, is enough to ensure that all of the supply is taken up, then, in aggregate, the producers of this commodity will make the average annual profit. As Marx says, this level of demand fluctuates, in the short-term, sometimes being above or below the level of supply, causing the market price to rise above, or fall below, this equilibrium or natural price, but, thereby, averaging out to it. Producers have to learn, by experience, just how long a period is involved, for their particular commodity, in this averaging, as against what represents a structural shift, such that, at the equilibrium price, demand will continue to be either above or below the supply.

The supply is made up of the supply from a range of producers, each of which operate at different levels of efficiency – individual values. The social cost of production/individual value of Producer 1 is different to that of Producers 2, 3, 4, …,n, and it is the aggregate of these different individual values that is the basis of the market value of the given commodity, and which is the basis of its natural or equilibrium price. Consequently, if Producer 1 is the most efficient, and Producer n the least efficient, and so on, because they all sell at this average market value, Producer 1 will make more than the average annual rate of profit, and Producer n will make less than the average annual rate of profit. It is only by taking the industry as a whole, the aggregate of these different profits that it makes the the average, annual rate of profit.

Of course, as Marx and Engels set out, in Capital III, and Theories of Surplus Value, this annual rate of profit is itself vastly different to the rate of profit/profit margin, because of the role of the rate of turnover of the capital. The higher the rate of turnover, the greater the difference. For example, if the annual rate of profit is 30%, and the advanced capital turns over once, the rate of profit/profit margin is also 30%, but if it turns over ten times, during the year, it is only 3%. The significance of this is fairly obvious that any market fluctuation that causes prices to fall will have a much less damaging effect on commodities where the profit margin is 30% than in those where its 3%. In the latter case, it is the difference in selling at a profit or a loss, and so, for the least efficient firms, already selling with a profit margin below 3%, the difference between survival and failure.

Indeed, as large-scale industrial capital raised productivity massively, and, with it, raised the rate of turnover of capital, it, necessarily, reduced the rate of profit/profit margin, on this huge volume of output, even as it maintained or raised the annual rate of profit. That occurred, as Marx sets out in Capital III, not as bourgeois economists and capitalists claim, because firms voluntarily reduce their margins in order to sell more, but, because, as the annual rate of profit rises, as productivity increases – both reducing the value of constant and variable capital, and because a given amount of advanced capital now produces more surplus value/profit during the year, as a result of it turning over more times – that rise in turnover, likewise means that any given annual rate of profit, represents a lower rate of profit/margin. That is most notable in relation to commercial capital, as set out in Capital III, Chapter 18.

It was also this which meant that this large-scale industrial capital needed to avoid strikes, so as to keep production continuous, and needed the state to plan and regulate the economy, so as to avoid such fluctuations in demand and prices. It needed the ever-expanding single-market/state that is the basis of imperialism.

So, it is value that determines supply. As Marx sets out in Capital III, and in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 20, and in The Grundrisse, however, it is use-value that determines demand. If I don't like commodity A, I will not demand it, no matter how cheap it is. Similarly, if I am a steel producer, and require a certain quantity of iron ore to produce steel, I do not require more iron ore than that. It has no use-value for me over and above the quantity I need for production.

“No grounds exist therefore for assuming that the possibility of selling a commodity at its value corresponds in any way to the quantity of the commodity I bring to market. For the buyer, my commodity exists, above all, as use-value. He buys it as such. But what he needs is a definite quantity of iron. His need for iron is just as little determined by the quantity produced by me as the value of my iron is commensurate with this quantity.”

(Theories of Surplus Value,Chapter 20)

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Brexit Britain's Bridge To Nowhere - Part 4

As I wrote recently, the social-imperialists have led workers to disaster once more, and no Marxist should have had any problem in anticipating what lay ahead for Ukraine, or Palestine. As Trotsky wrote, in the 1930's, in relation to Ukraine.

“Only hopeless pacifist blockheads are capable of thinking that the emancipation and unification of the Ukraine can be achieved by peaceful diplomatic means, by referendums, by decisions of the League of Nations, etc. In no way superior to them of course are those “nationalists” who propose to solve the Ukrainian question by entering the service of one imperialism against another. Hitler gave an invaluable lesson to those adventurers by tossing (for how long?) Carpatho-Ukraine to the Hungarians who immediately slaughtered not a few trusting Ukrainians. Insofar as the issue depends upon the military strength of the imperialist states, the victory of one grouping or another can signify only a new dismemberment and a still more brutal subjugation of the Ukrainian people, The program of independence for the Ukraine in the epoch of imperialism is directly and indissolubly bound up with the program of the proletarian revolution. It would be criminal to entertain any illusions on this score...

The worker and peasant masses in the Western Ukraine, in Bukovina, in the Carpatho-Ukraine are in a state of confusion: Where to turn? What to demand? This situation naturally shifts the leadership to the most reactionary Ukrainian cliques who express their “nationalism” by seeking to sell the Ukrainian people to one imperialism or another in return for a promise of fictitious independence.”

(Problem of the Ukraine)

The reality is, of course, as Trotsky infers, above, that any deal in relation to Ukraine will be done between the US and Russia, and the lines of that deal, which amounts to, basically, carving up Ukraine once again, are already to be seen in outline. Whatever the petty-bourgeois nationalists and idealists might think ought to be the case, according to their morality, and belief in abstract, absolute and eternal rights, US imperialism and Russian imperialism will settle those details between them, and present the result as a fait accompli to both Ukraine and the EU alike.

No such deal will have any place for NATO “peacekeepers”, dressed up as British and EU forces, because there is no reason that Putin would accept such a condition, and as Trump needs to get a deal as quickly as possible, there is, also, no way he will insist on it. The reality is that, if not Trump, then his advisors, know that, despite all of the propaganda to the contrary, there is no reason why Russia would want to expand out of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, into the rest of Ukraine, militarily, and couldn't even if it wanted to. It would be the kind of overreach that NATO has been trying to draw it into. The same is true about the even more ridiculous claims about Russia preparing to invade the rest of Europe, which are being used simply to ramp up military spending in the EU and UK, even as those countries cut welfare and other spending to finance it. One of the most ludicrous examples of that has been the French government sending out leaflets to households about how to prepare for an invasion!

That is what Trump's regime is already saying, and in the process destroying all of the hot air being put out by Blue Labour, Brexiters and the British Brexit media, about its special relationship, its unique position between the US and EU, and so on. Just as with the Nordstream pipeline, the US has blown up Brexit Britain's Bridge to nowhere, leaving it even more isolated somewhere in mid-Atlantic. Already, Britain's mini-Trump has had to row back on his statements about leading (of course not him or his children) brave young British and European soldiers into danger, by putting their “boots on the ground”, in Ukraine, as Trump made clear what he thought about it. The face-saving idea about, instead, having aerial or naval presence, is equally absurd. For one thing, most of that technology for those forces depends on US support. For another, if Russia shot them down, what, then?

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Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy Dialectics, XII – Quantity and Quality - Part 8 of 14

Engels notes that there is contradiction in the fact that the definition of parallel lines never meet or cross, and, yet, in the real world we see parallel lines that do, indeed, cross. In fact, the Mobius Strip, which also provides the solution to the three utility puzzle, also has practical application, in relation, for example, to the wear and tear of conveyor belts, ensuring even wear on both sides of the belt.

Even in relation to lower mathematics, it relies on contradiction, as, for example, with the use of imaginary numbers based on the root of -1.

“And yet √-1 is in many cases a necessary result of correct mathematical operations. Furthermore, where would mathematics — lower or higher — be, if it were prohibited from operation with √-1 ?” (p 154)

In the realm of computer programming, the use of variable numbers is fundamental. Just to undertake a simple counting operation, the line of code reads X = X +1. That is, itself, an expression of expansion, and movement, of X being simultaneously itself and not itself. The use of variable magnitudes in maths was introduced by Descartes, himself a dialectical philosopher.

“The relation between the mathematics of variable and the mathematics of constant magnitudes is in general the same as the relation between dialectical and metaphysical thought. Which by no means prevents the great mass of mathematicians from recognising dialectics solely in the sphere of mathematics, and a good many of them from continuing to work in the old, limited, metaphysical way with methods that were obtained dialectically.” (p 154)

In contrast to this unacknowledged use of results obtained by dialectical methods, Duhring, whilst vocally condemning dialectics, provides no actual examples of results obtained from the use of his own alternative based on “antagonism of forces and his antagonistic world schematism.” (p 154)

“When Hegel’s “Doctrine of Essence” has in fact been reduced to the platitude of forces moving in opposite directions but not in contradictions, surely the best thing to do is to avoid any application of this commonplace.” (p 155)

Having attacked dialectics, this leads Duhring into his attack on Marx's theory, and its application in Capital. As with most such attacks on Marx, it is based on misrepresentation, either from ignorance or malice. Engels quotes Duhring's statement,

“The absence of natural and intelligible logic which characterizes these dialectical frills and mazes and arabesques of ideas... even to the part that has already appeared we must apply the principle that in a certain respect and also in general (!), according to a well-known philosophical prejudice, all must be sought in each and each in all, and that therefore, according to this hybrid and hobbled idea, everything is all the same in the end.” (p 155)

The attack on Capital, referring to the publication of Volume I, and an implication that the promised further volumes did not exist, and the project had been abandoned, was also a common theme of Marx's critics. Engels focuses on the last part of Duhring's statement that “everything is all the same in the end.”

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Brexit Britain's Bridge To Nowhere - Part 3

In the midst of all that, the proponents of Brexit, and particularly those within Blue Labour, now seek to claim that the sovereignty obtained was significant, after all, because it provides the ability for an independent Britain to act as a bridge between the EU and Trump, as well as allowing Britain to escape the effects of Trump's tariff war against the EU. The British media, also, played a large part in Brexit, by providing a huge megaphone for the likes of Farage, over the preceding twenty years, that was totally out of proportion to the amount of support he had, as seen in his repeated failure, during all of that time, to win a parliamentary seat. No matter how much that media might want to amplify it once more, it is, of course, total nonsense and delusion.

The media have fawned over the role of Starmer, following in the footsteps of Thatcher, replete in his military camouflage, and flanked by soldiers that towered above him, and the claim that Britain was to take a leading role in Europe, in the new drive to war with Russia. And, of course, that encouraged the likes of Glasman to try to rescue his project, following his success in ensuring that Blue Labour continued its role in supporting Zionism and its genocide in Gaza, to find another reason to express his pride in his Prime Minister, as well as leading other Blue Labour Ministers to talk in the most Blimpish and ridiculous terms, threatening Russia with the potential of Britain's nuclear deterrent, should it fire upon British troops in Ukraine!

Of course, the reality is that British troops have been in Ukraine, since near the start of the war, as the leaked US Defence Department papers showed, not as “peacekeepers”, but as active combatants on the side of Ukraine. But, its also an indication of the vile reactionary nature of Blue Labour that not only is it engaged in its obnoxious, racist attacks on migrants, its support for and complicity in, genocide against Palestinians, but now threatens innocent Russian men, women and children with being incinerated with its nuclear weapons! Its no surprise that this reactionary government, now, seeks to attack pensioners, children and young people, the sick and disabled, and to revive the hated Tory scheme for sending migrants to Rwanda, but now to the Balkans instead!

In fact, the threat to respond to any Russian action against British troops in Ukraine, by an immediate use of Britain's nuclear deterrent shows just how impotent Brexit Britain really is. When Argentina was at war with Britain, in the Falklands, in 1982, that did not prompt any threat of a nuclear strike. Britain's threat of nuclear strikes, is a similar kind of empty threat as those used during the Brexit negotiations, of a “No Deal” Brexit, if the EU did not concede to its demands, which would have devastated Britain. The EU did not concede, and, rather, it was Britain that had to comply, whilst trying to present its compliance as being in some way a victory.

If British troops are more overtly stationed in Ukraine, and they are attacked by Russian troops, Britain would have little it could do about it. Today, it would not even be able to have defeated Argentina in the Falklands, let alone beat Russia with conventional weapons. Hence the empty threat of a resort to nuclear weapons. Certainly, a nuclear strike would, as Healey said, cause severe damage to Russia (he didn't of course, admit that what that really means is incinerating millions of innocent Russian civilians), but it would provoke an inevitable retaliatory nuclear strike on Britain, which, with the size of Russia's nuclear arsenal, would reduce it to a smouldering radioactive cinder. Hardly something people in Britain would encourage Starmer and Blue Labour to invite, though it would put them out of their current misery, as Blue Labour engages in even more austerity and attacks on workers to finance its Brexit chaos, and its foreign wars!

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Greenland

J.D Vance and his wife are in Greenland, visiting US troops already based there, and opening his first salvo against Denmark, as the colonial power, for which read, first salvo against the EU.  At the same time, Trump has reiterated his earlier comments, at the State of the Union, that US imperialism "must have", Greenland, one way or another.  

In my predictions for 2025, I noted that I had been watching the Guy Martin series, "Arctic Warrior", in which he had joined NATO forces in Norway, preparing for war with Russia, which was supposedly preparing to invade, so as to get control of sea routes, and valuable minerals.  Nonsense, of course, because most of the sea routes are already Russian, given the huge coastline of Siberia, and for the same reason, most of the minerals, are also Russian, contained within the massive land mass of Siberia.  The real purpose of the manoeuvres, is both propagandistic, as NATO steps up the drive to war, to rally populations behind the flag, and justify increased military spending, but, also, because any incursion is likely to be against Russia, in order to gain access to those routes and minerals, rather than by Russia, which already has them!

Well, the reality of that didn't take long to manifest itself, following Trump's arrival in the Whitehouse.  First he crapped on Zelensky, forcing him into recognising that Ukraine is dependent on, and a vassal to US imperialism, for which it will pay by handing over half a trillion dollars in revenues from exploitation of its minerals, and most importantly, giving the US access to its rare earth minerals, required for the new technologies of batteries and so on.  And, Trump's colonial grab for Canada and Greenland, is simply a continuation of that.

But, having said all that, where does that leave us?  As I also, wrote a while ago, there is no more logic in Greenland being a part of Denmark than there was, or is, of the Falklands being a part of Britain.  Its true that Denmark is disliked by Greenlanders, as their colonial master.  But, just as with those parts of the Tsarist Empire, the answer to that, for the colonised people, never comes from seeking rescue in the arms of another colonial oppressor, simply on the basis of dealing with the immediate condition, and the hope of a lesser-evil.

In general, the answer to colonial oppression, does not reside in seeking the support of some other colonial or imperial power, nor even, in the petty-bourgeois, nationalist delusion of "national self-determination".  It can only reside, in proletarian revolution, and the support for the oppressed nations to be rolled into the international proletarian revolution, as part of the process and logic of permanent revolution.

In the age of imperialism, it is quite rational for capital in North America to drive towards a single North American state, combining the US, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland, just as in Europe, the former nation states were driven to combine in the EU.  Brexit was not just a catastrophe, but was inevitably a catastrophe, precisely because it sought to ignore that logic, and to turn the clock backwards to a previous time in human history and social development that of the nation state, which became a fetter on development, more than century ago.

The creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, essentially renamed during Trump's first Presidency, the Mexico-Canada-America agreement, illustrates the point, and, across the globe, regional, politico-economic blocs, which are the form of embryonic new multinational states, show that this is not some aberration or accident, but the normal course of development, which leads ultimately to a single world state, though capitalism/imperialism, with its own continued rivalries is never likely to bring that about, as in each case, one or more of the existing nation states within such formations seeks to dominate it, much as Prussia did in creating Germany, and periodically, these larger multinational states, also, come into conflict with each other, as, now, with NATO and Russia/China/BRICS+.

As Trotsky wrote, in The Programme of Peace, as Marxists, we recognise this development as historically progressive.  It creates the material conditions required for socialism.  It is why we do not advocate national self-determination, which seeks to hold back that development, and to constrain it within the fetters of the outmoded nation state.  Nor do we support the idea of "bourgeois defencism", or "revolutionary defencism", which are simply covers to line up workers behind their own ruling class in wars between competing bourgeois states, i.e. social-patriotism.  We do not want workers to fight each other in such wars, fought for the interest of their rulers, not for their interests, but want workers, whatever their nationality, to fight jointly for their common interests, against their common enemy, their own ruling classes.

But, the fact that we see the creation of larger multinational states, as progressive, and the inevitable path of evolution of capital that does not mean that we are indifferent to the way this is brought about.  As Trotsky says in the above article, 

"Capitalism has transferred into the field of international relations the same methods applied by it in “regulating” the internal economic life of the nations. The path of competition is the path of systematically annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises and of achieving the supremacy of big capital. World competition of the capitalist forces means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and greatest capitalist powers. The more developed the technique of capitalism, the greater the role played by finance capital and the higher the demands of militarism, all the more grows the dependency of the small states on the great powers. This process, forming as it does an integral element of imperialist mechanics, flourishes undisturbed also in times of peace by means of state loans, railway and other concessions, military-diplomatic agreements, etc. The war uncovered and accelerated this process by introducing the factor of open violence. The war destroys the last shreds of the “independence” of small states, quite apart from the military outcome, of the conflict between the two basic enemy camps...

Imperialism is the capitalist-thievish expression of this tendency of modern economy to tear itself completely away from the idiocy of national narrowness, as it did previously with regard to local and provincial confinement. While fighting against the imperialist form of economic centralization, socialism does not at all take a stand against the particular tendency as such but, on the contrary, makes the tendency its own guiding principle."

In place of the militaristic, thievish expression of this progressive tendency and development, we seek to bring about the voluntary association of existing states, into ever larger units, and the only progressive basis for doing that is via the leading role of the international working-class.  As Trotsky notes, we fight against the imperialist imposition of such development based upon force, but not on the basis of defending the nation state, which is, now, reactionary and a fetter on development, but via the logic of permanent revolution, the creation of voluntary associations, and defeat of imperialist aggressors, not by some other imperialist aggressor, but by the combined struggle of the international working-class itself.

But, in the case of Greenland, unlike with, say Canada, there is a simple solution that avoids war. Its population is 56,000. They don't like Denmark that has historically oppressed them, and want independence, which would be totally ridiculous and utopian. If the US offered every Greenlander, personally,  $10 million that would be a cost of only $560 billion to the US, and would seem like a great deal for both. Certainly, if I were a Greenlander and Trump offered me $10 million I would snap his hand off, and start packing for the sunny climes of California!