Review Of Predictions For 2025 - Prediction 2 – Europe Draws Away From US Imperialism

Prediction 2 – Europe Draws Away From US Imperialism

The arrival of Trump, and his cabal of petty-bourgeois nationalists in the White House, as with other processes, made this prediction an inevitability. The moralists and idealists, who cling to the idea of a world divided into “good” and “bad”, “white hats” and “black hats”, “democracies” and “authoritarians”, not only were thrown into disarray, by the arrival of the “authoritarian” Trump, as leader of the “democracies” global alliance, upon which they had relied for so long, but, in order to deal with that reality, as with so much else, they have been led into simply denying it, as though it is not real, a temporary divergence from the true path, to which they will return. In order to sustain that delusion, they have been led to prostitute themselves even more at the feet of Trump, and his reactionary regime, most glaringly seen in the gut-wrenching sycophancy of the likes of Starmer, and of Rutte.

But, the more they deluded themselves into the idea that they could simply win over the moronic, narcissistic Trump by their increasing prostration and arse-licking, the more Trump simply treated them with the contempt they deserved. In that, Trump's petty-bourgeois nationalism also, coincides with the longer-term interests of US imperialism, and those interests do not coincide with those of EU imperialism. The liberals, idealists and moralists have continued to frame their narrative as one in which the world is at risk from the evil “black hats”, of the “authoritarian” regimes in Russia, China and so on. As Marxists, of course, we recognise the threat those regimes represent. But, our solution to that threat, just as with the threat represented by authoritarians within our our own states, is not to subordinate the working-class to the liberal bourgeoisie, and its class interests. Every time workers have done that, in the past, it has resulted in disaster, betrayal, and the victory of the forces of reaction. There is no reason to believe it would be different this time.

As I set out in the review of Prediction 1, for more than 30 years, globalisation represented the interests of an unconstrained US imperialism, as it invested real industrial capital, across the globe, exploiting vast reserves of labour, creating new masses of surplus-value. This huge mass of surplus-value, produced by labour in newly industrialising economies, was often, realised as profits, by US commercial capital, as this deluge of consumer goods, flooded into the US market. Wal-Mart still sources around 60% of its stock from China. As I set out in my book, this was the other side of the deindustrialisation of the 1980's, and the ability to realise the surplus value produced in China and elsewhere, was also the basis for employing a growing army of workers in the West, in retail, and a growing service sector.

But, China, India, South Korea, Malaysia and so on, just as with Japan before, and indeed the US, as it went from being a British colony, to an industrialised economy, changed the material conditions in which US imperialism found itself. The end of globalisation is not simply the result of a temporary rise to power of petty-bourgeois nationalists. It represents a recognition, by US imperialism, in particular, that its hegemony in the world economy has ended. It acts as a fetter on the further development of capital itself. US imperialism is not confronting Chinese imperialism because of the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime, but because Chinese imperialism has now grown to an extent that it undermines US hegemony.

For all the propaganda about the expansionist intentions of Russia, as I set out earlier in the year, its not Russia that is talking about occupying Greenland, in order to secure control over the vast mineral reserves, and Arctic waters, it is the US. It is not Russia, nor China, that is talking about seizing the Panama Canal, but the US, just as it is the US that is seeking to provoke Venezuela into responding to the acts of piracy by the US, so as to give a pretext for another US forever war, as it seeks to consolidate its neo-colonial power in Central America. In Central and South America, just as in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, China has extended its influence, not by colonialism, not by the use of military might, but by the power of its capital. The US has no means of competing on that basis, and so seeks to revert to the methods of colonialism, as does the UK, as it acts as Trump's lap dog, and the proposals for the colonisation of Gaza.

The growing separation of EU imperialism from US imperialism is manifest in the talk of the need for the EU to increase its military spending. The rationale, as I set out during the year, is for the establishment of an EU army, and that would mean an inevitable separation from NATO. The discussion of that by the likes of Macron, and of Draghi, may be presented as a response to Trump's own distancing of the US from NATO and Europe, as well as the ridiculous talk about military attacks on Europe by Russia, but the reality is that the creation of an EU army is the necessary corollary of the growing political union, as the EU moves to the formal creation of a multinational state, as it faces the contradictions seen over the last 20 years of a single market, single currency and central bank, but a continuation of nation states within it. The greatest power the EU has in terms of its relations with Russia, is not an extension of its military power, but the development of the EU economy, and the raising of living standards within it. Subordination to US imperialism acts as a fetter to that development.

Back To Review of Prediction 1