The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 23

Ukraine sits on the Eastern border of the EU, and western border of the Eurasian economy. Even inside Ukraine, its Western and Central populations look mostly to the EU, whilst its Eastern populations look East. The fact that those Eastern populations are mainly ethnic Russians, who have also suffered oppression at the hands of the government in Kyiv, simply provides a political reflection of these underlying material conditions. Similar conditions apply in other economies lying along this fault line between the EU, and Eurasia, as I have described in the past. None of these economies are some kind of pre-imperialist state, as the petty-bourgeois nationalists, and apologists of the USC would have us believe. Lenin, set out, in Left-wing Childishness, what imperialist capital is. It is large-scale, socialised industrial capital, such as had arisen by the latter part of the 19th century, and which required an ever expanding single-market, as described earlier, to justify its large-scale production, and long-term investments. It required the state to plan and regulate the economy to that end, i.e. it becomes state-monopoly capitalism.

“To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany. Here we have “the last word” in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organisation, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place of the militarist, Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state, but of a different social type, of a different class content—a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism.”

(Left-wing Childishness)

And, by the early part of the 20th century, all developed capitalist economies were characterised by this imperialist capital. As Trotsky put it, talking about Czechoslovakia, and the Sudetenland, which offers a compelling comparison with Ukraine, today,

“Even irrespective of its international ties Czechoslovakia constitutes a thoroughly imperialist state. Economically, monopoly capitalism reigns there. Politically, the Czech bourgeoisie dominates (perhaps soon we will have to say, dominated!) several oppressed nationalities. Such a war, even on the part of isolated Czechoslovakia would thus have been carried on not for national independence but for the maintenance and if possible the extension of the borders of imperialist exploitation.”

(Social-Patriotic Sophistry, subtitled The Question of the Defense of Czechoslovakia’s “National Independence”)

A similar situation exists in the Middle-East and North Africa. In North Africa, and particularly on its Mediterranean coast, it has had long-standing economic relations with the EU. That is true in relation to Israel too. The EU accounts for 32% of Israel's total trade, making it its largest trading partner. Of course, the US supplies large amounts of finance to Israel, and supplies it with the bulk of its military equipment, whilst the EU and UK, act as suppliers of consumables for that US military hardware.

Israel is by far the most developed imperialist economy in the Middle-East and North Africa, and as such, given its connections with the EU, and US imperialism, it is the obvious vehicle by which an imperialist economic bloc in the region is created. US and EU imperialism would clearly prefer such a new bloc to arise peacefully and voluntarily, which is what the Abraham Accords, are about, but, again, the reality of history, and material conditions, assert themselves into that desire. Industrial capital is largely concentrated in the Northern parts of MENA, whilst the Gulf states continue to be dominated by oil extraction, and as noted earlier, their more recent economic development has focused on services for the global elite. The Gulf states have very small populations, making them often dependent on migrant workers. In many ways, this is the same pattern as arose with the northern US industrial states using the Southern US states, Russia using Siberia, Britain using Ireland, and so on.

The problem for the Gulf states, in particular, in progressing the Abraham Accords, and creating this imperialist politico-economic bloc in MENA, is the continued occupation of Palestine, and genocide against the Palestinians. The latest negotiations of Trump with Saudi Arabia illustrates that. Saudi Arabia not out of any real commitment to the Palestinians, but out of fear of its own masses, and those it relies on as migrant workers, were it to be even more openly abandoning the Palestinians, has refused to sign the Accords until the Zionist state stops its genocide against Palestinians, and concrete measures are in place for the creation of a viable Palestinian state. As I wrote 40 years ago, it shows why the so called “Two-States”, i.e. two bourgeois states solution, is a delusion that places the fate of the Palestinians in the hands of powerful external imperialist powers. In addition, as I wrote more recently, the events of the last few years, show why the grisly truth is that there is no future for Palestine, and increasingly for the Palestinians.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 21

Considered from the perspective of industrial capital as an abstraction, all of these different standards, rules, regulations and so on are irrational, but industrial capital, like everything else in the world, does not exist as an abstraction, but as a reality. That reality is one in which industrial capital developed within the context of the nation state, and each of those nation states created their own standards, rules, regulations, laws and so on, in order to protect and advance the interests of industrial capital, not in the abstract, but in the concrete reality of that state.

Britain adopted the standard gauge for railways in the 19th century, as noted earlier. One of the reasons for adopting it, rather than the broad gauge used by Brunel, was that the Stephensons had built more engines and track, using their standard gauge, and so were able to convince parliament to adopt it, even though there are numerous reasons for thinking that the broad gauge was technically superior. A similar thing occurred with the adoption of VHS as the standard for video recorders, even though Betamax was technically superior. As the leading industrial power, in the 19th century, Britain exported locomotives across the world, as well as building railways in its colonial Empire. In so doing, it created the same standards used for production in Britain, and so gave its own manufacturers an immediate advantage. Had motor vehicles been developed earlier, most of the world would drive on the left side of the road and have right-hand drive cars, as in Britain, rather than left hand drive cars, as in the US, where, from the start, most of them were produced.

In the post-war era, although the first programmable, electronic computer was built in Britain, and used at Bletchley Park to decrypt German codes, it was the US, which dominated the global market for mainframe computers. The number of these computers in operation was tiny, compared to the number of computers produced and used today. They were nearly all used by governments or large corporations. Countries like Britain, therefore, subsidised and protected their own small mainframe computer companies like ICL. But, ICL was never going to be able to dominate the global mainframe computer market, in the way that IBM did, because the limited size of the UK market meant it did not have the scale of production enjoyed by IBM. Had Britain been part of the EU, in the 1950's, it might have been able to help create a European mainframe computer industry of a size that could have competed with the US, but it wasn't.

Moreover, the US developed its computer industry in large part to assist in its military capability. The computers controlled missiles and so on. Given that the US produced the majority of the weapons systems used by NATO, and deployed in Europe, it ensured that it was those US computer standards that were adopted. In the 1980's, when the microchip revolution took place, it was, then, the US which dominated the market for personal computers. Even when other countries, and companies produced personal computers, they quickly had to be sold as being “IBM compatible”. Similarly, the operating system used on those “IBM Compatible”, PC's had to be Microsoft's DOS, a factor which enabled Microsoft to dominate the global software market.

This is also seen, in relation to the Internet, and global communications systems. The difference is that the US, in the 1980's and after, having shifted a large part of the production of hardware to other parts of the world (mostly Asia), content that 90% of the value of the end product came from the skilled complex labour, embodied in the intellectual property, retained in the US, opened itself up to the possibility that having become the dominant producers of the hardware, companies in these other regions would, also, develop their own firmware, and software. They would, inevitably, develop their own standards and protocols. As the world's largest market for almost everything, China has a huge advantage in that regard. The Chinese state, as the centralised planner of the economy, has a massive advantage in being able to pursue that course.

The EU, developed its own Atomic Energy Industry, to be able to compete with the US, and belatedly, the EU has been prompted by the regime of Trump, to begin separating itself from the US domination of the Internet and technology.  The EU Parliament has already banned use of several US platforms for its MEP's and staff, and has developed EU alternative systems.

Amazingly, even in the 21st century, the railways continue to play a significant role in that respect. China has developed its high speed trains linking up the vast expanses of the country. But, as part of its “Belt and Road” strategy, it has provided the capital for railways to be constructed across Asia. The real significance of railways has always been in relation to the movement of freight, particularly bulk freight. Over short, local distances, railways are too rigid to be useful means of passenger transport. They lost out, prior to car ownership, to buses, which could provide flexible routes. But, buses too are too rigid, compared to private motor cars. Over longer, inter-city, journeys, trains are less rigid but, as families bought cars, and as companies provided company cars for their representatives, and as motorways were developed, trains could not compete. Only on much bigger land masses could high speed trains compete, over even larger distances, for passenger traffic, and there, they initially faced the already established airlines.

Railways, like canals, are significant as a means of, effectively moving bulk freight, particularly over large distances, and that is what China has done, spreading out from China itself, into Eurasia, and across to the Middle East and Europe. Last year, it sent a freight train from China to London. As I have set out before, Eurasia is a rational economic entity, just as is the EU. Trade within these two entities, inevitably increases, and drives towards, the adoption of common rules, standards, laws, regulations and so politico-economic integration and centralisation. But, the fact that the EU and Eurasian bloc share a common land mass, also means that trade between these blocs, will also increase, relative to with the US etc.

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Blair-Rights & Soft Left Carry Out Their Counter Coup

The Blair-Right/Soft Left counter coup against the Blue Labour/Zionist faction that took control of the Labour Party in 2019, has now begun. In 2019, the Blair-Rights were not strong enough to displace Corbyn's supporters inside a massively expanded Labour Party. The soft-left were not going to actively support the kind of actions required to bring about the kind of blood-letting to achieve it, though, as in the past, they could be relied on to simply keep their heads down, and wait until it was over, rather than resist it. The Blair-Rights, allied with the petty-bourgeois nationalists and Zionists of Blue Labour, seizing upon the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism as a convenient weapon to first undermine Corbyn, and then launch the witch hunt in the party. They chose Starmer as a cypher for their coup.

At the time Starmer won the Leadership, I noted that, the Blue Labour/Zionist faction would inevitably drag him further and further into the swamp of the petty-bourgeois nationalist Right, and so it has been, with the inevitable disastrous consequences for Labour, leading to the situation, today, and the equally inevitable counter coup by the Blair-Rights and soft Left, who have now chosen their own cypher, in the form of Burnham. Its ironic that the pro-EU Blair, has himself, now, become an apologist for the petty-bourgeois nationalists, and for his rich associates in the Trumpf gang, whilst the once soft Left and anti-EEC Kinnock, has taken over that vacant slot. On Saturday, Kinnock was even heading up the speakers at the Rejoin EU Rally in London, and its no coincidence that as Starmer gave another empty speech announcing his departure, this morning, in Downing Street, the strains of Ode To Joy, the EU Anthem, wafted through the air, almost drowning him out.

The media pundits have talked about the fact that in the last ten years, Britain has had 7 different Prime Ministers. But, they fail to mention that between 1990, and 2005, the Conservative Party went through 6 different Leaders. The reason is the same. Superficially, that reason is Brexit, or the relation between Britain and the EU, but that is itself simply the manifestation of the real underlying cause, which is the division between the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie and those of the bourgeoisie and working-class. Again, the media pundits, at least the better of them, like to present this division, in electoral terms as that between a Left or “progressive” bloc of Green, Liberal and Labour voters, as against a Right or “reactionary” bloc of Restore, Reform and Tory voters, without considering that these divisions are not simply arbitrary alignments of voters within an amorphous electorate, but are themselves a reflection of aggregated class interests.

The media pundits have tried to claim that Makerfield was a classic seat in which Reform should have won, but they based that simply on the fact, of it being a “Red Wall” seat, and on the fact that in the recent local elections, Reform won every council seat. But, that was a typically lazy, and superficial analysis that was inevitably going to be proven wrong, as I pointed out before the by-election.

I noted,

“Its MP, between 1987-2010 was the Blair-right, Iain McCartney. Given Blair's enthusiastic support for the EU, during all that time, when, by contrast, the Tories were torn apart by their support for Brexit, goaded along by the likes of Farage, there was no indication that the voters in the constituency were put off voting for EU supporting Labour candidates, winning around 60% of the vote in each election. In 2010 and 2015, McCartney's successor in the seat, Helen Fovargue, secured around 50% of the vote, whilst the reactionary nationalists of UKIP/BNP and Tories never got more than a combined 42%. In 2017, under Corbyn's Labour, as it won over large numbers of young voters, opposed to Brexit, Fovargue secured an increased 60% of the vote, whilst the Brexit Party stood aside for the Tories, who still could only secure 31% of the vote.”

The idea that Burnham has, somehow, won over working-class Reform or Tory voters, is as ludicrous as the idea that the Tories or Reform won elections by winning over working-class Labour voters. That is only very marginally the case. Burnham won because he managed to get working-class Labour voters to turn out to vote for him, whereas, in the local elections, many of them simply didn't vote, or else have been voting for other progressive parties such as the Greens, Liberals and so on, as they have rejected the reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalism of Keir Starmer's Blue Labour/Zionist agenda.

As I have pointed out many times over the last ten years, the vote for Brexit, even in those “Red Wall” seats, was based, not on working-class, Labour voters voting Leave, but on a the petty-bourgeoisie voting for it, a petty-bourgeoisie that had grown by 50% since the 1980's, and which was also the basis of the internal strife inside the Conservative Party, of which it comprised the vast number of its members and voters. That the media, and the bourgeois political pundits confuse this petty-bourgeois mass of poorly educated, precarious and impoverished with the working-class is simply a feature of their superficial, sociological definition of class. The fact remains that despite having grown by 50% since the 1980's, as a consequence of deindustrialisation, that petty-bourgeois mass still only constitutes around a third of the population/electorate, and it is that which places a cap on its electoral fortunes.

The reality, however, is clear. Burnham will face the same economic realities that Starmer and Blue Labour faced. Starmer has tried to claim that, in the last two years, he has defied those realities. Its nonsense. His claim about stabilising the economy is only a claim that he has stabilised it in the same way a corpse is stabilised in a graveyard. As Kinnock pointed out, the claims about trade deals are hugely exaggerated, and do not come close to the deals the UK already had as a result of being in the EU. Does anyone who has had to use the NHS really believe the claims about its improvement? Likewise, a look at the continued crumbling of the roads, and other infrastructure give the lie to Starmer's claims in that regard to. In the meantime, inflation remains high, and is likely to rise, whilst government borrowing is rising, and interest rates are following suit.

That reality, drives towards the obvious course of action, of a rapid re-joining of the EU. Burnham should be open about that reality, and get it underway. The Labour landslide in 2024 was a fraud, with Labour getting a third fewer votes than Corbyn's Labour secured in 2017. But, it would be ridiculous for Burnham to ignore the fact that he will take over a huge parliamentary majority. The venality of the Blue Labour/Zionist faction is already being shown in their snarling comments, as they are hoist by their own petard. They may seek to undermine a Burnham government, but his majority will be such that they can be dealt with. Beginning the process of negotiation to re-join the EU is the best basis on which a Burnham government can rebuild the economy, and remove the constraints it faces, and on that basis, rebuild the voter base of Labour for the next election in 2028/9. A General Election fought in 2028, with a commitment to formally re-join, would leave the option for the UK holding EU elections in 2029.

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 18

I have set out, elsewhere, why all of the liquidity injections of the 1990's, and QE of the 2010's, whilst depreciating the world's currencies/standards of prices, did not result in large-scale commodity price rises. The reason is that to do so requires that these money tokens and credit went into general circulation, as part of a rise in economic activity. But, in fact, a look at what happened shows that this liquidity was never designed to stimulate economic activity, but was designed only to protect the immediate interests of the ruling-class owners of fictitious-capital, by cutting short the bursting of asset price bubbles.

The huge rise in asset prices of the 1980's, was interrupted by the global financial crash that occurred in 1987. It wasn't just a bubble in financial markets that burst, but, also, in property markets. In 1990, house prices in Britain dropped by around 40%, in Japan, some property prices fell by up to 90%. In the US, the Federal Reserve, responded to this fall in asset prices by pumping liquidity into the system. That was quite a reversal for its newly installed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who as an apostle of Ayn Rand, had previously been a staunch advocate of sound money.

It turned out that Greenspan was an even more staunch advocate of the immediate interests of the ruling class owners of fictitious-capital. In 1987, stock markets dropped by 25% in a single day, but, as central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, depreciated currencies by injecting huge amounts of liquidity, the result was that, when the year ended, those stock markets were up by around 50%! This was, now, a casino, in which it appeared the gamblers could not lose. If it were an actual casino, it would go bust, on that basis, and, essentially that is the relation to the real economy, and to the industrial capital that produces the profits out of which the interest/dividends, rent and taxes are paid. Interestingly, if you watch many of the current adverts, today, for online gambling sites, they have adopted a similar approach. If you win, you do not get paid in actual money, but only in tokens that you can use to make further bets. To further encourage that, they provide punters with additional tokens in the form of “acca boosts”. The use of incentives provided by governments, such as “Help To Buy”, in Britain, do a similar thing, to further inflate house prices.

A look at the last 30 years, in particular, has seen the situation described by Marx unfold precisely, but with this difference. When yields fell, as money-capital was devalued, an alternative was found in the speculative capital gains that were the other side of that process. Normally, as Marx notes, the fall in the amount of interest would lead the owners of money-capital to be forced to become industrial capitalists, when the amount of interest no longer covered their needs.. Instead, they, now, cashed in a part of the capital gain, and treated it like revenue. As with every Ponzi Scheme, provided the amount of new liquidity coming into the paper chase, pushing up the asset prices, exceeds the amount being taken out, the illusion continues, and that is what governments and central banks sought to do over the last 40 years. Rachel Reeves is at it again in the UK with the insistence that you can get your tax-free ISA (which acts like the equivalent of an “acca boost”), but only if you plough your savings into a stock market ISA, not if you simply keep your money in a cash savings account.

A number of other factors facilitated the illusion over the last 40 years. The huge rise in productivity, created by the microchip revolution reduced the unit values of commodities, so that even where liquidity did get into general circulation, it only acted to prevent what would have been significant falls in commodity prices. Even when productivity gains began to wain by the end of the last century, other developments such as globalisation, and the creation of large single markets such as the EU, acted as cost free means of expanding trade, reducing costs, and so, increasing the mass of realised profits. So long as the mass of profits continued to grow, the disproportionate growth of interest/dividends and rents was obscured.

But, 2008 showed that had reached its limit. Thatcher's Britain, and Reagan's US were the frontrunners and classic example of the relative decline of industrial capital, and simultaneous rise of fictitious-capital. Both saw deindustrialisation, and both saw a huge rise in asset prices, based on speculation. In the following decades, however, Asia, in particular, saw a corresponding growth of large-scale industrial capital, with similar things happening in Latin America, former Warsaw Pact countries, and later in parts of Africa, and the Middle-East. The US had always had a large petty-bourgeoisie comprised of small traders, as well as its large number of small farmers. It still bears some of the characteristics of its history as a location for European settler colonialism. Its advanced industrial capitalism is concentrated on its East and West Coasts, and large metropolitan areas, whilst its interior remains rural and largely backward. The deindustrialisation of the 1980's exacerbated that, and the same was true in Britain, as its old heavy industries disappeared.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 16

Marx noted, in Capital III, Chapter 23,

“It would be still more absurd to presume that capital would yield interest on the basis of capitalist production without performing any productive function, i.e., without creating surplus-value, of which interest is just a part; that the capitalist mode of production would run its course without capitalist production. If an untowardly large section of capitalists were to convert their capital into money-capital, the result would be a frightful depreciation of money-capital and a frightful fall in the rate of interest; many would at once face the impossibility of living on their interest, and would hence be compelled to reconvert into industrial capitalists.” (p 378)

It is precisely that problem that the ruling-class of rentiers has faced. On the one hand, the microchip revolution of the 1980's, brought a huge rise in productivity, and the rate of profit. It brought a huge moral depreciation of the fixed capital stock, and with it a huge, global release of capital. All of these realised money profits fed into money markets, causing global interest rates to enter a secular decline from 1982 onwards, and a consequent rise in global asset prices.

In the US, stock markets rose by around 1300% between 1980 and 2000, more than 4 times the rise in GDP. Stock and property markets across the globe followed suit.

In Britain, house prices quadrupled in the 1980's. No wonder, in this “loadsamoney” culture, this inflation of asset prices, seemed to amount to the creation of wealth out of thin air.

Of course, ownership of speculative assets is neither the same as ownership of productive-capital, nor the same as ownership of a durable commodity. If you own bonds or shares, for example, if the market price of those assets rise sharply, you can sell them, and simply pocket the capital gain. You don't have to buy other bonds or shares to replace them. If you own property as a speculative asset, or as a landlord, you can similarly, sell those properties, if property prices rise sharply, without needing to replace them. In both cases, you can simply bank the realised capital gains, and wait until asset prices fall again. But, that is not the case if you own a property as a durable commodity/fixed capital.

If house prices rise, as a homeowner, that is of little benefit to you, for the simple reason that if you come to sell your home, you still need somewhere to live, and so must replace it with an equally more expensive house. If you are a commercial business that owns the commercial property in which you operate, the same applies, the building constitutes a piece of fixed capital. In fact, a rise in property prices, generally operates to your disadvantage, rather than advantage. If house prices across the board double, but wages remain the same, then, the house you paid £50,000 for, when you sell it for £100,000, appears to have provided you with £50,000 for free. But, to move to a better house, means that, this better house, which previously cost £75,000, will now cost you £150,000. In reality, you will have lost £25,000, compared to had house prices not risen.

Of course, had you not been a homeowner to start with, you would have lost out even more, which is why so many people, now, cannot afford to buy a home. Yet, the bourgeois media portray any fall in asset prices as being catastrophic, despite the fact that, for the great mass of society, they would be hugely beneficial. Indeed, for industrial capital, they would be hugely beneficial too, as I have set out, elsewhere. Its not just those who cannot afford to buy a home that are adversely affected by high house prices. One solution to the inability to pay the high prices, would be, for example, for wages to rise. But, a rise in wages, means a fall in industrial profits. Many unable to buy, are led to rent, but, that leads to higher rents, which again, means either higher wages, or else higher levels of housing benefits. Those higher benefits require higher taxes, which again, reduces industrial profits.

As I've set out, elsewhere, the same is true with inflated bond and share prices, which form the basis of workers' pension funds. The delusion referred to earlier, in which money-capital is seen as the only real capital, and the interest on which is seen, not as a deduction from industrial profit, but as some kind of natural fruit of that capital, leads to the assumption that if asset prices rise, the fruit of those assets increases along with it, like a bigger plum tree, producing more plums. But, as Marx set out, interest/dividends are simply a deduction from profit, and if the mass of profit does not rise, there is no sustainable basis for interest/dividends to rise. If interest/dividends do rise, without the mass of profit rising, then, rent, tax or profit of enterprise must fall, as Marx set out in Capital III, Chapter 15.

But, unless capital is accumulated – more labour employed – the only way to increase the mass of surplus-value/industrial profit, is to raise the rate of surplus-value. In the conditions of the 1980's, and 90's, as the huge rise in productivity created large relative surplus populations, which pushed down relative wages, and also reduced the value of labour-power, and so raised the rate of surplus value that was possible. Indeed, by raising the rate of turnover of capital, it also raised the annual rate of surplus-value, and average annual rate of profit. It, also, as set out earlier, created a release of capital that appeared as a mass of realised money profit. But, that was then, and this is now. Those conditions began to change when the new long wave upswing began in 1999, just as they have done in previous long wave cycles.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 11

Britain was drawn into the EEC/EU, precisely because of these objective laws of history and material conditions. The conditions which had enabled it to become the foremost mercantile power, replacing the Netherlands, in the 17th century, and to become the hegemonic industrial power, in the 19th century, a manifestation of that law of combined and uneven development, had dissipated by the 1970's. Indeed, for much of the twentieth century that process of relative decline was underway, and accelerating.

Although, the mythology, itself clung to by the petty-bourgeois nationalists, persists that it was Britain that won the war of 1939-45, the reality is far different. A resurgent German imperialism again sought to assert its leading role in the formation of a single European state, just as it had done in 1914-18. Indeed, despite all of the moralistic nonsense, about the 1939-45, European war, being about a fight of democracy against fascism, it was really just a continuation of the unresolved contradictions of the 1914-18 war. What is more, that resurgent German imperialism was not going to be stopped by a relatively declining British imperialism.

Sections of the British ruling-class knew it. Some sought to appease German imperialism, having already, in the 1920's, welcomed the coming to power of Mussolini in Italy, and, in the early 1930's, Hitler in Germany, as a means of quelling a rising working-class, and its bulwark, the USSR. It sought to divert the gaze of German imperialism East, towards war with the USSR, as it had done several times in the past. During the 1930's, it was just as likely that Britain might have allied with Nazi Germany against the USSR, as that it would ally with France, and later the USSR, against Germany.

Much to the chagrin of France, Britain agreed the Anglo-German, naval pact in 1935, enabling Nazi Germany to rebuild its navy beyond the limits set by the Versailles Treaty. Britain, still the dominant, but declining, power in Europe, undoubtedly saw a war between Germany and the USSR as to its advantage. That was not just for the reason set out above, especially with the prospect of Japanese imperialism nibbling at the USSR in the Pacific, following its advances in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, opening the possibility of a return to the wars of intervention that followed the 1917 Revolution. It would, also, drain German imperialism, in such a war, where it would bear the brunt of the fighting, giving British imperialism a breathing space, and the ability to continue to exploit its colonial empire for a while longer, largely unhindered.

Of course, that was not in France's interest. Nor, indeed, the longer term interest of Germany. In the era of imperialism, based on the creation of surplus value by industrial capital, as opposed to the era of colonialism, based on the realisation of profits from unequal exchange, the focus of capital shifts from the search for cheap primary products to pillage, and protected markets, to sell into, to the need to expand the size of the domestic market, to create multinational states. That was what European history had come down to in the century prior to WWII, and its necessity became all the greater, as the fundamental contradictions sharpened.

In the absence of an ability of the existing imperialist nation states in Europe being able to peacefully come together to create such a multinational European state, its creation, inevitably came down, again, to the continuation of politics by other means – the forcible creation of such a state under the dominance of the most powerful state. France, suffered from a similar weakness as Britain – a flabbiness that came from a long reliance on robbing its colonies via unequal exchange. Germany, which had few such colonies, had, from the start, to rely more on the development of its own large-scale industrial capital, and it was that which made it the most dynamic industrial power in Europe.

When World War came out of its phoney war stage, it was that, which enabled German imperialism to quickly dispose of the flabby old, colonial powers of France and Britain, rolling over France, in short order, and, likewise, expelling the British forces in the embarrassing defeat at Dunkirk, which, in turn, left Britain, isolated and effectively defeated, by 1940.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 10

In the post-war period, US imperialism had an incentive to encourage the dominant nation states in Europe to achieve this task of creating a multinational EU state without further wars between them. After all, US multinational corporations now operated globally, particularly in Europe, and benefited from that same level playing field of a European single-market. It similarly benefited from a creation of such a single market in the Asia-Pacific Region, under the dominance of its new ally Japan, where, again, US multinationals operated.

This was not the same as having its own single-market, because each of these large, new blocs had their own historic development, and so their own existing sets of rules and standards to be harmonised. But, at least, a US corporation operating in the EU, or in Japan, would operate on the same level playing field as every other capital operating there. In so far as the need to expand trade between these blocs, that was the role of the new international bodies set up after WWII, such as GATT/WTO, IMF, World Bank and so on.

The determinant, as I have set out, elsewhere, of where this multinational, industrial capital invested, is the stage of national economic development. Economies, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, as well as South Korea, were already adequate to support the investment of large-scale industrial capital. Similarly, imperialist capital had little reason to invest in large parts of Africa, because it lacked sufficient development of its infrastructure and so on. The role of Africa and the Middle-East, as with much of Latin America, after WWII, remained, for a long-time, solely as a source for primary products, and export market for manufactured goods. But, as Trotsky noted, the process of combined and uneven development, proceeds at an accelerated pace.

“The law of uneven development of capitalism is older than imperialism. Capitalism is developing very unevenly today in the various countries. But in the nineteenth century this unevenness was greater than in the twentieth. At that time England was lord of the world, while Japan on the other hand was a feudal state closely confined within its own limits. At the time when serfdom was abolished among us, Japan began to adapt itself to capitalist civilization. China was, however, still wrapped in the deepest slumber. And so forth. At that time the unevenness of capitalist development was greater than now. Those unevennesses were as well known to Marx and Engels as they are to us. Imperialism has developed a more “levelling tendency” than pre-imperialist capitalism, for the reason that finance capital is the most elastic form of capital.”

(Speech To The Fifteenth Congress)

In the developed, imperialist economies, this process, in the 1980's, also, in part, driven by the crisis of overproduction of capital in relation to labour, and need, therefore, to seek out new global supplies of exploitable labour-power, led to a relative decline in those economies, and rise in some of those new industrialising economies such as the Asian Tigers. In the old imperialist economies, that same process of slower capital accumulation, and falling interest rates, in the 1980's, and its attendant rise in unemployed labour, led to the void being filled by small capitals – the return of the petty-bourgeoisie.

The petty-bourgeoisie has grown by 50% since the end of the 1970's. That fact played a significant role in the transformation of the main bourgeois parties - Conservative and Labour in Britain, for example – from being conservative social-democratic parties, into being reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist parties, as well as the rise of new, overtly reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist parties, such as Reform. Trump represents the same trend in the US. The reactionary, utopian nature of that trend, in respect to Europe, is clear, that it seeks a return to the global competition between small nation states in an era in which that competition has become one of huge, continental sized, multi-national states.  It is the idiocy of Brexit.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 9

The state is the executive committee of the ruling-class, but, this ruling-class itself, in relation to any given state, is geographically defined. Prior to the development of the bourgeois-nation state, the ruling-class, a feudal landlord class, derived its revenues, and power, from the ownership of land. Similarly, it mobilised armies of retainers, and the greater the number of subjects it had, the greater number of retainers it could muster.

As noted earlier, it is the development of commodity production, and consequent expansion of the market that creates the dynamic in which these old geographic limits become a fetter. But, the process by which this fetter is burst asunder, is, also, one which sees competition between different fractions of the new (bourgeois) ruling class, to assert their dominance. The most obvious example, previously cited, is the role of the Prussian bourgeoisie in asserting itself, in the forging of the German state.

But, similarly, the extension of this same process, the creation of multinational states, as the expression of the objective necessity of capital, in its imperialist stage, to operate in an ever expanding single-market, with a level playing field, a single set of rules, regulations, taxes, and currency, takes the form of a struggle of existing powerful nation states for dominance within it. Frequently, that struggle breaks out from the realm of economic and political struggle, into military conflict. These conflicts are driven by the objective needs of industrial capital, and the state in each existing geographical unit continues to seek dominance.

However, as, also, noted earlier, the ruling bourgeois-class, today, is not the ruling bourgeois class of industrial capitalists it was in the 19th century. Today's ruling class is not a bourgeois class of owners of industrial capital, but of owners of fictitious-capital (shares, bonds, and their derivatives), and it is from that they derive their huge revenues, in the form, not of profits, but of interest, rent and increasingly, as this process becomes decadent, from realised speculative capital gains. The owners of industrial capital, today, (other than from the dwarfish industrial capitals, owned by the petty-bourgeoisie) are the associated producers, as Marx described them, i.e. the workers and managers within each company. They only need to realise it to assert their rightful control over each company, to demand the extension of the struggle for political freedom and democracy begun in the 18th century, to its completion, in the struggle for economic freedom, and industrial democracy.

Similarly, the ruling bourgeois class of owners of fictitious-capital, is, now, objectively, a global class. It can buy shares, bonds or property anywhere in the world, and does so, just as it can live anywhere in the world, and does so. What it cannot do, is to break the link between its own revenues (interest, rent) from its ownership of this fictitious-capital, and the source of those revenues, which continues to depend on surplus-value being produced by industrial capital, and which takes the form of profit.

It has tried to do so, by continually increasing the proportion of profits going to dividends/interest from 10% of profits in the 1970's, to 70% of profits, today. But, that simply reduced real capital accumulation accordingly, and so reduced the increase in production of surplus value, compounding the problem. So, in response, as rising interest rates, then, led to astronomically inflated asset prices crashing, every few years, starting as far back as 1987, it could only respond by inflating the currency supply to depreciate the standard of prices, and reflate the asset price bubbles. As with the old feudal landlord class, which not only became socially redundant, but also became a decadent parasitic excrescence on society, so too, today with the bourgeois ruling-class owners of fictitious-capital.

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The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 4

This objective reality that The Law of Value drives societies to continually seek to raise productivity so as to be able to produce more use-values with any given amount of social labour is not just a matter of each society doing that in order to increase its own real wealth and well-being. Unless it does so, it puts its own existence as a society in peril. It has no insurance against natural disaster, such as crop failures and so on. But, it also has no protection against other societies that seek to resolve their own problems by the use of force against them. As Engels sets out, in detail, in Anti-Duhring, against the latter's “force theory”, force, of itself, cannot explain why some in society become the rulers, nor why some societies are able to exert rule over others. Force itself is a function of production, and the more developed is production, the more the producer is able to gain access to superior force.

To raise productivity, societies are led to engage in technological development, and that creates new productive and social relations, which, in turn, creates new forms of property and social classes as the personification of that property. But, technology's ability to raise productivity is itself limited by the purpose of its use. There would have been little point Robinson Crusoe or a medieval peasant household introducing a piece of technology that enabled them to increase their production of food ten-fold, because they simply could not have consumed the food they produced. Time spent producing fishing nets, or animal pens that raise productivity by, say, 10 or 20%, however, are worthwhile, and free up time to produce other use-values.

So long as the demand for these products is severely limited, which it always is when their production is geared to consumption by the individual producer, so too, the development of productivity by the use of technology is limited. It is only when societies begin to produce commodities on a large scale, and that production becomes geared to this production of commodities in a market, that the benefits of the use of technology/machines comes into its own, because the larger the market/demand for any commodity, the greater production of it is justified, and any producers that can meet this demand most effectively, will benefit. The larger the market, the more the use of technology/machines by any producer is justified, and profitable.

It was this reality that led to the need to create ever larger single-markets, so that, as capitalist production expanded, particularly machine production from the time of the Industrial Revolution, the old principalities, and small kingdoms became a fetter on the development of society, and were replaced by the nation state, as part of the bourgeois-national revolutions. At that time, the nation state was, therefore, an objectively progressive development, required for the further development of the productive forces, just as, at that time, the role of the individual private industrial capitalist was objectively progressive, as a means of centralising and developing the means of production as capital.

But, everything has its time and season, and what was once progressive, turns into its opposite. The private industrial capitalist is, today, an historical anachronism. Even by the second half of the 19th century, as Marx and Engels describe, the private industrial capitalists (the expropriators of the small producers) were being themselves expropriated (expropriation of the expropriators) by the large-scale socialised capital that was itself the inevitable consequence of capitalist production on an ever larger-scale, which leads to the development of state-monopoly capitalism (imperialism). And, as this capital in its imperialist phase expands production on an even greater scale, so it requires ever larger single-markets, making the nation state a fetter on production, and objectively requiring its destruction and replacement by ever larger multinational states, as described by Trotsky earlier.

That long historical process inevitably unfolded violently, as the most powerful states sought to annex their weaker neighbours. England annexed Wales, and in conjunction with Scotland, annexed Ireland. Prussia annexed the other German states and so on. In France, more than 200 nationalities were forged into the French nation state. In America, European colonialism created nation states, and in North America, that initial process was supplemented by a violent civil war to assert the dominance of the Northern industrial capitalists over the Southern states, and to assert the dominance of a centralised Federal State over the individual states themselves. In Europe, faced with this dynamic, and the need to compete with an already dominant Britain, the two main continental European powers, France and Germany, sought to assert their dominance, in the creation of a single, European state.

This same process continues to play out on every continent on the planet. The war in Ukraine, and in Iran, is a manifestation of it.

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Ayatollah Trump's Murderous Regime - Part 3 of 4

Only when Trump comes to directly threaten the interests of EU imperialism, by sharing his plans to annex Greenland, and to impose tariffs on imports from any EU country that does not accept his plans, do the EU politicians begin to bleat lamely. Interestingly, and contrary to the claims of Starmer and the British media, even the lame bleating of the EU, in the face of Trump's threats were enough to force him to capitulate as before (TACO).  But, as before, he is likely to return to those threats.

The liberal, Democrat politicians in the US, such as Governor Newsom of California, have relied on the US capitalist state to fight their battles against Trump, with varying degrees of success, given the craven nature of many of these officials, and given that Trump has stacked some of them with his appointees. Now, rather than risk unleashing the forces of the US working-class, by appealing to them, Newsom prefers to lament the failure of his fellow bourgeois politicians in the UK and EU to come to the aid of the Democrats, and US ruling-class.

Starmer continues to act as Trump's mouthpiece in Europe, though the words are muffled as they appear from deep inside Trump's arse, where Starmer has been stuck for the last year, as he tries to reconcile his continued, disastrous support for Brexit, with the increasing irrelevance of Britain, and its dependence on the EU for its economic survival. Starmer's gut wrenching sycophancy is only exceeded by that of the slimey head of NATO mark Rutte, a truly cretinous human being even compared with fictional characters such as Dickens' Uriah Heep. LBC's, Simon Marks made clear what is wrong with the continued argument of James O'Brien that, given Brexit, Starmer has no option but to try to appease Trump.

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Predictions For 2026 - Prediction 1 – Trump Annexes Greenland

Predictions For 2026

Prediction 1 – Trump Annexes Greenland

Trump has made such a furore about his plans to annex Greenland that he will be unable to back down, despite his reputation – TACO – for always chickening out. Trump 2.0 is all about Trump seeking to secure his place in history, as well as his unending attempts to secure his and his family's wealth, during the time he has in office. To the extent that does not seriously conflict with the interests of the ruling class, in the US, he will be allowed to do so. As I have set out before, it is in the interests of US imperialism to create a larger single market/state, just as it is in the interests of every imperialism to do so. In that respect, such development is progressive. As Trotsky put it a century ago,

“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...

From which flows the perennial conflict between the principle of national self-determination, which in many cases leads to state and economic decentralization (dismemberment, separation), and the powerful centralist tendencies of imperialism which has at its disposal the state organization and the military power. True, a national-separatist movement frequently finds support in the imperialist intrigues of a neighbouring state. This support, however, can become decisive only through the application of military force. And as soon as matters reach an armed conflict between two imperialist organizations, the new state boundaries will not be decided on the basis of the national principle, but on the basis of the reciprocal relation of military forces...

The right of national self-determination cannot he excluded from the proletarian peace programme; but it cannot claim absolute importance. On the contrary, it is delimited for us by the converging, profoundly progressive tendencies of historical development. If this “right” must be – through revolutionary force – counter-posed to the imperialist methods of centralization which enslave weak and backward peoples and mush the hearths of national culture, then on the other hand the proletariat cannot allow the “national principle” to get in the way of the irresistible and deeply progressive tendency of modern economic life towards a planned organization throughout our continent, and further, all over the globe. 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.”

(The Programme of Peace)

Greenland has a population of less than 60,000. Rationally, it belongs as part of a North American, single market and state. As Marxists, as Trotsky sets out in the above work, we do not, as a result, support the forcible annexation of such small states by powerful imperialist powers, but seek a voluntary merger. As I set out last year, US imperialism could simply offer to pay every Greenlander several million dollars to agree to such a merger, just as, in the past, it would have been simpler for Argentina to have bought out a few hundred Falkland Islanders. We would then have seen whether the concern of Britain was the inalienable rights of the islanders, or its own continued imperialist interests, and similarly, now, with Denmark/EU, in relation to Greenland.

US imperialism could continue to station troops on Greenland as part of NATO, and it could buy the rights to mine the vast amount of minerals on the island. But that does not meet the needs either of Trump or of US imperialism. With a population of less than 60,000, it does not represent any significant extension of the US single market, which is the driving force of modern imperialism, based on large-scale industrial capital. However, its mineral assets are significant to US imperialism, in relation to the need for rare earths and energy. This aspect of colonialism, and the role of merchant capital remains, and, as I have pointed out, over the last year or so, the US and UK have reverted, in large part, to colonialism, in proportion as their role as modern imperialist powers has shrunk, and been overtaken by China and other industrialising economies. Its no surprise that it is the UK government that has backed Trump's colonial land grab in Gaza and Venezuela. Trump wants to be another Andrew Johnson who, in buying Alaska from Russia, massively increased the size of the United States. Remember that, at the time, despite the cheapness of the purchase, it was described as “Seward's Folly”.

As with the renaming of The Gulf Of Mexico, The Kennedy Centre, the Monroe Doctrine, and so on, Trump is focussed on making his mark. But, in respect of Greenland, that is in no way contrary to the interests of US imperialism either. He is not interested in renting land from Denmark on Greenland, but on owning it himself – both in the sense of it being part of the US, but, also, personally, as he will no doubt have an eye on the potential for his own real estate development there, just as with Gaza. As I have pointed out for many years, the EU is the biggest imperialist competitor to the US. That reality is only obscured by the post-war alliance between US and EU imperialism, in NATO, in opposition to the USSR.

In that post-war period, Western Europe was never in danger of a military incursion by the USSR/Warsaw Pact, other than as a consequence of a global war. The USSR was hard pressed to keep the population of the other Warsaw pact countries suppressed, let alone venture into western Europe. US troops more performed the role, in Europe, of being ready to suppress any internal socialist revolution.  The security of Western Europe rapidly sprung from the much higher living standards of its workers, not from its own military might, or the role of NATO. Indeed, it was those higher living standards that acted as the main factor in undermining the Stalinist regimes in the East, as their workers looked in envy at their western counterparts. As Marx had put it in The Communist Manifesto, it was the low prices that acted as the battering ram that brought down all Chinese walls.

Trump's argument that it was US military spending to finance NATO that keeps Europe safe is a fallacy. In conditions where no such military strike from the USSR was likely, where the prison house of Stalinism offered no attraction for the large majority of Western European workers, the spending by European nations on their military was more than adequate, especially in an era of nuclear weapons, where any such war in Europe would inevitably have resulted in nuclear destruction of all parties. The main role of NATO was not protecting Western Europe, but was projecting the global presence of US imperialism. In doing that, it also acted in the interests of the subordinate EU imperialism too. The consequence was that European imperialism, however, became dependent on US imperialism, and on US military production.

This too offered a quid pro quo. EU imperialism spent a much smaller proportion of its GDP on weapons, and so more on its own capital accumulation, US imperialism benefitted from the economies of scale for its arms industries, as Europe spent more than 60% of its arms budget on US supplied weapons. All fine until US hegemony falters, the global economy fragments, and the competing interests of different imperialist blocs re-emerge, including the competing interests of EU imperialism with those of US imperialism. For EU imperialism, if US imperialism is to retrench – symbolised by Trump's America First doctrine – and, if the EU is to, then, have to spend more on its own military, it may as well do so on its own terms, and to meet its own specific interests, not those of US imperialism.

That is the message of Draghi and other EU politicians as I set out last year. The inevitable imperialist logic is for the EU to further, and more rapidly consolidate itself into a centralized state, along the lines of the US. That is the means by which, also, the question asked by Kissinger, in the past of, “If I want to speak to Europe, who do I ring?”, is also answered. But, in the meantime, the EU has tied itself into a pointless, forever war against Russia in Ukraine. The EU is led, given the current continued dependence on the US to seek to cajole Trump into US military supplies for Zelensky's corrupt regime.

So, despite all of the hot air from EU and British politicians about the consequence of Trump annexing Greenland, he will do so, bloodlessly, and without any meaningful opposition from the EU. As he and his cronies have said, what would the Europeans do, go to war with the US?! Of course, not. Nor will it spell the immediate end of NATO. For so long as the EU persists in its doomed backing of Zelensky and his corrupt regime, they will continue to depend on US military support, and that means continued subordination within NATO.

For European workers, of course, we have no such interests. We have no interest in supporting the imperialist conflict being fought out in Eastern Ukraine, which is also, undermining the economy of the EU and Britain. The best means of defeating the corrupt regimes of both Zelensky and Putin, is for their workers to rise up and overthrow them, and, in that, we should seek to support those workers against their own ruling classes. We are proponents of class war, not the war of nation against nation. We certainly have no interest in a war against US imperialism to protect the interests of Danish imperialism, any more than we had any interest in supporting the war of British imperialism against Argentina over the Falklands. That does not mean we sanction the actions of Galtieri or of Trump. It is never a question of siding with one or the other, as the campists would have us believe. We are for the independent, third camp of the proletariat and its class war against the ruling class of both camps.

Another reason that Trump seeks to annex Greenland, is, also, to further encircle Canada. Canada, also, should, rationally, be a part of a single, unified North American state, but, unlike Greenland, it is not so easily resolved as by the US simply buying out its population. A military conflict to annex Canada seems unlikely, but encircling it, and pressuring it by increased tariffs and so on, could bring its leaders to the table, and, if not these leaders, then others. More likely, after Trump annexes Greenland, and invades Cuba, will be military incursions into Mexico, the pretext of drugs, again, being a convenient cover. For trump, drugs and drug smuggling, and other associated criminal gang activity is playing the same role that “anti-Semitism” played for the growing authoritarianism and Bonapartism under Biden, and Starmer et al.

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Review of Predictions For 2025 - Prediction 4 – Zelensky's Regime Falls

Prediction 4 – Zelensky's regime Falls

Zelensky's regime has not, yet, fallen, but it is like a dead man walking. To use Trump's words, at the start of the year, as he politically disembowelled Zelensky in The Oval Office, Zelensky “has no cards.” It is a repetition of many similar situations in the past, described by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky that those who fetishize the formality of national self-determination, end up simply turning weak nation states into the vassal of some other imperialist power, with its own imperialist ambitions. In essence, its no different to those petit-bourgeois nationalists that backed Brexit/Lexit on the basis of regaining British national self-determination, and taking back control, only, inevitably to see its actual sovereignty and control decimated, as on the one hand, it has to abide by the rules, regulations and conditions of the EU Single Market, to continue trading with it, whilst, on the other hand, subordinating itself to an increasingly, reactionary US imperialism, in order to retain the illusion of having some remnant of its former imperial power, or even relevance. In reality, no matter how much Starmer licks Trump's arse, Britain is sidelined, and made to look ridiculous.

Social-democrats and other social-imperialists, particularly in Europe, who hoped that Trump would be cajoled by the combined forces of western imperialism to throw off his own petty-bourgeois nationalist rhetoric, when in office, and so provide the backing for Zelensky, were inevitably and predictably disappointed. When Trump and his gang eviscerated Zelensky, in the Oval Office, what they were actually doing was, also, eviscerating the likes of Starmer, as well as EU social democrats, who only days before had feted the vulgar and narcissistic Trump, with their snivelling, gut wrenching sycophancy, their visits to the palaces and trappings of 18th century, European colonial empires, and aristocracy. Whilst, radical social-democrats in the US rallied in their millions to declare “No Kings”, European social-democrats, simply offered up to Trump, their “Daddy”, the vision of such monarchical rule, and how much they are still in thrall to it, themselves.

That Zelensky's regime has not yet fallen seems to be a consequence of a number of factors. Trump in rhetorically pulling the plug on Zelensky, gained huge leverage over EU imperialism, which remains the main competitor to US imperialism, despite the rapid development of China. Trump was able to say to the EU, if you want to continue to support Zelensky, then you fund it, and by the way, we are fine with that, so long as you continue to buy US weapons. Its not considerably different to the way, after 1939, (or indeed 1914) US imperialism verbally supported Britain and France against Germany, selling them huge amounts of arms, destroying their economies (and that of Germany), and leaving them, in massive debt to US imperialism. Only towards the end, in both cases, did US imperialism join the fray, throwing its weight behind Britain and France, who by that time were all but defeated, indeed, in the case of France, actually defeated and occupied.

The coalition of the wilting has kept the war going, like keeping a dying man alive by artificial respiration, but with absolutely no chance of changing the eventual outcome. Every month that goes by provides additional evidence of the corruption of the Zelensky regime, and repeated changes of personnel within it. But, as the saying goes a fish rots from the head, and the head in Ukraine, remains in place. As with Iraq and other such adventures, billions simply disappears. Large numbers of fighting age Ukrainians have fled to avoid the high probability of dying in the service of NATO imperialism, in a hopeless war against Russian imperialism. In part, that is only sustained on the basis of a continual repetition of the lie that Russia seeks to occupy the whole of Ukraine. If that were Russia's ambition, it would represent a huge overestimation of its own capabilities that nothing in the last few years could validate. It would simply destroy Russia. In the meantime, Trump's colonial adventure in Venezuela, and his promises of further such adventures in Colombia, Panama, Greenland, Cuba and so on, simply validate the arguments put forward by Putin (and similarly Xi) that all the claims about NATO being a purely defensive, peace-loving military alliance were bullshit, and that its expansion up to Russia's borders was far from benign.

As Irish Marxism has also rightly pointed out, the corollary of this, the creation of a multipolar world, i.e. of multiple imperialist blocs, is not any great advance for the working-class. Only if you adopt a moralistic, “lesser-evilist” approach, in which you continually hitch your wagon to some latest, new hope could you imagine that the interests of the global working-class is served by the rising power of Eurasian imperialism, or EU imperialism, as an alternative to US imperialism. The loss of hegemony for US imperialism, globally, inevitably leads to its consolidation in the Americas.

Similarly, however, Russia has been able to consolidate its position in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the brief adventure of Ukraine into Russia, lasted all of a few months, before being rolled back, at great expense to the Ukrainian military, whilst Russia, undistracted by it, simply took advantage of Ukrainian elite forces being tied up in that adventure, to press forward towards Pokrovsk and so on. Trump seems to understand the reality in a way that social-democrats and social-imperialists do not, which, given the moronic nature of Trump, says a great deal about the intellectual inadequacy and delusional state of those social-democrats. When Trump told Zelensky, “You have no cards”, he was absolutely right. The only cards that Zelensky and Ukrainian imperialism had were those stuffed into his hands by western imperialism, and even with them, they were inadequate.

In the end, Ukrainian imperialism could only win against Russian imperialism if, in addition to the provision of those weapons, it also had the supply of soldiers to use them. It did not, but Russia, as in the past, has been able to continue to draw on its own resources, as well as drawing in forces from elsewhere. The only way that could have changed is if NATO had put large numbers of its troops into Ukraine, as well as the masses of weapons. NATO does have significant numbers of troops in Ukraine, particularly special forces, and the water is continually tested by European governments for the appetite to send openly much greater numbers of European workers to fight and die in Ukraine. So far, the working-class of Europe has shown no desire to do so, which would be an inevitable rapid march towards a new pan-European war, and inevitable descent into global thermonuclear destruction.

Trump has essentially signalled that he is reconciled to the idea of a return to the days prior to the hegemony of US imperialism on a global scale, to a multipolar world. Trump is stating openly, in what his mafia regime now describes as its “Donroe Doctrine”, that he is abandoning Europe and Ukraine, but demanding the right to exercise absolute control over the Americas, including Canada and Greenland. The EU coalition of the wilting cannot save Ukraine, even as it bankrupts itself in trying to do so. It is only a matter of time, before they openly admit that, and join with Trump in pressing Zelensky to sue for peace with Putin, on the basis of ceding Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. At that point, the “stab in the back” narrative will come to play in Ukraine, with Zelensky removed, and the likelihood of a far right, nationalistic regime based around the Right Sector/Azov Battalion seizing power. But, they have no solution either.

Ukraine, then, faces a difficult period ahead for decades, in which, to survive, it will have to cede control over much of its resources to foreign imperialist powers be that US imperialism, EU imperialism, or Chinese imperialism.

Back To Review of Prediction 3

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.

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