Whats Going On? Imperialism and the Current Crisis

The global imperialist system, at the cores or centers, is running out of steam, it can no longer rule in the old way. This is becoming more apparent as the crass violence of the system is redoubling and rebounding on itself via the specter of reactionary terrorism from the far right. The “New” Imperialism is in continuity with the old as new forms of reaction present themselves as challenges to the international democratic and socialist struggles.

Russian Revolutionary V.I. Lenin’s Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism was a weapon of the working class and oppressed in their struggle against the colonial and imperialist bourgeoisie’s. As Marx wrote “the weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force s soon as it has gripped the masses.” Written as a guide to action, like most great classics of revolutionary Marxism, the text provided a key theoretical link for the merger of the movements for socialism and national liberation. Today, in Latin America, it is no coincidence that the resurgence of socialist forces are anchored by defiant anti-imperialism for there can be no independent development or politics when dominated by imperialism. The road to socialism is markedly anti-imperialist and although the word and even concept are not as popular as the 1960’s or 1970’s they are more relevant now than ever before. From the standpoint of the PSL in order to be truly anti-capitalist one must be an anti-imperialist.

So what is imperialism? One could bring up the various theories from diverse politico-ideological tendencies but for the PSL the Leninist definition and conceptual framework guide our movement building. As Lenin states: “If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up (Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, V.I. Lenin).”

But Lenin’s thesis was written approximately one hundred years ago and the global situation for Labor, Capital, Oppressor and Oppressed nations have drastically shifted since the 1970’s and again following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Socialist Bloc states. Without the historic counter-weight of the Soviet Union, imperialism has gone on a rampage in the so-called Third World and nations seeking to assert their independence, sovereignty, and self-directed development. Today Lenin’s thesis is not less but more important as a guideline and not as a sacred text like religion.

As we state in our update on Lenin’s Imperialism: “Rather than viewing politics as a separate field from economics — as bourgeois academia does — Marxists work to uncover their interrelationship. The starting point for understanding overall historical development is an examination of the ‘base’ of society, the evolving mode of production, which structures political, legal, cultural and ideological developments in every corner of society (Imperialism in the 21st Century, PSL).”

The Economic Base of Imperialism — Past & Present

In late 2007 the Global Financial Crisis began and by 2008 the U.S. government rescued the failing big banks at a $700 billion cost to taxpayers. This was the biggest bailout in history. Astoundingly, “when Congress appropriated the funds for the bailout, they did not bother including a requirement that the banks had to report what they did with the money (The Myth of Democracy & The Rule of the Banks).” As Lenin pointed out, the domination by banks, cornerstone institutions of monopoly finance capital, become a hallmark of modern capitalist imperialist society.

As Lenin states himself: “As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of establishments, the banks grow from modest middlemen into powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries. This transformation of numerous modest middlemen into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism…The economic essence of imperialism is monopoly capitalism. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close net of relations of dependence over all the economic and political institutions of contemporary bourgeois society without exception — such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly (Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism).”

As we have iterated before and should be drummed into the consciousness of every worker and oppressed person is that over the past 30 years “the 10 largest banks in the United States have increased their share of total bank assets from 22 percent to more than 60 percent. Ninety-five percent of all trade in derivatives is controlled by five banks: JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo (The Myth of Democracy & The Rule of the Banks).”

It is these banking institutions that sit behind the politicians and Pentagon officials pumping billions of dollars into a massive ideological state apparatuses and the military industrial complex. This takes me to my next and most crucial point — humanitarian imperialism and the managing of a decaying imperialist project.

Imperialism does not just mean economic domination, but political, social, cultural, and ideological. While I won’t get into all these spheres I want to address specifically the politico-ideological mechanisms of imperialism today.

With wars in over 7 nations, over 1,000 military bases all across the world and a gloated military budget that is larger than every nation’s put together the U.S. imperialist project is well resourced and deeply entrenched in the fate of the global working class. With seeming crisis at every sector of society from jobs to education, healthcare and foreign policy, the imperialist crisis will eventually mature leading to a deeper social and political crisis of which the multinational American working class must confront armed with revolutionary theory, proletarian internationalism, mass organizations, and a Marxist-Leninist party steeled in class struggle.

The generalization of the crisis of this “new” imperialism dubbed “neoliberal capitalism/imperialism” is useful insofar is it can correctly locate the cancer itself: U.S. led NATO imperialism as the dominant force on the planet. It is with hesitation that I use neoliberalism as a “generalizing” phenomena. I do so because the truth and validity of Leninism was that the world was divided up into spheres of influence and/or colonies. In the latter 20th century on the waves of de-colonization movements Lenin’s thesis proved correct again as he pointed to the revolutionary upsurges spreading East and that the sharpest class struggle would be that of oppressor nations vs oppressed nations. The two class camps each had an anchor, the U.S. and the Soviet Union respectively. When the Soviet Union fell, we saw this imperialist rummaging of the former Soviet states economies. Billion dollar industries were being pawned off for mere millions of dollars

Cutting through the Fog of War

Michael Parenti remarks that “many of our political perceptions are shaped by culturally prefigured templates implanted in our mind without our conscious awareness. To become critically aware of these ingrained opinions and images is not only an act of self-education; it is an act of self-defense.” While under an avalanche of bourgeois propaganda and ideology arming oneself with revolutionary theory is a basic step towards heightening the class struggle ideologically with the class enemy: the .01%.

As an organizer against imperialism with the ANSWER coalition and the PSL my task in building the anti-war/anti-imperialist movement is hampered by the utter weight of ideological and political domination via the monopolized and pro-war corporate media. Even in some of the progressive and “Left” circles this ideological domination is present. The media as we know it today is really a conglomerate of a tiny handful of multinational corporations.

The New Imperialism — Old Antagonisms, New Contradictions

David Harvey writes in his book The New Imperialism: “While it was accepted that frontal confrontation with the Soviet empire was impossible, every opportunity was seized to undermine it — policy that led into some disasters as the US supported the rise of the Mujahidin and Islamic fundamentalism in order to embarrass the Soviets in Afghanistan, only to have to suppress the Mujahideen’s influence later in a war against terrorism based in Islamic fundamentalism.”

Imperialism is on its death bed, as it drags the entire world into social, economic, political, and ecological catastrophe new forms of the past encounters are borne again.

Every fascist insurgency is trailed on the tracks of a failed Left movement in seizing power and wielding it. Today the crisis of imperialism is giving birth to monsters like the so-called Islamic State, the Golden Dawn, Alt-Right, Svoboda, and even Hindu neo-fascism. The organic connection between imperialist decay and insurgent ultra right terror tacitly or directly supported chiefly by the U.S. must be laid bare beyond explanations of the economic and empirical data on the imperialist system. We cannot afford to separate our politics from economics for politics is concentrated economics. What is happening as a result of imperialist decline is beyond “unequal exchange” rates between workers in the Global South and the multinational corporations perched in their perspective national states of the Global North.

The technological and scientific revolution which gave the U.S. and the imperialist nations in general an advantage over the socialist countries. The military arms race between the Soviet Union and the US greatly weakened to Soviet state by redirecting vast and vital resources to military build up as opposed to social consumption and social development. Moreover, the aid that the Soviets were providing to the oppressed nations was gone in a gust of Western neocolonial feasting.

What is being described today in terms of the pure economic domination of Western states led by the US and the “Global South” has been hashed out over four decades ago by Kwame Nkrumah in his Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. This concept is useful for our current analysis of the developments in modern imperialism.

Post-Socialist “New World Order” & Imperialist Rebounds

Since the collapse of the United Soviet Socialist Republics or the “U.S.S.R.” and the Eastern Bloc “People’s Democracies” and workers states from 1989 to 1991 the United States has been the world’s foremost superpower nation. This world historic moment represented in the minds of some on the socialist Left in Western nations that this marked an opportunity now to “reclaim” socialism, some even went as far as to claim that this collapse would herald a flourishing of democracy. Obviously, nothing of the sort occurred.

The masses of people in the former Soviet Union “were suddenly confronted with a rising tide of poverty, hunger, inflation, unemployment, homelessness, prostitution, corruption, organized crime, national conflicts, civil wars, partition of their motherlands, political and military coups and, worse of all, domination of imperialist governments and their international institutions over all economic, political, social and military life of their society (Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contributing to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR, 22).”

It is in this backdrop that I want to open up and frame the current “crisis of capitalist imperialism.” The falsely labeled “Cold War” was really a euphemism for what was a global class struggle between the oppressed nations and the socialist workers states against the imperialist camp and their junior partners.

It is worth mentioning that the Soviet Union’s existence was not globally or historically insignificant in the process of smashing colonialism. “The process freed hundreds of millions of people from one of the most brutal forms of oppression. It is major progress in the history of mankind, similar to the abolition of slavery in the 18th century and the 19th centuries (Humanitarian Imperialism, 12).”

Now that the Soviet Union is gone and the only remaining states founded on socialist revolutions (Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, China, DPRK) the balance of class forces on an international level has shifted. Pro-imperialist reactionary classes have come to the fore to do the bidding of the leading global imperialists with all sorts of support, aid, and immunity of their attendant international institutions.

“With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the prior ideological management of U.S. dominance became even less coherent, but military resistance was no longer a major obstacle. In the post-Cold War era, the United States was now clearly willing to use military force to achieve political and economic goals (Imperialism & Anti-Imperialism in Africa).”

What is “New” about this Imperialism? — Humanitarianism & Propaganda

“Both imperialism and colonialism were supported and even impelled by impressive ideological formations that include notions that certain people, often with no more in common than as inhabitants of a certain territory, require and welcome domination as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with domination (Imperialism & Anti-Imperialism in Africa).”

Take these examples for good measure. In February 2011 the mainstream media of the imperialist nations went on a media frenzy framing Libyan President Muhammar Qaddafi as a “bloodthirsty dictator” who was impeding an alleged “revolutionary” insurgency for “freedom and democracy” against “dictatorship.” Drummed into the heads of the masses of people were lies about the true nature of the conflict in Libya. It was claimed that Qaddafi was giving viagra to Black African mercenaries to carry out mass rapes. This was later debunked by the same so-called human rights organizations like Amnesty International that ended up playing the tune of imperialist intervention when Washington and the Pentagon needed it to.

In the Ukraine, the far right wing — Neo-Nazis — dominate in the new government propped up by Washington and NATO following a coup against former President Yanukovych. The fascist Svoboda party is one of the three major parties in government followed by The Right Sector. While domestically the U.S. is faced with a growing and insurgent far right wing so-called “alt-right” movement which is a euphemism for neo-fascist, the imperialist system cannot regroup itself and present any more piecemeal reforms for the masses of people. The currently bankrupt and indebted to the world agencies of monopoly finance capitalism

Gone are the “crusades” of the “White Man’s Burden” replaced with the ethos of liberal interventionism of what some call humanitarian imperialism. Imperialism has whipped up global catastrophe from Rwanda to Syria wasting billions of dollars on anything from weapons cache for Neo-Nazi led insurgents in the Ukraine, support for fascist neocolonial forces in Venezuela, or on expanding the role of private mercenary Blackwater type organizations to do more of the empire’s dirty work.

In Syria, the “White Helmets” touted as angels who risk their lives to rescue people from the tyrannical “Assad regime” are one such ideological tool in the war of imperialism. The organization only works in “rebel” held areas all of which are dominated by ultra-right reactionary terrorist. It is not a creation of Syrians it was created by former British Intelligence officer James LeMesuier and is funded to the tune of at least $100 million dollars by the U.K. and the U.S. Despite being exposed by journalists and having video and photo evidence of the White Helmets celebrating with their Islamist pals.

What is markedly new about this imperialism is that the death toll, the human cost is weighing heavily on the Third World. Proxy war has become no longer a tactic but a strategy for the “new” imperialism. Perfected in Latin America is is now being used in the Middle East/North Africa and Western Asia. In the past, the ideological justification of “making the world safe for democracy” and “fighting the Reds” occupied much space in the American consciousness. Today, it is liberal “humanitarian” — “we must do something” — imperialism.

Be As Radical As Reality — Fight Fascism, Establish Socialism

Unlike the latter half of the 20th century, the creep of fascism is on the rise coming out with even warped positions on the far right. This “third positionist” camp which

As Michael Parenti warned “Fascism never intended to offer a social solution that would serve the general populace, only a reactionary one, forcing all the burdens and losses onto the working public. Divested of its ideological and organizational paraphernalia, fascism is nothing more than a final solution to the class struggle, the totalistic submergence and exploitation of democratic forces for the benefit and profit of higher financial circles.

Fascism is a false revolution. It cultivates the appearance of popular politics and a revolutionary aura without offering a genuine revolutionary class content. It propogates a “New Order” while serving the same moneyed interests. Its leaders are not guilty of confusion but of deception. That they work hard to mislead the public does not mean they themselves are misled (Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, 17).”

As TeleSur notes: “The number of violent attacks on U.S. soil inspired by far-right ideology has spiked since the beginning of this century, rising from a yearly avarage of 70 attacks in the 1990s to a yearly avarage of more than 300 since 2001. These incidents have grown even more common since President Donald Trump’s election.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that researches U.S. extremism, reported 900 bias-related incidents against minorities in the first 10 days after Trump’s election — compared to several dozen in a normal week — and the group found that many of the harassers invoked the then-president-elect’s name. Similarly, the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that tracks anti-Semitism, recorded an 86 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the first three months of 2017.”

In Manchester, U.K., the recent terror attacks that claimed the lives of 22 people and wounded 59 was carried out by a native-born U.K. citizen of Libyan descent who was radicalized by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) or “Daesh.” The Islamic State so far has claimed responsibility for these attacks. The specter of rebounding imperialist violence in the form of open terror should be of great concern for the revival of the socialist/communist movement in the heartlands of global imperialism.

The “New Imperialism” looks a lot like the old imperialism. In tandem with the deepening national oppression in the centers and peripheries there is a concomitant breathing of a second wind into fascistic groups of various stripes. United around their longing for a past epoch when their social group was top dog and the economy afforded them greater living conditions.

Let us recall that the U.S. has a long tradition of supporting the far right wing when it serves the interests of capital, which is more often than not. As Michael Parenti explains “After World War II, U.S. leaders and their western capitalist allies did little to eradicate fascism from Europe, except putting some of the top Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg. In short time, many former Nazis and their active collaborators were back in the saddle in Germany. Hundreds of Nazi war criminals found a haven in the United States, either living in comfortable anonymity or employed by U.S. intelligence agencies during the Cold War (The Face of Imperialism).” In France, Korea, and Italy, the post war U.S. was pumping millions of dollars to prop up far right wing governments which used fascistic tactics to suppress the revolutionary socialist/communist movements as well as discipline organized labor as it prepared to super-exploit their labor power on the global market.

Lenin had written in Imperialism that, “the receipts of high monopoly capital…makes it economically possible for them to corrupt certain sections of the working class, and for a time a fairly considerable minority and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or nation against all others.” Lenin had drawn attention to how imperialism served to split the working-class movement in Europe by creating opportunism and jingoism among the workers. The two linked aspects go together: imperialism creates the surplus that can be distributed to upper sections of the working classes, and racism directed against the primary victims of imperialism, above all Africans, gives a psychological/cultural benefit to the entire European working class.

Anti-Imperialism Today

It was recently revealed through a UK study that “Africa has an annual financial deficit of over US$40 billion in capital leaving the continent each year” and that “approximately US$203 billion flowed out of the country in 2015 in the form of repatriated profits of multinational corporations, money moved into tax havens, and costs imposed by climate change adaptations.”

Africa, one of — if not the — richest continents on the planet is still languishing in poverty and super exploitation chiefly due to imperialism on its deathbed: neocolonialism. As Kwame Nkrumah wrote “In order to halt foreign interference in the affairs of developing countries it is necessary to study, understand, expose and actively combat neo-colonialism in whatever guise it may appear. For the methods of neo-colonialists are subtle and varied. They operate not only in the economic field, but also in the political, religious, ideological and cultural spheres (Neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism).”

Today one mainstay of this is so-called “aid” to Africa. Masking heightening exploitation with the veil of reform is one distinction of today’s imperialism. The rhetorical flourish of imperialism can seem to have a “liberal” or “tolerant” bent to it while it systematically funds the most anti-liberal and intolerant forces of the world. It is key that in this so-called “information age” that we seek out to divine the class content of each phenomena and apply the historical and dialectical materialist method of analysis.

Looking at the history of the “aid” from imperialist nations it is apparent that “aid programs are not intended to effect serious social betterment…at best, they finance piecemeal projects of limited impact. More often, they are used to undermine local markets, drive small farmers off their land, build transportation and office facilities needed by outside investors, increase a country’s debt and economic dependency, and further open its economy to multinational corporate penetration (Blackshirts & Red, 31).”

We reject all forms of imperialism. We reject all wars of aggression launched by the imperialist states and their junior partners. We know that “war — the inevitable outcome of capitalist competition and the resulting drive to control markets and sources of energy and other raw materials — is built in to the imperialist system. War has long been a source of immense profits for the military-industrial corporations, the monopoly of oil companies and the big banks, which are all interconnected through their board of directors and business dealings (The Myth of the Democracy and the Rule of the Banks, 5).”

The banks are kept safe by the repressive arms of the state namely the police, jail/prison, and army. “The banks finance the governments wars by buying interest bearing Treasury bonds. More than $250 billion in interest paid out by the federal government in 2011 was due to past wars. banks, directly and on behalf of their clients, invest in and share in the tens of billions in annual profits of the military-industry, oil, high-tech and other multinational corporations.

The crisis at home deepens when billions of dollars are wasted on wars, bailing out banks, speculation, and the strengthening of the repressive apparatus of the state in preparation for what the bourgeoisie know too well: the coming of the Revolution.

Material conditions are more dire than they have been in a while. “The number of people officially living in poverty in the world’s richest country has grown to more than 47 million, gauged by the insultingly low standard of $22,400 annual income fro a family of four. By counting in what the government calls “low-income” (many of whom are also truly living in poverty), the number rises to more than 145 million people, or more than 48 percent of the population, again, in the richest country in history (The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks, 15).”

Around the time of the last crisis, in 2010, the census “counted more than 18.7 million vacant housing units in the country. In that year alone, the banks filed foreclosures on 3.8 million homes.” In addition, young people, mainly students are faced with the effects of imperialism domestically. Accumulated student debt stands at more than $1.3 trillion as of this year.

The trap of student debt, held by the banks (cornerstones of modern imperialism) hold “people over the age of 60” in debt for more than $36 billion in student debt. “Since 1996, the Debt Collection Improvement Act — passed by the Republican Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton — has authorized the Treasury Department to collect money owed to the federal government by garnishing federal benefits and pay. This includes garnishing up to 15 percent of Social Security benefits for student loans (The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of Banks, 20).

Anti-Imperialism today means foremost opposing all U.S. wars of aggression. It means debunking imperialist lies and working ardently to divulge the truth. We refuse to be cajoled into the fascist creep as a effect of imperialist decay. We reject the imperialist mainstream media and their pro-war lies. Anti-Imperialism means standing up for sovereignty from North Dakota to Palestine and from Mexico to Syria. In the age of massive flexibility of capital and labor workers remain hitched to particular nation states for a variety of reasons from funds to safety. To rebuild an anti-imperialist movement today means to patiently explain to the workers how imperialism is actually driving down their standards of living not African Americans, Muslims, Mexicans, the LGBTQ community and women.

With the recent news of the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Accords and the fear of expedited ecological crisis, we must remember the words of Ernesto Che Guevara on the struggle against imperialism: “Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism and a call for the unity of the peoples against the great enemy of the human race: the United States of North America (Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams).

Seize the Banks!

A fundamental law of capitalism, driven by the cut-throat competition inherent in the system, is maximization of profits regardless of the cost to people or the planet. It is a law that cannot be repealed by Congress or anyone else, since any bank or corporation that falls behind in the competitive race risks going bankrupt or being swallowed up by rivals. The law will exist as long as capitalism and the dictatorship of the rich, of the one-tenth of the 1 percent continues.

The program of the PSL is not to “restore Glass Steagall” or call for “better regulations.” It is to “Seize the Banks.” Taking over the banks by a government of the working class and its allies would be a critical step toward reorganizing the economy on the basis of providing for the needs of the many, not the wealth of the few.

Banks, like all corporations are not people. They are paper entities, which exist solely because laws and society permit them to exist. They have no inherent and inalienable rights, not even the right to exist.

The banking function should be used to maximize the well-being of society, the 100 percent. Since banks have no rights, there is no wrong — indeed, there are life altering benefits for the vast majority — in seizing the banking function and placing it under the people’s democratic control.

In order to end imperialism in its tracks we will need more than impeachment campaigns against particular politicians. We need to grapple with the question of imperialism and the damage we do to the world and to ourselves. Without this understanding we run the risk of lengthening the necessary time imperialism has to exist. In the mean time, read the Party for Socialism & Liberation program and if you are interested, join us!