"God Wants You Aspiring to Be a Capitalist"

[Pictured: David Oyedepo gives a sermon at his megachurch in Nigeria.]

By Titilayo Odedele

There is something going on with Pentecostal churches.

In a time of the ascendance of neoliberalism, bourgeois institutions have failed and most radical and revolutionary formations have been severely compromised. In contrast, Pentecostal churches have thrived, welcoming millions around the world into their fold and keeping most. Why?

To begin to investigate this, we must first understand our current context. Neoliberalism is a form of capitalism marked by constant and fundamental economic crisis due to the intensive relationship it has to accelerating the accumulation of capital through deregulation (broadly defined as loosening of government regulations on labor, companies, and the goods they produce, and the like) and market liberalization (the process of removing government regulations on markets specifically, like preventing popular ownership of national assets and ending public support, which enables widespread access to goods, etc.), among other processes which lead to widespread precarity.

One way of qualifying the crisis-prone nature of capitalism is by analyzing Kondratieff waves, a controversial but substantive conception of long waves of capitalist growth and stagnation believed to occur every 40-60 years. Some argue that these cycles have shortened in recent decades, particularly with economic stagflation (stagnation and inflation occurring at the same time) occurring more frequently than in waves past. Alongside these market conditions is the receding social cushion for most people in most countries as states retreat from service provision in the name of cost-efficacy, resulting in increasing precarity. As these crises produce unrest, the state responds with increased repression and surveillance, and the ideological and politico-philosophical domestication of everything—including social change—facilitating and normalizing capital’s seeming inescapable commodification.

Despite their pervasive power, influence, and supposedly empirically-sound requirements for debtor countries, the Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF and World Bank made promises that did not bring about prosperity for most of the world. Further failures of neoliberalism include an unprecedented amount of scientific knowledge about the climate crisis, to the demise of ecosystems, some island societies, and in terms of capitalist interests, futures for certain products and supply chains.

One would think that an economic system which fails to live up to its own promises would be unpopular, particularly in the places where its policies have had the most visible failures in terms of a declining quality of life for most people in a society. In most African cases, however, neoliberal capitalism is seen as a winning mode of economic organization which simply has not been applied properly. This is particularly the case in Nigeria, where I am conducting my dissertation research. Nigeria has been a strategic Western ally since independence, with its indigenous, political, economic, religious, and military elite coordinating with the U.S. and U.K. in particular in order to stomp out ideologies which promote alternative ways of organizing the economy, like socialism and communism.

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

In light of the failures of political, economic, and military powers in Nigeria, and the particular confluence of the three in its specific history of (mostly reactionary) military coups, it appears that religious elites are the final standing source of traditionally legitimate power. Though they have been aligned with other elites who have lost public trust, they maintain it. Pentecostal pastors in particular enjoy dedicated adherents, political and international patronage. David Oyedepo (Africa’s richest pastor), Enoch Adeboye, Jerry Eze, Biodun Fatoyinbo, Paul and Betsy Eneche, and many others have even become capitalists themselves. They all have churches that are aligned with the so-called prosperity gospel message, preaching that health and wealth are the exclusive signs of divine favor and alignment.

Somehow, these pastors have managed to grow their churches by transforming neoliberal values into moral imperatives which their congregants take seriously. How they have managed to avoid becoming objects of scorn, and indeed, become objects of respect and social honor despite contributing nothing that improves the material conditions of most of their adherent is what I will continue to investigate. As a Nigerian-American, I feel the need to respond to Walter Rodney’s call to the people of the Global South: to study our societies with a Marxist methodology, we need to undertake serious study of the ways in which imperialism hides itself and capitalism lives its afterlives. Only then will we begin to be positioned to end its vice grip on the Continent and the Diaspora, and surely beyond.

This phenomenon appears in other conservative (in a Marxist sense) countries like the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, and others in the Western axis of military and economic domination. This case of capitalists running churches isn’t new, but I would contend that the historical mixing of factors which has led us to this particular version of capitalist Christianity are worthy of attention from radicals of all stripes.

Titilayo Odedele (she/they) is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Northeastern University. Their research interests include global connections of sacralization of neoliberalism, imperialism, Pentecostalisms in the Global South, and related topics. She enjoys spending time with her partner, siblings, and dog.

References: 

Amin, Samir. Neo-Colonialism in West Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

Amin, Samir. "Understanding the political economy of contemporary Africa." Africa Development 39, no. 1 (2014): 15-36.

Bayat, Asef. Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2017.

Han, Ju Hui Judy. “Shiting Geographies of Proximity: Korean-led Evangelical Christian Missions and the U.S. Empire.” In Ethnographies of US Empire, edited by Carole McGranahan, and John F. Collins, 194-213. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.

Ogunbadejo, Oye. "Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960-87." African Affairs 87, no. 346 (1988): 83-104.

Rodney, Walter. Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution. New York: Verso Books, 2022.

Capitalism as Decay and Chaos. Socialism as Social Order and Security.

[Capitalism has destroyed much of the US, including Detroit (pictured).]

By Sudip Bhattacharya

We’ve entered the era of smartphones and eugenics. “They’re eating cats, they’re eating dogs,” Trump had exclaimed frantically, echoing words that could’ve been uttered by a Klansman in the early 1920s, but now that very same level of toxicity having been beamed into households all across the world for whoever has the stomach to bear it.[1] So many now have access to learning about events on the ground from almost anywhere, where we can communicate, send money to, and spread the word of various political events due to the devices in peoples’ pockets, and yet, none of that alters the fact that entire family trees have been erased in places like Palestine. No amount of streaming with emojis can negate the brutality of Israel’s siege, a high-tech form of genocidal intent and killing, with drones swarming the skies, but a genocide nonetheless.[2]

R. Palme Dutt, a Marxist theoretician of the interwar period in Europe, noted similar dynamics in his own era, the clashing of so-called technological progress with civilizational decay and impending horror. At the time, the productive capacities of Europe had expanded tremendously in a rather short period of time. Major manufacturing and industrialization had finally led to a capacity across most Western societies, including the U.S., to resolve issues of hunger and starvation. However, countries chose to get rid of their “surplus” food, burning it, dumping some of it into the nearest ocean.

“The burning of millions of bags of coffee or tons of grain, in the midst of mass starvation and poverty, have horrified the world,” he stated at the time, while the global economy had still been reeling from years of a financial reckoning.[3] In parts of the colonized world, European policymakers would intentionally funnel basic food commodities, like rice and grain, to maintain high levels of prices for such products, in the process leading to mass starvation in places like Bengal. Prior to European colonization, famines were a rare phenomenon. Even in feudal times, local authorities, however authoritarian and demeaning, had kept aside piles of grain to satiate the masses in times of hardship, to avoid unrest. But that had all changed the moment the British ships arrived, followed by the French and the Americans, all of whom were dedicated to squeezing profit out of every inch of land and person, from the trader to the peasant.[4]

Treating food as a commodity rather than meeting human needs remains a routine feature of our global system. It was only a month or so into the pandemic when farmers across the U.S. were compelled to destroy acres of “excess” food. “In scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression, dairy farmers dumped lakes of fresh cow’s milk (3.7m gallons a day in early April, now about 1.5 million per day), hog and chicken farmers aborted piglets and euthanized hens by the thousands, and crop growers plowed acres of vegetables into the ground as the nation’s brittle and anarchic food supply chain began to snap and crumble.”[5]

In 2008, Japan, one of America’s closest allies, had plans to “dump” excess rice in parts of Asia to alleviate food insecurity. The U.S. was against this, the number one reason being that it could decrease the demand for rice in consumer markets, allowing the price of rice to “dampen.” A New York Times report, the prestigious rag for the “concerned” elite, had stated at the time: “The effect would be more pronounced if Japan followed it with further sales or donations from the 1.7 million tons of imported rice now sitting in Japanese warehouses. Roughly 30 million tons of rice are traded globally each year.”[6] As Dutt understood it generations ago, the mishmash of progress, as in the productive capacity to create a far richer world than it’s ever been imagined, coupled with what he described as “decay”, was not a problem of humanity losing its soul in the modern age. It wasn’t a problem of technological advancement rotting our level of empathy with one another, or something philosophical of that nature. Rather, it’s a direct product of the disorder and irrationalism capitalism forces the vast majority of humanity to endure. “Today they are burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. To-morrow they will be burning living human bodies”, Dutt stated as early as 1934, predicting the death spiral modern capitalism would allow to fester, leading to the next great war that would end up killing millions of people due to inter-imperialist rivalry desperate for new markets to conquer.[7] Much of the world had been carved up and seized by the British empire, the French, and the U.S., with newly industrialized nations such as Italy and Germany frustrated at their own limited right as Europeans to dominate and control parts of Africa and Asia. This was one of the main reasons precipitating the war, with fascism as a product of this rising anger over the denial of the German peoples and the Italian peoples, and the Japanese, access to more colonies and overseas territories they could also brutally exploit for extreme profit and gain.[8]

Through capitalism, such things as economic growth, competition, and the drive for more are prioritized against what humanity truly requires for its existence, from peace and security to universal access to healthy food, housing and entertainment. This rotting dynamic has been the most pronounced in the U.S., and countries it chooses to ally with, like South Korea, where at the most molecular level, our daily lives become a constant web of stress and rolling chaos. How else to describe being surrounded by so much alleged abundance, and yet, not having consistent access to it based on how much you make, being denied that access in critical moments even, like when severely ill. Sharon Zhang at Truthout wrote merely a few years ago, “A new report done by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that drug prices in the U.S. on average are about two to four times higher than they are in Australia, Canada and France.”[9] Some of this has changed, but only for certain medicines, like insulin, but even then, Americans have died due to this inane system whereby you either have the money to give to these private entities that hoard these essential resources and services, or you are compelled to plead for donations to help pay for life-saving medications instead.[10] How is this sanity, let alone moral?

Most of us navigate our lives with this level of pressure mounting. Either we have limited access to the most fundamental things we need, as employees, as consumers who can sustain some level of income cobbled together in a mesh of part-time and full-time work, or we lose it all in a matter of weeks, months maybe, if we’re so fortunate. One moment you can be at your computer, or at the cash register, filing reports, running items through barcode scanners mindlessly, and in another, you’re hiding in your bedroom as a voice bellows at you from behind your apartment door, right before another eviction notice has been slipped underneath your door.

It is in the “rational” interest to cause this level of mayhem and pain, and panic in our lives by businesses that are allowed to dominate and control how much we work, how much we own, how much time we have to be ourselves. Unemployment is a necessary condition for capitalism to thrive. For private employers to retain an increasing level of profit, they must euphemistically “let people go”, cut them off. There can never be full employment either since capitalists need and desire some level of people without jobs so they can always replace their existing employees if unrest starts to brew, and to drive down wages with this threat in place. Economist Richard Wolff states, “Capitalism makes employment depend chiefly on capitalists’ decisions to undertake production, and those decisions depend on profits. If capitalists expect profits high enough to satisfy them, they hire. If capitalists don’t, we get unemployment. Capitalism requires the unemployed, their families and their communities to live with firing decisions made by capitalists even though they are excluded from participating in those decisions.”[11] Such decisions sow chaos at the personal level for so many, and even social problems that communities must endure (like crime), and yet, these considerations are barely considered since the main guiding light is how heavy a man’s wallet can get.

Dutt too spoke of how major capitalists, just as the global capitalist economy was steadying itself through some measure of increased social democracy, decided to unload workers they felt they didn’t need, once more sowing disorder and political turmoil. “Increasing millions are thrown aside as ‘superfluous’”, he stated.[12]

However, none of this can compare to the most chaotic and disorderly result of all: climate change. Quite literally, the right for mainly Western companies and nations to accrue wealth has been the reason why the waters are rising across the globe, why so much land has become more challenging to grow food on, why the temperatures are rising to dangerously high levels, threatening the majority of the world’s population.[13] The need to see red arrows ticking upward on graphs unveiled at executive boardrooms across Europe and the U.S. has been the reason why humanity is on the brink of extinction.

LORDS OF CHAOS

Only in capitalist societies can thugs like Trump, and Bolsonaro find space to not merely fester, but thrive, and maneuver into major seats of power. At the time of Dutt’s major work, Fascism and Social Revolution, published prior to the horrors of WWII, fascism itself had already become a worldwide phenomenon, having conquered state power in Italy, Germany, Japan, and threatening to do so in the U.S. among other places. Of course, the U.S. itself, although not explicitly run by a fascist party, remained in the throes of white supremacy and colonialist interests. It was the same within the British Isles too, with figures like Winston Churchill already professing his hatred of black and brown peoples, eager for the British government to pour money and technological support behind every hard-right nationalist movement imaginable to squelch the rising tide of “Bolshevism” across parts of Eastern Europe.

The rise of fascism and other forms of extreme forms of racialized terror (i.e. Jim and Jane Crow) had everything to do with capitalism and how it breeds elements of social dysfunction, intentionally or not. At one level, due the chaos that capitalism itself creates and the various classes affected by such chaos, people themselves can be driven, out of lost privilege in many instances, toward extreme right political movements. As Dutt explains, during times of economic crises, no one was immune. Even those who have been raised to believe they are “middle class”, a meaningless vacuous concept designed to obscure one’s true class position (you can earn six figures and still be an employee reliant on your job), can start to feel the ground underneath them shake. However, because such elements of society have been developed intellectually to think they’re entitled to more, and are better than others, in many examples, such groups lash out at those below or around them instead of seeking solidarity against said system of exploitation and unjust results. This is more of an issue, Dutt explains, when societies lack a robust labor movement that’s radical and internationalist, able to funnel the rage of the white-collar workers and occasionally, even small business owners, into something far more productive for themselves and others. In the American context, the rise of overt white supremacy was eventually welcomed by various capitalists because this meant a force that could stamp down on socialist, or more liberatory movements that sought to free the black masses and other nonwhite groups from their position as being heavily exploitable and captured as a consumer base for separate, oftentimes subpar, services and goods.[14]

But even this last point has everything to do with the broader economic system. In the U.S., political power and speech is fundamentally linked with money and wealth. Although on technical terms all civic and various interest groups can participate in lobbying government institutions, for the most part, those who have the most money can effectively shape policy at a greater pace, able to unleash their army of lawyers into every conceivable issue-based policy discussion at Capitol Hill.

Political scientist, Lee Drutman, in one of the rare well-written Atlantic pieces, writes, “Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s. Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.”[15]

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

But beyond the explicit political channels available to people, allegedly, capitalism privileges the worst elements of people to attain power and control. If it is a meritocracy, it is a meritocracy for the craven and cunning, the sociopathic and disjointed. In American life, the distribution of land to white “settlers”, for the purposes of extending capitalist hegemony across the North American continent, empowered the worst to exact revenge and bloodlust against various groups of native and indigenous peoples. The Northern obsession over sustaining high levels of private manufacturing was intrinsically tied to the resources plucked and grown by enslaved Africans.[16]

In the modern era, starting in Dutt’s time, capitalists not only created the conditions for the indirect creation of swamp things and horrid extensions of themselves into the rest of civil society, they actively supported rightwing formations, from the right-wing of the social democrats who promised some measure of stability without “Bolshevism”, to finally, fascist groups and various rightwing nationalists, all of whom dedicated to smashing communist and socialist workers organizations across Europe. In the U.S., the growth of the Klan was supported by business owners, national and regional, as a means of instilling terror and “discipline” against the domestic “horde” of black and nonwhite peoples seeking self-determination, and labor groups vying for dignity and some measure of control over their own lives.[17]

In Italy, Dutt writes, the army itself trained Mussolini’s forces and stepped aside as those same forces rampaged through socialist party labor halls and community centers. As communists threatened to bring democracy to Germany, the German capitalists and their allies abroad eagerly feted and funded what was the Nazi party. “Unlimited funds, not only from German bourgeois, but also from foreign bourgeois sources, were poured into the National Socialist coffers,” he explained.[18]

One of the leading backers of Trump is Elon Musk, a billionaire able to accrue wealth and power during “normal” times under capitalism.[19] Now, he uses that same wealth and influence to spread disinformation and hate speech, reminiscent of the 1920s, through social media, as well as throwing his support behind someone as odious and confusing as Trump, a billionaire himself, having done the brave thing of not paying workers, and inheriting his father’s money.[20]

But before Trump became the increasingly spiteful figure he is, uncomfortably alongside Musk, the political class, both Democrat and “moderate” Republican, supported him, and allowed for him to grow his wealth and control.[21] While working class black and brown families were torn apart in the ‘90s, Trump was applauded for his branding schemes.[22] Just as others were being hit by drones, Trump, even though he was humiliated, was invited to luncheons and major public events, despite his track record of being a notorious scumbag.[23]

Beyond Trump or Trumpism itself, the various scurrilous ideas that consist of his platform, like his intense hatred of immigrants from Latin America, China, and parts of Africa (essentially, the entirety of the nonwhite world), have been pet projects among billionaires for decades.[24] John Tanton, one of the leading “advocates” against immigration from the so-called Third World, soaked in his fear of “demographic” changes to the U.S., succeeded in spreading his poisonous gospel with the aid of benefactors such as Cordelia Scaife May, part of the wealthy Mellon of Carnegie Mellon fame.[25] “With May’s support, Tanton established a small network of think tanks and nonprofits that would, in the decades ahead, grow to become the most powerful mainstream advocates of immigration restriction since the early nineteenth century—a key component in the ruling class’s ideological machinery of exploitation and oppression,” writes Brendan O’Connor in his study of the rise of the modern far right in Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right.[26] As much as companies have branded themselves as empathetic or somewhat oriented to aspects of social justice (at least in some scraps of rhetoric), they easily align with the existing security state as it serves to harass, intimidate and sow mass panic and fear among black and brown working class and poor migrants. “In fact, brands and private industry had pride of place at the Border Security Expo,” O’Connor details, “Corporate sponsors included familiar names like Verizon and Motorola, and other less well-known ones, such as Elbit Systems of America, a subsidiary of Israel’s largest private defense contractor, as well as a handful of IT firms with aggressive slogans like ‘Ever Vigilant’ (CACI), “Securing the Future” (ManTech, and ‘Securing Your Tomorrow’ (Unisys).”[27]

Coalitional corporate entities, like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which includes companies like Amazon and Johnson & Johnson among other heavyweights, exists solely to influence politicians, to develop networks of think tanks, and to pour money into astroturf on-the-ground groups to do everything possible to stall any form of progressive legislation that would improve the lives of working people, and various marginalized groups.[28] Such organizations end up diminishing the natural antibodies of a healthy political system, of radicalized labor and the left, that could serve as a bulwark against impeding fascism. “Despite its generally low profile, ALEC has drawn scrutiny recently for promoting gun rights policies like the Stand Your Ground law at the center of the Trayvon Martin shooting case in Florida, as well as bills to weaken labor unions and tighten voter identification rules.”[29]

What benefits the public interest, including a safe and healthy political system, is far from the minds of most corporations and those who run them, no matter how well spoken and articulate they may be in front of the cameras. A Trump, a Musk, a Sheldon Adelson, a Bill Gates, a Jeff Bezos, Steve Bannon will routinely slither into the moonlight so long as there exists the swamp, a bubbling sweltering pile of business “rationale” and anti-egalitarian anti-human debris, lurking and seeking an opportunity to smash and dominate. 

And when the contradictions of life under capitalist hegemony expands, such forces will continue to unify against any form of legitimate and effective labor and justice-oriented agitation. They’d rather watch the world burn than allow for anyone to be able to control their own waking lives.

COMMUNISM IS ORDER & PEACE

Communism has stood in stark contrast to the chaos and lack of control that most people endure while surviving the vicious cycle of booms and busts in a capitalist system. Under capitalism, social dysfunction and disorder are the norm, increasingly so. This is not to suggest that somehow all social issues or at all times, social order, will be present in a socialist world. There will still be tensions between people, conflicting issues too. But what is so different about a socialist world compared to a capitalist one that we have currently, a product of U.S. imperial rule, is that such disorder and dysfunction are severely limited, and can be better resolved since the prime objective of a socialist society internationally is one that privileges and incentivizes the public welfare over private selfish desires, especially any that’s been attached to the profit-motive that’s led us down this abyss that we’re currently experiencing.

“The workers’ dictatorship is the only alternative to the capitalist dictatorship, which at present is increasingly passing from the older ‘democratic’ to Fascist forms,” Dutt stated.[30]

Peace and security, social order and justice can only be achieved once there is a system in place  that doesn’t allow for wealth to equate with political power and rampant influence. Order and peace is unleashed, allowed to thrive, when goods and services are managed, not for private gain, but rather for the public welfare. In a socialist society, people would still need to labor, but when they do, it’ll not be for any private employer. Instead, it would be done to help provide what the general public needs and wants. Housing, healthcare, education, entertainment, and food, among other fundamental things that make life worth living will be managed and distributed by government institutions, institutions that are transparent and have a higher level of input from workers, and communities that have historically been displaced and disenfranchised.

Essentially, to prevent the world from slipping back into the clutches of political and economic chaos, there can be no capitalist class. There can be no so-called “free market” in charge of how people access basic amenities. The U.S. imperial regime, which has done so much to redistribute land and resources for herself and her allies the world over, must be dismantled, replaced by a global world order of governments seeking common solutions and health for the world’s majority, especially for those who’ve been often condemned to a life of immiseration and dysfunction due to the rise of the U.S. global regime.[31]

Socialism brings us closer to ourselves as human beings, not as profit-seeking monsters, sometimes compelled by capitalism’s latent drive for more and more, to destroy ourselves and others. Trumps will certainly still show themselves in a socialist society, the art of dissent is still one that can be easily manipulated by nefarious forces claiming pluralism and “democracy”. But in a socialist world that seeks to uplift the historically exploited and oppressed, backed by governments that work tirelessly to help regulate society in ways that benefits the majority of such groups, not only shall the rightwing remain a tiny minority, but if they do start to boil and bubble over, will find no allies in higher institutions of management and governing. Instead, they will only find what we ourselves experience today, repression and the prioritization of positive public policies that value the oppressed and exploited, which include our right to control those elements that threaten us.

“Only the working-class revolution can save humanity, can carry humanity forward, can organise the enormous powers of production that lie ready to hand,” Dutt had stated, when optimism and pessimism clashed.[32]

Examples of this future we can see glimmers of in countries such as Cuba, where healthcare remains a right, despite the brutal U.S. embargo.[33] Or in places like Vietnam, a country that rebuilt itself, almost miraculously, following the brutal occupation of French and U.S. forces.[34] China too, despite some of its flaws, represents forms of political thinking that can prove useful to the rest of the planet. As Covid-19 became reality, it was China’s government that so swiftly directed the masses to construct hospital after hospital to care for its own.[35]

In America too, there have been fleeting moments but moments nonetheless of what can be possible. The early days of the Reconstruction era, as W.E.D. Du Bois examined in his classic Black Reconstruction, saw the federal government, for the first time in U.S. history, rise to the occasion in creating government programs and institutions that could provide basic schooling and healthcare to the masses, black and white, while having troops stationed across the confederacy to stifle emergent white supremacist rebellions and putsch.[36] It was only when the federal government retreated from these stated objectives that the white supremacist gangs had taken over and conquered political power.

But what was done can be done again. There is no other choice anyway. It is either we, as Dutt states, “rise to the height of its task”, of finding ways to generate the social movements that can create order and stability that people crave, and need, or we witness total devolution and chaos. Nothing is set in stone, yet. The waters haven’t risen over our heads, not yet at least. But whatever we choose to do has to be done, very, very soon.

There will be no order and peace, or security, until the capitalist and the colonizer have been obliterated.

 
Notes

[1] Merlyn Thomas & Mike Wendling, “Trump repeats baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating pets,” BBC News, Sept. 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77l28myezko.

[2] Rasha Khatib, et. al, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential,” The Lancet, July 10, 2024, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext.

[3] R. Palme Dutt, Fascism & Social Revolution (New York: International Publishing Co., 1934), 64.

[4] Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts (New York: Verso, 2002).

[5] Christopher D. Cook, “Farmers are destroying mountains of food. Here's what to do about it,” The Guardian, May 7 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/07/farmers-food-covid-19.

[6] Keith Bradsher & Andrew Martin, “U.S. in Difficult Position Over Japan’s Rice Plan,” New York Times, May 23, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/business/worldbusiness/23rice.html.

[7] Dutt, 68.

[8] Dutt, Fascism & Social Revolution.

[9] Sharon Zhang, “Prescription Drugs in US Are Quadruple What They Cost Elsewhere, Report Finds,” Truthout, April 21, 2021, https://truthout.org/articles/prescription-drugs-in-u-s-are-quadruple-what-they-cost-elsewhere-report-finds/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA65m7BhAwEiwAAgu4JHAE9XUZPidG3m1RSVg_DXL1XYekevJptgBSD5C58J0r2Cv9NnbEPhoC6tAQAvD_BwE.

[10] Ben Popken, “With rise in patients dying from rationing insulin, U.N. tries a new solution,” NBC News, Nov. 15, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/rise-patients-dying-rationing-insulin-u-n-tries-new-solution-n1083816.

[11] Richard Wolff, “Capitalism and Unemployment,” Truthout, Nov. 15, 2013, https://truthout.org/articles/capitalism-and-unemployment/.

[12] Dutt, 44.

[13] “Crop Changes,” National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/how-to-live-with-it/crops.html.

[14] Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990).

[15] Lee Drutman, “How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy,” The Atlantic, April 20, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/.

[16] Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America (New York: MacMillan, 2020).

[17] Linda Gordon, The Second Coming of the KKK (New York: W.W. Norton, 2018).

[18] Dutt, 139.

[19] Maggie Haberman, et. al, “How Elon Musk Has Planted Himself Almost Literally at Trump’s Doorstep,” New York Times, Dec. 30, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/us/politics/elon-musk-trump-mar-a-lago.html.

[20] David Barstow, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father,” New York Times, Oct. 2, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html.

[21] Maureen Dowd, “When Hillary and Donald Were Friends,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/when-hillary-and-donald-were-friends.html.

[22] Lisette Voytko-Best, “Judge Rules Trump Can Be Sued For Marketing Scheme Fraud,” Forbes, July 26, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2019/07/25/judge-rules-trump-can-be-sued-for-marketing-scheme-fraud/.

[23] Shawn McCreesh, “Trump Among New York’s Elites at a Charity Dinner: It Got Awkward,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/18/us/elections/donald-trump-al-smith-dinner-new-york.html.

[24] Christine Ro, “Why African Groups Want Reparations From The Gates Foundation,” Forbes, Sept. 2, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2024/09/02/why-african-groups-want-reparations-from-the-gates-foundation/.

[25] Nicholas Kulish & Mike Mcintire, “Why an Heiress Spent Her Fortune Trying to Keep Immigrants Out,” New York Times, August 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html.

[26] Brendan O’Connor, Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right (New York: Haymarket, 2021), 29.

[27] Brendan O’Connor, 175.

[28] Alex SeitzWald, “Revealed: Full List of ALEC’s Corporate Members,” Truthout, May 5, 2012, https://truthout.org/articles/revealed-full-list-of-alecs-corporate-members/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA1Km7BhC9ARIsAFZfEIufx4FOoy_3vNZHfBMnvL2x7OEGtWbVauJtxl46Oc2GgUqhsUP8h30aAkgBEALw_wcB.

[29] Mike McIntire, “Conservative Nonprofit Acts as a Stealth Business Lobbyist,” New York Times, April 21, 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legislators-and-lobbyists.html.

[30] Dutt, 306.

[31] “Hugo Chavez Harshly Criticizes Bush at U.N.,” NPR, Sept. 20, 2006, https://www.npr.org/2006/09/20/6111080/hugo-chavez-harshly-criticizes-bush-at-u-n.

[32] Dutt, 309.

[33] David Blumenthal, “Fidel Castro's Health Care Legacy,” The Commonwealth Fund, Nov. 26, 2016, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2016/fidel-castros-health-care-legacy.

[34] “Viet Nam’s Economy is Forecast to Grow 6.1% in 2024: WB“, World Bank, August 26, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/08/26/viet-nam-s-economy-is-forecast-to-grow-6-1-in-2024-wb.

[35] Yuliya Talmazan, “China's coronavirus hospital built in 10 days opens its doors, state media says,” NBC News, Feb. 3, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-s-coronavirus-hospital-built-10-days-opens-its-doors-n1128531.

[36] W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (New York: The Free Press, 1935).

Trump, Tariffs, and Trade: ‘Protectionism’ Won’t Save Workers

By Eugene Puryear

Republished from Liberation News.

President-elect Donald Trump has declared his intention to enact tariffs on trade from, at least, China, Mexico and Canada. He’s also threatening tariffs on BRICS nations if they are not sufficiently supportive of the dollar. Trump has also floated an across-the-board tariff on all goods coming into the country, and specific tariffs on individual companies like John Deere. These tariffs are supposed to improve the situation for the American worker and the country writ large. Given the ravages of deindustrialization in large swaths of the United States, moving away from “free trade” holds an instinctive appeal to those of us fighting to make ends meet. 

In reality “protectionism,” as these sorts of tariff policies are called, is just another of the ruling elite’s economic strategies. That, like, “free trade,” comes with a range of problems for workers, to greater or lesser degrees depending on one’s occupation. With Trump linking tariffs to issues like migration, dollar supremacy and managing the fall-out of tax cuts for the wealthy, the general effects of tariffs will also be affected by political shocks.

The very debate over “trade policy” reflects how inadequate the capitalist system is for meeting the needs of the vast majority of working and poor people. The problems it looks to solve can only be addressed by replacing the profit-first orientation of capitalism with the people-first orientation of socialism. 

Tariffs 101

A tariff is a tax — a tax on goods coming into a country from another jurisdiction. The popular perception is that this is a tax on foreign companies in other countries. However, the reality is different. A tariff is a tax on imports, so most of the burden falls on the companies importing either fully produced goods or parts to assemble or sell in the U.S. 

In other words, if Wal-Mart buys TVs from China to sell in its U.S. stores, Wal-Mart pays the tariff when it receives the TV’s from China. Wal-Mart can, of course, increase the price of the TV to absorb the cost of the tariff, meaning the tax is really paid by the person trying to buy an affordable TV. Wal-Mart might buy more TVs from a U.S. company, creating some jobs. However, in addition to higher production costs, less competition means the U.S. TV companies also can increase their prices. So, at the end of the day, all the TVs in Wal-Mart are going to be more expensive. 

During Trump’s first term, for example, tariffs were placed on washing machines. One study found that approximately 1,800 new jobs were created at Whirlpool, Samsung and LG factories in the U.S. However, according to the same study, in the months following those tariffs, prices for washers and dryers increased as well, by $86 and $92 per unit, respectively.

As Trump himself has noted about the impact of his proposed new tariff policies when asked if he could “guarantee” that it would not raise prices: “I can’t guarantee anything.”

‘Benefits?’

For the working class, understanding these trade-offs is crucial. What can benefit one subset of our class, can hurt the other, and in both senses “hurt” and “help” are relative concepts. Autoworkers, for instance, suffer on the job injury rates twice as high as workers overall. At the Rivian Automotive electric vehicle factory, for example, workers sustained injuries as serious as cracked skulls, bone fractures, back lacerations that required surgery and even amputated fingers. 

So, increasing “manufacturing jobs” is no panacea, even if the salaries are higher than in other working-class sectors. Nonetheless, the appeal of tariffs to many is that it will bring overseas manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. In Trump’s own words:

This new American industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs, massively raise wages for American workers, and make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse like it used to be many years ago.

The year 1979 was the peak of manufacturing employment in the U.S., with 19.5 million employed. Currently there are 12.8 million manufacturing workers, a difference of 6.7 million. During Trump’s first term, when he also pursued various tariffs, manufacturing employment, at best, increased by 350,000 jobs over four years. Even if you were to add in the best case scenario of the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, the possibility of more than a few hundred thousand manufacturing jobs a year being created seems highly unlikely. In such circumstances, manufacturing jobs reaching the level they were at in the year 2000, much less 1979, is a faraway prospect. 

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

Further, most workers — roughly 90% — do not work in manufacturing, placing them on the losing end of cost increases associated with tariffs. One analysis estimates that the tens of millions of workers making less than $55,000 could see their cost-of-living go up between 5-6% from Trump’s tariff proposals. The heaviest burden falls on those making less than $28,600, which is already “insufficient to meet a one-person basic family budget in any county or metro area in the United States.”

The real motive

Trump’s tariff policy, from a worker’s perspective, is classic divide and conquer. It entices those struggling with the cost-of-living with the limited, possible opportunity at getting a higher-paying manufacturing job, while making life more expensive for everyone else, in particular the lowest paid workers. This faux-pro-worker policy, then, really has different goals. First and foremost is to kneecap China’s economy. 

Since the earliest days of capitalism, tariffs have been used for such purposes. When combined with military power, tariffs are a way for capitalists in one country to maintain their advantages over others. As Fredrich Engels, pioneering Marxist, noted: “England thus supplemented the protection she practiced at home by the Free Trade she forced upon her possible customers abroad; and, thanks to this happy mixture of both systems, at the end of the wars, in 1815, she found herself, with regard to all important branches of industry, in possession of the virtual monopoly of the trade of the world.” 

Significant tariffs on China directly (or third countries where Chinese businesses invest to export to the U.S.), combined with sanctions policy and military force, are designed to raise the “cost of doing business” with Chinese companies for companies from anywhere looking to also do business in the United States. The hope is to slow Chinese economic growth and development and/or forcing China to make various economic concessions to the U.S. 

Another motivation for Trump’s tariff policy is to try to cover the holes he plans to create through his trillion dollar tax transfers to billionaires. Trump and the Republicans are promising to extend the tax cuts they enacted in 2017 at the cost of $4 trillion, primarily benefiting the ultra-rich. The average tax cut for the bottom 60% of the country would be $500, for people with $5 million in income, the average tax cut would be $280,000. 

The only way to address the government’s debt, also a Trump promise, while pursuing these tax cuts (and more) would be destructive cuts to essentially all vital government programs, including Social Security. Since most workers certainly would not like to see their retirement cut so that millionaires can buy new cars and boats, tariffs are meant to try to keep enough critical programs afloat that it staves off mass anger. 

Failure all around

Most estimates show Trump’s tariffs will not be enough to replace losses from his tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and real life has shown that Trump and Biden’s tariff policies have failed to hobble Chinese steel or auto companies. So, even considering its true purpose, Trump’s tariff proposals are unlikely to meet their goals. Not to mention they are going to increase costs for working-class people, create — at best — a very limited number of manufacturing jobs, and possibly slow down the U.S. and global economy leading to more economic misery for the working class. 

Trump’s “protectionism” is no better than the alternative of “free trade.” They are both just capitalist strategies to maintain their stranglehold on wealth and power. 

As we’ve noted before, “Relentless focus on profit is core to capitalism. This obsession with profit is the system’s motor engine.” Yet since 1969, profitability has been trending downward. The first response of the capitalist class, starting in the 1970s, to promote policies that have become known as “neoliberalism”: expanding production in the developing world (globalization); attacks on public spending and progressive taxation (austerity); and a massive expansion of U.S. military power to subdue those who refuse to comply with the imperial agenda.​​ Which all came with a heavy dose of “free trade” ideology. 

These strategies failed to fully restore profitability and created their own contradictions, like the rise of China, that also created issues for the ruling class. So now, a new “protectionist” strategy has arisen to apply different medicine to the same illness. What is really needed is radical surgery, a total change in the economy, from profit first, to people first, or, socialism.

Dirty Break or Destruction: The Peculiar Politics of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

By Youhanna Haddad

Perhaps the critics were right.

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States. Founded in 1982 by a cadre of social democrats, the group has since swelled to roughly 100,000 official members. Virtually all of that growth occurred after Senator Bernie Sanders launched his first presidential run, which mainstreamed socialism in America. What was once a marginal bunch now regularly makes headlines and even has members in Congress.

Yet the Democratic Socialists of America is hardly uncontroversial on the American Left. A longstanding critique is that it’s too reformist and cozy with a Democratic Party it should be trying to destroy. Rather than mobilizing to build independent institutions, leftist critics believe the organization siphons socialist energy into the duopoly’s lesser evil. That is arguably counterrevolutionary as it may further lock us into a capitalist political system which only serves the elite.

Naturally, members forcefully resist this characterization of their organization. But recent events seem to have vindicated the critics in many ways. On August 6th, the Democratic Socialists of America’s official Twitter account posted the following:

“[Vice President Kamala] Harris choosing [Minnesota governor Tim] Walz as a running mate has shown the world that DSA and our allies on the left are a force that cannot be ignored. Through collective action… DSA members… organized… to support Palestinian liberation… and… pressured the Democratic establishment into… backing down from a potential VP with direct ties to the IDF and who would have ferociously supported the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

The DSA seemingly believes Walz is a solid choice and that Democrats caved to leftist activists in choosing him. A closer look at Walz, however, reveals that he is no progressive. He is, at best, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Although much of his worse escapades have been so brazen that Walz is really a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY

For example, he regularly speaks before the Minnesota Israel lobby. The Jewish Community Relations Council has applauded the governor’s “pro-Israel record.” Days after October 7th, Walz addressed the Council “in solidarity with Israel against the terrorism of Hamas.” In the speech, Walz made it clear that he stands “firmly with the state of Israel and the righteousness of the cause.” That cause, recall, is apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians.

But that’s not all. When Palestinian constituents who lost family members in the Gaza genocide wanted to meet with Walz, he refused. The Minnesota governor originally agreed to the meeting under the belief that these Palestinians would merely share their stories. When they informed Walz of their intention to discuss divestment and other material policy, he ordered his staff to cancel.

At a conference of the extremist Zionist American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Walz called Israel “our truest and closest ally.” He touted the apartheid state’s supposed “commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties.” As a federal congressman, Walz voted to condemn a United Nations resolution declaring Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal. This placed Walz to the right of longstanding State Department policy, overturned by Donald Trump, that considered the incursions illegitimate.

It’s clear where Walz’s sympathies lie — with the Zionists and against the innocent men, women, and children they’re slaughtering. So it appears the Democratic Socialists of America were wrong. The Democrats didn’t respond to their calls for a free Palestine. Instead, they installed another stooge who will gleefully abet the ongoing holocaust in Gaza.

Democrats aren’t listening to socialist organizers. Pretending they are sells false hope, and enables liberal politicians to take leftist votes and run. Throughout their careers, Harris and Walz have made it abundantly clear where they stand.

Neither has any real commitment to working people at home or abroad. Their lack of such commitment is precisely what allows them to thrive in the fundamentally irredeemable Democratic Party. Despite the DSA’s official line, many members understand this. Within the organization exists a robust movement for a “dirty break” from the Democrats. One member described the strategy as follows

In the short term, the DSA should keep “run[ning] candidates on the Democratic… ballot line.” But the crux of the dirty break is that, concurrently, the DSA should begin building an independent working-class party. Upon assembling a sufficient infrastructure and voter base, the DSA should abandon the Democrats and run candidates under its banner.

One thing the DSA could do to facilitate a dirty break is further broaden its big tent. Currently, the DSA’s constitution essentially bans members of “democratic-centralist organizations” from joining. This excludes many Leninists, who are some of the biggest advocates for an independent working-class party. And while there are numerous Marxist-Leninist organizations that already exist as an alternative to groups like the DSA — with the most recent iteration coming from academic Carlos Garrido, who is involved in building such a party — it would make sense for the DSA to welcome the inclusion of this radical energy, rather than continuing to buffer it. As DSA members have yet to make much progress toward a dirty break, they could use such vigor. 

While not all DSA members support a dirty break, the vision is there. That alone may help many DSAers avoid the Democratic ruse of courting progressives for their votes before summarily abandoning them. Historically, stumbling into this trap seems to be the DSA’s modus operandi. But it won’t lead anywhere good.

The organization should instead empower its dirty breakers and channel the energy the DSA undeniably possesses into independent institutions which challenge — not serve — imperialist hegemony. And if the DSA doesn’t do that, other groups should emerge to supplant it.

Youhanna Haddad is a North American Marxist of the Arab diaspora. Through his writing, he seeks to combat the Western liberal dogmas that uphold racial capitalism. You can contact him at youhannahaddad@gmail.com.

Debunking Myths About Venezuela: What's Really Going On?

[Photo Credit: MIGUEL GUTIERREZ/EPA/Shutterstock]

By Eli Morey

Republished from Liberation Center.

Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela’s socialist movement, won the July 28 Venezuela presidential election by a wide margin. In a near-repeat of 2019,  the Biden administration  immediately declared the election illegitimate and recognized their preferred—but badly defeated–candidate as the winner, Edmundo González as the winner, just as they supported Juan Guaido’s pitiful attempt to take power in 2019-2020. Similarly, the U.S. is fully supporting current right-wing violence in Venezuela to set the stage for another coup against the legitimate and widely popular government.

None of this appears in the corporate media, of course. Instead, we only encounter accusations of “corruption” and “illegitimate” elections.

What about the polls that showed Maduro losing?

Headlines in the U.S. cite polls as evidence of fraud in the 2024 elections. According to some polls, Maduro trailed the opposition by a wide margin in the lead-up to election day. A closer look reveals that these polls are not a reliable source of information about Venezuelan voter preferences. 

In fact, each of the four polls cited by Western media were run by organizations with a clear conflict of interest:

1. The Encuestadora Meganálisis poll is openly affiliated with the opposition, as their Facebook page filled with videos denouncing Madruo and the Bolivarian Revolution.

2. The Caracas-based Delphos poll is directed by Felix Seijas Rodriguez, an outspoken member of the Venezuelan opposition who has authored numerous articles attacking Maduro and even discussing U.S. military intervention against Venezuela.

3. OCR Consultores is a “consultancy” group whose Director, Oswaldo Ramirez Colina, lives in Miami, where the group is headquartered. Colina studied “Terrorism and Counterterrorism” at Georgetown University, which is notoriously cozy with the CIA. He has appeared on news segments and podcast episodes criticizing Maduro and questioning the legitimacy of Venezuela’s electoral processes.

4. Edison Research, whose exit poll claimed Maduro’s loss, has “top clients [that] include CIA-linked US government propaganda outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, all of which are operated by the US Agency for Global Media, a Washington-based organ that is used to spread disinformation against US adversaries.”

Are elections in Venezuela free and fair?

While western media consistently accuses Maduro of rigging elections, there is zero evidence to support this claim. In both the 2018 and 2024 elections, thousands of international observers were present at polling stations across Venezuela. 

In fact, even mainstream liberal organizations like the Carter foundation have praised Venezuela’s electoral system. In 2012, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said that “as a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Who are the leaders of the opposition?

Maduro’s primary opponent in the elections, Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia, was not a big figure in Venezuelan politics until this most recent election cycle. He is primarily serving as a stand-in for Maria Corina Machado, who is the true face of Venezuela’s opposition. 

Machado is on the far right. Her policies would undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty by privatizing national assets and selling off Venezuela’s oil reserves to western corporations. 

She is also a proud and open Zionist. In fact, in 2018 she wrote a letter directly to Benjamin Netanyahu asking Israel to intervene militarily in Venezuela to conduct a “regime change” operation in order to overthrow its democratically elected government. In 2020, she signed a cooperation agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud party stating that they were in agreement on “political, ideological, and social issues” and “issues related to strategy, geopolitics and security.”

The right-wing’s violence is particularly directed against Afro-Venezuelans and the indigenous populations because the Revolution has greatly benefitted the sectors of society who have historically been excluded and oppressed. In 2014, a right-wing group beat a law student named William Muñoz, and doused him in gasoline. Fortunately, an ambulance rescued Muñoz before the mob could ignite the gasoline. In 2017, the right-wing went on a rampage targeting darker-skinned Venezuelans, setting them on fire and even lynching them.

Why and how does the U.S. try to overthrow the Venezuelan government?

It is not only the domestic reactionaries that constantly threaten the Revolution. Particularly since 2005, the U.S. has deployed numerous strategies to reverse the revolutionary gains of Venezuela.

A few years after the presidential election of Hugo Chávez, representing the Fifth Republic Movement, the U.S. ruling class started openly working to destroy Venezuela’’s socialist government since the Bolivarian Revolution began with the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, who ran as the Fifth Republic Movement’s candidate.’s government. Under Chávez’s leadership, Venezuela’s democratic processes expanded quickly and rapidly. In 1999, Venezuela adopted a new constitution that created a constituent assembly, bringing the people into positions of power to pass laws in their interests. Land was redistributed and social goods like housing and education were prioritized thanks to the massive oil reserves of the country.

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

What became known as the Bolivarian Revolution, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)—which formed in 2007—was a spark that set off a “pink tide” throughout Latin America. Progressive governments came to power in Brazil and Bolivia, and people’s movements surged across the continent. With state power, progressives and socialists formed new alliances to challenge U.S. domination and imperialism, including notably ALBA, or the Alliance for the People’s of Our America. Founded in 2004, ALBA enables Latin American and other countries to engage in non-exploitative trade and other inter-state projects and agreements.

Sanctions were the first tactic the U.S. deployed against the Revolution. By depriving the government of the ability to fund social programs, the intent was and is to create widespread poverty and misery to foment dissent and blaming the results of the sanctions on the policies of the Venezuelan government.

If Venezuela’s socialist government was allowed to engaged in “free trade,” they could make even more impressive advances for their people and inspire other countries to follow in their path. As a result, Venezuela is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, with over 900 unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States alone. The U.S. has actively worked for over a decade to destabilize the Venezuelan economy specifically by targeting its oil industry and its financial sector.

However, undermining the Venezuelan economy is just one element of the U.S. hybrid war on Venezuela. There have also been multiple coup attempts with links to the U.S. Here are a few:

• 2002: Socialist president Hugo Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power by military coup plotters connected to Venezuelan big business. After two days, huge protests in support of Chavez forced the coup government out of power and restored the constitutional order. Chavez was freed and returned to the presidency.

• 2019: In 2018 the opposition boycotted the elections, and as a result their candidates lost by a huge margin. In spite of this, they then declared opposition figurehead Juan Guaidó—who had not even run in the elections and won 0 votes—the new interim president of Venezuela. The United States immediately recognized Guaidó as the president of Venezuela. The following year Guaidó led a failed coup attempt against Maduro. 

• 2020: “Operation Gideon,” an armed invasion of Venezuela led by a former member of the U.S. Army special forces, was defeated by the Venezuelan military.

Why are so many immigrants leaving Venezuela?

Millions of people have left Venezuela in the last 10 years. While the U.S. media often portrays these people as political refugees fleeing a dictatorship, the reality is quite different. 

Global oil prices dropped drastically in the mid 2010s. Oil is a key component of Venezuela’s economy. This would not have been a problem if Venezuela was able to take out loans to cover shortfalls until the price of oil rebounded. Oil-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE are able to get cheap loans when oil prices decline because they are allies of the U.S. and EU. In Venezuela’s case, the U.S. did everything it could to undermine the Venezuelan economy in a moment of crisis, and prevent its economy from rebuilding in the wake of disaster. 

Most of Venezuela’s immigrants are in fact victims of the U.S’s harsh sanctions regime, which has damaged Venezuela’s economy and prevented it from accessing key goods including food and medicine. 

Why do I see posts on social media calling Maduro a dictator?

After every election there are outspoken people who are upset about the outcome. If you were to look on social media or talk to random people on the street after the 2016 or 2020 elections in the U.S, you would certainly find people angry or confused about the results. You would probably also encounter people claiming that the election was rigged. This does not amount to evidence of election fraud. 

In the U.S. and on western social media platforms, the anti-Maduro position is over-represented because of the number of expats living in the United States. Venezuelans living here have, for the most part, left Venezuela either because they had the money to leave when the economy took a downturn, or they left out of desperation when the economy was at its lowest point. These are the segments of the population most likely to be critical of Maduro, most likely to speak English, and most likely to be on American social media pages and platforms.

Alternatively, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution is in the working class, poor, and indigenous people living in the barrios and rural villages of Venezuela. These people are significantly less likely to speak English, have smartphones, or be active on social media platforms like Instagram. Their voices are never centered in conventional media like TV and radio in the United States, which is largely run by corporations with a vested interest in demonizing socialism.

What is the Bolivarian Revolution and why do the masses support it?

Under the leadership of Chavez and later Maduro, notable achievements were made in spite of ongoing attempts by the U.S. to sabotage Venezuela’s socialist project. The main vehicles for these achievements has been the mobilization of the working class and the misiones, or “missions,” which are long-term economic and social development programs. The Bolivarian government has built over 4 million new homes for poor people living in substandard housing as part of the Misión Habitat. Over 10 million poor Venezuelans have benefited from subsidized food under a program called Misión Mercal. Another program known as Mision Barrio Adentro built thousands of clinics and community centers in an effort to provide free healthcare and dental care to Venezuela’s poorest people.

A massive literacy campaign in the 2000s helped over a million people to read and write. In spite of economic hardships due to the oil crisis and U.S. sanctions, millions of Venezuelans continue to support the Maduro government because of the tangible benefits it provides in their day-to-day lives. This is even more understandable given the ruthless nature of the racist right-wing opposition.

On the Marxist Critique of Heidegger

By Carlos Garrido

Martin Heidegger is undoubtedly one of the most creative and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Virtually all areas of philosophy, along with many other disciplines as well, have had to tackle in one form or another the questions he poses, and the insights he provides. His work grasped the zeitgeist of the 1930s and 40s for most of continental philosophy. It is a tour de force Marxist philosophers must face head on. Simply calling it ‘bourgeois,’ ‘Nazi’, or the expression of the middle-class state of being in post WW1 Germany is not enough. While it is important to situate Heidegger in his proper historical and class context, and while it is essential to show the Nazism and antisemitism he was undoubtedly committed to for a significant period of his life, this is insufficient to defeat the thought of this giant.

Other leftist scholars have already made tremendous inroads in this area. Since at least the publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, but especially now with the publication of Richard Wolin’s recent text, Heidegger in Ruins, the intimate connection between Heidegger and Nazism is indisputable – even though many, including those working within his Gesamtausgabe (collected works), have tried to paper over it. Certainly, to borrow an expression Domenico Losurdo uses to describe Nietzsche scholarship, there has pervaded a “hermeneutic of innocence” in Heideggerian scholarship which tries to divorce his work from the essentially political context that embeds it. Its political horizon, its class basis, its connection with Nazism, these are all things any Marxist discussion on Heidegger should include. But we must ask, is this enough to ‘defeat’ Heidegger? If he was simply a ‘Nazi,’ why hasn’t he, like Emmanual Faye suggests, been taken off philosophy shelves and put next to Goebbels?[1]

Why have so many leftist scholars in the Global South and East, thinkers aware of Heidegger’s Nazism, turned in various parts of their work to Heidegger for insights? Unlike the tradition of Western Marxism, where the eclecticism is intimately connected to a politics that throws on the support of imperialism a radical veneer, a lot of these scholars are fervent critics of U.S. imperialism and have stood for decades on the side of socialist construction. Why does, for instance, the late Bolivian Marxist, Juan Jose Bautista Segales, find that he can incorporate insights from Heidegger’s critique of modernity into the process of understanding the dimensions of the indigenous struggle for socialism, a struggle that must, necessarily, tarry with the question of capitalist modernity?  Why does the Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff, one of the founders of the radical, Christian Socialist liberation theology tendency, central to so many socialist and anti-imperialist struggles in Latin American, turn to Heidegger to discuss the question of care in ethics?

In his Prison Notebooks Antonio Gramsci reminds us that:

A new science proves its efficacy and vitality when it demonstrates that it is capable of confronting the great champions of the tendencies opposed to it and when it either resolves by its own means the vital questions which they have posed or demonstrates, in peremptory fashion, that these questions are false problems.[2]

Gramsci would go on to lambast Nikolai Bukharin, in part, for failing to address in his ‘Manual’ the critics of Marxism in their utmost coherence, i.e., for failing to deal with the best bourgeois philosophy and science had to offer, opting instead to obtaining the quick victories one gets when they challenge an opponent of a lower caliber. Gramsci says that while reading Bukharin’s text, “one has the impression of someone who cannot sleep for the moonlight and who struggles to massacre the fireflies in the belief that by so doing he will make the brightness lessen or disappear.”[3]

Unfortunately, a similar fatal flaw can be observed in the traditional Marxist-Leninist critiques of Heidegger. Far from engaging with him honestly and comprehensively, we have opted for quick victories based on dismissals of his thought as petty-bourgeois, subjectivist, Nazi, etc. While components of this critique are certainly true, they are not enough – i.e., they are not worthy of proper Marxist-Leninist critique. Yes, Marx, Engels, and Lenin name-called their opponents and spoke of the class positions and subsequent political interests they often spoke from – but in conjunction with this was always a thorough demolishing of their arguments along the kind described by Gramsci previously. Additionally, how these thinkers expressed in their work and concerns a class position was something that was proved, i.e., there was a concrete study of the relationship between the base and superstructure, between the class the thinker represents and the ideas they enunciate. This refined analysis has often been missing in our tradition’s treatment of Heidegger. Far too often conclusions that have to be proven are accepted simply at face value. As R. T. De George, who did an umbrella study of Marxist-Leninist writing on Heidegger up until the mid-1960s, argued,

The failure of Marxist criticism of Heidegger, as well as of other Western philosophers, is not necessarily that it has been wrong; but rather that most of it has been shallow, polemical, beside the point, and poor Marxism. Marxist criticism is difficult. Marxist-Leninist criticism has become too easy. It would perhaps be too much to ask that Marxists follow Lenin's advice and criticize not in the manner of Feuerbach but in the manner of Hegel, i.e. not by merely rejecting views but by correcting them "deepening, generalizing, and extending them, showing the connection and transitions of each and every concept". But this presumably is what Marxist and Marxist Leninist philosophy should do.[4]

De George is, of course, not a Marxist. But he is right to call us out on this shortcoming. In doing so he is being a good ideological enemy, an enemy that, to use an obscene American expression, wants us to get our shit together.

In the 20th century, the best inroads into the Marxist-Leninist critique of Heidegger would be made by Georg Lukács, who situates him within the irrationalism of the imperialist period in his seminal Destruction of Reason. Here Lukács is correct about what it takes to carry forth this critique in a proper Marxist manner. He writes:

To reveal [a thinker’s] social genesis and function is of the greatest importance, but in itself by no means sufficient. Granted, the objectivity of progress will suffice correctly to condemn as reactionary an individual phenomenon or orientation. But a really Marxist-Leninist critique of reactionary philosophy cannot permit itself to stop at this. Rather it must show in real terms, in the philosophical material itself, the philosophical falsity and the distortion of basic philosophical questions, the negation of philosophy's achievements and so on… To this extent, an immanent critique is a justified and indeed indispensable element in the portrayal and exposure of reactionary tendencies in philosophy. The classic Marxist authors have constantly used it. Engels, for example, in his Anti-Duhring and Lenin in his Empirio-Criticism. To reject immanent criticism as one element in an overall survey also embracing social genesis and function, class characteristics, exploration of the true nature of society and so on is bound to lead to a philosophical sectarianism, to the attitude that everything which is axiomatic to a conscious Marxist-Leninist is also immediately obvious to his readers…[Therefore, while] the antithesis between the various bourgeois ideologies and the achievements of dialectical and historical materialism is the self-evident foundation of our treatment and critique of the subject-matter, [we must still] prove in factual, philosophical terms the inner incoherence, contradictoriness, etc., of the separate philosophies [as] also unavoidable if one wants to illustrate their reactionary character in a truly concrete way.[5]

This is precisely the task that Lukács sets for himself in this monumental text. However, as he tells us, it is a task that cannot possibly be completed in one book, even an 800 page one. The Heidegger section, for instance, is a mere 25 pages. Even shorter is his treatment of Heidegger in Existentialism or Marxism, published a few years after. Nonetheless, it is on the basis of this limited work that a proper Marxist-Leninist critique of Heidegger can be developed.

Lukács tells us that with Heidegger phenomenology “turned into the ideology of the agony of individualism in the imperialist period.”[6] He performed a “terminological camouflaging of subjective idealism,” a “transference of purely subjective-idealist positions into objective (i.e., pseudo-objective) ones.”[7] His “ontological materiality” and claims to concreteness “remained purely declarative,” dominated through and through by irrationalistic arbitrariness and an “epistemological hocus pocus.”[8] Even in the aspects of his thought that are ‘historical’, what is operative, Lukács argues, is the “transformation of real history into a mythified pseudo-history.”[9] In Heidegger the “Husserlian tendency towards a strictly scientific approach,” intuitivist and irrationalist though it might have been in its own right, had now “faded completely.”[10] Philosophy’s task was “to keep investigation open by means of questions.”[11] The discipline is turned into a big question rigamarole centered on a question of Being that had already been answered by the discipline more than a century prior in Hegel’ Science of Logic, where it was shown, in its indeterminacy, to be indistinguishable from nothing, impelling us to move beyond pure being into being as coming to be and seizing to be, being as becoming, determinate being, and all the subsequent categories unfolded out of these in the Logic.

The context which situates the rise of Heidegger, Lukács writes, is akin to the post-1848 context which saw the rise of Soren Kierkegaard’s romantic individualist agony: “Kierkegaard's philosophy was aimed against the bourgeois idea of progress, against Hegel's idealist dialectics, whereas the renovators of existential philosophy [i.e., Heidegger and et. al.] were already principally at odds with Marxism, although this seldom found overt and direct expression in their writings.”[12] This mood of despair, for Lukács, produced like it had decades prior, an “ideology of the saddest philistinism, of fear and trembling, of anxiety” which “was precisely the socio-psychological reason for the influence of Heidegger and Jaspers” on the eve of Hitler’s seizure of power.[13] It was a “yearning to rescue naked existence from universal collapse.”[14] Philosophically it was marked by an attempt at ‘third ways’ beyond idealism and materialism and rationalism and irrationalism, but in each instance, idealism and irrationalism ultimately showed their dominance.

While his phenomenology and ontology were, in Lukács’s words, little more than “abstractly mythicizing” a “vitalistic anthropology with an objectivistic mask,”[15]it nonetheless provided, he admits, an “often grippingly interesting description of intellectual philistinism during the crisis of the imperialist period.”[16] In his phenomenological description of the inauthenticity of everyday existence, pervaded by Verfallensein, a state of falling prey, we come under the “anonymous dominance of das Man” (the one or they).[17] Lukács argues that Heidegger’s detailed description of this fallen state “constitute the strongest and most suggestive part of Being and Time, and in all likelihood they formed the basis of the book’s broad and profound effect… [It is] here, with the tools of phenomenology, [that] Heidegger [gives] a series of interesting images taken from the inner life, from the worldview of the dissolute bourgeois mind of the post-war years.”[18] While he was fundamentally unable to understand the socio-historical causes that grounded such experience, Lukács holds that the value of his account is seen in the fact that it “provides – on the descriptive level – a genuine and true-to-life picture of those conscious reflexes which the reality of the post-war imperialist capitalism triggered off in those unable or unwilling to surpass what they experienced in their individual existence and to go further towards objectivity, i.e., towards exploring the socio-historical causes of their experiences.”[19]

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

Here Heidegger follows to the T the tradition of irrationalism which preceded him and of which he becomes a central figure of in the 20th century. As Lukács writes in Existentialism or Marxism:

In times of the crisis of imperialism, when everything is unstable, everything is in disarray, when the bourgeois intelligentsia is forced to observe, as the next day refutes what seemed indestructible today, it is faced with a choice. It must admit either its own defeat or the defeat of reason. The first path means recognizing your inability to comprehend reality in thought. Here it would be the turn of reason, but it is from this rationality that bourgeois thinking must withdraw. It is impossible to recognize this defeat from a bourgeois standpoint, for that would mean a transition to the camp of socialism. Therefore, at the crossroads, the bourgeois intelligentsia must choose a different path; it must proclaim the collapse of reason.[20]

While the scope of the work leads Lukács to sometimes move too quick in his critique of Heidegger, his situating of him in the tradition of irrationalism and its rejection of the enlightenment is a thread that must be picked up and developed by Marxist scholarship on Heidegger. The best place I have seen this done is in Domenico Losurdo’s Heidegger and the Ideology of War, published first in Italian in 1991, and in English a decade after. Here it is lucidly shown how Heidegger and the Nazis inherit the Kreigsideology (War ideology) of the post-WW1 period, rooted in a mythical Gemeinschaft (community) inhibited by an equally dubious notion of fate (Schicksal) and a fetish of death and its proximity as central to authentic life. Reason, which is tied to civilization and society (Gesellschaft), is lambasted for tearing communal bonds and breaking from the community’s destiny.[21] The enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Marxism, which takes the rational kernel of the former to their historical and logical conclusion, are necessarily condemned.[22]

The rejection of modernity and the Enlightenment has been a fad in Western academia for decades. Heidegger alone is not to blame. But he is, as a fellow traveler of the tradition of irrationalism, a key voice in the anti-modernity and anti-Enlightenment discourse. The Enlightenment, although imperfect and filled with contradictions, brought with it the notion of a universal humanity that we all share in as rational creatures, that provides for us the ability to see and fight for progress in history. It represented the thought of the bourgeoisie in its most progressive moment, before it undeniably turns into a force of reaction after the 1848 revolutions. The universalist ideals of the enlightenment have been given concrete content through the various progressive struggles of the last three centuries – from the American revolution to the French to the Haitian and to the socialist and anti-colonial revolutions of the 20th century. Those who have stood against it have been the forces of reaction – those who deny our common humanity in favor of tribalism (usually of a hierarchical and supremacist kind). It has been the reactionary and conservative forces who have historically rejected the use of reason and the notion of progress, since both of these can provide challenges to the ruling order… an order which can become the object of critique through reason, and which can be shown, through an appeal to the progressive dialectical unfolding of history (or, in Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, through the arch of the moral universe that bends towards justice) to be just a moment in humanity’s development towards greater freedom.

Central to any Marxist critique of Heidegger, then, is also considering how this foundational rejection of the enlightenment – necessary for bourgeois philosophical irrationalism and its turn towards indirect apologetics of the system – takes alternative forms after Heidegger. John Bellamy Foster has done important work in this area, showing how currents dominating contemporary social sciences in Academia like postmodernism, post-Marxism, post-colonialism, post-humanism, etc. all share a foundation in philosophical irrationalism and its indirect apologetics of the dominant order.[23] Although with certain downfalls, the work of Susan Neiman in Left is Not Woke also does a swell job in showing how the tribalism central to contemporary wokeism is fundamentally rooted in the reactionary, anti-modernist and anti-enlightenment tradition which Heidegger is a central figure of. For all the claims to being ‘woke’, this dominant ideology in the liberal wing of capital is deeply ignorant of the reactionary philosophical foundations underlaying their worldview – a worldview that serves to reinforce the dominant order under the delusion that it is waging an emancipatory attack on it.

A Marxist critique of Heidegger, therefore, must also contain an awareness of how the tradition he works through has seeped into the Academic and activist left, often giving its deeply reactionary philosophical foundation a seemingly progressive gloss. For this we must also study the work of our colleague Gabriel Rockhill, who outlines the political economy of knowledge that has facilitated and promoted this eclecticism to counter the genuine communist left.

In sum, while necessary, exposing Heidegger’s Nazism and his thought’s class basis is insufficient to defeating him. As Gramsci and Lukács have argued, we must also beat these monumental figures of contemporary bourgeois thought in the realm of ideas as well – showing how the problems they pose are baseless, or how the response they provide to real problems are insufficient. These are things that must be shown, not just taken axiomatically for granted simply because we understand the Marxist worldview to be the most advanced humanity has given rise to. If in questions of ethics or meta-historical narratives comrades of the left (like the two I previously mentioned) turn to Heidegger, it is not sufficient to just lambast them for taking partial insights from a problematic thinker. We must also inquire into what deficiency is there in our answering – or even asking – of the problem that led them to turn to Heidegger. How can the Marxist worldview extend itself to commenting concretely on every possible topic of intellectual inquiry such that the need to turn to Heidegger, or any other bourgeois thinker, is superfluous for those within our tradition.

This requires an explicit turn away from the Western Marxism accepted in the Academy. This so called ‘Marxism’, imbued with postmodernist sensibilities, cringes at the description of Marxism as an all-encompassing worldview. They wish to limit Marxism to the sphere of history and social analysis, rejecting the dialectics of nature and the fruitful insights the dialectical materialist worldview can provide in any sphere of investigation. In China, where Marxism-Leninism has been able to develop relatively peacefully since at least 1949, the tendency is towards the contrary. The more fields the Marxist worldview can be present in the merrier. I would like to conclude with a quote from Cheng Enfu’s China’s Economic Dialectic,

Marxism is a telescope through which we can clearly see the trends according to which reality develops, and a microscope through which we can see its crucial details. It is a set of night-vision goggles through which we can see light and hope in the darkness, a set of diving goggles through which we can see things at a deeper level, a fluoroscope through which we can see into the nature of the matter beyond the level of appearance, and a megaloscope through which we can make sense of blurred images. Marxism is a reflector through which we can see the truth behind things, a polygonal mirror that enables us to see the diversity and unity of opposites, an asymptotic mirror that allows us to see things near and far with multiple focal points and a monster-revealing mirror in which, if we have sharp eyes, we can see mistakes clearly.[24]

This should help to get us to see Marxism as an all-encompassing worldview. A worldview which, as Lenin told the Young Communists in 1921, absorbs and develops upon the “knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind.”[25] When we are successful in this task, the need for anyone in the camp of the genuine progressive forces to turn to Heidegger or any other bourgeois thinker would be superfluous, since they would find a much more concretely explicated account for their inquiry within the tradition itself… or, at the very least, the tools to do so themselves ready-to-hand (pun intended).

Notes

[1] Gregory Fried, “A Letter to Emmanuel Faye,” in Confronting Heidegger: A Critical Dialogue on Politics and Philosophy (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), 5

[2] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 2014), 433.

[3] Ibid.

[4] R. T. De George, “Heidegger and the Marxists,” Studies in Soviet Thought, 5(4) (1965), 294.

[5] Georg Lukács, The Destruction of Reason (New York: Verso, 2021), 5-6.

[6] Ibid.,489.

[7] Ibid., 496, 494.

[8] Ibid., 495-6, 493.

[9] Georg Lukács, “Heidegger Redivivus,” in Existentialismus oder Marxismus. Retrieved through Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive//lukacs/works/1951/heidegger.htm

[10] Lukács, Destruction of Reason, 497.

[11] Ibid. 498.

[12] Ibid. 491.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., 493.

[15] Ibid., 498, 497.

[16] Ibid., 498.

[17] Ibid., 498-9.

[18] Ibid., 500.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Georg Lukács, “The Crisis of Bourgeois Philosophy,” in Existentialismus oder Marxismus. Retrieved through Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1948/bourgeois-philosophy.htm

[21] Domenico Losurdo, Heidegger and The Ideology of War: Community, Death, and the West (New York: Humanity Books, 2001), 15-40.

[22] I am happy to see my friend, Colin Bodayle, recently take this task up. I have known no other Marxist who has studied Heidegger’s work as closely as he has (and in the original German). For more, see the series titled “Why the Left Should Reject Heidegger’s Thought,” published through the Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis. Part one is here: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/why-the-left-should-reject-heideggers-thought-part-one-the-question-of-being-by-colin-bodayle

[23] John Bellamy Foster, “The New Irrationalism,” Monthly Review 74(9) (February 2023):

https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/

[24] Cheng Enfu, China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform (New York: International Publishers, 2019), 20.

[25] V. I. Lenin, “The Task of the Youth Leagues,” in Collected Works Vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 287.

Union Politics: The Contradictions of a Capitalist Labor Movement

By Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso

On December 1st, 2023, the United Auto Workers (UAW) officially voiced their support for a ceasefire in Gaza, becoming the largest labor union to do so. The announcement came from the union’s director, Brandon Mancilla, during a press conference outside the White House. In announcing, the UAW added its name to a growing list of union locals, national chapters, and labor organizations that have called for an end to the genocidal violence still unfolding in the region.

On January 24th, the UAW went on to announce their endorsement of Joe Biden for president during the union’s national Community Action Program (CAP) conference. Thus, in just under two months, UAW managed to call for an end to a genocide whilst simultaneously endorsing a second presidential term for one of its most powerful proponents. And they are not alone. Of the roughly 150 organizations that have signed onto the labor movement petition calling for a ceasefire, nearly one third have also publicly endorsed — or are directly affiliated with a national chapter that has publicly endorsed — Biden for the presidency. Such a gross contradiction cannot be ignored, especially as it represents only the latest example of a broader phenomenon present in much of the American labor movement: capitalist dissonance.

The movement’s shortcomings are well-documented. Much of the labor landscape in the United States — while certainly working to win immediate material improvements for the working class — often fails to provide a more comprehensive framework for revolutionary praxis that looks to a liberated future. The Black Rose Anarchist Federation said it best in their piece ‘The State of Labor: Beyond Unions, But Not Without Them,’ when they described contemporary American unionism as a largely “bureaucratic, service-oriented form” that remains “controlled by a hierarchy of career officials who operate outside the workplace, manage the sale of labor to capital, confine union struggles to narrow and legalistic ‘bread and butter’ issues within their respective industries, and encourage members to pin their hopes to the Democratic Party.” In other words, unions in the United States exist within a heavily enclosed space, one in which their organizational structures and strategic logics, either by external force or internal conviction, do not move past the operational and theoretical limits imposed by the powers that be.

On the domestic front, this can mean a gross lack of worker militancy. Pro-establishment sensibilities make many labor unions averse to necessary direct action and militant resistance in the workplace, especially when financial and legal stability is at stake. This was the case when bureaucratized inaction kept grocery workers across the country from winning tangible post-pandemic gains with their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). It exacerbated the ever-growing division between rank-and-filers and leadership in the education sector with both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). It also prompted members of the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU) to begin a petition campaign calling on leadership to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. After all, career organizers and labor leaders are incentivized to chart the path of least resistance, forged by impotent contract negotiations and anti-strike clauses. The same can be said for international solidarity. A top-down labor union in cahoots with the US government may state their disagreement with a foreign policy decision — as many did by signing the ceasefire petition. But their entrenched incentive structures and hierarchical layout will rarely allow for a wielding of labor power that truly beats the state into submission. 

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

This is because such radical resistance would put the stability of the managerial labor class at risk. Domestically, opposing a two-party candidate for the presidency means foregoing an otherwise surefire way of securing business-as-usual governance for the next four years. The third-party-facing or non-electoral implications of such opposition would produce a level of uncertainty not compatible with the otherwise predictable “bread and butter” issues, industry-specific bargaining, and established labor relations so characteristic of big unions. On the international scale, the same is true. The stability of managerial labor is feasible only if preceded by that of US capital, as downturns in economic growth and fluctuations in performance can pose a risk to corporate power -- the de facto handler of labor managers -- and radicalize workers into embracing more militant sympathies and radical action as a result. One outstanding threat to such stability is the emergence of left labor movements abroad, as such movements are often characterized by policies that harm US economic interests such as the nationalization of industries and the cutting of economic ties with Western nations. The logical conclusion of such a dynamic can be seen in institutions such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (AFL-CIO) Solidarity Center. This agency has a stated mission of “[e]mpowering workers to raise their voice for dignity on the job, justice in their communities and greater equality in the global economy.” Meanwhile, its exploits have heavily involved confrontations with leftist governments in South America, often via funding they provide to opposition groups in countries such as Venezuela.

Highlighting this unfortunate reality is hardly an all-encompassing indictment of the US labor movement. The undeniable upsurge in union activity following the COVID pandemic improved people’s lives and deserves credit. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, “the National Labor Relations Board saw a 53% increase in union election petitions, the highest single-year increase since fiscal year 2016.” The embrace of more militant leadership by unions such as the UAW and the Teamsters has yielded significant victories as well, not to mention the advances made by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild in September of last year.

But the imperative of organizers and class strugglers to reshape unions to better facilitate collective liberation remains. This can take many forms, such as bolstering organizing efforts by independent unions like (ex: Trader Joe’s United, Amazon Labor Union), supporting the ongoing work and growth of rank-and-file-oriented unions like the Industrial Workers of the World, and backing the emergence of caucuses and coalitions within established unions that either organize to push their organization in a more radical direction, or ultimately become an independent union that can subsequently hold a candle to its establishment counterpart in terms of size and resource access.

Reformist concessions at the negotiating table and rhetoric restricted to the worker-boss dichotomy do not have to be our daily bread. Worker militancy on the shop floor and a rhetoric of class warfare are more in line with the aims of a revolutionary movement. Moreover, symbolic slaps on the wrist and stern talking to’s — petition signatures, public denouncements — needn’t be the only forms of accountability when our government actively finances and endorses acts of genocide. We can do better. Acknowledging this potential will allow us to transform labor in America, liberating ourselves and each other in the process.

Juan Gonzalez Valdivieso is a Colombian writer, organizer, and artist. In his writing, he seeks to interrogate the nuances of socialist thought and praxis.

Beyond the 4-Day Workweek: Unveiling the Capitalist Roots of Worker Anomie and the Quest for Meaningful Labor

[Photo credit: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images]

By Peter S. Baron

Recently, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has put forth a bill to cut the workweek to 32 hours—an effort unlikely to succeed amidst resistance from Republicans and even his Democratic party peers. His argument hinges on the undeniable truth that technological advancements have significantly boosted productivity, which could, in an ideal world, lead to shorter workweeks without sacrificing wages. Although Sanders' proposed bill faces significant hurdles to enactment, it unmistakably highlights the deliberate strategies of the ruling elite to capitalize on productivity gains, blatantly prioritizing profit maximization over the welfare of workers. This choice epitomizes the capitalist ethos that prioritizes profit over people.

Sanders is advocating for a significant change, however, the manner in which he has presented his bill avoids a confrontation with the underlying structure of capitalism, which is at the heart of the issue. This distorted framing is quintessential Sanders, exposing the superficiality of his role as the so-called "democratic socialist" within the Democratic Party.

As exemplified in his most recent proposal, Sanders typically proposes major policy overhauls but stops short of questioning or altering the foundational capitalist system itself, as if the path to social and economic justice is simply a matter of swapping "bad" policies for "good" ones. He puts forth reformist bills, masquerading them as far-reaching, lasting solutions, only for them to be dismissed as extreme by Republicans and impractical by mainstream Democrats. This charade serves to pacify the Democrats’ base by creating the illusion that the Democrats closely represent the people's interests, sidestepping the essential challenge to the capitalist system that truly reflects the people's interests. This strategy effectually tempers the rising leftist inclinations among workers and the youth, ensuring their continued support for the party by diverting attention away from its fundamental allegiance to corporate interests.

The public deserves to be told the truth: that the root of our problems lies in capitalism itself, not merely in bad policies. If framed in this way, the idea of a four-day workweek would not only become widely accepted but could also serve as a catalyst for a wider social movement aimed at fundamentally rethinking and transforming the capitalist system.

The Limits of Shorter Workweeks in Healing Capitalist Alienation

Reducing the workweek to four days, while undoubtedly a positive step in transitioning to a more humane existence, fails to address the root issue: the grotesque alienation and exploitation of workers that comes as a package deal with a capitalist economic system. Capitalism produces a fundamental disconnect between the labor of the worker and the fruits of this labor that engenders a profound sense of anomie, a term the 19th century French Sociologist Émile Durkheim used to describe the normlessness and social instability resulting from a breakdown in the connection between the individual and the community.

This anomie is not merely a byproduct of long hours, although such hours certainly are a factor. Rather, anomie is woven into the very fabric of capitalist work structures, where workers, stripped of any meaningful control over their labor or its outcomes, become cogs in a vast, soulless machine.

The introduction of a 4-day workweek, while benevolent, does little to mend the gaping wound inflicted by this alienation. It's akin to applying a band-aid to a festering sore, superficially covering the issue without addressing the underlying infection: the capitalist mode of production itself, which inherently prioritizes profit over people, exploiting labor to extract maximum surplus value.

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

The Many Faces of Disconnection

In the relentless pursuit of profit, capitalism commodifies work, stripping it of personal meaning and transforming it into a mere transaction. This commodification alienates workers not just from the fruits of their labor, which are appropriated by the capitalists, but also from the labor process itself, reducing it to repetitive, uninspiring, and, frankly, boring tasks that fail to tap into even a fraction of the worker's creative potential.

This narrow focus on productivity fosters an environment where innovative ideas and creative solutions are often stifled unless they directly contribute to immediate financial gains. The loss of creative expression and the inability to see one's unique ideas come to fruition can lead to a stifling of personal growth and a diminishing sense of self-worth among workers, exacerbating the sense of anomie.

The issue at hand is not merely about reducing the working hours for those stuck in such mind-numbing jobs nor is it about crafting policies to infuse creativity into jobs. It's about reevaluating the entire mode of production, the nature of jobs deemed necessary, and the overarching structure of society. Capitalism, by its very design, is prone to producing jobs that contribute to a sense of anomie, suggesting that the system itself may be irreformable in this regard.

Dissolving Bonds: The Erosion of Individuality and Community in Capitalist Rationality

Inevitably, under capitalism, the implementation of technology and automation further alienates workers from the production process. While technological advancements have the potential to liberate individuals from menial tasks, under capitalism, they often result in the deskilling and rising specialization of labor, reducing jobs to the performance of progressively monotonous, machine-like functions. Making jobs more interchangeable intensifies concerns over job instability for workers, who find themselves entangled in a rapidly automating world.

This dehumanization of labor and the relentless commodification of time mean that workers are constantly racing against the clock, further disconnecting them from the natural rhythms of work and life. The unyielding commercialization of time transforms workplaces into arenas of surveillance and regimentation, where every task is monitored, and every minute accounted for. The blurring of boundaries between work and personal time, exacerbated by the digitalization of workspaces, means that workers are never truly 'off the clock,' leading to burnout and a pervasive sense of being trapped in an endless cycle of work.

In this environment, the sense of belonging and community that can arise from collective labor is eroded. Workers are pitted against each other in a competitive race to the bottom, where solidarity is sacrificed on the altar of individual gain. They are thrust into a relentless competition, vying for survival in an environment where job security and advancement are scarce commodities. This competitive pressure fosters an atmosphere of every person for themselves, undermining any sense of collective well-being or mutual support.

Instead of banding together, workers find themselves locked in a desperate scramble to outdo one another, often at the cost of their own and their colleagues' dignity and security. This race to the bottom erodes the fabric of solidarity that could unite workers against exploitative conditions, replacing it with a divisive pursuit of individual gain that ultimately benefits the capitalist system by keeping workers isolated and disempowered.

Workers are reduced to mere data points in a vast algorithm of production, their individuality and communal ties dissolved in the acid bath of capitalist rationality.

Towards a Radical Reimagination of Work

The rigid, top-down structures in our workplaces crush any semblance of autonomy and creativity among workers. The whole labor system is set up to strip workers of their skills and reduce them to nothing more than cogs in a giant machine, churning out profits for the few. This isn't just about stifling creativity; it's about the blatant dehumanization that props up the capitalist machine.

The disconnect between productivity growth and real wage increases only deepens the anomie. Workers are producing more and more, yet their paychecks tell a different story—stagnant or worse. This gaping disconnect between the wealth workers generate and the crumbs they're thrown isn't just unfair; it's a slap in the face. It's no wonder people feel lost and disconnected, exactly like Durkheim's warning of a society adrift.

Proposals like the one Sanders has put forth should be framed not merely as swapping out bad policy for good, but as opportunities to critically examine the system itself—a system whose very foundation undermines worker autonomy and creativity, and actively unravels the social fabric, exposing the deep-seated causes of widespread anomie. We must recognize the myriad ways the capitalist logic oppresses our humanity.

In the face of systemic assaults on the human spirit, the call for a shorter workweek, while benign, falls dramatically short. It is not merely the quantity of work that torments the “soul” but the quality and conditions of labor under the yoke of capitalist exploitation. Addressing the endemic alienation and anomie woven into the fabric of capitalist societies demands a radical reconfiguration of the values that underpin our economic systems, one that dismantles the hierarchical edifices of power and replaces them with egalitarian structures where workers can utilize their unique creative potential and have a direct say in the decisions that affect their lives. This would not only bridge the gap between labor and its fruits, mitigating the alienation and anomie endemic to capitalist societies, but also unleash the imaginative resourcefulness of the workforce, fostering a sense of community and purpose that transcends the mere accumulation of capital.

The transition to a 4-day workweek must be seen not as an end but as a steppingstone towards a more profound transformation of society. It's about reclaiming the dignity of labor, restoring the human connection to work, and constructing a world where work serves the well-being of humanity, not the insatiable appetites of capitalist exploitation. Only then can we begin to heal the deep-seated anomie that plagues our societies, paving the way for a future where work is a source of fulfillment and communal solidarity, not alienation and despair.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Why Do We Oppress Women?

By Wonder Louis

Since the dawn of civilization, women have been treated as second-class citizens. This condition pervades every stage of history and virtually every culture and region. Under capitalism, the phenomenon of gender inequality is observable through tangible acts of oppression such as unequal pay, fewer educational opportunities, domestic violence, and more. However, these observable acts are not exclusive to capitalism, as they were prevalent in different modes of production. To understand capitalist gender inequality specifically, we must examine the social relation and position that women hold under capitalism. 

Marxist analysis reveals that, just as capitalism divides bosses and workers, it treats men and women differently based on their relationship to production. The sexual division of labor both in and outside the household is caused by and produces gender inequality in all aspects of life. As Marxism informs us, the base of society is its economic system. In our current order, everything flows from capitalism and the asymmetric social relations it demands. 

Under capitalism, people — especially women — lose their humanity and become commodities. Workers  must sell the only commodity the bank can’t take from them, their labor, to not just accumulate wealth but survive. Granted, most female labor falls outside the commodity market and is instead directly consumed. But women are also often reduced to their exchange value. Sex trafficking and dowries are examples.

The view that capitalism encourages gender inequality is hardly universal.  Some argue that capitalism promotes female wellbeing through technological advancements in women’s health. Others claim capitalism must encourage gender equality because women are supposedly worse off in “traditional… non-capitalist societies.” These cultures are usually quite religious. People believe that their women are worse off because they suffer from lower life expectancy, poverty, and stricter gender oppression. Capitalism allegedly improves these maladies via constant and rapid technological innovation. It is the best system for social innovation, its proponents say. No other structural arrangement better facilitates social mobility or individual rights.

Whatever capitalists say, the fact remains: gender inequality exists under capitalism, and we must change that. This can occur in a number of ways. But lasting, fundamental change requires targeting the structure of the economy and superstructure of society. By altering these two elements of social life, women can defeat gender oppression once and for all.

Addressing the economy calls for more affirmative action. These policies can ensure minorities receive equal occupational and educational opportunities. Affirmative action has helped many women access institutions they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. In 1995, for example, female employment increased by  15% at jobs with affirmative action requirements compared to 2 percent at jobs without. 

The second task is changing traditional gender culture. We can do this through education — namely, by introducing egalitarian concepts to children at a young age.  Curricula should teach how harmful sexist and gender stereotypes are. Educators should be prepared to call out and challenge misogyny whenever it arises in the classroom.   

Capitalism is driven by the accumulation of wealth and capital. It lays waste to all other values — chief among them, gender equality. Under capitalism, women face financial  and cultural oppression, physical violence, and lower living standards than men. To combat these inequities, women need fair treatment in the workforce, especially equal pay, and in society as a whole, free from misogynist norms.  

Wonder Louis is an aspiring historian and political theorist. Holding a Bachelor of Arts in History, Wonder aims to promote revolutionary thought and educate the masses on all forms of social inequality.

The Leninist Theory of Imperialism and Misconceptions of the "Imperialist Pyramid" Theory

[Photo: Paolo Gasparini/PHotoESPAÑA Press]

By Gabriel Gonçalves Martinez

Currently, one of the great debates going on within the international communist movement is the debate about how to characterize contemporary imperialism . In order to have a correct understanding of the subject, it is necessary that we demarcate the field with “leftist” and rightist interpretations that, unfortunately, enjoy a certain popularity. Having a correct understanding of what contemporary imperialism is will help us to fight US imperialism, the main enemy of the people, more correctly. In this article, in addition to presenting in general terms the central elements of the Leninist theory of imperialism, I will also present a brief critique of the conceptions that are being developed by the Communist Party of Greece about the existence of a call “imperialist pyramid”. This article is a modified and expanded version of an article originally written in 2014 and published in the Brazilian marxist magazine Nova Cultura.

Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism

The Leninist theory of imperialism, distorted by revisionists of the most varied shades, constitutes a great contribution by Vladimir Ilich Lenin to the development of scientific socialism. The main work in which the Russian revolutionary addresses the problem is the book Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. Making extensive use of general data provided by bourgeois statistics and statements by bourgeois intellectuals from the main capitalist countries, Lenin presents an “overall picture” of the capitalist world economy on the eve of the first world war. In this book, Lenin demonstrates how the world conflict of 1914-1918 was an imperialist war, which would be the wars of conquest, plunder and robbery. A “ warfor the partition of the world, for the division and redistribution of colonies, of the “spheres of influence of financial capital, etc”.

According to Lenin, capitalism has become a universal system of colonial subjugation and financial strangulation of the immense majority of the planet's population by a handful of 'advanced' countries. The world is shared by “ three rapacious powers, armed to the teeth”, which at the time would be the United States, England and Japan. This movement on the part of these three imperialist powers would drag the entire planet into their war for the sharing of their loot. In economic terms, the old competitive phase of capitalism gave way to monopoly. The growth of industry and the concentration of production become one of the most characteristic features of capitalism. Big monopoly capital exercises its dominion in the economic, political and ideological spheres. The concentration of capital rises to a gigantic level, giving rise to monopolies. Imperialism is seen by Lenin as the “last stage of capitalism”; it is dying, decaying capitalism and the threshold of the socialist revolution.

In Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, Lenin determines the main economic traits of imperialism. They are: 1st ) Concentration of production and capital reach such a high level that they give rise to monopolies, which play a decisive role in economic life. 2nd ) The fusion of banking and industrial capital gives rise to finance capital and the financial oligarchy. 3 ) The export of capital, unlike the export of goods, acquires special importance. 4th) International monopoly groups are formed that divide up the world among themselves. 5th ) It culminates the process of territorial distribution of the world among the capitalist powers.

Contrary to what some theorists said, imperialism is not a system apart from capitalism, but preserves all the foundations of such a regime. The general bases of the capitalist economy continue to exist. The means of production belong to a handful of capitalists, and the working masses continue to be exploited and oppressed. Profit is still the main objective of the capitalists and the anarchy of production continues to exist under the influence of spontaneous economic laws. The law of surplus value continues to operate under imperialism. As the title of the Lenin’s book in question suggests, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. Lenin also characterizes imperialism as parasitic capitalism or decaying capitalism. In imperialism, where the monopolies that pursue high monopoly profits dominate, there is a tendency towards the stagnation and decay of capitalism. Monopolies are no longer interested in the application of technical innovations in production, keeping important scientific discoveries secret by controlling the patents of such inventions. Even though this is a tendency of imperialism, it does not mean that in certain periods and sectors of the economy there is no type of development and growth of technology. Thus, in imperialism two opposite tendencies inevitably prevail: the tendency towards the growth of production and technical progress and the tendency towards the putrefaction of the economy and the containment of technical progress. According to Lenin: “ It would be a mistake to think that this tendency to putrefaction precludes the rapid growth of imperialism; in certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie, certain countries manifest, in the epoch of imperialism, with greater or lesser force, now one, now another, of these tendencies ”. Under imperialism, the development of technique and capitalist production proceed in an uneven and contradictory manner, causing an ever greater delay in relation to the possibilities generated by modern science. A clear militarist orientation develops in the imperialist states.

Parasitism, rentiers and militarism

In imperialism, capitalism acquires a clear parasitic character . Parasitism is one of the greatest expressions of the decomposition of the capitalist system. Under imperialism, capitalists increasingly lose ties with the production process. The vast majority of the bourgeoisie and landowners become rentiers, who are nothing more than capitalists who live off the income generated by share securities. The growth of parasitic consumption by the exploiting classes grows exponentially. The export of capital becomes an ever-increasing part of the national wealth of imperialist countries and of the profits made by the ruling classes. In the imperialist phase, the bourgeois countries become rentier states, which, through leonine loans, extort the enormous income of the debtor countries, which end up submitting themselves economically and politically to the imperialist countries. The exploitation of dominated and dependent countries is one of the main sources of obtaining high monopoly profit. A handful of capitalist countries parasitize the bodies of oppressed peoples.

Imperialist countries allocate an ever increasing part of their national income to support huge armies whose objective is to conduct imperialist wars. Militarism is a clear expression of the parasitic nature of capitalism. Imperialist wars are one of the main means that imperialist countries use to continue maintaining their high monopoly profits. The exponential growth of gigantic masses of men, who separate themselves from socially useful work to engage in the service of the exploiting classes, in the state apparatus and in the inflated sphere of circulation, is also a great demonstration of the parasitism. In imperialist countries, the dominant classes use the profits obtained by exploiting dependent countries, they systematically use bribery and the payment of high wages to corrupt a small layer of workers, qualified workers, giving rise to a bourgeoisie working aristocracy, the support base of opportunism within the working- class movement.

The division of the world in the age of imperialism

We cannot understand the Leninist theory of imperialism without understanding that at this stage of development, the world inevitably divides into a handful of oppressive nations and the vast majority of nations remain under the reins of dependence on these oppressors imperialist countries. Lenin asserted that imperialism meant the overcoming, by capital, of the milestones of national States, as well as an expansion and aggravation of the national yoke on a new historical basis. It is true that the Great October Socialist Revolution spurred a huge wave of anti-colonial struggle. Under the influence of the October ideas, millions of men and women in the dominated countries rose up to overthrow imperialist oppression. This bloody struggle for the freedom of the popular masses culminated in the emergence of popular democratic regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia , which later moved towards socialism, the Chinese Revolution being the most emblematic case. The disintegration of the colonial system also occurs and several national liberation movements, especially in Africa, had a Marxist -Leninist orientation.

Even with the end of the colonial system and the advance of the anti-imperialist struggle, at no time did the dominant capitalist countries stop attacking the people. They used all possible means in order to defeat the socialist countries, promoting the counterrevolution. Finally, they achieved an enormous victory with the dissolution of the USSR and the disappearance of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, which were eroded and destroyed thanks to the sabotage activity carried out by the revisionists who led the communist parties of such countries. The world would enter a new period of imperialist struggle for the partition of the world. The African countries that had gained independence fell into the clutches of neocolonialism and imperialism also intensified its offensive against Latin America and even against Russia after the dissolution of the USSR.

SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

It is good to remember that the countries of Latin America, with the honorable exception of Cuba, never obtained genuine national independence, even though they were no longer colonies, as was the case of African countries. After the emergence of imperialism, Latin American countries were subjected to the domination of imperialist monopolies and lost their precarious national independence. The dominance of imperialism deformed the development of dependent countries, making the emergence of an “autonomous capitalism ” unfeasible. For example, American imperialism, from 1930 onwards, intensifies its action in Brazil; it came to control – and still controls today – the main branches of the country's economy . Even if there are still some sectors that are free from its total control, given the reactionary and pro - imperialist character of the State and the ruling classes, as well as the influence of neoliberalism, little by little, such sectors being definitively controlled by the imperialist monopolies. In general terms, even though the country has recently experienced government experiences that tried to break with this trend, Brazil continues to be a dependent country.

Some misconceptions about imperialism

There is a very popular misconception about imperialism, which identifies it as something different from capitalism. Imperialism would be a “new” system that distorts the foundations of “ true capitalism”, putting the economy at the service of banks and businessmen and promoting wars. It is true that these are also characteristics of imperialism, but we can by no means claim that imperialism is something different from capitalism. All the disastrous phenomena that manifest themselves in our days and give rise to economic crises, wars, etc., are consequences of the very development of the capitalist system. The forces that defend such conceptions generally tend to deceive people by boasting about the possibility of building a “humanized capitalism” or a “ popular capitalism”. At the present time, a party that represents this trend is the Podemos of Spain and Syriza in Greece. In Brazil, there are also leftist political forces that defend similar concepts, among them, the ruling tendencies of the Workers Party of Brazil (PT) and the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL).

On the opposite side, there are those misconceptions that refuse to recognize that the main representative of imperialism in our time is US imperialism. I will use more space in the text to address this type of deviation. The parties that defend this conception argue that imperialism is a world system – an assertion that is not wrong – but reach the conclusion that all countries are imperialist, since they form part of the “imperialist pyramid”. The world chain of imperialism, which inevitably engenders the existence of oppressive and oppressed nations, is interpreted as just an opposition between “ strong capitalisms ” and “weak capitalisms”. Among those who defend such a conception are the comrades of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). The KKE is a party with combative revolutionary traditions, which even after the counterrevolution that overthrew the socialist countries, continued to affirm Marxism-Leninism. It is one of the largest Communist Parties in Europe and one of the only European communist organizations that play a prominent role in the country in which it operates. While not the only communist and Marxist-Leninist organization in Greece, it is certainly the largest and most significant.

Let us take as a starting point for our analysis the text The KKE's Leninist Approach to Imperialism and the Imperialist Pyramid , published originally on the official website of the party, written by the International Relations Section of the Central Committee of the KKE. The KKE criticizes the mistaken use of the term “imperialism” by some right-wing opportunist organizations of European social democracy. KKE draw attention to the ability of these social-democratic parties to feed illusions among workers and other groups of the popular masses. When we make an objective analysis of the theses and conceptions of the European social-democratic parties of their most different tendencies - and here we also include parties and groups that emerged in a more recent period, initially promoting a discourse "anti-capitalist ” and “ anti-neoliberal” - we cannot but agree with certain aspects of the KKE theses. The big problem is that, despite making a more or less correct diagnosis of the erroneous nature of the positions of these parties, the conclusions reached by the Greek communists are also wrong. For the KKE, opportunism, by repeating outdated positions, “identifies imperialism as military aggression against another country, with the policy of military interventions, blockades, with the effort to revive the old colonial policy”. It is true that reducing imperialism to these positions is something too one-sided, which can engender certain misunderstandings. However, the KKE's criticism is extremely superficial, since the party forgets to point out that the opposite is also true, that is, failing to recognize that wars of aggression are intrinsic to the imperialism is also an opportunistic and dangerous position. To briefly illustrate, the KKE criticizes opportunist parties that consider Germany a danger, while labeling the Obama administration as “progressive ”. The KKE, at first, is not wrong to criticize parties that think in this way. The problem is that from this position, the KKE seems to set aside and completely abandon the problem of the existence of imperialist control by Germany in other European countries, underestimating the problem of the intensification of imperialist control about various countries , including Greece itself. Here, it is natural that the attacks of the Greek communists are aimed at the new social democracy, represented by the petty-bourgeois party, Syriza. According to KKE:

“The troika of representatives of the EU, ECB and IMF, which oversees and determines the management of internal and external debt and fiscal deficits, is seen as the main enemy, in addition to Germany itself (…) They accuse the country's bourgeois class and governing parties of being traitors, unpatriotic, subordinate and subservient to Germany, creditors and bankers. Of course, now that SYRIZA, as the new social-democratic force, has taken over the government, there is no problem in negotiating with the troika, Germany and signing new anti-people agreements.”

The problem with the above conception is not that it condemns SYRIZA 's social democracy, but rather the arguments used to condemn the reformist organization. Now, it is clear that the troika (European Commission , ECB and IMF) supervises and determines debt management. It is also evident that the Greek big bourgeoisie, allied with imperialism, as well as its parties, are traitors, not patriots and subservient to Germany, creditors and bankers. Although Germany itself is an imperialist country in a subordinate position to the United States, in the European context it is not entirely wrong to emphasize the critique of the role played by German imperialism within the European Union, although it is necessary to point out that US imperialism is the leader of the imperialist coalition that dominates not only Europe, but the entire world. Communists, by making this kind of agitation, can present themselves to the popular masses of their own countries as the true defenders of independence and national sovereignty. It is worth remembering that the consequent forces of the International Communist Movement have long recognized that the bourgeoisie has thrown away the banner of independence and national sovereignty. Stalin spoke about this in his famous speech to the XIX Congress of the CPSU already in the distant year of 1952:

“Before, the bourgeoisie believed itself to be the leader of nations , whose rights and independence it defended and placed “ above all ” . Today not even a trace of this “ national principle ” remains : the bourgeoisie sells the rights and independence of nations for dollars . The banner of independence and national sovereignty was thrown away. There is no doubt that it is up to you , representatives of the communist and democratic parties , to collect it and carry it forward, if you want to appear as the patriots of your countries and make become the leading force of nations . There is nobody else who can do it.”

By not finding necessary mediations - and there the national question could be an important vector in this direction - that put the seizure of political power by the working class and the consequent construction of socialism, the KKE ends up transforming the problem of the struggle for socialism into something merely abstract.Therefore, we can conclude that denying the national question will not help the KKE to fight the opportunist parties. It is not because the revisionists manipulate around this concept that it is necessarily wrong. In countries that suffer more intensely from the pressure of imperialism, the national question is something totally present, being an important flag to be raised by the party of the proletariat .

SYRIZA's problem is not in acknowledging these concepts – formal recognition, by the way – but in accepting to be a mere administrator of the bourgeois order, which in Greek conditions, inevitably, will be an order built so that things are exactly the way they are today, that is, so that imperialism continues to exercise its control and domination. As a petty-bourgeois force, SYRIZA does not make any criticism of the Greek bourgeois state and sowed the illusion that it would be possible to break with the condition of dependence on Greece by electoral and orderly means, respecting the norms of the European Union, without a true democratic and popular revolution led by the Greek proletariat together with its fundamental allies. For SYRIZA, it would be enough to reach the management of the bourgeois state for things to be straightened out. Unfortunately, things are not as simple as these incorrigible reformists think. Such are the correct criticisms that must be made of SYRIZA.

The KKE continues its analysis by talking about the forces that “arbitrily” use the correct Leninist thesis that in imperialism a small number of States plunder a large majority of States throughout the world. According to the Greek communists, this “arbitrary” (actually this is a Leninist definition) interpretation would make such forces identify imperialism as a reduced number of countries, while all others are subordinate, oppressed, colonies , etc. In fact, the recognition of this correct Leninist thesis has as a consequence the identification of imperialism as a world system where there are oppressor, dominant countries and dependent countries. The number of dependent and imperialist countries may change according to the development of the class struggle on a world level, but fundamentally this is exactly how things look. The countries that are “victims of powerful capitalist states ” (terms used by the KKE in it’s article) are precisely the dependent countries, while the countries that are not victims of these states these are the countries that managed to sustain some kind of sovereign position.

The Greek communists continue their article arguing that the opportunist forces present Brazil and Argentina as countries that are a positive example for overcoming the crisis. Now, any study of the general state of the economy of these countries, mainly Brazil, would easily verify that both are countries dependent on imperialism. If the opportunists, in Greece or elsewhere, use them as an example, it only demonstrates that they propose to their peoples the continuation of imperialist domination. Once again, the KKE make a mistake in the arguments used to criticize the opportunist forces. The KKE could very well point to this fundamental error of the opportunists, while demonstrating its solidarity with the people of these two Latin American nations that have suffered under imperialist rule for years .

In the same way as the right-wing opportunists of social democracy and revisionist parties, the KKE also believes that the countries of Latin America are countries that have already overcome their condition of dependence on imperialism, however, contrary to what the revisionist and social-democratic parties preach, for the Greek communists these nations would have already reached the stage of imperialist development. The KKE even puts regional economic blocs such as UNASUR, ALBA and the European Union in the same boat, even though it recognizes that the capitalist countries that form the latter are “stronger” . 

It is common knowledge that, from the mid- 1990s onwards, with the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela, several countries in Latin America began to elect leaders of nationalist and leftist parties and organizations, in a political and social phenomenon that developed as a result of various anti -neoliberal struggles that were being conducted on the continent. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua , etc., also started to have governments that, in levels of radicalism and different transformations, expressed in a contradictory way the demands progressives of the popular masses of the region. The KKE, by denouncing the social-democratic and reformist character of many political forces that direct these transformations, loses its hand and starts to condemn en bloc the whole movement of an objectively transforming and progressive character that followed and still follows the struggles that are waged by different types of left organizations in Latin America, in their different levels of depth and radicalism. More than that, for the KKE, the Latin American countries, by reinforcing initiatives of mutual coordination, would be shaping a new imperialist economic bloc, so that it would be wrong for the communists to try to dispute and influence the course of progressive transformations initiated by nationalist and left-wing governments (even if we are still talking about a bourgeois left). 

To justify such a position, the KKE put forward its concept of “imperialist pyramid”. The conception of the “ imperialist pyramid ” , as it is presented by the KKE, is a anti-leninist and false conception, which is in contradiction with Leninism. As already stated, it denies the fundamental fact that in the world chain of imperialism there are oppressor nations and oppressed nations, as well as in practice it ends up generalizing all countries as imperialists (since they are part of of the world system of imperialism) sustaining that the contradictions would only be between the “strong and weak ” capitalist States. The KKE asserts that the strong capitalist countries divided not only the colonies, but also the non-colonized countries, hiding the fundamental fact that, from the moment these countries were divided among the strong capitalist countries (imperialist countries) they also became dependent nations. And it is precisely because they are deeply dependent, oppressed countries that their capitalism is “ weak ” compared to the capitalism of imperialist countries; not to mention that the overwhelming majority of dependent countries , especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia, still coexist with strong remnants of modes of production prior to capitalism.

Lenin stated, under imperialism the division of nations into oppressors and oppressed is inevitable.This is one of the characteristics of contemporary imperialism, although after the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system, this division has acquired new contours and configurations derived from the disintegration of the old colonial system and the emergence of the neocolonial type of domination. Evidently, since the time when Lenin formulated his theses on imperialism, this system has undergone important transformations. Obviously, such changes and transformations, far from denying and being a counterpoint to the positions developed by Lenin, actually confirm and deepen several of the trends and characteristics presented in his time by the great leader of the October Revolution. However, it would be completely wrong to recognize that the imperialist system has no undergone transformations. One of the most evident transformations is that, especially after the end of the Second World War, the previous situation marked by the parallel coexistence of several imperialist countries (USA, Japan, Germany, etc. .), was replaced by the sole hegemonic dominance of the United States as the lead country of the imperialist coalition. Countries like Germany, Japan and England, at the end of the Second World War, left fragile positions thanks to the blows that their economies suffered due to the consequences of the international conflict. The United States, on the other hand, rises by taking advantage of the fragility of its former adversaries, placing them under its tutelage through the reconfiguration of the imperialist exploitation system. Such a system is based on US financial control through the imposition of the dollar as the main reference currency in the capitalist world and the creation of a military bloc controlled by US imperialism. The KKE, stuck in the situation prevailing in the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War, is incapable of seeing such changes, oscillating, at the same time, in a merely formal defense of Lenin's reading of that time, with the misrepresentation of the essential and basic characteristics of imperialism presented by him.

Finally, we know that phenomena in the world advance and are constantly changing. A country, which is independent today, may tomorrow become a country oppressed by imperialism, just as a country oppressed by imperialism, when carrying out its anti -imperialist national democratic revolution, it can become an independent country and even move towards socialism. The KKE make a serious mistake by adopting certain views which that are diametrically opposed to the imperialist theory of Leninism.