Back in the day they had an American Left and the USSR to deal with. Both those are gone and even the remaining “Left” in America is largely sinophobic and ignorant as hell.
Personally, I just don’t see that much of a risk for them. There’s been a pretty steady downward spiral my whole life and I think we’re just reaching that point where everything is lining up in their favor. We’re heading for some depression era shit and there’s nothing really standing in their way.
Which is not to say I’ve given up. I still think there’s possibilities going forward, but it’s probably going to get much worse before it gets better. People have to acknowledge the class war before they’re ever going to fight it.
But now they have BRICS and multipolarity to deal with, it’s like their plan is to give up on ruling the rest of the world to rule over their own little kingdom of shit.
Well keep in mind, I’m separating Global Capital from US government. Imo, Global Capital, as a whole, doesn’t really have any true allegiance to anything more than profit. They’re making money from our suffering, they’re making money from neoliberal micro financing scams in Africa, they’re making money from China growing other nations, they’re making money from the US doing genocide; They’ve got their thumb in every pie.
As for the US gov? Slaves (in all but name) and soldiers is my guess for their ideal future. They’ll continue poking every weakness they can, shoving resources into every right wing death squad waiting to be born. They’re not giving up, they’re just trimming the fat and taking the mask off. Is it a good idea? Hopefully not. Hopefully, it blows up in their face.
Multipolarity is not in global capital’s interests; they do have an allegiance to the imperial core, even if they aren’t loyal to any one country. Unless we’re moving to some new stage of superimperialism where they ascend above the imperial core and move to live in Elysium on Mars where all of their needs are taken care of by robots or some shit, they still have to live somewhere. They need higher production/finance separated from primary production/resource extraction, so they need a core and a periphery.
… although I did think that they were working to make New Zealand into their bunker nation during the first COVID waves. For a few months it actually did look like they were going to uproot themselves from the rest of the imperial core to hide away on a fortress nation, so maybe we’ll see something like that again when H5N1 inevitably mutates.
I think it might be worth it to read Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai. I think she foresaw with this book what is happening here and now. I haven’t finished it yet, and I’m not sure its a revolutionary text in the same way State and Revolution was. However, the argument she makes is that capital is still very much a nationalist project, and it has not transitioned beyond national interests and ties. I think the reality is, there hasn’t truly been an alignment of global capital, in the sense that, there are many equally powerful capitalist entities that have transcended the influence of the state through collaborative means. “Global Capital” as we understand it is by and large American Financial Capital, and most of their assets are tied to the success and failings of America. The reason for this is there hasn’t been a transition away from the dollar as the dominate global currency. Maybe if they keep pushing hard on crypto and bitcoin, and most of the corporate entities performed their transactions through that system instead of a state-owned system, then we might see a true “Global Capital”. However, as it stands, a national currency as the backbone of “global capital” naturally ties its value to the state, and the state has all the cards when it comes to that currencies value. To maintain its value, it has to maintain its usefulness on the world stage, and to maintain its usefulness it has to squash competition, which Desai argues creates uneven and compressed development of those states, pushing them through rapid development and eventually becoming contenders to the leading state. This eventually will bring about a multipolar world, as states are more or less on equal footing.
The emergence of BRICS also signals a lack of true “global capital”, in the sense that it is an effort to bolster national development, something Global Capital would see as irrelevant, since they should exist above any one state’s influence.
Multipolarity is not in global capital’s interests; they do have an allegiance to the imperial core, even if they aren’t loyal to any one country. Unless we’re moving to some new stage of superimperialism where they ascend above the imperial core and move to live in Elysium on Mars where all of their needs are taken care of by robots or some shit, they still have to live somewhere. They need higher production/finance separated from primary production/resource extraction, so they need a core and a periphery.
Maybe? But I think we all are maybe being a bit optimistic about what a multipolar world will look like. I think some of them are seeing it as an opportunity for more conflict. Making the US’s fall in status not a loss, but like a shift in the tides.
… although I did think that they were working to make New Zealand into their bunker nation during the first COVID waves.
During the Bush years we suspected that was happening with Dubai.
Back in the day they had an American Left and the USSR to deal with. Both those are gone and even the remaining “Left” in America is largely sinophobic and ignorant as hell.
Personally, I just don’t see that much of a risk for them. There’s been a pretty steady downward spiral my whole life and I think we’re just reaching that point where everything is lining up in their favor. We’re heading for some depression era shit and there’s nothing really standing in their way.
Which is not to say I’ve given up. I still think there’s possibilities going forward, but it’s probably going to get much worse before it gets better. People have to acknowledge the class war before they’re ever going to fight it.
But now they have BRICS and multipolarity to deal with, it’s like their plan is to give up on ruling the rest of the world to rule over their own little kingdom of shit.
Well keep in mind, I’m separating Global Capital from US government. Imo, Global Capital, as a whole, doesn’t really have any true allegiance to anything more than profit. They’re making money from our suffering, they’re making money from neoliberal micro financing scams in Africa, they’re making money from China growing other nations, they’re making money from the US doing genocide; They’ve got their thumb in every pie.
As for the US gov? Slaves (in all but name) and soldiers is my guess for their ideal future. They’ll continue poking every weakness they can, shoving resources into every right wing death squad waiting to be born. They’re not giving up, they’re just trimming the fat and taking the mask off. Is it a good idea? Hopefully not. Hopefully, it blows up in their face.
Multipolarity is not in global capital’s interests; they do have an allegiance to the imperial core, even if they aren’t loyal to any one country. Unless we’re moving to some new stage of superimperialism where they ascend above the imperial core and move to live in Elysium on Mars where all of their needs are taken care of by robots or some shit, they still have to live somewhere. They need higher production/finance separated from primary production/resource extraction, so they need a core and a periphery.
… although I did think that they were working to make New Zealand into their bunker nation during the first COVID waves. For a few months it actually did look like they were going to uproot themselves from the rest of the imperial core to hide away on a fortress nation, so maybe we’ll see something like that again when H5N1 inevitably mutates.
I think it might be worth it to read Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai. I think she foresaw with this book what is happening here and now. I haven’t finished it yet, and I’m not sure its a revolutionary text in the same way State and Revolution was. However, the argument she makes is that capital is still very much a nationalist project, and it has not transitioned beyond national interests and ties. I think the reality is, there hasn’t truly been an alignment of global capital, in the sense that, there are many equally powerful capitalist entities that have transcended the influence of the state through collaborative means. “Global Capital” as we understand it is by and large American Financial Capital, and most of their assets are tied to the success and failings of America. The reason for this is there hasn’t been a transition away from the dollar as the dominate global currency. Maybe if they keep pushing hard on crypto and bitcoin, and most of the corporate entities performed their transactions through that system instead of a state-owned system, then we might see a true “Global Capital”. However, as it stands, a national currency as the backbone of “global capital” naturally ties its value to the state, and the state has all the cards when it comes to that currencies value. To maintain its value, it has to maintain its usefulness on the world stage, and to maintain its usefulness it has to squash competition, which Desai argues creates uneven and compressed development of those states, pushing them through rapid development and eventually becoming contenders to the leading state. This eventually will bring about a multipolar world, as states are more or less on equal footing. The emergence of BRICS also signals a lack of true “global capital”, in the sense that it is an effort to bolster national development, something Global Capital would see as irrelevant, since they should exist above any one state’s influence.
Maybe? But I think we all are maybe being a bit optimistic about what a multipolar world will look like. I think some of them are seeing it as an opportunity for more conflict. Making the US’s fall in status not a loss, but like a shift in the tides.
During the Bush years we suspected that was happening with Dubai.
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2007/03/15/halliburton-moves-headquarters-to-dubai/31516752007/