Greg Godels, writing under his pen name, shreds the multipolaristas'
contentions that promoting the realignment of capitalist powers is a
fight for peace, or a step toward socialism, or anything progressive.
Godels shows that the multipolaristas are the current crop of people
suffering an old malady: blindness to the revolutionary potential of the
working class. (He does not point out that many multipolaristas grovel
for the material incentives dangled by China or Russia.)
Godels' last sentence is a cop-out. And he waffles on the monopoly
capitalist nature of China, confining himself to criticism of its state
and party foreign policy. Looking on the bright side, he still gives the
reader a damning exposé of the multipolaristas' praise of any evil so
long as it contends with U.S. imperialism.
_________
Multipolarity and BRICS Once More
Zoltan Zigedy, July 12, 2024
The debates over “multipolarity” and the significance of an allegedly
multipolar BRICS grouping continue. In an opinion piece in People’s
Voice (Multipolarity, BRICS+ and the struggle for peace, cooperation,
and socialism today, June 16-30, 2024) writer Garrett Halas mounts an
earnest defense of multipolarity and the BRICS+ “as a positive step
towards socialism.”
Halas joins many others in envisioning all twenty-first-century
resistance to US imperialism and the imperialism of its (largely ex-Cold
War) partners as the same as resistance to imperialism in general. They
divide the world into the US and its friends and those who, to some
extent or another, oppose the US. Sometimes they characterize this as a
conflict between the global North and the global South. Sometimes they
refer to the imperialist antagonists collectively as “the West.”
From the perspective of the multipolarity proponents, if the countries
resisting the US should neutralize US domination and that of its allies,
then the world will become peaceful and harmonious. In their view, it is
not capitalism that obstructs enduring peace, but US imperial
aspirations alone. Accordingly, in the idealized future, multiple
friendly, cooperative states (poles) will engage in peaceful, equitable
economic transactions that all agree will be mutually advantageous--
what Chinese leaders call “win-win.” If this isn’t achieved immediately,
it will soon follow. Is not socialism down the road?
The reality is that as important as resisting US domination and
aggression surely is, its decline or defeat will not put an end to
imperialism, as long as monopoly capitalism continues to exist.
In the history of modern-era imperialism, the decline of every
dominating great capitalist power has spawned the rise of another. As
one power recedes, others step up and contest for global dominance--
that is the fundamental logic of imperialism. And, all too often, war
ensues.
CLASS: Glaringly absent from the theory of multipolarity is the
concept of class. Advocates of a multipolar world fail to explain how
class relations-- specifically the interests of the working class-- are
advanced with the existence of multiple capitalist poles. Halas tells us
that the “BRICS+ is a coalition with a concrete class character rooted
in the global South” but he doesn’t tell us what that “concrete class
character” is. This is a critical question and a significant problem,
given that Halas concedes that “most BRICS+ nations are capitalist”! Of
the original BRICS members, capitalism is unquestionably the dominant
economic system in Russia, India, South Africa, and Brazil. Of the
candidate members scheduled for entry in 2024-- Argentina (likely a
withdrawal), Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates--
all are capitalist. The idea that working class interests will be
served, and socialism advanced by this group seems far-fetched.
CLASS CONFLICT: Class struggle-- the motor of the struggle for
workers’ advances, workers’ power, and socialism-- has been stifled by
the governments of nearly all the BRICS and BRICS+ countries. In Iran,
for example, Communism is illegal and Communists have been executed in
large numbers. Communism is likewise illegal in Saudi Arabia. Modi has
conducted class war against India’s farmers. South Africa’s working
class has seen unemployment and poverty rise under the disappointing
government. Egyptian workers labor under a brutal military government.
How does their entry into BRICS promise socialism?
GLOBAL NORTH/GLOBAL SOUTH: Halas and the “multipolaristas” would
have it that the “contradiction” informing multipolarity is the clash
between the “global north” and the “global south” or, paradoxically, the
“West” and the rest of the world. Apart from the fact that the
geographical division captures little—other than the imagination of
social-media leftists-- it gives the impression that Australia and New
Zealand have something in common with impoverished Burundi. Or that
Serbia and Germany are Western partners in exploiting small African
countries. There is, of course, a division between wealthy countries and
poor countries, between exploiters and exploited. Historically, the
sharpest fault lines have been defined by colonialism and its successor,
neo-colonialism. But the imperialist cards are shuffled from time to
time due to resource inequities, uneven development, or other gained
advantages. For example, the Arabian Peninsula was once a dominated
colony of the Ottoman empire. That empire’s dissolution and subsequent
developments led to an emergent Saudi Arabia infused with resource
wealth and high up on the imperialist hierarchy. Today, India has three
of the top 20 corporations in Asia by market value, larger than all
Japanese corporations except for Toyota. India’s Tata Group has a market
capitalization of over $380 billion, with its tentacles spread to 100
countries. The June 28 UK Morning Star editorial informs us: “Tata
Steel’s threat to shut the blast furnaces at Port Talbot three months
earlier if Unite goes ahead with strike action is blackmail. The
India-based multinational does not believe steelworkers should have a
say in the plant’s future… It’s outrageous that the future of British
steelmaking should be at the whim of a billionaire on a different
continent.”
DECOUPLING: Halas suggests that BRICS+ offers an opportunity for
countries to break out of the capitalist international financial
structures imposed after World War II and the dominance of the dollar in
global transactions. Such an option may exist in the future, but clearly
it is intended as an option and not a substitute for existing structures
and exchange instruments. As recently as late June of this year, PRC
Premier Li Qiang said that “We should broadly open our minds, work
closely together, abandon camp formations, (and) oppose decoupling…” [my
emphasis] It is clear that the picture of global country-to-country
relations-- as envisioned by Peoples’ China’s second most prominent
leader, Li, at the “Summer” Davos-- offers no challenge to existing
financial arrangements or to the dominance of the dollar. The
antagonistic conflict between the old order and the new multipolar order
is more a fantasy in the minds of some on the left than a real policy
goal of the leading country in BRICS.
ANTI-IMPERIALISM: Halas would like us to believe that
twentieth-century anti-imperialism is multipolarity embodied in BRICS.
He cites the UN votes on Palestinian status and oppression (predictably
vetoed by the US) as an example of “global south” anti-imperialism.
While symbolic and not without significance, it is hardly the principled
anti-imperialist action we came to know in earlier times. It is worth
reminding that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of abandoning Palestine for
better relations with Israel before October 7. Egypt has long sold out
the cause of Palestine, as has much of the Arab world. According to Al
Jazeera, India is currently selling military supplies to Israel.
Virtue-signaling at UN forums is not a substitute for concrete, material
solidarity.
CHINA: This is not the place for debating whether the Peoples’
Republic of China is a socialist country, a favorite parlor game of the
Euro-US left. However, it is worth stating that-- as the only
self-acclaimed socialist country currently in BRICS-- the PRC does not
claim to be advocating, encouraging, or materially aiding the struggle
for socialism outside of China. Unlike the former Soviet Union, the PRC
does not prioritize or privilege investment or material support for
countries embarking on the socialist path. The word “socialism” is
largely absent from its foreign policy statements. While the Chinese
leadership defends its outlook as “socialism with Chinese characters,”
it does not demonstrably support “socialism with anybody else’s national
characters.” Yet, some on the left see multipolarity and a largely
capitalist BRICS as a road to socialism for the rest of us?
WE HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE: In the 1960s, it was common for the left
in Europe and the US to lose hope in the revolutionary potential of the
working classes. Where working-class movements in Europe aligned with
Communist Parties, they fully committed to a gradualist, parliamentary
road to socialism. An anti-Communist New Left proposed a different
vehicle of revolutionary change: The Third World. In the common parlance
of the time, the Third World was the newly emergent, former colonies
that were neither in the US camp nor the Soviet camp. Per this view,
revolutionary change (and ultimately) socialism would grow from the
independent road chosen by the leaders of these emergent nations. But
instead, they were overwhelmed by the neo-colonialism of the great
capitalist powers and absorbed by the global capitalist market, with few
exceptions.
AND EVEN EARLIER: Karl Kautsky, the major theoretician of the
Socialist International, anticipated multipolarity in 1914, introducing
a concept that he called “ultra-imperialism.” Kautsky believed that
great power imperialism and war had no future. The imperialist system
would, of necessity, stabilize and, due to declining capital exports,
“Imperialism is thus digging its own grave… [T]he policy of imperialism
therefore cannot be continued much longer.” For Kautsky, a stage of
“concentration” of capitalist states, comparable to cartelization of
corporations, will lead to inter-imperialist harmony. Lenin rejected
this theory out of hand. For a discussion, go here.
Imperialism is not a stable system. Capitalist participants are always
seeking a competitive advantage against their rivals. Sometimes they
find it useful or necessary to form (often temporary) coalitions or
alliances with others in order to protect or advance their interests.
One such alliance was forged by the US after the Second World War in
opposition to the socialist bloc and the national liberation movements.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US sought to keep existing
coalitions intact by selecting or devising new enemies-- the war on
drugs, the war against terrorism, and wars of humanitarian intervention.
Beneath these political ties existed a US established and dominated
global economic structure privileging the US, but deemed necessary to
protect the capitalist system.
This politico-economic framework served capitalism well, until the great
economic crash of 2007-2009 and the ensuing cracks and fractures in the
framework. The turmoil unleashed by the crisis dampened the pace of
growth in international trade and accelerated the competition for
markets. Further challenging the US-centered framework was the ability
of People’s China to navigate the crisis rather painlessly. Where the US
ruling class formerly saw the PRC as an opportunity, it began to see
China as a rival in the imperialist system.
The post-Soviet global market-- cemented by the so-called
“globalization” process-- began to unravel in the wake of
twentieth-century economic instability, especially the 2007-2009 crash.
Rather than defend existing free-trade dogma, capitalist countries were
drawn to protectionism and economic nationalism. Beginning in the Trump
Administration and accelerating during the Biden Administration, the US
waged a tariff-and-sanctions war against economic competitors. US
dominance of international financial institutions and the nearly
universal dependence upon the US dollar gave US leaders even more
weapons in this competition.
The US “pivot” to China in its defense posture and its growing hostility
to Russia were reflections of its losing ground to the PRC’s growing
economic might and Russia’s dominance of Eurasian energy markets.
Understandably, in this new era of economic nationalism, Russia, China,
the leading power on the subcontinent, India, Africa’s top economic
power, South Africa, and the largest economy in Latin America, Brazil,
would look to counter aggressive US and EU competition. The era of
mutual cooperation was ending, and the era of intense rivalry and
national self-interest was emerging. It was in this environment that
BRICS was born.
It was a capitalist response to a capitalist problem, not a path to
socialism.
The main task for Communists and progressives is not to take sides, but
to fight to ensure that these fractures and frictions do not explode
into war.
<https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/07/multipolarity-and-brics-once-more.html>*https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/07/multipolarity-and-brics-once-more.html*
<https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/07/multipolarity-and-brics-once-more.html>
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