A turn in the neoliberal and imperialist globalisation

1) The year 2016, with the vote for Brexit, Donald Trump’s election, and the fall of Aleppo retaken by the troops of the bloody dictator Assad with the support of Russia and the complicity of the great powers of the coalition, marks the beginning of a turn in the neoliberal and imperialist globalisation. The bourgeoisie’s attempt to construct a myth of “happy globalization” in which the market would bring democracy, peace and well-being, a myth president Obama tried to embody, is in tatters. Until the beginning of the 21st century, technological advances combined with the massive proletarianization of the ruined peasantry in the so-called emerging countries like China, India and Brazil lowered production costs and fuelled the profit machine, the financial casino. But at the cost of a generalized debt and an “exuberant” financial bubble. The anticipation of profits gave rise to unbridled speculation. The accident triggered by the subprime crisis in the US was inevitable. The real shock that propelled Trump and all the reactionary far-right and populist currents to the forefront, was the crisis of 2007-2008. The balance of power has changed, the combination of economic neoliberalism and imperialist militarism has destabilized the entire planet. The first world power no longer has the supremacy it enjoyed: a new rival, China, is emerging in a multipolar world. The instability of international relations can no longer be contained by a single power which, in turn, feels threatened. Behind the slogan “Make America great again”, Trump has, in his own way, defined a perspective which meets the imperialist needs of the US and which is shared by a large fraction of the establishment he claimed to oppose. Behind this slogan lies the defence of the interests of American capital faced with global competition, against the peoples and against its own working class. Nationalist and protectionist rhetoric aims at associating peoples with the politics of the bourgeoisie faced with exacerbated competition, to create the illusion that the policies of the ruling classes might address the anxieties and meet the demands of the popular classes. The workers’ movement is confronted with this new attempt to turn the dissatisfaction and revolt of the popular classes against themselves in order to subjugate and subordinate them to the politics and defence of the interests of the ruling classes by dividing them and making them scapegoats in the name of nationalism, racism and xenophobia. Our orientation, in response, is organized around class independence and its corollary, internationalism in the perspective of socialism, of communism. 2) The second major capitalist globalization – a century after the first which led to the development of imperialism and two world wars – has deeply transformed capitalism, the planet and the very conditions of class struggle worldwide. We are witnessing a new phase of capitalist development. The upheavals resulting from what is known as the great tilting of the world have been accelerated, accentuated by the crisis that began in 2007-2008 and seem to turn into a chronic crisis, a long process of stagnation and decomposition of capitalism. The exacerbation of international competition resulting from the crisis has led to a strengthening of the role of States, which are as many instruments of security and militarist policies, a growing instability, geopolitical chaos, and a multiplication of military conflicts. This second great globalization took place after a long period of defeats and decline of the labor movement. After its betrayal by social-democracy, the labor movement was choked, crushed, its leadership physically eliminated by the Stalinist bureaucracy allied with the capitalist reaction. This left the revolt of the oppressed peoples the prisoner of nationalism in the aftermath of World War II. The proletariat was unable to give it an internationalist perspective. This revolutionary wave, however, shook the world by enabling millions of oppressed people to break the yoke of colonial and imperialist oppression. But far from moving towards socialism, the new regimes sought to integrate the world capitalist market. Cuba was the last state born of this revolutionary wave to stand up to the world’s leading power, a challenge that testifies to the strength of peoples when they dare to confront the dominant classes and states. Capitalism has triumphed worldwide. By disintegrating the old frameworks of domination of the great powers and capitalist classes, it brings only crisis, social and democratic regression, wars, ecological disasters and opens a period of wars, instability and revolutions. 3) This new stage of capitalist development combines the old imperialist relations with the new balance of power of global neoliberalism. One can speak of imperialist and neoliberal development. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin shows that imperialist development is linked to the very nature of capitalism. “Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres.” We can take up this reasoning to explain the new phase of capitalist development we are now facing. “The monopolistic stage of capitalism” has given birth through neoliberal globalization to that of multi- and transnational companies and the global financialization of the economy. This new stage results from the development of the properties and contradictions of capitalism, which it accentuates and brings to a higher level, an “epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system”, the objective conditions of which have matured and strengthened worldwide. 4) The imperialist development and the struggle between the imperialist powers to carve up the world triggered a first imperialist war and a revolutionary wave which was defeated and broken by the Fascist and Stalinist reaction and was unable to prevent the second barbarous moment in the fight to carve up the world – the second world war through which the American imperialist power established itself as the only force capable of managing the capitalist world order. Then came twenty years of wars and revolutions, the uprising of the colonial peoples. A new phase begins in the late 70s with the neoliberal offensive under the leadership of the first great world power, the US and its ally Britain. Then begins the second globalization in response to the declining rate of profit, with capitalism established as a global mode of production reaching the limits of the planet. This neoliberal offensive at the end of the post-war boom led to the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of the bureaucracy, which had both played a part in the national liberation struggles while maintaining global equilibrium in the name of peaceful co-existence, that is to say the defence of the interests of the bureaucracy. The end of the USSR marks a further offensive of the capitalist classes under the leadership of the USA. The neoliberal and imperialist euphoria prevails during the Bush era, capitalism triumphs on a worldwide scale but the myth of the “end of history” will not stand the test of time. The first Iraq war opens a long period of offensives against the people to impose globalized neoliberalism, a strategy of chaos that leads to a new destabilized world order and new wars. At the end of the Bush era, Obama vowed to turn the page. But unable to provide a political solution to the situation created by “the strategy of chaos”, he had no other choice but to adapt to it. Since the financial crisis of 2008, this period of international neoliberalism tends to give way to a phase of reorganization of international relations while the global economy is unfettered since no power has the means of implementing any regulation. The contradiction between the instability caused by the globalized competition and the need for a common framework to ensure the production and trade is increasing. In 30 years, the balance of power has shifted, the BRICS and mainly China, all the peoples are striving, despite the crisis, to participate in the global economic development. While the US remains in all areas the first world power, it must compromise and find allies. Half of global manufacturing is now conducted by the emerging countries. The contradiction between nation states and the internationalization of production and trade is stronger than ever while no dominant power is able today to regulate international relations. Both factors combine and destabilize international relations. Cartels and international monopolist associations cope with free global competition. Monopolies have grown into transnational corporations with a diversified industrial, commercial and financial activity to a point where 147 multinational companies own 40% of the economic value of all the multinational corporations worldwide. If they keep a national basis, they are engaged in interdependent relationships worldwide. The parasitic growth of finance capital has led to a considerable amount of speculative capital and a fall in productive investments. The debt economy and the fact that the USA are net importers of capital (along with other old imperialist powers to varying degrees) express the parasitic nature of finance capital. The import of capital is a way to drain the wealth produced by the working class in developing countries to the old imperialist countries. We are witnessing an unprecedented concentration of wealth. Through public debt, a banking oligopoly which controls finance has put the states under its heel. A new international division of labor is taking place through the economic development of former colonial or dominated countries, especially the emerging ones – a globalization and not a mere internationalization of production, “an integrated world economy” in Michel Husson’s words. The territorial division of the world which was challenged by the two world wars and the wave of national liberation movements was replaced by free international competition shaped by multinational corporations. The division of the world has given way to a struggle for the control of trade routes, of places of production, of energy supply… In Harvey’s words, capitalist logic and territorial control combine in new ways. The growing instability of the world that results of this situation leads to a rise of militarism, to growing tensions that have forced the US to redeploy its forces while seeking the support and involvement of the old powers, Europe, Japan and the emerging countries to maintain the world order. This policy is a failure which has led to growing instability and the development of religious and terrorist fundamentalism, a factor of permanent instability. 6) At the same time that global capitalism reaches the limits of the planet, it causes an unprecedented global ecological crisis which raises the question of the future of humanity. The logic of profit leads to a worldwide organization of production which completely disregards the people and the ecological balance. The combination of the ecological and climate crisis with the economic and social crisis represents unprecedented challenges for humanity. There is no way forward without the end of capitalism, no solution within one country, without democratic planning based on worldwide cooperation according to social and ecological needs. The crisis encourages an internationalist awareness, not only in the sense that “our homeland is humanity” but also in the sense that, locally and globally, the struggle against the threats that endanger the planet is one that transcends borders. A struggle which is part the fight for socialism in connection with the social and political class struggle. The ecological question and the social question are related, both must be tackled together. 7) The tragedy of the migrants epitomizes in a shocking way the effects of the process of social decomposition caused by wars, economic neoliberalism, the control of transnational corporations, the dispossession of land and the destruction of large sections of the peasantry, the rise of fundamentalist reactionary forces along with the ecological and climate crisis. These extreme and irreversible trends have reached a point not seen since World War II. They feed on the instability generated by capitalist globalization, the permanent state of war to answer the ongoing instability in which it has plunged both the Middle East and a large part of Africa. They also feed on the acute competition between old great powers and new ones, between regional powers, such as the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Also, on the social war major financial groups and their states are waging against the workers and peoples. The focus of the crisis is in Europe and reveals the failure of the construction of a capitalist Europe. We are facing a grave humanitarian crisis. Our response must take into account the solidarity movements that take place especially in Europe. If our policy cannot restrict itself to humanitarian aid, it is nonetheless part of our action in particular in trade unions or labor organizations. Migrants are part of the proletariat of Europe, of the USA and elsewhere. This crisis generates more and more fear and xenophobic rejection and impacts all political forces. It can be a revolutionary ferment in the sense that international solidarity is the only solution against those who promote war and police repression to contain the dramatic instability caused by their policies. 8) Expanded financial accumulation based on the exponential growth of credit and debt has reached such limits that it leads, in Harvey’s words, to the development of “accumulation by dispossession”. Unable to develop the economy to increase the mass of surplus value needed to feed the appetites of capital, capitalism finds a way out of its accumulation difficulties in a double offensive against the workers and against the peoples to impose an increasingly unequal wealth distribution. This results in a bitter struggle for the control of territories, of sources of energy, raw materials and trade routes… Free global competition turns into a struggle to control wealth, reshape the world, but with power relations that are radically different from those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The development of the crisis since 2007-2008 has exacerbated tensions. The situation in the Middle East demonstrates that the US can longer impose its hegemony on other powers and nations. The US is forced to adapt to new power relationships both to maintain its own hegemony and world stability. The two are linked. The hegemony of the USA is conditional on its ability to maintain world stability, “global governance”. It requires that the dominant power gives credibility to its claim to act in the public interest. But today it is no longer able to do so. No power is able to. Hence the rising tensions and militarism. The emergence of new powers with imperialist views or regional powers which defend their own interests increasingly undermines America’s leadership capacity and makes the international situation more chaotic. The US response is Trump’s policy “Make America great again”, to assert their economic and military supremacy through trade war, protectionism and militarism. How far can the tensions and imbalances go? In the long run, nothing can be ruled out. We need to understand the possible evolution of the world situation to formulate a solution to the crisis we are being dragged into by the ruling classes. There is no reason to rule out the worst hypothesis, a globalization of local conflicts or a widespread conflagration, a new world war, or rather a globalized one. The evolution of the war in Syria is another example of that as was the war in Ukraine. The key issue is the nature and possible developments of Chinese-US relations. A more aggressive imperialist policy of China could result from its internal contradictions, from the inability of the Chinese ruling classes to address social issues, to perpetuate the social order without providing an outlet for social discontent. We are not there, but nothing allows us to rule out the possibility that a war for global leadership may be the outcome. The answer is conditional upon the ability of the proletariat and the peoples to intervene directly to prevent the worst from happening. The question is not to predict but to base our own strategy on the understanding of the development of class and international relations. The ruling classes and countries face a crisis of hegemony which opens a revolutionary period. It creates the conditions for the birth of another world.

The rise of a powerful international working class

9) The world working class has grown considerably within a global labor market in which workers compete, jeopardizing the gains of the “labor aristocracy” in the old imperialist countries and undermining the material basis of reformism of the last century. The working class is more numerous than ever: in South Korea alone, there are more wage-earners than there were in the whole world at the time of Marx. The working class forms between 80 and 90% of the population in the most industrialized countries and almost half of the world population. Overall, the number of industrial workers rose from 490 million worldwide in 1991 to 715 million in 2012 (the data is from the International Labor Organization). The industry’s rate of growth was even higher than that of services between 2004 and 2012! It is not the industrial sector that has declined, but the agricultural sector whose overall workforce has dropped from 44% to 32%. If the industrial working class has shrunk in the old capitalist powers its role in the class struggle remains preponderant. The proletarianization of services has created new wage-earning sectors in the old capitalist countries, workers who have started to struggle, in cleaning, retail and fast food companies with the Fight for 15 movement in the United States. 10) It is not true that the development of part-time work makes the working class unable to wage important struggles and play its revolutionary role. In the past, at a time when the workers’ condition was much less secure, and in the absence of big industries, the Parisian workers were able to “storm heaven” during the Paris Commune… and today, workers find a way to fight back despite all the obstacles created by the capitalist onslaught. The biggest strike in France in several decades, in terms of numbers and in length, was the 2009-2010 strike of undocumented workers. That strike involved 6 000 strikers, including 1 500 short-term contract workers, organized in a strike committee, over a period of ten months. By reorganizing industry worldwide, capitalist globalization has created new working classes in southern countries, whose strength was shown recently with the wave of strikes in China since 2010, the massive strikes in Bursa, Turkey, in 2015, the formation of important trade unions in Indonesia, the role of the trade-union movement and mass strikes in the resignation of South Korea’s Prime Minister at the end of 2016… Never has the world’s working class had such power, one that makes it the class capable of bringing together all the oppressed to end capitalist domination. It is necessary to contribute to its political organization on the basis of class independence and to develop a systematic political intervention in relation to it. We must make our main concern the task of rebuilding or building a class consciousness. 11) “The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie”, wrote Marx in the Communist Manifesto describing the unceasing fight of the proletariat to organize itself “into a class, and, consequently into a political party”. Today, this fight takes place on an international scale and the proletariat’s activity is felt daily on the whole of society even if its old parties have collapsed or integrated the bourgeois order and even if its trade unions are mired in class collaboration. The competition between workers on a global scale undermines the social benefits enjoyed by workers in the most developed capitalist countries on which the bourgeoisie and the states relied in order to reach a consensus on the basis of their policies and maintain class collaboration. That era is over. Today, the bourgeoisie and the states seek to involve the proletariat in their economic and commercial war in the name of protectionism and nationalism, of national neoliberalism. The labor movement is on the defensive but is engaged in a long and deep process of reorganization we want to help and contribute to its organization as a class, “as a party”.

Defining a revolutionary strategy

12) Strategic questions have to be considered in a new light at a time when the proletariat is the target of a global and reactionary drive after the collapse of the political movements born from the workers’ movement and the nationalist currents that led the colonial revolutions. The evolution of capitalism has several implications in terms of revolutionary strategy. We can try to summarize the main trends of this evolution. It tends to undermine the material basis of reformism because it limits imperialist superprofits, which were once the cement of class collaboration at a time when we witness a considerable concentration of wealth, growing inequalities and impoverishment. Whether they serve it or not, the dictatorship of capital leaves no leeway to states or politicians who stay within the system. The tragedy of Greece and the capitulation of Tsipras illustrate this fact. It gives internationalism a concrete expression rooted in the daily life of millions of proletarians. Social issues and international issues are perceived as much more interdependent than in the past. The increasing instability of international relations is as much the result of domestic tensions as that of the rivalry between major powers, or between major and regional powers. An instability which opens new opportunities for the intervention of the exploited classes. The neoliberal and imperialist offensive has completely changed the old political relations even in the oldest and most stable countries of capitalist Europe. The French presidential election has illustrated this further. The parties like the institutions are fully under the control of capital, with no independence or room to manoeuvre whatsoever. The old left-right parliamentary divide is devoid of any content. The only relevant divide is a class divide, the irreconcilable opposition between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the exploited classes and the capitalist class. The fight against the rise of reactionary, nationalist, neo-fascist, or religious fundamentalist forces generated by the social decomposition produced by the policies of the capitalist classes is now the central political issue. The solution lies in a class policy for the revolutionary transformation of society. 13) Terrorism and Jihadism, the most radical forms of religious fundamentalism, spring from the policies of the great powers but are more broadly the child of liberal policies that generate poverty and exacerbate inequality as never before. In rich countries, it would be a mistake to prioritize threats. The threat of religious fundamentalism feeds the threat of neo-fascism in western countries. Both are the enemies of progress, of democracy and freedom, enemies of the workers and the peoples they would like to dominate. The fight against the rise of reactionary, right-wing, fascist and religious fundamentalist forces requires a global struggle against the social and political decomposition generated by the policy of the capitalist class. Such a situation where national and international problems, social and political issues are bound together in a complex manner renders Manichean, campist or moralistic stances inadequate, if not dangerous. We fight everything that may or might, one way or another, trap us in a clash of civilizations, in communitarianism. We determine and develop our policy with the interests of the international working class in mind, a policy of class independence capable of giving substance to the democratic aspirations, solidarity, of the popular classes, against all forms of racism. Our approach aims to reveal the objectives pursued by the great powers, the link between class-war and the war against the peoples, between global competition and international rivalries between countries. We denounce the so-called fight against terrorism and radical Islam by the Western powers which leads to war and encourages religious fanaticism which seeks to subject populations. We condemn these forces unambiguously and fight them, we are in solidarity with the progressive movements that oppose or resist them while denouncing at the same time the propaganda of the great powers invoking a new version of the “clash of civilizations” to justify their policy. This solidarity cannot be confused in any way with the policy of the great powers. Our struggle for peace, democracy, for the rights of peoples is inseparable from our fight for socialism. 14) In this context of rising reactionary forces caused by the effects of capitalist globalization, women’s struggle for gender equality and women’s rights is of particular importance. It represents a major revolutionary factor. We are fully involved in all aspects of this struggle be it in the workplace or in the living places or in education. We make our own the democratic demands against male domination and the patriarchal family, a corollary of private property, which is a form of oppression and domination of women and youth more and more at odds with the modern world and social progress. Women are the first victims of exploitation as well as the victims of the devastating consequences of neoliberal globalization. At the same time, more and more women are wage earners. Their struggle is that of all the exploited and oppressed people. Far from dividing oppressed people, far from opposing the women’s and men’s struggles, we campaign for the entire labor movement to make feminist struggles its own, for the political and social emancipation of women. The two struggles are one and the same. If the woman is the proletarian in the home, men can only be truly emancipated when they treat women as their equals. The struggle for gender equality is inseparable from the struggle against fundamentalism and prejudice promoted by religions, all of which justify and support the subordination of women. 15) Our solidarity with the peoples cannot appeal to the so-called “international community” nor the UN, whose role is to provide a democratic screen to the policies of great powers, a role which is increasingly neglected. Our position is to underline again and again the necessary solidarity between the workers and the peoples. It is the only way to put an end to the aggressive and militaristic policies of the great powers that manipulate the peoples and set them against each other. Being an internationalist means striving to define an independent policy for the working class combined with the struggle against our own bourgeoisie. 16) The experiences made and the results of the strategy of building “broad parties”, without clear programmatic and strategic delimitations lead us to question it. Such a strategy was based on the perspective of a process of recomposition that could have been boosted by the collapse of the former USSR and Communist parties. Independently of the assessment that we can have of it, it no longer takes into account the new trends of the period. This evolution underlines the idea that to get rid of this odious dominant order the working class needs to organize and fight capitalism utterly, and to commit itself to a revolutionary transformation of society. The experience of the workers’ movement of at least a century and a half teaches us that this struggle demands a party that is both radical and well-formed, having endorsed the conceptions of Marxism, in short a socialist, revolutionary communist party. There is no third way. Either the workers or organized youth are aware not only of the threats that the continuity of capitalism poses to all mankind but also of the necessity and possibility for the working-class to conquer the right to decide and to control the future of society, in a word, power, or society will be caught in the trap of the various dead-ends of reformism as it has been repeatedly paving the way for the reactionary forces, for the far right. A revolutionary party cannot be proclaimed. It is formed in the struggles and will only play a decisive role when it becomes a mass party and has the political and organizational means of putting forward a consistent revolutionary orientation, of organizing mass struggles and of leading broad sectors of the working class. If struggles and mobilisations are the necessary conditions for the growth of revolutionary forces, this development requires an organized nucleus, united by a common consciousness based on the vision of the future of human society, on a transitional approach and program. Aware that this mass party cannot be the result of a linear development of any small organization whatsoever, we seek to bring together and unite the revolutionary forces, organizations and militants who fight against capital and the bourgeois order, for the abolition of the capitalist system and for socialism. We know the price paid by the exploited class because of reformist illusions, the dangers represented by the various reformist ways, including their modern form of leftist populism. We know that the proletariat has always paid dearly for the experiences of the impasses of reformism. Consequently, our efforts of political and organizational regroupment can in no way allow any misunderstanding: an association of revolutionary and reformist forces can ultimately only weaken the strength of our program and our intervention. At best, this can lead to centrist organizations, which are also incapable of building a revolutionary party ready to seize power. Failing to have the strength and the will to put forward a revolutionary perspective, we adapt to electoral policies at the risk of postponing indefinitely our objective of overthrowing the capitalist system. Experiments with so-called broad parties (including revolutionary and reformist parties) have nowhere contributed to the creation of a revolutionary party, a prerequisite for the decisive struggle of the working class. Being clear about what we want is a sine qua non for regrouping revolutionary forces, training cadres, convincing newly politicized forces and converging greater forces into common fronts, into new organizations and – ultimately – a mass revolutionary party. Moving in this direction implies that we should define the central elements of a transitional program for the twenty-first century and its declination according to the different regions of the world, especially at the level of Europe, and from there, the bases and the framework from which we could combine construction policy and initiatives for regrouping anti-capitalists and revolutionaries. It is a political and programmatic work which can only be collective and requires time and energy but it is an indispensable and unavoidable task. 17) The great global shift is no mere rhetorical formula. It is written in drama and blood and forces us to reconsider everything. How can we help emerge a revolutionary movement on a national, European and international level? The question is raised again in new terms. We must promote a strategy to regroup anti-capitalist and revolutionary forces on the basis of a program for the revolutionary transformation of society, rooted in the basic demands of the exploited, the guarantee of decent wages and pensions, the end of unemployment by the sharing of work among everyone, the defence of public services, which raises the question of the conquest of power to cancel the debt, of the creation of a public banking monopoly and the socialization of the major industrial and commercial groups. If this strategy and this program are adapted to each situation and country, they are organized around a transitional approach that raises the question of the workers’ and the population’s power, that of the 99 %, to abolish the debt and to ensure that banks and multinationals can do no further harm. We must identify from past defeats and setbacks as well as from current upheavals the elements that contribute to the revolutionary transformation of society, to help the independent organization of the working class to enable it to express the social, democratic, ecological demands of other social classes, of all society. In response to the ravages of globalization, the reactionary forces exploit the despair and fear of the working classes to develop their xenophobic and nationalist propaganda. At the opposite, we must unify the working class against capitalism and its institutions. We work for the unity of the exploited classes, their organizations on the basis of this class independence. We are well aware what difficulties we face. The collapse of the old parties born from the struggles of the workers’ movement sows demoralization, disorientation and disarray while the bourgeois and reactionary forces are on the offensive. But we believe that in this context of fragmentation of the anti-capitalist and revolutionary forces the IV has an important role to play.

Building a new international, regrouping the anticapitalists and the revolutionaries

18) The Fourth International, like all other international groupings, cannot claim to represent by itself the future of the revolutionary movement. It must strive to build other regroupings in order to pave the way for a new revolutionary international. The future depends on those who want to gather revolutionary forces in the same movement by breaking with the past sectarian and undemocratic practices that have divided the revolutionary movement. In the short and medium term, the great instability in the world opens opportunities the new anti-capitalist and revolutionary movement must seize. We cannot embody revolutionary internationalism alone. We must seek to bring together revolutionaries from different traditions, based on a shared understanding of the situation and tasks. To help the gathering of forces claiming to be revolutionary Marxists we need to work on the development of strategic and programmatic answers for the movement as a whole, to put on the agenda the discussion of a socialist program, a revolutionary communist one. Beyond the diversity of tactics adopted by the revolutionaries in the construction of their party depending on countries and situations, building revolutionary parties, parties for the seizure of power, for socialism and communism remains the strategic objective. 13/04/2017 Contact : orientationIV@web.de