Wednesday, May 4, 2016

THE NEW COLD WAR INTER-CAPITALIST

The crisis of 2008 in US and Europe opens up space for expansion of the influence of BRICS on the planet
Humberto Rodrigues

The 2008 capitalist crisis triggered a US economic slowdown and the European Union on the world market. It was then that a group of countries led by China and Russia, the BRICS, of which Brazil is part, occupied this space. The constitution of capitalist imperialism of the rival bloc was possible because right in front of Brazil, India and South Africa, China and Russia are nations that have become capitalist powers. China and Russia combine exceptionally in its constitution:

1) an unparalleled mass of workers and energy resources;

2) because unlike the semi-colonies that are unable to resolve outstanding bourgeois tasks and live subjugated by imperialist oppression, China and Russia held the bourgeois historic tasks during the period in which they were workers’ states, through bureaucratic or distorted proletarian dictatorships;

3) the crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn of imperialism opened space in the world market for China to spend to import from other countries what the imperialist metropolises in recession stopped buying, and for Russia to broaden its energy sales (gas and oil) and weapons in better condition.

In 2009, China became the largest exporter and importer of goods to Brazil. Since 1500 Brazilian trade has been dominated by the successively dominant capitalist powers on the planet at the time, Portugal, England and then the USA.

In 2015, the economies of the five members of the BRICS account for 20% of world GDP and the exchange between them corresponded to 250 billion dollars. Capitalist relations between the BRICS states are dominated by the export of goods, especially commodities and on the export of capital. The bourgeoisies of China and Russia has imperialistic pretensions, but they are not as yet imperialist. For Marxists, imperialism is characterized by the export of capital and is the expansionist policy of finance capital. Thus, capitalist relations between the BRICS themselves and between BRICS and other non-imperialist countries are relations of bourgeois exploitation of workers, against which we fight, but not relations of imperialist domination. In every fight, we always take the side opposed to imperialism. However, even though in this fight we are on the side of the oppressed country or people against imperialism and its agents, we always pursue our struggle to build a revolutionary workers’ party for the conquest of workers’ power.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

When it recovered from the acute phase of the 2008 crisis, thanks to growing poverty and wage reduction of its working class, the US resumed the initiative in the geopolitical field and tried to restore by all means, especially economic blackmail, their commercial influence and lost policy. The coup is the most violent form taken for the resumption of this influence when the governments of countries dominated by imperialism do not peacefully cede to imperialist interests.

Before being triggered in Brazil in 2013, several coups were performed under this strategy in smaller countries such as Honduras, Paraguay, Libya, Ukraine, Thailand, where governments approached the BRICS or governments that are near to the Bolivarian of Venezuela and Bolivia. These were the blows against the periphery of the BRICS.

The coup is an expression of imperialist counter-attack. We are living in the second wave of imperialist counter-attack now against the very members of the BRICS, imperialism moves all his pawns, trade war, speculative attack, economic blockade, sponsors challenging candidates and harassment by civil war. To resist this counterattack many countries form a resistance block headed by Russia and China. This began the conflict intensification which is the new cold war, this time between capitalist states. This cold war already sees conflicts and indirect military disputes, as in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. The conflict is heading towards a Third World War.


PHASE TWO OF THE COUNTER-ATTACK OF IMPERIALIST
IS A RACE AGAINST TIME TO COMBAT THE DE-DOLLARIZATION THREAT

The main threat of BRICS imperialism in the current stage of the Cold War lies in the economic and monetary issues. The BRICS want to negotiate among themselves without paying tribute to the US. They seek to avoid this by conducting their business transactions in their own currencies and by creating banks to boost their relations and investments. These moves are designed to dispense with the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank which are controlled by imperialism and used at the same time to control other nations. The US profit from the dollarized world economy because they can print paper and buy what they want. The US imperialist economy will be harmed by the de-dollarization of economic relations advocated by the BRICS. Printed papers lose “value”. As a consequence they would no longer be accepted. Those who keep dollars would want to get rid of them because they would be depreciating, which would flood the market. All US government bonds will be worthless. It would be impossible to finance their purchases. Foreign trade in dollars would evaporate. The financial market would explode. The American, Japanese and European economies would be wiped out. And as a consequence the US government’s ability to finance its war machine.

If the artificial ballast imposed by the military superiority since 1971 is dismantled, then the “Super Imperialism” acquired by the US and spoken of by Michael Hudson, the Bretton Woods Agreement established with England at the end of World War II is lost. (Hudson, M. (2003). Super imperialism: The origin and fundamentals of US world dominance (2nd ed.). London, UK: Pluto Press.) That is why there is such a great struggle to prevent the establishment of alternative currencies, or multilateral organizations to replace the IMF and the World Bank.

In April 2016, the imperialist counterattack entered its second phase. Honduras, Paraguay, Thailand, Libya, Ukraine, were on the margins of the BRICS. Now, the attack is directed against the weakest members, beginning with South Africa and Brazil. The replacement of the dollar standard for gold immensely would be immensely beneficial to South Africa. Imperialism lost a battle for Zuma’s impeachment in South Africa and won another in Brazil against Rousseff, already salivating by its strike against Petrobras.