The confinement finally decreed in the
United States to deal with the COVID-19
pandemic has crippled the capitalist economy
and thus demolished the process of capital
accumulation, writes William I. Robinson,
a U.S. professor of sociology specializing
in political economy, globalization, Latin
America, and historical materialism at the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
“The fact that this economic paralysis is
throwing tens of millions of workers into
a crisis of survival is entirely fortuitous for
the transnational capitalist class’ concern
to immediately resume the machinery of
profit, since capital cannot remain idle while
it remains capital. The impulse to revive
accumulation explains the fact that in many
American cities there have been public
demonstrations by the ultra-right-wing to
demand the lifting of the quarantine, just
as the most reactionary sectors of capital
promoted the Tea Party in the wake of the
financial collapse of 2008, a movement that in
turn mobilized in support of Trumpism.
Although the protests seem spontaneous, they
have in fact been organized by conservative
groups, including the Heritage Foundation,
Freedom Works, and the American Council
on Legislative Exchange (coo ALEC),
which brings together the CEOs of large
corporations along with local right-wing
legislators from across the United States.
Donald Trump inflamed the protesters
through a series of tweets, including one
calling to “Free (the state of ) Virginia, and
for protecting its great Second Amendment,
which is under siege.” The call to defend this
amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which
guarantees the right to bear arms, was almost
a call for armed insurrection. In the state of
Michigan, armed Trump supporters blocked
traffic to prevent the flow of aid. A few days
ago, Trump claimed to have “total” power to
lift the quarantine.
Despite its populist rhetoric, Trump has served
the interests of the transnational capitalist
class well by implementing a neoliberal
program ranging from regressive tax reform
and extensive deregulation and privatization
to an expansion of capital subsidies, social
spending cuts and union repression.
Trump – himself a member of the transnational
capitalist class – picked up where he left off in
the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and
forged a social base among those sectors of
the (mostly white) working class that had
previously enjoyed privileges such as stable,
well-paid jobs, and that in recent years have
suffered acute socio-economic destabilization
and downward mobility in capitalist
globalization.
Like the Tea Party that preceded him, Trump
has been able to arouse increasing social
anxiety among these sectors, from a radical
critique of the capitalist system to a racist and
patriotic mobilization against scapegoats such
as immigrants. These Trumpist tactics have
turned these sectors into shock forces for the
ultra-right-wing capitalist agenda that has
brought them to the brink of a truly fascist
project.
The growing crisis of global capitalism has
led to a rapid political polarization in global
society between an insurgent left and ultraright and neo-fascist forces that have gained
adherents in many countries of the world.
Both forces draw on the same social base of
the millions of people devastated by neoliberal austerity, impoverishment, precarious
employment and their relegation to the
ranks of superfluous humanity. The level of
global social polarization and inequality is
unprecedented at this time.
The richest 1% of humanity controls more
than half of the planet’s wealth while the
lowest 80% have to make do with just 4.5%
of that wealth. As popular discontent against
this inequality spreads, the ultra-right and
neo-fascist mobilization plays a critical role
in the effort by dominant groups to channel
such discontent into support for the agenda of
the transnational capitalist class, disguised in
populist rhetoric.
In this context, the conservative groups are
determined to organize a far-right response
to the health emergency and the economic
crisis, involving a greater dose of ideological
subterfuge and a renewed mobilization of
their shock forces than to demand the lifting
of the lockdown, a resource that could well
require the State to provide aid to millions of
poor workers and families instead of insisting
on the immediate reopening of the economy.
May 25, 2020.
Source: Por Esto! newspaper
Manuel E. Yepe, is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He was a professor at the Higher Institute
of International Relations in Havana. He was
Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general director
of the Prensa Latina agency; vice president of the
Cuban Institute of Radio and Television; founder
and national director of the Technological Information System (TIPS) of the United Nations
Program for Development in Cuba, and secretary
of the Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.
www.englishmanuelyepe.wordpress.com
A CubaNews translation. Edited by
Walter Lippmann.
www.walterlippmann.com
www.englishmanuelyepe.wordpress.com
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