One Struggle is an anti-imperialist organization, and that entails zooming out from specific struggles in order to bring a broad analysis of the moment. We attempt to not only react to the crisis in front of us, but to look at how the intersection of capitalism and the movement to resist it have brought us to where we are, and to some degree where we see it taking us. It is sort of a practice of specific observation, general analysis, specific application…and then back to specific observation and general analysis, round and round until we understand our enemy enough to defeat them. Our task is to draw other progressives to us to organize, and to construct and build unity around an analysis of the historical development of capitalism and imperialism up to now. We can then test and fine tune those theories through practice to build a movement to destroy the capitalist system!
The mania of the current US election cycle combined with the global health crisis of COVID-19 has left us feeling battered and raw, hardly with a guess as to which way is up. These are the times that we are grateful to have the general analysis, or theory, to come back to. We asked ourselves, what the fuck is going on?! And then remembered when we’ve asked that question before, the answer was – capitalism is in crisis! We can ground ourselves in recognizing the chaos of this moment as expressions of this. The global consolidation of fascism is an attempt to manage the economic crisis politically and ideologically. From this vantage point, we aren’t running around trying to put out fires, but trying to gather people and power to shut down the arsonists for good.
Still Can’t Fight The Fasc With a Vote
Around the midterm elections of 2018 we asserted that you can’t vote out fascism. What seemed like “absolute turmoil” then turned out to be a light simmer compared to our current reality, but the driving engine remains the internal contradiction of the capitalist economy. Banking capital has given capitalists bigger payouts faster, and without the overhead of industrial production. They can restructure, speculate and debt-collect their way into multi-generational wealth, on a global scale thanks to imperialism. This limitless well of imaginary money has to be rooted in reality through industry, so we see these two forms of accumulation combine to form finance capital. Industry itself has to exist on planet earth, where the resources available don’t match up to the rate of production/consumption that finance capital necessitates. So entire countries are strong-armed by USAID and the IMF to make their economies “more efficient,” i.e. more relevant to imperialist interests by becoming specialized and export-based. The population is funneled into extracting natural resources or producing commodities for the global market, and those who can’t have to leave, starve to death or are forced into informal and sometimes dangerous ways of making a living. So we see more and more deadly climate disasters as a result of our biosphere being destroyed for profit. We see global health crises arise from the conditions that the masses are forced to live under to survive. Yet none of this is enough to satisfy capitalists, and they continue to struggle amongst themselves for ultimate dominance, with seemingly no concern for what that world will look like on the other side. Except for buying luxury doomsday bunkers…until they colonize the moon, of course.
The stage for these ruling class squabbles aren’t limited to the economic realm. In the political realm, they try to mobilize a social base to reinforce their dominance and fortify their ideology. This can help us to understand the political division we see being stoked in the US right now, the Liberal and Conservative dichotomy. Fascism draws from both of these camps, because all three – Liberalism, Conservatism, Fascism – are capitalist alternatives. Trump trying to force economies open during a global pandemic, pack courts with conservative judges, and dog whistle white supremacists are part of ensuring the fascist alternative remains viable. Biden may not support openly fascistic social policies (although his stance on defunding the police leaves us with little faith in this regard) but he will do nothing to combat the economic crisis from which fascism emerges, because to do so would be to work against his own interest and the interests of those who he really represents – capitalists and imperialists. Even seemingly progressive takes, like Medicare for All or the Green New Deal, are not proposed for the benefit of the masses. They might provide relief from the ruthless grip of capital here in the US, but the cost will always be increased repression, subjugation and exploitation of the international working class.
At this point voting is not progressive political action, it is just another bourgeois democratic right we are allowed by the ruling class. Rights are not to be given or taken, they’re meant to be asserted and defended. The current popular conception of “rights” is why we now even see our “right” to vote, apparently one of our most significant tools of power, under threat in the upcoming election. Bourgeois democratic rights are not afforded to us out of the goodness of ruling class hearts, but as ways to temper and manage class struggle. Vote if you want, but our calls to action need to move away from their court and onto ours, where we must construct conditions and support for popular uprisings to defeat the global capitalist system for good.
If you are ready to construct resistance to fascism that comes from people’s political power, not affirming the power of our class enemies, get in touch and get organized!
