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Shattered ‘American Dream’

Those who have been dreaming of a return of the Pax Americana have now to wake up to the fact that the capitalist crisis, originating in the USA and then spreading with breath-taking rapidity to Europe as well as to non-western economies that had opened themselves to globalisation, has shown no signs of resolution. The leader of world capitalism, the USA, is far from a recovery, and the fierce debate between the republicans and the democrats on economic policy measures is only a symptom of the crisis. The Obama administration tried to avert the crisis by generous help to the leading financial magnates, greater public spending, and discouragement to business process outsourcing. It is true that these measures partly lessened the burden of recession, although they were far from eliminating it. The Occupy Wall Street Movement may be a largely spontaneous affair without mature far-sighted leadership, but it provided unmistakable sign that US people are not ready to consider the erosion of their standard of living as a divine dispensation. Obama's model of cooperative capitalism has created another problem for the US ruling classes in the sense that the pressure on the federal budget is too high. The Republicans now demand curtailment of medical benefits and food subsidy, along with a low tax rate on the upper income groups, as the solution to the problem. The American rich, they argue, must not be made to bear, even if partly, the burden of the recession. If Obama does not yield, his political career may well be endangered. Whether he is prepared to take a risk remains to be seen. Britain has been following a similar measure in the shape of curtailment of expenditure on health and education. There is no use blaming the Tories for this; they have only followed the Labour with greater vigour. Like Greece, Italy and Spain are in the grips of a severe crisis; so is Germany where the growth rate of the GDP has virtually come to a standstill. In Spain, there is a strong working class movement that is effectively resisting the ruling clique's machination of shifting the burden of the crisis on the shoulders of workers; no such strong movement is however visible in Greece, which recently became the storm-centre of the European recession.
Crisis of capitalism intensifies class struggles, clear signs of which are visible in Europe and America, and attempts to shift the burdens of the crisis to the less developed economies through puppets and agents only lead to an intensification of resistance. It is true that the participants in such resistance do not often understand what imperialism is, but they can at least feel how the puppets and agents of imperialism, operating through the armed organs of the state and their own private armies, deprive them of their right to the means of livelihood, i.e. land, forest and water.

The countries of Latin America have by now largely shaken off the imperialist burden, one classical example being Venezuela. Her oil is no longer a source of imperialist profit making. And an overt armed adventure against this country is a dangerous gamble, simply because the popular consciousness is at a high level. Hugo Chavez rose to power on the crest of a popular upsurge. Iran is for long a target, and various kinds of sabotage tricks, including assassination of its scientists, have been resorted to. But neither the USA nor her allies are willing to launch an armed onslaught against Iran. The cost of the Iraq war in terms of material and human resources has been too high. Iran successfully shot out of the US orbit in the late seventies of the last century after the countrywide upheaval against the fascist Shah regime, and this has remained a criminal offence in the eyes of the US ruling classes, whether the republicans or the democrats are in power there. But attempts to crush this state have failed so far, and destroying its nuclear capability is also impossible.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 22, Dec 9-15, 2012

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