Political Report of the LRNA Standing Committee,
September 2008

Turmoil marks every aspect of political relations today. In the international arena ancient enemies are finding ways to co-operate and old friends are no longer reliable.Ê The "axis of evil" now has to include Russia and China as they make it clear that they will not tolerate any attacks on Iran . It is clear that the effort to strangle Iran is aimed at controlling oil supplies to China and therefore controlling its development. North Korea stopped dismantling its nuclear weapons program after the U.S. announced it would not lift sanctions, as promised, until North Korea is defenseless. The recent clumsy attempt to tighten the imperial noose around the Caspian basin and the saber rattling by the U.S. were nullified by an awesome silence from NATO.Ê In the Caribbean, the Russian navy is conducting joint exercises with Venezuela while it reconstructs its relations with Cuba . Everyday the space for peaceful resolution of the world's problems is diminishing and the threat of war increases everywhere.

 

US dominance declining regional blocs developing

 

The motion of nations toward regional blocs is expanding. This is not simply a reaction to the military aggressiveness of the United States . It is also an attempt to create or protect markets for their economies, which are increasingly based in electronics.Ê The industrial economies produced much faster than their markets could expand. As the developing nations are compelled to adopt electronic production, that contradiction becomes intense and dangerous. Protecting their market is a matter of life and death for these regions. On the other hand, the U.S. must have these markets and wants to see these regions become richer so they can become consumers for U.S. commodities. To increase consumers, they must also increase producers who cannot only buy but who can produce goods for sale in other markets.Ê But American production already outstrips consumption and the advance of these regional blocs simply intensifies the contradictions.

The general historical decline of U.S. ability to dictate to the world should not be confused with the enormous military, political and economic might of the country. A recent report by the Bureau of Labor statistics states that the United States is the most productive country in the world by a variety of measures.Ê U.S. output per capita is approximately 30 percent higher than the developed European countries and Japan.Ê Furthermore, growth in American productivity has been high. U.S. productivity growth between 2001 and 2005 was at 3.3 percent per year, which is up from the 2.5 percent figure that prevailed from 1996 to 2000.Ê Even with the current crisis, the U.S. economy is still 25% of the world economy. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation projects that with the new 2009 military budget, U.S. military spending will constitute 48% of the world's military spending. The directions, however, are clear. The U.S. domination of the world is declining as the various regional blocs are developing. This increases the war danger.

An overall view of the international scene shows that not only is polarization accelerating, but also that the next stage is becoming apparent Ð polarization within the contending poles.Ê The quick recognition of Kosovo by the Bush Administration was an implicit threat to recognize Tibet as an independent state. This recognition was part of the general polarization and was aimed politically at China and militarily at Russia . However, the Russian counter balancing recognition of South Ossetia forced China to join in a mild condemnation of Russia . China does not want recognition of any breakaway region.

The growing contradiction within NATO is clear. Europe , especially Germany , caught in the grip of a deep recession and looking forward to another bitter winter is not about to dare Russia to turn off the energy spigot. The dramatic growth of the Left and communist movements in Germany attest to the fact that the honeymoon, fanned by economic and military support from the U.S. , is just about over. In short, the unthinkable, a contradiction between the European Union and NATO is now thinkable.

 

Destruction of wealth

 

Ongoing economic polarization is driving and directing this developing political polarization. This is not a re-play of the depression era joke that "the rich get richer and the poor get children." This is an unprecedented transfer of social wealth from the masses to the few. However, this time it is accompanied by the destruction of wealth. Simple shifting of wealth from one social sector to another happens periodically under capitalism and is partially rectified by social and economic reform. The destruction of wealth is a necessary characteristic of qualitative, revolutionary change. How is this being shown?

World productive forces have never been greater. The inability of the masses to consume that production has never been so widespread. Today, almost half the world Ð over 3 billion people Ð live on less than $2.50 a day. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world's seven richest people combined. One billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). Six hundred forty million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. Around the world, some 26,500 children die every day, almost 10 million every year. (For these and more world poverty statistics, see Globalissues.org).

This poverty is rising. For example, today one third of the Russian people exist on a dollar a day. The acceleration of production in the advanced countries only deepens the poverty in the rest of the world. It is only a matter of time until this extreme economic polarization is reflected in the breaking of the ties that bind the social poles together and creates the ideological foundations of revolution.

In the desperate search for markets the U.S. is turning to this poverty stricken half of humanity. Clearly, the necessary infrastructure to turn this group into consumers does not exist. The arms industry is the only way out and it cannot exist without constant war.Ê

The deepening financial crisis is liquidating huge sections of the world's wealth, exacerbating the antagonism between wage-less or near wage-less production, and distribution for money.

This is all part of the political process that reflects the ongoing destruction and reconstruction of the world economy.

 

A new world order arising

 

When President George Bush, the Elder, declared his intention to create a new world order, he had to back away quickly and never mentioned the phrase again. Not only did he sound like the resurrection of Adolph Hitler, but wiser heads in his Cabinet understood that world order is not a subjective thing that can be placed or displaced at will.Ê

Like anything else, the creation of a new world order rests on the introduction of something new.Ê It is not imposed, but arises on the basis of that new quality. Looking back in history we can say that a new world order, dominated by Great Britain , emerged during the middle of the 1880's. By creating and dominating the industrial world, Britain became the greatest naval power, the greatest colonizer, and world exploiter. Hitler failed in his attempt to create a new order because he simply tried to rearrange the existing forces Ð to replace Anglo-American imperialism with German imperialism ÂÊ on the basis of existing industrial means of production. A new world order emerged in 1945 based on the destruction of WWII. This was shored up by America 's monopoly of the atomic bomb.

The turmoil we see around the world is the prelude to the rising of a new world order based on the growing predominance of electronics over industrial production.Ê An old world order does not simply fade away. Like any living thing faced with destruction, it becomes more violent, more dangerous, and more determined to live. The threat of war increases in tandem with the rise of this new order. We apply our dialectics to understand the process:Ê leap forward, stagnation, backsliding, polarization, destruction, and leap forward.

We are again, under different circumstances, seeing the beginnings of a vast American revolution. The emergence of new productive forces antagonistic to the existing industrial productive relations is wrecking the foundations of society as we have known them. Giant global corporations are replacing local and national companies. Wage labor is replaced by computer controlled robotic, wage-less production. Value, which is based on labor, becomes disconnected from price, which is now set arbitrarily by global corporations.

Consequently, wealth and poverty polarize. Each stage of this process further disconnects base from superstructure. The social destruction that we have seen in the past twenty-five years is only the beginning of the process. Homelessness will increase, education of working class youth will continue to decline, war will become part of the American way of life, health care will slip further and further from the grasp of the poor.

All this will become the school where the American people learn of class and class solidarity. This is where the people grasp the concept of revolution and a vision of a peaceful and abundant future. Let us shoulder our revolutionary responsibilities to bring this education and vision to the masses.Ê Again, the die is cast and there is no turning back.

 

Dec.2008.Vol18.Ed6
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