Neoliberal centrists and phony fascists as political tools of the capitalist classes in an escalating war

globinfo freexchange 

 

The progressive movement has lost recently one of its pioneers. David Grabber was an American anthropologist, anarchist activist, leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and is sometimes credited with having coined the slogan "We are the 99%".

In the following short analysis, Grabber describes almost perfectly the nature of the neoliberal centrism and how its carriers manipulate the masses. He also unveils the role of those to the right, which in the US is played politically by the Republican Party.

As he points out:

 

                         There's a symbiotic relationship between these centrists, who are just sort of sneering elitists and these guys who are the scam artists, who pretend to be locals, who pretend to be idiots, or pretend to be fascists. They're not even real fascists, they're kind of phoney fascists. They are trying to set up a situation where those are the only two viable political choices because they both feed off and complement one another. 

 

While in previous decades the capitalist class formed a solid front against the working class through the complete domination of neoliberal doctrine, this "symbiotic relationship" described by Grabber is declining rapidly.

As we already explained, it was a matter of time to see a major crisis, comparable to that of 1929, inside the heart of neoliberal capitalism. The big meltdown of 2007-08 in the United States fully unleashed the centrifugal forces inside the Western capitalist system, and revealed a merciless endo-capitalist war, which had been already brewing underground in previous years.

The two major events as a result of this war, were the rise of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote. Both in the motherlands of neoliberalism.

 

What we see now in the United States with Trump, is a counter-attack by the part of the American capital against the globalist faction. The faction that is primarily consisted by the liberal plutocracy. Therefore, as the capitalist class splits, the capitalists around Trump are now taking with them the most conservative part of the American society, as they need electoral power. They have the money and their own media network. Their first big victory was Trump in the US presidency and this explains why the liberal media attack him so hard and so frequently. 

Both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson represent the capitalist faction which senses an existential threat from the globalized capital represented politically by the neoliberal center. And as Grabber says, these are only phoney fascists.

Inside the capitalist civil war, both Trump and Johnson are essentially the tools of a tough bargain between capitalists. Capitalists around Trump and Johnson are using these phoney fascists to sabotage, for example some international treaties, like NAFTA, which are critical for the complete domination of the globalized capital. They present these actions as a "patriotic" stance to lure conservative voters who are angry and feel that globalization is the key cause for the loss of jobs. 

In the UK, Brexit is an additional powerful tool in Johnson's hands to bargain hard. As we already pointed out, if the globalist faction wants a smooth Brexit through a deal with the EU, it will have to proceed in a permanent truce with the pro-Brexit faction. If it wants to postpone and even reverse Brexit, it will have to give much more. That is, give a privileged position to the pro-Brexit capitalists, in order for them not only to survive, but even gain significantly from one more transformation of the global capitalist system. The transformation that will occur after the next global financial meltdown.

 

Well, it seems that this transformation is taking place right now with the outburst of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis. And everything shows that the endo-capitalist war will become wilder. Capitalists around phony fascists like Trump and Johnson are ready to make the game tougher if they see that they won't get some guarantees that will secure them a place in the post-capitalist, neo-feudal landscape. And this probably means that puppets like Trump and Johnson will be replaced by some real fascists. We've seen something similar in the past.

 

The level of ruthlessness of this capitalist war can also be identified in the behavior of the US political class against the American people. It's astonishing that, inside this terrible situation, where thousands die from the pandemic, millions lose their jobs and live under extreme insecurity, no one is willing to offer anything. Both Democrats and Republicans have turned the oncoming election into a political bargain and they don't even try to hide it.

Inside this ruthless capitalist war, people have become almost irrelevant. What only matters for the political puppets is to secure the interests of the capitalist faction they represent. The rampageous bulls of capitalism are fighting each other in an arena in which democracy has now turned into dust under their violent clatters.

 

It seems that the only hope for the people, is the revival of the real Left through grassroots political parties, that will become strong enough to challenge the neoliberal and the far-right monsters across the globe.