After Brexit, Victory of Trump - Beginning of a new Re-alignment of Global Capital?
The victory of Donald Trump in US Presidential election has created uproar among the progressive intelligentsia across the world. In his own country, a series of protests have surfaced against his taking of charge as President. On the other hand, his vitriolic pre-election campaign with a primarily white-supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-women overtone has paid dividends. It is now established that a large section of blue-collared white US workers and semi-urban middle class have voted for Trump. So, one major question is why these sections of the population have voted for Trump? The US white working population is turning more and more to the "far-right" - is it the whole truth, or something more is there behind the curtains?
Secondly, prior to election, the majority of the progressive intelligentsia was confident that those vitriolic campaigns were all just "trash" or "bakwas"; even if Trump would win the election, he won't be able to implement the measures that he is subscribing to in the campaigns, as because those are essentially anti-globalization in nature. But, after two months since winning the election, he has already shown that he is determined to implement the measures that he has assured in pre-election campaigns. Hence, another major question is, is it simply the implementation of the agenda of the Rightists, or is there some objective socio-economic compulsions?
Let us proceed step by step. In western imperialist and capitalist countries the issue of immigration has become a major bone of contention particularly during last 25-30 years. The anti-immigrant agenda in western countries has already been clubbed well with the anti-Muslim as well as white supremacist character. The anti-Muslim character of this problem has been shaped primarily due to two reasons. Firstly, during recent times, major immigration in these countries has been from Central Asia and North African countries. Majority of them are Muslims. The geo-political and economic greed of imperialism has led to a massive devastation in these countries and it is continuing for almost last 30 years. This situation has forced a large section of the masses of this region to immigrate primarily to European countries and to some extent, to the US as well. So, to the common western masses, immigrants are mostly Muslim. Immigrants are not welcome - it is the most common perception from the viewpoint that the benefits and amenities would be shared. So, their anti-immigrant sentiment has been shaped more against the Muslims.
But this is not the main reason. The issue of a number of terrorist attacks made recently in the developed countries by the Islamic terrorist organizations has made the situation further complicated. It is a fact that due to these attacks some people has been killed, some properties have been damaged. Ideologically, like all fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism is also reactionary and against all advancement of the civilization. But at the same time, is it not the more important fact that in defense of the continuously made savage military attacks by the western imperialism in the middle-eastern as well as north-African countries in order to usurp the natural wealth of the region, western imperialism has intentionally added the new connotation, "Islamophobia"? Have they not taken great care to leave no stone unturned to establish to their masses that all Muslims are terrorists, terrorism means Islam? And the far-right organizations in these countries are flourishing keeping this agenda in the forefront. In fact, the far-right anti-Muslim organizations operative in the western countries are nothing but the tool of the global imperialism to fan up this conscious propagation among the common masses. In absence of any effective progressive forces to combat this propagation, an overall anti-Muslim sentiment has generally percolated among the white US working population. The issue of immigration has taken a general anti-Muslim character.
However, anti-immigrant sentiment is not only anti-Muslim, it is at the same time racial. To understand this aspect, we need to look into the policies of globalization advanced by the western imperialism during last 25-30 years. Through these policies, western imperialism focussed on reducing the cost of labour so that the falling rate of profit of the seventies of last century after a boom period of fifties and sixties, could be restricted. To do so, they followed two significant measures - one, transporting the bulk of production to the third world countries where the cost of labour is much lower, and two, importing cheap labour to their own countries. During the process, what has happened in US is that the Rust Belt, once famous as industrial heartland of America, and particularly its manufacturing sector has now been almost devoid of functioning industries. Thousands of industrial workers have been jobless. Job securities have been lost. At the other end, in search of better paid jobs, vast numbers of working people from poor Central and Latin American, African and Asian countries have flooded in USA. Majority of the remaining mundane jobs of USA are now being done by these migrant workers. As a result, wages of the local workers have also been reduced. During post-2008 economic crisis, the problems of unemployment-underemployment and rapid fall of standard of living among the white US workers have surfaced in a gigantic scale. It is also apparent now that economic and social disparities have widened much during last 25/30 years and that has further been widened during the post-crisis period. To the common white toiling masses, the cause of their deterioration of standard of living has appeared to be due to the surge of the black and brown-skinned migrant workers. Thus the immigration problem has taken a racial character.
So, it is apparent that the white US working class and the toiling masses are aggrieved. And since they simply see that their jobs have been taken away by the migrant workers, they identify the immigrant labourers as their immediate enemy. And, they have responded to the anti-Muslim, white-supremacist and anti-outsourcing campaigns of Trump. But from above facts, what should we conclude? Should we say that white toiling masses of USA have been more rightist? Or, we should look into it in a different way? We must look into it in this way that, during last 30 years, global capital under the leadership of US imperialism has brought an unhindered devastation in the lives of the toiling masses of the whole of the 3rd world countries through its policies of globalization and liberalization, and this policy has now started to bounce back against it blindly by the way of bursting out the massive economic crisis, creating havoc in the lives of the toiling masses of its own countries, shaking the roots of its own policies, and finally by way of creating a new political reality. Trump is nothing but the best representative of this reality.
But this is also just one part of the truth. We need to ponder on another aspect seriously. Is it the fact that the recurring economic crisis that started to surface since late-nineties of last century and finally erupted in a gigantic magnitude through the great financial crisis since 2007, have brought forward a big question about the fate of the policies of Globalization & Neo-liberalization? Has global capital started to enter into a newer re-alignment in its effect? Are the decision of Brexit, the emerging possibilities of Frexit and the policies being implemented by Trump in the US nothing but the beginning of the manifestation of this newer re-alignment of global capital?
It appears that Trump is determined to "make America great again". He has already refused to sign the Trans-Pacific Treaty. It is a treaty through which trade and economic relations among the twelve countries like Japan-Canada-New Zealand-Australia etc was being sought to be improved and a common market other than European Union developed on its basis. The common masses of the USA was in opposition to the Treaty as because they had felt that it would bring further job loss and wage reduction. As reported in some US newspapers, Trump has forced few US companies to retain production in US homeland. Carrier Air Conditioning Co has declared that they have withheld the decision of shifting their Indianapolis Plant outside USA. Trump has threatened General Motors that if they install a factory in Mexico and import the cars from there to USA, then heavy duty would be charged on import. Till this day, though GM has not reverted back their decision to install a new factory in Mexico, it is learnt that Ford Company has already suspended their decision of installing a new factory in Mexico. Are all these actions of Trump indicating that in the name of restoration of lost American glory, USA, the bastion of global imperialism, is once again shifting from its "free market" policy to a more protective market policy? It is too early to make a conclusive opinion about it right now, but one thing is certain. Crisis has revealed that the high level of import dependence and sky-rising trade deficit is making the US economy more and more unstable. At the other end, while the policies of globalization have served very effectively to a large section of the multinational corporations, it is no longer becoming more profitable to a sizable section of US capitalists. This is the section who wants to revert back manufacturing to US so that import dependence and consequently, trade deficit can be reduced and economy can be revived. This is the section of the US capitalists who are the actual backbone of Donald Trump.
So, Trump in actuality is the representative of that section of US imperialism who, from the devastating experience of latest economic crisis, wants to re-organize US economy in its own interest. For doing so, they have utilized anti-immigration and anti-multinational corporation sentiment of the toiling masses, converted it to anti-Muslim and pro-white supremacy hype and been able to ensure the win of Trump. It is a great tragedy that the US toiling masses have found in Trump a messiah who would be able to revert back their lost jobs from the third world countries and from the immigrant labourers.
Here, the inevitable question is will the jobs of the white US labourers be restored through this process? More developed forms of automation across the globe are already in the agenda of the gigantic multi-national corporations. IT sector has already started getting affected. Retrenchment of the lower cadre of the workforce has already started. In the coming days, Robots are going to replace major chunk of the workforce, particularly in the manufacturing sector. So finally, jobs are not going to be restored.
Now, if we look into these measures of Trump more closely, we would find a massive impact on global capital. First BREXIT, then Trump - one thing is emerging. Since fall of the then USSR, western imperialism has been more or less able to avert its internal contradictions for the time being through the policies of globalization. But post-2008 economic crisis, cracks have already surfaced in this unity. BREXIT is a major manifestation of this crack. It is being further widened through the emerging policies of "make America great again". If USA unilaterally tries to protect its own market from the foreign capital, will it be accepted by others? Other countries will then move their own market from US capital. The inevitable fall out would be trade war, consequently further wider fissures among the imperialist camp. Already after Japan, China as another great economic superpower is adding fuel to this fire. War hysteria is rising. Newer alignment of global capital is going to emerge. Political instability to be created in the coming days due to this widening of fissures among the imperialist forces will once again create newer hotbeds at different corners of the world. It is becoming more and more apparent world will not remain the same. Status quo is going to be broken.
Finally, global capital cannot exist without the continuous mutation of the global working class. Policies of Globalization had a deep impact on the international working class. What is the process of mutation going on among the global working class due to the effects of these emerging changes in the economic and political arena? It is rather the most important question that demands deeper understanding.
It is evident that international working class will also not be able to remain static in this turbulence. The globalization has already enhanced the mobility of the workers to a gigantic scale. Communication technology originally developed for the best service of the global capitalism has made the international working class much more interconnected. Internationalization of the global working class in a much larger scale has already been inevitable fallout of globalization. When this international character will actually be manifested through united struggle cannot be predicted right now. It's a bare truth that after the defeat of first forward march of international working class towards creation of a classless society, today working class internationally is in a pathetic state. Today's reality is the white US working class is fighting against the co-workers black or brown in colour, or Muslim in religion. But it cannot be just anything else than a temporary phenomenon. Global capital, for the sake of its continuation of profit, is creating rapidly a much more congenial atmosphere where working class will be able to confront capitalism not just in national scale, but more and more in an international scale.
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