{"id":691754,"date":"2022-06-08T23:13:51","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T23:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=130355"},"modified":"2022-06-08T23:13:51","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T23:13:51","slug":"imperialism-cannot-solve-our-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/06\/08\/imperialism-cannot-solve-our-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Imperialism Cannot Solve Our Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

In learning more about the Poor People\u2019s Campaign Moral March on Washington set for June 18th<\/a>, I came across this statement by Bishop William Barber, the campaign\u2019s national co-chair:<\/p>\n

Republicans say poverty is just a personal failure. And Democrats too often talk about the working class and those trying to make it into the middle class but refuse to talk expressly about poverty. Our debates are locked in struggles around and about trickle-down concepts of neoliberalism, and middle-class considerations.<\/p>\n

He concluded that the country\u2019s refusal to address poverty is \u201cthe basic moral contradiction\u201d of our time.<\/p>\n

I have to admit that I initially bristled at the idea of a \u201cmoral contradiction\u201d because, as a non-religious person, that language sometimes raises red flags for me. But I began to think about how Marxists talk about the concept of contradiction.<\/p>\n

What is a contradiction? All social phenomena contain contradictions. Contradictions aren\u2019t simply accidents but essential features of what those objects are. For example, the U.S. is a society that describes itself as free and touts its wealth but is plagued by the poison of white supremacy and male supremacy. The constitutional system grants due process, but cops kill and beat thousands of people each year. It has 142 million people living in dire poverty or one paycheck, one health crisis, or one disaster away from financial desperation. More than 52 million workers earn less than $15 per hour and often can\u2019t meet their basic needs. <\/p>\n

U.S. leaders and capitalists brag about advanced technology, such as medical technology and knowledge. Still, they couldn’t prevent the loss of 1 million lives from COVID or 100,000 opioid overdose deaths, or 46,000 deaths from guns. We wring our hands while little change takes place. We wonder why we never see these things coming and constantly react only after so many people have been harmed. <\/p>\n

Political leaders boast about an advanced educational system but cannot provide it free or at a reasonable cost to the mass of working-class people. Decades-long debt peonage is the best choice we have. As illiteracy grows and workers score poorly on tests that measure competence with mathematics and language, politicians cut school and university budgets.<\/p>\n

These are essential contradictions that define the U.S. as a social formation. They aren\u2019t just bad choices made by an otherwise just society.<\/p>\n

This reality shapes how I read Barber\u2019s comments. \u201cMoral contradiction\u201d causes one of the major political parties to demand the state control women\u2019s bodies by banning safe abortions claiming the human rights of unborn fetuses. But then, the next day, it votes as a bloc against immediate steps to remedy a baby formula shortage. A baby formula shortage! They will demand pregnant women register themselves to track births and punish abortions but refuse to consider gun registration. The Republicans and fascists built a morally bankrupt political platform. But the moral contradictions of the capitalist market economy, which they cherish even above life itself, are central pillars of the whole system. Abortion, gun violence, and baby formula are just the most recent plain examples.<\/p>\n

Contradictions<\/b><\/p>\n

Why do we care about contradictions like this? Social systems change and develop based on how social and class forces address these contradictions and turn a system into a new substance. Many capitalists and their sympathizers see contradictions as mere inconsistencies or glitches. Reformers want to fix these glitches and bring our \u201cvalues\u201d back into alignment with our actions. Or, they want to mend these problems by creating philanthropic or socially innovative programs that help out the poor but leave the system intact. <\/p>\n

Billionaires and fascists have different ideas about resolving contradictions. Think of Elon Musk\u2019s recent embrace of the Republican Party and its fascist platform. He is mad that the government continues to investigate his suspicious financial activities, and he is afraid unions will weaken his absolute power in his companies. He wants state power that he can personally bend to his will to help him get over his emotional problems. He wants more power to resolve contradictions through coercion and legal force.<\/p>\n

Imperialism uses war to resolve contradictions. Consider the U.S. government\u2019s drive to perpetuate or expand the war in Ukraine. It manufactures images of Russian human rights abuses\u2014some of which are undoubtedly true. But the U.S. record of torture, mass killings, destroying civilians, racist mass incarceration, assassinations, political interventions, and hybrid wars on a global scale, in just the past two decades, embarrass even people like Henry Kissinger, among the vilest of abusers. George W. Bush\u2019s recent verbal slip wasn\u2019t just a gaffe.<\/p>\n

Though immoral, these aren\u2019t simply moral inconsistencies. They are contradictions that comprise the structure of U.S. capitalism and its political system. Its capitalist class, on the whole, believes that it must maintain these structural forms of power if the U.S. is to keep its hegemonic position in the imperialist world system. In simple terms, these contradictions make the U.S. what it is as a country. This structure drives us from war crisis to economic crisis to health crisis and back all the way around again. So far, our only means of psychological survival has been self-induced amnesia. Forgetting, like self-medication, eases the pain of this moral contradiction, which I believe most of us feel very deeply.<\/p>\n

Barber\u2019s terminology about moral contradiction is essential. And amnesia is no longer a practical solution. However, working-class power transformed into social power could be the basis for an answer.<\/p>\n

Imperialist world system<\/b><\/p>\n

In the present world system, five fundamental contradictions are interconnected and reveal moral bankruptcy, logical inconsistencies, and anti-human tendencies that make capitalism what it is:<\/p>\n