Not everything is always as it seems, and there are many variables in today’s societal chaos that our ruling class hasn’t been able to account for. One example of these unforeseen developments is that during this last year alone, there’s emerged a popular movement in support of vigilante attacks on the criminals within corporate leadership; and recently this movement produced a new vigilante act, though the nature of this act has been hidden by the media.
On July 29, Blackstone CEO Wesley LePatner was shot and killed at the company’s Manhattan headquarters, which the media has framed as an accident but is clearly connected to Luigi. Blackstone is an asset manager that oversees one of the biggest housing monopolies, creating entire neighborhoods where homes are no longer for sale and entire areas that are subject to its prices. Its executives are guilty of “social murder”—where the capitalist class destroys human beings by taking away their means to live—as much as Brian Thompson and United Healthcare are. They’re to blame for homelessness, financial ruin, and the disappearance of economic opportunities. Our rulers know this, so they’ve spun a story about the shooter having been confused in order to prevent another cultural conversation about capital’s violence.
Another example is the disruptions that our recent economic chaos has brought upon the neoliberal status quo, with a crucial catalyst being Trump’s tariffs. Trump was allowed to win, and to implement these radical measures, because our elites have decided that drastic reforms must be pursued in order to save the system. Faced with imperial collapse, they’ve welcomed certain shocks to the established order, hoping this is what can rescue the empire from further decline. But this has come with a cost, because the tariffs have opened up new opportunities for alternative economic ideas to take hold. The liberal wing of the establishment, especially within academia, has been in uproar over the tariffs because they see these policies as signaling the death of their cultural dominance. Which means that programs which genuinely threaten capital, including Marxist programs, have gained an unprecedented opening within America.
Because of the tariffs, Marxist economists like Michael Hudson are going to see a growth in the popularity and influence of their ideas. With this crisis our rulers have engineered, it’s been demonstrated why socialism is the only practical path forward; this is what Hudson observed this spring in response to the tariffs, with his argument being that the tariffs could strengthen BRICS if more BRICS countries implement nationalization efforts. And this logic applies to the United States as well, where the destructive designs of our ruling class are creating a mass mandate for a new system.
In the United States, there is a historical basis for this phenomenon, where the actions of capital make socialism a widely accepted necessity. “When the American takeoff occurred in the late 19th century, everybody called it socialist,” said Hudson. “The whole of Europe and America, almost everybody in the 1880s, the 1890s, was calling the future ‘socialism.’ There was Christian socialism, libertarian socialism, Marxian socialism, all sorts of socialism. Everybody realized there had to be a mixed economy, there was no such thing as an ‘automatic adjustment process’ that made equilibrium; governments are needed to play a role in allocating resources. If this is left to bankers, as the United States has done, then you let the economy be financialized.”
This financialization and its consequences are what the Blackstone shooter was responding to. And though the masses have had this story concealed from them, they’re experiencing capital’s destructive process, and they’re seeking out solutions. The potential for these Americans to come to solutions that lie beyond the capitalist framework, and get behind a real popular revolutionary movement, is what unites the ruling class in fear. The different wings of the elites have conflicting ideas about how to respond to this threat from the masses, though; whereas the Trump wing wants to militarily occupy the country, the liberal technocratic wing wants to revamp policies like the lockdowns. The disagreement stems from how the Trump wing is aligned with the lower levels of capital, while the liberal wing represents monopoly finance. And we can use this divide to our advantage.
The reactions towards our revolutionary crisis that we’re seeing from the ruling class, and the infighting that will come from this, represent more disruptions that weaken our class enemies. The question is how well we’ll be able to outmaneuver these enemies.
Something Trump’s military crackdown effort has shown us is that the revolutionary forces cannot rely on the cities. The workers movement must establish a serious presence throughout rural America, where the state has far less of a repressive advantage. Understanding this crucial strategic reality is part of how we translate these sharpenings in capitalism’s contradictions into a movement that can actually overthrow the system.
A crisis does not in itself bring the defeat of the ruling class; this is something that we’ve learned from how only a tiny number of history’s capitalist crises have been the ones to directly precede revolutions. When those challenging the system know how to organize the popular masses, though, these crises in between the pivotal moments come to have a more significant impact.
Rather than being pulled along by a historical process that they don’t know how to respond to, the masses become part of a collective struggle, one whose participants learn from each new development. With the guidance of a revolutionary organization, and the insights that come from studying the struggle’s theories and histories, the people gain the strength to stand up to the state’s intimidation. Efforts to crush dissent, like the ones we’re seeing right now in the cities, cannot succeed in chilling a people who’ve been prepared in these ways.
Our task is to unite the masses, urban and rural, so that they can effectively fight off the suppressive efforts of our divided ruling class. The disputes among the capitalists are only going to grow larger; this is one of the developments that’s guaranteed by the empire’s decline. And these fights between our enemies have the potential to let the masses prevail, if we overcome the divisions which our class enemies are trying to sow among the people.
They want the people of the city and the country to hate each other, want us at odds over culture war issues, etc. Just five years ago, during the pandemic’s first year, these efforts to sow division were extremely successful; yet within just a few years, Americans found a new unity, based around a shared anger over their government’s failures to solve our crises. The Luigi movement was the next step in this change to the popular consciousness, and the phase after this one will involve an actual organization of the masses. This process of mass radicalization cannot be stopped, it’s going to keep unfolding as a response to the measures our rulers are taking. Our role as is to give the masses the means to win this fight.
————————————————————————
If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here.
To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment