American empire and the relative autonomy of European capitalism

Abstract This article examines the relationship between European states and the informal American empire following the Second World War. Building on neo-Marxist theory, it argues that any attempt to understand the political response to the ongoing euro crisis has to consider the deeper determinations of the trajectories of the states of North America and Western Europe through the course of the making of global capitalism since 1945. This involves, in particular, taking seriously the leading responsibility that the American state has had, and still has, for securing the conditions for capital accumulation internationally, even while other capitalist states retain their 'relative autonomy' within the informal American empire

Political Openings: Class Struggle During and After the Pandemic

Capitalism’s sustained failures to address popular needs, hopes, and fears have led to a delegitimation of state institutions and mainstream political parties. The crisis is consequently not primarily economic but social and political. The pandemic further exposed capitalism’s social irrationalities, intimated how unprepared we were for the much larger environmental pandemic to come, and generated a new level of empathy for the value of frontline workers and the workplace health risks they are exposed to. Building on these openings requires identifying a few key demands around which to unify fragmented social movements; acquiring new understandings; placing larger issues of property rights and democracy on the agenda; and creating workplace, local, and national organizations with the capacity to realize substantive change. The strategic demands the article suggests and elaborates are an emergency wealth tax, conversion of industrial capacity for environmental reconstruction, and the strengthening of unions as a social force. </jats:p

American Workers and the Left after Trump: Polarized Options

The widespread alienation of Americans from politics, which Donald Trump so handily exploited in his 2016 presidential election run, arose out of the uneven class and regional impacts of neoliberal globalization in the previous three to four decades. By the 2020 election, his success in polarizing the country through a politics of hate had reversed falling electoral engagement and brought record voter turnout, a majority of whom showed up at the polls to vote Trump out. Does the arrival of Joe Biden to the presidency signal the restoration of the legitimacy of American institutions? Does it even, as some on the left hope, suggest that the US is on the verge of a historic turn in the left’s favour? Or will we see a further resurgence of the right as voters become disillusioned with Biden? There is ample space for reform in American capitalism given high profits, the stunning scale that inequalities have reached, the comparatively modest levels of social provisioning, and the massive military budgets. But a radical turn to the left is quite another thing. Its likelihood doesn’t rest on Biden, but on organized pressures from below, and here it is the labour movement – or rather the possibilities for a new kind of labour movement – that is pivotal. What scope is there for socialists to directly engage workers and contribute to the birth of a coherent working class with the vision, confidence, and strategic and organizational capacities to lead a struggle for social transformation