Liberation in the Global South and the Threat of Fascism in the West

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM. I am Siegfried. One of the major subjects that I’ve talked about recently is the expansion of BRICS, this international economic partnership originally between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which has now expanded to include Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Ethiopia. Numerous factors, especially the warlike posture the U.S. has taken with regard to China and Russia, have driven these countries, including several key U.S. allies, to move away from the U.S.-dominated global economic system. With these countries increasingly interconnected economically and using their own currencies for trade instead of the U.S. dollar, the longstanding global reserve currency, and steering clear of institutions like the IMF and World Bank, big changes are coming, including for those of us living in North America. I want to stress that because in Canada we often think of ourselves as somehow insulated from international developments. If the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy lose global supremacy, which is now all but certain, it means that the U.S. and the Fortune 500 companies will not be in a position to exploit foreign markets, labor, natural resources etc. in the way that it has become accustomed. It’s going to be one player among many, not the boss of the system. That’s amazing news for Global South countries in South America, Africa and Asia that have been exploited for decades by U.S. and Western corporations and had their lands and resources stolen and exploited, often by military violence by Western countries, but it’s also going result in major domestic changes in places like the U.S, Canada, and the UK.

When Western corporations cannot reliably exploit foreign markets, labor and natural resources to make windfall profits, they will super-exploit domestic labor, markets and natural resources to do so, and do whatever it takes to maintain those profits. This is where fascism becomes a real possibility. Fascism, as it appeared in places like Italy and Germany during the last century, is a response to a weakening of the capitalist system in those countries. Germany lost its colonial empire after WW1 whilst Italy barely had any overseas dominions to speak of apart from Libya and Somalia. Capitalists in both countries faced rising working class resistance, rising calls for socialist transformation, rising labor costs, diminishing profit margins, and diminished international market share. All of these are challenges that the U.S. capitalist class is facing now, even if calls for socialism have died down in recent years, the United Auto Workers are about to go on strike (Elon Musk has apparently already removed them from Twitter as a result), UPS workers successfully struck in the summer and working class resistance is growing even as the U.S. economic and political power declines. It’s at times like this when fascism raises its ugly head. This the very real threat that working class and oppressed people in North America and Europe face today. Fascism is capitalism in decay.

To drive this point home, I want to play Michael Parenti’s talk “The Functions of Fascism.”