I. Crisis of global capitalism protracts and worsens
Since its inception, the neoliberal economic policy has intensified the exploitation of the working people and has accelerated the concentration and centralization of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie and its financial oligarchy. It has never solved the problem of stagnation and market, financial and fiscal volatility and meltdowns but has aggravated these further.
It has run into more than a hundred serious financial and economic crises through three decades, culminating in the crisis that has sprung out since 2007-2008 when the US housing bubble burst and major financial institutions collapsed right at the centers of global capitalism. Since then, the economic and financial crisis has protracted and deepened. The worst economic depression since the Great Depression has descended upon the world.
No solution to the crisis is in sight, especially because the imperialist states and the monopoly bourgeoisie continue to cling to the neoliberal economic policy and still enjoy the benefits of making profits and accumulating capital through liberalization, privatization, deregulation and the de-nationalization of less developed economies, especially the underdeveloped ones.
Public funds meant to revive the economy first pass through the labor-saving and profit making processes of the banks and monopoly firms. Thus production stagnates and the high rate of unemployment remains. Incomes are depressed for 99% of the population. And yet the prices of basic goods and services are soaring.
All the centers of global capitalism are afflicted by and mired in crisis. The fundamental contradictions between capital and labor have become conspicuous at the level of states. Public funds are used to bail out the banks and monopoly firms which continue to be rewarded with tax cuts and high-profit contracts.
Upon the rise of public deficits and the public debt, states adopt and implement policies that pass the burden of crisis to the proletariat and the rest of the people such as austerity measures. These measures cause further lay-offs, wage decreases, rising prices of basic necessities, reduced pensions, lessened social benefits and tax hikes on goods and services used by the working people.
The people resist through strikes and mass protests, as well demonstrated by the recent Europe-wide general strike and previous major strikes in most of the imperialist countries. The class struggle of the proletariat is steadily coming to the fore as the workers stand up and act to defend their rights and interests, whether or not the existing unions agree.
The conditions have become favorable for the resurgence of the working class movement against capitalism and for socialism. But the monopoly bourgeoisie and their political agents are still very much ahead in undertaking measures to counter the current of people’s resistance through violence and deception. They have adopted draconian laws against the people in the name of anti-terrorism.
They are also whipping up war hysteria to justify increased war production and higher military budgets. To distract attention from the roots of the crisis, they stir up such reactionary currents as fascism, chauvinism, xenophobia, racism and religious bigotry.
The proletariat and peoples of the underdeveloped countries suffer the most from the global depression. The demand for raw material and semi-manufactured exports has decreased or some of these are being exported in greater volume but at lower prices. At the same time, the prices of imported manufactures are rising. Trade deficits grow and foreign debt mounts.
The economic crisis has resulted in the escalation of exploitation. The working people and the middle social strata suffer from intolerably high unemployment rates, real wage reductions, lower income levels, soaring prices of basic goods and services and the deterioration and higher costs of social services, such as education, health, low-income housing and the like. The conditions of mass poverty have worsened.
This has led to widespread social unrest. The people’s resistance has taken various forms. Those in power representing the exploiting classes are quick to use violence to intimidate the people and suppress their resistance. They find it convenient to adopt the language and force of the US-designed war on terror.
The so-called Arab spring in North Africa and the Middle East spread like wildfire and toppled despotic governments which have been held responsible for the economic crisis, corruption and repression. Conflicts continue between reactionary and progressive forces. In all the underdeveloped regions of the world, the entire Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia and Latin America, mass protests are spreading and intensifying.
Blatantly pro-imperialist governments are being condemned and repudiated by the people. Governments like those of Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have their people’s support because they assert national independence and oppose imperialism; and because they work hard to look after the welfare of the people.
Where the US and NATO allies have unleashed wars of aggression to bring down governments that reject US dictation, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia and Syria, the most intense forms of armed conflict occur; and even after the overthrow of the anti-US government, movements for national liberation persevere and serve as long-term challenges to imperialist power.
Long-running armed struggles for national liberation, such as those in Colombia, the Philippines, India, Turkey and Kurdistan, are persevering and proving to the whole world that armed revolution can be waged and can grow in strength under current conditions. The Palestinian people have persisted in waging their decades-long struggle for national liberation and for their return to their homeland with broad international support against the brutal Zionist aggression and occupation backed by US imperialism. All these continue to prove that the US and NATO do not have a seamless control over the entire world.
Due to the grossly uneven development of global capitalism, imperialist hegemony has many weak points, especially in the underdeveloped countries whose people suffer the most from imperialism and local reaction. The current global crisis and the overextension of the US in wars of aggression and in military interventions are favorable conditions for advancing the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations.
So far, the imperialist powers have maintained amicable relations among themselves and have avoided becoming openly hostile to each other in their economic and political competition. They have succeeded in doing so by uniting against underdeveloped countries which they exploit on a multilateral basis under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). A crucial feature of the neoliberal policy of “free market” globalization is the denationalization of the economies of these underdeveloped countries.
The imperialist powers built their own unity on the previous anticommunist and anti socialist alliance during the Cold War. Since the restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries, the traditional imperialist powers have simply integrated such countries into the world capitalist system. Russia and China have themselves grown into big powers and are cramping the space for mutual accommodation among the imperialist powers.
It is inherent to the capitalist system for imperialist powers to be always engaged in a struggle for a re-division of the world and to expand their respective economic territory as sources of cheap labor and raw materials, as markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence.
While avoiding direct hostility among themselves, the imperialist powers manifest different positions regarding US imperialist aggression and also engage in proxy wars by backing different sides in civil wars or in cross-border wars in underdeveloped countries. In Africa today, particularly Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and DR Congo, the US and other imperialist powers engage in proxy wars.
The crisis is generating sharp contradictions among the imperialist powers. In the wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and China went along with and even assisted the US-NATO alliance. But since then, they have become wary and have organized the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to countervail the US and the NATO. They have shown reluctance in backing up the US-NATO wars of aggression in Libya and now more so in Syria.
On its own account, the US has become wary of China becoming a challenge to US hegemony in East Asia and is bent on overseeing and influencing major developments in China, such as the further privatization of state-owned enterprises and the liberalization of the Chinese political system. Thus, the US has decided to refocus militarily on the region even as it remains bogged down in a number of trouble spots in the Middle East and Africa. It has used its allies and puppets in the East Asia region to stir up diplomatic tension over the sea between China and its neighbors; and to justify the increase of US military forces in the region.
In the meantime, the US maintains its close economic cooperation with China and is further pushing China to privatize its strategic state-owned enterprises and sell out to the US and other multinational firms. At the same time, the US is projecting a strong military presence by launching successive joint military exercises in Korea, Japan, Philippines and other Asian countries surrounding China to serve as a constant reminder to the “communists” (bureaucrat capitalists) in power that they should moderate their nationalism and compromise with a pro-US democracy movement. US strategists calculate that military encirclement can induce China to follow US wishes to further denationalize its economy and further liberalize its political system.
At any rate, social unrest is rampant and is on the rise in China as a result of the decline of its export-oriented economy. While 1% of China’s populationhas become as rich as the uppermost class in advanced capitalist countries, 99% of the population mostly suffer in poverty. The broad masses of the people oppose and decry the corruption, inflation, rising unemployment, the withholding of wages, the grabbing of land from peasants and the degradation of the environment. The outbreaks of mass protests have leaped from the level of 80,000 to 280,000.
The Maoists in China are striving hard to provide leadership to the widespread outbursts of social unrest and to see what advantages the people can gain from the potential clash of the forces that are using the slogans of nationalism and liberal democracy.
With overweening arrogance, the US imperialists seek to enhance US hegemony over East Asia. They need to be reminded of their resounding defeats in China, Korea and Indochina following the end of World War II. So far, China has held its ground in political disputes with the US. The US has also failed to bend the DPRK to its wishes and has failed to destroy the people’s war for national liberation and democracy in the Philippines since 1969.
The world is in turmoil due to the bankruptcy of the neoliberal economic policy and the grave crisis of the world capitalist system. So far, we have seen the growing mass unrest in the industrial capitalist countries and also in the underdeveloped countries. We have also seen the wars of aggression that the US imperialists have launched in the Baltic, Middle East and Africa. A further spread of the turmoil to China and East Asia due to US machinations would present greater opportunities to the Filipino people and revolutionary forces for carrying their revolutionary cause forward.
Since its inception, the neoliberal economic policy has intensified the exploitation of the working people and has accelerated the concentration and centralization of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie and its financial oligarchy. It has never solved the problem of stagnation and market, financial and fiscal volatility and meltdowns but has aggravated these further.
It has run into more than a hundred serious financial and economic crises through three decades, culminating in the crisis that has sprung out since 2007-2008 when the US housing bubble burst and major financial institutions collapsed right at the centers of global capitalism. Since then, the economic and financial crisis has protracted and deepened. The worst economic depression since the Great Depression has descended upon the world.
No solution to the crisis is in sight, especially because the imperialist states and the monopoly bourgeoisie continue to cling to the neoliberal economic policy and still enjoy the benefits of making profits and accumulating capital through liberalization, privatization, deregulation and the de-nationalization of less developed economies, especially the underdeveloped ones.
Public funds meant to revive the economy first pass through the labor-saving and profit making processes of the banks and monopoly firms. Thus production stagnates and the high rate of unemployment remains. Incomes are depressed for 99% of the population. And yet the prices of basic goods and services are soaring.
All the centers of global capitalism are afflicted by and mired in crisis. The fundamental contradictions between capital and labor have become conspicuous at the level of states. Public funds are used to bail out the banks and monopoly firms which continue to be rewarded with tax cuts and high-profit contracts.
Upon the rise of public deficits and the public debt, states adopt and implement policies that pass the burden of crisis to the proletariat and the rest of the people such as austerity measures. These measures cause further lay-offs, wage decreases, rising prices of basic necessities, reduced pensions, lessened social benefits and tax hikes on goods and services used by the working people.
The people resist through strikes and mass protests, as well demonstrated by the recent Europe-wide general strike and previous major strikes in most of the imperialist countries. The class struggle of the proletariat is steadily coming to the fore as the workers stand up and act to defend their rights and interests, whether or not the existing unions agree.
The conditions have become favorable for the resurgence of the working class movement against capitalism and for socialism. But the monopoly bourgeoisie and their political agents are still very much ahead in undertaking measures to counter the current of people’s resistance through violence and deception. They have adopted draconian laws against the people in the name of anti-terrorism.
They are also whipping up war hysteria to justify increased war production and higher military budgets. To distract attention from the roots of the crisis, they stir up such reactionary currents as fascism, chauvinism, xenophobia, racism and religious bigotry.
The proletariat and peoples of the underdeveloped countries suffer the most from the global depression. The demand for raw material and semi-manufactured exports has decreased or some of these are being exported in greater volume but at lower prices. At the same time, the prices of imported manufactures are rising. Trade deficits grow and foreign debt mounts.
The economic crisis has resulted in the escalation of exploitation. The working people and the middle social strata suffer from intolerably high unemployment rates, real wage reductions, lower income levels, soaring prices of basic goods and services and the deterioration and higher costs of social services, such as education, health, low-income housing and the like. The conditions of mass poverty have worsened.
This has led to widespread social unrest. The people’s resistance has taken various forms. Those in power representing the exploiting classes are quick to use violence to intimidate the people and suppress their resistance. They find it convenient to adopt the language and force of the US-designed war on terror.
The so-called Arab spring in North Africa and the Middle East spread like wildfire and toppled despotic governments which have been held responsible for the economic crisis, corruption and repression. Conflicts continue between reactionary and progressive forces. In all the underdeveloped regions of the world, the entire Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia and Latin America, mass protests are spreading and intensifying.
Blatantly pro-imperialist governments are being condemned and repudiated by the people. Governments like those of Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have their people’s support because they assert national independence and oppose imperialism; and because they work hard to look after the welfare of the people.
Where the US and NATO allies have unleashed wars of aggression to bring down governments that reject US dictation, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia and Syria, the most intense forms of armed conflict occur; and even after the overthrow of the anti-US government, movements for national liberation persevere and serve as long-term challenges to imperialist power.
Long-running armed struggles for national liberation, such as those in Colombia, the Philippines, India, Turkey and Kurdistan, are persevering and proving to the whole world that armed revolution can be waged and can grow in strength under current conditions. The Palestinian people have persisted in waging their decades-long struggle for national liberation and for their return to their homeland with broad international support against the brutal Zionist aggression and occupation backed by US imperialism. All these continue to prove that the US and NATO do not have a seamless control over the entire world.
Due to the grossly uneven development of global capitalism, imperialist hegemony has many weak points, especially in the underdeveloped countries whose people suffer the most from imperialism and local reaction. The current global crisis and the overextension of the US in wars of aggression and in military interventions are favorable conditions for advancing the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations.
So far, the imperialist powers have maintained amicable relations among themselves and have avoided becoming openly hostile to each other in their economic and political competition. They have succeeded in doing so by uniting against underdeveloped countries which they exploit on a multilateral basis under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). A crucial feature of the neoliberal policy of “free market” globalization is the denationalization of the economies of these underdeveloped countries.
The imperialist powers built their own unity on the previous anticommunist and anti socialist alliance during the Cold War. Since the restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries, the traditional imperialist powers have simply integrated such countries into the world capitalist system. Russia and China have themselves grown into big powers and are cramping the space for mutual accommodation among the imperialist powers.
It is inherent to the capitalist system for imperialist powers to be always engaged in a struggle for a re-division of the world and to expand their respective economic territory as sources of cheap labor and raw materials, as markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence.
While avoiding direct hostility among themselves, the imperialist powers manifest different positions regarding US imperialist aggression and also engage in proxy wars by backing different sides in civil wars or in cross-border wars in underdeveloped countries. In Africa today, particularly Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and DR Congo, the US and other imperialist powers engage in proxy wars.
The crisis is generating sharp contradictions among the imperialist powers. In the wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and China went along with and even assisted the US-NATO alliance. But since then, they have become wary and have organized the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to countervail the US and the NATO. They have shown reluctance in backing up the US-NATO wars of aggression in Libya and now more so in Syria.
On its own account, the US has become wary of China becoming a challenge to US hegemony in East Asia and is bent on overseeing and influencing major developments in China, such as the further privatization of state-owned enterprises and the liberalization of the Chinese political system. Thus, the US has decided to refocus militarily on the region even as it remains bogged down in a number of trouble spots in the Middle East and Africa. It has used its allies and puppets in the East Asia region to stir up diplomatic tension over the sea between China and its neighbors; and to justify the increase of US military forces in the region.
In the meantime, the US maintains its close economic cooperation with China and is further pushing China to privatize its strategic state-owned enterprises and sell out to the US and other multinational firms. At the same time, the US is projecting a strong military presence by launching successive joint military exercises in Korea, Japan, Philippines and other Asian countries surrounding China to serve as a constant reminder to the “communists” (bureaucrat capitalists) in power that they should moderate their nationalism and compromise with a pro-US democracy movement. US strategists calculate that military encirclement can induce China to follow US wishes to further denationalize its economy and further liberalize its political system.
At any rate, social unrest is rampant and is on the rise in China as a result of the decline of its export-oriented economy. While 1% of China’s populationhas become as rich as the uppermost class in advanced capitalist countries, 99% of the population mostly suffer in poverty. The broad masses of the people oppose and decry the corruption, inflation, rising unemployment, the withholding of wages, the grabbing of land from peasants and the degradation of the environment. The outbreaks of mass protests have leaped from the level of 80,000 to 280,000.
The Maoists in China are striving hard to provide leadership to the widespread outbursts of social unrest and to see what advantages the people can gain from the potential clash of the forces that are using the slogans of nationalism and liberal democracy.
With overweening arrogance, the US imperialists seek to enhance US hegemony over East Asia. They need to be reminded of their resounding defeats in China, Korea and Indochina following the end of World War II. So far, China has held its ground in political disputes with the US. The US has also failed to bend the DPRK to its wishes and has failed to destroy the people’s war for national liberation and democracy in the Philippines since 1969.
The world is in turmoil due to the bankruptcy of the neoliberal economic policy and the grave crisis of the world capitalist system. So far, we have seen the growing mass unrest in the industrial capitalist countries and also in the underdeveloped countries. We have also seen the wars of aggression that the US imperialists have launched in the Baltic, Middle East and Africa. A further spread of the turmoil to China and East Asia due to US machinations would present greater opportunities to the Filipino people and revolutionary forces for carrying their revolutionary cause forward.
