Mexico: “The right-wing parties are practically in the worst phase of their history”

Friday 2 May 2025, by Fabrice Thomas, José Luis


What’s the situation in Mexico after Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and more recently Claudia Sheinbaum came to power as presidents, and after Trump’s attacks?

Latin America has been the scene of strong struggles against neoliberal policies. The independent struggles waged by teachers, peasants, students, indigenous peoples and so on have not achieved their goals. There were even major defeats. This meant that social and popular discontent with neoliberal policies in Mexico was channelled into elections. The discontent was channelled first through the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Party of the Democratic Revolution - PRD) and more recently through the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement - MoReNa). The former was led by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. It emerged from a nationalist break within the ruling party. The changes culminated within the party, with the arrival in power of AMLO as mayor of Mexico City. His term in office was characterized by a number of progressive reforms, such as the granting of a universal pension for people over 65 in Mexico City and other social policies.

This led the right to try to prevent him from becoming a candidate for the presidency in 2006 by means of a legal-political manoeuvre. People saw this as an anti-democratic attack. The country became polarized, and mass mobilizations took place to allow López Obrador to become a candidate. The electoral process raised many doubts, so much so that we claim there was massive fraud. A right-wing politician, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, came to power. What followed was a process of resistance to the neoliberal policies of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Peña Nieto. The discontent was very strong: there was a high level of corruption within the Mexican government, which was entirely at the service of the interests of the wealthy who were subservient to the United States. This context explains AMLO’s victory with over 50% of the vote.

In 2018?

Yes, in 2018. AMLO came to power with strong popular support, enabling him to carry out some very important transformations, to improve the standard of living of the masses. One of these is the nationwide extension of the right to a universal pension. People over the age of 65 received support of $160 a month, which in Mexico means they can live more or less comfortably. Minimum wages were increased by almost 100%. Although this did not completely catch up with wages, the wage policy benefited several million Mexicans.

Later on, the Mexican bourgeoisie was also forced to pay taxes, because they were experts at tax evasion, thus broadening the tax base. He also waged a relentless battle against the corruption that was eating away at the state, and which has not ended.

Do you think these reforms became more anti-capitalist than anti-neoliberal, or did they have their limits?

There were many limits. We would have preferred a complete renationalization of state-owned energy companies like Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos). But at least fuel prices have been stabilized. In-depth tax reform is also needed, as Mexico’s wealthy pay very little in relation to their enormous profits. AMLO also had a very “caudillo” leadership style. His MoReNa party is no more than an electoral apparatus, imposing candidates undemocratically, particularly from the right wing.

How do you explain the fact that López Obrador still had over 50% support at the end of his mandate, and that his candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, was very successful?

There has been an undeniable improvement in the standard of living of the masses. Otherwise, the masses wouldn’t have voted so massively to elect Claudia Sheinbaum. She won almost 60% of the vote.

When did this happen? In 2024?

Yes, Claudia Sheinbaum has been president since October 2024 after her victory in June of that year. There was a strong ideological and cultural battle. In Mexico, the right-wing parties are practically in the worst phase of their history. They are very weakened and divided, and the ultra-right is an insignificant minority. Currently, even in the process of confronting Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs, Claudia Sheinbaum, according to recent polls, has the support of 85% of the population.

Trump’s statements and threats are provoking reactions not only from the government and Claudia Sheinbaum, but also from the general public...

What we’re seeing is a global problem, which doesn’t just concern Mexico, although it is part of the problem. We are faced with a declining imperialist power that is trying to pass on the cost of its crisis to the rest of the world, through taxes, tariffs and so on, and to put pressure on Europe to rearm and share the cost of NATO.

The crisis is deep: the US public debt crisis, the budget crisis. The US is also losing out, with technological deterioration, in competition with China. It is therefore trying to reposition itself. Donald Trump is threatening his closest partners, Mexico and Canada, with an increase in the cost of imports into the United States, on the pretext that these governments are doing nothing to combat drug smuggling, particularly fentanyl, and the migration problem.

The aim is in fact to seek a renegotiation, on how to produce, particularly within the framework of the free trade agreement. They want to recuperate many of the investments made in Mexico, and bring them to the United States, particularly in the automotive industry. It’s quite complicated, because there are value chains that have been in place for decades, and they can’t be changed overnight.

But the pressure is on. So far, Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has reacted firmly, denouncing the pretexts and sheer hypocrisy. Basically, what’s happening is blackmail, it’s the start of a trade war against Canada and Mexico, and if this government insists on maintaining these taxes, there will be a response on its part, to apply similar measures to other products, to compensate for what the United States is doing.

If the situation becomes tense, do you think there will be a lot of support from workers and the Mexican people?

Yes, yes, because the Mexican people strongly reject these aggressive, crude and authoritarian attitudes on the part of the U.S. government, and this has awakened nationalist resentment... and progressive resentment.

When there’s a confrontation between a strong, imperialist nation and a weak one, it’s clear that we’re with the weak nation, to confront it, especially when the leader of that nation not only acts in an authoritarian and imposing manner, but also has a whole far-right political agenda against migrants, a xenophobic, misogynist, anti-gender diversity, warmongering agenda and so on. In other words, here we are in a struggle that is both anti-imperialist, but must also be anti-fascist, because Trump represents the global ultra-right, which is acting in an increasingly openly united and coordinated manner with other ultra-right forces, both in Europe and Latin America. So we need to be clear that there are many issues at stake beyond the trade question, which is very important.

L’anticapitaliste 26 April 2025

P.S.


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Fabrice Thomas
Fabrice Thomas represented the LCR (French section of the Fourth International) at the first meeting of the Constituent Committee of the PRS.

José Luis
José Luis is an activist in the Fourth International and a member of the Mexican electricians’ union.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Argentina: opposition to Milei revives

Tuesday 29 April 2025, by Elias Vola


After many months without a significant opposition movement to the government of President Javier Milei on the streets of Argentina, the 36-hour cross-industry strike of 9-10 April and the social reality of the country have brought the movement back to life.

Since the CGT, Argentina’s main trade union federation, abandoned its strategy of confrontation through strikes - the last one dating back to May 2024 - Milei’s anti-social, fascist policies had been able to unfold without any major backlash. Pensioners faced with increasingly inhumane living conditions met every Wednesday, but seemed isolated.
Against repression

The repression ordered by the minister for national security Patricia Bullrich to attack the pensioners’ rally on 12 March was the last straw. The anger linked to the massive deterioration in the material living conditions of a majority of the population has been reawakened. The trade unions, and more particularly the CGT, previously committed to a negotiating strategy that looked more like a humiliation session, called for a general strike. From then on, mobilization rose to a crescendo: on 19 March, the weekly gathering of pensioners found increasing support; on 24 March, the mobilization in memory of the dictatorship was strong; on 9 April, the eve of the strike, 50,000 people gathered in the central square of Buenos Aires, along with almost all the progressive political forces and trade union and social organizations of the capital.
The strike, our best weapon

By early evening, the initial feedback seemed to indicate that the strike was going to be a powerful one. It was the biggest since Milei came to power. Most of the key professional sectors took part in the strike. In the air transport sector, over 300 flights were cancelled, aeronautical factories were at a standstill for 36 hours, port services were interrupted, trains stopped running, automotive and steel companies were paralyzed, the oil sector virtually ceased to function, and civil servants and teachers, the Milei administration’s preferred targets, swelled the ranks of strikers. The example of the Vaca Muerta oil workers acted as a symbol: in this extractivist and ecocidal project, which Milei brandishes as the standard of tomorrow’s Argentina, the 15,000 employees gathered in an assembly voted unanimously to strike.

First political effect: Bullrich and her repressive protocol, opposing “the union caste that threatens the Republic” on 9 April, did not dare resort to force. The second political effect was that the estimated losses to employers from the two-day strike were between $200 and $880 million. Last but not least, Argentina’s workers reminded the far-right government that their resistance was far from over.
The Left still divided

The outlook for the opposition to Milei remains unclear. The strike also served as a reminder of the fragmentation of Argentine workers: the broad masses of informal workers, the most precarious and exploited, were barely represented. Similarly, the CGT bureaucracy’s agenda is too heterogeneous to guarantee a unifying horizon: between the preservation of its “conquests” (and land assets), failed negotiations, and some of its federations opting for subordination to the regime, the voices within it defending a perspective of struggle are far from hegemonic. Left-wing Peronism, for its part, seems bogged down in deplorable internal conflicts, while the far left remains too fragmented and sectarian to have any significant influence.

Nevertheless, the social misery generated by Milei’s policies continues to deepen. Food, transport and rent prices continue to rise, and the recent IMF mega-loan, which will do nothing to benefit the population, will only increase the anger.

L’anticapitaliste 16 April 2025


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Argentina
Argentina: Milei, the crypto-presidential scam and the crisis of legitimacy
Argentina: ‘Anti-fascist and anti-racist pride’ against Milei
University funding law: Milei’s first failure?
The ultra-right governs Argentina: The end of an epoch?
Ecosocialism to change everything – the Sixth International Ecosocialist Conference




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AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

 DRC - Rwanda

Peace under the seal of business

Thursday 8 May 2025, by Paul Martial

The option of peace between the DRC and Rwanda is now becoming plausible, albeit fraught with obstacles. However, this is proving disadvantageous for Kinshasa.


Since 2021, Rwanda had activated and supported the M23 militia with weapons and men. It had succeeded in seizing a large part of the territories in the eastern region of the DRC, including the two regional capitals, Goma and Bukavu. African structures through mediation in Nairobi, Luanda and then Dar es Salaam had proved futile.
The involvement of the US

To everyone’s surprise, Qatar managed to bring together the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda, Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame, for a one-on-one meeting. A few weeks later, the two foreign ministers of the warring countries, under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, signed a declaration of principles in Washington. This recognises ‘respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of the other State.’ The two countries also commit to ‘ceasing all support to armed groups.’ This refers to Rwanda’s support for the M23, but also to the links between the DRC’s armed forces and the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a group founded by Hutu génocidaires. All these commitments had already been made during previous meetings organised by African diplomats, but what is new is the economic aspect.

A stranglehold on minerals

Having failed to secure military support from African countries, Tshisekedi turned to the United States, proposing a deal: access to Congolese minerals in exchange for US protection. Trump showed interest and sent his special envoy Massad Boulos to begin discussions. As for Paul Kagame, he offered his country as a refuge for those expelled from the US. This was a similar proposal he had already made to the former Conservative government in Britain. As a sign of good will, the M23 withdrew from the town of Wakilake near the tin mine operated by Alphamin, a US company.

The agreement in principle includes ‘support for regional economic integration, in particular through transparency in the supply chains of critical minerals’. In addition, Trump has promised massive private and public investment in the region.
Numerous obstacles

This agreement is not necessarily to the advantage of the DRC because, in the value chain, the country risks being confined to a mineral reserve extracted by US companies, with Rwanda providing the logistics for export. But the situation is complex. The M23, which controls large parts of the Kivu region, is primarily concerned with securing land ownership for the Tutsi community. Negotiations between Kinshasa and the armed group have stalled because the latter is demanding integration into the army and, above all, into the institutions. In reality, the Kivu region would be economically integrated into Rwanda and politically controlled by the M23.

Chinese companies control the vast majority of the mining sector in the DRC, which means that the US will have to undertake lengthy and costly prospecting work and establish itself in territories controlled by the many existing militias. Finally, it is not certain that the other neighbouring country, Uganda, will welcome this agreement, which marginalises it. It could in turn be tempted to support armed groups.

8 May 2025

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.


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Nigeria: against oil industry impunity

Saturday 3 May 2025, by Paul Martial



The Niger Delta has been totally devastated by decades of oil exploitation in Nigeria by the major Western oil companies. Huge tracts of land and mangrove swamps have been totally contaminated by oil, destroying all living things. People’s livelihoods, such as fishing and farming, have been wiped out. There is no longer any drinking water, and the air is polluted by the dozens of flares that burn continuously.

Shirking responsibility

The main oil companies are fleeing and selling their facilities to Nigerian companies. Their aim is to get rid of the wells, which have become less profitable and dangerous due to their obsolescence. It’s also a way for them to get away from their duty to clean up and compensate the Ogale and Bille communities. This is why TotalEnergies sold its assets to Chappal Energies for $860 million. Italy’s ENI sold its shares to Oando, and Exxon Mobile did the same for Seplat Energy. All these sales were made with the blessing of Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, a former accountant with Mobil Nigeria, whose nephew is a director of the company Oando.
The Shell trial

Shell was about to do the same, with the backing of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The deal with Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, a consortium of four companies, was worth $2.4 billion, but parliament and the regulatory agency, under pressure from NGOs, opposed it. At the same time, members of the Ogale and Bille communities took legal action in London against the Anglo-Dutch company, which remains the largest in the Niger Delta. The case is now being heard by the UK High Court.

Shell’s defence is that most of the oil leaks that pollute the environment are due to hijackings by traffickers. To counter these arguments, Amnesty International, one of the parties involved in this battle, had to analyze tens of thousands of pieces of data showing the dilapidated state of the installations, in particular the corrosion of the pipelines. It was able to do this thanks to the mobilization of 3,545 volunteers from 142 countries to meticulously examine every document, every image. The demand is that Shell carry out clean-up work and pay compensation to the people who have suffered these serious consequences.

L’anticapitaliste 16 April 2025


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Zambia: people are victims of Extractivism

Thursday 1 May 2025, by Paul Martial


Despite recurring environmental disasters and the dangers to the population, the government of Zambia continues its extractivist policy. The southern African country has once again been hit by major pollution. 50 million tonnes of acidic sludge were discharged into the watercourse running alongside the Chinese company Sino Metals in Chambishi, which processes copper ores.

Ecological disaster

The accident occurred on 18 February 2025. A wall in a storage area containing the sludge gave way, allowing the toxic waste to flow into the Mwambashi River, which joins the Kafu stream. The latter meanders through five of the country’s provinces to join the Zambezi River.

The Zambian authorities did attempt to respond to the disaster by dumping 250 tonnes of lime to reduce the acidity; other aerial interventions involved the release of limestone. But none of this prevented the destruction of flora and fauna. Following the accident, the government stepped up inspections and closed the Ranging Mineral Processing Limited plant in Kalulishi for leaking sulphuric acid into the Kafue River. This is not the first time that Sino Metals has been involved in this type of accident. In 2011, and again in 2015, two similar problems occurred on its storage sites.
Mining at any cost

Zambia’s environmental laws are of a rather high standard. The only problem is that they are not enforced. What’s more, the country is heavily indebted, to the tune of 28 billion dollars. China holds $5 billion of this debt and is playing an important role in negotiations to make this financial burden less restrictive, hence the great leniency shown to mining companies by the Asian giant. But Chinese companies are not the only ones involved. Just 245 kilometres from Chambishi lies another mining town, Kabwe, considered to be one of the most polluted in the world.

For decades, lead and zinc have been mined here without any protection. This production has had harmful effects on the health of the local population, particularly children. Although the mine has closed, it has left a number of slag heaps in the open air. The government authorized a number of companies to work these stockpiles, extracting both lead and zinc residues. With the idea that “mining is the anchor of our economy, it’s the solution that will bring the most value, the most income”, as Jito Kayumba, economic advisor to Hakainde Hichilema, president-elect in 2021, puts it.
Children’s health sacrificed

As a result, truckloads of waste have been transported into the city itself, leaving some nine mounds scattered across the neighbourhoods. This exploitation has extremely serious health consequences. Experts believe that almost half of all children should receive emergency treatment for blood lead levels. Most of the companies are owned by leaders of the ruling party, giving them total impunity.

Clandestine miners also try their luck, extracting unprotected remnants of ore from the slag heaps and selling them to large companies specializing in processing. By making mining the alpha and omega of its economic policy, Hakainde Hichilema’s government is contributing to the deterioration of the environment and the health of many Zambians, without solving any social problems. The poverty rate is rising steadily, reaching 62%, a third of the population is malnourished, and at the same time the agricultural sector, which employs 60% of the population, is being neglected.
While the extraction of natural resources does little to create jobs, it does make the elite very rich. As proof of this, Zambia has one of the highest rates of inequality in

L’anticapitaliste 26 April 2025

P.S.


If you like this article or have found it useful, please consider donating towards the work of International Viewpoint. Simply follow this link: Donate then enter an amount of your choice. One-off donations are very welcome. But regular donations by standing order are also vital to our continuing functioning. See the last paragraph of this article for our bank account details and take out a standing order. Thanks.

Attached documentszambia-people-are-victims-of-extractivism_a8967-2.pdf (PDF - 905.4 KiB)
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Paul Martial
Paul Martial is a correspondent for International Viewpoint. He is editor of Afriques en Lutte and a member of the Fourth International in France.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Trump’s Tariffs & Trade War On South Africa & The Working Class With Patrick Bond

By Patrick Bond

May 1, 2025

Source: laborvideo

The imposition of tariffs on countries around the world has had a major impact on South Africa and many other countries in Africa. University of Johannesburg political economist Patrick Bond discusses the role of the Trump and Musk In South Africa.

Now is the Time for All Anti-Imperialists and All Justice-Loving People to Stand Unequivocally in Defense of Burkina Faso

by Black Alliance for Peace / May 6th, 2025

It is no surprise to the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) that aggression is stepping up against the countries in the anti-imperialist Alliance of Sahel States. This was reflected in the flagrantly baseless accusations against Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traoré. On April 3, 2025, U.S. AFRICOM Commander Michael Langley testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee and claimed without evidence that interim President Traoré is misusing the country’s gold mineral wealth in exchange for protection. Langley provided no details on how these supposed exchanges are carried out or from what Traoré needs protection.

The imperialist modus operandi is at play here and starts with demonizing and criminalizing the leader of a country as the war propaganda pretext for more direct intervention. We have seen this script before. Commander-In-Chief of Economic Fighters League of Ghana and Steering Committee member of the USOAN,  Ernesto Yeboah refutes the liberal framing meant to arrest dissent against what is at stake:

This is not about military vs. civilian rule. This is about imperialism vs. liberation. This is about Africans standing up — finally — and saying: Hands off Africa.

The BAP Africa Team and USOAN are heeding the call emanating across Africa to unite in defense of Burkina Faso. And we further call on all anti-imperialist forces around the world, especially Black forces, to sound the alarm and publicly denounce these designs before this all too familiar strategy takes root. In 2011, Black anti-imperialist forces were unable to effectively counter the heinous plan of the U.S.-EU-NATO Axis of Domination to destroy the revolutionary Pan-Africanist nation of Libya. BAP’s USOAN refuses to allow this fatal mistake to be repeated.

This time the complicity of silence by ECOWAS, the African Union, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the African (Black) comprador class around the world must be exposed.

This is a pivotal time for the struggle against imperialism in Africa. The emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the revolutionary example of self-determination being set by the people of Burkina Faso represents a historic breakthrough for Pan-Africanism that the U.S. and NATO have been eager to eliminate. The U.S.-EU-NATO axis is desperate to re-colonize Burkina Faso and to halt any further influence across Africa set by the example of the Alliance of Sahel States. What the U.S is angling to undermine is a popular process of decolonization.

Under President Traoré’s leadership, Burkina Faso has advanced toward food sovereignty, established a national gold refinery, and taken critical steps to reclaim its resources for the benefit of its people. The vague and opportunistic accusations issued by AFRICOM are designed to undermine these gains and set the stage for imperialist subversion. When U.S. officials speak of “strategic interests,” they mean the unfettered right to plunder Africa’s mineral wealth, dominate markets, and exploit African labor, all without the consent of African peoples. We must not allow the absurdity of the U.S. and NATO, currently complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, to pose as moral arbiters in Africa.

BAP and USOAN call on all anti-imperialist forces to join in active defense of Burkina Faso, demand the expulsion of AFRICOM from the continent, and ensure that no African nation suffers the fate that befell Libya in 2011.

The time to act is now!

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The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Read other articles by Black Alliance for Peace, or visit Black Alliance for Peace's website.

 

Antonio Gramsci: Theirs and Ours

by Greg Godels / May 3rd, 2025

It has been forty-eight years since Eric Hobsbawm delivered a paper, “Gramsci and Political Theory,” before the Gramsci Conference held on March 5-6, 1977 (Reprinted as an article in Marxism Today, July, 1977).

Hobsbawm, contemplatively, reviews the forty years that had transpired since Antonio Gramsci’s death in 1937 after over a decade in a fascist prison. For the first ten years (1937-1947) Gramsci was virtually unknown outside of Italy, where Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti sought to integrate Gramsci-thought into the PCI’s work.

The next decade (1947-1957) found Gramsci’s influence in Italy expanding even beyond Communist circles, establishing him as an important national cultural figure.

It is with the third decade (1957-1967) that Gramsci became familiar to many people outside of Italy, with interest especially strong in the English-speaking world as noted by Hobsbawm. The recent strong critique of Stalin in the world Communist movement and the post-war strength and independence of the Gramsci-influenced PCI played a role in expanding the influence of Gramsci. Though not mentioned by Hobsbawm, the first (1957) limited US publication of Gramsci’s works was a brief (64 page) translation/commentary by Carl Marzani, Man and Society, published by the indomitable, Cold War-defiant publisher Cameron Associates. Marzani’s admiration and view of Gramsci as a model and contrast to Soviet practices is readily apparent.

With the fourth decade (1967-1977), Hobsbawm maintains that “Gramsci has become part of our intellectual universe. His stature as an original Marxist thinker — in my view the most original such thinker produced in the west since 1917 — is pretty generally admitted… Such typically Gramscian terms as ‘hegemony’ occur in Marxist and even in non-Marxist, discussions of politics and history as casually, and sometimes as loosely, as Freudian terms did between the wars”.

By 1977, Hobsbawm’s thinking was converging with the emergent school of Eurocommunism, perhaps helping to explain his estimation of Gramsci’s importance.

Would Hobsbawm — if he were alive today — be surprised that, nearly a half century after he made his address in London, Antonio Gramsci’s most influential admirers were thinkers on the Trump right? Would he be shocked to see an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Meet MAGA’s Favorite Communist”?

The WSJ reports:

Christopher Rufo is perhaps the most potent conservative activist in the U.S… For the past year, Rufo has been working on a book called “How the Regime Rules,” which he describes as a “manifesto for the New Right.” At its core is a surprising inspiration: the Italian Communist thinker Antonio Gramsci, a longtime boogeyman of American conservatives. “Gramsci, in a sense, provides the diagram of how politics works and the relationship between all of the various component parts: intellectuals, institutions, laws, culture, folklore,” said Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Author Kevin T. Dugan notes that many international right-populist leaders pay homage to Gramsci, including Georgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, and Jair Bolsonaro, while Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, told Tucker Carlson that “he had to wage a culture war every single day” against opponents who “have no problem with getting inside the state and employing Gramsci’s techniques; seducing the artists, seducing the culture, seducing the media or meddling in educational content.”

Other right-wing intellectuals have adopted Gramsci, according to the WSJ:

Gramsci’s name appears in the writing of paleoconservative thinkers Paul Gottfried, Thomas Fleming and Sam Francis, who influenced Pat Buchanan’s Republican presidential bids in the 1990s. One of Gramsci’s biggest proponents in the pre-Trump era was Andrew Breitbart, the founder of Breitbart News, who quoted his axiom that “politics is downstream of culture.”

More recently, far-right writers like Curtis Yarvin, who’s influenced Vice President JD Vance, have talked about how to capture power through a culture war.

Regardless of how selectively MAGA appropriates Gramsci-thought, however differently right-populists interpret Gramsci from his original intent, the mere fact that Gramsci is taken far more seriously by the right than by all but the Marxist left is cause for deep reflection.

The right sees politics as a contest — even a war — over how people interpret the world. They borrow this notion from how Gramsci writes about ideology. They intend to conduct that war with fervor.

Conversely, the center-left and even some “Marxists” embrace a market-model that imagines a forum of idea-sellers, who fairly exchange and value ideas. In this fantasy, everyone has an equal voice. They imagine that institutions like universities and media forms are neutral social and political instruments that objectively pursue, project, and protect the unvarnished truth.

Like Gramsci, the populist-right recognizes that the ideological superstructure — what the right broadly and cynically calls “culture” — is always captured by social forces. For Gramsci, following Marx, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” (Gramsci roughly quotes this from memory often, throughout The Prison Notebooks). Unlike the populist-right, Gramsci sees the forces shaping ideas as those constructed and maintained by the ruling capitalists.

When “Reaganism” arrived on the scene decades ago, astute left observers noted that “class war had broken out, with only one side fighting,” a commentary on the ineffectual labor movement.

Today, with the Trump-right attacking the universities, public media, school books, publishers, law firms, and other aspects of the superstructure, it can be said that “cultural” war has broken out, with only one side fighting, a commentary on the ineffectual center-left.

Quite obvious, the populist-right has — crudely appropriating Gramsci — launched a cultural war on hollow, complacent institutions blind to their own vulnerability.

Lessons for the Left

As Hobsbawm points out, by 1977 Gramsci-thought was becoming as popular and used “as loosely, as Freudian terms did between the wars.” Subsequently, Gramsci quote-mongering became fashionable and academic hipness was often assured by grounding discourse in the more enigmatic writings of Gramsci. “Hegemony” became one of the most used and misused words in the academic lexicon. Since most of Gramsci’s prison writings were necessarily cast in coded language, his thought lent itself to broad interpretation and misinterpretation.

Too often “hegemony” was understood as a writer’s personal interpretation of ruling-class dominance: something richer and more extensive than the simple statement in the Manifesto that “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Gramsci is explicit in exposing “the hegemony of a social group [‘beyond the dictatorship of coercive apparatus’] over the entire national society exercised through the so-called private organizations such as the church, the trade unions, the schools, etc.” — not exactly an earth-shaking conclusion for Leninists in his time, but well worth endorsing.

As Hobsbawm points out: “What is new in Gramsci is the observation that even bourgeois hegemony is not automatic but achieved through conscious political action and organization.” That is the lesson that the MAGA right draws, even if Gramsci’s left acolytes miss it.

In addition, hegemony is not merely an analytic tool for understanding capitalist-class rule, but, in Hobsbawm’s words, it is a “struggle to turn the working class into a potential ruling class” that “must be waged before the transition to power, as well as during and after it.” Liberals and social democrats who pay homage to Gramsci’s grasp of the mechanisms of class power, show no interest in Gramsci’s primary interest in establishing competitive, alternative mechanisms: media, entertainment, schools, activities, recreation, governance, and social life. He saw a need for preserving and protecting what was good and useful in existing working-class ethos and culture, while constructing what was even better for the future. Togliatti and the PCI sought to establish that hegemony in Italy’s Red Belt with different degrees of success. Italian Communist-influenced cinema, from Giuseppe De Santis’ 1949 Bitter Rice to Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1976 Novecento, represent that attempt made available to international audiences.

Nothing like this conscious collective attempt to nourish and promote working-class cultural life has been attempted on any scale in the US since the demise of the pre-neutered Congress of Industrial Organizations. Even the days of an independent radio station (WCFL, in Chicago) are past.

As Hobsbawm explains, “The basic problem of hegemony, considered strategically, is not how revolutionaries come to power, though that question is very important. It is how they come to be accepted, not only as the politically existing or unavoidable rulers, but as guide and rulers.” Two examples from Hobsbawm are telling: “The Polish communists in 1945 were probably not accepted as a hegemonic force, though they were ready to be one… The German social-democrats in 1918 would probably have been accepted as a hegemonic force, but they did not act as one.”

Marxist-Leninists in many, but not all, capitalist countries are cut off today from working-class life — they are led by intellectuals, but not organic intellectuals, paraphrasing Gramsci — with no vital connection to working-class life.

Apart from the Communist Parties, leftists have willfully or from ignorance failed to acknowledge that Gramsci wrote as a Leninist, accepting the critical importance of a vanguard party (The Prince), though he had ideas about party organization that reflected conditions peculiar to Italy in his time (e.g., the Turin movement). Without a party, no sense can be made of an “organic” connection to the working class.

John Womack reminds us that Gramsci’s “original” thoughts are often elaborations on ongoing debates in the Marxist movement. For example, the military-sounding contrast between wars of position and wars of maneuver predate Gramsci’s argument, with the Kautsky-Luxemburg dispute over the strategy of attrition versus the strategy of overthrow. These debates were carried forward into the early Comintern and played an important role in shaping Communist strategy.

It is commonplace on the left to view Gramsci’s idea of a “war of position” as a passive interregnum between the “wars of maneuver” where the working class and its allies can directly challenge the capitalist class from a position of relative strength. Too often this idea of positional warfare has been interpreted to be a period of defensive treading water. In the US, Gramsci’s war of position has often been used as a justification for supporting the Democratic Party in its turf war with the other bourgeois party or as grounds for taking a back seat to other organizations in an unnegotiated united front.

Hobsbawm addresses this misreading of Gramsci:

[T]he failure of revolution in the West might produce a much more dangerous long-term weakening of the forces of progress by means of what he called “passive revolution.” On the one hand, the ruling class might grant certain demands to forestall and ward off revolution, on the other, the revolutionary movement might find itself in practice (though not necessarily in theory) accepting its impotence and might be eroded and politically integrated into the system… In short, the “war of position” had to be systematically thought out as a fighting strategy rather than something to do for revolutionaries when there is no prospect of building barricades. (my emphasis)

Today’s left often neglects the essential questions of place and time in evaluating Gramsci’s thinking. Hobsbawm is careful to point out that Gramsci was writing about specifically Italian conditions and lessons for the Italian left: “Italy in Gramsci’s day had a number of historical peculiarities which encouraged original departures in Marxist thinking.” Hobsbawm discusses six “peculiarities” in great detail.

In addition, it is necessary to note when Gramsci was writing, as well as when Hobsbawm was commenting on Gramsci.

Writing from prison with Italian fascism securing its hold over Italy, Gramsci was understandably motivated to take a critical eye toward the tactics and strategy of the PCI, as much forward looking as retrospectively. Hence, his revisiting the Southern question. It would be ill-advised to generalize his conclusions to every revolutionary project under different conditions.

Further, Hobsbawm writes at a time (1977) when the PCI’s electoral share was growing (34%, up 7%, 1976), when the PCI committed to a Gramsci-inspired historical compromise, and Eurocommunism was on the rise. At the same time, the Portuguese revolution– met with great expectations by the socialist left– appeared to be dashing those expectations and heading toward conciliation with the mainstream European community. Hobsbawm, like others favoring the Eurocommunist road, turned to Gramsci for an explanation: “…we see in countries in which there has been a revolutionary overthrow of the old rulers, such as Portugal, in the absence of hegemonic force even revolutions can run into sand.” History was not kind to Eurocommunism and the PCI project.

Perhaps the most cited Gramsci quote is: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

The great blacklisted, expatriate director, Joseph Losey, used the Gramsci quote, to good effect, as the preamble to his film version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Others have used it to introduce the many crises that have afflicted the capitalist system.

One could argue that we are in just such an interregnum today, with the capitalist system struggling to continue ruling in the “old way.”

Therefore, there may be much that we can learn from Gramsci. But we must remember that he remained a Leninist. If he were alive today, he would be searching for the party capable of giving birth to the new.

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Greg Godels writes on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.

 

Sci-fi Antidote for the Age of Genocide

Review of Mickey7

by Eric Walberg / May 5th, 2025

Are you overwhelmed by Israel, Trump, starvation, drones, hypersonic monstrosities, doubling our ‘defense’ budget, reducing people to things, bloodlust? Did I mention ISRAEL?

I turn to sci fi when the world looks/ feels super bleak. Mickey7 is a 2022 science fiction novel by Edward Ashton with a sequel, Antimatter Blues, and a film adaptation, Mickey 17, directed by Bong Joon-ho. As with any really good novel-film, you should start with a nice hardback in a comfortable chair and launch yourself into the cosmos, let your imagination do the travelling. The many metaphors behind it are too savory to waste on a rushed, cut-to-the-bone glossy visual spectacle. The special effects are best conjured in your mind in this page-turner with multiple meanings.

The eponymous Mickey7 is a cyborg, the expendable member of a beachhead colony on an alien world. He fell down a deep hole in the snowy, rocky planet Neflheim and was left for dead by his supposed best human friend Berto, though his human true-love Nasha wanted to volunteer to save him. But he failed to die. A huge creeper – a native (nephilim?) – shepherds him out of the tunnel, though by the time he returned to the colony, there was already a Mickey8 being ‘born’ out of primordial soup, a reconstruction of him, a kind of super 3D-bioprint. This latest technology requires supercomputers and huge amounts of energy, but with the harnessing of antimatter, energy is limitless and such a creation is possible.

Sounds great, but this process was used by a psychopath, Manikova, in the past, on the terraformed Eden II, to make multiple clones of himself and, well, the whole process was shutdown and then refashioned to be used only to assist colonization of other planets. One ‘expendable’ would accompany each colony to be used to test the atmosphere, land, water for toxins and other suicidal missions and if he dies horribly, he would be reconstituted.

Who would want to do that? Criminals, but also volunteers who would imagine themselves as living a kind of eternal life. As long as they were nice, heroic and obedient. If not, they would, well, you get the picture. Not so eternal.

It’s a delightful tale of essentially identical twins, thinking alike, rivals, playing the usual twin games of fooling your lover with your twin taking your place, leading to jealousy and then a threesome (with yourself!). You laugh, and ponder lots of philosophical and war&peace issues:

*The ship of Theseus paradox: if you repair the ship over time, or just rebuild it from scratch, is it still the ship? Are Mickey7&8 sharing one consciousness, one soul? When an expendable takes a trip to the tank, he’s just doing in one go what his body would naturally do over the course of time anyway. As long as memory is preserved, he hasn’t really died. Kant’s phenomenology means we can never really know the nous of the phenomenon, i.e., there’s no answer. The Natalist religion that arose after the initial psychopath scare proclaims ‘one human one soul’, with capital punishment for any violation. I.e., the question doesn’t/shouldn’t arise.

*A corollary paradox: Does a threesome with your double and his/your lover make you a ‘perv’?

*When he’s facing death for the 8th time, he tells Nasha not to watch. No, I’ll be there. Dying … even if it’s temporary, you shouldn’t have to do it with nobody around for company.

*The hero is portrayed as a venal selfish coward, a traitor. Sound like hasbara about Hamas guerrilla fights? Living in tunnels that the colonizers can’t seem to penetrate, and fear? The protagonist(s) wearing suicide antimatter vests in the tunnels to kill the enemy/themselves. Israeli commandos destroying Hamas in their tunnels? Later, when faced with execution, Nasha says, This colony wasn’t chartered as a theocracy. You can’t just burn us at the stake.

*A man has conspired with the enemy in a time of war. There is no greater crime./ What about genocide? It wasn’t conspiring with the enemy that led us to abandon old Earth.

*The creepers are communal intelligence. The Marshall thinks that they are at war because the creepers killed a few humans. The idea that dissecting a few ancillaries would be considered an act of aggression is beyond them. They are just parts of the whole, not intelligent things themselves. I realized reading this that Nature is communal. There are no individuals except as fractal bits of the whole. This is a principle throughout Nature. If a few humans die, so what? The human race goes on. We have lost this vital understanding of Nature. We only exist communally.

*Don’t kill the messenger. When Mickey7 refuses to commit genocide against the natives, Netanyahu (sorry, the Marshall) wants first to just kill him, but Mickey7 is now the only emissary, mediator with the native creepers, the only one they trust. Netanyahu (sorry!) assumes they are just Amalek, not really Jewish (sorry, human) so it is fine to kill them all and terraform Niflheim. Mickey7 realized they were sentient, as they magnanimously saved him. They read his mind and realized he was not their enemy, that he trusted them, so while Mickey8 was getting ready to kill them all in their tunnel with an antimatter bomb, they killed him and let Mickey7 return to mediate with Netanyahu (I’m not going to keep apologizing, though to be fair to Netanyahu, Trump fits the bill equally.).

*The tunnels are immune to carpet bombing – low tech defensive technology – keeping the natives safe from the colonists/Zionists.

*Antimatter WMDs hover over the novel, a silver bullet but extremely dangerous. We may not have the high ground anymore, but we still have an insane amount of power available. Sound familiar? When Netanyahu/the Marshall doesn’t kill Mickey7&8 immediately, Mickey 7 cracks, Don’t get too excited, Eight. I’m pretty sure this is a temporary reprieve. Poor Gazans at this very moment!

*It’s a truism that every new technological advancement has been applied first to advance the interests of the horny. The printing press? Some Bibles, mostly porn. Antibiotics? Perfect for treating STIs. The second area of course is war.

*The best colonizing effort was on a planet with sentient, shy tree-dwelling cephalopods (octopuses) who were not even noticed by colonizers for two decades, so the colonizers were not primed to face a lethal enemy by then and a common language and modus vivendi was achieved. These natives were so attuned to their environment that they didn’t need fire, killing, agriculture, war – all the things that made humans so toxic. (Read: Palestinians as the shy natives, but Muslims in general, who lived peacefully in the Ottoman caliphate and never developed lethal industrial technology, vs European countries, obsessed with war and world conquest.) Sadly, no analogy with resolving the Palestine-Israel standoff today.

Ashton mulled over these provocative themes for years, rewriting his 2022 novel from an earlier short story, but it’s as if he’s writing it today. Genocide of natives by venal colonizers, tunnels as refuge, runaway greenhouse effect, Earth abandoned. It is cathartic to read a vision of how it is possible to escape the nightmare world that US-Israel is creating and live in peace and harmony with natives. It’s very difficult, and can only come after heart-wrenching suffering.

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Eric Walberg is a journalist who worked in Uzbekistan and is now writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo. He is the author of From Postmodernism to Postsecularism and Postmodern Imperialism. His most recent book is Islamic Resistance to Imperialism. Read other articles by Eric, or visit Eric's website.

Climate sanctions against fossil-addicted capitalists

Wednesday 7 May 2025, by Patrick Bond

South Africa





The implications of climate-unjust politics are ever more important to interpret and resist. United States President Donald Trump, an unabashed ‘climate denialist’, withdrew his country, the main historic emitter of greenhouse gases, from United Nations negotiations, and should now be sanctioned. But annual UN COPs (Conferences of the Parties) won’t, because the ‘climate action’ approach is dominated by the West and BRICS. They continue to deny the world long-overdue ‘climate justice’ and they won’t punish Trump’s climate crimes.


Even worse, the G20 is a geoeconomic network fusing the interests of G7 imperialist and BRICS sub-imperialist carbon-addicted economies. Its leaders will meet in Johannesburg in late November, preceded by environmental ministerials in mid-July (at Kruger Park) and from 2-8 October in Cape Town.

Not only has climate justice been ignored in the UN and G20, the degeneracy of climate-action advocacy in both annual summits can be traced to the West and the BRICS. The latter bloc originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. New members include the high-emissions economies of Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia (though Riyadh is apparently dropping out of BRICS in the wake of Trump’s victory).

BRICS economies produce 53% of global emissions, but only 30% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product. In 2025, other high-carbon economies have joined as formal ‘partners,’ including Nigeria and Kazakhstan. Both are major oil exporters to Israel, and Russia and South Africa are two of the three main coal suppliers to the genocidaires.

What interests do sub-imperial BRICS corporates and states have in common with Western climate imperialists? In a process initiated in Copenhagen in 2009, the West+BRICS have used—and will continue to use—such UN summits 1) to avoid cutting emissions to the extent necessary to avoid climate catastrophe, 2) to deny their climate debt, and 3) to ‘privatise the air’ via carbon markets. These remain the three most durable areas of common interest.

What differences do the BRICS have with Europe and the UK? Mainly the ‘carbon pricing’ mechanism and tariffs that will be imposed on their export products, as explained—and firmly opposed—by former SA trade minister Rob Davies in Amandla! 95/96: “Africa can use Global North’s Unilateral Departures from Trade Agreements to Support Low Carbon Industrialisation.”
The West’s decarbonisation ‘carrots and sticks’

Decarbonisation rhetoric will continue in UN and G20 summits, especially without the attendance of climate-denialist Washington hacks. And for BRICS members South Africa and India, and BRICS partners Nigeria and Vietnam, decarbonisation will be advanced through a European-British financial ‘carrot’ known as the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). Other carrots can be found in a now-cancelled US Inflation Reduction Act, which represented Joe Biden’s return to state industrial policy, but of a green variety.

However, President Cyril Ramaphosa last year backtracked on the JETP deal to shut down Eskom coal-fired power plants early, and is now also asking Trump’s favourite US oil companies to explore SA for offshore methane gas.

So there is also a need for ‘sticks,’ especially climate sanctions.

So far, the most decisive sanctions have been imposed, first, by Western bankers intimidated by ‘Divest-Invest’ climate activists from financing fossil-fuel projects; and second, by Xi Jinping, who in 2021 prohibited new coal-fired power plants along his Belt and Road Initiative.
Rejecting the CBAM stick—on whose behalf?

In addition, an inclement European and British climate-mitigation stick carries a clumsy name: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Since 2023, more than any other African, Davies has lobbied against climate sanctions (including in Amandla!): “CBAM needs to be rejected, opposed, and challenged in any way or forum possible.”

Davies invariably promoted high-carbon deals, such as the 2017 Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ), to be run by Chinese entrepreneur Ning Yat Hoi, head of Shenzhen Hoi Mor Resources Holding Company (at that time on an Interpol list for fraud at Zimbabwe’s largest gold mine).

Davies’ successors, Ebrahim Patel and Parks Tau, testified to parliament in 2023 and 2024, respectively, that they “developed and submitted SA’s submission into the UK consultation process on CBAM following consultations with affected industries and government departments”. They then embarked upon “lobbying actions, activation of public and stakeholder support for the [anti-CBAM] position, advisory opinions from international trade bodies, building alliances with like-minded developing countries…”

But who do Davies, Patel, Tau and their officials actually speak for?

The obvious “affected industries” CBAM will hit hardest are members of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG): 27 pollution-intensive, mostly-foreign companies which guzzle 42% of SA’s electricity while hiring just 4% of workers.

Hence Davies’ argument primarily serves the interests of the highest-carbon fraction of multinational capital, especially firms he himself worked on behalf of, as a senior Pretoria politician during the 2010s. At the time, South Africa’s resource cursing dramatically worsened thanks to the 2002-14 commodity super-cycle, which depleted far more natural wealth from underground than was reinvested by the EIUG extractive capitalists.

Davies amplified South Africa’s vulnerability to climate sanctions when, from 2009–2019, he exercised substantial power over economic policy and mega-projects. He invariably promoted high-carbon deals, such as the 2017 Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ), to be run by Chinese entrepreneur Ning Yat Hoi, head of Shenzhen Hoi Mor Resources Holding Company (at that time on an Interpol list for fraud at Zimbabwe’s largest gold mine).

Ning’s version of the MMSEZ would have added 13% to national greenhouse gas emissions. But Xi’s sanctions against coal-fired power plants lowered that figure to 8%, still a carbon-budget buster.

While in power, Davies not only promoted another coal-fired power plant, but also shale fracking of methane gas, massive subsidisation of cars and trucks powered by diesel and petrol engines (not electric vehicles), and other high-carbon EIUG firms.

He has a filthy track record, not green credentials.

Asked at a November 2024 Alternative Information and Development Centre seminar whether opposition to CBAM served the interests mainly of multinational corporate mega-polluters, Davies did not answer.
The mainstream case for CBAM

What irks Davies and many trade officials is that the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) are imposing the CBAM as a tariff protecting their local industries. Without it, given their far more ambitious climate policies than South Africa, the EU would experience deindustrialisation as a result of artificially cheaper imports of high-CO2-embedded goods.

EU officials claim—correctly – that such tariffs will also prevent what is known as emissions outsourcing: letting the Third World do the dirty industrial work and take responsibility for the resulting greenhouse gases, even if the final products are consumed in the West.

The reason CBAM has emerged as a wedge between imperialist and sub-imperialist (especially BRICS) economies is that, starting in 2018, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme carbon price rose rapidly, reaching a peak of $115/tonne of pollution in early 2023 (though it crashed 50% in the following year). Companies with excess EU emissions had to pay a far higher price for their pollution than they do in South Africa, the only country on the continent with a carbon tax. SA’s price for emitting CO2 is a tokenistic $0.38/tonne.

The actual climate damage done by emitting that tonne is $1,056, according to the US National Bureau of Economic Research last May. Pretoria, therefore, vastly undercharges EIUG corporations for CO2 emissions. To properly ‘make polluters pay,’ as SA’s National Environmental Management Act insists—but as is not implemented for greenhouse gases—would raise the local carbon tax by nearly 2,800 times.
State support for the Minerals Energy Complex

Obviously, any carbon tax increase should be imposed at the same time as an increase in free basic electricity (e.g. to 2kWh/person/day) and massive public-transport subsidies, in order that poor and working-class families are completely insulated from such increases.

For more than a decade, SA’s ultra-low (polluter-doesn’t-pay) carbon price was due to EIUG lobbying. As a result, the five most recent finance ministers exhibited a pro-corporate, climate-unconscious orientation when setting the carbon tax, especially Enoch Godongwana who is delaying raising it as scheduled.

The past and current Environment Ministers—Barbara Creecy and Dion George—not only failed to promote a higher carbon tax, but repeatedly endorsed corporate pollution by extending the deadlines for pollution reduction to Eskom and Sasol, killing hundreds of Mpumalanga residents in the process.

George admitted in late 2024 that he’d never even heard of the COP before getting the ministerial position. When African and small island nations staged a walk-out from the Baku UN climate summit in November 2024, George stayed inside with the imperial/sub-imperial bloc.
Damage done by CBAM?

The difference between carbon prices requires EU and UK importers of SA goods to purchase ‘CBAM certificates’ to continue their trade. Initially, this will mainly affect aluminium, iron and steel exports. CBAM is designed to penalise both direct emissions during production (‘process emissions’) and indirect emissions from embedded fossil energy, so as to end irrational subsidies like South Africa’s absurdly low carbon tax.

How harmful for exports would CBAM be? Vast exaggerations are offered by politicians representing the high-carbon sectors. At a 2023 meeting of BRICS environment ministers, Creecy announced, “Africa stands to lose approximately $26 billion each year in direct taxes to the EU in the initial phase of the CBAM alone. Very soon, others, including the USA, UK and Canada, will follow the EU’s example, and the list of taxed commodities will grow.”

This is an extreme distortion. The “$26 billion”—0.84% of Africa’s 2023 GDP of approximately $3.1 trillion—reflected only one biased estimate of the adverse impact. It comes from a paper by two London School of Economics consultants commissioned by Saliem Fakir, head of the conservative African Climate Foundation. The $26 billion is plausible only if additional agricultural and manufactured goods are included in the EU CBAM (which they are not in the short term or in any published schedule).

Yet this scare figure was uncritically reported not only by Creecy; South African international trade official Mahnendra Shunmoogam complained to the EU that Africa would suffer “at least $26 billion/annum,” without any assessment of the research methodology.

In reality, only a few African economies are exposed to declining exports to the EU due to CBAM. For aluminum and iron and steel, the losers are South Africa, Mozambique, Egypt, Tunisia; for fertiliser, South Africa and Egypt; and for cement, Tunisia.

Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies economist Seutame Maimele estimated Africa’s CBAM cost at just $7.3 billion per annum, or 0.024% of GDP. So Davies, Creecy and Shunmoogam are overestimating CBAM’s damage by an inexcusable 356%.
A full accounting of costs and benefits

Davies also opposes CBAM’s “huge disproportionality: the gains in emissions reduction are small, compared to the loss of export earnings and incomes, in any of the scenarios.”

He ignores that export of CBAM-listed goods—especially smelted metals—also entails unequal ecological exchange. Raw materials within these products include non-renewable resources extracted and processed by multinational corporations, with inadequate reinvestment.

Most such firms remove profits, dividends, and debt repayments, as well as illicit financial flows. The depleted wealth and stolen financial capital should instead be conserved for future generations, to cite a rudimentary definition of ‘sustainability.’ Davies’ pro-export stance for these sectors leads to extreme economic unsustainability.

Even conservative World Bank ‘natural capital accounts’—especially measures of raw materials depletion, greenhouse gas damage and pollution—show South African wealth shrinkage far faster than GDP growth. This is due to export of minerals from what is one of the world’s worst ‘resource curse’ sites, a factor Davies and his successors have never taken seriously.

The CBAM-proscribed products are not only subject to process emissions during production. There is also an ultra-inefficient electricity input to deep-mining extraction, smelting and processing. Only three other economies have higher emissions per person per unit of GDP than South Africa: the UAE, Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic.

Moreover, South Africa suffers from chronic ‘load-shedding’ electricity shortages, with Stage 6 returning in recent weeks. If CBAM results in lower EU demand for such goods (and if those goods are not consumed in other export or domestic markets), that would allow redistribution of scarce electricity to labour-intensive industries, small businesses and households.

In turn, electricity redistribution would boost economic output and eco-social public goods, compared to present EIUG abuse. There would be less reliance upon non-renewable-resource depletion due to CBAM, along with far lower levels of pollution and emissions..

South Africa is one of the most extreme cases of subsidising climate chaos, with $56 billion in annual implicit and explicit subsidies, according to the IMF, based on a carbon price of only $63/tonne. For a more realistic figure, multiply that price by 17: South Africa gifts CO2 emitters $9400 billion in implicit annual subsidies, contrasted with the 2024 GDP of $403 billion.

Our climate justice movement has been unable to halt such insanity. That is why the South African branch of fossil-addicted capitalism—and branches across the BRICS, too—will require sanctions in the form of a CBAM. Yes, the EU/UK version needs reforms, such as using revenues to make their overdue climate debt payments.

It goes without saying that the workers and communities hosting these industries should be urgently compensated through a genuinely just transition process (not like the JETP circus suffered during Eskom’s Komati coal-fired power plant closure).

Like the anti-apartheid movement in the early 1960s, which at its low point desperately needed international solidarity in the form of a Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign, and just like we must now ramp up BDS against genocidal Israel, there is an historical lesson: the most vigorous anti-imperialists should make demands upon imperialist states to disrupt global value chains that reward profiteers.

Otherwise, those chains will prevent future generations’ ability to survive a climate catastrophe.

Amandla 29 April 2025

Attached documentsclimate-sanctions-against-fossil-addicted-capitalists_a8978-2.pdf (PDF - 923.9 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article8978]

Ecology and the Environment


Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond is a professor at the University of Johannesburg Department of Sociology.


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Absurd (Scary) CO₂ Emissions

by Robert Hunziker / May 4th, 2025

In a major blow to the Paris ’15 climate agreement, last year witnessed one more nail in the coffin of the celebrated agreement to slow down CO₂ emissions by 2030, as CO₂, for the first time in modern history, enters the scientifically established danger zone. This agreement was/is meant to curtail global warming and hopefully save major ecosystems from collapse. But now, with too much noncompliance by countries and rapidly ascending CO₂ emissions, Paris ’15 is at rest in a coffin awaiting an un-ceremonial burial.  Nobody wants to attend.

CO₂ emissions went bonkers in 2024, up 3.75 ppm, a new all-time-record, smashing all prior years and looking very ominous with trouble likely ahead as global warming kicks into higher gear, raising the question of whether property/casualty insurance companies will survive the onslaught: (1) raging wildfires (2) atmospheric river cloudbursts (3) widespread flooding (4) skies blackened by tornados (5) scorching droughts (6) category 5+ hurricanes, all of which follow in the footsteps of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

It should be noted that the property/casualty insurance industry was already on the ropes with CO₂ emissions lower. They’ve publicly admitted it! The following is a must-read article written by a key player in the worldwide insurance industry; frankly, a must-read for anybody concerned about the future: “Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism,” March 25, 2025.

Within only a couple weeks of that standalone earth-shattering article that lays out the climate change-global warming disaster scenario from a senior member of the property/casualty insurance industry, Arctic News published a startling notice on April 14, 2025, “Record High Increase in Carbon Dioxide,” CO₂, the primary target of the now-infamous Paris 2015 climate agreement. Oops! All Paris ’15 bets are off, as CO₂ increased by a thundering record-shattering 3.75 ppm, a rocket ship blastoff by historic standards, and the future likely higher yet:

1960 +0.96 ppm

1970 +1.13 ppm

2000 +1.24 ppm

2024 +3.75 ppm

And that’s before the Trump administration turned the oil and gas spigot wide open along with a big push for coal as well as an ultra-ultra-massive rollback of environmental regulations, meaning the fossil fuel and chemical industries are deeply indebted to the administration for removing costly regulations that forced them to adhere to a clean environment!

Additionally, according to a recent article in Science: “Trump Administration Fires Staff for Flagship U.S. Climate Assessment” (subtitle: Move Could Open Door to Using High-Profile Report to Attack Science), April 9, 2025. This is obviously devious to an extreme, possibly altering climate reports. But unfortunately the truth remains, as the insurance industry continues to raise rates and/or drop coverage because the reality of harmful climate change takes precedence over doctored reports.

The 430 ppm CO₂ Danger Zone

Reality is inescapable: Of all the greenhouse gases, CO₂ alone is responsible for 2/3rds of the warming effect by greenhouse gases. This is 100% a proven fact that was discovered by Exxon’s scientists years ago (“Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skill’,” Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023).

Effective January 2025, CO₂ registered 426.03 ppm versus 422.25 ppm in 2024. By way of comparison, in 1960 CO₂ in the atmosphere was 316.00 ppm. And until advent of the industrial revolution mid 18th century, CO₂ levels were below 300 ppm for ages.

According to an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report: “In 2016, a worldwide body of climate scientists said that a CO₂ level of 430 ppm would push the world past its target for avoiding dangerous climate change.” (MIT Climate Portal)

Acceleration of CO₂ is getting to be downright spooky +200%-t0-300% since the start of the new century. It’s never increased at such a rapid pace throughout recorded history. According to current readings by Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, CO₂ exceeded 430 ppm for six days in a row in April 2025 and hit 430.51 on April 21. And the new year is still young. Clearly, CO₂ emissions are out of control running roughshod over any pretense of climate change mitigation efforts by parties to the Paris ‘15 climate agreement (RIP?).

Moreover, the U.S., one of the world’s major influencers of economic behavior and climate change, is pushing in the wrong direction, encouraging more CO₂ emissions via increased production of oil and gas and coal while falsely claiming “climate change is a hoax.” This is an extreme position, bold-faced lie, not supported by facts, making Emperor Nero look like a lightweight. It’s the whole planet, stupid, not just Rome!

Meanwhile, a casual Google search of four words: “climate change and insurance” reveals the startling truth, bringing up page after page after page filled with titles such as: “Climate Change is Driving an Insurance Crisis.”  Business gets it: “Property Values to Crater up to 60% Due to Climate Change,” Business Insider, August 9, 2024. Yes, the word “crisis” fills the pages. It’s a crisis! Crises end badly, but we’ve only just begun.

According to the Arctic News’ article, it’s about to get much, much worse. But what’s worse than a crisis? A worsening crisis seems to be on the docket. As clearly stated, “Not only are concentrations of CO₂ very high, but additionally, there has been an increase in total solar irradiance.” This is therefore the ole one-two punch to the gut as increased solar irradiance means more solar energy reaches the surface absorbed, ipso facto, increasing global temperatures as excessive levels of CO₂ blanket and trap heat. This is a fatal formula for life on Earth, just ask sister planet Venus, 95% CO₂ atmosphere, surface temperature 870°F, which melts lead.

It should be noted that Arctic News has a reputation for taking the more extreme view of where climate change is headed, but it should also be noted that it” footnotes a lot of peer-reviewed climate science,” albeit taken to an extreme conclusion, which happens to be the prospect of an oncoming “extinction event” with climate change a wild stallion that can’t be tamed.

It’s difficult to ignore heightened concern of the property/casualty insurance industry alongside Arctic News both publicly exposing a rapidly descending climate system that’s literally changing the landscape of property ownership, starting with coastal properties and working inland, as homeowners find insurance premiums, if available where they reside, squeezing throats, stated as such in the following quote from the insurance industry article included herein: “The insurance industry has historically managed these risks. But we are fast approaching temperature levels 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks. The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable. (See: “State Farm and Allstate exiting California’s home insurance market due to wildfire risk,” 2023).

Already, the climate crisis that started on the West Coast is spreading fast: “The Home Insurance Crisis Hits the US Heartland,” Business Insider, April 6, 2025.

It was only a couple of months ago when James Hansen (Columbia – Earth Institute) said 2C is dead: “Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ says Renowned Climate Scientist,” Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025. If medals are ever awarded for correct calls, James Hansen, Ph.D. gets the gold medal for the following: “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate,” New York Times, June 24, 1988. He nailed it!

The insurance article insinuation of “entire regions becoming uninsurable,” standing alone, should be enough motivation to turn the screws of climate change mitigation efforts to whatever level necessary at whatever costs! Who cares how much a Worldwide Marshall Plan to ‘hopefully’ control radical climate change costs? The alternative is unspeakable, and there’s little time to waste.

Now that the insurance industry is feeling the wrath of numerous climate change warnings issued by Arctic News over many years, it may be a good idea to at least consider what the extreme publication has to say.

Here’s the Arctic News’ summation of climate change:

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

Climate Emergency in bold red letters is how Arctic News sees the current situation.

As for the property/casualty insurance industry: “There is only one path forward: Prevent any further increase in atmospheric energy levels. That means keeping emissions out of the atmosphere.” So far, this solution is not even close to working as CO₂ emissions are currently cranking up faster than ever before, knocking on the door of the 430 ppm danger zone, which is starting to look like a cake walk.

You’re underinsured!

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Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.