Activist Diary #2: Life as an Activist

By Peter Bohmer

June 25, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Image by Peter Bohmer, in Greece



“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters.” Frederick Douglass

I have been an activist for reform and revolutionary transformation since 1967. For me, being an activist has meant directly involving myself in activities groups, and organizations in order to change policies at a local and national level and to raise consciousness about the causes, consequences and solutions to poverty and the inequality of income and wealth, police brutality and repression, U.S. militarism and intervention in other countries, climate justice, for quality health care and housing for all, and for reproductive rights. This in addition to solidarity with liberation struggles and ending capitalism and ending capitalist alienation, exploitation, and oppression. Being anti-racist has also been central to my theory and practice since the 1960’s, strongly influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movement and in the 1970’s, the Chicano and American Indian Movement (AIM).

Here are five key moments, examples from the 1960’s in furthering my lifelong commitment to activism for a better world.

Vietnam Summer, 1967

This was my first organizing experience although I had attended a few anti-Vietnam war and civil rights demonstrations and SDS meetings before. We first educated ourselves at the Vietnam Sumer office in Boston about the history of Vietnam and French and U.S. colonialism there. I remember then going door to door and asking people if they were willing to discuss the Vietnam War. In 1967, most people who answered the door supported the war and thought opposing the US war against Vietnam as being disloyal to US troops (this changed substantially after the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam). If people were interested in talking with us and possibly opposing the US role, we asked them to invite their neighbors and we presented a slide show about the war followed by a discussion. We then asked the people if they opposed the Vietnam war to actively show their opposition in a way that they decided on. Common was a visit with the assembled group to their Congressperson’s office to express their opposition to the US war against Vietnam. We stayed in touch with them.

I was shy at first and would only go door to door with a more experienced organizer, but I increasingly found my voice. It has never left. One of the key organizers, Mike Ferber, suggested I read two books, The Political Economy of Growth by Paul Baran and Monopoly Capital by Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran. These books changed my life as I was by this time although not earlier, ready to integrate their analysis into my very being. Both books showed the limits of reform, the irrationality of capitalism, and how much of the wealth in the U.S. and Western Europe came from extracting the surplus (wealth) from what we called the Third World and now call the Global South. Having a political economic analysis has been one reason for my continued activism. Anger at injustice and excitement are not enough. I also saw first-hand how people can change but we have to go out to meet them, not expect them to come to our events.

March on the Pentagon, 1967

In October 1967, there was a large, well over a hundred thousand people protesting the Vietnam War in a march from Washington DC to the Pentagon. Just before 5 PM when our permit ended, civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory asked if we were going to be just 9-5 protesters and what was more important the law or justice. I was very moved. Since then, I have always prioritized justice over what is legal. Everyone I had come with, we were from Boston, returned to DC then where we were staying. I decided to stay at the Pentagon as did 10,000 others. It was the demonstration where protesters, mainly women, put flowers on the bayonets of the military police (MP) guarding the Pentagon and tried to talk to the soldiers; almost all refused. I was inspired by the community that formed among us resisters: welcoming, sharing food and stories. Many had driven east from the recently completed, “Stop the Draft Week” in Oakland, CA. Many of us burned our draft cards.

At about 9 PM, the last camera left, the British BBC. After that the military police turned violent, beating people with their bayonets on the grass by the Pentagon. A few of us, a small minority fought back. What also affected me was that James Reston, the major NY Times reporter and friend of the powerful and wealthy wrote, shortly thereafter on the front page of the NY Times that the demonstrators had turned violent. I had seen the opposite and when I found out that Reston had been in Denver the day of the march although his article implied, he was at the Pentagon. My belief in the objectivity of the New York Times was forever shattered. I continue to read the NEW York Times but since than always critically.

Noam Chomsky, 1968

In spring, 1968, I took a class at MIT where I was a graduate student in economics with Noam Chomsky and Louis Kampf, “Intellectuals and Social Change”. It furthered my transition to becoming a lifelong radical left activist. By radical I mean going to the root of then problem, which I consider to be capitalism, and seeing fundamental change coming primarily from the bottom up.

Noam Chomsky has been a big influence in my life. I have learned so much from Noam Chomsky, much more than in this paragraph. I learned that building strong and growing social movements and protests in the streets are more important in changing policy, such as ending the Vietnam war, than trying to convince politicians through arguments and lobbying, or electing liberal politicians. I also learned that claims of expertise and saying we should unquestionably accept the so-called experts are used to justify policies such as carrying out the Vietnam War in order to silence dissenting voices and to delegitimize grass roots movements. Similarly, the term, national interest, or the assertion, “this war serves the national interest” is usually used to disguise the interests of the capitalist class. The interests of working people diverge from those with economic power. Thank you, Noam!

Chicago, 1968

Another formative event was the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago. I had planned to go but was working with a group, Mothers for Adequate Welfare, a branch of the National Welfare Rights Organization. We were demanding a guaranteed income of $6500 for a family of four (about $40,000 in today’s prices). This was an early form of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). I hadn’t finished writing my report to the Boston City Council at the time the buses were leaving from Boston to Chicago so I couldn’t go. I remember watching the convention every night that August at a bar in Brattleboro, Vermont. I was enraged each night at the beatings of protesters by the Chicago Police under the orders of Mayor Richard Daley and of the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat who had publicly supported the Vietnam war. This reinforced my perspective that ending the war was not going to come from within the Democratic Party even though the majority of the country now opposed it.

I realized that anger and rage at injustice are important and necessary fuel for long-term activism, although hopefully our anger is primarily directed at structures of oppression and those with economic and political power—and not at someone who has cut us off driving. Continuing anger at injustice is an important factor in my continuing activism up to and including the present. Today my central focus is directed towards ending U.S. support for Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli War and Israeli Occupation. As I write this on May 11, 2024, the growing and inspiring student movement in solidarity with Palestine and against U.S. and university complicity with Israel and U.S support for Israel, reminds me of 1968, e.g., the Columbia University uprising, and the upcoming Democratic Party Convention in Chicago that plans to nominate another pro war President, Biden. I expect massive protests at the 2024 Chicago Democratic Party Convention this August although hope that US support for Israel stops by then and that there is a permanent cease fire. The global movement in support of Palestine although not yet sufficient to change U.S. and especially, Israeli policy is so important.

Anti-Imperialist Coalition in Boston, 1969

I was active in the fall of 1969 in an anti-imperialist coalition in Boston, The November Action Coalition (NAC) Our focus was ending the direct support of MIT for the US military in Vietnam, i.e., developing weapons systems for them. We blocked the entrance to one of the main MIT weapons labs, The Instrumentation Lab, until the police forced us away from the entrance, their clubs swinging.

One of the member groups of NAC was the Boston Black Panther Party (BPP) which I respected and learned from. Impressive to me was their free breakfast program in Roxbury and their organizing of low-income Black youth. The murder of 21-year-old leader of the Chicago BPP, Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969, affected me more than any of the many assassinations in the 1960’s. The willingness of the US government to kill revolutionaries especially Black leaders had become even more apparent. I remember being depressed and not being able to get out of bed for a few days after Fred Hampton’s brutal murder by the state and thinking because I was white, I was somewhat safer. I thought about the level of my commitment to transforming the U.S. Reflecting deeply on his assassination furthered my commitment to ending racial capitalism even if it meant serious risks.

It has made anti-racism and solidarity with people of color and movements, then called, Third World people, inside and outside of the United States, central to my theory and associated practice. So has solidarity with societies such as Cuba defending themselves from the U.S. war and blockade against them. Fred Hampton Presente!

Another group within the November Action Coalition (NAC), whose theory and practice have influenced me in a major way was Bread and Roses, a socialist women’s liberation organization. Bread and Roses differentiated itself from left organizations who claimed a women’s organization or women’s caucus was unnecessary or divisive, and from other women’s groups that claimed women could not work with men. Within NAC, Bread and Roses won their demands to be able to caucus at any time which would temporarily halt the meeting, and that all the leadership committees such as the steering, tactics, and media committees be at least one-half women. Bread and Roses challenged sexism within NAC and in the society. They were socialist and feminist, an anti-imperialist women’s group both within NAC and beyond. Bread and Roses was autonomous rather than separatist. The concept of autonomy together with principled unity, e.g., working against all forms of oppression in a group with the goal of unity, are a central part of my perspective and organizing.

Conclusion

Our activism makes a difference; we usually win less than what we demand but nevertheless the gains matter. Those who concede will never admit that raising the social cost to them of continuing oppressive policies was the cause of their conceding, but this is often the case. By social cost, I mean that the cost, not mainly in dollars, but loss of legitimacy of the elites and the growth of anti-capitalist movements, causes them to concede, at least partially. This is because the social cost of not conceding begins to threaten their rule. An example is the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa from 1976 to the early 1990’s, where those in power in South Africa increasingly feared not only losing their political power but also their economic power if they didn’t release ANC leaders including Nelson Mandela from prison and concede to elections where the Black population could vote, i.e., universal suffrage. I was active in the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and especially in Pittsburgh from 1984 to 1987 with a strong multi-racial group, Pittsburghers Against Apartheid. We contributed to the end of apartheid, an important victory led by the people and movements inside South Africa although structural racism continues there and whites still have most of the economic power in a very unequal capitalist economy.

I have continued to be active from 1967 to the present and will continue to be so. I advocate for a participatory socialist society. Check out the group Real Utopia, realutopia.org, that I am a member of. I am anti-capitalist but equally important for me and necessary and desirable is to be for a liberatory and ecological socialist alternative on a global level.

Although I have suffered some serious repression, it has not been a sacrifice to be an activist. Most of my closest friends are people I have been active in the struggle with. We have accomplished some real gains although they are never permanent as we can see in the current growth of authoritarian, racist, patriarchal, anti LGBT, anti-environmental and anti-immigrant movements, and political parties such as the Republican Party and similar authoritarian anti-immigrant parities globally. Being involved and active in the struggle for societal liberation has kept me young in spirit. I can look myself better in the mirror, and it has given my life more meaning.

Free Palestine!

Si se puede!

Peter Bohmer is a member of Real Utopia, Economics for Everyone (E4E), and Palestine Action of South Sound (PASS). He is Faculty Emeritus in Political Economy at The Evergreen State College.


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Peter BohmerWebsite

Peter Bohmer has been an activist in movements for radical social change since 1967, which have included anti-racist organizing and solidarity movements with the people of Vietnam, Southern Africa, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Palestine and Central America. For his activism and teaching, he was targeted by the FBI. He was a member of the faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA from 1987 to 2021 where he taught political economy. He believes alternatives to capitalism are desirable and possible. Peter is the proud parent of a daughter and three sons.

Two (wrong) views on Marx, degrowth, and productivism (plus John Bellamy Foster on ecosocialism and degrowth)

Monthly Review
23 June, 2024


[Editor’s note: LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal is sponsoring Ecosocialism 2024, which will be held June 28–30, Boorloo/Perth, Australia. For more information on the conference, including how you can participate online, visit ecosocialism.org.au.]

First published at Monthly Review.

The term Promethean, referring in this context to extreme productivism, first entered into the ecological debate as a censure aimed almost entirely at Karl Marx. It was adopted as a form of condemnation by first-stage ecosocialists in the 1980s and ’90s, who sought to graft standard liberal Green theory onto Marxism, while jettisoning what were then widely presumed to be Marx’s anti-ecological views. However, the Promethean myth with respect to Marx was to be subjected to a sustained attack, commencing twenty-five years ago, in the work of second-stage ecosocialists, represented by Paul Burkett’s Marx and Nature (Haymarket, 1999) and John Bellamy Foster’s “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift” (American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2 [September 1999])—followed soon after by Foster’s Marx’s Ecology (Monthly Review Press, 2000). Here it was understood that the outlook of classical historical materialism was not that of the promotion of production for its own sake—much less accumulation for its own sake—but rather the creation of a society of sustainable human development controlled by the associated producers. The key analytical basis of this recovery of the classical historical-materialist ecological critique was Marx’s theory of metabolic rift.

On the basis of the recovery of Marx’s deep-seated ecological critique, ecosocialism has made major advances over the last quarter-century. One notable work, in this respect, was Kohei Saito’s Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism (Monthly Review Press, 2017), which brought additional evidence to bear on the critique of the Promethean myth and on the development of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift. The result was the emergence of powerful ecological Marxist assessments of the contemporary planetary crisis provided by a host of thinkers, including such notable figures as Ian Angus, Jacopo Nicola Bergamo, Mauricio Betancourt, Brett Clark, Rebecca Clausen, Sean Creaven, Peter Dickens, Martin Empson, Michael Friedman, Nicolas Graham, Hannah Holleman, Michael A. Lebowitz, Stefano Longo, Fred Magdoff, Andreas Malm, Brian M. Napoletano, Ariel Salleh, Eamonn Slater, Carles Soriano, Pedro Urquijo, Rob Wallace, Del Weston, Victor Wallis, Richard York, and many others too numerous to name.

However, in the last couple of years, the myth of Prometheanism in Marx’s thought has been reintroduced in ghostly fashion by thinkers such as Saito, in his latest works, and by Jacobin authors Matt Huber and Leigh Phillips, representing two opposite extremes on the issue of the role of productive forces/technology. The result has been to erect a “Tower of Babel” that threatens to extinguish much that has been achieved by Marxian ecology.

In his two most recent studies, Marx in the Anthropocene (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Slow Down (Astra Publishing House, 2024, originally titled Capital in the Anthropocene), Saito has gone back on his earlier contention in Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism that Marx was not a Promethean thinker, and now insists, drawing on the largely discredited work of the “analytical Marxist” G. A. Cohen, that Marx was a technological determinist for most of his life. The about-face by Saito on Marx and Prometheanism is clearly designed to accentuate what Saito now calls Marx’s “epistemological break,” beginning in 1868. From that point on, Marx is supposed to have entirely abandoned his previous historical materialism, rejecting all notions of the expansion of productive forces in favor of a steady-state economy, or degrowth. However, since there is not even the slightest textual evidence anywhere to be found in support of Saito’s claim on Marx and degrowth (beyond what has long been argued, that Marx was a theorist of sustainable human development), Saito is forced to read between the lines, imagining as he goes along. The thrust of his new thesis is that the “last Marx” concluded that the productive forces inherited from capitalism formed a trap, causing him to reject growth of productive forces altogether in favor of a no-growth path to communism. Such a view, however, is clearly anachronistic. Naturally, the fact that planned degrowth is a real issue today (see the special July–August 2023 issue of MR) does not mean that the problem would have presented itself in that way to Marx in 1868, in horse and buggy days, when industrial production was still confined to only a small corner of the world. (On Saito’s analysis, see Brian Napoletano, “Was Marx a Degrowth Communist?” in this issue.)

Ironically, Saito’s thesis that Marx was a Promethean up to and including the publication of Capital (viewed by Saito as a transitional work in this respect) receives strong backing from Huber and Phillips in their article “Kohei Saito’s ‘Start from Scratch’ Degrowth Communism” (Jacobin, March 9, 2024). Proudly holding up a “Promethean Marxism” banner, Huber and Phillips present themselves as belonging to a long tradition of well-known Prometheans, including not only Marx and Frederick Engels, but also V. I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin. For the Jacobin authors, for whom Marxism = Prometheanism, Saito is thus to be faulted not for suggesting that Marx was Promethean up until the writing of Capital, but rather for his claim that Marx jettisoned his Prometheanism in his white-beard years, failing to carry it all the way to his grave.

Although they adopt a Marxist cover, the views of Huber and Phillips on technology and the environment are virtually identical to those of Julian Simon, author of The Ultimate Resource (Princeton University Press, 1981) and the leading anti-environmentalist critic of the ecological limits to growth within the neoclassical-economic orthodoxy in the 1970s and ’80s (see Foster’s “Ecosocialism and Degrowth” in this issue). The Jacobin authors thus adopt a view that is not so much ecomodernist in orientation as a form of total human exemptionalism from ecological determinants, in which humanity is presumed to be able to transcend by technological means all Earth System limits—including those of life itself. The metabolic rift, we are told, does not exist since it is dependent on a rift in a nonexistent “balance of nature.” Here they ignore the fact that the notion of anthropogenic rifts in the biogeophysical cycles of life on the planet, raising the issue of mass extinction, extending even to human life itself, is central to modern Earth System science. It is not a question of a “balance of nature” as such, but rather one of preserving the earth as a safe home for humanity and innumerable other species.

Going against the current world scientific consensus, Huber and Phillips explicitly deny the reality of the nine planetary boundaries (climate change, biological integrity, biogeochemical cycles, ocean acidification, land system change, freshwater use, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, and novel entities). Rather, they insist in their total exemptionalism that there are no biospheric limits to economic growth. Hence, “there is no need,” they tell us, “to move to a steady-state economy…to return to more ‘appropriate’ technologies, to abandon ‘megaprojects,’ or to critique…a ‘metabolic rift’ with the rest of nature which,” they say, “[does] not exist.” Words like “commons” and “mutual aid” are classified as mere “buzzwords.” All arguments for “limits to growth” are by definition forms of “Malthusianism.” Nuclear power is to be promoted as a key solution to climate change and pollution generally. To cap it off, they contend, in social Darwinist terms, that capitalism itself is somehow integral to natural selection: “So as far as the rest of nature is concerned, whatever we humans do, via the capitalist mode of production or otherwise, from combustion of fossil fuels to the invention of plastics, is just the latest set of novel evolutionary selection pressures.”

Phillips has gone even further elsewhere: “The Socialist,” he declares, “must defend economic growth, productivism, Prometheanism.… Energy is freedom. Growth is freedom.” The ultimate goal is “more stuff.” What is required is “a high energy planet, not modesty, humility, and simple living.” With a brazen display of irrealism, Phillips bluntly asserts: “you can have infinite growth on a finite planet.” The earth, we are duly informed, can support “282 billion people”—or even more. Marxists who have questioned the nature of contemporary technology, such as Herbert Marcuse, are summarily dismissed as proponents of “neo-luddite positions.” Phillips openly celebrates Simon’s reactionary work, The Ultimate Resource, the bible of anti-ecological total exemptionalism (Leigh Phillips, Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff [Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2015], 59, 63, 89, 250, 259).

Huber and Phillips’s bold advocacy of a “Promethean Marxism” in their Jacobin article was delivered with a panache that must have left the capitalist Breakthrough Institute green with envy. It has already led to a strong backlash in left-liberal environmental circles against the inanities of so-called “orthodox Marxism.” This can be seen in an article by Thomas Smith titled “Technology, Ecology and the Commons—Huber and Phillips’ Barren Marxism” (Resilience, March 21, 2024, resilience.org). Here we are told, in a further retreat from reason, that Huber and Phillips, in their total contempt for ecology, are simply “toeing the Marxist line,” promoting the “promethean Marxist dogma”—as if their views could be seen as representative of “orthodox Marxism” (which, as Georg Lukács famously said, is related entirely to method), or as if their outlook were one with that of Marxism in the world today. Neither is the case. In twenty-first-century conditions, socialism is ecology and ecology is socialism. Perhaps the most important aspect of Saito’s own analysis, despite all of the contradictions in his most recent work, is that it recognizes that a deep ecological view was present classically within the work of Marx (and, we would add, Engels), and that this constitutes a theoretical foundation on which all those committed to the philosophy of praxis today can draw in their struggles to create an economically egalitarian and ecologically sustainable world.
Ecosocialism and degrowth


First published at Monthly Review.

This interview by Arman Spéth with Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster is a revised and extended version of the interview first published in Spring 2024 in the journal Widerspruch, Beiträge zu sozialistischer Politik (Contradiction: Contributions to Socialist Politics), Zurich, Switzerland.

Degrowth is on the rise. In recent years, several internationally recognized publications have appeared that speak out in favor of the ecosocialist degrowth approach. The journal Monthly Review, of which you are editor, has adopted this approach recently in your special July–August 2023 issue, “Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development.” What are the motives behind this and how do you explain the popularity of left-wing degrowth approaches?

Although “degrowth” as a term has caught on only recently, the idea is not new. Since at least May 1974, Monthly Review, beginning with Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, has explicitly insisted on the reality of the limits of growth, the need to rein in exponential accumulation, and the necessity of establishing a steady-state economy overall (which does not obviate the need for growth in the poorer economies). As Magdoff and Sweezy stated at that time, “instead of a universal panacea, it turns out that growth is itself a cause of disease.” To “stop growth,” they argued, what was necessary was the “restructuring [of] existing production” through “social planning.” This was associated with a systematic critique of the economic and ecological waste under monopoly capitalism and the squandering of the social surplus.

Magdoff and Sweezy’s analysis gave a strong impetus to Marxian ecology in the United States, particularly in the fields of environmental sociology and ecological economics, for example in Charles H. Anderson’s The Sociology of Survival: Social Problems of Growth (1976) and Allan Schnaiberg’s The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity (1980). So, “degrowth” in that sense is not new to us and is part of a long tradition, stretching over a half-century. Our “Planned Degrowth” issue merely sought to develop this argument further under the deepening contradictions of our time.

Yet, while Monthly Review has long insisted on the need to move in the rich countries to an economy of zero net capital formation, today this issue has become more urgent. The term “degrowth” has woken people up to what ecological Marxism has been saying for a very long time. It has become necessary, therefore, to provide a more precise answer as to what this means. The only answer possible is the one that the MR editors provided a half-century ago. Namely, there are two sides to the question. One is the negative one of stopping unsustainable growth (measured in terms of GDP). The other is the more positive one of promoting a planned social response to the capitalist accumulation regime. Our “Planned Degrowth” issue seeks to emphasize this more positive response, one which only ecosocialism can offer.

For ecosocialism, the notion of degrowth, although recognized as a necessity in the more developed economies in our time, in which ecological footprints per capita are greater than what the planet as a place of human habitation can support, has always been seen as simply part of an ecosocialist transition, and not in itself the essence of that transition. A degrowth path, insofar as it is one of deaccumulation, is directly opposed to the internal logic of capitalism, or the system of capital accumulation. In fact, I wrote an article in January 2011 called “Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem.” The nature of the struggle means going against the logic of capitalist accumulation even while we exist within it. That is the historical character of revolution, today driven forward by absolute necessity. The struggle for human freedom and the struggle for human existence are now one.

The relation of degrowth to ecosocialism is most straightforwardly expressed by Jason Hickel in an article titled “The Double Objective of Democratic Ecosocialism“ in the September 2023 issue of Monthly Review: “Degrowth…is best understood as an element within a broader struggle for ecosocialism and anti-imperialism.” It is a necessity in terms of present conditions in the rich, imperialist core of the capitalist economy, but not a panacea and not a sufficient basis in and of itself in defining ecosocialist change.

The July–August 2023 issue of Monthly Review was on “Planned Degrowth,” but the emphasis of the issue was on bringing planning to bear on our ecological problems more broadly. Thus, within ecosocialism, degrowth is merely a realistic recognition of contemporary imperatives centered in the rich economies with their enormous ecological footprints, while the proper emphasis is on ecosocialist planning rather than the degrowth category itself.

Part of the popularity of the term “degrowth” is because it so squarely offers an anticapitalist approach and cannot be co-opted by the system like so much else. But the overall approach of ecosocialism cannot be articulated just in negative terms, as the mere inverse of capitalist growth. Rather, it needs to be seen in terms of the transformation of human social relations and means of production by the associated producers.

In his bestselling book Slow Down (2024), Kohei Saito claims to have discovered an “epistemological break”—a major transformation in Karl Marx’s thinking in the last years of his life. Marx, he claims, had turned into a “degrowth communist” and discarded his “progressive view of history,” that is, abandoned the idea of the development of productive forces as the driving force of human development history. What do you think about this? How does your degrowth approach relate to your understanding of historical materialism?

Saito’s earlier book, Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, was a valuable work. However, his more recent work, which includes Slow Down and Marx in the Anthropocene (2022), is wrong where the main theses that he advances with respect to Marx are concerned—even if the idea of degrowth communism, viewed in more general terms, is an important one.

It is true that Saito has raised some fundamental issues. Yet, there is very little that is new in his argument. Marxian ecology has stressed Marx’s theory of metabolic rift for a quarter-century. The fact that Marx advocated what has been called “sustainable human development” has been advanced over that entire period by Paul Burkett, me, and numerous others. Moreover, it has long been emphasized that the mature basis of this in Marx’s work was to be found in the Critique of the Gotha Programme and the letter (and draft letters) to Vera Zasulich—the very sources that Saito relies on almost exclusively in contending that Marx embraced degrowth communism. Even the focus of Marxist ecology on the contributions of Georg Lukács and István Mészáros, in this respect, is at least a decade old.

What can be considered new in Saito’s latest work is not substance but form, along with the exaggerated character of the argument that he now advances, which requires that he repudiate much of his own earlier analysis in Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism. In his new works, Saito introduces the notion that Marx altogether abandoned productivism/Prometheanism, which is supposed to have dominated Marx’s thinking at least in latent form as late as 1867 and the publication of Capital. Saito characterizes Marx’s Capital as a transitional work that incorporated an ecosocialist critique while not yet entirely surmounting historical materialism, which Saito himself identifies with productivism, technological determinism, and Eurocentrism. Only in 1868, we are told, did Marx engage in an epistemological break, rejecting the expansion of productive forces altogether, along with historical materialism, thus becoming a “degrowth communist.”

There are two fundamental problems with this. First, Saito is not able to provide a single shred of evidence that Marx in his final years was a degrowth communist in this sense of rejecting the expansion of productive forces. Nor, for that matter, is Saito able to provide evidence that Marx was Promethean and Eurocentric in his mature work in the 1860s (or even prior to that), insofar as Prometheanism is understood as production for production’s sake and Eurocentrism as the notion that European culture is the only universal culture. There is absolutely nothing to substantiate such allegations. The well-known fact that Marx saw collectivist/egalitarian possibilities in the Russian peasant commune (mir) is consistent with his overall outlook of sustainable human development. However, there is no justification for taking this to mean that he thought that a revolution in Tsarist Russia, still a very poor, underdeveloped, largely peasant country, could occur without the expansion of productive forces.

Second, the picture of Marx as a degrowth communist is a historical anachronism. Marx wrote at a time when industrial capitalism existed in only a small corner of the world, and, even then, transportation in London, at the center of the system, was still in the horse and buggy stage (not discounting the early railroad). There was no way that he could have envisioned the full-world economy of today, or the meaning that “degrowth” has assumed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Saito’s analysis in his most recent works is therefore useful mainly in the controversy it has generated, and in the renewed focus on these issues that his work has provided. In the process, he indirectly has helped move us forward. Nevertheless, it is important to apply Marx’s method when analyzing the changed historical conditions of the present, and Saito’s jettisoning of historical materialism does not help in this respect.

You use the terms “degrowth” and “deaccumulation” interchangeably. Can you please explain what links these terms in your understanding?

“Degrowth” is an elusive term, like “growth” itself. The latter reflects the (often irrational) way that GDP is calculated under capitalism, expanding normal capitalist bookkeeping, based on a system of exploitation, to a national and even global level. The real issue is zero net capital formation, that is, instituting a process of deaccumulation. This has long been understood by Marxist ecological economists, as well as other, non-Marxist ecological economists, like the late Herman Daly. Growth, as Marx’s reproduction schemes demonstrate, is based on net capital formation. To recognize this is to emphasize that it is the system of capital accumulation that is the problem.

The idea of “planned degrowth” is at the center of your considerations. Could you explain what exactly you mean by this and how “planned degrowth” differs from other degrowth approaches?

I do not think there is anything complicated about this. Degrowth, and sustainable human development more generally, cannot occur without planning, which allows us to focus on genuine human needs and opens up all sorts of new possibilities blocked by the capitalist system. Capitalism works ex post, through the mediation of the market; planning is ex ante, allowing a straightforward approach to the satisfaction of needs, in line with what Marx in his “Notes on Adolph Wagner” called the “hierarchy of…needs.” Integrated democratic planning operating at all levels of society is the only route to a society of substantive equality and ecological sustainability and to human survival. Markets will still exist, but the path forward ultimately requires social planning in areas of production and investment controlled by the associated producers. This is especially the case in a planetary emergency such as today. As I have indicated, Magdoff and Sweezy argued as far back as May 1974 that stopping growth was essential in the rich economies, given the planetary ecological crisis, but that this needed to be approached more positively in terms of a planned restructuring of production as a whole.
Critics of degrowth

Cédric Durand in his September 2023 article in Jacobin, titled “Living Together,” criticizes the degrowth approach and writes “the abandonment of ‘the productive forces of capital’ and the scaling down of production would result in a de-specialisation of productive activity, leading to a dramatic reduction in the productivity of labour and, ultimately, a plunge in living standards.” Other critics, such as the economist Branko Milanovic, believe, as he wrote in “Degrowth: Solving the Impasse by Magical Thinking,” published on his SubStack in 2021, that degrowth advocates “engage in semi-magical and magical thinking,” because they cannot admit that the approach that they advocate would mean a loss of living standards for the vast majority of the population. How do you respond to these criticisms?

Durand and Milanovic would have a point if the question were one of “capitalist degrowth,” which, as I have already said, is an impossibility theorem. But the very changes needed to address today’s environmental and social crises have to do with changes in the parameters that define capitalism. Thus, attempts to criticize degrowth by insisting that it will reduce “productivity” increases, measured in narrow capitalist value-added terms, is simply to beg the question. The real issues have always been: productivity increases to what end, for whom, at what cost, requiring what level of exploitation, and measured by what criteria? What is the significance of increasing productivity in fossil fuel extraction if it points to the end of life on Earth as we know it? How many lives, as William Morris asked in the nineteenth century, have been rendered useless since compelled to produce useless and destructive goods at ever higher levels of “efficiency”?

Moreover, it is simply not true that economic growth is needed for productivity improvements, if this is seen in terms of real productivity increases (increase in output per labor hour), as opposed to increases in “productivity” measured simply as growth in value-added to GDP, which is a very narrow and misleading—even circular—conception. It is perfectly possible to generate endless qualitative improvements in production, reduce the labor time per unit of output, and thus, to advance efficiency, in a context of zero net capital formation, particularly in a socialist-oriented society. The productivity improvements in that case would be used to satisfy broad social needs, rather than for economic expansion for the enrichment of a few. They would be oriented primarily toward use value. Working hours could be reduced. It would mean that the benefits of productivity would be shared and human capacities in general would be augmented.

In his book Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (2022) and in his articles for Jacobin magazine, Matt Huber explicitly argues against your view, claiming that solving the ecological crisis requires massive technological expansion. How would you respond to this view?

Jacobin is now the principal left-social democratic journal in the United States, and Huber’s argument is developed in that vein. Social democracy, as opposed to socialism, has always been about a “third way” in which the irreconcilables of labor and capital (today, also including the irreconcilables of capitalism and the earth) can supposedly be reconciled via such means as new technology, increased productivity, regulated markets, formal labor organization, and the capitalist welfare (or environmental) state. However, the basic system would remain untouched. The idea is that social democracy can organize capitalism better than liberalism, not that it will go against capitalism’s fundamental logic. Huber in his book throws into the mix capitalist ecological modernization in a form that does not differ much from liberal ecological modernization, as represented by the Breakthrough Institute, but with the addition, in his case, of organized electrical workers. This perspective has consistently defined Jacobin’s approach to environmental issues, which has generally been opposed to ecosocialism and environmentalism more broadly. I wrote an article titled “The Long Ecological Revolution“ in Monthly Review in November 2017, questioning Jacobin’s strongly ecomodernist approach in this respect, which has included pieces by the author Leigh Phillips, who, in his book Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts (2015), went so far as to suggest that “the planet can sustain up to 282 billion people…by using all the land[!]” and other similar absurdities.

In an article that Huber cowrote with Phillips in Jacobin in March of this year (“Kohei Saito’s ‘Start from Scratch’ Degrowth Communism”), the two authors reject the planetary boundaries framework advanced by today’s scientific consensus, which seeks to demarcate the biophysical limits to the earth as a safe home for humanity. In the planetary boundaries/Earth System framework, climate change is depicted as just one of nine such boundaries, the transgression of any one of which threatens human existence. In contrast, Huber and Phillips adopt a position virtually identical to that of the neoclassical economist Julian Simon, author of The Ultimate Resource (1981), who pioneered in propagating the notion of total human exemptionalism, according to which there are no real environmental limits to the quantitative expansion of the human economy that could not be overcome by technology; that it is possible to have infinite growth on a finite planet. On this basis, Simon was recognized as the foremost anti-environmentalist apologist for capitalism of his day. In this view, technology solves all problems irrespective of social relations. In near identical fashion, “the only true, permanently insuperable limits that we face,” Huber and Phillips reductionistically claim, “are the laws of physics and logic”—as if the biophysical limits of life on the planet were not an issue. Climate change, according to this view, is merely a temporary problem to be solved technologically, not a social-relational (or even ecological-relational) one. But for Marxists, social relations and technology, while distinguishable, are inextricably and dialectically entangled. An outlook that denies the planetary crisis by resorting to the promise of a technological deus ex machina, while absenting both historical and ecological limits, is in conflict with historical materialism, ecosocialism, and contemporary science—all three.

Today’s scientific consensus, as represented, for example, by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—particularly the stances taken by scientists, rather than governments involved in the process—states with absolute clarity that technology alone will not save us, and that we need a revolutionary-scale challenge to the present political-economic hegemony. We are now on the verge of a 1.5°C increase in global average temperature, and a 2°C increase will not be far beyond that if we do not act quickly. We have now crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries, with the likelihood of crossing still more. Yet, this trajectory could be altered. We already have all the technologies we need to address the planetary crisis, provided that the necessary changes are made in existing social relations. But there is the rub.

Huber and Phillips polemically reject degrowth as a backward strategy, even if organized on a planned ecosocialist basis. They argue rather that net capital accumulation can continue indefinitely if it is greened and if there is a reconciliation between capital and labor, and capital and the earth, along ecomodernist lines. At best this can be seen as the Green New Deal approach, or ecological Keynesianism. But their overall thrust goes beyond that and is, in fact, one of total human exemptionalism in which all lasting environmental limits, associated with the biogeophysical cycles of the earth, are denied. The main fault I find in this analysis is that it is willing to forego scientific realism and dialectical critique for political expediency, ending up with a kind of techno-utopian reformism that in fact goes nowhere, since it backs off from any serious confrontation with the capitalist system. This is hardly rational when the issue is a social system that is now threatening—in a matter of years and decades, not centuries—to transgress the conditions of the planet as a safe place of humanity. There is nothing socialist or ecological about such views.
What to do?

In your article “Planned Degrowth,” you emphasize the need for a revolutionary transformation to overcome ecological challenges. Could you explain what you mean by revolutionary transformation and why you believe it is essential? And how would you respond to the arguments that follow the principle of the “lesser evil” and support the possibility of an ecological transformation within the capitalist system, partly due to the urgency of the situation?

Today’s science says that we need changes in our socioeconomic system, applied technology, and our entire relation to the Earth System, if humanity is not to lay the basis this century for its own complete destruction. If the necessary, urgent transformations in the mode of production (which includes social relations) are not made, we will see death and dislocation of hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions, of people due to climate change this century. Climate change, moreover, is only part of the problem. We have now dumped 370,000 different synthetic chemicals into the environment, most of which are untested and many of which are toxic: carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic. Plastics, another novel entity in the planetary boundaries classification, are now out of control, with the proliferation globally and in the human body of microplastics, and even nanoplastics (small enough to cross cell walls). Billions of plastic sachets are being marketed by multinational corporations, primarily in the Global South. Global water shortages are growing, forests and ground cover generally are vanishing, and we are facing the sixth mass extinction in the history of the planet.

With six of the nine planetary boundaries now crossed, we are facing unprecedented dangers to human existence, and an existential crisis for humanity. The cause common to all these planetary crises is the system of capital accumulation, and all immediate solutions mean going against the logic of capital accumulation. The struggle will naturally occur within the present system, but in every moment of this struggle we are faced with the urgency of putting people and the planet before profit. There is no other way. Capitalism is dead to humanity.

The scale of the change required must be measured in terms of both time and space. Our relation to both today necessarily must be revolutionary and stretch around the globe. Whether we will succeed or not is something we cannot know at present. But we do know that this will be humanity’s greatest struggle. In this situation there is no “lesser evil.” As Marx said, on a much smaller scale in relation to Ireland in his day, it is “ruin or revolution.”

Finally, how do you assess the feasibility of ecosocialist degrowth with regard to the current political realities (Kräfteverhältnisse)? Where do you see opportunities, where do you see obstacles?

Opportunities are everywhere. Obstacles, largely a product of the present system, are also everywhere. As Naomi Klein said of climate change: This Changes Everything. Nothing can or will remain the same. That is the very definition of a revolutionary situation.

The most concrete and comprehensive study of what could be done practically in our present circumstances is to be found in Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams’s 2017 book, Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation. As Noam Chomsky said of their book, it demonstrates “that the ‘revolutionary systematic change’ necessary to avert catastrophe is within our reach.”

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Oregon. Arman Spéth is a PhD student at Bard College, Berlin, studying the development of capitalism in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Until the end of April 2024, he was also an editor of Widerspruch.

Anti-Imperialism then & now: On the principles of anti-imperialism in view of changes in world capitalism

Michael Pröbsting
14 June, 2024


It is an axiom for Marxists that imperialist powers, their rivalry, and their wars are one of the key characteristics of the final stage of capitalism, which has been consequently called “the epoch of imperialism”. It is therefore only coherent that the struggle against imperialist aggression and wars has always been an elementary feature of the revolutionary program in modern times.

While this has been true since the onset of the imperialist epoch at the beginning of the 20th century, it would be mistaken to imagine that the concrete application of these principles and the relevance of its individual elements remain always one and the same. In fact, the concrete application of this program depends on the specific characteristics of a given historic period within this epoch.

In this essay we shall, after a brief summary of the principles of anti-imperialism, elaborate how these principles were applied in different periods in the past and, most importantly, how they need to be applied today. Finally, we will discuss the underlying changes in modern capitalism that influence the concrete application of the anti-imperialist program and the consequences of these changes for Marxist strategy.
Principles of anti-imperialism

Here, we will limit ourselves to briefly summarise the principles of anti-imperialism, since we have elaborated on this in detail in two books and other works.1 Since imperialism is a central feature of modern capitalism, the struggle against it is an elementary feature of working-class policy. In other words, it is the application of the Marxist program and the general methods of the class struggle to the terrain of anti-chauvinist and anti-militarist struggle.

The Marxist program against imperialism is based on the axiom that the working class is by its very nature an international class. As such, its interests are in sharpest contrast to those of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Just as the workers of a given enterprise have no common interests with their boss, so the working class has no common interests with the ruling class of a given imperialist state. Quite the opposite: just as workers want to weaken, defeat and expropriate the owners of “their” corporation, so too do workers of a given imperialist country desire to weaken, defeat and overthrow their ruling class. At the same time, workers in one enterprise share common interests with their colleagues in other companies, which is why they jointly organise in trade unions. The same is the case with workers in one country, as they fundamentally share the same class interests as their colleagues abroad.

Marxists recognise that imperialist capitalism is characterised by the global domination of a handful of Great Powers as well as a number of monopolies. Such a system contains irreconcilable contradictions that necessarily provoke crises, tensions and wars. We therefore refute the pacifist illusion that capitalism could somehow overcome such antagonisms and establish a peaceful capitalist world order — a concept first elaborated by Karl Kautsky and later adopted by social democrats and Stalinists. The only way to abolish death and destruction at the hand of poisonous militarism is to smash the Great Powers, overthrow the ruling capitalist and establish a world federation of workers and peasant republics via the socialist world revolution.

For these reasons, workers in imperialist countries utilise every conflict in which their class enemy is involved to advance their interests and strengthen their fighting power. Historically, this program has been associated with the formula of revolutionary defeatism2 which the Left Opposition, led by Leon Trotsky, once defined as follows: “What is meant by the term defeatism? In the whole past history of the party, defeatism was understood to mean desiring the defeat of one’s own government in a war with an external enemy and contributing to such a defeat by methods of internal revolutionary struggle.”3

In the epoch of imperialism, Marxists differentiate between three categories of states: imperialist, (semi-)colonial and (degenerated) workers states. Without understanding the existence of these three fundamental types of class states, it is impossible for socialists to find a correct orientation in the imperialist epoch: “To teach the workers correctly to understand the class character of the state — imperialist, colonial, workers’ — and the reciprocal relations between them, as well as the inner contradictions in each of them, enables the workers to draw correct practical conclusions in situation.”4

Corresponding to such different categories of states, Marxists basically differentiate between two types of wars: wars of oppression and wars of liberation. Wars of oppression are conflicts between two reactionary camps in which the working class does not support either side. Examples for such are conflicts between imperialist states or reactionary civil wars. Wars of liberation can be the struggle of a (semi-)colonial country against an imperialist power; of a nationally oppressed people against the dominating nation; of a progressive camp in a civil war; or of a (degenerated) workers state. In such conflicts, socialists unambiguously support the anti-imperialist or anti-reactionary camp:


Capitalist brigands always conduct a 'defensive' war, even when Japan is marching against Shanghai and France against Syria or Morocco. The revolutionary proletariat distinguishes only between wars of oppression and wars of liberation. The character of a war is defined, not by diplomatic falsifications, but by the class which conducts the war and the objective aims it pursues in that war. The wars of the imperialist states, apart from the pretexts and political rhetoric, are of an oppressive character, reactionary and inimical to the people. Only the wars of the proletariat and of the oppressed nations can be characterized as wars of liberation.5

Different types of wars require different strategies. In conflicts between imperialist states (as well as in conflicts between equally reactionary camps), the principles of international working-class solidarity require socialists to oppose both camps. They must refuse to side with their own ruling class as well as with that of the opposing imperialist camp. Likewise, socialists totally reject any chauvinist propaganda of the ruling class. Instead of supporting their “own” ruling class, they propagate intransigent class struggle (following the famous phrase of Karl Liebknecht in World War I “The main enemy is at home”). This strategy implies in the case of war, as formulated by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in 1914, that revolutionaries strive for the “transformation of the imperialist war into civil war”; that is, advance the proletariats’ struggle for power under the conditions of war. Such a program is the only way to unite the international working class on an internationalist basis and break any “patriotic” unity of workers with “their” imperialist bourgeoisie as well as their lackeys inside the workers movement.

In conflicts between the imperialist bourgeoisie and oppressed peoples, Marxists call on workers and popular organisations around the world to act decisively in the spirit of revolutionary anti-imperialism and working class internationalism. They must unconditionally support the oppressed people against the imperialist aggressors and fight for the defeat of the latter. They need to apply the anti-imperialist united front tactic — this means siding with the forces representing these oppressed people, without giving political support to their respective leaderships (usually petty bourgeois nationalists or Islamists; sometimes even semi-colonial bourgeois states). Socialists in imperialist countries are obligated to fight merciless against the social-chauvinist supporters of Great Power privileges as well as the cowardly centrists who abstain from actively supporting the struggle of the oppressed. Socialists support the Anti-Imperialist Patriotism of the oppressed and help them to develop a socialist, internationalist consciousness. Only on the basis of such a program is it possible for socialists to create the conditions for trust and unity of the workers and poor peasants of the oppressed people with progressive workers in the imperialist countries. Only on such a fundament is it possible to unite the international working class on an internationalist basis. Only with such a strategy is it possible for communists to replace the vacillating petty-bourgeois leaderships of the oppressed masses.6
The relevance of different aspects of the anti-imperialist program in different historic periods

While the above-mentioned principles of anti-imperialism are always relevant in the epoch we are living in, their concrete application depends on the concrete form of the capitalist world order and its inner contradictions. Let us give a brief overview.

In the first period of the imperialism epoch before 1914, tensions between imperialist powers (mainly Britain, France, Germany, Russia, US and Japan) were the dominating feature of the world situation. As is well known, these tensions resulted in the devastating World War I between 1914-18. While the large majority of the Second International capitulated and failed to fight consistently against all imperialist powers, the Bolsheviks led by Lenin organised an internationalist minority — which became the nucleus of the Communist International founded in March 1919 — on the basis of the program of revolutionary defeatism.

Another feature of the pre-1914 period, albeit less pronounced as it would become later, were colonial wars of the imperialist powers — mainly but not exclusively by Britain and France — against the popular uprisings of people of the South. As examples we refer to the anti-British insurrections by the Dervish Movement in Somalia and the Mahdist rebels in Sudan in late 19th century; the uprising of the Herero and the Namaqua against the German rulers in 1904-07; and the so-called Boxer Rebellion in China in 1899-1901.

In the period 1914-45, all types of conflicts took a particularly sharp expression. This period saw two world wars — the first being a conflict between imperialist powers while the second was a combination of inter-imperialist conflicts (US, Britain and France against Germany, Italy and Japan), a conflict between an imperialist power and a degenerated workers state (Germany against the Soviet Union), and national liberation wars (for example, China against Japan and the partisan wars in German-occupied Europe). In addition, there were also a number of other national liberation wars (the Rif War led by Abd el-Krim against Spain and France in 1921-26, the Great Syrian Revolt in 1925, Japan against China from 1931, Italy against Ethiopia in 1935-36) as well as civil wars (Spain 1936-39) in this period.

In all these conflicts, revolutionaries — first the Bolsheviks and the Communist International, and later its successor, Trotsky’s Fourth International — took a defeatist position in inter-imperialist conflicts against both camps but supported the oppressed nations, the Soviet Union and anti-fascist Spain in their wars of liberation.

The period after World War II — more precisely, from the onset of the Cold War in 1947/48 — until the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 bore several different features compared with the previous period. While inter-imperialist rivalry did not disappear, it became a secondary feature. The reasons for this were, on one hand, the Cold War between the imperialist powers and the Stalinist states (most importantly the USSR) that pushed the former to join forces; on the other, because WWII had resulted in the clear and undisputed absolute hegemony of US imperialism within the capitalist camp. In addition, this period also saw a number of anti-colonial and national liberation struggles that resulted in some important defeats for the Western powers (Vietnam War, Algeria).

The period between 1991 and 2008 — the year of the Great Recession — was characterised by the disappearance of Stalinist workers states and the absolute hegemony of US imperialism. Other imperialist powers — Western Europe, Japan and reemerging Russia under Putin — were too weak to effectively challenge Washington. However, this period — in particular in its late phase — saw the beginning of the decline of the US hegemony. The most important wars in this period were national liberation struggles, such as those of the Iraqi and Afghan people against the US and its allies as well as of the Chechen people against Russia. Other important wars were those in the Balkans in the 1990s. In all these wars, Marxists supported the wars of liberation against imperialist and reactionary aggressors.

The current historic period, which started in 2008, is characterised by the decay of capitalism reflected in economic stagnation, humanitarian and ecological catastrophes, wars and revolutionary crises. In such a period we see basically two types of conflicts: on one hand, there has been a massive acceleration of inter-imperialist rivalry, mainly as a result of the rise of China and Russia as imperialist powers challenging the old Western imperialists; on the other hand, national liberation wars (for example in Afghanistan until 20217, the Ukraine’s war of national defence since February 20228 or the current Gaza War against Israel’s genocide9) or progressive civil wars (in Syria against the Assad tyranny since 2011,10 in Burma/Myanmar since the military coup in 202111) are crucial features of the world situation.12

Important changes in the social-economic physiognomy of imperialist capitalism

There have been several important changes in the social-economic physiognomy of imperialist capitalism in the last hundred years that Marxists have to take into account to understand the character of the current period and the corresponding tasks for the class struggle. Since we have already analysed these developments in much detail we limit ourselves to a brief summary and references to our studies.

First, there has been a dramatic shift of capitalist value production and, correspondingly, of the international working class. At the time of Lenin and Trotsky, the (semi-)colonial countries in the South were still capitalistically backward and industrial production was mostly located in imperialist countries in North America, Western Europe and, to a lesser degree, in Japan. Correspondingly, most of the international working class lived in these imperialist states. However, this has massively changed in the past decades. In 1950 34% of the global industrial workers lived in the South; in 1980 this share has risen to about 50%; and in 2013, 83.5% of all industrial workers lived in semi-colonial countries and emerging imperialist China. In total, about three-quarters of global wage labourers live outside of the Western imperialist countries.13

Correspondingly, the majority of capitalist value production no longer takes place in Western imperialist countries, as the ruling class painfully noticed with all the disruptions of global supply chains in the past years. While the US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy accounted for about 55% of world’s manufacturing in 1985, this share had declined to less than 30% by 2018.14 (See Table 1)

Table 1. Regional Shares of Global Industrial Value Added in 201915



Region Share

China 24.9%

United States 16.6%

Northeast Asia 8.8%

Japan 6.4%

South Korea 2.4%

Western Europe 8.7%

Southeast Asia (ASEAN) 4.8%

Oceania 1.6%



This changes basically reflect two processes. On one hand, China has emerged as a new imperialist power which is challenging the long-term hegemony of the US.16 This is manifested in the fact that China has become the leading country — together with the US — in the global ranking of the largest corporations in the world (as calculated by the Fortune Global 500 list in Table 2). We see the same picture when it comes to the global ranking of billionaires. (See Table 3) And while China is still behind the US in military expenditures, it has already become the world’s No. 2 (U.S. 916 vs. China 296 billion U.S. Dollar).17

Table 2. Top 10 Countries with the Ranking of Fortune Global 500 Companies (2023)18



Rank Country Companies Share(in%)



1 United States 136 27.2%

2 China (without Taiwan) 135 27.0%

3 Japan 41 8.2%

4 Germany 30 6.0%

5 France 23 4.6%

6 South Korea 18 3.6%

7 United Kingdom 15 3.0%

8 Canada 14 2.8%

9 Switzerland 11 2.2%

10 Netherlands 10 2.0%



Table 3. China and U.S. Lead the Hurun Global Rich List 202119



2021 Share of “Known” Global Billionaires 2021



China 1058 32.8%



U.S. 696 21.6%



On the other hand, this process reflects the increasing dependence of imperialist powers on industrial production in the Global South. Hence, the super-exploitation and control of semi-colonial countries becomes increasingly important for Great Powers. This is even more the case than official figures suggest (usually calculated in US dollars) because these distort the picture as through various mechanism — unequal exchange, currency manipulation, internal calculations within multinational corporations, etc. — the value produced in imperialist countries is overestimated while the share produced in semi-colonial countries is underestimated.20

Another important difference between the period in which Lenin and Trotsky were living in and the period after WWII is the transformation of most colonies into semi-colonies; that is, countries which are formally political independent but continue to have a dependent and super-exploited position in the imperialist world order.

Furthermore, there has been a massive process of globalisation in terms of the global integration of production and trade. Between the end of WWII and the Great Recession in 2008, the ratio of goods trade to global output (Gross Domestic Product) had constantly increased from about 10% to nearly 50%. Since then, this share has slightly decreased but still vacillates between 41% and 48%.21

However, with the acceleration of inter-imperialist rivalry, trade between the Western and Eastern Great Powers is decreasing while it increases within the respective blocs. A recently published study of leading economists of the IMF writes:


We find that, like during the Cold War, trade and investment between blocs is decreasing, compared to trade and investment within blocs. While the decoupling remains small compared to that earlier episode, it is also in its early stages and could worsen significantly if geopolitial tensions persists and restrictive trade policies continue to mount.22

We already predict this development more than a decade ago when we noted:


As a result there will be a tendency towards forms of protectionism and regionalisation. Each Great Power will try to form a regional bloc around it and restrict access for the other Powers. By definition, this must result in numerous conflicts and eventual wars.23

Finally, another important change in the period since WWII has been the expansion and consolidation of the labour aristocracy in the imperialist countries. As Lenin explained, this is the top layer of the working class (certain sectors of highly-paid skilled workers) which has been bribed by the bourgeoisie with various privileges. The financial sources to pay off the labor aristocracy in the imperialist countries, and thereby to undermine its working-class solidarity, are derived from the extra profits which the monopoly capitalists obtain by super-exploiting the semi-colonial countries as well as migrants in the imperialist metropolises. Unfortunately, the labour aristocracy — along with its twin, the labor bureaucracy — plays a dominating role inside the trade unions and the reformist parties in the imperialist countries. On an ideological level, these layers play an important role in transmitting aristocratic prejudices (Islamophobia, chauvinism, support for Zionism, etc) to wider layers of the popular masses directed against oppressed people and the lower strata of the proletariat, such as migrants. We call this phenomenon aristocratism.24
Consequences for Marxists

In this final chapter, we shall summarise some consequences of these changes for Marxist strategy.

1) Revolutionary anti-imperialism is of crucial importance in the current period since both inter-imperialist rivalry as well as imperialist aggression and national liberation struggles are key features of the world situation. It is impossible to be a communist without a consistent position of revolutionary defeatism against all Great Powers and without unconditional support for the struggles of the oppressed peoples.

2) Internationalism in theory and practice is essential for Marxists because the world economy is more integrated than ever and because major challenges of humanity — from the climate crisis to armament and migration — are by their very nature global issues. Advocating cross-border class struggles and the international organisation of the working class are therefore imperative to fight catastrophic capitalism. Most importantly, Marxists have to advance the unification of the proletarian vanguard and build a revolutionary world party.

3) Those building the international workers movement and a new revolutionary world party must not be content with working in the old imperialist countries in Western Europe and North America. We must rather have a focus on the semi-colonial countries and new powers, such as China, since it is these regions where the vast majority of the global proletariat is located.

4) Revolutionary work in the old imperialist countries in Western Europe and North America must have a focus on the masses of the working class in contrast to the privileged and aristocratic layers at the top or the academic middle class milieu. This includes in particular migrants who face a double oppression (as workers and as a national minority) and who are also transmitting belts to the countries of the Global South. Revolutionaries need to work within the labour movement for unity of native and migrant workers and advocate an anti-imperialist program of solidarity with the struggles of the oppressed.

5) Such an orientation goes hand-in-hand with the conscious struggle of revolutionaries against aristocratic prejudices within the workers movement and the so-called left. Such a struggle must not be waged only on a theoretical-propagandistic level but also, and more importantly, by advocating concrete practical solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles in the south and anti-chauvinist resistance in the imperialist countries.

These are some conclusions which we can draw from comparing the conditions of anti-imperialist struggles in past and present. We look forward to exchanging views with other socialist organisations and activists on this issue and joining forces in the common struggle to bring down the imperialist monster.

Michael Pröbsting is a socialist activist and writer. He is the editor of the website http://www.thecommunists.net/ where a version of this article first appeared.1

See Michael Pröbsting: Anti-Imperialism in the Age of Great Power Rivalry. The Factors behind the Accelerating Rivalry between the U.S., China, Russia, EU and Japan. A Critique of the Left’s Analysis and an Outline of the Marxist Perspective, RCIT Books, Vienna 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/ (see chapter XII to XXII); by the same author: The Great Robbery of the South. Continuity and Changes in the Super-Exploitation of the Semi-Colonial World by Monopoly Capital Consequences for the Marxist Theory of Imperialism, RCIT Books, 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/great-robbery-of-the-south/ (see chapter 12 and 13)
2

For a summary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency’s (RCIT) understanding of revolutionary defeatism see e.g. Theses on Revolutionary Defeatism in Imperialist States, 8 September 2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/theses-on-revolutionary-defeatism-in-imperialist-states/
3

L. Trotsky, G. Zinoviev, Yevdokimov: Resolution of the All-Russia Metal Workers Union (1927); in: Leon Trotsky: The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-27), pp. 249-250
4

Manifesto of the Fourth International on Imperialist War: Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution. Adopted by the Emergency Conference of the Fourth International, May 19-26, 1940, in: Documents of the Fourth International. The Formative Years (1933-40), New York 1973, p. 327, http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fi/1938-1949/emergconf/fi-emerg02.htm
5

Leon Trotsky: Declaration to the Antiwar Congress at Amsterdam (1932), in: Trotsky Writings 1932, p. 153
6

For an overview about our history of support for anti-imperialist struggles in the past four decades (with links to documents, pictures and videos) see e.g. an essay by Michael Pröbsting: "The Struggle of Revolutionaries in Imperialist Heartlands against Wars of their 'Own' Ruling Class. Examples from the history of the RCIT and its predecessor organisation in the last four decades", 2 September 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-struggle-of-revolutionaries-in-imperialist-heartlands-against-wars-of-their-own-ruling-class/
7

We have compiled a number of RCIT articles on the imperialist defeat in Afghanistan on a special sub-page on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/collection-of-articles-on-us-defeat-in-afghanistan/
8

We refer readers to a special page on our website where numerous RCIT documents on the Ukraine War and the current NATO-Russia conflict are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/compilation-of-documents-on-nato-russia-conflict/.
9

We refer readers to the special pages on our website where all RCIT documents on the 2023-25 Gaza War are compiled, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023-24-part-2/.
10

The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements and articles on the Syrian Revolution which can be read on a special sub-section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/.
11

We refer readers to a special page on our website where all RCIT documents on the military coup in Burma/Myanmar are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/collection-of-articles-on-the-military-coup-in-myanmar/.
12

See also Michael Pröbsting: Marxist Tactics in Wars with Contradictory Character. The Ukraine War and war threats in West Africa, the Middle East and East Asia show the necessity to understand the dual character of some conflicts, 23 August 2023, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/marxist-tactics-in-wars-with-contradictory-character/
13

For a discussion of the shift in the global proletariat with sources see e.g. Michael Pröbsting: Marxism and the United Front Tactic Today. The Struggle for Proletarian Hegemony in the Liberation Movement in Semi-Colonial and Imperialist Countries in the present Period, RCIT Books, 2016, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/book-united-front/ (chapter III); by the same author: The Great Robbery of the South. Continuity and Changes in the Super-Exploitation of the Semi-Colonial World by Monopoly Capital Consequences for the Marxist Theory of Imperialism, RCIT Books, 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/great-robbery-of-the-south/ (pp. 69-80)
14

Marceli Hazla: The trap of industry-driven development, Poznan University of Economics 2023, p. 15
15

Wing Chu, Yuki Qian: RCEP: Asia as the Global Manufacturing Centre, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, 2 December 2021, p. 1
16

For our analysis of capitalism in China and its transformation into a Great Power see e.g. the book by Michael Pröbsting: Anti-Imperialism in the Age of Great Power Rivalry. The Factors behind the Accelerating Rivalry between the U.S., China, Russia, EU and Japan. A Critique of the Left’s Analysis and an Outline of the Marxist Perspective, RCIT Books, Vienna 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/; see also by the same author: “Chinese Imperialism and the World Economy”, an essay published in the second edition of The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism (edited by Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-91206-6_179-1; "China: An Imperialist Power … Or Not Yet? A Theoretical Question with Very Practical Consequences! Continuing the Debate with Esteban Mercatante and the PTS/FT on China’s class character and consequences for the revolutionary strategy", 22 January 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialist-power-or-not-yet/; "China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power" (2012), in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4, http://www.thecommunists.net/publications/revcom-number-4; "How is it possible that some Marxists still Doubt that China has Become Capitalist? (A Critique of the PTS/FT), An analysis of the capitalist character of China’s State-Owned Enterprises and its political consequences", 18 September 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism-2/; "Unable to See the Wood for the Trees (PTS/FT and China). Eclectic empiricism and the failure of the PTS/FT to recognize the imperialist character of China", 13 August 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism/; "China’s Emergence as an Imperialist Power", in: New Politics, Summer 2014 (Vol:XV-1, Whole #: 57). See many more RCIT documents at a special sub-page on the RCIT’s website: https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
17

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Trends in World Military Expenditure, SIPRI Fact Sheet, April 2024, p. 2
18

Fortune Global 500, August 2023, https://fortune.com/ranking/global500/2023/ (the figures for the share is our calculation)
19

Hurun Global Rich List 2021, 2.3.2021, https://www.hurun.net/en-US/Info/Detail?num=LWAS8B997XUP
20

See on this The Great Robbery of the South, p. 67
21

Gita Gopinath: Geopolitics and its Impact on Global Trade and the Dollar, IMF, 7 May 2024, https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2024/05/07/sp-geopolitics-impact-global-trade-and-dollar-gita-gopinath
22

Gita Gopinath, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Andrea F. Presbitero, and Petia Topalova: Changing Global Linkages: A New Cold War? IMF Working Papers WP/24/76, April 2024, p. 14
23

The Great Robbery of the South, p. 390
24

For a discussion of the issue of aristocratism see e.g. our book by Michael Pröbsting: Building the Revolutionary Party in Theory and Practice, (Chapter III, iii), https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/rcit-party-building/

What went wrong with capitalism? – Michael Roberts

15th June 2024Leave a Commenton What went wrong with capitalism? – Michael Roberts

“Most Americans don’t expect to be “better off in five years” — a record low since the Edelman Trust Barometer first asked this question more than two decades ago.”

By Michael Roberts

Ruchir Sharma has a book out called What Went Wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma is an investor, author, fund manager and columnist for the Financial Times. He is the head of Rockefeller Capital Management‘s international business, and was an emerging markets investor at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

With those credentials of being ‘inside the beast’ or even ‘one of the beasts’, he ought to know the answer to his question. In a review of his book in the Financial Times, Sharma outlines his argument. First, he tells us that “I worry about where the US is leading the world now. Faith in American capitalism, which was built on limited government that leaves room for individual freedom and initiative, has plummeted.” He notes that now most Americans don’t expect to be “better off in five years” — a record low since the Edelman Trust Barometer first asked this question more than two decades ago. Four in five doubt that life will be better for their children’s generation than it has been for theirs, also a new low. And according to the latest Pew polls, support for capitalism has fallen among all Americans, particularly Democrats and the young. In fact, among Democrats under 30, 58 per cent now have a “positive impression” of socialism; only 29 per cent say the same thing of capitalism.

This is bad news for Sharma as a strong supporter of capitalism. What has gone wrong? Sharma says that it’s the rise of big government, monopoly power and easy money to bail out the big boys. This has led to stagnation, low productivity growth and rising inequality.

Sharma argues that the so-called neoliberal revolution of the 1980s that supposedly replaced Keynesian-style macro management, reduced the size of the state and deregulated markets was really a myth. Sharma: “the era of small government never happened.” Sharma points out that in the US, government spending has risen eight-fold since 1930 from under 4 per cent to 24 per cent of GDP — and 36 per cent including state and local spending.  Alongside tax cuts, government deficits rose and public debt rocketed.

As for deregulation, the result was actually “more complex and costly rules, which the rich and powerful were best equipped to navigate.” Regulatory rules actually increased. As for easy money, “fearful that mounting debts could end in another 1930s-style depression, central banks started working alongside governments to prop up big corporations, banks, even foreign countries, every time the financial markets wobbled.” So there was no neoliberal transformation freeing up capitalism to expand, on the contrary. 

But is Sharma’s economic history of the period after the 1980s really right? Sharma tries to portray the post-1980s period as one of bailouts for banks and companies during crises in contrast to the 1930s when central banks and governments followed the policy of ‘liquidation’ of those in trouble. Actually, this is not correct, saving corporate capital and the banks was the driving force of the Roosevelt New Deal; liquidation was never adopted as government policy.  Moreover, the 1980s were mostly a decade of high interest rates and tight monetary policy imposed by central bankers like Volcker, seeking to drive down the inflation of the 1970s. Indeed, Sharma has nothing to say about the ‘stagflation’ of the 1970s – a decade, according to him, where capitalism had small government and low regulation.

Sharma makes much of the rise in government spending including ‘welfare spending’ in the last 40 years. But he does not really explain why. After the rise in spending and debt during the war, much of the increased spending since has been due to a rise in population, particularly a rise in the elderly, leading to an increase in (unproductive for capitalism) spending on social security and pensions. But the rise in government spending was also a response to the weakening of economic growth and investment in productive capital from the 1970s.  As GDP grew more slowly and welfare spending grew faster, then government spending to GDP rose.

Sharma says nothing about other aspects of the neo-liberal period. Privatisation was a key policy of the Reagan and Thatcher years. State assets were sold off to boost profitability in the private sector. In this sense, there was a reduction in the ‘big state’, contrary to Sharma’s argument. Indeed, starting as early as the mid-1970s, public sector capital stock was sold off. In the US, it has been halved as a share of GDP.

Source: IMF investment and capital stock database, 2021

Similarly, post the 1980s, public sector investment as a share of GDP has been nearly halved while the private sector share has risen 70%. 

It’s not the ‘big state’ that is in control of investment and output decisions, it is the capitalist sector. This hints at the reason for reducing the role of the public sector. The problem for capitalism in the late 1960s and 1970s was the drastic fall in the profitability of capital in the major advanced capitalist economies. That fall had to be reversed. One policy was privatization. Another policy was the crushing of the trade unions through laws and regulations designed to make it difficult if not impossible to set up unions or take industrial action. Then there was the move of manufacturing capacity out of the ‘Global North’ to the cheap labour regions of the Global South, so-called ‘globalization’. Combined with weakening trade unions at home, the result was a sharp drop in the share of GDP going to labour along with cheap labour abroad; and a (modest) rise in profitability of capital.

Sharma admits that “globalisation brought more competition, keeping a lid on inflation in consumer prices” against his thesis of monopoly stagnation, but then argues that globalization and low imported goods prices “solidified a conviction that government deficits and debt don’t matter.” Really? Throughout the 1990s onwards, governments tried to impose ‘austerity’ in the name of balancing budgets and reducing government debt. They failed, not because they thought that ‘deficits and debt don’t matter’ but because economic growth and productive investment slowed. Public sector spending cuts were significant, but the ratio to GDP did not fall.

Sharma reckons that ‘recessions were fewer and farther between’ in the post-1980s period. Hmm. Leaving out the huge double slump of the early 1980s (another key factor in driving down labour power), there were recessions in 1990-1, 2001 and then the Great Recession of 2008-9, culminating in the pandemic slump of 2020, the worst slump in the history of capitalism. Maybe fewer and farther between, but increasingly damaging.

Sharma notes that after each slump since the 1980s, economic expansion has been weaker and weaker. This appears as a mystery for proponents of capitalism. “Behind the slowing recoveries was the central mystery of modern capitalism: a collapse in the rate of growth in productivity, or output per worker. By the outset of the pandemic, it had fallen by more than half since the 1960s.”

Sharma presents his explanation: “a growing body of evidence points the finger of blame at a business environment thick with government regulation and debt, in which mega-companies thrive and more corporate deadwood survives each crisis.”  The bailouts of the big monopolies (‘three of every four US industries have ossified into oligopolies’) and ‘easy money’ have kept a stagnating capitalism crawling along, breeding ‘zombie’ companies that only survive by borrowing.

Sharma puts the horse before the cart here. Productivity growth slowed across the board because productive investment growth dropped. And in capitalist economies, productive investment is driven by profitability. The neo-liberal attempt to raise profitability after the profitability crisis of the 1970s was only partially successful and came to an end as the new century began. The stagnation and ‘long depression’ of the 21st century is exhibited in rising private and public debt as governments and corporations try to overcome stagnant and low profitability by increasing borrowing.

Sharma proclaims that social “immobility is stifling the American dream.”  Whereas, in the rosy past of ‘competitive capitalism’, through dint of hard work and entrepreneurial drive, you could go from rags to riches, now that is not possible.  But the ‘American dream’ was always a myth.  The majority of billionaires and rich people in the US and elsewhere inherited their wealth and those that did become billionaires in their lifetime did not do so without sizeable start-up funds from parents etc.

And let me add, Sharma’s thesis is entirely based on the advanced capitalist economies of the Global North. He has little to say about the rest of the world where most people live. Has social mobility been stymied or never existed? Is there a big state with massive welfare spending in these countries? Is there easy money for companies to borrow?  Are there domestic monopolies squeezing out competition? Are there bailouts galore?

That brings us to Sharma’s main message about what is wrong with capitalism. You see, for Sharma, capitalism as he envisages it no longer exists. Instead, competitive capitalism has morphed into monopolies bolstered by a big state. “Capitalism’s premise, that limited government is a necessary condition for individual liberty and opportunity, has not been put into practice for decades.”

The myth of a competitive capitalism that Sharma projects sounds similar to the thesis of Grace Blakeley in her recent book, Vulture Capitalism, where she argues that capitalism has never really been a brutal battle between competing capitalists for a share of the profits extracted from labour, but instead a nicely agreed and planned economy controlled by big monopolies and backed by the state. 

In effect, both Sharma and Blakeley agree on the rise of ‘state monopoly capitalism’ (SMC) as the reason for what went wrong with capitalism. Of course, they differ on the solution. Blakeley, being a socialist, wants to replace SMC with democratic planning and workers coops. Sharma, being ‘one of the beasts’, wants to end monopolies, reduce the state and restore ‘competitive capitalism’ to follow its ‘natural path’ to provide prosperity for all. Sharma: “capitalism needs a playing field on which the small and new have a chance to challenge — creatively destroy — old concentrations of wealth and power.” 

You see, capitalists, if left alone to exploit the labour force, and freed of the burden of regulations and for having to pay for welfare spending, will naturally flourish. “The real sciences explain life as a cycle of transformation, ashes to ashes, yet political leaders still listen to advisers claiming they know how to generate constant growth. Their overconfidence needs to be contained before it does more damage.” So, according to Sharma, capitalism will be fine again, if we let the capitalist cycles of boom and slump play out naturally and not try to manage them. 

“Capitalism is still the best hope for human progress, but only if it has enough room to work.” Well, capitalism has had plenty of room to work for over 250 years with its booms and slumps; its rising inequalities globally; and now its environmental threat to the planet; and the increasing risk of geopolitical conflict. No wonder 58% of young Democrats in the US would prefer socialism.

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• Michael Roberts is an economist and author, you can follow Michael Roberts’ blog on Facebook and YouTube.
• This article was originally published by Michael Roberts’ blog The Next Recession on May 27th, 2024. You can find out more about Michael Roberts here.