In 2010, immediately after Greece announced that it that its economy was about to collapse and that it was heading towards bankruptcy, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission issued the first of two bailouts to avert a global economic disaster. Harsh austerity measures were demanded, requiring deep budget cuts that required the gutting of most social programs and the total elimination of others. The entire public pension system was cut to the bone and steep tax increases were imposed on the population (not the corporations). The current bailout requires more austerity cuts to social programs, while almost all of the money goes to paying off creditors.
In the United States the merger of the corporations and the government is complete. This is true on both the federal and state level. Public property is being seized – called privatized – throughout the country. One corporate trade agreement after another is being created. Labor unions are being legislated out of existence, and right to work laws are being enacted. Public service jobs, the education system, the libraries, our water and more are being turned over to the corporations. Our pension programs, child nutrition programs, unemployment insurance, and those social programs that care for the sick, the disabled, and the elderly are being slashed and eliminated. Emergency managers are replacing mayors and city council governments of major cities. And these are just a few examples.
Fascism today is based upon the objective social destruction of the capitalist economic system wrought by electronic production. A fascist program is being implemented by a global capitalist class to protect private property. In countries around the world, fascist economic and political policies have matured by varying degrees over the past 20 years. Since the 2008 global economic crisis, this modern fascism has been accelerated under the guise of “austerity” worldwide.
These fascist economic policies set the stage for the rise of social fascism. The U.S. presidential electoral campaign season is already underway. On the one hand are appeals to adopt a populist all-class social democratic program that corrals independent political impulses and directs them into the Democratic Party. On the other hand is the dangerous, anti-immigrant, populist rhetoric, that strives to consolidate a social base of fascism. It unites with the social motion created by the increasing social destruction, to shape it to make fascism appear to be the simple and most obvious solution, the best of what common sense demands.
Revolutionaries in the U.S. make our contribution to the international fight against fascism, by uniting the revolutionaries at home around the objective demands of the new class for the basic necessities of life. The revolution requires the formation of a politically conscious section of the new class. This section will be formed by those who first come to understand that their economic equality requires them to unite politically around their common demands, regardless of race or identity group.
September/October Vol25.Ed5
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