What is Imperialism Today?

More people are talking about imperialism because of the US's backing of Israel's war against Gaza and heightened rivalry between the US, China and Russia. But what is imperialism in the third decade of the 21st century? Jeff Webber and Charlie Post discuss how we should understand imperialism and its relationship to capitalism today, the need for a better theory of imperialism than those developed by marxists like Lenin a century ago, and the political implications of how we understand imperialism.

If you're interested in this topic, check out other Victor's Children episodes on imperialism and anti-imperialism including episodes 31, 32, 33, 36 and 40. If you're new to the topic you may want to listen to episode 31 before this episode.

Recommended reading:

Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber, Prelude to a New Imperial Order? – Spectre Journal

https://spectrejournal.com/prelude-to-a-new-imperial-order/

Workers in the Global North: Bribed into Compliance?

Why don't more workers in rich countries support radical politics? Some leftists say it's because imperialism bribes some or all workers in imperialist countries, making them a "labour aristocracy."

In this episode, Charlie Post argues against this explanation, discusses how imperialism does affect the working class in these countries, and suggests a different way of understanding what shapes working-class responses to capitalism.

Readings:

Charlie Post, "Exploring Working-Class Consciousness: A Critique of the Theory of the ‘Labour-Aristocracy’"

https://web.archive.org/web/20190225112753/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ed0/777f248114127997056169e8c87364ec9b23.pdf

The Palestine Solidarity Movement in the USA.

Busy organizers Iman Abid, Shireen Akram-Boshar and Sherry Wolf pause to discuss where the movement is at in the USA and ideas for strengthening it.

A recent article:

Toward a free Palestine

https://www.tempestmag.org/2024/02/toward-a-free-palestine/

One of many valuable books (available as a free ebook):

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-socialist-introduction

The Palestine Solidarity Movement in Canada

Busy organizers Chandni Desai and James Hutt pause to discuss where the movement is at in so-called Canada and ideas for strengthening it.

Some readings and resources:

On unions and Palestine solidarity:

https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/moving-unions-to-fight-for-a-free-palestine/

On Canadian arms exports to Israel:

https://www.readthemaple.com/trudeau-government-authorized-28-million-of-new-military-exports-to-israel-since-october/

BDS target list (official):

https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide

On scholasticide:

https://theconversation.com/the-war-in-gaza-is-wiping-out-palestines-education-and-knowledge-systems-222055

On pension fund investments:

Canadian pension funds invested $1.6 billion in companies tied to Israeli apartheid ⋆ The Breach

https://breachmedia.ca/canadian-pension-funds-invested-israeli-apartheid/

Jabra Nicola, Matzpen and a Socialist Perspective on Israel/Palestine, w/ Moshe Machover

Jabra Nicola (1912-1974) was arguably the most far-sighted Palestinian marxist of the 20th century. He was an important influence on Matzpen, a socialist group of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians whose analysis of Zionist settler colonialism had an international impact much greater than the group's very small size. This episode is an interview with Moshe Machover, the only founding member of Matzpen still alive, about Nicola, the politics of Matzpen, and their relevance today.

Resources:

There is a lot of Matzpen material online at the multilingual website https://matzpen.org including articles by and about Jabra Nicola and articles by Moshe Machover. You can also find links there to a

documentary film about Matzpen.

Ran Greenstein, A Palestinian Revolutionary: Jabra Nicola and the Radical Left

https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/78424

Ben Reiff's article about Moshe Machover: The last first Israeli anti-Zionist

https://www.972mag.com/moshe-machover-israeli-anti-zionist-matzpen/

Adalah, an organization that fights for the rights of Palestinians in Israel (mentioned by Machover

in the episode)

https://www.adalah.org/en

A recent article cowritten by David Camfield and Charlie Post (influenced by Nicola and Machover):

https://www.tempestmag.org/2024/01/what-would-it-take-to-win-in-palestine/

Illustration by @ lizar_tistry of ideas from episode 36 of Victor’s Children, “What Kind of Anti-Imperialism?” https://www.instagram.com/p/C1pTc0Qu2Cr/?igsh=MXBzOTF6bnk3anMw

What Kind of Anti-Imperialism?

The support of the US and other Western states for the Israeli state's genocidal violence against Gaza is leading more people to learn about imperialism. There's more than one kind of anti imperialist politics, though. In this episode, Ramah Kudaimi and brian bean talk about anti-imperialism that's consistent, internationalist and looks to exploited and oppressed people globally to fight for liberation.

For further reading:

Barnaby Raine

https://breachmedia.ca/is-the-enemy-of-my-enemy-my-friend/

Rafael Bernabe

https://newpol.org/the-left-and-ukraine-anti-imperialism-or-alter-imperialism/

Palestine 101: 75 years of Colonialism, Imperialism, and Resistance

This episode is made up of presentations from a Nov. 12 online event organized by the Tempest Collective https://www.tempestmag.org, a revolutionary socialist project based in the US that now also accepts members from Canada.

Speakers:

Shireen Akram-Boshar, a contributor to Palestine: A Socialist Introduction

Brian Bean, co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-socialist-introduction

Sherry Wolf, anti-Zionist Jewish socialist; former press officer for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine

Germany 1923: A New Perspective on a Failed Revolution (& a Poem for Palestine)

One hundred years ago, a socialist revolution came close to happening in Germany. This episode is an interview with Sean Larson, who has written an article that draws on original research to illuminate what happened and why:

https://spectrejournal.com/germany-1923/

For further reading:

On the revolution of 1918:

https://jacobin.com/2018/11/german-revolution-centennial-rosa-luxemburg-social-democrats

On Germany 1918-1933:

Germany’s Counterrevolution Paved the Way for the Rise of Nazism

https://jacobin.com/2022/02/german-revolution-november-weimar-republic-luxemburg-nazis

On an important German marxist: Ernst Meyer, Theorist of Revolutionary Realpolitik

https://jacobin.com/2019/09/ernst-meyer-germany-weimar-republic-communism-realpolitik-rosa-luxemberg

On the history of the global workers’ movement:

https://salvage.zone/what-happened-to-the-workers-movement/

***Israel's war on Gaza is on our minds and I hope listeners are involved in Palestine solidarity activity wherever you are.***

At this time, I recommend reading the classic document by Palestinian marxist Jabra Nicola: Theses on the revolution in the Arab East

https://matzpen.org/english/1972-09-14/theses-on-the-revolution-in-the-arab-east-a-said-jabra-nicola/

While obviously over-optimistic, and much has changed in the half-century since it was written, Nicola's analysis helps us understand the impasse into which the PLO led the Palestinian struggle, which allowed Hamas's rise to begin, and why ultimately, because of the specific character of Israeli settler-colonialism, the possibility of radical change within Israel depends on the struggles of the masses in the region, outside as well as inside its borders.

Episode 33: Chinese Imperialism

Episode 31 of this podcast looked at the imperialism of the US, which despite its relative decline is still the most powerful component of global capitalism. In this episode Kevin Lin and Ashley Smith look at the rise of China and US-China rivalry.

Suggestions for Reading:

Ashley Smith, "As US-China Tensions Mount, We Must Resist the Push Toward Interimperialist War"

https://truthout.org/articles/as-us-china-tensions-mount-we-must-resist-the-push-toward-interimperialist-war/

Todd Gordon and Jeff Webber, "Complex Stratification in the World System: Capitalist Totality and Geopolitical Fragmentation" in the academic journal, Science and Society(unfortunately paywalled but the file may be findable elsewhere online), isn't an easy read but suggests a better way of understanding imperialism today than the more influential frameworks. https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/siso.2020.84.1.95

Is BRICS+ an Anti-Colonial Formation Worth Cheering From the Left? Far From It.

https://truthout.org/articles/is-brics-an-anti-colonial-formation-worth-cheering-from-the-left-far-from-it/

Taiwan Shouldn't Be Used As A Geopolitical Pawn

https://jacobin.com/2022/11/taiwan-geopolitical-pawn-china-us-international-relations-cold-war-history

Lausan Collective

https://lausancollective.com

New Bloom Magazine -- Radical Perspectives On Taiwan And The Asia Pacific

https://newbloommag.net

The War in Ukraine Drags On: A Conversation with a Russian and a Ukrainian Socialist

A year and a half after Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine, the war

goes on and unfortunately the war is still not well understood

by much of the left outside of those countries. Hanna Perekhoda and

Ilya Matveev discuss Putin's war, some common political

ideas about it on the Western left, the situation in Ukraine and Russia

today, and what people on the left elsewhere can do to help

socialists in Ukraine and Russia.

Hanna and Perekhoda and Ilya Matveev will be participating in a

speakers' tour in several US cities in September 2023

sponsored by the Ukraine Solidarity Network. For details see

https://linktr.ee/ukrainesolidaritynetwork

For a list of groups in Ukraine to support, see:

https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/support-the-left-in-ukraine-and

solidarity-with-the-peoples-of-turkey-kurdistan-and-syria/

Posle, a site of the Russian anti-war left with some content in English:

https://posle.media/language/en/about/

On the arrest of Russian socialist Boris Kagarlitsky:

https://newpol.org/im-a-ukrainian-leftist-this-is-why-i-support-boris-kagarlitsky/

A July 2023 article by Gilbert Achcar worth reading:

https://newpol.org/ukraine-and-the-abstraction-of-violence-my-reply-to-tom-dale/