International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

New capitalist domination and imperialism in Africa

Jean Nanga — 2015-10-29T14:27:22Z

The decolonization that began in the 1940s was essentially a passage towards neocolonialism, a mutation of the former colonies, a reconfiguration of the mechanisms of domination and exploitation by both the former colonial powers and other capitalists of the centre. It was necessary to adapt to the new balance of power on the international stage (the new economic-military hierarchy, the “Cold War”) in both the colonial metropolises and the colonial territories. Three or four decades later, the disappearance of the so-called “communist” camp gave rise to a restructuring of the world order based on the dynamic of the neoliberalisation of capitalism that had been set in motion in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is characterized by a permanent strengthening of the global hold of capital on the world (globalization) and a dynamic of abolition of the “private estate” (concerning the former French colonies), the “backyard” (Latin America for the United States), etc., which were said to limit the free movement of capital, hitherto considered as an intrusion.

- Features / Brazil, Russia, Africa, China, India, South Africa, European Union, Features, Imperialism today

“We should recognize that there are other imperialisms”: A Marxist dissident explains what the left gets wrong about Russia

Charles Davis, Ilya Budraitskis — 2015-04-20T08:47:30Z

Russia today is not as depicted on Russia Today, the English-language news network established by the Russian government in 2005 that paints a capitalist state led by a right-wing nationalist in pseudo-left colors: the anti-America, almost, where the poor are always fed – not just shot dead by racist police – and foreign policy is motivated not by cynical self-interest, but a dogged, one might even say principled determination to stand athwart U.S. imperialism and yell “stop!” The critiques the network airs of poverty in the United States and Washington's bloody wars abroad are an amusing, completely fair rejoinder to the State Department's habit of pointing out the human rights hypocrisy of everyone else, but the implication that things are any better in Moscow is no less amusing to leftists in Russia who are aware an Occupy Red Square, like Occupy Wall Street, would be crushed with all the skull-cracking efficiency a state can muster.

- Imperialisms today / Russia, Ukraine, Imperialism today

Religious fanatics groups: the fascists in the making

Farooq Tariq — 2014-12-19T17:12:09Z

It was the most deadly attack on any school by religious fanatics. 146 were killed in a Peshawar Army Public School, including 136 children, ages ranging from 10 to 17 years. They asked the children to recite Kalma and then fired at them. It was an attack on Muslim children by Muslim fanatics.

- IV479 - December 2014 / Imperialism today

Russian imperialism

Zbigniew Marcin Kowalewski — 2014-11-27T07:20:45Z

Sergey Nikolsky, a Russian philosopher of culture, says that perhaps the most important idea for Russians “from the fall of Byzantium until today is the idea of empire and the fact that they are an imperial nation. We have always known that we live in a country whose history is an unbroken chain of territorial expansion, conquest, annexation, of their defence, of temporary losses and new conquests. The idea of empire was one of the most precious in our ideological baggage and it is this that we proclaim to other nations. It is through it that we surprise, delight or drive mad the rest of the world.”

- Imperialisms today / Russia, Imperialism today

Notes on the "Imperialism and geopolitics" discussion

François Sabado — 2014-10-29T17:42:15Z

These notes incorporate elements of oral contributions in the discussion on imperialism introduced by Pierre Rousset at the meeting of the Bureau of the Fourth International on 18 October. Contributions to this discussion will be published in a special Debate section “Imperialism today”.

- Imperialisms today / Debate section, Imperialism today

Geopolitical chaos and its implications: introductory notes for collective thinking

Pierre Rousset — 2014-10-19T09:59:22Z

This contribution by Pierre Rousset was prepared for a meeting of the Fourth International Bureau in October 2014.

- IV477 - October 2014 / Ecology and the Environment, Fourth International, Debate section, Imperialism today