What is Conjunctural Analysis? ---- Conjunctural analysis is a method of
assessing what is known as the correlation of forces or the balance ofpower between social forces within a particular context (local,
regional, national, etc) in the current moment. It also takes into
account the relationship between these shifting social forces and the
relatively permanent structures that shape society. In other words, it
is a way of understanding the context in which we want to intervene
politically. Conjunctural analysis is based on the following basic premises:
Material reality is complex but it is possible to understand it.
Reality is dynamic and changing, not due to the influence of
supernatural or metaphysical forces, but by human intervention through
various actors, which means that there are possibilities to intervene
and transform it.
Understanding this reality allows us to strategically insert ourselves
into it and build our revolutionary political project.
Conjunctural analysis is not neutral. It is designed to facilitate a
more effective strategic intervention into existing conditions to shift
the balance of power in favor of the dominated classes. A conjunctural
analysis is fundamentally an analysis of power. Because of this, it's
important to have a shared understanding of what power is. For our
purposes, we view power as a relationship, shaped by the struggle
between social forces in society, particularly the dominant and
dominated classes. Our task is to shift the balance of power in our
favor and establish popular power.
Our Process for Developing a Conjunctural Analysis
The conjunctural analysis performed by Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) is
incorporated into our organization's program, Turning the Tide, directly
informing our limited term strategy. Given that the conjuncture is
constantly shifting, it is crucial for us to regularly update our
analysis and thus our shared strategic and tactical orientation.
Development of our conjunctural analysis begins at the level of the
local (the basic unit of the federation made up of at least three BRRN
members in a city, town, or region). Using a framework shared across the
federation, locals carry out and refine their analysis through
collective discussion and debate. Delegates from each local then present
their analysis from the floor at the federation's annual national
convention. Disjuncture and contradiction between analyses are then
further discussed and debated on the convention floor. Following the
national convention, a document synthesizing each analysis and
incorporating debates held at convention, is put before BRRN membership
via referendum.
The conjunctural analysis we present below is a product of this process.
Conjunctural Analysis 2025
Introduction
Since we published the first edition of our program, Turning the Tide,
on May 1, 2023, many core conditions of the conjuncture that we analyzed
have persisted. But a variety of major new events, including the ongoing
genocide in Palestine, the 2024 US presidential election, and
accelerating climate change have since taken center stage, creating
shifts in the domestic and international balance of forces.
The Polycrisis
The current conjuncture continues to be shaped by what has increasingly
been called "the polycrisis"-a scenario in which a variety of crises
converge all at once, each affecting the other. Israel's genocidal war
on Palestine, intensifying climate change, and widening cracks in the US
empire are only some of the more obvious examples of these compounding
crises.
While some crises are universal, the impacts of most, of course, are not
equally distributed. Some crises faced by ordinary people are built-in
features of capitalism itself, while many crises for capital and the
state could become opportunities for us. Our point is that this
historical moment is characterized by a range of 'tipping points' in
various social sectors and among different social actors. Taken
together, they add up to an unstable and volatile "polycrisis".
Despite the rosy reports in the mainstream media on job growth,
inflation, and unemployment, most of us are struggling to make ends
meet, with the cost of living skyrocketing-especially around housing,
food, and childcare. Racked by rising prices and historic levels of
household debt, the number of people working multiple jobs to stay
afloat is the highest it has been since 2001. These are global issues
which extend far beyond the US, as economic growth has still not
returned to pre-COVID pandemic levels.
Precarious work and the crippling cost of living reflect an acute crisis
of social reproduction, one of the least discussed dimensions of the
polycrisis. Social reproduction refers to the wide range of everyday
labor, paid and unpaid, that goes into making and remaking people-child
rearing, elder care, cooking, cleaning, and more-which has been
stretched to the breaking point by more than forty years of neoliberal
capitalism.
This "crisis of care" is clear wherever we look: in budget cuts to
public education; in the widespread shortage of caregivers in child
care, elder care, schools, homes and hospitals; in an aging population
with home healthcare and assisted living increasingly out of reach; and
ultimately in the fact that all of this reproductive labor continues to
fall disproportionately on the shoulders of women, particularly women of
color, reinforcing gendered and racialized domination.
Our already frayed infrastructure for care is being overwhelmed by the
accelerating impacts of climate change. Historic heat waves across the
country, raging wildfires in California and elsewhere, extreme flooding
in various parts of the globe, historic hurricanes, devastating
droughts, and the expanding energy extraction linked to the increasing
use of computing-particularly artificial intelligence-underscore the
threat of climate catastrophe at the heart of the polycrisis.
In 2024, the largest sources of climate pollution continue to come from
the fuel, energy, and industrial agriculture sectors. 1 2 While these
industries have historically been the largest contributors to the
climate crisis, the exorbitant energy requirements of new AI
technologies have captured headlines this past year. Tech and energy
moguls are already scrambling to find new, cheap sources of power and
are suggesting the possibility of delaying US climate benchmarks to meet
consumer demands. Beyond the existential issue of environmental impact,
the rampant use of new AI technology has raised major concerns among
labor and human rights organizations. In 2023, the Writers Guild and
SAG-AFTRA entertainment unions launched a historic strike, partially
over concerns of how AI would be used in the television and film
industry. As well, the genocide in Palestine over the past year and a
half has served as a laboratory for the increasing use of AI in advanced
weapon systems.
The inability of traditional institutions and actors to effectively
address these issues has cultivated a crisis of legitimacy for political
and economic elites in general and key branches of the US state in
particular. According to a recent Gallup poll, public confidence in the
national government, judiciary system, and even the military has
plummeted, with the US lagging behind the majority of industrialized
nations in most measures of trust for the first time in two decades.
The shrinking status of the US state at home mirrors the decline of US
hegemony globally. Domestically and internationally, the unraveling of
the US empire is facilitated by multiple factors: the Biden
administration's naked complicity in the genocide in Gaza and how the
war has exposed the hypocrisy of the "rules-based international order,"
economic competition from China in particular and the BRICS in general,
a diminishing number of allies and client states around the world,
divisions over ongoing aid for Ukraine, and elevated domestic
instability that erodes the confidence of US allies abroad.
As the credibility of the established order continues to crumble, the
prolonged process of political polarization continues. While this
political polarization does map onto the two major US political parties,
there is also an increasing number of officially registered independents
and others who are dissatisfied with both Democrats and Republicans.
Significant swaths of the country are seeking out solutions from the
organized left and especially the far right as part of a global pattern
of mass radicalization on both ends of the political spectrum. Since the
2024 election, this trend on the organized left has only continued to
increase.
Navigating the uncertainties of the polycrisis has fuelled a growing
mental health crisis. According to the American Psychiatric
Association's annual mental-health poll, adults in the US are
increasingly anxious, especially related to current events (70%), and
rates of depression have hit record highs.
The combined weight of these social, political, economic, and ecological
crises reflect a neoliberal capitalist order in decay. But what comes
next, domestically and internationally, is an open question. This moment
of instability and uncertainty calls for a sober analysis of the
conjuncture to place libertarian socialist politics and perspectives on
a more firm footing within the various sites of struggle emerging in and
outside the United States, particularly the global struggle in
solidarity with Palestine.
Palestine Is a Portal
The eyes of the world are fixed on the Israeli settler colony's ongoing
genocide against the Palestinian people in and outside of Gaza. In many
ways, Palestine has become a portal through which large numbers of
people are mobilizing, while providing us with a lens to clarify certain
dimensions of the current struggle.
Backed by billions of dollars in aid from the Biden administration,
Israel has waged an unrelenting war on the Gaza Strip since October
2023, resulting in staggering levels of destruction, death,
dismemberment, displacement, dispossession, famine and torture. In
addition to its reign of terror on Gaza, Israel has unleashed its
soldiers and settlers on the occupied West Bank in a land grab involving
incredible violence, stealing more Palestinian land in 2024 than it has
in the past 20 years.
In response, Palestinians in Palestine and the diaspora have been at the
forefront of an unprecedented global anti-war movement. International
solidarity with the Palestinian struggle has mobilized millions around
the globe, taking on a variety of forms, including: mass marches in
cities across the world, blocked highways and ports as well as port
strikes, occupied train stations, pro-Palestine encampments and strikes
on university campuses, protest resignations from government officials,
and ceasefire resolutions from city councils and the United Nations.
Resistance to the ongoing genocide in Gaza has reignited an
anti-imperialist movement not seen on this scale since the struggle
against the war in Iraq. Like the anti-war movement from the early
2000's, the Palestine solidarity movement has radicalized large numbers
of youth activists and revived student struggles on college campuses
across the country.
The Palestine solidarity struggle has also revived critical debates on a
range of key questions for the left, such as the nature of imperialism,
national liberation, internationalism, settler-colonialism, and zionism.
Solidarity with Palestine has cut across multiple sites of struggle.
Student organizations, labor unions, tenant unions, and other
community-based formations have taken up the banner of Palestine, a
transversal issue with a clear capacity to link various struggles into a
mass movement on an international scale.
However, while impressive in their scope and scale, mass protest actions
in solidarity with Palestine have unfortunately had little effect on the
US policy of arming and enabling Israel. Continual recourse to tactics
of mass protest mobilization reflects a state of strategic paralysis
within the Palestine solidarity movement, which has so far been able to
mobilize a wide but shallow segment of the population in the US. Without
being more deeply embedded and organized in everyday sites of
struggle-workplaces, schools, neighborhoods-the movement has been unable
to generate the sort of leverage needed to force substantial concessions
from the state.
Still, there are bright spots that suggest the capacity for this sort of
rooted organizing is increasing. Rank-and-file workers in numerous union
locals-including UAW, UE, SEIU, CFA, and others-have organized to commit
their unions to endorsing a ceasefire and, in some cases, divestment. In
May of 2024, 48,000 academic workers at University of California
organized by UAW local 4811 launched a political strike (an exceedingly
rare event in the US) demanding the university system divest its
financial holdings from ties to Israel and weapons manufacturers. As
well, the student movement on campuses has seen success in some cases,
negotiating concessions from university administrators. Militants of
Black Rose/Rosa Negra have been active in these struggles, experimenting
with and emphasizing the need for this kind of "deep organizing."
Anti-zionist Jews have also played a significant role in sustaining the
Palestine solidarity struggle and discrediting zionist ideology in the
US. Jewish Voice for Peace has been a leading force in organizing mass
direct action for a permanent ceasefire, while media outlets like Jewish
Currents have been critical for developing a Jewish left critique of the
settler-colonial project of zionism.
In response to the groundswell of opposition to the US-backed genocide
in Gaza, various branches of the US state, far right, and other
institutional actors have carried out a wave of repression,
intimidation, and criminalization against the Palestine solidarity
movement across the country. This has included a wide range of tactics,
from banning Pro-Palestine student groups on college campuses, to
violent racist attacks targeted against Palestinians. Most recently,
Congress has taken an active role in this repression with H.R. 9495.
This bill empowers the US Treasury to strip the 501(c)3 status of any
nonprofit they deem to be supporting "terrorist organizations." In one
case, the Treasury already deemed Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner
support group, as funding terrorist organizations, leading to the arrest
of one of the group's leaders in Canada in October 2024.
Global opposition to the war, along with the devastating daily news
coming out of Gaza, has done significant damage to Israel's standing in
the world. In a memo from the State Department, officials warned that
Israel is facing "generational damage to their reputation not just in
the region but elsewhere in the world." The recent ruling from the
International Court of Justice has been particularly damning, confirming
what Palestinians have known for decades-that Israel's occupation of
Palestinian land is illegal and that its laws in the occupied
territories are a clear example of apartheid. Since the war began, at
least eleven countries have either removed their ambassadors from Israel
or severed diplomatic ties altogether.
Israel's increasing isolation and receding reputation extends to its
primary ally, the United States. The Biden administration's unbending
support for Israel has deepened the crisis of legitimacy for the US
state at home and abroad. On the domestic front, Biden's complicity in
the genocide played a role in his declining popularity and ultimate
withdrawal from the presidential election, while Israel's flagrant
disregard for international law has called into question the
"rules-based international order" that the US established following
World War II.
Before being forced into a ceasefire by the Lebanese resistance, Israel
attempted to expand its aggression into a regional war. This attempt at
widening regional conflict fits within a global context of rising war,
including the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Civil War in
Sudan, and imperialist aggression against Yemen.
All the while, the Biden-Harris administration's enthusiasm for genocide
eroded support for Kamala Harris, contributing to her loss in the 2024
presidential election. Simultaneously, Trump has reinforced his
allegiance to Israel, in spite of the avowed anti-semitic forces among
his base.
2024 Presidential Election: Reaction on the Rise, Centrism on the Ropes
The 2024 presidential election cycle involved multiple failed
assassination attempts, last minute dropouts, and threats of political
"purges" that continue to capture media headlines even after the final
votes have been certified. With Donald Trump now declared the winner
over last-minute Democratic stand-in Kamala Harris, the imminent threat
of a far more prepared MAGA administration armed with schemes out of the
Project 2025 playbook threaten to deepen all aspects of the polycrisis.
In many ways, the matchup between Trump and Harris repeats a current
pattern seen around the globe: the forces of reaction on the rise and
centrism on the ropes. Despite recent losses in France and the UK,
far-right parties are on the march in much of Europe, capturing a
significant number of seats in recent elections for the European
Parliament and setting the terms of electoral contests for established
parties both within and outside of the region.
In the US, Trump has succeeded in consolidating near total control over
the Republican Party, harnessing the widespread dissatisfaction many
feel towards the status quo and career politicians. Rising far-right
figureheads such as JD Vance, Peter Thiel, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elon
Musk, have pushed a mix of populist, libertarian, and ultra-conservative
political and religious rhetoric, especially on immigration, alienating
and sidelining relatively "moderate" sections of the Party.
In response, the Harris campaign sought to paint the Democrats as
preserving the center, mobilizing the slogan "Not Going Back," even as
their own "tough on immigration" and "Law and Order" rhetoric drifted
further to the right. Indeed, rightward shifts in rhetoric made clear
the Democrats' were all-in on a strategy of deliberately appealing to
the previously mentioned disaffected "moderate" Republican voters in the
suburbs. Harris's promise to preserve the status quo delivered her a
defeat in both the popular vote and electoral college. However, as is
shown by ballot measures in several Republican controlled swing-states,
most voters still largely favored initiatives that could be considered
moderately progressive. In Missouri the vote went both for Trump as well
as for a bevy of ballot measures that raised the minimum wage, increased
sick leave for workers, and expanded abortion access. While the
Democratic Party has historically paid lip service to the concerns of
the working-class, women, and people of color, this election has shown
that the majority of US voters want progressive reforms but no longer
trust the Democrats to deliver them.
The incoming Trump administration is now a vehicle for the US far right
to strengthen and accelerate an ongoing backlash against the recent
gains of social movements. This backlash includes hundreds of anti-trans
bills across the country, dismantling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
programs, overturning Roe v. Wade, systematic attacks on public
education, and fierce repression of the Palestine solidarity struggle.
Having captured the Supreme Court and Congress, the far right is hoping
to take advantage of the Trump victory by ramming through as many planks
as possible from the infamous Project 2025, a wish-list of reactionary
policies outlined by the Heritage Foundation.
Particularly alarming is Trump's intensifying rhetoric around mass
deportations. While bellicose anti-immigrant sentiment has long served
as a central feature of Trump's politics, during his first term he had
neither a decisive policy nor a deep bench of top and mid-level
bureaucrats to put such a plan into action. Now, armed with both,
Trump's anointed "border czar" Tom Homan has pledged to "take the
handcuffs off of ICE," dramatically expanding the scale of the agency.
Certainly, the most chilling escalation so far has been Trump's repeated
promise to mobilize the National Guard in service of his mass
deportation plans.
Trump's erratic behavior makes it especially difficult to predict what
kind of policy upheavals he will focus on in his first days back in
office. The best initial glimpse we have of his current priorities may
be reflected in his nominees for top cabinet positions. Many analysts
have been caught off guard by Trump's choice of close allies who have no
relevant experience. Some particularly pause-worthy examples include
Elon Musk, Matt Gaetz (now having dropped out), Dr. Mehmet Oz, and
Robert Kennedy Jr. Whether these are serious picks, or just an attempt
to make his actual subsequent nominations more palatable, will depend on
how quickly the GOP led Congress lines up behind Trump.
It is also worth noting the extremely muted popular response to this
election outcome. While the days following the 2016 election saw the
spontaneous and sometimes sustained outbreak of anti-Trump
demonstrations, the same cannot be said this time around. Owing both to
exhaustion from more than a year of mobilizations in solidarity with
Palestine and a "seen this before" blunting of the shock and uncertainty
that Trump's first win elicited, the segments of the US left that
typically power street protests have been largely mum since November
5th. Whether the current malaise reflects a long-term resignation by
liberals and the left to what Trump 2.0 has in store is still to be seen.
Labor on the Move
The potential impact of the 2024 presidential election on the National
Labor Relations Board could shape the future fortunes of the labor
movement, which continues to show signs of strength and militancy,
highlighting its historic potential for shifting the balance of forces.
According to the 2023 Labor Action Tracker Report, "The total number of
work stoppages, approximate number of workers involved in stoppages, and
strike days have increased each year over the past three years." In the
past year alone, the number of workers involved in work stoppages
increased 141%, largely due to high-profile strikes such as the
SAG-AFTRA strike, the UAW Stand-Up Strike, the strike against Kaiser
Permanente-the largest healthcare worker strike in US history-and the
educators strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
During many of these high-profile strikes, the vast majority of the
public sided with labor over capital, including 75% standing with UAW
workers against the Big 3 auto corporations, one of many measures of
growing public support for unions overall.
The majority of these marquee work stoppages took place on the West
coast, but labor in the US South-where workers face the lowest wages,
worst working conditions, lowest union density, and most restrictive
labor laws-is picking up steam.
The recent landslide victory of the UAW at the Volkswagen plant in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, has drawn needed attention to the South, a
region that remains a strategic necessity not only for the labor
movement, but for challenging the system of white supremacy more broadly.
Southern workers are on the march in both the private and public sector.
Education workers at Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia voted to
unionize in June, creating one of the largest K-12 unions on the East
Coast, with a wall-to-wall bargaining unit of 27,500 educators, bus
drivers, teaching assistants, and more. Also in K-12 public education,
the Durham Association of Educators in Durham, North Carolina, won a
historic budget fight through mass mobilizations and sick outs in a
campaign that transformed their union from minority to majority status.
In the service sector, the recently formed Union of Southern Service
Workers (USSW) is organizing low-wage workers across North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, with a focus on militant direct
action and solidarity in fast-food restaurants, dollar stores, and the
care industry. These are only some of the many examples of southern
worker organizing that point toward significant potential in the region.
One of the driving forces behind the soaring strength and influence of
labor is a growing militant minority-that small but mighty segment of
the working class with the experience, dedication, and vision that has
often been at the center of previous periods of labor insurgency. This
growth can be seen in the record-setting turnout of 4,700 people at the
2024 Labor Notes Conference-one of the most prominent gathering points
for the militant minority in the United States-and in the increasing
number of rank-and-file reform caucuses that have cropped up over the
years, in the UAW, UFCW, and IATSE to name a few.
Another indicator of a budding labor upsurge is the recent formation of
independent unions, especially in the service industry. These include
Trader Joe's United, Blue Bottle Independent Union, Carolina Amazonians
United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE), several chapters of the
Food & Beverage Workers United in North Carolina, and until recently,
the Amazon Labor Union, which ultimately affiliated with the Teamsters.
One of the more significant shifts in the labor movement has been its
growing solidarity with Palestine. Since the assault on Gaza began on
October 7th hundreds of labor unions have been organizing to demand a
ceasefire to the genocide. These efforts quickly coalesced into the
National Network for Ceasefire, which now represents 9 million workers
with membership in UAW, APWU, AFA-CWA, IUPAT, NNU, and NEA among others.
These efforts have also included facilitating regular conversations with
Palestinian labor unions, showing a recommitment to internationalism
within the US labor movement.
The movement for Palestinian liberation has also revitalized the US
student movement in the form of campus encampments and occupations
across the country. In an exciting show of cross-sectoral organizing
labor unions have come out in strong support of these student protests,
including releasing solidarity statements, showing up to student
actions, holding workplace solidarity actions, and raising money to
support occupying students or those students facing legal penalties for
the protests.1 2 3 4
Despite this surge of solidarity, energy, and participation, the US
labor movement is still far from the militancy seen during the last
upsurge of the 1970s. While it has slowed, union membership is still on
the decline. In addition, many unions lack any meaningful internal
democracy and are deeply entwined with the Democratic Party, wasting
precious resources on electoral politics that might be spent organizing
and educating rank-and-file members.
Balance of Forces
Since the end of the Trump presidency in 2020, his brand of far-right
populism has consolidated its power within the Republican Party.
Democratic lawmakers have responded to this threat by trying to
delegitimize Trump personally through various criminal and civil legal
battles. Unsurprisingly, these tactics have only strengthened Trump's
appeal among his base, as he continues to craft an image of himself as
the outsider fighting the political establishment. This underdog
depiction of Trump has been further solidified since the assassination
attempt at a political rally in July 2024. Democrats have responded to
this trend as they always do, by moving farther to the right and
mirroring much of the "law and order" and "border crisis" rhetoric used
by conservatives.
The fear spurring the growth of Trumpism has been fueled by false claims
of "violent immigrants invading the US from the outside," as well as
perceived threats of violence from domestic political opponents. The
rise of far-right populism, based on xenophobia, economic precarity, and
inflated fears of oppressed groups threatening traditional social
privileges, has been mirrored in elections across the Western world.
This can be seen most recently in national elections in France, Italy,
Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and the Czech Republic, as well as
this year's EU parliamentary elections which saw an increased number of
seats for rightwing continental and national political parties (AfD in
Germany, for example.) Even in elections where the far right did not
win, they did have historic turnouts in their favor.
In other words, despite both legal and electoral setbacks, the far right
is on the rise at home and abroad.
Tragically, this so-called "New Right" has captured much of the popular
discontent over neoliberalism's diminishing returns, channeling people's
fears, anger, and anxiety into reactionary forms of politics. However,
much of the energy produced by the rising far right has remained within
the bounds of institutions and traditional politics. Unlike the leadup
to the first Trump presidency, there is presently very little to speak
of when it comes to a visible far-right street movement. The variety of
far-right and explicitly fascist movement organizations which marked the
2016-2018 period with violent street clashes have by now largely faded
into obscurity, broken up under prosecution by the state, and/or
suffered exposure and routing by anti-fascists. Similarly, key elements
of the more populist far right which fomented the January 6th, 2021
storming of the Capitol have faced prosecution and imprisonment,
resulting in broader demobilization.
Meanwhile, forces on the center-left, from the Democratic Party to
liberal NGO's, have mounted a feeble struggle against "hate" in the name
of defending "democracy" and other abstract values aimed at preserving
the same status quo that gave birth to the far-right and fascist forces.
This inability to provide a coherent narrative and systematic critique
of a decaying neoliberal order, declining US hegemony, increasing global
violence, and worsening climate crisis has produced a profound crisis of
legitimacy for the institutional US center-left-exemplified in the
defeat of Kamala Harris. This erosion of legitimacy is likely to
continue, along the way ceding ground to the institutional far right,
while also presenting potential opportunities for the anti-capitalist
left to offer a coherent alternative analysis.
The organized left-in the form of anti-capitalist political
organizations-remains fragmented and frail. Still, it has shown itself
capable of punching above its weight class in certain circumstances. The
Democratic Socialists of America, which remains the largest political
organization on the US left, is facing a financial and political crisis,
but their membership appears to be rebounding in the wake of Trump
regaining the White House. Other "hard left" political organizations in
the Marxist-Leninist mold have grown in the midst of the movement for
Palestinian liberation, where the organized left as a whole has played a
significant role. The resurgence of struggle in solidarity with
Palestine and the budding militancy of the labor movement have shown
where the revolutionary left (including organized anarchists) has the
potential to be most effective-where there is a unifying mass struggle
and the opportunity to develop deep rooted organizing. There is much
foundation-building work to do in this current moment if we want to
maintain and build upon the momentum that has grown up around the
current national and international crises.
https://www.blackrosefed.org/conjunctural-analysis-2025-crises-and-collective-action/
_________________________________________
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