"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum, the most varied morbid phenomena occur." ---- This is what Antonio Gramsci wrote in 1930 in his Prison Notebooks , when he was incarcerated in Turi prison. This is a frankly overused statement, but it is worth reflecting on, avoiding that philological tendency, prevalent throughout the left and beyond, which claims to attribute all-encompassing meanings to certain theoretical formulations. For our part, we believe instead that it is best to simply grasp the humility and timeliness of the warning, precisely because it refers to the present and the dramatic, unprecedented tendencies that characterize it. The belief that everything has changed is a recurring and widespread statement that appears to be a true "product of the crisis," formulated to frustrate any attempt to interpret the degeneration of the present from a perspective aimed at overcoming capitalist production relations that are increasingly descending into barbarism. Beyond the instrumental opposition between old and new, however, "novelties" exist, and they consist not only in the widespread tendency toward war, but also in its concrete spread throughout every sphere of capitalist society, increasingly shaped by militarism and increasing the destructive capacity of conflict. The sophisticated technologies employed, and artificial intelligence itself, are thus placed at the service of destruction and massacres, especially of civilian populations. Diplomacy, its institutions, and international law itself demonstrate their fragility and impotence in the face of truly dominant power relations, leaving the word to the weapons and conflicts that are spreading across the planet at this stage in history. Capitalism has historically established itself as a dynamic process tending towards internationalization, and the class that interprets it, the bourgeoisie, is also a class continually striving for change. One need only think of the First Imperialist World War to fully understand this class and the "innovations" it gave rise to: a class that dominates the world in order to pursue its own particular interests aimed at extracting and accumulating profits, expropriating and concentrating in ever-increasing numbers of greedy hands the social wealth produced by wage earners across the planet, which is the historical purpose of capitalism, namely its "incessant pursuit of gain." This inescapable necessity has dramatic consequences that hark back to a clear and highly relevant quote from Karl Marx himself:
"Capital," says the Quarterly Review, "avoids tumult and discord, and is by nature timid. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Capital fears the absence of profit, or too little profit, as nature fears a vacuum. With an adequate profit, capital is very bold. 10% is safe, and can be employed anywhere; 20% becomes lively; 50%, positively reckless; 100% makes it ready to trample on all human laws; 300%, and there is no crime it does not dare to commit, even at the risk of the gallows."[Capital , Book I, Chapter 24.]
Even these few lines, written over 150 years ago, manage to explain all the tragedies of the present and, beyond philological and psychological interpretations, allow us to understand the uncertainties, risks, and contradictions of the ruling groups of economic, political, and military power that the bourgeoisie expresses in the balance of power in the clash between powers that represent the frantic attempt to excel, or not to succumb, in the imperialist competition for control of world markets and strategic areas, such as the Middle East.
This is true for the United States, which, to counteract inevitable economic decline, must defend the dollar at all costs as the benchmark currency for global trade, especially in energy transactions, countering the rise of the Chinese yuan in order to stem its public debt, which now approaches $39 trillion and prevents it from pursuing the American dream, much less maintaining and, above all, effectively managing the world's strongest military. The Trump phenomenon arises from this America, now in economic, social, cultural, and militarily decline, faced with the changing global imperialist structure that undermines its hegemony over other emerging imperialist powers. Similarly, with Netanyahu and his government, the Israeli bourgeoisie defends its hegemony in one of the most heated scenarios on the planet, even at the cost of immense destruction and renewed massacres of civilian populations, where the use of the most refined technologies and AI is placed at the service of war, increasing its destructive fury, carrying out the genocide of entire populations. If the US sees China as a fierce economic and military power, it finds in Iran a significant competitor active throughout the Middle East, a competitor capable of effectively countering the myth and now illusion of an invincible Israel. Israel, an ally of the US in the recent aggression against Iran, risks annihilation at the hands of a regional power, a fundamentalist Shiite power that, after overthrowing the previous repressive regime installed in 1953 and supported by Western imperialist powers (the US and Britain) in 1979, has given rise to a fundamentalist and patriarchal regime that, like its predecessor, has distinguished itself by the bloody repression of all political and social dissent to ensure its domination. The most recent and generous struggles undertaken by the younger generations, in which women and workers in particular stood out for a better and freer existence, have been bloodily repressed and today they find themselves in the grip of US and Israeli aggression and the repression of the repressive apparatus of the Iranian state and its growing nationalism.
The declining imperialist powers, the emerging ones, the regional ones, and their respective bourgeoisies find themselves in conflict over the division of a strategic and resource-rich area, according to imperialist logic and practices that, precisely, dare to commit any crime "even at the risk of the gallows." The current phase, moreover, demonstrates a historical truth: capitalism does not constitute a harmonious system as a whole, rationalizable and programmable, much less controllable in its development, since the entire capitalist system is unable to eliminate its internal conflicts, which sometimes explode into violent forms, with war as an inevitable consequence. The wars that have been fought and are being fought, with all their hurricane of misery, destruction, and death, must therefore be interpreted in their concrete social and class dynamics: it is the bourgeoisies that "attack" each other, not the vast masses of wage earners, since in no country do the latter possess the capital and power that constitute the exclusive advantage of the very bourgeoisies that fight each other to continue exploiting them. Wars can all be traced back to the phenomenon of imperialism, and therefore the omission and distorting logic of "the aggressor and the aggressed" must be rejected. It is the "unreserved" masses, those who possess only their labor power, who are exploited, attacked, and bloodily implicated in capital's wars, in Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine, Iran, and throughout the Middle East, as well as in the more than fifty conflicts that have claimed death, immense destruction, hunger, and misery, driving tens of thousands of human beings to flee their countries in search of better living conditions. In this dramatic context, where a third world conflict is concretely looming, it is legitimate and desirable to hope that global diplomacy will reach ceasefire agreements to avert further victims and further destruction. But to avoid dangerous illusions, it is also essential to understand that global diplomacy is made up of precisely those bourgeoisies that attack each other within the context of the widespread imperialist conflict. Thus, "diplomacy" is not neutral and impartial, but a sphere in which a double game is played, alternating power relations with the search for a formal and extremely fragile peace that coexists with a growing arms race and an even more widespread war, in the exclusive interest of capital.
The No vote won in the constitutional referendum on March 22nd and 23rd regarding the separation of judicial careers.
The constitutional amendment strongly supported by the Meloni government has been rejected. Within hours of the polls' results, there was legitimate jubilation from the diverse government opposition, which embraced a range of contentions, from a sometimes emphatic defense of the Constitution and the Republic to calls for the government's resignation, from the "Anti-Fascist No" and "Social No" campaigns, to the revival of the "primaries" and the "broad field" campaign in view of the 2027 general elections. The broad political, trade union, and social spectrum, including sectors of the Catholic Church, that supported the "No" vote is gripped by a more than understandable euphoria over a hoped-for but uncertain victory: "Italy has awakened," they proclaim in unison. For our part, we believe this result cannot be underestimated, as it weakens the government and its prospects and, above all, opens up spaces for political and class action that a "Yes" victory would undoubtedly have closed. But the positive outcome must not leave room for decontextualization. The government's defeat-let's use this somewhat triumphalist definition-occurred exclusively on an institutional level, contributing to the electoral truce that halted, albeit temporarily, the social opposition movement, its struggles, its content, and its grassroots organization. This trend will not be automatically avoided, given that the No victory reevaluates the role of parliamentary political parties, which are reclaiming political initiative for electoral purposes, to the detriment of the generalization of the conflict. But let's look at the data.
The referendum's turnout was 58.93%; not low, but not exceptional compared to the previous one. In the 2016 referendum on the Renzi-Boschi constitutional reform, turnout was 65.47%, with the "No" vote receiving 59.12%. It's true that compared to today, the coalitions back then were disjointed: the Democratic Party was in government and therefore favored a "Yes" vote, while the Brothers of Italy, being in opposition, favored a "No" vote. Again, the "No" vote was a clear victory, but six years later, in the 2022 general election, that victory didn't prevent the Brothers of Italy, the heir to the Italian Social Movement, from which current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hails, from taking over the government. This is to affirm that the institutional terrain and its alliances, however vast, do not constitute any guarantee precisely because they represent the changing theatre of politics, a perspective this is still very present today in the victorious No camp.
The widespread satisfaction with the No vote's victory must instead be placed within the broader context of the crisis and war. Some data: the Strait of Hormuz, currently blocked by Iran, carries 20% of the world's oil and 25% of liquefied natural gas, significant percentages of other refined petroleum products, and, above all, fertilizers (approximately 50% of the world's urea passes through Hormuz), essential for agriculture. The blockade's projections are causing energy and food prices to skyrocket, with devastating effects on inflation and thus on the purchasing power of wages and the living conditions of workers worldwide. The concrete consequences of the crisis and the imperialist wars waged by the international bourgeoisies to divide the spoils of the world's energy resources point to an inescapable and urgent necessity: the international unity of the proletariat against capital and its wars; a struggle to be waged precisely against the bourgeoisie that exists in each country without any delegation to the institutions.
In Italy too, we must therefore use the weakening of the government not to relaunch new electoral alliances in view of the 2027 general election, but to resume and generalize the struggles for unifying objectives such as wages, healthcare, education and transport, pensions and the fight against precarious employment, to return to victory in the defense of the living conditions of the subaltern classes and to relaunch and strengthen the internationalist unity of workers around the world against militarism and imperialist wars, against the hunger, poverty, devastation and death they impose.
Long live the international unity of the proletariat!
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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Link: (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #43 - History expresses those who interpret it - Libertarian Alternative / FdCA (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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