THE INAUGURATION of Joe Biden as president of the United States on Wednesday was enthusiastically greeted by prime minister Boris Johnson saying: ‘When you look at the issues which unite me and Joe Biden, the UK and the US right now, there is a fantastic joint common agenda.’
What Johnson is praying for is that Biden will revive the once mighty US capitalist system and reverse its economic collapse. He is clinging to the hope that the Biden presidency with its pledge to ‘return to normalcy’ after four years of Trump, will prevent an economic collapse that will bring down British capitalism.
Where once Johnson was unashamedly sucking up to Trump, now Biden is the only saviour for a bankrupt British capitalist system.
This is a mark of the desperation gripping the British ruling class whose future is tied inexorably to a US economy that is in a political and economic crisis tearing the country apart.
This was made clear in an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph by Allister Heath headed: ‘Britain needs Biden to succeed, but US decline might now be unstoppable.’
In the opening paragraph, Heath succinctly expresses the fear haunting the British ruling class when he writes: ‘Our fate is inseparable from America’s, if individual liberty, constitutional democracy, free markets and equality before the law fail, so does the whole West.’
Heath however is not optimistic that Biden can revive a collapsing American capitalist system and by extension save Britain and the West. He points to the huge divisions that have torn the US apart and have starkly been revealed in the presidential elections and their aftermath.
In particular, he notes the massive split between the US working class and the capitalist elite who have gorged themselves on all the free money and zero interest rates, vastly increasing their wealth through creating a massive asset and debt bubble that will soon explode into a monumental crash on Wall Street.
None of the policies Biden has put forward in any way go towards ‘rebooting’ capitalism or relieving the poverty of US workers.
His pledge of a $1.9 trillion rescue package to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and provide an extra $1,400 for families will do nothing for the over 10 million workers out of work, or all those millions more who are drowning under personal debt.
In the US, one in four workers have filed for unemployment since mid-March. Biden will be forced to deal with a working class and young people especially, of whom Heath writes: ‘Younger voters tell pollsters they don’t trust in democracy as much; they are much more likely to embrace socialism and even communism.’
The inescapable fact is that American capitalism is no longer the major economic power in the world, but a nation torn apart politically and with an economy that is kept afloat only through massive debt.
Economically, it is on the point of being surpassed by the deformed workers’ state of China and for Biden as for Trump, China is the main enemy.
Biden’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Antony Blinken has already stated that as far as the new administration is concerned: ‘China poses a growing challenge, arguably the biggest challenge we face from another nation state: Economically, technologically, militarily, even diplomatically.’ He called for a ‘league of democracies’ to stand against China.
China’s economic growth and advances can only be stopped by war to force it to submit. The only difference with Trump’s policy is that Biden is keen to enlist the UK and Europe in the war to overthrow the Chinese workers’ state.
This then is the only future that a weak British capitalist system has – tied to the US that is fast sinking. No wonder, Heath is pessimistic for the future of American and British capitalism.
The working class will not sit back idly and go down with these sinking ships. The world crisis of capitalism has revolutionised workers and youth across the world who are recognising that their only future is to put an end to capitalism and replacing it with a socialist planned economy.