THE DECISIVE defeat of world imperialism at the hands of the Afghan people has caused a complete breakdown amongst the most ardent defenders of capitalism and its historic ‘right’ to rule the planet.
While PM Boris Johnson attempts to bluster and bluff about the ability of Britain to dictate to the Taliban, the reality of the collapse of imperialist power is being openly admitted by even its staunchest supporters in the bourgeois press.
This was apparent in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph which carried an article by Allister Heath headlined: ‘Four mega-trends that condemn the West to irreversible decline.’
Heath laments that, unlike previous defeats for the US in Vietnam, this time: ‘There will be no bounce-back, no miraculous renaissance: this time the North-American-European-Australasian model really is in trouble, as the next stage of the 21st century’s great geopolitical and civilisational realignment begins in earnest.’
For Heath – who describes himself as a ‘libertarian conservative’ – and a growing section of the ruling class the game is up for imperialism.
Such a blunt assessment from a paper that closely reflects the thinking and views of the capitalist class in Britain indicates the crisis gripping the bourgeoisie.
Heath clearly cannot believe how it all went so wrong for world capitalism, writing: ‘It used to be believed that the entire world would converge voluntarily on a Western model’ and that: ‘Capitalism would lead to the universal adoption of democracy, human rights and secularism, buttressed by institutions such as the UN.’ This view of history he concludes was ‘deluded’.
The only people who were not deluded of course were the working class and oppressed people of the world who suffered hugely under the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
Capitalism didn’t export democracy to the world – it exported wars and vicious exploitation for the profits of the ruling class.
Those like the war criminal Tony Blair who rage against the Afghan people for defeating the US and UK forces and moan about how the Afghans should be grateful for an invasion that saw an estimated 80,000 innocent civilians killed by the imperialist forces in order to restore ‘democracy’ to a handful of collaborators in the corrupt puppet government they installed.
Heath is particularly angry at China.
He cannot understand how China, a deformed workers’ state with a planned economy, is in a position where it is economically eclipsing the collapsing world capitalist system.
But for Heath the biggest ‘mega-trend driving the West’s decline’ is that people are ‘turning our backs on the values that made us great’.
In a cry of anguish, Heath writes that amongst workers and youth: ‘Support for capitalism is dwindling at the very time when every other society has embraced it,’ noting that: ‘In the US, the young are less likely to support democratic values than the old.’
Not just in the US but in Britain and across the world workers and youth are refusing to support the old values of imperialist wars for the profit of the capitalist class.
They are rising up against a bankrupt capitalist system at the end of its road and driven to wars abroad and war against workers and youth at home to survive.
The greatest threat to capitalism as far as Heath is concerned is ‘woke ideology’.
He writes: ‘The woke ideology is the greatest threat to freedom since communism, and it’s gaining ground by the day.’ ‘Woke’ is a term derived from the black consciousness movement in America and means ‘to be aware’.
Heath is right to be worried that workers and youth are very aware today that capitalism has reached the end of the road and can only survive by wars abroad and war against the working class at home.
Capitalism has indeed reached the point of ‘irreversible decline’ and must be dumped into history’s dustbin.
His article must be a call to arms for workers and youth to get ready to carry out this historic task by building the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the Fourth International in every country to give the revolutionary leadership required to put an end to capitalism with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
