DAVOS 2024: A GLOBAL CAPITALIST CLASS UNSURE OF ITS FUTURE.
January 20, 2024 4 Comments
In the previous article I maintained that capitalism did not have the capacity to deal with the problems facing society, this decade. This article confirms this claim by recourse to the primary documents setting the tone for Davos 2024. These documents reveal a ruling class unsure of its future while admitting that its mechanisms for dealing with pending crises are broken, especially at an international level.
THEPLANNINGMOTIVE.COM 
Yes, yes, yes! We need mass, organised abstension come election time! It’s the only ‘power’ we still possess. We need to signal our complete lack of trust in so-called democracy. Effectively, here in the UK, we live under a one-party state and a state that increasingly, is abandoning rule by consent and resorting to force, whether through its state organs or by passing ‘laws’ (echoes of Germany in 1933). The left has failed the working class, has abandoned its historic mission, indeed, has failed society as a whole. This is crunch time for us all and for the planet.
B says: “The left has failed the working class, has abandoned its historic mission, indeed, has failed society as a whole. ”
Specifics would be helpful: Who do you mean by “left”? What is the historic mission that was abandoned? When did this process of abandonment begin?
Are present-day “leftists” repeating that abandonment when advocating for multi-polarity? or touting the “power” of the BRICS to present a substantial alternative, not to mention threat to the entrenched power of European and US bourgeoisie?
When did it abandon its ‘historic mission’? I’d say around the beginning of the 20th century, when it opted for reform instead of revolution, or the parliamentary route. Specifics of what constitutes the left? For the most part, the entirety of those parties that call themselves socialist. What was its self-proclaimed mission? The overthrow of capitalism.
As to multipolarity; this is not a mission of the left, laudable as it is. In fact, it’s ironic that it’s led by a rightwing, capitalist-oriented countrty but this doesn’t alter the fact that it’s anti-imperialist.
A good analogy would be Nasser’s stand against Britain, France and Israel, over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956. Nasser imprisoned and banned the Communist Party but does this mean we should not have supported Nasser?
The discussion deserves much more time and belongs in a different space. The question of what to do in the event of imperialist attack is perhaps the easiest one to answer. Of course we defend the nationalization of the Suez precisely because its expropriation is fundamental to the future of social revolution. The more complicated part is what to do BEFORE the imperialist attack. Do we support Nasser in his coup as opposed to advancing a revolutionary program?
I’d suggest that supporting Nasser at that moment, is both the repercussion from and part of that abandonment of the historical mission.