Leaflet distributed at the G8 protests by comrades of Battaglia Comunista

Comrades

Globalisation is a term dear to the bourgeoisie and its mass media but we'd prefer to call it what it really is - imperialism. By this we mean the present mode of existence of capitalism made up of the undisputed rule of finance capital on the one hand and the capacity to distribute throughout the entire planet the different stages of the process of production (from tinned tomatoes to cars or toys) on the other ⁽¹⁾. The rule of finance capital isn't under the control of one centre. Because it is finance capital it is made up of many capitals leading to competition between different centres and state alliances.

The present phase of capitalism coincides with, and is also a response to, the crisis of the cycle of capitalist accumulation, or rather the process of valorisation of capital. This means that capital can only extort lower profit rates from production through the exploitation of the labour force. The only way to revive the rate of profit is through an increase in exploitation of the workforce by lowering wages or shifting production to somewhere where wage levels are lower. There is no other alternative to this process within the capitalist mode of production. The only other alternative capital can offer is imperialist war. Thus as in all crises of the cycle of accumulation, even this one, the perspective of the historic alternative: imperialist war or proletarian revolution has re-opened.

Of the two previously competing blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the latter has disappeared. The implosion of the Soviet imperialist bloc, misrepresented as the collapse of... socialism, has thrown the former's alliance into confusion, opening up the possibility of a reshuffling of the cards which is fatally leading to the formation of new blocs on the basis of a rupture in the former NATO front.

If anyone thinks that the G8 Summit is to make an agreement for the government of the world in a hypothetical super-imperialism they are making a big mistake. In every summit the Big Eight always end up arguing. This time at Genoa the Europeans appear a little stronger thanks to the agreements reached in Gothenburg on apparently key issues such as the environment and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as on those less trumpeted but equally important issues such as the world steel trade.

Comrades

A big new trap is looming, through which the American and European bourgeoisie - independently of any splits, even in Europe - will call on their respective proletariats to form up around them against the enemy in order to defend "sacred national interests" or other equally sacred ideologies. The strength of the present anti-globalisation movements is linked to their inability to break the line-ups which imperialism is preparing. Bush has already sounded his siren-call to the AFL-CIO and the American steel industry. Their anti-globalisation demands, he claims, coincide with the need to protect US steel and the trade balance. The basic premiss a large civil movement needs to resist imperialist divisions is the adoption of a class viewpoint. It must be transformed into a real anti-capitalist movement for the communist revolution. Only a strong revival of working class initiative, even if only against the very heavy attacks of capital can drag these movements of so-called civil society onto a solidly anti-capitalist terrain.

And for this the priority for revolutionaries is to contribute as far as possible the subjective force to autonomously revive proletarian struggle opposed to the logic of trades unionism and the unions' policy of class collaboration.

But neither a class revival nor, even less, the anti-globalisation movements can have any prospect of victory without a political organisation equipped to lead the titanic struggle of the future: the international party of the proletariat. Too often we have seen movements which are even more objectively class movements (from Poland in August 1980 to the British miners' strike...) fall for the siren calls of reformism and the flattery of the political marketplace of the radical bourgeoisie due to the dramatic and considerable absence of an adequate political force organised around a revolutionary programme. The need for an international revolutionary party of the working class is now pressing and serious. And this is why we call on the vanguard of the working class to join and strengthen the sections and sympathising organisations of the IBRP.

(1) We would also remind confusionists that imperialism is no more than a phase of the capitalist mode of production. It is not a... policy.