Printed below is an excerpt from "U.S. Imperialism has Lost the Cold War," by Jack Barnes. The document was discussed and adopted by delegates to the 35th national convention of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States in August 1990. Barnes is the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party.

The resolution was published in 1998 in New International no. 1, with footnotes updating evolution of competition and conflicts among the imperialist ruling classes and the impact on semicolonial countries of the interimperialist trade rivalries and the world economic crisis.

What stance workers and farmers should take towards economic and military pacts by the imperialist powers was addressed by Barnes in a speech in New York City four days after the 1992 presidential elections in the United States, in relation to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was being hammered together by the superwealthy U.S. ruling class.

"How do class-struggle-minded workers answer the trade union bureaucrats' demagogic cry that NAFTA will result in losing 'American jobs' to Mexico?" Barnes asked. "There is only one answer: There is no such thing as an 'American job' or a 'Mexican job,' only workers' jobs. Workers in the United States have to get together with workers in Mexico and with workers in other countries and organize ourselves to defend our interests as a class, as part of the vast toiling majority of humanity."

"We must not support policies that strengthen our common class enemy," he said. "If workers give any other answer, the bureaucrats and the liberals and the reactionaries will win the argument. If workers give any national answer, our exploiters will only strengthen their power over all those who work for a living."

Barnes pointed out that class-conscious workers oppose NAFTA and all economic and military pacts entered into by the imperialist government at home with other capitalist regimes. "But we do so from an internationalist standpoint," he said, "rejecting any notion of common interests with the employing class in bolstering their competitiveness against their rivals or helping them reinforce the pariah status and superexploitation of immigrant workers.

"The only 'we' we recognize," the SWP leader said, "is that of working people and our allies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico--and the rest of the Americas and the world. Not 'we' Americans, 'we' English speakers, 'we' the white race, or anything else that chains us to the class that grows wealthy off the exploitation of our labor and that of our toiling brothers and sisters the world over."

Barnes's 1992 speech can be found in Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium, published by Pathfinder Press. The excerpt below is from New International no 11. Copyright © 1998 by 408 Printing and Publishing Corp., reprinted by permission.
 

C. Shifts in post-World War II imperialist alignments and intensifying capitalist competition

1. Shifts in the post-World War II international alignment of class forces have been and continue to be marked above all by alterations in the degree and character of Washington's economic, political, and military dominance within the imperialist system.

2. The preparations for the organization of a fourth Reich have once again placed Germany at the center of European and Atlantic politics and signal a fundamental change in international relations among the imperialist powers.

   1. The accelerating intertwining of the monetary and economic prospects, political alignments, and class struggle in the imperialist Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the workers state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), marks the biggest shift in interimperialist relations and conflicts in Europe and the Atlantic Alliance. It also has a greater impact than any other single development on the deepening economic and political crises in the Eastern and Central European workers states and their relations with the Soviet Union.
   2. These changes reflect first and foremost the relative strengthening of German finance capital within the imperialist system.¹
      1. The industrial and trading power of German finance capital is the source of the strengthening mark and growing weight of the German central bank in capitalist Europe and beyond.²
      2. The capitalist rulers of the FRG are moving inexorably to bring their world political and military power more in line with this strengthening economic position relative to U.S. imperialism and European capitalist rivals.
   3. The accelerating rapidity of steps toward the FRG's economic and monetary union with the GDR further undermines prospects for: 1) the growing integration and homogenization of the member capitalist nations of the European Community (EC) as 1992 approaches; and 2) the dampening of labor and working-class struggles in West Germany, the linchpin of capitalist Europe.³
      1. The even greater economic, political, and military dominance of German imperialism vis-à-vis its European rivals (in and out of the EC) will sharply exacerbate the disequilibrium, conflicts, and contradictions that stand in the way of any harmonious course toward an integrated capitalist Europe.
      2. The pre-World War II reality of a Central Europe dominated by German finance capital is also being pursued, as the rulers of the FRG seek to complement their position in capitalist Europe by also establishing an edge in economic relations with the governments of the European workers states.
      3. Steps toward yoking together the imperialist and workers states of Germany in economic union set the German bourgeoisie on a more direct collision course with the working class of the East as well as the West, while facilitating united action of the working class in Germany.
   4. Britain's capitalist rulers are less able to lean on a "special relationship" with Washington as a counterbalance to the growing dominance of Germany in Europe and the continuing decline of British imperialism.
      1. The pound has fallen victim to Thatcher's nearly decade-long pretense that the foundations of British capitalism are stronger than they are. The pound will now inevitably become increasingly pegged to the German mark rather than the U.S. dollar.
      2. The strength of British capitalism and support for Thatcherism continue to be eroded by the highest inflation and interest rates in capitalist Europe, combined with growing resistance to employer and government attacks, notably to increasingly regressive and onerous taxation.
      3. The 1982 Malvinas War, far from showing that British imperialism remains a world power, proved the opposite. The war against Argentina could not have been sustained, let alone won, by Britain without decisive intelligence and logistical support made possible by Washington's decision to put U.S. air and naval power at London's service for the duration of the conflict.⁴

3. Interimperialist competition (both in trade and the export of capital) continues to sharpen, increasing protectionist pressures and related world political conflicts and tensions.

   1. The European Community is seeking to end all internal barriers to trade, labor, and capital movements by 1992 and present a common front against other imperialist rivals. In response, the United States and Canada have taken steps to create a similar bloc⁵ The Australian and New Zealand ruling classes have formed their own "free trade zone" as well.
      1. This growing protectionism, by further closing markets to the semicolonial countries, reinforces their economic devastation.
      2. It will also kick back into explosive divisions within the imperialist trading blocs themselves under the pressure of any sharp economic crisis.
   2. Mounting interimperialist rivalry and its trade-war consequences can be dramatically illustrated by the U.S. rulers' escalating assault on their Japanese imperialist rivals.
      1. Washington's protectionist assault takes place in the context of the 1990 collapse of Japan's superinflated stock market; the fall in the value of the yen measured against the mark and the dollar; the instability of sky-high real estate prices; and the effects of inflated prices of food and other necessities on the extreme class skewing of income distribution. Japanese capitalism is more vulnerable to partial economic crises and world economic fluctuations than it was during the 1980s.⁶
      2. At the same time, Japanese finance capital continues to buy up factories throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia at a rapidly accelerating rate, and to offer stiffer competition to U.S. imperialism for domination over markets in the Asia and Pacific region.
      3. Protectionist assaults against Japanese capital by its imperialist rivals have racist, anti-Asian overtones that the U.S. rulers play on, aided by the trade union bureaucracy, in particular, as well as by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois misleaders among the oppressed nationalities.
      4. Japanese imperialism continues to build up its military forces (it maintains the largest military budget of any imperialist power other than Washington). At the same time, it has no nuclear arsenal or short-term prospects for one, and thus remains subordinate to U.S. strategic air and naval power in the Pacific.⁷

¹ The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, in face of growing popular mobilizations across the German Democratic Republic against the regime. In August 1990 the East German parliament voted to reunify under the terms of the FRG's constitution. But formal reunification--which took place on October 3, 1990--did not register "a relative strengthening of German finance capital within the imperialist system." In fact, the single biggest shift in world politics since this resolution was written in 1990 has been the relative weakening of the German bourgeoisie both economically and politically in capitalist Europe, especially vis-à-vis its imperialist rival in France. While the resolution accurately points to the sharp economic and social contradictions posed for German imperialism by its effort to swallow and absorb the workers state in the east, it fails to draw the only conclusion consistent with these facts--that is, anticipation of the rapid and debilitating consequences for Germany's capitalist rulers of this effort to unify two states with antagonistic social relations.

² Bonn has transferred some $100 billion a year to eastern Germany since that time, roughly 5 percent of western Germany's annual GDP, and 40 percent of the GDP of the former GDR. Most of these funds have been spent on jobless benefits and other social payments, not capital investment. The German government has shut down much industry in the east, resulting in official unemployment that topped 20 percent in early 1998 (and substantially higher if low-paying government make-work plans are not counted). Reflecting the strains on German capital and deflationary pressures across Europe, unemployment in western Germany reached its highest levels since the early 1930s in 1997-98.

German capital is also much more vulnerable than its imperialist rivals to the economic effects of the deepening crisis in Russia. German banks in mid-1998 were owed $30.5 billion by the government and other institutions in Russia--more than four times the outstanding Russian loans of U.S. banks, and more than 40 percent of all Russia's debt to foreign banks. Some 14 percent of the capital of German banks is exposed to loans to Russia.

³ Bonn's decline since 1990 vis-à-vis Paris and London spoiled plans by German capital to exploit the strength of the mark in order to dominate a strong European currency by the end of the decade, simultaneously placing Germany's stamp more forcefully on foreign and military affairs across Europe. The "euro," scheduled to begin being used to denominate stock, bond, and banking transactions across eleven European countries on January 1, 1999, will be a weaker and more unstable currency than the mark, which has itself become much weaker since 1990. Actual "euro" notes are to replace marks, French francs, and other national currencies in circulation in 2002. The rulers of the United Kingdom, as well as Denmark and Sweden, have opted for now to retain their national currencies.

⁴ Given the relative weakening of German imperialism since 1990, and the approaching replacement of the mark by the euro, the rulers of the United Kingdom have pressed the "special relationship" with Washington with renewed vigor to bolster their position vis-à-vis rival powers on the European continent. In particular, the Tory government of John Major acted as Washington's most solid ally militarily and politically during the 1990-91 Gulf War, and the Labour Party government of Anthony Blair as the White House's most reliable backer during its renewed war moves against Iraq in late 1997 and early 1998.

⁵ The U.S. and Canadian imperialist rulers, together with the Mexican bourgeoisie, launched the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January 1, 1994. It was preceded by a trade pact between Washington and Ottawa signed in January 1988. For a discussion of NAFTA, especially its place in intensifying the superexploitation of the peasants and workers of semicolonial Mexico, see "Imperialism's March toward Fascism and War" by Jack Barnes in New International no. 10, pp. 269-76.

⁶ Japanese capitalism has been in a deflationary crisis throughout the 1990s. The Tokyo stock market collapsed from 40,000 at the end of 1989 to below 14,000 in August and September 1998. In 1989 Japanese shares in dollar terms accounted for 45 percent of total world stock market prices; by mid-1998 the figure had fallen to about 10 percent. Land values in Tokyo in mid-1997 were roughly one-fifth their level at the opening of the decade. Unemployment is at its highest post-World War II levels.

⁷ The countries with the world's top seven military budgets as of 1996 are the United States ($265 billion); Russia ($48 billion); Japan ($45 billion); France ($38 billion); the United Kingdom ($33 billion); Germany ($32 billion); and China ($32 billion).  
 
 
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