- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse
- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse
Does not bode well.
it was from my latin american history course, favourite one I took, professor taught it from a 100% openly Marxist perspective. Final slide he displayed during his last lecture just said
"There can be no socialism without democracy nor democracy without socialism"
Fuckin based prof.
But anyway this "hegemonic cycle" thing scares the shit out of me given where we are right now.
a variable that mixes things up is china aiming to eventually escape the capitalist world-economy, which would mean the united states' biggest competitor wouldn't compete with them anymore along the same capitalist lines
scientifically, these aren't enough examples to mean anything concrete, so we are in uncharted waters here
I think the point of the table is that imperialist competition implies war. That the American hegemony is over is quite clear, so we're entering a competition among the imperialists regardless of whether China participates.
What other imperialists are there these days? France? Multi-national corporations?
Multi-national corporations are part of the definition of imperialism. However they cannot be considered actors of imperialism, since they don't have their own militaries but they need to rely on a bourgeois state to conquer new markets for them.
France yes, but it's increasingly integrated with Germany and the rest of Western Europe so unless I'm missing something I doubt there will be intra-European competition. So the EU instead of France, even though multiple states may exit the union and realign. The USA will definitely struggle to keep its hegemony. Russia is another imperialist power directly confronted to the previous two. They are all in deep economic recessions, weakened, distrustful and ripe with internal contradictions, like in all pre-war periods. China is none of those things, but they will attempt to preserve the Belt and Road project and their control of the South China Sea.
there's PMCs though, so they don't even really need a state's military anymore now.
there's also blackwater or "acadami" as they're calling themselves now.
Those have always existed, and actually company armies were predominant in the first (mercantilist, East India Company) period of the table. Today they are limited in scope, cant project sufficient air or naval power to be effective except in states that have already been conquered for them by more overt American military action.
Erik Prince is somewhere in Africa or China trying to prove you wrong. Gonna be cool living through MGS V, I loved that game
During "Peak Hegemony":
:amerikkka: Hey UN it's time to murder a fifth of Korea!
:yes-honey-left: Yes honey.
During "loss of hegemony" they could not even convince NATO that Iraq had WMDs.
The fact they he has to try is the proof of their decline.
nukes. there are also nukes now. :agony-consuming:
500,000 dead in the imperial core and no one bars an eye. Get ready for the biggest and bestest meat grinder yet.
deleted by creator
Nuclear war is such a bogeyman that I find it incredible that 1) it's already happened in WW2, 2) it's very likely to happen again.
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like if nuclear war were actually happening, and I can't.
I remember a few years ago watching a bunch of doomer post-apocalyptic movies in a row and being stuck in a state of existential despair for a week straight. Nuclear war is a such a frightening concept that my brain just refuses to think of what would actually happen if it did.
you can't imagine it because you'd be dead
Even if it were happening in Europe and the middle East and Asia, and not in North America, and I didn't die, I don't think I can shine what it would be like for that to actually be happening.
Like, so, the ultimate worst thing is now here, and it's real. It's happened there, it could happen anywhere.
:agony-deep: