A system is only destined to produce certain outcomes as long as that system continues to exist. There has never really been capitalism without the US. The US is the global center of capitalism, it keeps the system functional and somewhat sustainable. It is the arch-reactionary, counterrevoltionary anti-vanguard that stops socialism anywhere in the world it can. Without the US as it is now the whole thing very well may just fall apart.
There has never really been capitalism without the US. The US is the global center of capitalism
I'm just going to nitpick on this. While it's really irrelevant to your point, Capitalism began in earnest in Europe with the industrial revolution, and the while the United States followed this trend closely and engaged in a litany of its own colonial projects, I wouldn't consider it to be the vanguard of Capitalism as an economic system at this time. Up until around World War Two, you could argue that England remained the epicenter of the financial system. This is when things truly shifted and the US took the reigns on a global scale.
In the time since then, the US has consistently remained the center of the imperial core - particularly throughout the entirety Capitalism's phase of global imperialism, which Lenin and Luxemburg predicted with startling accuracy.
A system is only destined to produce certain outcomes as long as that system continues to exist. There has never really been capitalism without the US. The US is the global center of capitalism, it keeps the system functional and somewhat sustainable.
Capitalism is now truly global, which means it no longer really needs the US as it currently exists. I do agree that the fall of the US as a global power presents a potential opportunity to attack capitalism. However, I think we should also be aware that, if threatened, it will adapt by forcing the US and it's military into an openly fascist system and/or adopt new hosts elsewhere, as it has done in China.
China is deeply embedded into the current global capitalist system, and subject to the same contradictions and incentives toward exploitation that exist in capitalism anywhere else. Why should we have any faith that one capitalist country is more likely to bring the downfall of capitalism than any other capitalist country, given what we already know about what capitalism inevitably leads to?
Remember, comrade: communism is inevitable.
I certainly agree with you, but I also think that how we get there can take many forms, some of them being quite horrific. We should try as much as possible to direct that path ourselves and use the opportunity to hasten the transformation to a more a more genuinely socialist system, as opposed to assuming that struggles between competing capitalist states will some how work out in our favor. We can't simply rely on any one country or individual to save us.
Why should we have any faith that one capitalist country is more likely to bring the downfall of capitalism than any other capitalist country, given what we already know about what capitalism inevitably leads to?
The existence of a single ruling Marxist-Leninist party, which regularly exerts supremacy over capital and prevents a bourgeois class from gaining power, is a pretty good reason to think that it might be different.
There is always the possibility of the capitalist elements in the party wresting control, but their peak really was under Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai Clique. What we’ve seen from Hu Jintao and Xi Jingping is a conscious dismantling of that faction and a strengthening of the party-state.
It’s less faith, and more choosing to give a socialist project the best chance of success, especially when the alternative is American hegemony.
A system is only destined to produce certain outcomes as long as that system continues to exist. There has never really been capitalism without the US. The US is the global center of capitalism, it keeps the system functional and somewhat sustainable. It is the arch-reactionary, counterrevoltionary anti-vanguard that stops socialism anywhere in the world it can. Without the US as it is now the whole thing very well may just fall apart.
Remember, comrade: communism is inevitable.
I'm just going to nitpick on this. While it's really irrelevant to your point, Capitalism began in earnest in Europe with the industrial revolution, and the while the United States followed this trend closely and engaged in a litany of its own colonial projects, I wouldn't consider it to be the vanguard of Capitalism as an economic system at this time. Up until around World War Two, you could argue that England remained the epicenter of the financial system. This is when things truly shifted and the US took the reigns on a global scale.
In the time since then, the US has consistently remained the center of the imperial core - particularly throughout the entirety Capitalism's phase of global imperialism, which Lenin and Luxemburg predicted with startling accuracy.
Capitalism is now truly global, which means it no longer really needs the US as it currently exists. I do agree that the fall of the US as a global power presents a potential opportunity to attack capitalism. However, I think we should also be aware that, if threatened, it will adapt by forcing the US and it's military into an openly fascist system and/or adopt new hosts elsewhere, as it has done in China.
China is deeply embedded into the current global capitalist system, and subject to the same contradictions and incentives toward exploitation that exist in capitalism anywhere else. Why should we have any faith that one capitalist country is more likely to bring the downfall of capitalism than any other capitalist country, given what we already know about what capitalism inevitably leads to?
I certainly agree with you, but I also think that how we get there can take many forms, some of them being quite horrific. We should try as much as possible to direct that path ourselves and use the opportunity to hasten the transformation to a more a more genuinely socialist system, as opposed to assuming that struggles between competing capitalist states will some how work out in our favor. We can't simply rely on any one country or individual to save us.
The existence of a single ruling Marxist-Leninist party, which regularly exerts supremacy over capital and prevents a bourgeois class from gaining power, is a pretty good reason to think that it might be different.
There is always the possibility of the capitalist elements in the party wresting control, but their peak really was under Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai Clique. What we’ve seen from Hu Jintao and Xi Jingping is a conscious dismantling of that faction and a strengthening of the party-state.
It’s less faith, and more choosing to give a socialist project the best chance of success, especially when the alternative is American hegemony.