we had a multipolar world all the way up until world war II, what did it bring us? The multipolar world brought us World War I, the multipolar world brought us World War II
I cannot believe PSL’s cofounder is equating competition between colonial empires to USA trying to subjugate Russia and China.
Becker and the PSL need to read this
The part about the world wars is such a blatantly false analogy that i really didn’t want to believe it came from someone like Becker. Not only is the situation today nothing like the situation prior to WWI, when there was no single global imperialist hegemony and more importantly no socialist pole existed, but to claim that it was multipolarity that led to WWII really almost sounds like Nazi apologetics. If he truly thinks this way then he also thinks that the existence of the USSR itself - which represented an alternative pole of power to that of the western imperialists - was a bad thing. Also, he seems to forget that after both world wars socialism came out stronger, both resulted in the creation of more socialist states than had previously existed, and in a significant retreat of capitalism.
There is a fundamental difference between a multipolarity of competing imperialist powers and one of imperialism vs anti-imperialism. The US today simply will not allow the existence of any other imperialist poles of power, we see this clearly in how it has tightened the leash of its various vassals and made sure to subordinate Europe to its will so that it cannot ever become the independent pole of global power that the EU not too long ago dreamed of being. As such all those that are left outside of the hegemon’s control are anti-imperialist, if not through ideology then by simple necessity and circumstance. And it is only outside of the suffocating grasp of the US’s neoliberal hegemony that socialism can arise, let alone survive and flourish. It seems virtually everyone in the global south can see this, but for some reason many western leftists cannot.
I don’t want to jump straight to accusations of chauvinism but there is definitely something wrong here.
Your actions are literally indistinguishable from those of a federal agent, except that feds are less visibly incompetent.
Based on the contradictory positions Becker takes on Russia compared to China, he’s probably just trying to appeal to liberals to grow the PSL. Saying ‘Russia not good’ is kinda necessary to prevent liberals from losing their minds right now. Does this stance temporarily screw up their real MLtheory? Yes. Does this stance attract more new members? Maybe.
This is exactly the problem. It is possible that this erroneous position was taken out of opportunism, a misguided impulse to try to appeal to liberals by capitulating to the imperialist narrative on Russia. I had a lot of respect for B.B. and the PSL before this, but sadly this has undermined a lot of that. I just don’t think you can build a principled socialist movement this way. You are much better off trying to appeal to the apolitical and even the more backwards sections of the working class than to the middle class liberals who have fully bought into the demonization of Russia. More and more i am convinced that no progress will ever be made by any “radical” group in the US until and unless they have completely severed themselves from the Democratic Party.
I had a lot of respect for B.B. and the PSL before this, but sadly this has undermined a lot of that
That’s what Rainer Shea is trying to do. If you want to lose respect for the PSL and for Becker, at least go listen to several hours of their content and read the sources instead of trusting Shea.
Go to the 1 hour and 24 minute mark of the interview, that’s NOT what he’s saying. View my other comment.
I mean, he is still kind of saying that, no? He answers the question “is it good that unipolarity has been challenged?” and his answer is in essence no because it just seems like he argues against some multipolarity in general without considering the material reality of today’s world split into the west and the rest (with China on top). His answer implies that today’s multipolarity is like that of pre-WW1 which is in contradiction with his stance in general.
The question itself is problematic. What does it mean for it to be good? In a vacuum, no, multipolarity is not inherently good for the working class, and the evidence is forms of multipolarity that were bad for the working class. For multipolarity to be good, it must be inclusive of an anti-imperialist pole at minimum and an explicitly socialist pole must develop as well. Becker doesn’t say China isn’t that, but we all know that Russia isn’t socialist so it’s not enough for Russia to challenge the US. He’s correct on this. The situation is terribly fraught right now. We are all waiting to see what BRICS announces in late August and we are all watching China without making predictions or value judgments hoping that we end up in the multipolar chess board we need. Until then, focus at home where you have power.
Listen to Becker’s podcast and it becomes abundantly obvious that Shea is full of shit and acting in bad faith.
