A new version of the Western World

A 'new' right wing politics has seized the anti-globalisation momentum building up in a large section of the European and US working classes. The traditional left, classically the US Democrats and the British Blairite Labour Party, saw globalisation as inevitable, defended the banks in 2008 and, to all intents and purposes, dissolved themselves into the mainstream right. They face the same shattering future together.

Globalisation in the Western world had the opposite effect to its impact on Asia (barring the Japanese disaster.) Industrial labour was created for the first time for millions and compared with their prior dependence on agricultural labour the mass of the people's living standards rose dramatically, particularly in China. In the West industrial labour declined and working class living standards were substantially reduced. In both regions a new, supra-national, super rich emerged. But this had a different impact in the West and the East due to the reverse experience of millions of workers and their families in the separate regions.  Finally, the Western banking crisis of 2008 and the use of state funds and society's resources to bail them and their owners out brought the failure of globalisation in the West into sharp relief. 

The US and the EU had enthusiastic but different economic and political approaches to globalisation. In Europe the most advanced countries organised the EU specifically as a means to challenge US supremacy in the number and size of international / global corporations. At the level of technique (creation and application of new technology) and Capital formation (accumulation of profit via increased productivity) the US won this particular contest hands down. But in the end both models are failing. Huge social layers face declining living standards and are mounting an expanding wave of resistance in the US and in Europe, while the giant corporate creations have simultaneously detached themselves from business taxation or any national regulations of significance as they float above the world they control. Indeed, they have created specific parts of the world where they are above any law or social obligation whatsoever. (The British response to all this, via the hegemony of a half-baked rightwing leadership over Brexit, is the biggest piece of wreckage so far in response to globalisation. Britain is on course to become the largest tax haven in the world. And, it is worth reminding supporters of the Brexiteers that none of these super rich ghettos have state health services, labour law or democratic rights.) 

Leaving aside the pitiful British example, and despite Trump, it is the EU model that is currently most vulnerable. Led by Germany, the EU's management of globalisation has created a complex and contradictory confection, simultaneously trying to create a national economy, a national bank and a national currency - out of a collection of utterly unevenly developed nations. These conditions are more than simply contradictory. They are already smashing Greece to pieces and have escalated the refugee crisis, as Germany, which as a nation seeks a huge number of young workers to ensure continuing labour investment and productivity in its own manufacturing, but which has tried to impose its requirements across the EU board. The paradox is that only Greece, the most fragile part of the EU, emerges with any decency from a great humanitarian failure in and by most EU countries. The EU is a dead end for 90% of its people, not just in its relations to the impact of globalisation, but also in its ability to deal with the most elementary international disaster. 

France is now the European, not to say Western, pivot in the mobilisation of a new right wing political project across both Europe and the US. Le Pen claims her party is not from the right or the left (after all both the traditional right and left have been synonymous for decades). She claims she is for the 'patriots' and not the 'globalists.' She denounces the 'cash rich right and the cash rich left'. She will reduce the pension age and increase welfare. She tied globalisation with the 'universal ideology' of Islam. Le Pen adopts many phrases from Trump, Farage and the British Tory right wing leaders but as Le Pen begins her campaign for the French Presidency, as the crisis of globalisation deepens, so a broader and deeper set of propositions are emerging from the right, who are planning for a new world for the West.

The new right, based in the West, are preparing for international war.

They have two targets, neither of which are the multi-nationals. New right leaders will make all necessary concessions to big Capital consistent with access to wealth and resources required for their true goals. The fundamental engine of the new right in the West is fear. Fearing that the West's historical domination of the globe is ending, the aims of the new right are, first, to destroy all potentially insurgent forces emanating from the Middle East (and at home). This has several critical aspects including the obvious alliances which the new West wants to build up to exterminate ISIS, but in a longer term perspective it is to isolate and make dependent all of the Arab and wider Middle East regimes, mostly through taking whatever means are necessary to guarantee Western energy sources. Initially Russia will be feted as a potentially military vanguard against 'terrorism'. Latterly, an exhausted Russia will take its natural and subservient place in the new Western hierarchy. The US will remain in charge of this operation, but the new right of Europe will be expected to recreate 'their historical crusader role in holding the gates of Vienna against the infidel.' The new Europe will need its own wall, a European initiative for its own patrolled walls, not defined by an economic bloc but by a new grand military alliance against immigration. Second, and this goal is already explicit in US military and security circles where it is at the very top of the strategy table, there will need to be a 'defensive war' against China.

Perhaps surprisingly, the latter course was ramped up during the eight years of the Obama regime. China is already surrounded by the strongest, best armed and most technically advanced 'Cordon Sanitaire' in the history of war. Trump and his key officials intend to use it. They will force retreats on the Chinese leadership or they will fight a 'leashed' nuclear war (where 'leashed' means controlled!) The US planners see various possibilities in this scenario, from a successful proxy war in Korea to a subsidised upsurge in mainland China in Islamic regions in the north west of the country -  (Muslims live in every region in China. The highest concentrations are found in the northwest provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, and Ningxia, with significant populations also found throughout Yunnan province in southwest China and Henan province in central China) - moving on to offensive military bases on Taiwan after US domination of the Taiwan straights. This coming war, believe the new right, is a strategic necessity for US led global domination to survive.

At the moment the new right have the political initiative in the West. But it is still fragile. It can certainly not be defeated by any call to a 'return to normal'. Recent history is not a place where most working class people in the West wish to return. Nevertheless, as France showed in the Spring and Summer of 2016 there are still strong and active social forces ready to challenge the new right's agenda. What is missing is a new left. Efforts to reform the EU or persuade the Democrats have already run out of steam. Huge mobilisations against Trump, against war, against austerity are still the order of the day. However, this energy has yet to be bottled; the social strength of the working class has yet to take a decisive political form. The direct fight with the West's new right and its purposes are another platform for such a political regroupment.