Along with all this, within “movements” opposing (or posturing as opponents of) the existing political system, (with some claiming to be opposed to capitalism—but, don’t actually know what capitalism is, as I put it in my social media message #38), there is what I refer to as PIE: Parasitic Imperialist Economism.

This is an approach to politics—and specifically electoral politics—that argues for backing and elevating people running in the Democratic Party on a platform of “affordability” as the pivot, with other, social (or “cultural”) issues as essentially secondary accompaniments to that.         

As an explanation of the essential, and fundamental, problem with this approach, there is the following (from “Breakthroughs”):

As Marx pointed out, one of the distinguishing features of reformists—including reformist “socialists”—is that, insofar as they identify the economy as the source of inequality and other social maladies, they tend to locate the problem in the sphere of distribution, whereas the fundamental source of the oppression and inequality that characterize an exploitative society, such as capitalism, resides in the sphere of production, and more specifically the relations of production.

In today’s world, these production relations are fundamentally international relations, with the wealth that reformists seek to “re-distribute” (through increasing taxes on the super-rich, etc.) resting on the extreme parasitism of “the U.S. economy” as an international system of exploitation and super-exploitation. Along with that—and along with the fact that much of this “economist” program would actually undermine the functioning of this system and the competitive position of U.S. imperialism in the world—is this awful truth that may be ignored but cannot be avoided in reality:

At his rallies against “Oligarchy,” Bernie Sanders has revived the “Occupy” formula of the “99 percent” against the “one percent” of super-rich. But the problem is that nearly half of the “99 percent” are fascists. Why? Because, as I have pointed out before, it is not just their economic position but also their social position that they are worked up about. For the ranks of the MAGA fascists, even beyond their economic situation, a powerful, perverse motivating factor is their insistence on white supremacy and male supremacy, hatred of LGBT people and of immigrants (especially immigrants from “shithole countries,” in Trump’s disgusting racist terms). This is what these fascists mean by “Make America Great Again.” And all this is wrapped up with and driven by blatant lies, anti-scientific lunacy and crazed conspiracy theories—with vulnerable groups made into targets of hatred and persecution, like immigrants denounced as “dangerous criminals” and trans people treated as perverted predators. [This is from my social media message #114.]

With the development and heightening of capitalism into capitalism-imperialism, Lenin spoke to the consequences of this for the revolutionary movement in what he wrote about Imperialism and the Split in Socialism. He talked about how with this development of what we would today recognize as the parasitism of imperialism (in fact that was Lenin’s term, gotta be fair to Lenin, Lenin was the one who talked about parasitism, excuse me) anyway, with the parasitism of imperialism, Lenin recognized that there was a section of the working class that was bribed from the spoils of this parasitic imperialism, and more or less bourgeoisified. Now, he didn’t write them off totally in terms of the revolution—he said that with the development of events, we’ll see where different parts of these bourgeoisified workers fall out—but he emphasized the importance of building the revolutionary movement in the lower and deeper sections, the more bitterly exploited sections of the working class, of the proletariat. 

But in these social democrats today, like the DSA—Democratic Socialists of America—we see once again the attempt to actually build a movement based on imperialist parasitism; that is the heart of their “affordability” appeal. It’s not that the conditions of the masses of people, even in the middle class, let alone the bitterly exploited, should be ignored. It’s not that there are not real problems with that. But to try to base a movement to change society on “affordability” means that the changes you’re seeking are going to be very limited and are ultimately going to be incorporated within this parasitic imperialist system. So this is a fundamental distinction between social-democrats like the DSA, who are basically a part of and seeking to take over the Democratic Party as an instrument of imperialist rule, on the one hand, versus actual socialism and its ultimate aim of communism throughout the world.

The basic and profound truth is that this system of capitalism-imperialism cannot be “reformed”—it cannot somehow be made into a just system acting in the interests of the masses of humanity.

This system rests on, and cannot do without, vicious exploitation, here and (super) exploitation around the world, particularly in the Third World (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia).

It is rapidly destroying the environment, at an accelerating pace.

It is once again propelling things toward the existential threat of nuclear war.

In this country itself, very real and literally murderous oppression is built into the dominant system and its essential relations: white supremacy, patriarchy and male supremacy and other savage inequalities and brutal oppression.

And now, as a perverse attempt to preserve the rule of this system and the dominance of U.S. imperialism in the world, there is the rise to power of fascism. This involves what is, in essence, a “revival” (or, continuation) of the Confederacy: along with the “resurrecting” of Confederate monuments and “heroes,” there is even talk by fascists that slavery was not such a bad thing, was even a good thing. This fascism also prominently involves attacks on Trans and other LGBT people, along with forcefully asserting the subordination of women (not only ripping away the right to abortion and threatening birth control, but even with some fascists openly arguing that women should once again be denied the right to vote).

This fascism has, as a battering ram, the attack on immigrants, on the basis of an “immigration crisis” that is being grossly exaggerated—and even to the degree that it is real, this reality is being crudely distorted. This fascism openly defies and tramples on the rule of law, both within the country and in international relations, with the open declaration that it refuses to recognize, or be restrained by, any national or international law regarding the waging of war, including through the deliberate and wanton targeting of non-combatants. This fascism is continually committing, and escalating, all manner of atrocities, deliberately at a dizzying pace, in order to disorient and demoralize those who would oppose this.

While defeating—removing from power—this fascist regime is an immediate and urgent objective, it is necessary, once again, and critical to understand this: Any hope that relying on and tailing the Democratic Party can bring about a just solution to the crisis, any attempt to make the Democratic Party something other than what it is—a ruling class party—and, more broadly, any attempt to “work within this system” as a means of ending its terrible oppression and ruthless exploitation, its existential threats to humanity through environmental destruction and the danger of nuclear war—any such hope, any such attempt, is fundamentally bankrupt and bound to result in failure, with the resulting continuation, indeed accentuation and acceleration, of all too real horror.

So let me end the first part of this presentation with this very important conclusion:

So long as people, not just in one or another country but in the world as a whole, remain locked within the framework and confines of this system of capitalism-imperialism, there can be no good resolution to the already terrible situation with which humanity is now confronted and the suffering to which the masses of humanity are continually subjected—and humanity will continue to be forced marched into an even worse disaster, into an even more awful abyss, and possibly even to extinction.