The world crisis of capitalism and the dangers of an imperialist world war

Thomas Gounet (Workers' Party of Belgium)

"With only one or two major crisis , the world economy could dive into ecession. It is the dilemna. I don't think that the world economy faced such large risks since the last 50 years." On october 6, 1998, at the second comity of the 53rd session of the general assembly of the United Nations, the under-secretary of the international organization, Nitin Desai, shares his fear of a world financial krach.

Nearly 3 month later, Washington and London launch their most violent attack on Iraq, drowning Baghdad under a rain of bombs. At mid-january 1999, Brazil is threatened by massive flights of capitals. There are no doubts anymore: the country also falls. But if it falls, it could take the US with it. Indeed Latin America is the garden of the US economy and Brasil is the most important nation of the continent.

Brasil received in november a credit from the IMF of 41 billions of dollars: it is an exceptional amount. The goal was not to save this country and its inhabitants. For them, the recession will constitute a decrease in their incomes, an intensification of their exploitation. The car industries dismiss massively, like at Ford where the workers struggled in an exemplar way to save their job.

The gross interior product (GIP) of Brasil will drop by 5% in 1999, according to the evaluations of the experts. This drop will cause a recession in the whole Latin America. Venezuela, Ecuador have already problems because of the drop of the oil prices to 10 dollars the barrel. Argentina, first commercial partner of Brasil in Latin America, is also striken.

The goal of this credit was to protect the world financial markets which are based in Tokyo, London and New-York. We have to trust them: the international financial authorities show that they want to prevent the fall of the stokmarket prices and the panic, whcih would follow. Less than two month later, NATO launches its first big war of aggression against an independent country, Yugoslavia. Without international warrant, outside the international law established after the victory against fascism. The first aggression war of NATO is the revenge of the world fascism, which is based today in the US and in Germany. There is a relation between the deepening of the economic crisis and the more and more arrogant, aggressive and bellicose character of imperialism. We will try to show it.

1. The crisis of overproduction In the capitalist system, the economic crisis is a crisis of surproduction. The capitalists porduce too much with respect to what the population can buy. The origin of this phenomena comes from the exploitation of worker's labour and the accumulation pursued by capitalists. The goal of the capitalist production is to create as much profit as possible, to reinvest it to obtain in the future still more important profit. As this gain is realized thanks to the bigger and bigger exploitation of the workers, this process ends only in periodical crisis. If the whole wealth produced in the world is 100 for example and if the workers receive only 55 as salaries, the latter can only consume for that money. The employers have to consume the 45 left for the capitalist system to progress and develop.

However, the capitalists, in their quest for maximum profit, will try to increase the produced wealth to lets say 120 by limiting the salaries. They will do it among others by introducing more and more producive machines which reduce the work necessary to make a commodity. That means "do more with less staff", which is the leitmotiv of the employers of the big multinationals at the present time. So the capitalist system lives from the stronger and stronger exploitation of the workers labour but at the same time it limits the consumation power of the population. It faces a fundamental contradiction. As Marx wrote:"the ultimate reason of all true crisis is always the poverty and the limitation of the consumation of the masses, in front of the tendency of capitalist production to develop the producive forces as if their only limit was the capability of absolute consumation of the society". (6) The financial crisis comes with the crisis of overproduction. It is not the fundamental element but it is sometimes more apparent. So in the Asian crisis the specialists of the bourgeoisie claims that is the flight of capitals which is the origin of the problems. But Asia has first developed economically before to have received this mass of capitals. It took advantage first of the fact that socialism in China, North Korea and Vietnam got results for the peoples and that it was important for imperialism to develop in front of that the other countries of the region by supporting them financially. In the following East Asia played with the economic rivalry between the US and Japan.

It received important helps from the imperialism first American next Japanese to build infrastructures allowing the establishment of firms turned to exportations. It established terrible work conditions with very low salaries and an intense repression against the ones who revolted.

Thanks to that it attracted a number of multinationals first the ones of textile then of electronics. A national bourgeoisie has developed in this framework. The car industry began to install itself either by the installation of Japanese multinationals, either by an autonomous development as in South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia. The result: a growing drawn by the exportations. That served as a model of capitalist economic development for the third world for years. But the truth was rather: exports of final commodities like clothes, electronics products to the US, a still more important import of machines and components coming from Japan and therefore a structural deficit of the commercial balance and of the current balance (which calculates the accounts of the nation concerning the commodities, the services, the invest incomes and the transfer of incomes). For the five countries of East Asia striken by the crisis (South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Filipines, Thailand), the cumulated balance of the current balance between 91 and 96 amounted to a deficit of almost 170 billions of dollars. But the annual growth of the GIP in the same period was more than 5% for all these countries except Filipines. Thus, capitals have come massively, attracted by the high profits: between 91 and 96, the investments of the multinationals amounted to almost 51 billions and the others capitals to more than 217 billions.

These capitals have been placed either in the stockmarket, either in the housing sector. But in the US which absorb these commodities and which allow the growth of the region, two changes take place in the middle of the 90s. First, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Washington supplies itself more and more from Mexico and in a lesser way in Latin America. Then, the absorption faculty is limited because the american workers are poorer and poorer, as a result of the policy started by Reagan and pursued since. The profit rate of the companies installed in Asia began to decrease. The exportations were stationary. The deficit of the current balance increased during that period. The investments funds and the banks have turned away from the region. In 97, about 105 billions of dollars change of direction for the five economies the most affected by the crisis: instead of an entrance of 93 billions, there is an exit of 12 billions. The countries are then without blood and must call the IMF which imposes them drastic conditions: dismissal, stop of the support to the national companies like in Indonesia or South Korea, decrease of the public spendings, devaluation etc. All conditions strongly felt by the workers. 25 millions of workers lost their job in Asia because of the crisis. The number of poors in Indonesia went from 20 to 80 millions, that is a rate of 40% of the popuilation. We are back in the 60s. The exit of capitals is the most apparent. But what is behind is the overproduction phenomena of the capitalist crisis: the north american workers can not absorb the continuous increase of products coming from Asia and the workers of Asia have a purchasing power still more limited: it is the poverty of the masses which creates the economic crisis when the various employers individually try to produce more and more. The financial crisis comes with the situation characteristic of the production and reveals fundamental contradictions of the capitalist relations. As wrote Marx in 1850 from the experience he lived at the middle of the 19th century:"the years 1843-1845 were the ones of the industrial and commercial prosperity, necessary consequences of the almost permanent depression of industry in the period of 1837 to 1842. As always, the prosperity launched soon the speculation. This happened regularly in the period where there is overproduction. It gives temporarily outlets to overproduction. It hastens in the same time the breaking of the crisis and increases its violence. The crisis itself breaks out first where there is speculation and later in the prodcution. The superficial observer doesn't see the cause of the crisis in the overproduction. The consequent disorganization of production doesn’t appears as a necessary result of its former exuberance but as a reaction to the speculation".(11) The crisis of overproduction shows the absurdity of the capitalism. There are too many commodities from one side, but from the other side, many fundamental needs are not satisfied. A biilion and half of peoples don't have access to drinkable water, 1.1 million don't have housing, 215 millions are completely underfed, half of the population in the world don't have sanitary installations. All that could be furnished by the production capabilities existing in the world, among others in siderurgy. But the capitalists prefer to restructure the manufacturing of steel. As a result, the production of Europe, Japan and US is almost the same now that in 74. But the number of workers to make it has gone from 1.93 million in 74 to 700,900, that is a reduction by 2/3. And one speaks about a decrease of 2/3 for the ten years to come.

Capitalism lives from the misery of the workers and populations.

2. Crisis under imperialism At the time of Marx, the crisis was part of the 'normal' functioning of capitalism. With the decrease of the price of the commodities, production could be bought. The weakest capitalists disappeared, allowing the others to take his parts of the market. But, with the crisis of 1875, the situation changes. The crisis takes a character durable. In a letter to Bebel, one of the founders of the german social-democrat party, Engels wrote in 1885 from London: "A chronical depression continues to reign here (in England) in all the key-sectors of economy, as in France and in America, above all in iron and coton. It is an incredible situation, although coming unavoidably from the capitalist system, the overproduction reached such a level that it can not be solved by the crisis".(13) The traditional way for the capitalists to solve economic crisis is to destroy producive forces and to extend the markets: destroy to bring the production back to what the market can absorb; extend to find outlets to the production of commodities.

This solution leads to monopolisation of production on one side and to the conquest of new markets abroad on the other side. In other words: the natural trends of capitalism to go from free competition to a monopolist stage is accelerated with the economic crisis. And it is what happens at the end of 19th century: the different capitalists are looking for new raw materials less expensive; they try to sell their products, to install new railways. The race to colonies starts between imperialist powers. On the economic side, that allows a restart of the growth which will take place until the First World War, when the contradictions between imperilaists burst openly and violently. The economic crisis takes a structural character with imperialism. Why? Mainly because, with the monopolisation, the accumulation of these big companies is strongly accelerated. They are monopolies struggling for the world market. Their size and economic and political influence allow them to escape, at least temporarily and partially, from the market laws: they easily received credit from the banks; the State protects them from foreign competition etc. It is why the monopolies don't disappear easily and it is the less powerful capitalists who have generally to close their doors. Since 74, since the beginning of the contemporary structural economic crisis, all the traditional solutions proposed by capitalists worsen the recession instead of solving it. It is why it lasts. Which traditional solutions do the emplyers use ? First, they can increase the exploittaion of the workers.

And they make it massively because each capitalist think to find a solution individually at the expenses of his competitors by being more competitive, by increasing the exploitation of his workers. But doing that they increase the gap between production and consumation capabilities.

Second, they can extend the markets. Now that the world is completely dominated by imperialism, the only way to make it is to transform all the operations, which are not capitalists, into capitalist production: drive out of the lands the peasants who are working in a traditional way to make them proletarians, replace the household activities by commercial activities, create new merchant needs. In the capitalist countries, the crisis, with its increase of exploitation, gives to that solution a limited impact. In the third world countries, it is still possible to extend the market, mainly by transforming the peasants into proletarians. But the example of Asia, which took that path in the 70s, shows that, anyways, the capitalists will face the fundamental contradiction: because someone must buy, while the consumation means of the workers at the world level are limited by the capitalist exploitation. Latin America is following the same path. In Mexico after having faced a severe recession in 94-95, a million of poors appear every year. It is unthinkable that the development of the country will carry on at the present rhythm. Third, the capitalists can destroy producive forces. But the monopolies can not destroy theirs and use all means, including the support of their capitalist state, to prevent that. It results production capabilities, which constantly increase while the sellings don't follow. The european car industry is a good example. In 92, the excessive capabilities amounted to 2 millions of cars a year. In 93 the market falls by 15%. That means that the sellings go from 13 millions of cars to 11 millions. But the installed capabilities are 15 millions of car a year. Since, the capabilities have still increased. They went to 19 millions of cars, while the sales have hardly go over their level of 92, that is 14 millions. The over-capabilities amount today to 5 millions of cars, that is still more than in 93. If there is a drop on the sales as in 93, the consequence will be still stronger: in 93, there was 114,000 workers who lost their job among 1.9 million for the whole industry. To 'simply' bring back the production to the level of the market, one should eliminate two manufacturers like Fiat, Peugeot, Renault, Ford Europe or GM Europe. No one of these capitalists wants to be the victim. Renault closed its Vilvorde factory but didn't diminish its capabilities. On the contrary, it reported the capabilities of Vilvorde to the Palencia factory in Spain, where, to allow this increase of the production, it imposed night-work. At the same time, it built new factories in Russia and Brasil.

But, even if the capabilities were effectively destroyed, that would not solve the crisis because it would result several hundreds of thousands dismissals and thus a decreasing of the purchasing power of the population. The mergers, which have been accelerated these last monthes in the sectors of oil, chemistry, pharmaceutical industry, car etc., don't eliminate factories or very few. In general, a competitor is suppressed. But the capabilities stay essentially what they are. The mergers between two firms or the purchase of one of them by another are above all an opportunity to diminish again the staff, in order to make the capitalist more competitive. But it results again a decrease of the employment, and thus of the purchasing power of the masses. Now, the destroyed capabilities concern first the pre-capitalist forms of production which survive in the world and the secondary capitalists. For example, the measures of IMF in Asia concern the elimination of the companies of the national bourgeoisies.

In Indonesia, the international institutions have stopped the project of a national car, the Timor, and want to pursue the dismantling of a number of firms owned by the Suharto family or their purchase y a foreign multinational.

In South Korea, IMF urged the government to restructure the financial groups, the chaebols, which dominate the national economy. Result: there were five more or less autonomous car manufacturers; there are two left today. One of them, Daewoo, is discussing with General Motors to be associated, or even bought. The other, Hyundai Motor, is ready to come out of the circle of the financial conglomerate, Hyundai.

Conclusion: the world capitalism is in a dramatic dead-end.

The contradictions increase. The workers in capitalist countries resist more and more. In Belgium, there were more strikes in the 90s than between 49 and 89. The teachers struggled to prevent loss of jobs in their sector. And then there were the exemplary fights of the workers of Forges de Clabecq and Renault-Vivorde against the closure of their factory. Because the workers of Clabecq were led by revolutionary trade-unionists, they obtained the maintaining of an activity, although their site was condemned by all the bourgeois specialists. The workers in the dependent countries resist also and got success. In South Korea, there were several strikes, which had international impact. Note the one of the workers of Hyundai Motors who brought the dismissals in their factory from 4000 back to only 227. In filippines, the workers of the factory Philips in Manilla under the direction of the KMU trade-union fought against the closure of their factory and got the reintegration of workers of others Philips factories. In Brasil, the workers of Ford won against their direction who wanted to strongly limit employment. The rivalry between imperialists also increases. It takes above all a commercial character: battle about car, siderurgy, semi-conductors between the US and Japan; war of banana, hormone-beef between the US and Europe. But the creation of a political european union is a sign of a will of the european capitalists, mainly germans, to create in the future a superpower of the same kind and ability than the US: creation of a currency, the euro, able to compete with the dollar; creation of an european army which can avoid progressively the control of NATO and Washington; etc. The dead-end in front of which the imperialists stand pushes them more and more towards war. On one hand, the economic needs lead to this way. If the monopolies can not destroy enough producive forces to bring the production back to the level which can be absorbed by the market, a world war can help them to do it. Likewise, if some markets are still a little bit protected, especially the market of China, and thus prevent the extension of the commodities of the imperialist countries, a war could break this resistance.

On the other hand, the rise of the contradictions, coming itself from the economic crisis, leads also the world to an imperialist conflict.

3. The current imperialist 'globalization' With the counter-revolution and the restoration of capitalism in the East european countries and the soviet republics, imperialism intensified the looting of the natural and human resources of the third world countries.

It launched a war against all these who resist to that domination and exploitation. Georges Bush, then president of the US, advanced the laws of the new world order: "democracy, liberalism, freedom". That meant: freedom for the capital to enter all the markets, freedom to exploit everywhere on the planet, complete and open dictatorship of the capital, constant and intransigent war against all these who are obstacles to the imperialists.

There are the essential characteristics of the current 'globalization'. The current 'globalization' is not a new stage of capitalism. It makes only push further the characteristics of imperialism described by Lenin. First the formation of monopolies, first characteristic of imperialism, go today over the national boundaries. No big company of a key-sector can survive if it is not present on several markets. It controls the whole or a main part of the production process, from raw materials to the final commodity. But to organize this ensemble, it has become multinational or transnational. It manages unities delivering components and pieces to the others unities established in different countries. The organization of this production process has become mainly international.

The power of these firms increases. There are only two big planes manufacturers left in the world: Boeing and Airbus.

Twenty years ago, there were more than 40 different cars manufacturers. Today, they are only about 14 (GM, Ford, Toyota, VW, Daimler-Chrysler, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Fiat, Honda, Mitsubishi, BMW, Hyundai and Daewoo). Even in siderurgy, once a national sector where every country had its or their national champions, there are only five big companies left in Europe (Usinor, Arbed, Thyssen-Krupp, British Steel and Riva) and one or two mean ones (Hoogovens). Second, the merger of financial capital and bank capital, second characteristic of imperialism, is still a hot topic. 20 years ago, banks still dominated this financial capital. Today there is a participation of all the forms of capital to the world stockmarkets, mainly New-York, London and in a lesser extent, Tokyo. It is these financial markets which constitute today the best summary of the dictatorship of imperialism because one finds there the big multinationals, the big banks and the other financial companies (insurance companies, pension funds, investment funds etc.). Not only they have the funds necessary to invest but they also play part or the whole of their capitals on the markets. On these financial markets, only counts the return on the invested capital. These financial markets dictate the companies the indispensable rates of rentability, otherwise they don't give capitals anymore to these firms. So, between 91 and 97, the 200 largest industrial multinationals of the world have lost 832,000 jobs (on 17.5 millions of workers) to restore the profit rate from 7.21% to 15.51%. The financial markets indicate the good countries, the good regions where the capitalists can invest. Every nation has a rating fixed by the financial institutions. It is the financial markets which decide of the payments balance of these countries, thus on the price of the currencies and on the macro-economic policies. The international authorities want to protect them from the asian crisis and its consequences in Russia and Latin America. It is to avoid panic on these markets that these institutions impose impoverishing policies to the third world countries. The dictatorship of financial markets as a necessary development of capitalist domination on the world confirms what Lenin wrote in 1916:"The characteristic of capitalism is generally to separate the ownership of capital from its application to production; to separate money-capital from producive or industrial capital; to separate the person who just lives from the income he gets form money-capital from the industrialist and also from those who participate directly to the management of capitals. Imperialism, or the domination of financial capital, is this supreme stage of capitalism where this separation reaches large proportions.

The supremacy of financial capital on all the other forms of capital means the hegemony of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means a privileged situation for a small numbers of financially powerful states with respect to all the others." The fact that it is the financial markets which make the synthesis of this function today shows the growing distance between the dictatorship of capital and production. This manifests the side more and more parasitary of imperialism. The domination of financial markets stresses the fundamental relevance of the third characteristic of imperialism, that is the export of capitals. The financial oligarchy still exists. It is organized more and more at a world level. It create lobbies. There is for example the International Chamber of Trade, the business and industry advisory committee, the Transatlantic business dialogue. All these groups gather the employers of the biggest multinationals (industrial and financial). They have been very active - and are still- in the attempts to impose a multilateral agreement on investments, intended to remove obstacles to the freedom of displacement of capitals. Besides these international organisms, there are others organized at a regional level (Europe) or national (US) as the round table of the european industrialists or the US council for international business. It is the round table which is the origin of the creation of the common european market, of the Maastricht Treaty and the euro. And these big employers are in each of these institutions. So, helmut Maucher, president of Nestle, is also thew president of the round table, of the International Chamber of Trade and of the Davos Forum, where every year at the end of january the most influential personalities of the world meet including one thousand of businessmen. These lobbies represent the current financial oligarchy and make the laws of capital. They have as accomplices the leaders of the big international institutions, like the ones of the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO. The responsibles of IMF are the true leaders of a large number of dependent and third-world countries. During the last presidential elections in Russia, IMF sent a letter saying that if the reforms towards liberalization of the markets were not pursued, it will stop to finance the government. That meant: vote for Yeltsin otherwise the troubles begin. IMF gave a credit of 10.3 billions to Russia, just before the elections, following the french and german governments which had already largely lend to Moskow. In South Korea, in december 97, also at the time of the presidential elections, the IMF made the three best placed candidates sign a letter accepting the conditions for a credit of 57 bilions of dollars. Who is, in these conditions, the real president of South Korea? Today the world financial oligarchy doesn't only subjugate the bourgeois parliaments. It rules concretely the big orientations of most of the contries of the third world and dependent nations. Domination of capital extends to the world level. It makes it under the pretext of 'democracy' and 'freedom'. But there is no democracy for the workers, for the populations of the oppressed countries. On the contrary it is a regime which is more and more an open dictatorship of the big capital at the world scale. Lenin wrote:"the bourgeois democracy stays always a restricted and false democracy, a paradise for the rich, a trap and a delusion for the poors"."In capitalist regime the democracy is restricted, mutilated by this atmosphere created by the salaried slavery, the need and the misery of the masses".

Under imperialism, this reality is still more true. The elections are truncated by the huge amounts which are spent to support the candidates favourable to the capitalist system. The media, more and more in the hands of big financial groups, use lies to support the imperialist campaigns, for example to support the war against Iraq or Yugoslavia. The bourgeoisie spreads divisions among the workers, on a national, ethnic or religious basis, in order to make them fight between each others instead of fighting the capitalist authority. The fundamental power is still in the hands of employers lobbies and of their allies in the State structures (politicians, superior officers of army and police). In Turkey, elections took place but it is terror against communists, Kurds and progressists. In Israel, there are also elections but the palestinian people is completely oppressed. In South Korea, the election of a new 'democrat' president served to approve the dictates of IMF. The bourgeoisie organizes some forms of democracy to reconcile the masses with the capitalist regime. But is always the dictatorship of capital which dominates. In Belgium, we saw that with the disappeared children affair.

These childrens murdered by rich networks of pedophilia have created an important emotion in the country. A demonstration gathered 300,000 peoples in the streets of Brussels, on ocotber,20, 97. The bourgeoisie organized a public investigation to analysed what it called a 'disfunctioning' of the judicial abd police structures.

Everybody could see the debates on TV. But the result of it was a reform of police that the government was preparing long before. That allows: first, to centralize all the repression structures; second, to put all the polices under control of the federal police, that is to say of the most disciplined order forces, functioning like a war army; third, to establish everywhere unities 'close to the population' in order to be able to intervene at the very beginning of a conflict or an opposition. If the mask of the bourgeois democracy falls, if the workers don't believe anymore in the lies of the capitalists, then the capitalists support a military coup or an armed intervention of an allied country. As has been shown by Chile where Pinochet drove out Allende. AS it is shown by Congo where Kabila is attacked by the rwandese and ugandese armies, supported by the US. Today the methods of repression and prevention are generalized under the pretext of fight against terrorism. They are organized internationally. There are more and more international contacts between polices and the most sophisticated means, which deprive the workers of their right of expression and resistance, are spread through these relations. All these methods similar to the ones used by the fascists are particular to a declining imperialism, which faces a crisis, out of which it doesn't go. They show a fascisation of all the imperialist states. It is vain to believe today that it will be possible to overthrow the dictatorship of capital without violence. The bourgeoisie will not allow it. We will have to take the power, overthrow the capitalists and break the structures of the state, which served this fascisation.

4. The dangers of a world war The domination of the US both on the economic, technological, political and military sides is today without share. There are no imperialist nations which can today contest this supremacy. Germany can not rival, at least not now, with the US. Its GIP is the quarter of the one of the US. To support the comparison, it will have to count with the whole european union. It will be neceesary for that it succeeds in unifying Europe politically and economically. It is not yet the case, even if the german bourgeoisie builds its strategy in that direction. Then, the unified Europe under german leadership would have to constitute itself as a political and military power, rival of the US. It is not the case today, even if some initiative in that direction have started. Japan is the most important economically. Its GIP is half the one of the US. It has important advantages in some sectors like cars, electronics, steel, machine-tools etc. It is the first creditor of the world. But it has not the political and military ability to rival with the US. The japanese bourgeoisie doesn't see today the interest to go out the american military umbrella. The latter gives it supplies in raw material that are missing in Japan. It allows them also to sell massively in the US themselves. As long as the situation is based on the freedom of trade and circulatio of capitals as well as on the institutions in charge of the respect of this world order, Tokyo will stay an ally of the US. Washington is thus the only imperialist superpower.

The US fix the dictates of the world imperialism. It is so since the second world war where the capitalist opponents have been either defeated or weakened. All the american strategy after the war consisted in fighting communism.

Washington installed organs of economic and military cooperation all around the socialist block : NATO in 49, the Baghdad Pact in 55, the EEC in 57, ASEAN in 67. With the counter-revolution, the US have found themselves without rivals. The strategists have immediately elaborated a new mission for the american armies: insure the stability of the world to guarantee american interests everywhere.

According to them, some states, which have an independent policy, would threaten that stability. The goal of Washington is to dismantle these powers which oppose in some way the american supremacy. Are targeted the states of North Korea and Cuba, but also Iraq, Lybia, Burma, Yugoslavia, Iran, Sudan, Congo. Against these countries and their governments, the US can use three means:1. integrate them to the world market to make them change from inside 2.

adopt a policy of economic sanctions 3. attack them militarily. As a function of their general interests, the US choose one of these three options. This new strategy corresponds to the situation of dead-end in which the imperialism stands and which is worsened by the counter-revolution. The need of the imperialists to dominate the world, to loot the resources of the third world in order to have cheap raw materials, to still extend the market into the last pockets of resistance of the planet, becomes more and more intense. So the imperialism shows its true face. Before, it had to make concessions essentially for two reasons: first, because of the real danger of a socialist revolution; second, because of the influence of the socialist side on the world. Today imperialism is arrogant, 98 was the year of the most important crisis since the 30s. Half of the planet dived into recession: Asia, Russia, now Latin America, as well as the oil exporting countries like Nigeria. The financial responsibles of the planet, the private bankers and the ones of IMF, have elaborated projects and given credits to prevent the financial markets to panic. But this solution will turn against the capitalists. A third world in crisis with a 'prosperous' Europe and US, that can not stay forever. Already the deficit of the US commercial balance reaches records levels. The markets of the third world are restricted: loss of publiuc orders, among others for the aeronautic and the construction sector, loss of markets for the exports etc. The american economy survives only thanks to the financial markets. The current engine of the american growth is the consumation of the 'households' (improper term given that the differences of classes don't exist in the national accounting). However, these 'households' consume from loans and these loans are guaranteed partially on financial actives. If the financial actives increase, that allows these relatively rich households to keep on consuming and making the american economic system work. But if the stockmarket prices fall, then these consumers will have to reduce their standards of living, even to sell part of their properties."A severe stockmarket correction is very conceivable given the high level of the value of the bonds relative to the current and expected by the companies financial results" writes the IMF. Such a correction "will strongly brake the demand" in the US, adds the IMF. However, the consumation spendings approach 65% of the american GIP and represent thus the biggest cylinder of the economic engine in the US". It is why the trust of the financial markets is so important in Washington's policy. And this trust can be insured by the concrete manifestation of the american supremacy on the world. It goes along political and military victories. The american strategists are looking at who, in the future, can threaten this hegemony. The book of Brzezinski "The great chessboard" is an example of this kind. It sees in Russia and China, the two most important adversaries of the US in the future. Separated, they constitute a military force smaller than the one of Washington but bigger than the ones of Germany or Japan. But their union would create a power of first order. At the same time, these countries have many raw materials, which interest the biggest multinationals.

China is a market of 1.2 billions of inhabitants. In that sense, one can already look at the war against Yugoslavia as a war against Russia. A victory on Milosevic means for the US: first, the proof that the Russians can not defend their allies and therefore that they are not reliable as a power; second, the rejection of Russia from the Balkans for years; third, the impossibility for Russia to have access to the Mediterranean sea. The american military strategy is evolving from the first perspective, a war against the 'rogue states', to the second, a conflict against Russia and/or China. If it is the case, it will be a world war.

The character of this war will be the character of an imperialist aggression against countries which want to maintain their independence and which contest rightly the dictatorship of the US and their allies.

5.Conclusions.

Imperialism is in a stage of decline. Its parasitism becomes clearer and clearer. Now that is has become again the only important power on the planet, it shows what it is able to do. It promised to insure prosperity by organizing the counter-revolution and by taking the markets of the socialist countries. It generated the most severe crisis since the 30s, according to the own words of the bourgeois themselves. In Russia, it just brought disasters, by rejecting the country dozens of years backwards on the social side but also on the economic side. The GIP has dropped since 91 by 50% and some even say by 83%. After the counter-revolution in USSR, the gap between rich and poors has never been so big. The ten richest men of the world have a fortune equivalent to what produce yearly the 50 poorest countries, which count 540 millions of jobs, inhabitants. The workers lost massively their jobs. In the US, they get but in very bad conditions of salary and work.

In the third world, the crisis destroys the small advantages that the population had wrung. The south korean workers ahd obtained some kind of guaranteed job. It has been suppressed with the crisis. With the counter-revolution the world was supposed to benefit from the peace dividend. Since then, the US have led several important aggressions, the wars against Iraq and Yugoslavia to begin with. The US have just decided to increase their military budget by 112 billions of dollars a year. It will have to go >from 274 billions of dollars in 2000 to 331 billions in 2005. The imperialism is in a complete dead-end. It is economically weakened. Politically it means fascism. It brings misery, unemployment, death and famine to the workers. The bourgeoisie is united at the international level. But the working class isn't. It is necessary to build this international unity, starting with the unity of the vanguard, the communists. The current situation encourages also to unite the four movements of struggle: the working class for the violent overthrow of capitalism, the anti-imperialist struggle for the national and democratic independence, the struggle for peace against the preparations of world war made by the imperialists and the defense of the socialist countries. Because imperialism wants to annihilate them as well as all these who rise up for these goals. It will be them or us. We have the support of the masses. Imperialism is at the eve of the socialist revolution.

Notes 1. That means one or two countries which fall into crisis besides Asia, Russia and Japan 2. Third World Economics, november, 30 1998, p.14.

3. For comparison, the total of the public help to development of all the rich countries amounts only to 58 billions of dollars.

4. The recent rise to 15 dollars gave them some oxygen.

5. Figures of the World Bank, report on development, 1999 6. Karl Marx, Le Capital, tome 3, editions sociales, Paris, 1976, p.446.

7. The figures are calculated from the IMF, Balance of Payments Statistics, 1997.

8. Steven Radelet and Jeffrey Sachs, The Onset of the East Asian Financial Crisis, Harvard Institute for International Development, march 30, 1998, p.5.

9. Christian de Brie, L'AMI nouveau va arriver, Le Monde diplomatique, may 1999.

10. The Nikkei Weekly, january 11, 1999.

11. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, La crise, Union generale d'editions, Paris, 1978, p.94.

12. OCDE, Le marche de l'acier en 1996 et les perspectives pour 1997 et 1998, p.48.

13. Letter from Engels to Bebel, London, october 28, 1885, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence, Editions du Progres, Moscow, 1971, p.400.

14. There were three big period of structural economic crisis: from 1873 to 1895, between the two wars and from 1974.

15. De Morgen, october 11, 1998.

16. FIOM (Federation internationale des travailleurs de la metallurgie), rapport sur l'industrie automobile 1995, p.9.

17. Renault took 34% of Nissan's capital and it is possible that the two firms merge in the near future.

18. Personal calculations from Fortune, The Fortune Global 500, various years.

19. Lenin, L'imperialisme, stade supreme du capitalisme, in Oeuvres completes, tome 22, Editions sociales, p.258.

20. Ludo Martens, 'Comment elire democratiquement un dictateur', Etudes marxistes n.32, september 1996, p.78.

21. Lenin, La revolution proletarienne et le renegat Kautsky, in Oeuvres completes, tome 28, Editions sociales, p.250.

22. Lenin, L'Etat et la revolution, in Oeuvres completes, tome 25, Editions sociales, p.525.

23. Since he spent years in the jails of various military dictatorships.

24. 50% of the american households have financial actives, even if it is only a minority which is able to invest huge amounts of money.

25. Le Monde, may 6, 1999.

26. Le Monde economie, september 8, 1998.

27. Human Development Report, 1997, p.38.