So the question becomes, at what point do Westerners finally acknowledge that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is fundamentally irrational, unproductive, and deterimental even for their own self-interest?
"Knowing well the consequences that bear upon its economy, namely the decoupling from Russian gas and Russian investments, it is instinctive to assume that the EU has beaten a new record for the most irrational decision-making. But arithmetic imposed on processes is misleading and considering the dynamic picture, more power garnered by Europe will resituate it at the helm of the international order. Once in power, Europe dictates to the world its terms of trade. When we consider the social aspects involved in the price formation of commodities – which in this particular context involves the sale of Russian gas for cheap prices, a decapitated Russia will sell its future gas for prices even lower than they were prior to the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
This is important to consider because price formation is relative to the structures of power, which emanates from the resultant of social or power relations. Market powers provide the social context in which people come to relate to one another, and thus, how the terms of exchange are legitimized. As a matter of fact, the reason why Russian gas became so cheap after the Soviet Union collapsed is owed to the ideological defeat of the Soviet ideology. The establishment of the petrodollar system in 1973 was a turning point in history which saw the US consolidate the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency, causing a severe drop in the Soviet Union’s income and affecting the bloc’s ability to sustain itself as a autonomous economy.
The history of Europe provides context to how the European working class relates to the capitalists of Europe. To a large extent, the working class of Europe has always been the soldiers of the Empire. By committing crimes against humanity, colonizing peoples, pillaging their resources, and carrying out genocides and ethnocides of immeasurable scale, the European working class reproduces itself by war just as capital does.
The EU has done well at washing the blood off its hands from centuries of looting and pillaging the South as it continues to vaunt its image of moral and cultural superiority and has done so by masterfully subjugating the discourse on human rights to serve its own ends. So much of Europe’s wealth was in fact generated by the relation of looting the South. The European working class makes a living out of killing by increasing its power and partnership with capital. But the presence of a strong Russia has always posed a threat to Western interests, especially as it holds sway over Eurasia.
With the ideological defeat of the Soviet Union and the ongoing expansion of NATO, this pattern continues to take hold in the 21st century. But with the US bearing a leadership role within the alliance, many come to view the EU as being dragged into a war that is not theirs. Whether the US is exerting pressure on the EU or not, it is a certainty that whatever decisions being made are meant to safeguard the rules-based order – an order characterized by the primacy of Western culture and civilization over that of the South, which in turn pays dividends to the European working class itself.
Simply put, it would be far off the mark to assume that the US bears full responsibility for a conflict that the EU has supposedly nothing to do with. Not only the Western alliance is all one and the same, but the imperialism-based order renders war as the only viable option against an autonomous Russia. Rivaling the primacy of the rules-based order is rivaling the terms of exchange as defined by the West, and rivaling the terms of exchange is rivaling US-EU military superiority.
The same applies in the context of waging a trade war with China. Reports have claimed that the US has been pressuring the EU to decouple from China. But neither the EU nor the US has thus far dared to initiate such a move. It is an indisputable certainty that doing so would wreak havoc on Western businesses that rely on Chinese supply chains and manufacturing power. But it is precisely this overreliance on China that the West is aiming to overturn."
I believe the same could be said for US-ians. We are foolish if we think people whose interests align with imperialism would overwhelmingly do anything meaningful to stop it. “Westerners” are overwhelmingly class enemies of the global majority.
This is for the most part solid analysis but the argument falls apart when they mention “a decapitated Russia”. That may have been their intention and their hope at the start but at this point that is not looking even remotely possible to achieve. This has been a massive miscalculation by Europe which will come out as the biggest loser in this whole geopolitical confrontation, because the US will make sure that its losses are transferred onto Europe. Europe being in the subordinate position will see its wealth siphoned off to the US so that the US can slow down its own precipitous decline as the stream of plunder which the Western imperialist system was accustomed to extracting out of the global south is slowly but surely drying up. BRICS+ and China’s Belt and Road Initiative are visibly shattering the West’s neo-colonial global dominance and more and more countries will start seeing which way the wind is blowing.
I disagree with this. Important article on this: Making sense of a self-induced recession in Europe *note I did not downvote
"Knowing well the consequences that bear upon its economy, namely the decoupling from Russian gas and Russian investments, it is instinctive to assume that the EU has beaten a new record for the most irrational decision-making. But arithmetic imposed on processes is misleading and considering the dynamic picture, more power garnered by Europe will resituate it at the helm of the international order. Once in power, Europe dictates to the world its terms of trade. When we consider the social aspects involved in the price formation of commodities – which in this particular context involves the sale of Russian gas for cheap prices, a decapitated Russia will sell its future gas for prices even lower than they were prior to the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
This is important to consider because price formation is relative to the structures of power, which emanates from the resultant of social or power relations. Market powers provide the social context in which people come to relate to one another, and thus, how the terms of exchange are legitimized. As a matter of fact, the reason why Russian gas became so cheap after the Soviet Union collapsed is owed to the ideological defeat of the Soviet ideology. The establishment of the petrodollar system in 1973 was a turning point in history which saw the US consolidate the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency, causing a severe drop in the Soviet Union’s income and affecting the bloc’s ability to sustain itself as a autonomous economy.
The history of Europe provides context to how the European working class relates to the capitalists of Europe. To a large extent, the working class of Europe has always been the soldiers of the Empire. By committing crimes against humanity, colonizing peoples, pillaging their resources, and carrying out genocides and ethnocides of immeasurable scale, the European working class reproduces itself by war just as capital does.
The EU has done well at washing the blood off its hands from centuries of looting and pillaging the South as it continues to vaunt its image of moral and cultural superiority and has done so by masterfully subjugating the discourse on human rights to serve its own ends. So much of Europe’s wealth was in fact generated by the relation of looting the South. The European working class makes a living out of killing by increasing its power and partnership with capital. But the presence of a strong Russia has always posed a threat to Western interests, especially as it holds sway over Eurasia.
With the ideological defeat of the Soviet Union and the ongoing expansion of NATO, this pattern continues to take hold in the 21st century. But with the US bearing a leadership role within the alliance, many come to view the EU as being dragged into a war that is not theirs. Whether the US is exerting pressure on the EU or not, it is a certainty that whatever decisions being made are meant to safeguard the rules-based order – an order characterized by the primacy of Western culture and civilization over that of the South, which in turn pays dividends to the European working class itself.
Simply put, it would be far off the mark to assume that the US bears full responsibility for a conflict that the EU has supposedly nothing to do with. Not only the Western alliance is all one and the same, but the imperialism-based order renders war as the only viable option against an autonomous Russia. Rivaling the primacy of the rules-based order is rivaling the terms of exchange as defined by the West, and rivaling the terms of exchange is rivaling US-EU military superiority.
The same applies in the context of waging a trade war with China. Reports have claimed that the US has been pressuring the EU to decouple from China. But neither the EU nor the US has thus far dared to initiate such a move. It is an indisputable certainty that doing so would wreak havoc on Western businesses that rely on Chinese supply chains and manufacturing power. But it is precisely this overreliance on China that the West is aiming to overturn."
I believe the same could be said for US-ians. We are foolish if we think people whose interests align with imperialism would overwhelmingly do anything meaningful to stop it. “Westerners” are overwhelmingly class enemies of the global majority.
This is for the most part solid analysis but the argument falls apart when they mention “a decapitated Russia”. That may have been their intention and their hope at the start but at this point that is not looking even remotely possible to achieve. This has been a massive miscalculation by Europe which will come out as the biggest loser in this whole geopolitical confrontation, because the US will make sure that its losses are transferred onto Europe. Europe being in the subordinate position will see its wealth siphoned off to the US so that the US can slow down its own precipitous decline as the stream of plunder which the Western imperialist system was accustomed to extracting out of the global south is slowly but surely drying up. BRICS+ and China’s Belt and Road Initiative are visibly shattering the West’s neo-colonial global dominance and more and more countries will start seeing which way the wind is blowing.
bravo