The following article by Danny Haiphong – journalist, broadcaster and a co-founder of Friends of Socialist China – argues that, against the nihilism and pessimism spreading through the West, geopolitics and political economy offer genuine grounds for optimism. He frames US unipolar imperialism (less than a century old) and Western colonialism (about four centuries old) as brief blips in human history, met throughout by constant resistance – from Maroon societies to twentieth-century liberation movements.
The US empire, Danny contends, is in material decline: its share of global GDP has fallen from 35–50 percent in 1945 to 20–25 percent now, while manufacturing has shrunk to under 10 percent of the economy, leaving it dominated by finance, insurance, real estate and military contracting. Endless war is therefore a symptom of weakness, not strength – the warmongers can only destroy, not build.
A multipolar reality is emerging. China is the article’s prime example: from a starting point of extreme poverty, it has managed to eliminate extreme poverty and become a leader in robotics, AI, high-speed rail, renewables and reforestation, with over 90 percent public trust in government grounded in results. Danny extends the case to a resurgent, sanctions-proof Russia; to Iran, whose retaliation against US–Israeli strikes and control over the Strait of Hormuz have significantly increased its global standing; and to smaller states defying sanctions – the DPRK’s construction boom, Zimbabwe’s recovery after land reform, and Cuba’s healthcare achievements despite blockade.
Danny concludes:
The sociopathic rulers of US empire (what some have deemed the Epstein class) are committed to taking everyone down with their collapsing system of empire and neoliberal capitalism. Endless war and theft masquerading as economics is the only path left in front of them. US-Israeli genocide in Palestine and Lebanon, not to mention the dozens of other deadly wars and the imposition of abject poverty for more than half the planet to enrich just eight ultra-rich individuals, understandably fuel despair and disgust amongst those in the collective West who detest this reality. But there is reason to hope. We can find it in the billions of people struggling to build a better world.
This article first appeared on Chronicles of Haiphong.
In a world rife with destruction fueled by a predatory US imperialism in decline, there are billions fighting for and building a better future.
I run a daily YouTube program and have little time for articles anymore. This doesn’t mean I don’t miss it, so I will be occasionally publishing my musings over political, economic and world events here.
As conditions decline in the combined West, we are witnessing a boom in nihilism and pessimism. People under the age of 40 face economic futures far worse than those who came before them. Debt, stagnation, and austerity have mixed with intensifying repression to create a toxic societal soup of fear and despair. The escalating potential for nuclear war and environmental collapse are inherently overwhelming for the psyche if viewed in a vacuum.
But geopolitics and political economy can be an anchor of hope just as much as the opposite. When analyzed together, they offer a roadmap of the general situation confronting the entire planet. History is fluid. It’s always in motion. The modern system of U.S. unipolar imperialism is less than 100 years old. Western colonial anti-civilization is just four or so centuries old. In other words, a blip in the general thousands of years of developmental history.
And throughout this period, resistance has been a constant. From Maroon societies that carved out freedom amid brutal colonial slavery across the Americas and the Caribbean to liberation movements for self-determination in Africa, Asia and Latin America, oppressed people have a rich history of refusing to stand still in the face of bondage. This fact remains true. One could argue that resistance to modern U.S. unipolar imperialism is currently at a high point historically.
Despite possessing a trillion-dollar military behemoth replete with nuclear weapons, the U.S. empire and its imperialist economy is on a literal decline. U.S. share of the global economy has fallen from 35-50 percent of total world gross domestic product (GDP) in 1945 to 20-25 percent today. But even this drop undersells the fact that the primary drivers of U.S. economic activity in the 21st century are FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) and services of all kinds. Manufacturing has more than halved as a total percentage of the U.S. economy over just 70 years, from roughly 20-25 percent to now less than 10 percent.
This has brought slow economic growth and a permanent stagnation driven by profiteers on Wall Street and their massive investment in military contracting, media, and other sectors built quite literally to drag the world into economic and social oblivion. Endless war is thus no evidence of strength. It is a byproduct of the death throes of an empire that is economically moribund on the world stage. The warmongers cannot build or expand their way out of imperialism’s contradictions any longer. They can only destroy, or attempt to destroy, anyone trying to build a new world better than the one they once dominated.
I say once dominated because in many ways U.S. imperialism is no longer a singularly dominant force. Some who watch my show criticize its optimism about multipolarity as naive and imbalanced. Let me clarify. It isn’t multipolarity as a concept that excites me so much as it is the material reality undergirding it. I’ve seen with my own eyes how sovereign development coupled with a people’s oriented economic system can offer hope to people who once lived in abject poverty.
For me, that’s China. China is a nation rich in 5,000 years of history. However, Chinese people remember all too well the century of humiliation beginning with the first Opium War that plunged the nation into extreme poverty and political subjugation. Even following the establishment of New China in 1949, Chinese people built the foundations of independent development (what they call socialism with Chinese characteristics) from a position of relative extreme poverty. Modern industry didn’t develop fully in China until the 1980s and 1990s as the country was isolated by US-led UN sanctions until 1971.
But because China’s governance and economic system are people-centered, the nation has made incredible strides in a matter of decades. Extreme poverty is a thing of the past. High-tech dominance is very much the present and the future. I visited the tech giants Unitree and Ant Group during a mid-April trip to China, and what I witnessed astonished me. Not only has China become a world leader in robotics and AI, but these innovative advancements are also being put to use to better the society. Robots are now playing a role in making production more efficient, offering additional care for an increasingly aging population, and filling in gaps in service, entertainment and other sectors. Remember, most Chinese people did not possess a landline through much of the 1990s.
Such extraordinary advances could not have been possible if China invested trillions in wars to destroy other countries and elevated private corporate interests above that of humanity. It’s because the Communist Party of China (CPC) is so committed to the advancement of the Chinese nation that over 90 percent of the population trusts the central government to work in the interests of the Chinese people. And no, it isn’t “CCP brainwashing” fueling public trust. It’s the results.
China is a world leader in high-speed rail, 70-90 percent of the world’s high-technology fields, and renewable energy. China has done all of this while improving the life of its people and the environment from which they live. China leads the world in reforestation and has dramatically reduced its carbon footprint to the point where once smoggy cities like Beijing now enjoy blue, sunny skies and clean air. China’s life expectancy at 78 has surpassed the United States. Wages and quality of life have also improved astronomically in just 40 years, and the Chinese “middle class” (300+ million people) is now considered a critical market worldwide for the most advanced consumer goods. And all of this has been accomplished despite a US-led campaign to military encircle and choke China via sanctions and tariffs, an escalating campaign of “containment” that spans more than 15 years.
While China’s advances are spectacular in scale and speed, it certainly isn’t the only country with a bright future ahead. After nearly ten years of impoverishment and humiliation after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has emerged as a global power once again. Living standards have risen significantly since 2000 and the successful defeat of NATO in the Ukraine proxy war has pushed Russia into not only developing a robust sanctions-proof economy, but also the highest forms of military advancements on the planet. Russia now sports ballistic missile technology, drone stockpiles, and manpower that dwarfs the West by many factors. And with economic and military resilience has come a key leadership role alongside China in building a multipolar, de-dollarized world.
The ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran has exposed that even countries viewed as “weaker” than China and Russia are making major headway on the world stage. Iran is being called by even mainstream political scientists a fourth global power after successfully retaliating against US-Israeli strikes with its own advanced missile power and enforcing a regulatory mechanism over the Strait of Hormuz (responsible for twenty percent of all oil trade in the world). Iran now holds the keys to the stability of the global economy. The Iranian government is now enjoying unprecedented popular unity around the defense of the nation’s sovereignty. The war, the US naval blockade, and sanctions have all failed to achieve the objective of destabilizing the Islamic Republic of Iran.
While Russia, Iran, and China have made the biggest inroads in taking their progress as independent nations to a global stage, the progress being made by smaller but no less resilient nations has begun to raise alarm bells for the US empire. The Democratic People’s Republic (DPRK), what is known in the US derogatorily as “North Korea”, recently made headlines in the Wall Street Journal as the world’s most “surprising economic success story.” According to the piece, the DPRK built more homes than the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago over the past year. The article further noted that the DPRK’s infrastructure has vastly improved with help from Russia and China. People residing in the DPRK’s capital Pyongyang now enjoy the benefits of electric vehicles, QR code payment systems, gaming cafes and the amenities of modern city life despite the existence of decades of brutal US/UN sanctions.
Zimbabwe, an African nation that heroically freed itself from British colonialism 46 years ago, has also come under scrutiny for what the Economist calls a “bizarre” economic boom. It’s “bizarre” because the US and UK have attempted to starve Zimbabwe with brutal sanctions for putting action behind land reform at the turn of the 21st century. The ruling party’s (ZANU-PF) movement to put land back in the hands of indigenous, black Zimbabweans has ever since been deemed a crime worth collapsing an economy over. Economic war on Zimbabwe is beginning to falter, however. The country is currently enjoying a boom in profits from gold and tobacco production thanks to the help of China and global economic headwinds (including the Iran war) which have rapidly increased the price of these critical commodities. And the profits are landing back into the pockets of ordinary people.
The heroic achievements of China, Iran and the DPRK are by no means exhaustive. Cuba, for example, is being terrorized by a campaign of US economic warfare in an effort to roll back achievements in living standards and fuel regime change. Even still, Cuba has managed an infant and maternal mortality rate lower than the United States. Cuban people have for decades enjoyed the benefits of healthcare, housing, and basic economic human rights. That Cuba still stands as an independent nation just 90 miles away from the empire that has stolen hundreds of billions in revenue and development is a testament to the resilience of the Cuban people.
The sociopathic rulers of US empire (what some have deemed the Epstein class) are committed to taking everyone down with their collapsing system of empire and neoliberal capitalism. Endless war and theft masquerading as economics is the only path left in front of them. US-Israeli genocide in Palestine and Lebanon, not to mention the dozens of other deadly wars and the imposition of abject poverty for more than half the planet to enrich just eight ultra-rich individuals, understandably fuel despair and disgust amongst those in the collective West who detest this reality. But there is reason to hope. We can find it in the billions of people struggling to build a better world.
Some of them might just be your neighbors, within and outside of the borders you happen to reside between.
