By Guilherme Wilbert for the Saker Blog
I try to bring a reflection in most of my texts about what competes for the international diplomatic and monetary future after Operation Z in Ukraine, but also, I always try to bring the ideological part into the discussion because this still makes many people's heads spin. Or are Ukrainian flag-wavers not ideologized?
Capitalism and communism have always been enemies at their core, especially in their own archetypes, since communism is internationalist, while pure capitalism is just the simplest way of doing business: you give me money for what it is worth, and I give you the product.
It turns out that along with the collapse of communism after the Soviet collapse in 1991, capitalism has also spiraled, and its most vile forms are found in meta-capitalists and monopolizing companies, which distort the real meaning of free markets, open competition and more.
What happens is that some businessmen behave like communists with money because they use their companies to carry out monopolies and cartels around the world, with the simplest case being that of Brazil, which has a nation of 200 million people to more and only has 5 banks in Brazilian territory operating, these being: Banco do Brasil (created by D. João VI of Portugal during the Brazilian Empire), Caixa Econômica Federal (which is a kind of banking autarchy of the Brazilian Federal Government), Itaú, Santander and Bradesco. Even HSBC was strong in the country, but could not stand it and closed its operation last decade.
The case of Brazil is a clear example of a country that fell victim to the metacapitalists, even though it had a leftist government like the Workers Party led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of the country.
And this proves how even orthodox socialism, which is the case of the ideology-north of the Workers Party of Brazil, can be eroded by metacapitalism and its bad ways of doing business.
The point is that cartels, monopolies, oligopolies are distorted forms of capitalism, which look very much like a communist quasi-statist economy because the monopolizer behaves like a communist strong state. And this destroys the sense that is used to identify a communist or capitalist militancy in some countries because the real goals of the ideologies cited here are not made explicit up front. This makes for a dumb and innocuous militancy that sometimes is fighting for the same things without realizing it.
While the communist militant likes a strong State that monopolizes natural resources or not, the meta-capitalist also likes the State because it helps him to make and maintain his monopoly. That is why it is not rare to see people like George Soros, prominent bankers, supporting wealth taxes, for example, because it would be a way for them to continue using the state territory to carry out their monopolies and cartels.
Another practical example coming from Brazil are telephone lines: the country has only 4 cell phone companies, with one (Oi Telecomunicações) in receivership because it is in bad shape.
During Lula's communist government in the country, the banks had the highest profits, several newspapers reported at the time. This is a clear proof of the distortion of the communist discourse that usually carries the popular feeling but sometimes only makes its leaders richer and more powerful and more brutal.
Fidel Castro, who died richer than Queen Elizabeth II, it is said.
And a global international reconfiguration is happening right now, with the various economic blocs of countries in the Global South becoming closer together.
This is also because of the ideological capitalist exhaustion due to monopolizing meta-capitalism, or communism, when the exacerbated statization and planned economy is proving wrong again in the countries, making the real economy of production take over the discourse and making smarter heads.
Wars still happen because of ideologies, but they can be stopped by them too
When the clash of civilizations happened in 2019, with the world distrusting China for being bad at preserving Covid-19 cases, as well as trying lockdowns recently that destroyed the global supply chain of production, a lot of bad thought was given to a strong and sovereign state like China's, especially the more ideologized ones, who blamed the country's trademark hammer and sickle as the cause of the problems plaguing the world at the time. Except that today, 3 years later, China, which is clearly totally ideologized, may be guiding some parts of the Global South towards an inter-country integration that involves the monetary, diplomatic and trade issues. In other words, the China that would have caused the Covid-19 problem for some ideologues, may be the same country that can save the global economy when the dollar collapses. And it will collapse. It is just a matter of time.
While NATO, which carries an air of the cold war because it still exists even after the end of the Warsaw Pact, is trying to emulate a kind of international police force, going against the very name of the military organization, which in theory would only be in the North Atlantic Sea, today it is already in Asia and Oceania. In what is seen as the opposite thinking of the leaders of Eurasia and the Global South.
Some diplomats from within NATO have even talked about "Global NATO". What is this if not a trace of colonialism ingrained in the Atlanticist organization to stand up to the enthusiasts of multipolarity, who have sometimes ended up being characterized by the flags with sickle and hammer?
The clearest point I try to make is that ideologies have been eroded by the mistakes or successes of their own leaders, distorting the orthodox common sense of centuries-old doctrines like communism for example. This was seen when the US opened the international market to China, which made them the second global economy today.
But there was also no good interpretation from the West towards Russia for example, which today is a totally different country from the Soviet Union, and could have become an ally. Which would totally change the scenario we are living today.
So ideologies can stop or make wars, either by capitalism or by communists.
Capitalism at war means monopolies arising, while communists at war means massive genocides arising.
Corroded ideology is not necessarily a bad thing, but it shows a breakdown in thinking in society
Ideologies arise as a way of trying to organize models of government, and several of them have even been criminalized around the world due to the massacres they have carried out. But at the same time, this does not mean that they will cease to exist.
When a society thinks 50% one thing and another half thinks 50% another thing, this means that there is a polarity of thoughts that can only lead to chaos and barbarism, because the people, hungry or in difficulty, are not able to come to a consensus, and then authoritarianism and popular uprisings arise.
The corrosion of ideologies, be they capitalist or communist, was something that would happen naturally because time goes on proving some points that have always been pushed by the enthusiasts of such as absolute truths, which are lies.
Several are the cases of communist countries that collapsed and several are the countries that collapse because of meta-capitalism. This is why we must abandon ideologies and simple ways of thinking when it comes to a nation, a homeland.
A homeland is much bigger than a 19th-century German writing. A nation is much bigger and means much more than a Politburo.
Capitalism and communism behave today as different sides of the same coin, with their owners and enthusiasts having the same origins. Instead of studying the end result, look for the cause. Many coincidences can arise.
Guilherme Wilbert is a Brazilian law graduate interested in geopolitics and international law.