In seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency, the Marxists and anarchists of Antifa and other groups are doing the dirty work of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Regardless of whether or not they know that this is what they are doing, Antifa are the stormtroopers of global capitalism.
There was a time, not so long ago, that Marxist and anarchist groups, such as Antifa, could be seen violently disrupting meetings of the global elites, demonstrating outside global summits, such as those held by the G20. These days they have switched their allegiance by becoming the stormtroopers of global corporate capitalism, intent on making war on those few regimes that have the courage to resist the globalist juggernaut.
Since the idea that Antifa is fighting on the side of global capitalism is counterintuitive, it will be necessary to take a step back, take a deep breath, and define our terms.
Let’s begin by stating that global capitalism has nothing to do with healthy things which are also called “capitalist,” such as the entrepreneurial spirit and the flourishing of a multitude of small businesses. Globalism is undermining and ultimately destroying small businesses as it is undermining and ultimately destroying the power of small nations. One form of capitalism is at war with the other form of capitalism. It is, therefore, a mistake to conflate these two very different and ultimately antithetical economic systems.
By way of illustration, let’s look at the way that global corporations and small businesses differ with respect to the power of government. Global corporations work well with big governments. They prefer big governments. The bigger the better. They have nurtured a relationship with China, the biggest national government in the world, and they have no problem with the fact that the Chinese government is communist, nor that it tyrannizes its own people, riding roughshod over any concept of civil liberty. Global capitalism and Chinese communism have become very comfortable bedfellows.
Global corporations prefer internationalist political entities, such as the European Union, over national governments and national sovereignty. They would like all borders between nations to be weakened, enabling labour and capital to move freely, without the obstacles that borders present. It is no coincidence, for instance, that the Confederation of British Industry, which represents the largest companies in the UK, was deeply opposed to Brexit, whereas the Federation of Small Businesses supported the UK’s severing itself from the EU’s globalist clutches.
So where do we find Antifa and groups of a similar ilk in the midst of this struggle?
In countries, such as Hungary, which has sought to restore its national freedom and protect its borders, we find that global capitalists, such as George Soros, provide the funding for “anti-fascist” activists to make war on Hungary and its government. Closer to home, we find that Donald Trump is trying to break the boa-constrictor grip that globalism has on the American economy, imposing trade sanctions on China and its global corporate allies. In the absence of such sovereign nations, fighting for localism, we will have a world which is run by an unholy alliance of the G20, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World Trade Organization, which will probably use the United Nations as its puppet World Government.
To what extent does this conglomerate of selfish sectional interests care about the poor of the world? Considering the contemptuous way that they continue to treat the people of Africa as mere pawns in the pursuit of global imperialism, to what extent do “black lives matter” to these people?
And yet what side is Antifa fighting for? Is it on the side of local autonomy, including the autonomy of nation states which are the first line of defence for local government and small business? Is it supporting President Trump’s resistance to the embryonic world plutocratic order?
No, in seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency, the Marxists and anarchists of Antifa and other groups are doing the dirty work of the richest and most powerful people in the world. They might not know that this is what they are doing, in which case they are dupes. Make no mistake about it. Antifa are indeed the stormtroopers of global capitalism.
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Mr. Pearce has indeed touched on the most salient point of today’s politics, and not just with regard to the group in question, but the majority of today’s left-wing activists and organizations. Somehow they have been duped into supporting the very macro-Capitalist forces that their ideological predecessors of the Old Left had vowed to combat. There may be several explanations for this, however it is hard to avoid noticing the similarity between the present situation and paradigm provided by Rene Girard’s mimetic theory of the scapegoat. Trump Derangement Syndrome, like Girard’s scapegoat, provides a focus for collective envy, heightened to the extent that the continued presence of the scapegoat seems to rob the scapegoating collective of their very identity. All the things that the scapegoating collective desires. such as infantile omnipotence and amoral arbitrary choice are projected on to the scapegoat. Hence the removal of the scapegoat is the only thing which will provide moral satisfaction to the scapegoaters and reduce social tension. Of course, subsequent to the removal of the scapegoat, the material conditions of society remain unsatisfactory to the collective. However in this case the scapegoat’s removal would be very beneficial to the establishment who had duped the left into becoming a mindless scapegoating multitude.
You have written some great articles here on the Imaginative Conservative. This is another one. Thanks Mr. Pearce!
This piece opened my eyes. So-called ‘antifa’ I assumed, was just an outward tool of what V.I. Lenin called ‘useful idiots.’ I didn’t imagine, in their effort to weaken community government and bring down ‘Capitalism’ as it were, they might directly be playing into the hands of globalists who feel the same way. The free market economy should be upheld over ‘capitalism’ (a pejorative that Karl Marx used against private property generally.) All those who attack our Republican system of government and business establishements ultimately attack the family. Thankfully, the American people widely condemn ‘antifa’ as little more than an embarrassing gang of malcontents without a coherent philosophy. It would be better for all to begin a discussion of the difference between laws and privileges, understood literally.
This interesting opinion piece would have been stronger had the author included some verifiable facts to support his conclusions. I live in Portand Oregon and occasionally encounter antifa types. They are basically street thugs who like to fight and break things with as much understanding of political theory as of quantum physics