The war in Europe in 2022 became an excuse to once again impose the entire burden of the global capitalist crisis and the costs of war, which is the immediate result of the crisis, on the lives and livelihoods of the world’s workers. The dramatic increase in the prices of products and goods needed by the working masses in a large part of the capitalist world has led to the further spread of poverty, displacement and the increase in the cost of minimum living. In addition, the CUP 27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt, showed that the entire capitalist world was hastened to cancel all the illusional promises and agreements of their previous conferences, and they rush towards a turbulent and unique competitive world, that we witnessed only during the first and second imperialist wars. Wars, which arise from capitalist crises and are its immediate result, lead to a new arrangement of capital in investment areas, which are the result of the purification of some previously invested realms. From within the wars and during them, the techniques of new productivity of labor force are emerging with an unprecedented speed and evolve in the field of conflict and competition between the giants of capitalism and thus enter the process of production and circulation of capital. In this way, the war not only causes the refinement and new arrangement of capital, but also puts a part of the accumulated surplus values into the circulation process to open new areas with bigger plans than Marshall. Nevertheless, the current wars since about four decades ago have only resulted in the destruction of cities, the displacement of several hundred million people, and the killing of millions of working masses, without showing an aperture of Marshall’s plans. The capitalism of the world has reached such a historical phase that not only does not care about environmental degradation and catastrophes, but it also puts wars as a means of consume additional and wandering capital, and merely the likes of Damascus, Aleppo and the whole ruins of Syria, Beirut and Yemen, Afghanistan and parts of Iraq and the whole Latin America into a place for their own. A look at the latest decisions in Europe and America while editing this introduction shows the real pathetic and catastrophic face that capital depicted for humanity. January 3, 2023, “NATO member states agreed on a new goal : the defense costs of these countries will increase to at least two percent of their economic returns. This is only for the time of peace and the costs of defense cannot be less than that. Members of the North Atlantic Alliance, Nato States have been arguing for their defense budget for a long time. Now these countries have apparently reached an agreement of a minimum. The primary goal is to raise their defense costs by at least two percent of their GDP by 2024. ” In this horrific competition, the eastern part of Europe’s capitalism has transformed almost all of Russia’s social capital into a realm of war and has accelerated into a full -fledged war. Looking at the largest producing giants of military commodities and mass destruction, in terms of combination of military and civil capital, it shows how massive monopolies of capital are able to quickly change the production cycle from military to civil and vice versa.
Since 2019, with $ 2000 billion worldwide weapons sales (4.2 % of GDP), including 16 largest capitalist world -class companies, what is inside parentheses is the revenue of military production and the rest of the production of non -military goods :
1- Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35, with an income of 52 billion dollars in 2019, (89% of the income)
2- Boeing company with 33 billion dollars in sales this year, ( 44% income)
3- American Northrop Grumman company with 29 billion dollars, (86% income)
4- American company Raytian with 25 billion dollars (85% income)
5- American General Dynamics Company with 5.24 billion dollars, (62% income)
6- Chinese company Avic with 22 billion dollars (34% income)
7- British company Baye System with 22 billion dollars (95% income)
8- China Stock Company with 15 billion dollars, (46% income)
9- Chinese company Norinco with 5.14 billion dollars, (32% income)
10- American Harris Technology Company with 14 billion dollars (77% income)
11- United American technology with 12 billion Dollar (17 % income)
12- Italian Leonardo company with 11 billion dollars (72% income)
13- France and Germany Airbus Group company with 11 billion dollars (14% income)
14- French company Thales with 9 billion dollars (46% income)
15- Russian company Almaz Anti with 9 billion euros, (98% income)
16- German Rhine Metal Company with 4 billion dollars, (70% income)
The data in the table below from 2019 to 2021 have been extracted from the annual reports of the Swedish Sipri Institute.
Without a doubt with the increase in the share of European countries and America, other competitors such as China, Japan and India in the world with turbulent and full of tension and with fierce competition to get as much share of capital profit as possible from the average international interest rate, will not wait for an idly fate without a plan. As a result of the production of weapons and war equipment, military expenses in 2022 and with the beginning of the war in Europe has had a unique rise and leap. It should be noted that the decision of the NATO organization on January 3, 2023 determined the minimum military budget of each country and considers this in peace conditions because NATO does not see itself involved in a war with Russia !! In the same NATO report, it is stated that some member countries have allocated more military quota in their budgets than other countries. “ Greece is at the top of defense spending : among the NATO member countries, Greece by allocating 76.3% of (GDP) in national defense spending is far ahead of other countries. After Greece, the United States is ranked by allocating 47.3% of its GDP, 822 billion dollars (equivalent to 768 billion euros) ”. It means that many small and medium-sized capitalists spend a significant part of their budgets on buying weaponary and war equipment just because a limited number of the world’s great social capital owners are the main producers of weaponary commodities, and a much larger part of the world’s social capital owners are only buyers of these weaponary goods. All this is in the context that the financial organizations and institutes of the capitalist world, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, predict a much worser future than 2022 for the world’s largest capitalists, namely Europe, America and China, and this is while Europe was plunged into a deep crisis and stagnation during 2022. All that has been and continue to be imposed on working humanity during the lifetime of capitalism, from war and poverty, displacement and migration from one land to another and the more catastrophic environmental destructions have arisen and continue to arise from infernal the capitalist relations. This is the fate that capital, capitalist institutions and their states set for the working humanity. We, the whole workers of the world, while we are the producers of all values, capitals and military and non-military commodities, materials and goods harmful to nature and humanity, but we do not have the slightest involvement in what should be produced or not, and in the process of production and distribution of goods. Capitalist states have always tried and pretended that the root of regional and global wars and crimes lie all in the nature of individuals, in the wrongdoing or misunderstanding of some leaders and government management, or in the purity of others, and in a word, the root of the increase of even environmental destruction and the above cases should be sought in human nature. Capitalist governments and their institutes look for the causes of war crimes and the formation of militant fascist groups in some parts of the world in other places than the existing dominant social and capitalist relations. Throughout the hell of capitalism, the majority of people are workers, they are the targets of capitalist exploitation, they are separated from their work and the result of their labor, and a minority are also capitalists and rule the fate of work, production and life of the working class. The root of the continuous growth of environmental destruction, war and war crimes, fascism and racism, the production of more and more tools and weaponary of mass destruction and the hardening of the living conditions and worse livelihood of the working masses, the daily increase rate of crimes, theft and prostitution is under the rule of the capitalist system. The reason for this is that in order to reduce the impact of the drop in the profit rate and to compensate it, capital not only increases the rate of labor intensity, but also relies on the decrease of the wage rate. Any kind of struggle against these condition of livelihood, the economic pollitical and social oppression imposed on the whole workers all around the world can only be pursued by opening the front of the class struggle against wage-labor system. This is the real field of our class war against all economic and political oppression of capitalism. This is a long and continuous class war in all realms of social life, a class war of all the workers of the world against capitalism is the war of the international working class against the system of wage slavery. That is why this class war requires preparation and equipping, organizing and class awareness and all the real necessities of a radical class struggle. The identity indicator of this class war is its being anti-capitalist. It is a class war over determining the fate of work, production and social life, and every step of victory in this battle, even if it is small, a step in consolidating the foundations of the anti-capitalist class power of the workers, a step in pushing back the bourgeoisie, and in imposing urgent demands on capital and the capitalist state, it is a step in reducing unemployment, homelessness, poverty and hunger, lack of freedom, criminal gender discrimination and environmental pollution. If we don’t do this, the intrigues and deception of capital and its colorful fascist forces will steal the leadership of the class struggle from us and turn us against each other. This is the scenario that is currently being implemented in all of Europe and the Middle East and many other areas of the capitalist hell.
Figure 1. Data from the Peace Research Institute of Stockholm (Sweden) Sipri
Nov. 2022
