By Jason Hickel, from Pearls and Irritations, 23 April 2024
What the present moment reveals, once again, is that Western aggression during the “Cold War” was never about destroying socialism, as such. It was about destroying movements and governments in the periphery that sought economic sovereignty. Why? Because economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core.
This remains the primary objective of Western aggression today. And it is the single greatest source of violence, war and instability in the world system.
The reason Western powers went after socialist movements across the global South during the “Cold War” (Cuba, China, the incineration of Vietnam and North Korea, etc) was because they knew socialism would enable the South to regain control over their own productive capacities – their labour and resources and factories – and organise them around local needs and national development.