ICC public forum, London 15 April: The Trump election and the crumbling of capitalist world order

In the face of the decline of the US, and also of growing class, racial, religious and ethnic divisions, Trump wants to unite the capitalist nation behind its ruling class in the name of a new Americanism. The United States, according to Trump, has become the main victim of the rest of the world. He claims that, while the US has been exhausting itself and its resources maintaining world order, all the rest have been profiting from this order at the expense of “God’s own country”. The Trumpistas are thinking here not only of the Europeans or the East Asians who have been flooding the American market with their products. One of the main “exploiters” of the United States, according to Trump, is Mexico, which he accuses of exporting its surplus population into the American social welfare system, while at the same time developing its own industry to such an extent that its automobile production is overtaking that of its northern neighbour.

This amounts to a new and virulent form of nationalism, reminiscent of “underdog” German nationalism after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. The orientation of this form of nationalism is no longer to justify the imposing of a world order by America. Its orientation is to itself put in question the existing world order ...

Date: Saturday 15 April 2017, 2pm-6pm
Place: Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, Kings Cross, London WC1X 8QY

The ICC will begin the meeting with a presentation based on two recent articles:

• a more general one on the question of populism
• the article analysing the Trump election 

After that – plenty of time to discuss. All welcome!