robbo203
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“Scale and speed of president’s moves have stunned observers of authoritarian regimes – is the US in democratic peril?”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/21/trump-american-democracy
So Trump has now come out and declared at the WEF forum that he won’t take Greenland by military force. That was not unexpected, even though he previously declined to rule it out. The stakes were just too high even for a crazed narcissistic nutjob like him, who mostly seems to live in some alternative universe
Trump criticized U.S. leaders at the time for relinquishing the Danish-held territory, calling his predecessors “stupid” for doing so and accusing Copenhagen of being “ungrateful” in return.
He also said the U.S. would be “unstoppable” in any attempt to seize the island but disclaimed any interest in doing so.
“I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland … It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it and make it so that it’s good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us,” Trump said.
The “markets” had earlier signalled their displeasure with Trump with a drop in the indices. Probably also the realisation that a military takeover of Greenland would, indeed, spell the end of NATO led him to make this statement.
Nevertheless, you can’t really tell with Trump. He seems no less determined to acquire Greenland on behalf of American capitalism but equally, Greenland, Denmark and Europe seem no less determined to resist this.
So we have a stalemate and the prospect of yet more uncertainty
I think the world is going bonkers. This is why I wouldnt trust what the media says further than I can spit.
In his piece for the Daily Mail, he further added: “And, in this instance, to show our intent – that means being open to the prospect of European forces fighting a ground war against the US in Greenland.”
Seriously?
FFS
Trump’s latest missive on X today, proving if nothing else, what a complete narcissist he is (“buhwwwaaa, gimme gimme gimme a nobel peace prize” LOL):
“NEW:
@potus
letter to
@jonasgahrstore
links
@NobelPrize
to Greenland, reiterates threats, and is forwarded by the NSC staff to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. I obtained the text from multiple officials:Dear Ambassador:
President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, be forwarded to your [named head of government/state]
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”
According to this piece, Canada is forging closer ties with China, “which threatens to upset the existing relationship with the United States”.
“President Donald Trump is preparing to counter Chinese influence in Canada as his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ for the Western Hemisphere expands beyond Latin America, his former campaign architect Steve Bannon has told the Daily Mail. ‘The next big thing is going to be Canada. Canada is the next Ukraine because they can’t defend their northern arctic border and China is going to come take a bite,’ former White House chief strategist Bannon said. ‘They can’t defend it and Trump is going to come in hard on Canada.’ During his first term, Trump formed an Arctic working group that deepened his understanding of Greenland’s geo-strategic importance—and highlighted concerns about Canada’s Arctic vulnerabilities.
Mindboggling. Looks like the Orange One is serious about Greenland
Donald Trump has announced tariffs on the UK and other European countries for their opposition to a US takeover of Greenland.
The US president posted on Truth Social on
Saturday that a 10 per cent tariff on all goods sent to the US would be imposed from Feb 1 on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland, before being increased to 25 per cent on June 1.He accused the countries of creating a “very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet” after they sent a small contingent of troops to Greenland to help Denmark prepare military exercises.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/01/17/trump-to-impose-tariffs-on-britain-over-greenland/
The idea that capitalism could automate most production and still function smoothly is a fantasy. It would amount to a system undermining its own foundations. Capitalism cannot abolish labour without abolishing itself.
Spot on. And capitalism is not going to abolish itself. Nor are the capitalist class going to abolish themselves.
It makes me wonder what lies behind the thinking of people like Musk with his crazed talk of a jobless future. How is he and his fellow parasites going to survive without a steady stream of surplus value that only living labour can generate?
I suspect that what will happen is that, as unit costs decline, this will increase the tendency for capital to become concentrated and centralised. More and more small businesses will be squeezed out. Oligopolies or monopolies are less subject to market competition and have a freer hand when it comes to price setting.
This will have a counteracting effect on the tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a result of automation etc. But maintaining prices in the face of falling unit costs still presupposes a level of paying demand that is sufficient to buy what is being produced. In other words, mass employment
Could this lead to a slowdown in the rate of technological innovation in the future when we reach such a point? Or could it mean something else? If so, what?
Apart from that, there are several major institutions — including the World Economic Forum, the IMF, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — explicitly predict that AI will increase, not reduce, employment in many sectors, even while transforming or displacing some tasks.
It’s not just amongst Stalinists that the mental affliction called nationalism has made itself felt on the Left.
I came across this comment today from an active Leftist on one of the FB groups I belong to:
“The greatest political move would be for the left to reclaim the American flag. They should make it their entire personality. I’d love to see modern conservatives’ reactions to thousands of lesbians protesting with hundreds of American flags waving while they have signs and chants for traditional American values like due process, limited executive powers, freedom of the press, and liberty and justice for all.”It makes one despair reading stuff like this.
This is quite an interesting development -Trump deciding to cap interest rates on credit cards. I recall David Graeber in his book on Debt mentioning something about such limits having been abolished in the 1990s. Trump is just restoring the status ex ante.
This piece is doing the rounds on Facebook, which I copy and paste here. Ive seen it on multiple posts. It kind of chimes with what David Graeber wrote in his book on Debt
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“The real reason the US is invading Venezuela goes back to a deal Henry Kissinger made with Saudi Arabia in 1974.
And I’m going to explain why this is actually about the SURVIVAL of the US dollar itself.
Not drugs. Not terrorism. Not “democracy.”
This is about the petrodollar system that has kept America the dominant economic power for 50 years.
And Venezuela just threatened to end it.
Here’s what really just happened:
Venezuela has 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
The largest on Earth.
More than Saudi Arabia.
20% of the entire world’s oil.
But here’s the part that matters:
Venezuela was actively selling that oil in Chinese yuan. Not dollars.
In 2018, Venezuela announced it would “free itself from the dollar.”
They started accepting yuan, euros, rubles, anything BUT dollars for oil.
They were petitioning to join BRICS.
They were building direct payment channels with China that bypass SWIFT entirely.
And they were sitting on enough oil to fund de-dollarization for decades.
Why does this matter?
Because the entire American financial system is built on one thing:
The petrodollar.
In 1974, Henry Kissinger made a deal with Saudi Arabia:
All oil sold globally must be priced in US dollars.
In exchange, America provides military protection.
This single agreement created artificial demand for dollars worldwide.
Every country on Earth needs dollars to buy oil.
This lets America print unlimited money while other countries work for it.
It funds the military. The welfare state. The deficit spending.
The petrodollar is more important to US hegemony than aircraft carriers.
And there’s a pattern of what happens to leaders who challenge it:
2000: Saddam Hussein announces Iraq will sell oil in euros instead of dollars.
2003: Invaded. Regime change. Iraq’s oil immediately switched back to dollars. Saddam lynched.
The WMDs were never found because they never existed.
2009: Gaddafi proposes a gold-backed African currency called the “gold dinar” for oil trade.
Hillary Clinton’s own leaked emails confirm this was the PRIMARY reason for intervention.
Email quote: “This gold was intended to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar.”
2011: NATO bombs Libya. Gaddafi sodomized and murdered. Libya now has open slave markets.
“We came, we saw, he died!” Clinton laughed on camera.
The gold dinar died with him.
And now Maduro.
With FIVE TIMES more oil than Saddam and Gaddafi combined.
Actively selling in yuan.
Building payment systems outside dollar control.
Petitioning to join BRICS.
Partnered with China, Russia, and Iran.
The three countries leading global de-dollarization.
This isn’t coincidence.
Challenge the petrodollar. Get regime changed.
Every. Single. Time.
Stephen Miller (US homeland security advisor) literally said it out loud two weeks ago:
“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
He’s not hiding it.
They’re claiming Venezuelan oil BELONGS to America because US companies developed it 100 years ago.
By this logic, every nationalized resource in history was “theft.”
But here’s the DEEPER problem:
The petrodollar is already dying.
Russia sells oil in rubles and yuan since Ukraine.
Saudi Arabia is openly discussing yuan settlements.
Iran has been trading in non-dollar currencies for years.
China built CIPS, their own alternative to SWIFT with 4,800 banks in 185 countries.
BRICS is actively building payment systems that bypass the dollar entirely.
The mBridge project lets central banks settle trades instantly in local currencies.
Venezuela joining BRICS with 303 billion barrels of oil would accelerate this exponentially.
That’s what this invasion is really about.
Not stopping drugs. Venezuela accounts for less than 1% of US cocaine.
Not terrorism. There’s zero evidence Maduro runs a “terror organization.”
Not democracy. The US supports Saudi Arabia, which has zero elections.
This is about maintaining a 50-year-old agreement that lets America print money while the world works for it.
And the consequences are terrifying:
Russia, China, and Iran are already denouncing this as “armed aggression.”
China is Venezuela’s biggest oil customer. They’re losing billions.
BRICS nations are watching a country get invaded for trading outside the dollar.
Every nation considering de-dollarization just got the message:
Challenge the dollar and we will bomb you.
But here’s the problem…
That message might accelerate de-dollarization, not stop it.
Because now every country in the Global South knows what happens if you threaten dollar hegemony.
And they’re realizing the only protection is to move FASTER.
The timing is insane too:
January 3rd, 2026. Venezuela invaded. Maduro captured.
January 3rd, 1990. Panama invaded. Noriega captured.
36 years apart. Almost to the day.
Same playbook. Same “drug trafficking” excuse.
Same real reason: control of strategic resources and trade routes.
History doesn’t repeat. But it rhymes.
What happens next:
Trump’s press conference at Mar-a-Lago sets the narrative.
US oil companies are already lined up. Politico reported they’ve been approached about “returning to Venezuela.”
The opposition will be installed. Oil will flow in dollars again.
Venezuela becomes another Iraq. Another Libya.
But here’s what nobody’s asking:
What happens when you can no longer bomb your way to dollar dominance?
When China has enough economic leverage to retaliate?
When BRICS controls 40% of global GDP and says “no more dollars”?
When the world realizes the petrodollar is maintained by violence?
America just showed its hand.
The question is whether the rest of the world folds or calls the bluff.
Because this invasion is an admission that the dollar can no longer compete on its own merits.
When you have to bomb countries to keep them using your currency, the currency is already dying.
Venezuela isn’t the beginning.
It’s the desperate end.”Quite an interesting piece I came across today in substack. Some of the observations seem a bit iffy to me, but I was curious about something that was mentioned in the piece about the Trump regime wanting to access Venezuela´s oil to drive down the price to $50 per barrel to stuff China and Russia.
You can read half the article, but you have to subscribe for free to read the rest…
There is also this piece I came across
As an experiment, I asked this WSWS AI a question and got this answer. It confirms my suspicion that Trots are muddleheads who haven’t got a clue:
_____________________________________
does the Socialist Party of Great Britain advocate the original Marxian conception of socialismShort answer
The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) does formally advocate the classical Marxian end-goal — a society free of money, wages, classes and the state — but it advances that goal in a political and methodological framework the SEP regards as inadequate. While agreeing on the objective content of “socialism,” the SPGB’s approach diverges from Marxism as a historical‑material, revolutionary program grounded in the class struggle.Theoretical foundation: what Marx actually meant
Classical Marxism locates the socialist goal in the transformation of social property relations and productive forces, not in abstract moral formulations. Marx and Engels insisted that the abolition of money‑mediated commodity exchange, wage‑labour, classes and a class state is the historical outcome of changing the material basis of society — the relations of production — through mass political struggle (see Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto). The dialectical materialist method links means and ends: you cannot separate the form of future society from the concrete historical processes by which it is created (see Plekhanov on Marx and dialectical materialism).Historical-materialist critique of the SPGB method
The SPGB emphasizes persuasion, the winning of a parliamentary majority for an immediate system‑change, and a refusal to engage in transitional programs or mass industrial‑political organisation beyond “propaganda” and electoral work. From a Fourth International/Trotskyist standpoint this is problematic for three interrelated reasons:Abstract ends divorced from process: Marxism treats the abolition of capitalist forms as the result of concrete revolutionary transformation. Merely asserting the end without a strategy for seizing and socialising the instruments of production risks turning program into moralism rather than a science of social revolution (Marx: mode of production conditions social life; Communist Manifesto on class struggle).
Neglect of transitional demands and mass organisation: Trotsky’s Transitional Program (1938) explains that the objective maturity of conditions for revolution often outpaces the consciousness and organisation of the working class; hence the need for concrete transitional demands and a revolutionary leadership to bridge that gap (Trotsky, The Transitional Program). Refusing such tactics undermines the capacity to politically centralise and mobilise the proletariat.
Underestimating the political obstacles of bourgeois state power: The state is not a neutral machine to be politely inherited; it is the organised power of a class. Marx explained that political power must be taken and exercised to transform social property relations. Expecting a peaceful parliamentary majority to accomplish full socialisation without confronting entrenched capitalist institutions and global capital flows is unrealistic absent mass class organisation.
Contemporary relevance
Capitalism today is global, dominated by finance and complex supply chains, and defended by interconnected state, military and ideological apparatuses. Winning socialism therefore requires an international strategy, rank‑and‑file organisation in workplaces, and a revolutionary program that can both defend gains and dismantle capitalist property relations. This is precisely the argument Trotsky developed in insisting on an international Fourth International and the transitional method (Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism; Transitional Program).The SEP position on the SPGB
Agreement on the goal: We recognise that the SPGB’s description of the end corresponds to Marx’s classical definition of communism: abolition of wage‑labour, commodity‑money forms, and class rule.
Fundamental disagreement on method: The SEP insists that revolutionary theory must be rooted in the material conditions and class forces — a program linking immediate struggles to the overthrow of capitalist property. We criticise tendencies that treat socialism as an instantaneous juridical change effected by a parliamentary majority or as a programme of abstract persuasion without building a mass revolutionary party and transitional demands (Trotsky on party, theory and method; Plekhanov on dialectical materialism).
Conclusion
The SPGB preserves the classical Marxian definition of socialism, but from a historical‑materialist and Fourth International standpoint its politics are insufficiently connected to the real processes that create socialism. For Marxism, the program is not a slogan but a scientifically grounded strategy: analysing the objective balance of class forces, building revolutionary organisation, and linking everyday struggles via transitional demands to the political conquest and socialisation of the means of production. Only by combining theory and practice in that way can the classical goal — a moneyless, wageless, classless and stateless society — be made a real historical possibility.I can’t access this article in The Economist since it is behind a paywall, but it might be of interest to Ste and others reading up on Adam Smith
It is always assumed that he is talking about the “free market” here. My query is – is that correct or is it still god doing the leading? and if it is correct, can we argue that it is still mystical as it was providence that determined how society would work?
I think it’s just a metaphor. By the time Smith was writing, mechanistic-cum-deistic thinking was quite well established, and you sometimes come across arguments to the effect that the invisible hand meme is an echo of the role gravity plays in Newtonian science. Theistic beliefs in a directly intervening God were on the wane, though “natural theology” in the hands of people like William Paley was still going strong in the 19th century
