There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Nothing less
than the future of the planet – economically, socially and environmentally – is
at stake.
At a time of massive wealth
and income inequality, when the world’s top 1% now owns more wealth than the
bottom 99%, we are seeing the rise of a new authoritarian axis.
While these regimes may differ
in some respects, they share key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms,
antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious
minorities, and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish
financial interests. These leaders are also deeply connected to a network of
multi-billionaire oligarchs who see the world as their economic plaything.
Those of us who believe in
democracy, who believe that a government must be accountable to its people,
must understand the scope of this challenge if we are to effectively confront
it.
It should be clear by now
that Donald
Trump and the rightwing movement that supports him is not a phenomenon
unique to the United States. All around the world, in Europe, in Russia, in the
Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues
who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to
power.
This trend certainly did not
begin with Trump, but there’s no question that authoritarian leaders around the
world have drawn inspiration from the fact that the leader of the world’s
oldest and most powerful democracy seems to delight in shattering democratic
norms.
Three years ago, who would have
imagined that the United States would stay neutral between Canada, our democratic
neighbor and second largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia, a
monarchic, client state that treats women as third-class citizens? It’s also
hard to imagine that Israel’s Netanyahu government
would have moved to pass the recent “nation
state law”, which essentially codifies the second-class status of
Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, if Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t know Trump would
have his back.
All of this is not exactly a
secret. As the US continues to grow further and further apart from our longtime
democratic allies, the US ambassador to Germany recently made clear the Trump
administration’s support for rightwing extremist parties across Europe.
In addition to Trump’s
hostility toward democratic institutions we have a billionaire president who,
in an unprecedented way, has blatantly embedded his own economic interests and
those of his cronies into the policies of government.
Other authoritarian states are
much farther along this kleptocratic process. In Russia, it is impossible to
tell where the decisions of government end and the interests of Vladimir Putin
and his circle of oligarchs begin. They operate as one unit. Similarly, in
Saudi Arabia, there is no debate about separation because the natural resources
of the state, valued at trillions of dollars, belong to the Saudi royal family.
In Hungary, far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán is openly allied with
Putin in Russia. In China, an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily
consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it
aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.
We must understand that these
authoritarians are part of a common front.
They are in close contact with
each other, share tactics and, as in the case of European and American
rightwing movements, even share some of the same funders. The Mercer family,
for example, supporters of the infamous Cambridge Analytica, have been key
backers of Trump and of Breitbart News, which operates in Europe, the United
States and Israel to advance the same anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim agenda.
Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson gives generously to rightwing causes in
both the United States and Israel, promoting a shared agenda of intolerance and
illiberalism in both countries.
The truth is, however, that to
effectively oppose rightwing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the
failed status quo of the last several decades. Today in the United States, and
in many other parts of the world, people are working longer hours for
stagnating wages, and worry that their children will have a lower standard of
living than they do.
Our job is to fight for a
future in which new technology and innovation works to benefit all people, not
just a few. It is not acceptable that the top 1% of the world’s population owns
half the planet’s wealth, while the bottom 70% of the working age population
accounts for just 2.7% of global wealth.
Together governments of the
world must come together to end the absurdity of the rich and multinational
corporations stashing over $21tn in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying
their fair share of taxes and then demanding that their respective governments
impose an austerity agenda on their working families.
It is not acceptable that the
fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon
emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.
It is not acceptable that a
handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires,
largely control the flow of information on the planet.
It is not acceptable that
trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a
race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written
out of public view.
It is not acceptable that, with
the cold war long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1tn a year
on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable
diseases.
In order to effectively combat
the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need an international
progressive movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity,
security and dignity for all people, and that addresses the massive global
inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power.
Such a movement must be
willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to
see. While the authoritarian axis is committed to tearing down a post-second
world war global order that they see as limiting their access to power and
wealth, it is not enough for us to simply defend that order as it exists now.
We must look honestly at how
that order has failed to deliver on many of its promises, and how
authoritarians have adeptly exploited those failures in order to build support
for their agenda. We must take the opportunity to reconceptualize a genuinely
progressive global order based on human solidarity, an order that recognizes
that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our
children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink
clean water, breathe clean air and live in peace.
Our job is to reach out to
those in every corner of the world who share these values, and who are fighting
for a better world.
In a time of exploding wealth
and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people.
Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to
oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or
unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each
other. We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the
same.
Bernie Sanders is a US Senator
from Vermont
We asked Yanis
Varoufakis to comment on Bernie Sanders’ piece. Here is his response:
Bernie Sanders is spot-on.
Financiers have long formed an international “brotherhood” to guarantee
themselves international bailouts when their paper pyramids crash.
More recently, xenophobic
rightwing zealots also formed their very own Nationalist International, turning
once proud people against another so that they control their wealth and
politics.
It is high time that Democrats
from across the world form a Progressive International in the interests of a
majority of people on every continent, in every country.
Sanders is also right when he
says that the solution is not to go back to a status quo whose spectacular
failure has paved the ground for the rise of the Nationalist International.
Our Progressive International
must lead with a vision of the green, shared prosperity that human ingenuity is
capable of providing – as long as democracy is given a chance to enable it.
To that end we need to do more
than campaign together. Let us form a common council that draws out a common
blueprint for an International New Deal, a progressive New Bretton Woods.
