Raúl Zibechi: War organizes the accumulation of capital

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It is true that some Large corporations are profiting from the Palestinian genocide, as denounced by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. It also emerged days ago that the Pentagon allocated 54 percent of its spending to private companies between 2020 and 2024, which adds up to the fabulous figure of 2.1 trillion dollars to swell the coffers of a handful of large multinational war corporations, according to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statehood ( https://goo.su/z3r6AL ).

But the reality of capital goes far beyond the profits of a few companies, to the point that today we can assert that capital accumulation cannot be sustained without violence, without destroying people, without massacring women and children. Wars are the articulations of capital accumulation, regardless of the nation-states involved in the conflicts.

The complexity of the current situation lies in the overlapping of various types of wars that nonetheless have similar objectives. We are facing wars between states, as is the case between Russia and Ukraine, or, if you prefer, between NATO and Russia. There are also open, though undeclared, wars between states and peoples, as is the case between Israel and the Palestinian people. But other types of wars also abound, such as wars on drugs , in the case of Mexico, or wars against gangs, poverty, and even climate change.

Although each has its own particularities, they all aim at the same goal: attacking and displacing people to facilitate dispossession. I accept that this way of slicing into reality may leave out some characteristics of these wars, but I believe it is necessary to stand firmly on the side of the people who, time and again, are the victims of capitalist accumulation and, therefore, of wars.

A segment of the left and also social movements are opting for certain capitalist powers (Russia, China) over others (the United States, the European Union), under the guise of fighting the main enemy . This leads them to establish alliances with those who oppose the US empire.

I believe this policy is harmful to movements and peoples, as it divides and hierarchizes, choosing defensible victims while others are forgotten. It's striking that the Palestinian people are defended, an entirely just matter, but there's no mention of the Ukrainian or Russian people, whose children are giving their lives defending foreign interests in a war about which they weren't consulted. In one case, it's Western capital, supported by Trump and the European Union. In the other, it's an authoritarian and capitalist regime, like the one headed by Putin.

Even more serious to me are the movements that openly defend China or Iran, as is happening in several cases in Latin America. Can't we accept that wars between large states are intercapitalist wars? What sense does it make for those of us fighting for a new world to be allies of state capitalism? Because this is one of the main arguments of those who maintain that China, or similar states, are different from those in Europe or the United States because it is the state that runs the economy.

Many argue that workers in China have access to public health care, housing, and other social benefits, thereby establishing a distinction between them and the core countries of today's capitalism, where many of these services are private. I regret to say that I find this argument to be very weak, and that state capitalism is just as capitalist as private property.

It seems evident that the State continues to divide the waters between popular sectors and movements. It is not understood that the nation-state has mutated. It was appropriated by the one percent to turn it into a shield for their interests. The welfare states that expanded after the Second European War no longer exist. The Old Continent's policy against migrants is just one example of this brutal shift.

When we see police in California using cars without license plates and officers wearing hoods to arrest migrants, we should consider where the states are headed, which some still defend as levers of collective emancipation. I understand that political culture, like all cultures, evolves very slowly, so changing the way we do things will not be easy. Many groups and individuals continue to think and act as if capitalism hasn't mutated, repeating over and over again that things are business as usual.

Hope lies in seeing how some communities and organizations chart other paths. In particular, the Zapatista effort to destroy the pyramids shows us that 31 years after the uprising, they continue to walk in different ways, learning from their mistakes, which is the only way to grow.