Capital Mobilises
Only by putting issues of military expansion and individual privacy into pespective as elements in a struggle between classes can we reach conclusions and come up with the solution
This is a slightly amended version of the report which can be found in Swedish here
Defence Co-Operation with the USA
The Swedish summer of 2024 began with the ratification of the so-called Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA), which means that American troops now have access to 17 Swedish military bases. Moreover, they will not be subject to Swedish law, but instead will be under American jurisdiction. In other words, we will have our very own USA in Sweden.
The agreement must be seen against the background of harsher international contradictions, above all between the major imperialist blocs – the Western European countries and the USA on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. It is commonly understood that sooner or later fiercer competition of this sort leads to war. Therefore, military rearmament in Sweden has also started in earnest and many billions of kronor are being thrown at the military. It is said to be simply a matter of being ready when the time comes.
It has also been determined that as a small but advanced capitalist society, with investments in large parts of the world, Sweden cannot defend itself in a critical situation and needs allies. That is, the ruling class needs friends to defend their investments. These friends can naturally be found primarily in the EU and the USA.
It is against this background that the DCA agreement and Swedish military rearmament must be seen. It is not about any foreign occupation, but a completely natural step for Swedish capital, which when confronted with external enemies will work with ‘friendly’ forces that have the greatest possible reach and power.
Chat Control 2.0
At the same time, European capital is also mobilising against its domestic populations. In mid-June, the Riksdag [Parliament] approved a proposal for extensive surveillance, called Chat Control 2.0, which will officially be used to prevent the spread of child pornography. To do this, the big tech monopolies must use AI to scan messages, images, videos and other types of communication on their respective platforms and hand over anything suspicious to the authorities. Whether paedophiles will be caught by this method is unclear: however, it is clear that the surveillance of people has taken on completely new dimensions, which of course is the idea behind the whole thing.
In connection with the introduction of the new surveillance law, which will be implemented throughout the EU, more or less all internet communication will be monitored. This not only means major intrusions into personal privacy, but also security risks for the ordinary people, whose fate will be left to the discretion of the state. It will also become much easier for the state to crack down on various kinds of radical organisation. It doesn’t take much cynicism to understand that this is the real purpose. In this way, you can also attack internal enemies, or at least keep a close eye on them.
International Contradictions
All of this must be considered against the background of intensifying international contradictions. When the big blocs are fighting each other, it is important to have a clear back - there can be no threats from the domestic population, which must instead be united around private capital's quest for domination masquerading as the common, patriotic goal.
It is clear that when Lenin wrote that the free competition of capitalism equaled democracy and monopoly capitalism equaled political reaction, he knew what he was talking about. Sharp competition between countries forces militarisation, surveillance and repression, which are deemed to be necessary in the struggle between capitals.
Since all these issues can be traced back to the class struggle, we cannot solve the issues in isolation either, but they must be tackled as part of a whole and must be incorporated into a larger strategy aimed at revolution and socialism. It is impossible to ultimately be against militarisation alone, but not against capitalism, because militarisation is necessary for capitalism, and it is impossible to be against mass surveillance alone, because it is also necessary for capitalism.
Therefore, communists do not try to solve these issues in isolation either but put them in context and we do what we can to show that it is capitalism that is the problem and that mass surveillance and militarisation are merely its current expressions. In other words, these questions must always be put into context. Only then do they become possible to understand, and then the solution is also clear!