Originally published in Lunapark21, issue 64 (Spring 2025) – translated from German (“Proletarier aller Länder, vereinzelt euch?”)

In the summer of 2016, a piece under the above title was published in the newspaper FaktenCheck Europa, where I explored the role of migration as a trigger for nationalist mobilization around Brexit. A few months later, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency—following a similar script to that of the Brexiteers. By now, hardly anyone denies that Brexit has failed to deliver on any of the promises made by the „Take back control“ campaign. And yet, the right-wing mobilization left a lasting impact. By the time the inevitable damages set in, they could no longer be easily undone.

„Compete for the last job! Join your employer in the battle for market share! Realize that you’re too expensive!“ Donald Trump’s speech before both houses of the U.S. Congress on March 4, 2025, didn’t include these exact words, but it certainly conveyed their meaning. From Elon Musk’s attacks on social benefits and public service workers to the tariff hikes, from claims on foreign territory to the blatant extortion of Ukraine, the U.S. president proudly listed all he has achieved and still aims to achieve.

Reshuffling the World

Commentators are fond of calling Donald Trump a narcissist. But that doesn’t mean he’s the only one who thinks he’s great. His program has a societal base: corporate leaders eager to secure their place in the redivision of global spheres of influence. They rearrange their capital assets and aim to restructure the world with the help of politics. Some observers have even described the process as a “defragmentation” of the global economy.

Users of older Windows computers may still recall the term. The operating system had a tendency to scatter fragments of edited files across the hard drive. Again and again users had to run a defragmentation tool if they didn’t want to wait too long for applications to load. The world economy, after decades of globalization, now shows a high degree of fragmentation. The production of everyday goods is distributed across hundreds of producers in dozens of countries—depending on the most profitable conditions. Across the globe, people cooperate under corporate command, in the name of higher profits. But rising geopolitical uncertainty has cast doubt on this division of labor. A more direct control is the new objective: control over production, over supply chains, over people. Trump’s deportation schemes and tighter border regimes are designed to ensure no one escapes their assigned place in the global hierarchy of inequality.

Some don’t want to escape their assigned places—because some of those places are rather comfortable. And they are fiercely defended. Back in the 2008 financial crisis, the buzzword for key players was “systemic relevance”—“too big to fail.” These days, banks are no longer the stars of the business pages. Even well-informed observers have to look up the name of the U.S. Treasury Secretary—Scott Bessent, billionaire, long-time manager for George Soros. But Trump’s supporters are no longer just IT billionaires. They now include Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank. He recently declared an end to his business quarrels with Elon Musk, calling Trump’s tariff hikes no real problem—if only the rest of the world would finally accept them. Yet even Dimon sees cause for concern in rising inflation and global tensions. He has already issued a pre-emptive warning to his shareholders. As for Wall Street’s own role in creating these risks—such as backing a president both pro-capital and authoritarian—he had nothing to say.

Not that the shareholders needed warning. Since April 2024, the markets had welcomed the prospect of a second Trump presidency with rising stock prices—the mere promise of continued tax giveaways to the wealthy was reason enough. But since early December, both the Dow Jones and the broader S&P 500 have been treading water. Trump may disregard the republican institutions of the United States—but he cannot ignore the mood of the capital markets.

The U.S. president has admirers across American society—as long as he is successful. And internationally he is not alone in his ambitions. Like Pope Alexander VI in 1493, Trump and Putin would love to divide the world between them as great men of history. Can they do it? Of course not. They lack the political, economic, and even military power to do so. But that doesn’t mean the current governments of the U.S. and Russia are incapable of inflicting massive suffering. Their power may not be enough to achieve their goals, but it’s more than enough for large-scale destruction. The hope—not only in Washington—is that other states will cave in to cheap blackmail.

Successes and Failures

In fact, even the apparent successes of this policy carry the seeds of its failure. Whatever goals the U.S. government hoped to achieve with its pressure on Ukraine, or with punitive tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China—Donald Trump has, at the very least, succeeded in one long-term goal: European NATO states are rearming. The British Prime Minister is coordinating weapons deliveries to Ukraine. The European Commission is looking to lift the Maastricht restrictions to facilitate national defense plans, mobilizing around 650 billion euros. Additionally, the Commission plans a coordinated procurement program worth 150 billion euros. In Germany, the conservative CDU and the Social Democrats have have joined forces to exempt massive military spending from constitutional debt brake. Trump has won. Yet the rearmament of Europe’s NATO members today is not a contribution to the transatlantic alliance—it is a signal of profound distrust toward the former leader of the free world.

These are the conflicts fought between competing elites. Are there any others? Although majorities in most countries are clearly opposed to war, it has no effect. Wars are started by those in power. And as long as the powerful are not stopped from ruling, wars will end—if at all—on their terms. How could wars be prevented by populations who have been losing the struggle for a modest livelihood for decades, disorganized and without a shared vision of a more hopeful future?

Today’s international politics are built on the defeats of the labor movements in the industrial countries of East and West—and the defeats of anti-colonial liberation movements in the Global South. Organizations attempting to independently articulate the interests of the working classes in their own countries rarely gain national, let alone international significance. As a result, the class struggle has vanished from the global political stage. It will not return through nostalgia for the good old days and their colorfully painted enemy stereotypes. It will return through the fight for peace, here and abroad, for health and clean water, for decent housing and smart textbooks, for free work and free time.