Promising change but defending monopoly capitalism & US hegemony

Barack Obama became the first black American to be elected as the president of the United States on 4th November, 2008. He won 53% of the votes cast. Voter turnout was about 61%. An estimated four million more young people voted than in 2004. About 65% of people below 30 years of age voted for Obama.

These elections were held in the context of severe economic crisis in the country, credibility crisis of democracy and US leadership globally. The elections revealed the high degree of discontent among the working people and the youth.

The ‘primaries’ held by the Republican and Democratic parties to select their respective candidates showed the popular mood. They showed that the majority of people want a break with the past. They want an end to the Bush doctrine, an end to endless wars and military occupation abroad. They want an end to the illegitimate bail-outs of financial barons who have robbed them and driven the economy into deep crisis. They want an end to job cuts and loss of homes, loss of pension and unbearable debt servicing burden.

From an early stage in the electoral process, the US bourgeoisie recognized that it needed candidates who would be loyal to them and at the same time be capable of creating the popular perception that they stood for change. The theme of “change” became the central election slogan of both main rival parties and their candidates. The campaign turned into a contest to establish who was better suited to use the office of the President to defend the interest of the monopoly capitalists, without arousing suspicion amongst the people that this is the case.

Obama presented himself during the campaign as the defender of the common working people against the financial oligarchy. He said he stood with Main Street against Wall Street. However, he could not hide his class affiliation when the first real test came, in the form of the 700 billion dollar bail-out proposal to protect big monopoly banks and insurance companies. Obama accepted the logic that these giant financial corporations are “too big to fail”.

Obama presents himself as a strong critic of the war in Iraq. However, he is not against wars of aggression and military occupation of sovereign countries, in principle. He only wants to make some tactical changes, like reducing US troops in Iraq and increasing their presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the name of hunting down Islamic terrorists.

Obama cannot make a break with the warmongering course because the US imperialist bourgeoisie needs war in order to maintain its dominant global position. It needs to suppress any state that attempts to challenge the hegemony of the US dollar over world trade, and especially trade in oil.

Obama is promising a new basis for legitimacy. He says he wants to “restore a sense of purpose, a sense of confidence in the American people and in the international community, in America”. This reflects the fact that the US ruling class is getting increasingly discredited and isolated all over the world, as well as within it own country.

The Presidential elections in the US shows that even when a majority of people want a break with the past, they are not able to have their way through the political process of representative democracy, dominated by parties financed by monopoly capital.

Barack Obama, elected with the backing of massive funds from US corporations, will become the President on January 20, 2009. He will defend the ‘legal will’ of the US State as represented by the US constitution and the US laws. It is the same laws that President Bush defended dutifully. 

In sum, the election of Obama does not represent a change from the strategic aim of the US state for dominating the world. It does not call to question the ‘right’ of monopoly corporations to maximise their profits at the expense of the claims of the working people.

It remains to be seen how successful Obama will be in pacifying the American people and in satisfying the desire of the ruling bourgeois class. He will have to reckon with the objective contradictions that exist between the US and other powers, between imperialism and the peoples, and between capital and labour. He will have to reckon with the desire of the American people for a fundamental change, which is what drove many of them to vote for him.