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Why does capitalism produce endless war-and why are workers the ones who die in it? In The Continuation of Class Struggle by Other Means, economist Alan Freeman argues that modern warfare is not an aberration or a failure of liberal ideals, but the highest form of capitalist competition: a struggle among imperial states for the right to exploit the labor of other nations. Drawing on history, political economy, and Marxist theory, Freeman dismantles the myth of "Pax Americana," shows why war has often been economically profitable for capitalist states, and explains how imperial super-profits shape the politics of the so-called Western Left. In a powerful second half, he turns to the decisive question of when-and why-workers choose to fight, tracing the revolutionary lessons of World War I, the Soviet experience, and anti-imperialist struggles across the global South. The result is a sharp, unsparing analysis of war as class struggle by other means, and a challenge to anyone seeking an anti-imperialist politics adequate to the crises of our time.
Alan Freeman is a former principal economist with the Greater London Authority and is now a research affiliate of the University of Manitoba. With Radhika Desai, he is co-director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group. He is also co-editor of the Future of World Capitalism book series with Pluto Books, and the Geopolitical Economy book series with Manchester University Press He is a committee member of the Association for Heterodox Economics (www.hetecon.net) and a vice-chair of the World Association for Political Economy. He is a board member of Video Pool Winnipeg and the Christopher Freeman Trust, and a former board member of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.