Marx Engels Lenin Institute
patreon
Twilight of the Late Capitalist Lotharios
🕑 Added 2023-06-15 14:09:53 +0000 UTCWith Silvio Berlusconi dead and Boris Johnson politically dead (for now) I look at whether this is the end for the late capitalist lotharios.
If we examine the circumstances that led to the rise of Berlusconi and the demise of Boris Johnson we can see many similarities. This must also make us consider the case of Trump and why even men of the ruling class are falling foul of the very system that created them and which they sought to defend.
Outro Music is 'Last of the Famous International Playboys' by Morrissey.
Comments
Dean
Excellent contextualisation of Berlusconi's rise to power and the immediate contradiction this opens up. As you say, the Italian ruling class acted in haste to take on the working class, deluded that the fall and capitulation of the CP and trade unions would mean an immediate defeat of the working class. The memory of how to wage struggle and the accompanying class consciousness that it develops was still present among workers. Without the requisite leadership and party to direct these struggles opens up the fractures for Berlusconi to return and maintain sone degree of consensus among the ruling class to protect a fragile Italian capitalism and its willing surrender to more diktats from the EU and NATO.
