Understanding War
We must understand war. We must untangle the myriad threads that bind it to politics. And it is necessary to lay bare the dense network of communicating vessels linking world politics – the struggle between the centres of imperialism for global markets, and the clash between the powers to divide them up – to the here-and-now conditions of wage earners and the future prospects of our class, in Europe and across the world. The European Union has war on its doorstep. In Ukraine, in the literal sense – the conflict is on the EU’s eastern borders. In the Persian Gulf, it is indirect – but only in appearance. This is a global shock. Foremost, of course, is the interruption of a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and liquefied natural gas. The impact is asymmetrical, harming Asia more than Europe, but the rise in energy costs for transport and production will send inflation soaring everywhere – by at least 4-6%, according to the IMF.
There is more. Overlooked – and certainly underestimated by the American illusion of a surgical strike that would lead to Tehran’s immediate capitulation – is the blow to fertiliser production and exports on the eve of the sowing season. The same applies to other gas derivatives and to products of oil refining within industrial supply chains. Consider Qatar, trapped by the Hormuz blockade and struck by Iranian missiles. Not only will it take time to repair its extraction and liquefaction plants, but Qatari gas underpins the world’s second-largest source of helium – indispensable for cooling magnets and superconductors, for MRI scanners in hospitals, for optical fibres, arc welding, flat-screen smartphones and televisions, and even for food preservation in modified atmospheres.
There is more still, and it runs even deeper. The war reveals the crisis in the world order, the Atlantic decline, and the irruption of Asia and China. In the coming decade, Beijing will possess a world-class military force. India, Brazil, and other powers will assert their growing weight, Europe will complete its rearmament, and it is unclear what will remain of the Atlantic Alliance. Nor is it clear how Washington will react to such radical transformations. The wars of the crisis in the world order are also convulsive reactions to American decline, unfolding in a chaotic and ferocious succession of events. So, to understand war, it is essential to understand the world. To understand the world, Marxist science is indispensable. And for Marxist science to be effective, it must become organisation and daily commitment.
The third Gulf War has brought a major paradox back into focus. Like all wars, it represents the triumph of nationalism, which, under the most varied ideological guises, defends the respective bourgeoisies – both the emerging bourgeoisies in expansion and the imperialist bourgeoisies in decline. At the same time, however, every war is tangible proof of the unity of the world, of a world market of goods, capital, and even people, particularly workers.
Of course, those directly involved pay dearly, even with their lives, for capitalism’s greatest contradiction. But an example of how war actually "unites" workers across the globe is provided by the global economic repercussions of the Gulf conflict: everywhere, fears of a resurgence in inflation are the order of the day. And here lies a reminder for trade unions too, especially in Italy.
The urgency of defending wages
Rather than dwelling on forecasts, it is better to be prepared. History teaches us that the wage loss accumulated during previous crises, from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, has not yet been fully made up. And we know why: contracts have excessively long durations (many lasting up to four years, an eternity in these times) and, moreover, are renewed long after they expire. Furthermore, an element that is only apparently technical must be considered: the benchmark for inflation used in contractual pay rises in Italy is the IPCA-NEI. This translates as the “Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices”, and also, crucially, “Net of Imported Energy Goods”, which means that price increases in imported energy are excluded from the calculations. Since it is precisely these that are the cause of inflation, it is clear where the real source of wage loss lies.
The question of wages must therefore once again be raised forcefully. It is a refrain now repeated by all trade union leaders, only to be distracted by the issues of parliamentarism, especially in the run-up to elections. Nor should we allow ourselves to be confined by the corporate logic of those who would like to link wages solely to productivity, with meagre results to boot. Andrea Garnero, an economist at the OECD, acknowledges this: “We have already gone down the road of productivity agreements, but it does not take us very far. They would end up applying only to pilot companies” [Corriere della Sera, April 7th].
It is precisely the war, with its objectively global dimension, that makes it clear that these problems affect all workers, and not just Italian ones.
A global workforce in the Gulf
The international nature of the war’s repercussions is also evident in the involvement of the tens of thousands of seafarers aboard ships that have long been stranded in the Gulf, who have paid the price of the war not only with the deprivation of food and essential goods but also with the loss of their lives.
These are workers from all over the world, particularly from Asian countries such as India, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The majority of the 24 million migrant workers in the Gulf countries also come from these countries, as well as from other Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Thailand. Among them too are those who have paid for the war with their lives under the bombardment. But all have had to face the difficulties of maintaining ties with their countries of origin, to which they send a substantial portion of their earnings and where these remittances are vital. Le Monde [March 16th] provides some figures: there are nearly nine million migrants from India, to which around $50 billion was remitted from the Gulf in 2024; nearly two million from Nepal, where remittances account for a quarter of GDP; over six million from Bangladesh across the Middle East; and over one million migrants from the Philippines, to which $5.3 billion in remittances flowed.
This is a section of the global wage-earning class: growing emigration is evidence of this global nature. Nor does it concern only less developed or emerging countries and the poorest social strata. Its global nature is also shown by the fact that it involves advanced countries and skilled workers.
The circulation of labour-power
The Economist [March 28th] devoted an article to the “expat economy”, focusing on workers from developed countries: “Politicians focus on how many people migrate to their country. Less noticed is that people are leaving in record numbers”. It cites data drawn from an analysis of 31 advanced countries and estimates that around four million people left them in 2024, 20% more than before the pandemic. Departures from Canada were 34% higher than in 2019, from New Zealand 29% higher, and from Sweden as much as 60% higher, while Italy records a “boom in emigration”.
This is worth highlighting in light of how the phenomenon is interpreted in Italy, where what is termed the “brain drain” is viewed almost as a national anomaly, with interpretations ranging from self-pitying to accusatory, as we wrote in February 2024.
At the time, ISTAT estimated more than one million “emigrants” in the decade 2012-2021, while the Fondazione Nord Est, in a specific study, estimated the figure at between double and triple that. These figures would be three times (ISTAT) or as much as seven times (Fondazione Nord Est) higher than the number of people coming to Italy from other developed countries. In reality, given that imbalances are inherent to any market phenomenon, it is not difficult to find an explanation in wage differentials, which drive those who can to seek better-paid work abroad. This applies to all levels of education, although an estimate by The Economist is worth noting: “People with at least an undergraduate degree are at least twice as likely to emigrate in their 20s as those without”. So, at least in Italy, rather than lament, what is needed is a determined fight for wages.
In its search for the reasons behind this outflow of labour-power, The Economist also points to “the unwinding of an immigration boom” of recent years; that is to say, immigrants who are moving on in search of a better opportunity than that offered in the country of arrival. The British weekly also factors in “Donald Trump’s mass deportations [which] may provoke up to one million to leave [the US] in 2026”. It adds: “For the first time in years, more American tech workers are moving to Europe than vice versa”.
Migrants of all kinds
The phenomenon therefore has a range of causes. But at its base lies the existence of a world market for labour-power, and the most decisive factor remains, once again, the economic one. This is also the view of Francesco Billari, demographer and rector of Bocconi University: “In a labour market where, especially for graduates, there is a real alternative to the domestic market, the effect is precisely that of graduates moving towards more attractive markets” [la Repubblica, January 17th].
The synthesis of all this is that it is capitalism itself that effectively turns all wage earners, at whatever level, into an international class, forced to pay the price for the manifold contradictions of this social system. That they should acquire an internationalist consciousness, however, is a task and an objective of the Leninist party.