The global financial system is unravelling at great speed. This is happening in the midst of a multiplicity of crises in relation to food, climate and energy. It severely weakens the power of the US and the EU, and the global institutions they dominate, particularly the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. Not only is the legitimacy of the neo-liberal paradigm in question, but the very future of capitalism itself.

Neither the colossal state interventionism seen over the last few weeks to rescue institutions dismembered and drained dry by speculation, nor massive public indebtedness are plausible ways to get out of the crisis. The existing dynamic encourages new rounds of capital concentration and, if the peoples do not firmly oppose this, it is becoming perilously likely that restructuring will occur simply to save privileged sectors. This could mean there is a danger of capitalism returning to an authoritarian way of functioning, since in the North an increase in discrimination and racism towards immigrants from countries in the South has already been noted – which is something extremely regressive.