Against the Stream

Trump is in Beijing. He thinks he has gone to negotiate from a position of strength, but in reality, he is negotiating from a position of weakness. That is the story of American imperialism in 2026.
In this week's episode of Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín give a Marxist analysis of what the Iran War has done to American power, what it means for China, and what it reveals about the deeper historical decline of US imperialism.
The episode covers a lot of ground. Analysing two extraordinary pieces from the American press – one by a MAGA theoretician in the New York Times, one by neocon hawk Robert Kagan in the Atlantic – it is clear that even parts of the American ruling class are now writing obituaries for American hegemony.
A CIA intelligence assessment confirms that Iran retains 70 percent of its pre-war missile stockpiles and 80 percent of its mobile launchers. Operation Freedom, the US attempt to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, lasted just 36 hours. American weapons stocks will take three to five years to replace. And Trump has, for the first time in US history, agreed to discuss arms deliveries to Taiwan with China.
Meanwhile, China has 1.2 billion barrels of oil in reserve and hasn't touched them. It controls 90 percent of global rare earth refining. It produces over 3.5 million STEM graduates a year – compared to 820,000 in the US. And it is now the go-to power for everyone from the Philippines to Venezuela who needs an alternative to Washington.
The episode also asks the deeper question: how did we get here? Is China just better run, or is something more fundamental going on? And is the decline of American imperialism actually a good thing for the working class of the world?
New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 Recommended reading
Opinion | America Is Officially an Empire in Decline - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/iran-us-empire.html
Checkmate in Iran - The Atlantic
www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/
Ted Grant - Will There Be A Slump?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1960/slump.htm

Europe was the birthplace of capitalism. Now it's in freefall.In this week’s Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín dive into the deepening crisis gripping the continent. Germany is launching a trillion-euro rearmament drive while simultaneously slashing 38 billion euros from pensions and healthcare. France can't pass a budget. The AfD is overtaking the CDU in the polls. And across Europe, the old political centre is collapsing.In reality, European rearmament has nothing to do with defending ordinary people. It's about defending imperialist interests, maintaining spheres of influence, and keeping up with a rising Russia that has won a proxy war against the whole of NATO in Ukraine.Then there's the economy. Energy prices have doubled or tripled since the war in Ukraine began. German industrial output in chemicals, steel and glass is nosediving. Europe is buying expensive American LNG while its industry bleeds out. And China is flooding world markets with cheap goods that European companies simply cannot compete with.The response from the European ruling classes all led to a dead end. While they might pay lip-service to EU integration, this is impossible under capitalism, as Lenin explained in 1915. The only real way out is the Socialist United States of Europe.New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

Is AI a revolutionary leap forward for humanity – or the latest crisis capitalism has engineered for itself? In this episode of Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston cut through the hype to give a Marxist analysis of the AI bubble, its roots in capitalist crisis, and what it means for the working class.

From the S&P 500's absurd tech valuations to OpenAI's pyramid-scheme economics, they expose how artificial intelligence – far from rescuing the global economy – is accelerating the same contradictions Marx diagnosed 150 years ago. The episode covers the AI stock bubble, the threat of mass unemployment, the de-skilling of the middle class, the collapse of European industry, the global debt crisis, and why the Luddites were right to be angry but wrong in their methods.

Most importantly the episode discussed why this technology could liberate humanity entirely – but only if it's taken out of the hands of the capitalists who own it.

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

0:00 — Intro
1:34 — AI bubble
15:37 — World economy on the brink
16:32 — Unemployment
36:03 — Alienation
44:59 — The Luddites
50:35 — The potential under communism

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International:
https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter:
https://x.com/revcomintern/

After a four-week break, Against the Stream is back!

Since our last episode, the world has been plunged deeper into crisis. With no end in sight for the Iran War, with energy prices and inflation rising, the global economy is teetering ever more precariously on the brink of a historic slump.

With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Donald Trump – who believed Iran could be crushed by the naked force of American imperialism – has blundered. The humiliating defeat of the US and Israel in the region is pulling the rug out from under his feet. His approval ratings are now lower than ever.

At the same time, a sense of rage against the system is brewing in the US. Iranian propaganda videos are effectively tapping into the growing anti-war mood. In America, footage of a worker burning down their boss's warehouse has gone viral.

This war has brought about nothing less than a sea change in the global situation. Trump now appears like a man stuck in quicksand: unable to act without worsening his position. He is fanning the flames of the decline of US imperialism. The moment for fighting back could not be more opportune.

Tune in to this week’s episode, where Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín discuss the world-historic events we are living through today and offer the way forward for the world working class.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

Iran War deals devastating collateral damage to Bangladesh
https://marxist.com/iran-war-deals-devastating-collateral-damage-to-bangladesh.htm

Trump’s defeat in Iran and its worldwide consequences
https://marxist.com/trump-s-defeat-in-iran-and-its-worldwide-consequences.htm

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Recap on Iran War
09:25 – What are America's options?
24:20 – Impact of US strategic defeat
30:19 – Looming economic crisis and food scarcity
38:55 – Brewing class anger
56:45 – How we can fight imperialism

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International:
https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter:
https://x.com/revcomintern/

All the warning lights are flashing. With the US and Israel relentlessly bombing Iran for nearly a month and the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed, the economic consequences of the Iran war are spelling serious trouble for economies worldwide. Stagflation, factory shutdowns, falling crop yields, and rising interest rates are no longer hypotheticals – they are unfolding in real time, and growing more severe by the day.

Who will be hardest hit by the fallout from this US-Israeli aggression? As with any imperialist war, it is the working class who are made to pay the price. An estimated 45 million people are already projected to fall into severe poverty, pushing the figures to record highs.

In the advanced capitalist economies, any gains made by ordinary people since the end of the pandemic are being wiped out in an instant. Serious bourgeois economists and commentators are growing anxious – not because their own fortunes are at stake, but because of the revolutionary implications of a new global slump.

In this week's episode of Against the Stream, Hamid and Jorge examine the enormous economic fallout of the Iran war, and take on a viewer's question about whether socialism can be achieved through parliament.

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

International Debt Report 2025: When relief isn’t enough — LMICs face their largest external debt outflows in 50 years | World Bank
🔗https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/international-debt-report-2025--when-relief-isn-t-enough---lmics

Why the Middle East conflict threatens record levels of hunger | World Food Programme
🔗https://www.wfp.org/stories/why-middle-east-conflict-threatens-record-levels-hunger

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:00 – Intro
01:10 – Developments in the war
18:05 – Impact on world economy
33:15 – The impending food catastrophe
43:54 – The crisis of debt
53:57 – Poor countries are hit hardest
01:01:52 – Q: Revolution through parliament?

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/