US global dominance is eroding, but what’s replacing it may not be much better. To varying degrees, the Chinese and Russian states are capitalist, authoritarian, and imperialist. Must the US left support one of these would-be competitors as an alternative to American imperialism?

For scholar Aziz Rana, the answer is no. Instead, he argues, we should take inspiration from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century internationalist left, which built transnational solidarity through labor unions, left-wing parties, and anti-colonial organizations. Only by rebuilding these institutions can we reconnect foreign policy decisions to the needs and interests of workers around the world, rather than the imperatives of business interests and the US national security state.

Cale Brooks recently interviewed Rana for Jacobin magazine’s YouTube channel. In their conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length, they discuss the disastrous effects of US empire, the assault on left institutions that organized across borders, and the liberatory promise of “an approach that combines antiauthoritarianism and anti-imperialism everywhere.”