He is clearly helping retain the absolute monarchy in power.
Bowser is not a freedom fighter either, he is comprador. But like all compradors, he doesn’t know it. He thinks once the USA lets him have power, he will be rich. In truth he is a Batista, only allowed in power if he succeeds and deposed as soon as he stops being useful.
How do you think he’s recruiting all the goombas and koopas for his army? And their weapons? Not to mention the logistics of maintaining and deploying such an army. Of course he has an international backer.
If Mario was a communist, he would let the bourgeoisie fight while building dual power with the many minorities of the mushroom kingdom’s past imperialist conquests.
To also settle this question, toads are NOT class-conscious workers. They are the elite, loyal guards of the monarchy (see the Sunshine leaks for example: Toads formed the Princess’ escort during her vacation to US-aligned Delfino island). They are a fiercely loyal, fascist guard meant to quell any worker uprising. Is it any surprise that this guard is all picked from the same ethnic group? Much like Banderites and Azovites in Ukraine, they have a few pogroms under their belt and terrorise civilians of the Mushroom Kingdom. Hopefully the opening up of the kingdom’s archives after a socialist revolution will shed some light on events that still have no conclusive answers.
In this struggle, you might think the monarchy is the progressive force compared to whatever the comprador Bowser will enact with help from the great Satan. It is true in a way, but this would ignore that the US is actually funding BOTH Bowser AND the Monarchy!
Much like Afghanistan or Cuba in their time, the US through the CIA and NED is funding everyone and their mother and will formalise relations with whichever group comes out on top.
The Mushroom Kingdom is not being funded, you say? Then how do they rebuild so fast after Bowser shells the country and the royal capital? The mushroom kingdom has no natural resources and their economy is predicated on tourism – what little there is. There is no conceivable way they should be as wealthy as they are.
Where do you think Bowser gets his bombs and weapons? In this way the USA is double-dipping: first it sells weapons to Bowser, then it sells loans to the monarchy to rebuild the damage those bombs caused. This is a Syrian scenario and is nothing out of the ordinary for Amerika.
In this analysis, Mario might be the synthetic left, appropriating common communist symbols (such as the color red) to prevent class-consciousness from forming and redirecting any revolutionary urge into the “left-wing” of the monarchy. He might as well be funded by the CIA for all we know.
I mean, Mario does after all spend all his time hoarding gold coins and abusing wildlife, pretty clear bourgeoisie behavior.
Mario is clearly a mercenary. Whether he is funded by the CIA or is an actual employee is still a question though.
First of all, he is Italian and clearly not native to the Mushroom Kingdom. Was he picked up by the CIA during the Years of Lead? Possibly. We know very little of his life prior his arrival in the Mushroom Kingdom, but the timeline matches up. The years of lead came to an end in the early 80s, and the first reports of Mario in the kingdom date to 1985. What was he doing between the two? Leaving his assignment in Italy coordinating fascist attacks and setting up his next assignment in the Mushroom kingdom.
We know that he is sometimes sent alone on long missions in sovereign countries, as well as protecting the Princess against Bowser. We also know that he plunders and loots the countryside stealing not only money from the populace, but food as well. Yet no other soldier of the kingdom, including Toads, have ever been accused or witnessed doing the same. From this we can gather Mario is being paid by the Mushroom Kingdom to act as their enforcer, their sort of seal team 6, and they turn a blind eye to his war crimes.
what are the “years of Lead”
After Ww2 the USA started funding fascists in Italy to use against communists, know under the umbrella term Operation Gladio. The years of lead were a period between 1960 and 1980 where these paramilitaries were most active and conducted kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and other crimes.
The most mind boggling part is if you listen to Wikipedia or popular culture, the communists were just as dangerous and most of the attacks were their fault, but that is not true at all. I think anbol probably has more info but essentially all attacks in the years of lead were later found to have been committed by fascist groups.