The idea of economic globalization does not come from the integration of humanitarian aspirations, as it may seem or be declared. Modern "globalization" is a purely capitalist initiative and the cause of globalization is a very simple and inexorable trend embedded in the very mechanistic essence of the market and market relations. The bottom line is that any market niche (a vacuum of need and a space of opportunities for activity, competition) is filled sooner or later, market mechanisms in this segment simply stop working, and the benefit (the difference between supply and demand) tends to zero. At this stage, you either reduce the cost of production by any legal means (which, in particular, became the reason for the withdrawal of American production abroad), or from a capitalist-entrepreneur you pass into the format of a socialist-economic manager, and simply produce a product for its production, selling at cost with the minimum margin required to cover operating costs. The price / quality ratio is leveled across the entire plane of the market, the consumer is offered the same product, perhaps under different names, but even this difference is superfluous, a relic.
The scheme is simple and understandable to the point of primitiveness. Anarchist capitalism flourished and smelt exactly until the moment when all the main market niches were worked out like gold veins, only one soil remained. Initially, he did not expect that there was a market-wide limit of need, he thought that key factors markets are eternal, that population growth, providing a quantitative expansion of demand + technical progress, providing a qualitative change in demand - the perpetual motion machine of capitalism. It turned out that this is not the case:
Population growth rates are inversely proportional to the quality of life, only undeveloped social groups breed and reproduce well, and civilization brings a qualitative emphasis to replace the quantitative one. The effect of novelty of innovations is compensated by the growth of efficiency and economy of production. As a result, sooner or later the question arises either about the complete socialization of capitalism, which is difficult both psycho-mentally and in fact, how impossible it is to turn a pack of wolves into a herd of sheep; or the market must expand artificially.
The artificial internal expansion of the market gave rise to trading in the future and the virtualization of capital - futures, mortgage credit lending, speculation, algorithmic trading, etc. Money ceased to be an equivalent and became valuable in itself, which automatically began to destroy the real sector of the economy.
Artificial external expansion gave rise to the concept of globalization, the real cause of which is not evolution and common sense, and mass starvation sharks of capitalism. The unconscious goal of globalization (in its current motivation and form) is to reach the limit of market saturation on a global scale and finally die from overproduction. This is the ultimate scale. In theory, the entire planet should become a capitalist supranational Trade Empire.
The rise of nationalism today is due to the inevitable backlash, the instinct for self-preservation and resistance on the ground. In fact, modern man(Western, mostly) today faces a choice:
Either he abandons local states in favor of a global economy, the benefits of which are very doubtful, since capitalism never pursues social goals, these sheepish goals (in theory) are achieved as a result of wolf activity, but only if the "market mechanisms" work, and they no longer work, shepherds eat sheep.
Either he abandons capitalism in favor of socialism, or at least some hybrid adapted version of economic management, but in any case it will be the demolition of the entire paradigm of thinking, motivation, psychology, social traditions, bourgeois age-old foundations, bourgeois culture and politics. Is there any doubt that a person is not strong in the methods of changing his own worldview, he will bend his line stubbornly and to the limit of objective possibilities.
The world crisis expresses only this breakdown of consciousness, against the background of sporadic and losing strength attempts by world capital to form a global market with some kind of agreements, bribery, threats. Naturally, the founded mass of humanity is against this, it is by its nature social, not anarchic, it does not at all burn with the desire to feed the sharks, but the latter have nowhere to go, behind is only the dump of history.
In addition to globalization, there is, of course, another mechanism for solving the problem of overproduction - liquidity, depreciation, aging, entropy. But the liquidity of anything, on a massive scale and in the shortest possible time, is provided only by war.
Hence we have what we have.
Experts predict a global crisis and the collapse of world capitalism
"Where the eye of people breaks off stubby ..."
Alexander Mechanic
Does capitalism have a future?
I. Wallerstein, R. Collins, M. Mann, G. Derlugian, C. Calhoun
Digest of articles. - M.: Publishing House of the Gaidar Institute, 2015. - 320 p. Circulation 1500 copies.
Five leading world sociologists predict difficult times for capitalism, which may end in its global crisis and collapse
A little less than a century and a half ago, Karl Marx, in the first volume of Capital, summing up his discussion of the history and future of capitalism, made one of his most famous predictions about its impending doom: her. The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist shell. She explodes. The hour of capitalist private property strikes. The expropriators are expropriated.”
One hundred and fifty years have passed, and discussions about the future of capitalism continue with varying degrees of intensity, acquiring new colors with each new crisis. Although after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it began to seem to most of humanity that capitalism had won completely and finally, in last years it is experiencing serious economic and social upheavals and is acquiring new, threatening features. In the West, the size and well-being of the middle class is declining, unemployment is rising ominously, and the welfare state, which was regarded as the main achievement of post-war capitalism, is fading into the past. The market invades the spheres public life, which were considered in the welfare state the main public asset available to all members of society, regardless of income: in education, health care, culture. In the East, the exploitation of the workers has taken on the characteristics of a cruel XIX century when Marx was making his revolutionary prophecies. As a result, discussions about the future of capitalism resumed with renewed vigor. Although there are supporters of the point of view that Marx's prediction was not scientific, but ideological, and each crisis only strengthens capitalism, renewing it, as a result of which it acquired features that fundamentally distinguish it from the capitalism described by Marx. And new crisis will be overcome. But there are those who believe that the situation has fundamentally worsened, and we are expecting further aggravation of the economic and social situation throughout the world, the result of which will be a major crisis, and with it the collapse of capitalism will come.
In the book in question, five of the world's leading historical sociologists have come together to debate the question of whether capitalism has a future. Immanuel Wallerstein and Randall Collins (who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union back in the 1970s) substantiate the second point of view; Michael Mann and Craig Calhoun - the first. And Georgy Derlugyan, using the example of the USSR, analyzes the reasons for the collapse of the first attempt to create an alternative to capitalism. But they all agree that the whole world is waiting for hard times of the general crisis of capitalism: “We all agree in one way or another that today the world is accumulating reasons for a structural crisis, i.e., insoluble within the standard political and investment decisions our days."
Explaining the reasons for their appeal to this topic, the authors in the collective preface, in particular, note that they are afraid “not so much of the future - it may turn out to be different depending on our collective actions. What worries us more is that in the more than two decades that have passed since the end of the Cold War, it has become unfashionable and even embarrassing to discuss plans for a possible future world, and even more so the prospects for capitalism.
One of the reasons for the onset of the general crisis of capitalism, according to Wallerstein, is that back in the 70s of the last century, the limits of its growth were outlined. Since then, capitalism has overcome its constant crises, not by solving problems, but by shifting them onto the shoulders of future generations, who will have to admit that capitalism has become unprofitable even for the capitalists themselves. And the main threat to capitalism is the growing number of "unnecessary" people. “The main concern of all states in the world has become an urgent need to prevent a revolt of unemployed workers, who are joined by the middle class, whose savings and pensions are dwindling before our eyes.” There is no way to restore the effectiveness of capitalism, according to Wallerstein. He ends his article quite in the spirit of Lenin's famous phrase about the tops and the bottoms: "Modern world system... cannot continue because it ... does not allow capitalism (rather its upper classes. - "Expert") accumulate profits indefinitely. Likewise, the lower classes no longer believe that history is on their side and that their heirs will inherit the world.”
As a continuation of Wallerstein's thought about the fate of the lower classes, the title of Collins's article sounds: “The middle class without work. The exits are closed." Her main idea is that the processes of technological replacement, which previously concerned only the working class, have now spread to the middle class, making it more and more vulnerable to the crises inherent in capitalism, unemployment, possible disability, and old age. And education, by the presence of which the middle class has always distinguished itself from the working class, is experiencing, due to its increasing distribution and the natural decrease in its level under these conditions, the inflation of diplomas. “When the working class was reduced by automation, capitalism saved itself by moving the liberated masses into the ranks of the middle class. Now computerization… is starting to shrink the middle class.” As a result, the vast majority of the population, at least in developed countries ah, it turns out to be thrown out not only from work, but also from life. That is why, according to Collins, the process of technological replacement of labor will eventually give rise to a long-term and, quite possibly, final crisis of capitalism and its collapse. And this will come not in the unknown “far away”, but in the foreseeable future, when the number of people who have lost their jobs due to technological replacement processes will exceed 50% of the working population, that is, according to Collins, by 2040.
However, the consequences of the crisis will depend not so much on the impoverishment of the masses as on the mood of the top. It is the split in the ruling elites (which most likely becomes inevitable due to the budget crisis that accompanies any economic crisis) that paralyzes the state and opens up opportunities for politicians pursuing radical, revolutionary goals. What, in fact, shows us the history of all revolutions. Suffice it to recall the budget crisis in France at the end of the 18th century, when the deficit of the royal treasury in 1783 was more than 20% and continued to increase, which required higher taxes, the convocation of the Estates General and further along the chain. Similar processes took place in Russia*. Before the revolution of 1917, the country's external debt increased from 8.8 billion rubles in 1914 to 10.5 billion in 1915, and by January 1917 it had totaled 33.6 billion rubles. Inflation reached 13,000%. The peasants refused to sell food, and at the end of 1916 the state was forced to introduce a surplus appraisal. This was followed by the collapse of the monarchy and October 1917.
So, according to Collins, revolution is inevitable. The only question is what will it lead to: a fascist dictatorship or a democratic non-capitalist system? Although Collins tries to avoid the word “socialism” (apparently so as not to create unwanted reminiscences about the bad Soviet experience), he nonetheless concludes that “the coming centuries will see fluctuations between two types of political and economic systems, from capitalism to socialism and, perhaps, back to capitalism.
But to make it clear what awaits us if capitalism is replaced by socialism, it is necessary to consider what that Soviet communism was, why it collapsed right before our eyes, and whether it can again become an alternative. Actually, Georgy Derlugyan asks these questions in the article “What Communism Was”. To answer them, the author first turns to the characterization of what he calls the “Russian geopolitical platform”, which underlies most of the historical turns of our country, for which he undertakes a short but very capacious historical review. And it shows that the revolution of 1917 was the logical conclusion of the existence of the empire, the whole history of which is permeated with a constantly repeated revolt of the lower classes. "Rebellious moods (in the last centuries of the empire. - "Expert") peasants, industrial workers and intelligentsia, and finally, non-Russian nationalities ... were direct consequences of the absolutist modernization of Russia, which began under Peter and lasted two centuries. It was also logical that it was in Russia that the Bolsheviks seized and retained power, who, relying on the same authoritarian methods, "managed to combine the most orthodox faith in their historical destiny with amazing political opportunism in choosing the means to achieve their enormous goals." The Bolsheviks managed to carry out a grandiose modernization of the country in record time and, without interrupting the modernization process, won a war that was monstrous in scale and victims. But all this was given at the cost of terrible sacrifices and human strain. The Bolsheviks literally brought to life the words of Mayakovsky: “Let’s raise the building party into the sky, holding and uplifting each other” (maybe we just need to replace one word in this line: “smashing and uplifting each other”).
The successes of the Soviet Union were indisputable and for a long time were not only recognized, including by a hostile environment, but also served as an example to follow. Therefore, a natural question arises: why did everything end so ingloriously? Of course, primarily because of the internal contradictions that have accumulated in the USSR over many years and especially manifested themselves in the last two decades of its existence. The ruling nomenklatura tried not to resolve them, but rather to cover them up by bribing a significant part of the population at the expense of petrodollars, which was also tired of the previous years of unprecedented tension. “General comfortable irresponsibility, the loss of ideological guidelines, coupled with the blockage of social mobility ... made up the essence of the Brezhnev stagnation.” But change was inevitable. The result was the coming to power of Gorbachev, whose reforms were "raw, poorly thought out, unsaid improvisation." Which was not so much the fault of the general secretary, but rather his misfortune and the misfortune of the entire nomenklatura, which was poorly aware of itself and did not know its country well (which the same Yuri Andropov admitted) - including because of the ban, or at least , discussion restrictions real problems throughout much of pre-Soviet history. Under these conditions, the consistent accumulation of even minor mistakes by the country's leadership can be fatal for it. What happened.
And the loss of state integrity as a result of inept and contradictory reform policies and the collapse of the law and order system made it impossible to meaningfully economic policy. The collapse became inevitable, especially since Soviet elite, demonstrating extreme political myopia, failed to maintain unity in the face of threats that were becoming inevitable both for herself and for the entire USSR. In this, it differed from the Chinese elite, which not only retained unity, but also chose a very rational strategy of reform, following the example of Japan and South Korea transferring the country to the rails of an authoritarian, "developmentalist" state, without destroying either the scheme of governing the country through the Communist Party, or the ideology that it adapted to new tasks. Thus, a comparison of the experience of the USSR and China shows that it is precisely the oligarchic elites, institutionally scattered, blinded by ideological prejudices and suppressing alternative discussions, that can seriously harm not only themselves, but all of us at a time of crisis.
However, China's successes do not cancel the general crisis of capitalism. The PRC and its success have themselves become a problem that is destroying the economies of developed countries. Nevertheless, Derlugyan believes, “the global crisis will unfold mainly in the sphere of the world economy, and not in the sphere of geopolitics. At the center of political battles will be issues of public control over private economic corporations,” and these disputes should begin now. It is a broad, open and responsible public discussion about the future that will make it possible to prepare for overcoming current and future problems, to avoid cataclysms like the revolutions of the past and their authoritarian consequences. Thus, the answer to the question of how humanity will get out of the general crisis of capitalism - through revolutions and wars or radical reforms, according to Derlugyan, is in the hands of humanity itself.
In fact, the same point of view is shared by Michael Mann, who ends his article “The end may be close, but for whom?” words: "Humanity is free to choose between good and bad scenarios ... This is why it is impossible to predict the future of capitalism or the world." This does not change the fact that modern capitalism is in deep crisis, but crises themselves do not speak of the future collapse of capitalism. And this is evidenced by the experience of two great crises-depressions of the late 1920s and early 2000s, which capitalism nevertheless managed to overcome. However, referring specifically to this experience, Mann considers it necessary to note that if, during the last recession, “an even greater number of countries apply neoliberal austerity measures ... then another Great Depression will follow, which is likely to be more global and systemic"**. Nevertheless, Mann's overall forecast is significantly more optimistic than Wallerstein's and Collins' conclusions. In his opinion, “as a result (of his development. - "Expert") a reformed capitalism with greater equality and social citizenship rights for all will be established on a global scale.” It will be "not the end of capitalism, but the emergence of a new, better capitalism ...", during which the world's economy will become more homogeneous, it will no longer have such centers of dominance as the United States in the modern world.
Craig Calhoun, whose article ends the collection, not by chance called it "What threatens capitalism today?". Without foreseeing the imminent collapse of capitalism, he explores the main threats that may nevertheless lead to its collapse if humanity does not address them. There are three of them.
First, the imbalance of finance in relation to other economic sectors. Capitalism, according to Calhoun, indeed constantly creates problems for itself, for human society and nature, and the "financialization of capitalism", as Calhoun calls it, that is, the predominance of financial interests over the interests of the real sectors of the economy, drives it into a dead loop of accumulation of gigantic debts and irresponsible financial speculation.
Secondly, the growth of the social and environmental costs of capitalism, which Calhoun, following other authors of the collection, considers a consequence of the neoliberal policies of the ruling elites of capitalism, which contributed to the weakening of the ability of states to deal with these costs, turning states into “institutional idiots,” as another wrote about it. well-known Western political scientist Colin Crouch.
Third, external threats such as potential wars and climate change.
Summing up his reflections, Calhoun writes: “Capitalism cannot flourish unless institutions are reformed, employment is restored, and environmental, health and other issues are somehow resolved ... The question is whether these changes will be enough to to cope with systemic risks and external threats?”
The book ends with a joint conclusion by all its authors, which analyzes the origin of today's reality, in which the right-wing neoliberals began to play a key ideological role, who managed to overcome the legacy of the post-war victory of the left, including in their new incarnation in 1968, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union imposed a new utopia of "ideal capitalism", in which not people, but financial flows began to play a key role. But “the plans of the world neo-liberal empire stumbled over the structural realities of the world system… The accumulated astronomical sums in abstract-nominal monetary units cannot find a productive use and thereby reveal their fictitiousness. The crisis became inevitable, and with it doubts about the future of capitalism, at least in its current form.
But the authors are far from catastrophic pessimism. The main thought of the conclusion is this: "The great crisis and transformation, whatever their scenario, does not imply that the world has come to an end." The end of capitalism does not threaten the existence of mankind. Moreover, "the end of capitalism inspires a certain hope" either for its transformation into new, humane forms, or for the transition to a renewed, democratic socialism.
* In the poem "A Cloud in Trousers", written in 1915, Vladimir Mayakovsky predicts: "Where the eyes of people are cut short, / by the head of the hungry hordes, / in the crown of thorns of revolutions / the sixteenth year is coming."
**Note that neoliberalism and the politicians who preach it, primarily the American Republicans, are the object of general hostility of all the authors of this book.
Immanuel Wallerstein- American sociologist, professor at Yale University, ex-president of the International Sociological Association, one of the founders of world-systems analysis. See publications in "Expert": "Lenin and Leninism today and the day after tomorrow" No. 1 for 2010; "The Story of a Fall", No. 1, 2011; Dynamics of the Global Crisis: Thirty Years Later, No. 35, 2009.
Randall Collins- American sociologist, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, former president of the American Sociological Association. The largest historical macro-sociologist and specialist in the field of the theory of revolutions and state collapses.
Michael Mann- British sociologist, emeritus professor at the University of California (Los Angeles). The largest specialist in the field of power theory. Publications in "Expert": "Some costs of democracy", No. 30 for 2008.
Georgy Derlugyan- American sociologist of Russian origin, professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi. The main research topics of recent years are: reinterpretation of the trajectory of the USSR in the perspective of world-system analysis, post-Soviet wars in the Caucasus, global capitalist transformation of our days. Publications in Expert: Purely Imperialist Suicide, Nos. 31–33, 2014; “Sudden, but sometimes predictable”, No. 28, 2013; “The Story of a Fall” (co-authored with I. Wallerstein), No. 1, 2012; “Ideological evolution of a century of extremes”, No. 1, 2011; "Modern and modernizers" No. 1 for 2010; “Was Pinochet needed?”, No. 1, 2010.
Craig Calhoun- American sociologist and public figure, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, president of the Social Science Research Council. One of the largest experts in the field of the theory of nationalism.
Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin - President of JSC Russian Railways, President of the World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations", Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle Foundation and the Center of National Glory
Two Essences of Globalization
Let us first recall the ordinary meaning of the word "globalization". It comes from the Latin word globus (ball, globe). Globalization is a process that has been going on since the early stages of the development of civilizations. Exchange of cultural products (skills and technical means, plants and animals) created mankind.
It is believed that Karl Marx was the first to introduce the word "globalization" into literature. Starting from the universalism of the Enlightenment, Marx developed the utopia of the emergence of a global system of capitalism under the auspices of the West, and then, through the proletarian revolution - also under the auspices of the West - the transformation of humanity into a single global civil society without a state (communism). This utopia did not take place, the Russian revolution took the path of building socialism in a single country, despite the opposition of orthodox Marxists.
The process of globalization, as a type of process that affects all of humanity and creates a single communication space, originated long before the formation of modern Western civilization. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the first wave of globalization in history was the Neolithic revolution. Having arisen once in a certain local ethnic focus, the productive type of management (agriculture and cattle breeding) spread throughout the world with amazing speed. According to the globalization type, there was also a transition from the Stone Age to the age of copper and iron.
Modern globalization waves have determined the planetary spread of new technological structures, new models of technology. Computer, Internet, mobile phone- all these recent inventions are now firmly established in human life in different parts of the world. Thanks to globalization, standards for the quality of life (and not only material ones) have been set. On their basis, norms for the protection of human dignity have been developed. A person, thanks to modern communication technologies and modern transport, has received ample opportunities to be attached to the treasury of world culture.
Most often they talk about globalization as a new type of world order that removes barriers that hinder the flow of things, money, ideas and social forms. It changes the lifestyle of about a third of humanity. This third is connected to the Internet. Huge sums of money move around the world at lightning speed, supporting production, trade and consumption. Hundreds of millions of young and equally educated people sit in front of screens and play online - this is their passion. Other hundreds of millions live with headphones on their heads, absorbed in music. Globalization has given them pleasures that are almost comparable to drugs, but acceptable by society. Virtual global peoples have arisen on Earth, created by common values and benefits, common symbols and dreams.
This cannot be neglected. These "peoples" can only be explained through dialogue, carefully setting out the fears and aspirations of both sides. People who have been taught by life to approach reality rationally will think about the price that they will have to pay for this sweet life - and will find words to explain this to their friends.
The concept of globalization is believed to have come into wide use with the light hand of Margaret Thatcher. It is indicative what meaning the "iron lady" put into this term. Having already retired from big politics, she gave a detailed explanation on this matter. Thatcher pointed out that she did not agree with those who believe that the state has come to an end. The institution of the state, in her opinion, should be preserved, but in the form of a state of a certain type, consistent with the Western idea of democracy. As for the world globalization structure, it is revealed by the following provisions stated by Thatcher: “In fact, the Western model of freedom is real and universal, and its variations are due only to cultural and other features.<…>Certain conclusions concerning international politics follow from these reflections. Only America has the moral right, as well as the material basis, to take the place of the world leader. The fate of America is inextricably linked to upholding the values of freedom on a global scale. America's closest allies, especially those from the English-speaking world, should look to America's mission as the basis for formulating their own mission.<…>Like it or not, the Cold War was won by the West. Yet the United States is the big winner. Only America has what it takes to lead the cause of the struggle for freedom, in accordance with its historical and philosophical destiny, and I welcome this. Everything is more than certain: globalization is the hegemony of the victorious United States of America in the Cold War.
Since ancient times, on the basis of various civilizational communities, the concepts of creating a world empire have been generated. Alexander the Great, Augustus, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane - this series can be continued. The world empire assumed, firstly, global domination, and secondly, the global desovereignization of the conquered. In order to establish the dominance of one sovereign, it was necessary to de-sovereignize all the others.
Thus, since ancient times, two unjustifiably identified components have been found in globalization practice. The first component is communication related to scientific and technological progress, which objectively expands the speed and space of communications, overcoming the isolation of individual communities. The second component of globalization is an ideological project.
What is the essence of globalization as an ideological project? The famous American thinker Noam Chomsky gives the following definition of this phenomenon: “Globalization is the result of the actions of powerful states, especially the United States, which drive trade and other agreements down the throats of the peoples of the world so that it would be easier for corporations and the rich to dominate the economies of the most different countries without having any obligations to their population.
The well-known Russian thinker Alexander Zinoviev called globalization a “war of a new type”. The subject of this war, in Zinoviev's understanding, is not even the West or America, but some kind of supranational super-community. It was it that defeated the USSR in the Cold War, and now it is suppressing the remaining enclaves of national sovereignty in the world.
We use the concepts of "new political class", "global financial oligarchy", "global beneficiary" to designate this super-community.
World empires of the past were built, as a rule, at the expense of military force. But military force is only a means. Along with it, other means can be used. But wars as a classical tool of globalization do not disappear either.
Since the period of the Napoleonic campaigns, as a result of each large-scale war, the positions of the world oligarchy have been strengthened. At the same time, the number of nation-states with real sovereignty was decreasing. The peace pact concluded at the end of each of the wars was a temporary stopping point on the way to a system of global domination.
Any of these pacts can be charged with injustice, inherent internal contradictions. But, as you know, a bad peace is better than a good quarrel.
Putting an emphasis on contradictions and injustice means practically a revision of the system built on the recognition of the legitimacy of the concluded pact. And if the peace pact is illegitimate, then this means a new war. How the historical revision of the results of the First World War led to a new world war is well known. Today, attempts are being made to revise the results of the Second World War, the Yalta-Potsdam system. That this could lead to a new world war is obvious. The actors of the revision of history are, in this sense, the actors of unleashing a new war.
But here we are not talking about global processes in humanity in general, but about a special program - an attempt to create a New World Order. It is accompanied by mythology, which serves as an ideological cover. Without any New World Order, people were able to exchange their achievements very quickly.
For example, under pressure from the world media, many have become accustomed to considering globalization an “objective” process that cannot be influenced. The power of suggestion is amazing. After all, this is not a spontaneous phenomenon, but a social process that has its own ideologists, organizers, and accomplices.
It should be noted that the Great Patriotic War temporarily undermined the utopia of world domination based on National Socialism - the creation of socialism in Western countries with the transformation of "backward nations" into an external proletariat. The creation of the Soviet bloc, the achievement of the USSR military parity with the West was frozen global projects world domination. The balance of power stabilized the world order that took shape after World War II, albeit in the Cold War format.
The open development of a new globalization program has shifted to the academic sphere (for example, within the Club of Rome) and has been veiled. This program was openly presented during the years of perestroika in the USSR, and in 1992 its concept was formulated in books.
The program is based on the doctrine of neoliberalism, a fundamentalist doctrine of the 20th century that has departed far from the ideas of classical liberalism. This doctrine in principle excludes the concepts of country, territory and borders. Culturologist Leonid Ionin writes: “It focuses on an abstract human individual as a bearer of certain rights and freedoms; the state is a product of an agreement between abstract individuals, and its concrete body (territory) has a random character. Therefore, liberal expansion has no limits, because the potential for universalization is unlimited. Logically, it is complete when everything has been abstracted. From this follows the logical connection of the liberal democratic ideology with the doctrine of globalization.
Globalization is part of a wave of post-industrialism that is growing out of the crisis of industrial civilization. What structures were hit by this wave? What new risks lurk in its depths? The emanations of a crisis can be dangerous, like new diseases caused by virus mutations against which a person has no immunity.
The crisis of industrialism acquired in the second half of the 20th century the features of a systemic one. In almost all terms denoting main point future society, there was a prefix post-. We talk about ourselves and neighbors: post-Soviet space. This is a sign of a crisis. We do not yet know what our social order. And what kind of system in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Kyrgyzstan?
In the West, their society is also called post-economic, post-modern, and even post-civilizational. And this prefix post- gives a feeling of withering. After all, futurologists could not give any convincing picture of the future.
Over the past 20 years, globalization has left many footprints. Here we will only give a brief list of the impacts on the economy that globalization has. Note that humanity is a complex system with a huge variety of civilizations, cultures, types of life arrangement, social and political regimes. The economy is a clot of most human relations, a cut of the entire system of national culture.
Let's see how globalization has changed the system of capitalism and its core - private enterprise, business. We in Russia are trying to build capitalism, and this knowledge is relevant for us.
When we use the conditional term “business” for brevity, we mean the context that, at every point in space and time, complements economic model many unique meanings. Here the formational approach is insufficient: even a well-studied model of capitalism turns out to be quite different in the USA, Russia or Thailand. Moreover, it turns out to be different in the US of the 1930s, 1980s or today.
So, let's consider the shadow effects of the globalization program. Here are the main conclusions of leading Western analysts.
Globalization leads to the disorganization of the economy, the disintegration of society and the de-sovereignization of nation-states
In 2002, the president of the International Sociological Association, Alain Touraine, thus formulated the challenge faced by society as the main form of human community: “The world became more and more capitalist, an increasing part of the population was drawn into market economy where the main concern is the rejection of any regulation or economic, political and social control of economic activity. This led to the disintegration of all forms of social organization, especially in the case of cities. Individualism spread. Things are moving towards the disappearance of social norms, which are replaced by economic mechanisms and the pursuit of profit.
These statements are tragic. Other sociologists and philosophers (Scott Lash and John Urry) make the correction: they believe that globalization has brought with it "the end of organized capitalism." They call this state of transition from nationally organized societies to "global disorganization." Urry writes (2003): “Globalization is seen as an emerging new age, as a golden age of cosmopolitan ‘borderless’. Nation states and societies are unable to control the global flow of information.”
Many thinkers belonging to completely different segments of social thought are concerned primarily with the emasculation of national traditions and national values. The destruction of national identity leads, in turn, to the devaluation of the nation state, and even to its de-sovereignization.
There are many ways to desovereignize. There is no longer any need to use armed force to "defeat" sovereignty.
“If you want to easily conquer a country, start feeding it with your food.” These are the words of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. Already in the 16th century, there was an understanding that the subjugation of some states by others could be carried out not only by military, but also by economic methods.
Is it possible to combine globalization with the preservation of the sovereignty of nation-states? Globalization as a communicative exchange does not contradict state sovereignty. Within the framework of this model, each national community gives the world its own unique product, reflecting its originality, cultural identity. But for globalization as a realizable ideological project, national-state sovereignty is an obstacle, a relic of the pre-globalization era.
The English sociologist Zygmunt Bauman explains the phenomenon of the loss of territory by the nation-state in this way: “The rulers acquire genuine extraterritoriality, even if they physically remain in place. Their power completely and finally becomes “not of this world” - does not belong to the physical world, where they build their carefully guarded houses and offices, which are extraterritorial in themselves.
This "global disorganization" and "retreat" of the nation-state are products of a deep crisis.
The Club of Rome's proposal to turn humanity into a "global system ruled by a benevolent dictatorship of a technocratic elite" is a utopia that will cost enormous sacrifices. Arranging a "global human life", as the philosopher Alexander Zinoviev called it, is impossible, complex systems exist as long as they have sufficient diversity.
I would like to add in this connection a statement attributed to Nicholas Rockefeller. The ultimate goal of the financial oligarchy was defined by him as "the chipization of humanity." The priority is to achieve the complete and unconditional victory of the world of consumerism as a unified material for modeling the future of global civil society. In many ways, this world has already been created. In it, under the slogan "Consumption is the engine of economic development", a global manipulation of public consciousness is carried out, even the slightest sprouts of spirituality, historical traditions, national culture and identity that prevent the globalization of financial commercialism are eliminated.
All categories of citizens, from teenagers to the elderly, have become the object of aggressive consumerism. This is what one of the founders of the World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations" Jagdish Kapoor rightly called armament protected consumerism, that is, a consumer society protected by armed force. You can even talk about the emergence of a special type of person - "a person consuming".
The French sociologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote in Structural Anthropology: “There can be no world civilization in the absolute sense that is often given to this expression, since civilization presupposes the coexistence of cultures that show great diversity; one might even say that civilization consists in this coexistence. The world civilization could not be anything other than a coalition of cultures on a world scale, each of which would retain its originality.<…>It is the sacred duty of humanity to protect itself from blind particularism, which tends to attribute the status of humanity to one race, culture, or society, and never to forget that no part of humanity has formulas applicable to the whole, and that humanity, immersed in a single way of life, is unthinkable. .
I emphasize once again that the fundamental threat posed by globalization is the weakening of the nation state. As the American sociologist Samuel Huntington said, we are "witnessing the gradual withering away of the solid state - the 'billiard ball' - accepted as the norm since the Peace of Westphalia." In his opinion, “a complex, diverse and multi-level international order, which strongly resembles a medieval one. And this is not a metaphor. ISIS militants introduce social and legal norms from the deep Middle Ages. The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in the provinces of Libya and Iraq cannot be estimated. In ruins, Syria is an oasis of Arab culture.
But examples selected countries do not convey the essence of the process. To return from the 21st century to "an international order that strongly resembles the medieval one" is a disaster for humanity as a whole. This means - again private mercenary armies, feudal wars and crusades, only with nuclear weapons. Such catastrophes deal such a blow to the culture that "strange attractors" appear in the systems of life - savage attitudes and worldview systems, which until recently no one could even think of.
The undermined state ceases to perform the function of protecting the resources of the nation, but smuggles them across torn borders. Corrupt politicians and officials create a global "gray zone" - a criminal international, where decisions are made to gnaw out the space of national life.
This conflict of interests must sooner or later be on the agenda of the dialogue of civilizations - above ideology and politics. At the current crossroads, this is an existential question.
Law exists only on the territory of the state - a territory closed by borders. Here the market can be curbed. But globalization "untied" the market from the right of the nation state, and a "market without borders" arose. It is no longer limited by the state or national culture. Under these conditions, all institutions lose their power, which means that the legal space also disappears. Nations are transformed into populations, citizenship is corroded by anomie.
Against this background, the “silent war” is no longer visible. The undermining of national states and systems of law has led to the fact that financial speculators can ruin entire continents with impunity and export hundreds of billions of dollars from ruined countries, depreciate the work of millions of people. The corruption created by globalization has a transnational character, and locally it covers the entire state organism and turns it into a means of destruction, like cells of the body that have degenerated into a cancerous tumor. So, in addition to the explicit one, a parallel shadow civilization is being formed.
A special type of financial wars arose - organized attacks on national currencies. But the main innovation was systemic operations against national economies, in which, with the help of financial fraud, they bring the country to a crisis, depreciate its enterprises, and then buy them up on the cheap.
The state reduces its control functions - and there are almost slave-type structures, and new rich people join the global elite. Zones are emerging in the world where "communities that make no sense to exploit" live. These people are excluded from the "external proletariat" of the metropolis and returned to subsistence farming. But this population will not be left with its forests, steppes and bowels. Globalization is a post-capitalist stage, capital refuses to exploit most of the world's population. This means markets are disappearing.
In the first two decades, the middle class of the West applauded globalization - it allowed the removal of labor-intensive and dirty industries to the countries of "emerging markets". The Western Left has finally realized that the entire population of the West as a whole, including workers, is an exploiter and receives large incomes from the labor of the working class of the periphery (that's why the Communist parties have practically disappeared).
First, US corporations began to transfer their assembly shops to a special zone in northern Mexico. Special factories arose there, which were paid not in money, but in barter, partly finished products. In 2000, there were already about 2,000 assembly plants in Mexico, employing 1.34 million workers. Wages at these factories were 11 times less than in the same workshops in the United States. This system expanded, the export of industrial enterprises of various industries and from Europe began - mainly to Asia. And the moment came when the mass of workers, including the middle class, turned out to be "a community that makes no sense to exploit." Enterprises "left" to look for more profitable places - globalization!
This shocked the population of the weak countries of the West - the social state collapsed, state debt huge, there is nothing to give subsidies to the unemployed. This inevitable result was warned, but no one wanted to believe. There was a deindustrialization - as in the 1990s in Russia.
Now they are cherishing a new utopia - to return jobs from Asia to the countries of the West. This was promised by British Prime Minister David Cameron in Davos: “This is a fresh driver of growth. The UK must become a country of return of the economy. He expounded this doctrine of anti-globalism indistinctly: “We are talking about jobs for engineers, managers, lawyers. Because the protection of property, freedom of speech and the rule of law are the basis for the stability of the economy and success in business.<…>This trend affects all sectors of the economy. Jobs are returning from China to Leeds, England, and from India to Wales.<…>In addition, we are investing billions in infrastructure, including road construction.”
It can be said that the ruling elite of the United States made a big mistake by placing the messianic conviction at the basis of the doctrine of globalization that they were appointed by the Lord to rule the world. As soon as the USSR disappeared, which periodically brought it to its senses, this "hegemon" in world politics broke so much firewood that, in fact, the masses of people perceive the United States as a rogue state. Yes, in the 1990s the world was frightened by their irrational actions, but now there is cautious resistance around the world. In general, humanity does not want to sacrifice its nation-states to globalization. These are harsh mechanisms, but without them, peoples simply cannot survive in today's world.
Here is a confession from The Washington Post: “When Russia banned imports of agricultural products from the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and Japan, globalization suddenly began to fall apart much faster than anyone expected.<…>Today it has become not only possible to reject the globalization mantra of a no-loser game in the name of other values and a different kind of politics. This is happening right now. And if this can happen in Russia, then other countries are also not immune from this.”
More precisely, it was the US sanctions against Russia that put an end to globalization - after all, it was tolerated, albeit with difficulty, as a program of connecting countries, and not discrimination of one or another country.
Globalization is a ruthless program, it inevitably breeds wars
Recall the first well-described wave of globalization, generated by the rapid development of navigation, expeditions and the great geographical discoveries that nascent capitalism made. This globalization caused a virtually continuous world colonial war for four centuries. In this war, entire nations and civilizations were destroyed, millions of people were resettled and enslaved.
Then, as a response, national liberation wars took place in most of the Earth, in which death also mowed down a large crop. Yes, and the First World War was a product of this first wave of globalization of modern times, it matured in the bosom of imperialism. Before that war, they said directly that the brewing war is the result of globalization.
Already on the eve of the collapse of the USSR, in addition to the apologetics of the alleged New World Order, warnings began to appear in Western literature. What stood out in the processes that then grew before our eyes? In 1990, Jacques Attali, an influential figure in world politics, adviser to the President of France, Francois Mitterrand, and president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, wrote the book "On the threshold of a new millennium." In it, he gave the following prediction: “In the coming New World Order, there will be losers and winners. The number of losers, of course, will exceed the number of winners. They will strive to get a chance at a decent life, but most likely they will not be given such a chance. They will find themselves in a corral, will suffocate from the poisoned atmosphere, and no one will pay attention to them because of simple indifference. All the horrors of the 20th century pale in comparison to such a picture.”
In 2006, he argued that if the "triumphant march of money" continues to its logical end, then the market will lead to a hyper-empire. It will be global, creating huge fortunes and horrendous poverty. It will “plunge mankind into regressive barbarism and devastating battles with weapons that are unthinkable today.<…>States, religious groups, terrorist organizations and lone bandits will confront each other. This could lead to the destruction of humanity."
Globalization inevitably leads to the emergence of a new type of war - not a world war, but a world "molecular" one, which will be waged by people thrown out of society against the remnants of the state. We are already seeing this in Africa, Asia and Europe. And organized in Arab countries mutiny-war is generally a huge undertaking. Where will the nomadic contingents of "rebel" mercenaries be moved?
Here is a recent pessimistic conclusion of the French magazine Atlantico: “Since the end of the Cold War, many analysts have argued that the economic interdependence generated by globalization will prevent the outbreak of wars. However<…>rather, it seems that globalization, with its economic interdependence, today, on the contrary, is becoming synonymous with tension.
The signs of a hybrid global war are already visible. Here the press writes about the "spring campaign on the oil front of the global financial and economic war." In February, the US hosted the Oil Market 2015 conference. The main report says that the fall in oil prices in 2014 occurred in the balance of supply and demand. The co-rapporteur noted that the price of oil will be largely determined by the situation on the “paper oil” market, that is, the actions of speculators, as well as political, financial and economic state and supranational structures. The fact that oil prices have become part of the global financial war, recognized by the American establishment.
And we are told that globalization is a mechanism for mutually beneficial cooperation.
But such missions are a relatively soft element of hybrid warfare. Important functions in it are performed by various kinds of "black internationals" and contingents of militants with indefinite ideologies. In many parts of the world, they undermine the structures of nation-states by engaging in organized hybrid warfare - most often with an ethnic or religious cover that usually serves only as a mask. Sometimes the support provided to them from the outside, by the global shadow elite, is so great that criminal enclaves are formed within states, acquiring signs of statehood. It's about about the criminalization of entire regions and the emergence of "gray zones" from which the state is withdrawing.
Our liberals must finally admit that capitalism will not survive without the state and law.
Globalization has spawned "new nomads"
It should be noted that the concept of capitalism today no longer reflects the current reality. We need a new categorical language to describe modern system world order. This new system could be conditionally defined as post-capitalism. If the economy of classical capitalism is based on competition and the free market (the so-called Manchester capitalism), then the new model is characterized by global manageability. The social system of classical capitalism was described by Karl Marx as the antagonism of two classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The new social model is being built as a pyramid of global corporatocracy. The financial system of capitalism was viewed through the formula money-commodity-money. Modern financial schemes of global emission are built differently - money-money-money. Politically, capitalism correlated, speaking in terms of Marx, with bourgeois democracy. The new political model has nothing in common with democracy - in its classical understanding as democracy - has nothing to do with it. The very institution of the state was actually privatized by the new political class of the global oligarchy. There was also an axiological inversion. Classical capitalism was associated with the spirit of bourgeois entrepreneurship, the cult of money, which has become a value in itself. The axiology of post-capitalism is the axiology of consumption, hedonism. There was a disintegration of law, on which capitalism rested, qualitative differences in the origin of money were lost. They again "do not smell" - the differences between the legal and criminal economies have disappeared.
The destruction of the bipolar model of world development led to the mutation of the entire legal and political framework international relations. It seems that the fundamental antagonistic contradictions of the two world systems - capitalist and socialist - have gone. Moreover, it fell apart politic system, built around the USSR, and the political heirs of the USSR abandoned this ideology and declared themselves part of Western system led by the USA. The end of the Cold War was proclaimed, and Francis Fukuyama even heralded the "end of history." But, as we see today, the world has not turned out to be either fairer or safer. Local conflicts have become more violent and bloody.
Globalization is the worldwide redistribution of wealth both in space and in social structure. The robbery of the periphery goes by dragging into a debt trap, then privatization and buying up national resources, including natural ones. The IMF, which has become an important instrument of globalization, imposed foreign debt on pliable countries as, in the words of one expert, "a box of free whiskey for an alcoholic." When the noose is tightened, loans stop and debtors begin to turn out their pockets. According to the UN, a volley of loans in the early 1980s allowed the IMF to scoop out of poor countries in 1985-1990 twice as much money as was given in debt.
The global financial system is the heist tool of the global financial oligarchy developing countries and the creation of a US-dominated system.
An example is how the US Federal Reserve and the Central Bank of Thailand caused the economic collapse of Thailand. Between 1990 and 1997, the country's bank created a structure for Thai companies to encourage them to borrow in foreign currency abroad. Such borrowings have reached significant proportions. At the same time, the bank pursued a monetary policy that led to the collapse of the Thai currency in 1997, which bankrupted many Thai companies, saw a sharp rise in unemployment and a major economic crisis.
Consequently, corporate borrowing in foreign currency is so risky that such borrowing is not recommended. International bankers and foreign central banks usually encourage companies and countries (especially those with significant national assets - such as raw materials) to attract significant foreign borrowing. Such borrowing can be used as leverage for significant economic pressure and profit.
The bestseller was Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (2004). In a continuation of his "Confession" (2007), he writes how Indonesia's external debt was "organized" and ends this episode as follows: "These figures showed that we had driven Indonesia into such a debt hole from which she will not be able to get out on her own, unless, of course, she will indulge the desires of our corporations in everything. Needless to say, we, the economic killers, in this case worked to the conscience.
Debt service and short-term debt of Indonesia amounted to 300 percent of GDP. This resulted in 52 percent of the population living on less than two dollars a day in 2002. And now the US has an external debt of 17 trillion dollars, the EU has 18 trillion - and nothing!
In this regard, one should also pay attention to the fact that the central banks of countries depend on the Federal Reserve System. The dependency chain looks technologically as follows. National economies need money. But money is issued not by the state, but by the central bank. Central banks in the vast majority of modern countries are not state institutions, but private institutions independent of the state. But these institutions are dependent on the Fed, which in turn is independent of the United States government. One has only to block the channel of the Federal Reserve System - the Central Bank - the national economy, and the country, faced with a financial deficit, finds itself in a state of collapse. Therefore, the question of the status of the Central Bank is key to the problem of national sovereignty. This is well understood in many countries of the world, but there is really nothing they can do about the current situation.
Globalization has made it much easier for shadow and criminal businesses to evade taxes and launder "dirty money". So, in Italy for 2002-2012 during the audit bank accounts more than $1 trillion in suspicious deposits have been identified. In Switzerland at state audit banks, about one and a half thousand suspicious financial transactions totaling $3.3 trillion.
Speculative capital in its present form easily enters into an alliance with the underworld. This union connected two powerful financial and organizational structures- legal and shadow - giving them new opportunities for freedom of maneuver.
It is also necessary to remember the "involuntarily nomads" - mass movements of labor migrants from poor or distressed countries. global economy drives people to rich countries in search of work. They are discriminated against on the basis of nationality or religion, or simply because of their migrant status.
Migrants in a foreign environment for the most part live in a state of permanent stress. Migration destroys family ties. Living in a state of uncertainty, unable to make long-term commitments, young migrants hesitate to start families.
Torn out of their ethnic culture, from their usual social networks and families, these “nomads” form special communities in the host country, often multi-ethnic, often with heightened self-awareness (hyper-ethnicity). This creates both latent and open conflicts, which deepens the division of society.
Moreover, for a large part of the local youth, the problem of family formation in the context of globalization is becoming similar to that faced by migrants - there is a "nomad syndrome". German sociologists of the family explain the unprecedented increase in the age of marriage and the decrease in the number of children in families. And in the middle class of rich countries, there was uncertainty about the reliability of their status in the context of globalization.
In the report to the Club of Rome "The First global revolution» future in medium term(by the middle of the 21st century) is seen as follows: “Can we imagine a world of the future in which a handful of rich nations with the latest weapons are protected from a huge number of hungry, uneducated, unemployed and very angry people living in all other countries? Such a scenario stemming from current trends development does not bode well.<…>It's not hard to imagine countless hungry and desperate immigrants disembarking from boats on the northern coast of the Mediterranean.<…>The influx of migrants can cause a sharp increase in “defensive” racism in countries of entry and contribute to the establishment of dictatorial regimes in them on the wave of populism.”
Globalization is an extremely crisis-prone system
Those crises that arise as a chain process around the world are fundamentally different from the crises of the modern capitalist economy. They grow out of chaos or uncertainty financial flows on an unusual scale and with unusual dynamics.
Too high hopes were placed on globalization, but they turned out to be futile - it never became a tool for resolving economic crises. On the contrary, it was globalization, which destroyed the structure of the world economy, which was built as a system of nation-states with certain international law and acceptable transparency of financial channels, that began to give rise to crises of a new type. The global crisis of 2008 caused a strong rejection of globalization and the free market.
Jacques Attali reconstructs the maturation of the 2008 crisis and emphasizes the role of the ideology of globalization in it: “In a country where absolutely everything was possible for two centuries, intoxication with the power of words and ignoring the harsh reality has turned into an ideology.<…>Protestant America, which took the first steps along with Calvinism, putting thrift and work at the forefront, now cultivates the idea that God has chosen her and guarantees her victory.<…>March 4, 2008 on Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns was on the verge of bankruptcy, having lost $13,400 billion in derivatives transactions ($13.4 trillion - more than the country's GDP!).<…>Now we are dealing with a complex system, a kind of “golem” that has no purpose and is capable of simultaneously serving humanity and destroying everything in its path. For he does not know ethical norms and feelings.
When a Wall Street bank is found to be short of trillions of dollars, many medium and small banks collapse in many countries - the intertwining and speed of financial flows make real-time control impossible. And the collapse of medium and small banks is the ruin of local businesses.
Philosophers and politicians warn that the nature of the phenomena that have arisen in the course of globalization is uncertain. This means that the crisis becomes permanent. The complexity of the global financial system went beyond rational control. This is an extremely dangerous, eschatological situation. In the 30s of the XX century, such a “reactor”, which got out of control, cost Europe a world war.
Yes, many say that the very structure of globalization needs a profound transformation. According to Attali, it requires immediate implementation - “until the crisis deepens so much that no one can trust the market, and democracy is unable to cope with the “golem” that it has created. Then personal freedom, on which both the market and democracy are based, will become the number one culprit.
What irresponsibility - to create such global risks!
***
What are the ways out of the crisis of the collapse of globalization? The wheel of history cannot be turned back. Like any complex phenomenon, globalization has many aspects. It brought with it a lot of troubles, but along with them - new opportunities for people to communicate, new technologies to the farthest corners of the world. Is it possible to limit globalization while maintaining the positive that it has done?
This requires the intellectual and spiritual effort of all local civilizations and cultures - the common cause of mankind. The crisis of capitalism and its inherent industrialism turned out to be fundamental. It is difficult to stop its flywheel, everyone needs to rise to a new level of knowledge and morality. A truly universal dialogue is required.
The first step could be a change in the model of globalization: the rejection of the utopia of the destruction of nation-states, their unification into large integration projects through economic and cultural ties. This would protect the world from attempts to establish the dominance of one overwhelming force. After all, the crisis of the first globalization of the first half of the 20th century was resolved in exactly this way, establishing a balance of power between two projects - Western and Soviet. But now the potential for diversity is much greater. The signs of this are obvious. MERCOSUR and EurAsEC are only the first signs of a future world consisting of complementary sets.
"Capitalism is degrading and gone crazy" - the words belong not to some Marxist radical, but to a completely respectable bourgeois politician, French President Emanuel Macron. He delivered them in August on the eve of the meeting of the G-7, the summit of the major imperialist powers that determine the fate of world capitalism. Macron expressed concern about the ever-growing global inequality, however, the minds of the rulers of the world are tormented by other problems: world economy is growing sluggishly, investments of financial speculation do not give the same returns, and dissatisfaction with the massive influx of migrants can no longer be hidden under the guise of multiculturalism and tolerance. Before our eyes, capitalism is becoming more and more wrong, undermining the faith in the idea of market self-regulation even among its most faithful followers. What has happened to world capitalism in recent years since the global crisis that broke out more than 10 years ago?
The world around us has changed a lot, and its contradictions, which have been accumulating for decades, are now acquiring the most ugly forms. So, the acute phase of the Great Recession has long passed, and global capitalism still will not reach the pre-crisis growth rates. In 2018, the global economy grew by just over three percent, almost a third less than in the mid-2000s, but that's not the biggest problem yet.
There have been worse times. Most clearly, the problem of the capitalist economy, which was born and has always existed as a global economic system, reflects the state of globalization itself, that is, international economic relations. But how to measure globalization? This can be done by relating the volume of international trade and investment to world GDP. This indicator has grown rapidly throughout the pre-crisis era, and in 2007 it reached its maximum of 51 percent, an increase of 30 percentage points since the mid-80s, but after the global crisis there has been a consistent decline in this index of globalization, which today stands at about thirty-one percent .
At the same time, the importance of such a traditional element of the world capitalist economy as global value chains is declining. If from 95 to 2007 the share of net national production world GDP dropped from 86% to 79% (i.e. national companies displaced by transnational ones), then in 2009 this value increased again by 2 percentage points.
At the same time, the profits of the 700 largest transnational corporations based in the countries of the capitalist center fell by 25 percent. At the same time, the profits of enterprises oriented to the national market grew. The global capital market has also been undermined. In 2017 alone, US residents reduced investments in Europe by 10 times, withdrawing 274 billion euros from the eurozone countries.
Europe is not left up to the lie, cutting investment in the United States by 67 billion euros.
Naturally, these trends are accompanied by changes in the political field, which is characterized today by a general aggravation of protectionist tendencies. Over the past 10 years, states have adopted about 6,000 measures regulating international trade, investment and migration, and three-quarters of them were of a pronounced protectionist nature. Only a quarter was directed to liberalization international movement capital, labor and goods.
The leader of modern protectionism is the United States. The most recent example is the US trade war with China, in which the US government increased import duties on Chinese goods by hundreds of billions of dollars.
However, it would be a mistake to associate such US behavior with the personality of Trump, who has always been characterized by an aggressive isolationist political stance. Even in the last period of the Obama administration, the United States tripled the number of restrictive measures, primarily against the EU countries. Naturally, this caused retaliatory measures from the European states.
We all know that production has been transferred from Europe and the United States to the Asian region. This led to a rapid expansion of the global labor market and reduced the capital-labor ratio of the world's labor force by 60 percent. Naturally, this allowed Western corporations to significantly reduce their costs: import prices for American companies fell sharply. And if we look at the dynamics of the last decades, we find that they have grown at one 1.6 times slower than inflation in the United States. However, such an attempt to develop one part of the world economy at the expense of oppressing the other creates development problems not only for the object of exploitation, but also for the exploiter himself, and ultimately provokes such contradictions in the development of the world economy that lead to a crisis of the entire system.
The ability to exploit cheap labor has reduced the interest of Western economies in investment in new technologies, which has slowed down in the last decade. For example, here is how the dynamics of investment growth rates in IT, the advanced sector of the modern economy and science, looks like. This figure grew rapidly until the 80s, after which its actual stagnation begins, which continues to this day. In the 90s, this stagnation was temporarily replaced by rapid growth, but it ended in the so-called dot-com crisis and, as it turned out, was purely speculative.
Tellingly, in the 2000s, economic growth was not accompanied by an increase in the growth rate of investment in the information technologies, but on the contrary, even a slight drop in this indicator was observed. At the same time, the growth of investment in fixed capital slowed down. If in the post-war years they increased annually by an average of 4 percent, then in the 80s already by 2.9 percent, and in the last decade by only 1.8 percent.
Naturally, this led to a slowdown in the growth of labor productivity. After the Second World War, it grew at a rate of over 3% per year, and in recent decades, less than 1.5%. The use of cheap labor also undermined the structure of employment both in the center of world capitalism and on the periphery. From the 1990s to the present day, the largest increase in jobs in the American economy has been in the least paid, most low-productivity industries. At the same time, high-performance sectors of the economy do not create jobs or create a small number.
At the same time, Western corporations began to cut the wages of their workers in the 70s. wages more and more behind the growth of labor productivity, and inflation, on the contrary, is ahead of it. These trends have led to an increase in social inequality around the world. It has grown not only in the US and Europe, but also in the economies of the periphery. For example, in China, where the main beneficiary of growth national economy 15% each year were primarily Chinese oligarchs, who have already caught up with their American counterparts and are pushing them to the top of Forbes magazine. At the same time, ordinary Chinese workers increase their well-being much more slowly, paying a completely non-equivalent price for it, often working in difficult exhausting conditions, without sufficient social protection from the side of the state.
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