Where is
World Capitalism Going?
By Nikolai S. Rozov
Capitalism is now by no means a fashionable word. Its
reality is more wide and complex than
bourgeoisie-proletariat relations, wage-labour and surplus
value (Marx), and evidently more hardy than Lenin's
'decaying imperialism'. To name our global world system
capitalistic (instead of the neoliberal euphemism 'free
market economy') is to emphasise the tremendous
concentration of power and control over all kinds of world
resources by 'the Big Three': modern transnational
corporations (TNCs), main banking groups (with the New York
- London - Tokyo axis), and governmental elites of the core
states (G - 7).
This global oligarchy uses institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization
(WTO), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and other
US-controlled military unions as instruments of its
'Realpolitik'. The deplorable destiny of opponent countries,
(such as the USSR, Cuba, Panama, Serbia, North Korea and
Iraq) and the financial difficulties (collapse?!) of
non-instrumentalised international organisations (such as
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UNESCO, the global
ecological programs of the Rio Forum, and now the United
Nations) indicate the real power of modern world capitalism
rulers.
I wonder why futures studies mostly avoids the problem of
the global political economy. Scholars rush into social and
religious utopias, pink fantasies, environmentalism,
postmodernism, epistemology, interpretism, and now
neomythology, but miss the good old question 'cui prodest'
(for whom is it profitable?). Any image of a global future
will fail if it does not fit the interests of the world
capitalist elites. We can take three main views on this
point:
a) The neoliberal 'mainstream' position: free market
economy and democracy are winning. They are becoming
stronger and stronger and are really worthy of this victory
and all further ones. It is nothing but 'ideology' (in a
strict Napoleonic and Marxist sense) of the Big Three.
b) The Left's expectations of the decline of world
capitalism: it is a world disease ('virus') and is worthy of
its forthcoming failure. My question is: what are the
visible signs of any decline or crisis, which should be
stronger than all those problems and crises that world
capitalism successfully prevailed under in the past, for
example, in 1810-15, 1848-49, 1914-18, 1930-32, 1939-45,
1960, 1968-69?
c) The appeals (both Left and Right) for struggle against
strong and threatening world capitalism-imperialism. For
example, the appeals of Maoists and Trotskyists in Latin
America, Russian communists, 'patriots' in Russia, USA and
France, and fundamentalists in Muslim countries. Also, the
appeals of many Western university intellectuals -
especially against TNCs and the IMF - belong to the same
bunch.
Here also some doubts and questions appear. Historical
facts tell us that in most cases the open 'hot' struggle
against world capitalism did not succeed, but all the local
national 'successes (for example, in Russia since 1917,
China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Albania) led inevitably
to mass social disasters, deep misery and poverty, and
frequently mass terror.
On the contrary, most 'soft' and interior attempts to
ameliorate national 'capitalism' were successful, or at
least lacked social disasters - such as the Second
International and Social-Democratic reforms in Europe at the
beginning of the 20th Century, labourists in Great Britain,
socialists in Sweden, and the promotion of social programs
in USA, France and Germany.
My position can be summarised in the following
statements: World Capitalism currently seems to be
strengthening, not declining, and it seems it will survive
the probable crises of first decades of the 21st Century. No
scenarios, prospects or prognoses can miss its tremendous
power and significance.
World Capitalism is not a monolith, it is not closed for
reforms, at least it is in fact more open to reform than all
non-capitalist social regimes! Many long-term trends of its
transformation during the last 500 years should be morally
appreciated, that is why further soft transformation of this
mega-system is a realistic prospect.
The global purposes of humanistically-oriented reforms of
modern Capitalist World Order are:
* to substitute the principle of oligarchy in
international relations, world politics and world economy by
the principle of law based on human rights for every human
being on the Earth including future generations (not only
for living citizens of core states);
* to decrease arms production and arms trade in favour of
peacefully, ecologically and multiculturally oriented
national and world economies ('ecoculture' and 'sustainable
development' must become more profitable than arms trade for
the world capitalist elites); and
* to decrease the terrible gap between 'core' and
'periphery' peoples, especially in basic needs, education
and real access to national and world resources (but not by
means of violence).
These aims seem today to be rather utopian, and the idea
of global reforms that we crucially need in the 21st Century
must be supplied by global praxis strategy. This strategy
should be based on results of national reforms analysis of
the 18th to 20th Centuries, uncovering implicit
possibilities, motivations and coalitions of modern world
situations.
Let's finish for now with words from Ilya Prigogine:
'Time is construction, the future is open and depends on
us'.
I would only like to add that no religion, science,
philosophy, myth nor even study can release us from ethical
and practical responsibility for our humanistic futures.
Nikolai Rozov
Professor of Philosophy at Novosibirsk State University,
Russia.
Email: rozov@cnit.nsu.ru . Rozov is also coordinator of
Philofhi, a philosophy of history and theoretical history
network at
http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe/philofhi.html.
Reproduced with permission from Futures Bulletin, Vol 23
No 1, April 1997
World Futures Studies Federation
Communication Centre
Queensland University of Technology
GPO Box 2434, Brisbane Q 4001
AUSTRALIA
Fax: +617 3864 1813
Email: a.elliott@qut.edu.au
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