/ world today news/ The old world is gone, and the new one has not yet come
– Prof. Hristov, can it be said that we are witnessing a clash between failed neoliberalism and conservatism gaining energy, defending different models of development. Is there a wave of rethinking of neoliberal values and what is it due to?
– There is a wave of rethinking of neoliberal values. But I wouldn’t say that what is being rethought is called conservatism, neoconservatism, or whatever. These ideological labels have a major flaw – they have no substance. As a famous Russian historian and sociologist Prof. Andrey Fursov says, the relationship between neoliberalism and classical liberalism of the 19th century is like between Groucho Marx and Karl Marx. The first is known to be an American comedian…
When we talk about conservatism, it should be clearly said what kind of miracle this is – whether the classical conservatism of the 19th century, or in this term we put in a general order incompatible things – for example, Islamic fundamentalism or the return to Islam, Orthodox fundamentalism, etc. .
And the question is not so much about terminological clarity and purity as about that
behind these terms lie many different social contents
And when we talk about collision, I have an element of skepticism about defining and framing the problem that way. Things are much, much more complicated.
– What do you mean?
– When we talk about a clash between conservatism and liberalism, or neoliberalism, we must be aware of three questions – when, where and how. We must know that both liberalism and conservatism arose in Western Europe in the first half of the 19th century. They are a typical ideological and then political marker of early and later mature Western European and North American capitalist modernity. The absolutely uncritical transfer of these ideological terms and the “baggage” that stands behind them to other regions – let’s say Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Far East, rather leads to the concealment of local realities. When we talk about illiberalism at the end of the 20th and the first half of the 21st century, something completely different is hidden behind it. Classical liberalism defines the state as the night watchman, the market as the demiurge that decides everything, and the free market agents as struggling in free market competition to achieve the best economic outcome that is rewarded with profit. Generally speaking, the quintessence of classical liberalism is minimal state, maximal freedom. Individuals are found as a matter of course, the concept of fruitful, positive egoism is introduced…
For its part, neoliberalism in the modern world has a very distinct place. He was born in North America, primarily in the USA. It was partially transferred to Britain under Margaret Thatcher, then moved to other parts of Western Europe.
Behind this cliché lies the dominance of financial capital
of that part of the world capitalist surplus associated with finance capital, financial transactions, to which the new modern means of communication give enormous, monstrous advantages.
– The real expressions of all this?
– The Christian name neoliberalism was first defined by the so-called Chicago school – by Milton Friedman and company. It was tested on live flesh with the corresponding unscrupulous blood and sacrifices in Chile and in the countries of the so-called “Southern Cone” in Latin America. And then this package, with absolutely no imagination, was implemented across Eastern Europe. The result was the destruction of the chances of Eastern Europe becoming an alternative industrial and economic center to the West.
Under the label neoliberalism, especially for our region, there is a deeply thought-out, non-random, systematically implemented policy by the relevant institutional agents of this process – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other institutions related to them. I.e. power of the three D’s – deregulation, destatization, decentralization. The result in Bulgaria is that it has ceased to be an industrially developed country.
Bulgaria, from 28-30 place in the human development index at the end of the 80s, was promoted to places of 60-70 and above. And the problem is not in the rating positions, but in the fact that the country is totally demodernizing.
Bulgaria was returned to neo-barbarism and we are currently reaping the results of that
And when we talk about rethinking neoliberal values - yes, but it depends on who is rethinking them. Since we are an intellectual province, unfortunately, in the worst sense of the word, these overheated ideological mangers come to us 20-30, even 50 years late. In the center of the Western industrial world, these things were long ago rethought. Behind the rethinking lies a battle of real forces, of real economic and political entities, which under the banners of neoconservatism and economic nationalism (such is Trump in the USA), is actually the battle between financial capital and nationally organized productive capital.
It is obvious that the current model of capitalism – at its core – is running out of time. It is moving towards a completely new technological, social and other institutional evolution. We are currently in the gap where the old world has gone and the new has not yet come.
– In this context, although the subject of the Istanbul Convention has quieted down, the case is still on the agenda. Your opinion?
– I have already mentioned that ideological labels are without content. What gender ideology tells you: man must be freed from all kinds of restrictions and dependencies – social, class, political, ideological. And then it focuses on the very Holy of Holies of our being – our biological essence. Because it is considered a limitation or almost violence on free will. Hence the possibility of changing gender, changing sexual practices, changing social roles.
This actually at first glance
it sounds pleasant to one’s ears, but behind it lies a very powerful economic and political interest
It is expressed as follows – for neoliberalism and postmodernism, the nation-state, religion, traditions, classical ideologies, etc., are only fortresses that prevent the free movement of capital, free colonization and exploitation of large parts of the world. Their destruction, which is wrapped in such ideological tales, actually results in the literal dismantling of all kinds of identities – national, ethnic, religious, state, institutional. They are labeled as outdated, as conservatism, as something negative, and in this way all forms of social resistance, all forms of social identity are dismantled. This ensures far easier handling. That’s the point, and it’s so obvious.
– Do you think it is possible for the debate on the axis of neoliberalism-conservatism to be developed meaningfully by Bulgarian politicians through the prism of the Bulgarian EU Presidency?
– No. First, Bulgarian politicians do not have the intellectual, political, or cultural baggage to do so.
Secondly, Bulgarian society is deeply non-ideal in nature and never has been, unfortunately. That’s the big ugly truth. A matter of historical destiny. In Bulgaria (I say it several times, but some think this is a moral or emotional assessment), there are no social prerequisites for “politics” in the sense in which it has arisen in the developed world. For one very simple reason – there are no social groups that can convert their interest into ideological categories so that there is a political clash. All this is
fashions imported from outside, behind which completely different social realities are hidden
And third, which is already a result of the first two – the corresponding literacy is missing, since it is redundant by definition. All these things are not random, they are connected. For this reason, the same people can quite easily move along the trajectory from communism through socialism, neoliberalism, the extreme right, or vice versa. Since both the one and the other really have no meaning in our country, except as labels. As Erdogan put it, on another occasion when he was mayor of Istanbul: “Democracy is like a tram: you can get off at any stop you want.” That is, it has an instrumental character, it is not a value.
– You are a representative of the people, sociologist, author of books, you meet many people. How do you assess the political situation in our country at the moment?
– A crypto-authoritarian regime disguised as a parliamentary democracy has been imposed in the country. There is complete hopelessness, total dependence on external geopolitical factors, real degradation of even the elementary beginnings of democracy. I would distinguish the collapse of the country to very low existential, civilizational, socio-economic and political levels.
– How do you see this gloomy picture changing?
– I think that the Bulgarian society at this stage has neither the resources nor the capacity to do it. Therefore, there is a lack of a strategic action subject to carry out the change. Society as a whole does not understand the drama of the situation in which it has fallen.
At best, it visualizes the symptoms of the disease, but not the disease itself
Lawlessness, misery, wild social inequality, corruption and crime – all these are only external, regular manifestations of the overall social model that was imposed in the country more than 30 years ago. There is no capacity, no will for change, because there is no interest in such change. And there is no interest, since the status quo suits both of them perfectly. Some out of fear, others because they are at the top of the food chain. Why should they change it?!
Additionally, the country is deprived of its own geopolitical role. It is not subject to its own historical destiny, so that it can change it as it pleases.
– How do you assess your place and your role as a politician in the described situation?
– In our country, someone qualifies as a “politician” very calmly, very irresponsibly and very wholesale. I already explained why. The fact that you are in the National Assembly does not make you a politician. The fact that you make a deep wisecrack in front of yet another media does not make you a politician. The fact that there are formally over two hundred parties does not mean that there is an actual party-political system in the country. The fact that you confuse the struggle for power with a political struggle means that you have no idea about either. “No way,” said the great Prof. Vera Mutafchieva in such cases…
#Prof #Ivo #Hristov #gap
