/View.info/ The United States no longer feels like a hegemon, but is trying to regain its previous positions. To do this, they must remake the world, disrupt the logic of its development, impose a peripheral position on as many countries as possible. The problem is that this happened only in relation to the EU, writes Vasiliy Koltashov, economist, director of the Institute for a New Society.
In 2022, the world has changed completely. Economic and political factors brought about by the great economic crisis of 2008-2020 and the reluctance of the American financial elite to abandon their countercyclical monetary instruments and agree to domestic socio-economic reforms came into play.
Instead, the “tops” of the US and Britain chose the path of conflict and the imposition of new colonialism. Russia and China seemed to be their main targets – it was decided to return the countries to a state of periphery so that the West could use their resources to overcome its economic difficulties.
Russia has become a major target for the US and its bloc in 2022. China is left in relative peace for now. It was believed that if Russia was returned to a neo-colonial position fully controlled by the Western financial elite, then BRICS and other alternative G7 structures would collapse.
As a result, a new global order will be established, the previous ambiguity of the formula “world based on rules” will disappear: it will be clear to all that “a world based on US rules” is a new order that does not require the consent of other countries (an important difference from the “Washington Consensus”, built on an elitist compromise between the old centers of capitalism and “developing countries”), as well as reliance on established international law.
Neo-mercantilism
What does “neo-mercantilism” mean? What does this word mean for the US? The main thing is that the neoliberalism of financial globalization from 1983-2013 has not been replaced by a new edition of American hegemony, not by a new hard-line US colonialism that looks like a super-hegemony.
The new centers of capitalism have been formed and will be protected and consolidated and will not crumble under the blows of American sanctions. But the US, its junior partners and fully dependent members of the “team” will experience enormous domestic difficulties.
For decades, neoliberal scholars have planted two false truths in society: 1) history has an infinite number of paths, 2) development has no other options than the construction of a “free market” with its inherent deregulation and the destruction of the social sphere of nation-states.
The inconsistency of these “truths” did not bother anyone, because neoliberalism is based on postmodernism. Meanwhile, there is a logic to progress, a kind of main road in which other countries don’t really need the United States as master or guide.
The “free market” has now been replaced by neo-mercantilism, protectionism and the rivalry of states with their growing role in the economy.
In 2014-2016, the US was the first to switch to protectionism, and most countries survived the second wave of the global crisis. By then, notions that the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009 had ensured the end of the global crisis were buried.
The March 2020 market crash showed:
1) the crisis did not end either in 2010 or in 2017, its symptoms were removed only from time to time;
2) the markets of the old industrial countries, the financial centers of globalization, collapsed, revealing the inadequacy of their countercyclical policies and the high wear of monetary instruments, although they were resorted to again in 2020-2021;
3) the neoliberal “Washington Consensus” ran out and new centers of development began to look for a way out without looking back at the G-7 and other countries of the US team;
4) the contradictions between the old and new centers of capitalism have increased to a level unprecedented in the 21st century.
So the world is divided: there are new and old centers, there is an area of the old semi-periphery and a periphery where the bureaucracy fears US control or the processes remain under US control. The fields of struggle are vast and the struggle promises to be protracted, changing the trade, governance and technological chains against the West.
The internal neocolonialism of the West
Where then does the new colonialism of the USA and its satellites succeed? The new Western values - this is the field, the sphere of triumph of neo-colonialism. Developing countries constantly hear from the USA, England or the EU: “Freedom and democracy…” But the true values of the Western political system (not to be confused with society) are not like that.
The ideology and practice of late neoliberalism has changed a lot. As a result, very little of the former natural rights and freedoms remained. From above, a new understanding of ideals is introduced:
1) Democracy appears in the West not as the rule of the majority, but as a liberal rule over the majority, allegedly in the name of its good, which the society itself is allegedly unable to recognize and accept. The main thing is not majority rule, but obedience to the majority.
2) The inequality of people before the law, based on the priority of minority rights: man and citizen are nothing, special “small” groups are everything.
An individual belonging to the respectable “injured” minority has real rights superior to the common man. Law and power must protect him, whether he is right or wrong, because he is a “victim”.
3) Inequality of minorities before each other from the point of view of the law: some minorities are “oppressed” (racial, gender and what not, but loyal to the ruling circles), others are “reactionary” (with a wrong worldview according to the authorities).
4) Anti-pluralism: many opinions are not necessary, widely declared misconceptions do not have to disappear completely (this is impossible), but their bearers are obliged to constantly repent before others.
All dissenters are subjected to unwarranted stigmatization: intolerant, racist, fascist, sexist, communist, homophobe, totalitarian, gender-hating, and the like.
5) Interference with private life: there is a justified and ever-increasing interference with family and other private life for the purpose of moral destruction of “wrong” citizens.
Children are brought out of such families, in fact, on the basis of undemocratically established norms that diverge from the previous norms of society (by no means archaic, but established during the modernization of the 20th century).
6) Bureaucratic segregation: inequality of rights is based on the status of people and citizens, determined by nationality, residence permit or lack of documents.
Illegal migrants have no rights despite the media’s respect for their race, religion and culture. The neoliberal bureaucracy’s attack on human rights has led to a shrinking of civil rights.
7) Lack of freedom of conscience: the natural right to independently form beliefs and values is eliminated. Allegedly in the name of the fair organization of public and private life (not only the state), the beliefs of the old and new generations are forcibly and without alternative instilled, which includes, among other things, the acceptance of the principle of nullity and the guilt of the majority before various minorities.
8) The 19th century as an ideal of social rights is coming to an end: budget restrictions and many anti-social reforms helped to destroy or weaken the “welfare state” in the West. The principle prevails: everyone has as many rights and opportunities as they can buy (unless they belong to a privileged group).
9) Progress is nothing. Education and science obey the listed principles, are ideologized in a neoliberal key, bureaucratized to suppress the resistance of thinking, not formal scientists. But the main thing is that the principle of the unity of the progress of society, science and technology is denied in practice and in rhetoric. The level of education and critical thinking of people is artificially lowered.
10) The destruction of society is not the destruction of society. People are told that what is happening is not degradation but progress.
Thus, deindustrialization becomes a ostensibly a struggle to save the environment, and the severing of trade ties, natural and necessary for the survival of the economy, becomes a struggle for peace, security and freedom. Postmodernism allows all noble words to be used out of place because truth is denied as such.
The story is not summarized
That is not all, but these points show the value and practical foundations of the new Western order, the neoliberal order at its worst. What is this if not the triumph of internal colonialism aimed at blocking social development and any efforts at recovery?
Against this background, the imperfect systems of the new centers of capitalism seem more robust and, most importantly, capable of developing and winning the battle. This is the result of the great economic crisis of 2008-2020. However, the era it has inaugurated has just begun and there are many more events to come.
For the old American hegemon, these events could bring defeat in the struggle. Its aggravation in 2022-2023 suggests that the US no longer feels like a hegemon, but is trying to regain its previous position.
To do this, they must remake the world, disrupt the logic of its development, impose a peripheral position on as many countries as possible. The problem is that this happened only in relation to the EU: the status of the “European common home” fell in 2022, the economy was destroyed by sanctions, capital fled to the United States.
Protests in EU countries are one form of struggle against American neo-colonialism in its latest edition. The situation is hardly normal, but the result is expected.
A comma should be inserted here, because there is no point in telling everything in advance. One thing is clear: neo-mercantilism continues to develop, and American neo-colonialism has conquered the EU “ally”, but this does not change the situation. The Great Depression and power rivalry have changed the core of capitalism, and by this logic the US is doomed to defeat the struggle against the new centers.
Translation: SM
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