paul mason doesn't get national-populism right - he called the current italian rightist government "neoliberalism in one country" (what??) - yes we need a big progressive front like the one varoufakis is building - for europe - too bad britain is no longer part of it - america today is part of the problem not the solution (unlike in the 40s) - the geopolitics has completely changed - to stave off nationalism, racism, authoritarianism we need a new social pact (similar to fordism in its macro elements) that distributes the productivity of machine learning to all - a pact between the forces representing the female and multiethnic precariat and those of digital oligopoly - the fascist axis was defeated because liberals and communists decided to join forces against nazism - mason is too-trotskyite-for-his-own-good to draw an apt parallelism with today's predicament - in fact, it's anglo-saxon socialism that is a consequence of the crisis of neoliberalism, while trump is the cause..
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 11:01 AM, nettime's avid reader <nett...@kein.org> wrote: > > Donald Trump is a symptom of the new global disorder, not the cause > By Paul Mason > > https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/06/donald-trump- > symptom-new-global-disorder-not-cause > > In the space of three days, Donald Trump has created a new, explosive > geopolitical reality. He nixed the outcome of a G7 summit he had > disparaged, disrupted and departed from early. Then, with all the > subtlety of an estate agent, he welcomed Kim Jong-un into the growing > club of authoritarian strongmen who are intent on destroying the > post-1989 world order. > > With the G7, we knew it was coming. Trump ran on the slogan “America > First” and has delivered on it: he has promoted economic growth at the > expense of the US’s lenders, and by saddling future generations with > unpayable debts; created jobs at the expense of America’s competitors > and launched a trade war. > > But the shape, smell and feel of the “it” would only be clear once Trump > sat down, surrounded by the failed technocrats and globalists, in that > now-iconic photo. > > Released by Angela Merkel’s team, it is supposed to show her as the > strongwoman forcing Trump to accept the need for a rules-based global > order. Instead it shows the combined geopolitical power of Germany, > Italy, the UK, Japan, France and Canada amounting to zilch in the face > of America’s new policy of “beggar my neighbour”. > > For certain, Trump looked stupid and, with hindsight, weak throughout > the entire two days. He got pushed by his diplomats and the other > leaders into signing a document he didn’t believe in. But that doesn’t > matter: because, in the geopolitical turmoil that is about to deepen, > the USA has three important things: the dollar, the world’s biggest > military and a $6trn debt to the rest of the world. > > Three years ago, in Postcapitalism, I outlined two scenarios if the > world’s elites refused to contemplate a break from the free market > economic model. The first was long-term stagnation and austerity. In the > second: > > “The consensus breaks. Parties of the hard right and left come to power > as ordinary people refuse to pay the price of austerity. Instead, states > then try to impose the costs of the crisis on each other. Globalisation > falls apart, the global institutions become powerless and in the process > the conflicts that have burned these past twenty years – drug wars, > post-Soviet nationalism, jihadism, uncontrolled migration and resistance > to it – light a fire at the centre of the system”. > > That is what has happened. Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and > eastern Ukraine, Syriza’s clash with the eurozone, Merkel’s unilateral > negation of the Dublin Treaty on migration, Brexit, the coup and > counter-coup in Turkey, Trump’s victory, the victory of Poland’s Law & > Justice party, the switch by Austrian conservatism to an alliance with > neofascism and the installation of a far-right/populist coalition > government in Italy. > > They are all part of a chain reaction by which powerful states try to > impose social and economic pain on each other, or on smaller states. > > Russia and China have played their part too: Putin with the creation of > a 19th century-style “sphere of influence” involving Iran, Syria, > central Asia and many western dupes (one of whom may be Trump himself). > China, meanwhile, is creating a 21st century economic empire, launching > its state and private sector jointly into the race to become hegemonic > in artificial intelligence, while consolidating power around Xi > Jinping’s project of Chinese nationalism with a Marxist face. > > To see the G7’s collapse as one isolationist against a room full of > liberal globalists, as many mainstream commentators have done, is wrong. > Germany smashed Greek democracy and has manipulated the eurozone to > impoverish southern Europe and suppress European demand. Theresa May > leads a party transformed overnight into a vessel for xenophobic > nationalism (albeit floundering around, incapable of translating its new > convictions into actions). > > Shinzo Abe would never need to use the words “Japan first” because that > has been the implicit policy of all Japanese governments since the Asian > crisis of 1997. Italy, meanwhile, just completed an abject week for > globalism by dumping 600 stranded migrants onto Spain > > The old imperial powers of Europe and Asia were already, in other words, > engaged in the game. > > There were only two committed defenders of globalisation in its old form > – Macron and Justin Trudeau - and, as they will now find out, the > changed situation will soon force them, too, into measures needed to > survive the breakdown of a rules-based order. > > The question: “what do we do?” should be on the minds of all political > people who understand, from the example of the 1930s, what happens when > a rules-based order is fragmented. But it’s not. > > The reason for is that, for 30 years, neoliberal ideology has been > founded on the perfection and unchangeability of the current system: not > just of the free market economic model and free trade, but of a global > order underpinned by unipolar American power, Chinese isolationism and a > Russia contained and constrained by its economic weakness. > > In a relatively short space of time – dating roughly from the Crimea > annexation in February 2014 - all these assumptions have evaporated. > Economists operating with static models, political journalists assuming > that the “machine” would capture Trump, geopolitical pundits – that most > speculative of professional groups – understood the world order was > fragmenting but not the causes. > > One of the greatest adverts for Marxism, in the year of Marx’s 200th > anniversary, is that all the events described fit neatly into the > theory. There was never a global elite, only a series of national > bourgeoisies locked together in a system of global wealth extraction. > Globalisation was their collaborative project: a policy, not an > irreversible natural event. > > Subordinate classes – even classes who’ve had their organisations and > cultures suppressed by force, like the working class communities who > backed Trump, Brexit and Lega – can exert pressure on elites. > Apparently permanent forces are unstable beneath the surface. The laws > of change work through abrupt transitions such as the one Trump > triggered when he tweeted the cancellation of the G7 communique in mid-air. > > I don’t care whether you call it Marxism or merely “sinuous, complex > dialectical thinking about reality based on impermanence and economic > determinism and class power analysis”. Without it you cannot formulate > the question “what do we do?” adequately. > > For that question should really be: what do we do about long-term > economic stagnation, which has led to a rush for the exits from the > multilateral global system, posing the possibility of trade wars, the > fragmentation of the global finance system, military conflict and a > threat to the global architecture that protects universal human rights? > > I fear the moment is past where that question can be answered inside a > global institution. Indeed, the true global institutions, like the IMF > and the Bank for International Settlements must be asking themselves > searching questions about who they will serve in future. Is it > conceivable that, within 20 years, the IMF will become a tool for China > to impose its values and economic doctrines on the world, as it was for > the US in the 1980s and 1990s? Is it conceivable that a globally > co-ordinated central banking system can survive when treasures and > central banks take up the game of beggar thy neighbour in earnest? > > I have become notorious on the left for insisting that the “we” of > progressive politics no longer means primarily the organised working > class. The agent of history that will need to summon enough social power > to rebuild something like a global order is the networked consumer and > citizen. As the elites flee from globalism, its progressive values > remain implicit in the lifestyles of the networked and > cosmopolitan-minded educated populace. > > So what can we - should we - do? > > The answer is: design and execute a new kind of capitalism that meets > the needs of people in the developed world. The design is not > impossible: the elements of it lie in the provision of universal basic > incomes or services, a Green New Deal, rapid automation and the creation > of increased leisure time, massive investments in education, and an end > to outsourcing, offshoring and privatisation. > > We can either do this collectively, as Europe, or the G7, or as NAFTA. > Or, more likely, as a series of national projects where borrowing to > invest, printing money where necessary and stimulating moderate > inflation creates the same - albeit unstable - synergies as in the > “thirty glorious years” after 1945. > > For the left it means thinking beyond party designations. In Britain, > the Greens, Momentum, maybe 50-plus truly Corbynite Labour MPs, half the > SNP and the diffuse membership of two or three big NGOs are those who > really get it. In Europe, however, many green parties have become > bastions of neoliberal complacency: they will be musing on the > possibility of degrowth and digging their organic allotments the moment > the AfD and the Front National take power. > > As for social democracy, it falls into three camps: outright > conservative economic nationalists, as in Slovakia; enthusiastic > participants in the failed neoliberal model, as in Germany; and people > like Austria’s Christian Kern – a technocrat flung into a crisis who had > to throw away the playbook – or Spain’s Pedro Sanchez, who understand > the need to reconnect and rethink. And of course Jeremy Corbyn and > Bernie Sanders. > > We now need an alliance of parties, movements and individuals who are > not going to fight for the system that has failed but to imagine a new > one: a capitalism that delivers prosperity to Wigan, Newport and > Kirkcaldy, if necessary by not delivering it to Bombay, Dubai and Shenzhen. > > Is that an argument for economic nationalism? No, rather an > internationalism that says to the rest of the world: if the developed, > democratic countries of Europe, America and Asia collapse into > authoritarian rule, the 400-year upswing of industrial societies > alongside democracy will have, once again, stalled - and, with China's > inevitable hegemony, it might go into reverse. > > To save what we can of the multilateral order, we need to reverse out of > its extreme forms. It’s a tragedy that it took the Five Star Movement in > Italy to argue for a pre-Maastricht form of the EU. That position is > implicit in the left’s critique of the eurozone and of German > mercantilism. As progressives, not nostalgics, however, we should argue > for a post-Lisbon Europe. > > But even saving the multilateral order might now prove impossible. If > the situation collapses into all-out trade war, the repudiation of the > Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human rights, the > factionalisation of the IMF and – the ultimate horror – mutual debt > defaults, then the point is to go on imagining how we can set things right. > > J.M.Keynes, who had predicted the doom that overtook Europe in the early > 1930s, and continuously struggled to keep the global system together, > reacted to its collapse in 1939 by working on a new design. > > In September 1941, with Leningrad surrounded and the US not yet even in > the war, Keynes sat down to write Proposals for an International > Currency Union. He designed a self-correcting global system with a > global bank, a global currency a development bank and a reserve fund. > Keynes never convinced the Americans (or the Russians) of his scheme, > but an adequate version of it was adopted at Bretton Woods, unleashed an > unparalleled period of prosperity, and still underpins the global > financial architecture, despite the formal collapse of Bretton Woods in > 1973. > > The question that concerned Keynes and his US counterpart Harry Dexter > White in 1941 was simply: what will the world economy look like after we > have defeated fascism, ended the conflict between imperial powers and > restored the international rule of law? > > That’s the kind of question the iconic Trump-Merkel photograph should > now prompt among the beleaguered political progressives of the West. > > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
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