In 1895 young Winston Churchill asked Sir William Harcourt, prominent Liberal Party politician: “What will happen then?”. “My dear Winston” replied the old Victorian statesman, “the experiences of a long life have convinced me than nothing ever happens.” Churchill concluded in his memoirs: “Since that moment, as it seems to me, nothing has ever ceased happening”.
Two Scenarios
Neoliberal globalists want to change the shape of capitalism so that China as the world’s factory and source of investment capital becomes unnecessary. Powers backing Donald Trump intend to compete with China and fight to replace it, remaining the centre of Capitalism in the post-Fordist era. In both strategies confrontation turns out to be inevitable, although Chinese approach traditionally leads to avoiding direct confrontation. Both scenarios also leave some loopholes, in the first option in the form of integrating China into the New Global Order (even with chances for some advancement of elites, under condition of getting rid of narrow categories of their own civilisation), and in the second with the Chinese subordination to the US as the continuing global leader.
Lockdown or War?
Contrary to appearances, these are not just geoeconomic issues. The effects of the expected changes are and will be felt directly by employees and consumers, only slightly simplifying them to the alternative: eternal lockdown or destructive war.
In the first option, zero growth will stop all economic development, and the masses of humanity will survive only being given a tiny fraction of capitalist rent. However, it will not be a world of happy utopias, where robots work for people, AI takes care of eternal Spring, and humanity gains an additional dimension of searching for the Inner-Self. Rather it would look like a world in which the Last Judgement has already taken place, the saved and the damned have been separated, and the rest have simply been abandoned in oblivion to vegetate endlessly.
It is equally difficult to imagine the effects of a global war, a very real one, although probably also conducted in a digital dimension, because although the conflict may begin with a simple rivalry between several mobile phone producers and an argument about the superiority of American LPG over the Chinese electric battery, the effect may be a shock questioning the very foundations of global e-Capitalism.
Is Reactionary Capitalism Possible?
In addition, is it possible to re-create some new Fordism?
Yes, globalisation was certainly initiated by political methods, so it could be dismantled in an analogous way. But is what is happening in Washington really a harbinger of such reactionism? Wasn’t the disintegration of Elon Musk’s spaceship, preceding Donald Trump’s inauguration, equally symbolic? After all, the conquest of space, like the exploration of ocean depths, were the death knell of an era in which increasing accumulation from non-systemic areas was understood in geographical categories. Technological progress was recognised more as the development and emergence of new means of transport, not just communication ones. Meanwhile, it turned out that you do not have to fly to the Moon to conquer new areas of extracting additional value. One of them is, for example, the platform on which you probably found this article, among the others, while scrolling and spending your free time. It is also new media, games, financialisation of social reproduction, our everyday life from home waste segregation, through automatic checkouts, online shopping and online banking to robotization and AI. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, in their hands people like Trump can wink at us that they want/can return to the previous path of Capitalism, but in fact we are their Space, already largely conquered. So what for fly anywhere?
Ownership, Not Alliances
From this perspective, let’s look at Trump’s position on TikTok, emblematic for prosumerism and the platform economy. It is not the subject of the action that turns out to be important for the new administration, but the ownership status. Globalisation, digitalisation, financialisation of previously non-commercial spheres of life are still OK, as long as they fulfill the goals of American capital. That is the whole difference.
The same with cryptocurrencies. They may prove useful in the game with that part of the world’s financial system that is rushing into an era of great stagnation, the only important thing is who and for whom they will mine money from dirty air. In the upcoming battle for being the centre of the World-System, there are therefore no permanent positions. On the contrary, the Chinese factory of the world can easily abandon its current strategy and take on the role of the New Carthage of the post-industrial era, and similarly, Trumpism/Muskism, instead of to Mars, can lead us deeper into the AI-economy, if only a specific capital group has the largest share in it. Change therefore means transformation rather than reversal of processes.
So have Harcourt’s decades of nothing-happening really passed, as BREXIT, COVID and the war in Ukraine have suggested? Are we now set for a return to the Churchillian era? Or perhaps Harcourt, an old, bored practitioner of politics, criticised for understanding it more than experiencing it, will once again ultimately prove to be right? After all, the World System has changed so far many times only to remain unchanged. Could it be any different now?
How Many Genders Are There Outside of America?
From a European perspective, it is crucial to confirm that it is difficult to wage a cultural war against a cultural hegemon that has suddenly changed its narrative. Hence the confusion of liberal progressive leaders, as till now presidents have changed, but the line on issues such as transgender, climate or woke in general has remained unchanged. It was held in the whole American sector not because it was believed to be right, but because it came from the hegemon. And what now?
The most important question concerns how the USA… self-identify themselves. The statement “from today on, there are only two sexes for the American administration” is not a simple enough guide for the rest of the world. Are the Americans returning to normality only for internal needs, telling the dependent zone “Have as many genders as you want, as long as you pay us customs duties”, or will they continue their missionary activity in the name of own cultural hegemony, only reversing its turn?
Until recently, failing to recognise a sufficient number of pronouns landed you on the US State Department’s sanctions list. Will the same now apply to aggressive transgender promotion, or is Washington sending a signal that doesn’t give a damn?
Isolationism or Change of Discourse?
This is a fundamental difference, defining whether we are really dealing with American isolationism or with a desire to maintain hegemony, only based on a reverted message. Without explaining these issues, it is difficult to predict the development of American-European relations or the internal balance of power in the American sector. This is something much more serious than childish jumping up and down waiting for the Americans to come and exchange Starmer for Farage and Robinson, Macron for Le Pen and Scholz for Weidel.
Climatism vs. US Energy Exports
The issues of interpenetration of discourse, ideology, and economy are perhaps best seen in the example of Climatism, which, as an energy transformation project, is tailored to the idea developed for Western Europe (with a few exceptions, such as Scotland, Norway, and the Netherlands) and… China, which are deprived of their own energy resources. Leaving Europeans free to tell tales about the beneficial effects of reducing CO2 emissions would therefore directly conflict with plans to base the American economic recovery on oil and LNG exports.
Sure, so far it has been possible to combine aggressive climate phraseology with making European energy markets dependent on American supplies. Ultimately, however, regardless of how unrealistic a complete abandonment of hydrocarbons seems today, the transformation would make bridge fuels completely unnecessary, unless in Europe. So will it be enough for Trump and Musk’s America to withdraw itself from the ideological goals of the Paris Agreement, or will the US recognise that it is in their interest to force its vassals to abandon Climatism too?
Are These Plagues Ours Now?
So the question is whether it is still possible to be a progressive, woke, non-binary liberal with variable pronouns, who can sleep soundly in London or Paris, because the proles and immigrants will work out the tribute for this horrible primitive in the White House and (what is the most important) discourse will stay the same – or is the hegemon preparing and carrying out a universal change of decoration? And what if not only decoration?
Well, some optimists point out that transgenderism, as well as Climatism, were invented in the States, so why should the rest of the world stick with these ideas when they have lost popularity in their own home?
However the problem is that such concepts are like syphilis: once you catch it – it is yours…
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Konrad Rękas is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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