Political Systems in the 21st Century

Overview

en:Crisis (Marxian) gives a synoptic view of how various Marxist tendencies view the cyclic evolution of what it has given the names "Capitalism", "the bourgeois social order", etc. In this page I am trying to work out my understanding of how the real forces evident in the real world might play themselves out in the current century.

Thesis

At this point, nowhere on the planet have new forms of social aggregation begun to replace the official ones although the means for this to happen are now for the first time in place. As the linked article above states, the primary factors are the consciousness of the political actors and the object forces of historical development. It is my expectation that by the end of the century these will have complete superseded the existing structures.

Exposition

The 2008-2009 Financial crisis vividly shows the hallmarks of a late crisis of the existing world order. The essence of that order is that all social activity, governance, etc,, is driven by and has as its purpose private accumulation. Thus nothing which seriously challenges this order can get much attention, resources, etc. Problems which require a transnational and essentially social basis will continue to be poorly addressed.

In particular, the overall process has certain aspects which can be expected to lead to more crises until there is some fundamental restructuring of society on a global basis. On the one hand Capitalism drives to ever greater levels of productivity and efficiency with the narrow confines of the consumer culture upon which it has become dependent. If it were able to produce consumers whom it was able to pay the high wages need to continue to drive the demand pull for the products it produces it would be able to sustain itself indefinitely. This was possible after the last great conjuncture in the 1930s because of a massive increase in the production of just such consumers. However this process was associated with a Capitalism that was heavily socialized and not the triumphal capitalism of the early 21st century.

The current order is, for the reason stated in the previous ¶ completely incapable of sustaining itself and will almost certainly be in a protracted period of crisis while various ineffective reforms are tried and the fundamental problem advances.