Capitalism, Coronavirus and War investigates the decay of neoliberal financialised capitalism as revealed in the crisis the novel coronavirus triggered but did not cause, a crisis that has been deepened by the conflict over Ukraine and its repercussions across the globe. Leading domestically to economic and political breakdown, the pandemic accelerated the decline of the US-led capitalist world’s imperial power, intensifying the tendency to lash out with aggression and militarism, as seen in the US-led West’s New Cold War against China and the proxy war against Russia over Ukraine. The geopolitical economy of the decay and crisis of this form of capitalism suggests that the struggle with socialism that has long shaped the fate of capitalism has reached a tipping point. The author argues that mainstream and even many progressive forces take capitalism’s longevity for granted, misunderstand its historical dynamics and deny its formative bond with imperialism. Only a theoretically and historically accurate account of capitalism’s dynamics and historical trajectory, which this book provides, can explain its current failures and predicament. It also reveals why, though the pandemic—by revealing capitalism’s obscene inequality and shocking debility—prompted the most serious critiques of capitalism to emerge in decades, hopes of ‘building back better’ were so quickly dashed. This book sheds searching light on the dominant narratives that have normalised the neoliberal financialised capitalism and the dollar creditocracy dominating the world economy, with even critics unable to link capitalism’s neoliberal turn to its financialisations, historical decay, productive debility and international decline. It contends that only by appreciating the seriousness of the crisis and rectifying our understanding of capitalism can progressive forces thwart a future of chaos and/or authoritarianism and begin the long task of building socialism. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and researchers of international relations, international political economy, comparative politics and global political sociology.
Author(s): Radhika Desai
Series: Rethinking Globalizations | 5
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge | Taylor & Francis Group
Year: 2023
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF | Full TOC
Pages: 266
Tags: Capitalism: United States: History; Neoliberalism: United States: History; COVID-19 (Disease): Economic Aspects: United States; Militarism: United States: History; Imperialism: History
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Endorsements
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Preface and acknowledgements
1 Introduction: resumption of history, return of choice
War clarifies
Pandemic reveals
Neoliberal financialised capitalism: the end of the capitalist road
Classes and nations against neoliberalism and towards socialism
The crisis and the opportunities?
Outline of the book
2 Capitalism as contradictory value production
Marx’s critical political economy
Value production and its two axes
Socialising labour and developing the productive forces
Enter neoclassical economics
Policy of theoretical reconciliation produces ‘Marxist economics’
Capitalism in society and history
The historical specificity of capital
The history and geography of contradictory value production
Contradictions
Contradictions of value production
Contradictions beyond value production
3 The geopolitical economy of capitalism and socialism
Capitalism and revolutions
The matrix of political and geopolitical struggle
Class competition and struggle
International competition and struggle
The unfolding of uneven and combined development
The Thirty Years’ Crisis
Crisis of imperialism
Crisis of capitalism
The socialistic golden age
Political economy
Geopolitical economy
Descent into crisis
4 Neoliberalism and its financialisations
The financial foundations
The long downturn
Pace and pattern
Contrasts and complementarities
Neoliberalism beyond the capitalist core
The overstretched productive economy
Financialisations: profits, demand and the dollar
Financialisations and profits
Financialisations, demand, wages and inequality
Dollar-denominated financialisations
5 The unexpected reckoning
Pandemics and social contracts
China’s socialism in the pandemic stress text
The neoliberal choice: herd immunity or herd immunity
How to lose both lives and livelihoods
The economic crisis
The monetary policy response
The fiscal policy response
Biden’s stimulus
The less neoliberal and financialised major capitalist economies
Inflation and war
6 Know your enemy: between pseudo-civic neoliberalism and (neo)fascism?
The end of neoliberalism?
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Neoliberalism and its avatars
Corporate power or competitive markets
The emergence of pseudo-civic neoliberalism?
Or the start of a new authoritarian capitalism?
7 Capitalism in the balance of international power
The US war against Russia over Ukraine
The United States’ impossible imperial project
Origins of the US hybrid war on Russia
Multiple boomerangs
Destroying the Russian economy?
Destroying creditor power or undermining the dollar creditocracy?
Defeating Russia?
Strengthening alliances?
Ukraine as theatre and proxy
The future of capitalism in the balance
8 Conclusion: what is to be done?
Building back (pseudo-civic) neoliberalism
‘Mission economy’: the theory of pseudo-civic neoliberalism
Modern monetary theory: camouflaging financialisations
Universal basic income: questionable entitlement
Political hope in search of an agent
Brains and numbers
The emergence of social democratic neoliberalism . . .
. . . and the working class turn to populism
Class and left politics today
Planning, capitalism and socialism
Parties or network politics?
The left, nations and anti-imperialism
People’s and peoples’ demands for socialism today
Index
