Global crisis

The famous quote by Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci seems to have been written for the moment humanity is currently experiencing: “The old is dying, and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum, monsters arise.”

The world is going through a civilizational crisis in which the neoliberal capitalist order, although mortally wounded, continues to impose its predatory logic, that of the use of force and the resurgence of fascism, while emancipatory alternatives fail to consolidate. In this vacuum, monsters proliferate: wars and attempts at recolonization, climate crisis, structural hunger, collapse of multilateralism and international law placed at the service of the world’s powers that be.

Capitalism and its “Terminal Crisis”: According to Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, the globalized capitalist system has been showing terminal signs for more than a decade: the obscene concentration of wealth, parasitic financialization, planetary catastrophes, and the precariousness of life have led to this crisis, but it has not been strong enough to finally bury this system. Western imperialism – today embodied in NATO and its imposition of increased war budgets on member countries, in the US economic war, especially against China, and in the European Union’s sanctions against Russia – can no longer flaunt itself as before, but it refuses to die. Its decline is evident in global inflation, the return of Cold War geopolitics, and the rise of neo-fascisms as fictitious “solutions” to inequality.

Is the left also in crisis?: While capitalism seems to be moving towards its decomposition, the left is unable to articulate a hegemonic project. Progressive experiences in Latin America face economic siege, blockades, unilateral coercive measures and judicialization, divisions and popular demobilization; European social democracy is surrendering to neoliberalism and anti-capitalist alternatives still lack global strength. Fragmentation and what appears to be a lack of strategies in the face of new forms of domination (such as the digital divide, corporatist government, and the rule of Big Tech) weaken the possibility of the emergence of a new order.

The monsters of the “interregnum”: In this historical limbo, crises are multiplying: Wars and neocolonialism: Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, the Sahel, conflicts where resources are plundered under the rhetoric of “defending democracy” or simply betting on chaos and the disappearance of states.

Environmental catastrophe: Capitalism has turned nature into a “commodity,” and now the planet is suffering countless fires, floods, and desertification. Hunger and inequality: The 1% owns more than the 99%, while the UN reports that 735 million people suffer from chronic hunger, billionaires break records in profits and gain support from media corporations and politicians.

The failure of international law: The International Criminal Court prosecutes Africans but ignores the crimes of Israel and the US, while the Security Council has become a veto club. Furthermore, reform of the United Nations has become a key issue for the Global South, as seen at the last BRICS meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Excerpted: ‘The Monsters of the Global Crisis Interregnum’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org