A caveat:
In writing this note, I want to emphasize that I am not advocating for carelessness regarding this influenza or discouraging preventive measures to contain it. As advised by medical professionals, if I do not take sufficient precautions, I understand that I could also become a patient of this influenza. Importantly, I am not an expert, and my understanding of viruses and virology is limited. With my limited training, I can read data and understand statistics. My entire note is based on the data released by WHO and other agencies in the field.
Allow me to add another caveat: Unlike the left-wing political stance, I do not view capitalism as the enemy of humanity or an exclusionary system where one percent of people build a monopoly over the remaining ninety-nine percent. In our society, functional models, including capitalism as an economic model, have emerged through continuous negotiations involving left, right, and central policies. In principle, capitalism today exists as a settlement of these various arguments. Consider organized labor unions in capitalist countries; most of them have robust labor policies and structures, even more so than many communist countries.
It's essential to remember that, unlike the communist model where the state and party have complete control over the nation, and people cannot interact with other economic models like capitalism or socialism, capitalism allows for people-to-people interaction and access to different socio-political and economic systems. Of course, there may be serious reservations about communist models.
In other words, while communism remained a geo-centric ideological nationality (as seen in USSR, China, Poland, etc.), capitalism, on the contrary, remained an adventurist expansionism aiming for universalization and globalization. Although a communist bloc existed during the pre-globalization era, it primarily consisted of non-US nations rather than forming an ideologically communist group of countries. India serves as a classic example of a nation that resisted becoming communist.
However, it's important to acknowledge that capitalism, in its practice and methods, is not without significant socio-political problems or agendas that contradict progressive human society's ideals. Its track record concerning equality, fraternity, and justice is often abysmal.
Furthermore, we must not forget that capitalism is essentially a "practiced thought model" that aims to operate independently of the state. Capitalism has consistently advocated for a market economy where the state plays a limited role. Unlike communist or socialist governments, capitalism, as an ideology, has historically not held executive positions or power. In fact, throughout its history, capitalism has often fought to break, remove, or relax the laws of the land, or, in many instances, undermine the powers of the state.
From its inception, capitalism has been motivated by individual greed and the pursuit of self-interest. This emphasis on the individual's role as primary in a market has shaped its social model into a collective of mutually suspicious individuals who perceive a threat in the existence of others. Capitalism has always been a structurally fragile system.
Although the system is often labeled with the term "competitiveness" to describe this mutual suspicion and threat perception, it has typically resulted in capitalists striving to reduce their fears and protect their self-interests, often at the expense of others. To mitigate these fears and advance their interests, capitalism has consistently relied on innovation, shipping, transportation, exploration, colonization, and even wars. Capitalism cannot escape its predatory instincts in its methods. Ideologically, I do not align with most of its frameworks and methods.
The cracks in the system:
The initial signs of fractures within capitalist systems became evident following the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent era of globalization. In this new world order, the United States, having long served as the primary counterforce to the USSR bloc, leveraged its strength to assert dominance over other Western nations for commercial gain. Many countries, particularly the traditional capitalist nations in Europe, grew uneasy with this newfound U.S. aggression. Some of the trade agreements imposed upon them appeared to be discriminatory, destabilizing their global trade shares. Consequently, the European Union (EU) was formed, uniting nations with greater bargaining power. One of the EU's early actions was the introduction of its own industrial standards, such as ISO, designed to define Euro-centric trade terms independently from the United States.
Armed with these legislations, the former imperial and colonial capitalist nations of Europe gradually constructed a bureaucratic defense mechanism against American global trade adventurism. Consequently, the United States lost its foothold in Europe, leading to the fragmentation of former Czechoslovakia, a move aimed at establishing U.S. influence in Europe while asserting NATO's role.
These fractures among capitalist nations also reflected differing conceptions of capitalism. On one side, the United States led non-state corporations advocating their brand of predatory capitalism, while on the other, Europe championed a legislatively-based, state-backed capitalism.
With these disparities in place, as corporations engaged in trade negotiations under the framework of global state agreements, capitalism began to be subjected to executive legislations rather than fostering commercial entrepreneurship or market innovation. Furthermore, as trade negotiations became enshrined in state legislations or part of legislative agreements, capitalism's ideals became intertwined with each state's political interests. Each nation formulated its own code of conduct and practices tailored to its political priorities, maintaining one set of rules for domestic operations and another for international dealings. Consequently, capitalism transitioned from an idealized predatory system, where interests could be freely advanced through innovations, shipping, colonization, and wars, to a realm governed by global legislative laws, restrictions, and administration.
In the post-USSR era, these developments triggered the proliferation of state-led trade bloc formations guided by political leaders. Moving away from the generic nature of agreements like the GATT, where each state participated individually, we now witness blocs of nations such as the G-8, G-20, Brexit, Asian bloc, and others, all vying to protect their interests while resisting external pressures.
These blocs of nations, with some countries belonging to multiple blocs, evolved into more than mere trade partners. Many nations came together to protest or resist the discriminatory clauses imposed by developed or powerful nations in their agreements. What ensued was a complete transformation of the global trade landscape and a redefinition of capitalism, accompanied by both positive and negative consequences.
Allow me to outline some of the significant repercussions resulting from these developments:
Stringent labor laws in capitalist nations, as mandated by legislative structures, compelled businesses to initiate the outsourcing of their production primarily to former or current communist countries to benefit from cheaper labor and reduced production costs. While these enhanced profit margins helped sustain businesses in capitalist countries, unfortunately, labor laws and skillsets in these outsourcing destinations became increasingly irrelevant. Consequently, unemployment became a critical issue within the labor class, rendering hard-fought labor laws, which had been the subject of court battles and political struggles spanning centuries, suddenly untenable.
Conversely, former USSR bloc nations and China, in the name of job creation and employment opportunities, unethically subsidized their citizens to favor the business interests of capitalist nations, often at the expense of their own labor forces. This led to the emergence of a new business model that involved subsidizing labor laws and citizenship rights. Although this neo-capitalist model encountered significant challenges initially, it eventually led to the upgrading of labor and production facilities. Moreover, large-scale movements of human capital and migration took place between these countries, resulting in substantial investments in logistics, transportation, and forward trading. However, these developments also gave rise to issues related to solid waste management, pollution, and environmental concerns. Consequently, not only did finished products traverse continents, but natural resources were also extracted and transported across the globe on a massive scale.
The most intricate aspect of this scenario was the accumulation of resources by countries like China, often at the expense of resource depletion in smaller developing nations like India. This situation conferred an unfair advantage in terms of production feasibility upon some countries while leaving smaller developing nations at a disadvantage.
Furthermore, despite having limited production facilities, most developed capitalist nations evolved into societies primarily driven by consumption, generating the world's largest waste volumes by consuming products from developing nations. Initially, developing countries, including China and India, agreed to accept back some of this waste. However, most of these producing nations have since ceased collecting waste from developed consumerist nations.
In essence, contemporary developed capitalist nations no longer realize substantial profits from their trade compared to the early days of outsourcing. Additionally, investments directed toward upgrading production facilities and product development have enabled countries like China to make significant strides in production capabilities and innovation, to the extent that they now dictate the markets of the United States and Europe. This shift has allowed them to manipulate and influence consumer desires and demands, fundamentally reshaping capitalism.
This transformation gave rise to unexpected consequences, such as mass migrations of products, technology, resources, and people across the world. For the first time, Western capitalism encountered the power of migrants and its implications within its own borders. The traditional concept of materiality in Western capitalism now faces challenges and dictates from former communists, communists, and, at the very least, socialists. Various forms of migration, including product migrations, concept migrations, skilled labor migrations, ideological migrations, language migrations, cultural migrations, food migrations, religious migrations, and more, originating from these countries, now dominate the Western capitalist landscape.
Considering that many European capitalist nations today lean more toward legislative capitalism rather than market capitalism, their politicians began to feel threatened by identity politics. A similar situation unfolded in the United States. Consequently, capitalism shifted from expansionism to protectionism, and from its predatory colonial nature to predatory nationalism. Furthermore, the individual-centric idealism of capitalist society shifted its focus toward fundamentalistic identity politics.
The rise of identity politics led to the natural emergence of right-wing fundamentalists as leaders in these countries. Despite their control over global-reaching social media and communication companies, they initiated the closure of borders, markets, and their economies to what they referred to as outsiders—those to whom they had delegated their business and trade just a few years earlier. As a result, capitalism evolved from market-driven principles to a behavior resembling oligarchies or feudal lords from bygone eras in failed states. Moreover, this transition was increasingly preferred by these nations over the traditional capitalist approach.
The story continues with the emergence of a new economy characterized by digital nationalities and its structural consequences.
