Search

This contribution to the discussion about Dag Strpic's book Karl Marx and the Political Economy of Modernity focuses on the author's assessment that the weakening of US economic hegemony is questionable, especially with regard to the future prospects of capitalism (and its development), and prefers to speak of a "redesign" thereof. Accordingly, this article analyses in detail three aspects of capitalism redesign: the causal, the contingent and the functional aspects. Regarding causality, the partial redistribution of leading roles in world economy is caused by the introduction of new methods, from industrial and media technology to financial speculations and new wars -- which make profit-making possible. Regarding contingency, the shift in the centre provides opportunity for a small number of countries, such as China, India and Brazil, which are endowed with capitalist "talent" (in the sense of combining the policy of resource mobilization with elements of positive evaluation of labour in the local culture), to climb the ladder of successful development. The functional aspects indicate the favourable effects of the shift in the centre not only for newcomers to the club of the most developed, but also to the USA. The financialization of (primarily American) economy, along with giving over leadership to other industrial powers in many branches of industrial production, and in the rate of economic growth -- i.e. with a "new division of labour" in the centre -- gives to the US some sort of "aristocratic" status in the world of capitalism. Such a status is not incompatible with the cyclic process of capitalism development. Instead of a dialectical leap toward socialism, it rather aspires to a partial restoration of feudalism, as a global order of strong states in the centre and weak or apparent states on the margins. This, however, is not the worst possible ending of modern history. If a much more pronounced decline of US economic power in favour of the newcomers were to occur, this would probably strengthen the brutality of capitalism rather than weaken it. Provided that, in the EU, the trend of further decomposition of the welfare state is stopped, and the indispensable balance between the requirements of economic growth and of social solidarity and general well-being is restored, only a genuine and comprehensive "Europeanization" of the capitalist system could make possible the emergence of a global capitalism with a human face, and probably also of a world state which would provide for a balanced development of all parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]