THE CRISIS OF NEOLIBERALISM

Abstract

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the world entered into a major crisis, the fourth structural crisis in the history of modern capitalism. The crisis is not the effect of the declining trend of the profit rate as was the case in the previous structural crisis during the 1970s. Like the Great Depression, it was the consequence of the endeavor on the part of capitalist classes and their allies in the upper fractions of management to remove all national and international barriers limiting their quest for power and income. The crisis began in the United States and was caused by the convergence of two categories of mechanisms, the progress of globalization and financialization, on the one hand, and the macro trajectory of disequilibria of the US economy. It was exported to the rest of the world. The potential conflicts among the fractions of ruling classes open new opportunities for the struggle of popular classes. Given the weakness of class struggle in comparison to the interwar years, the emergence of a social order similar to the social-democratic order of the first postwar decades is, however, unlikely. The new social order that will follow the crisis might well be determined by the establishment of a new compromise among the various fractions of upper classes, capitalist classes and managerial classes. A Center-Right option would mean a new leadership of managerial classes, capable of implementing the reforms and enacting the strong policies required for the restoration of the economic situation and the slowing down of the decline of US hegemony. This decline and the corresponding emergence of a multipolar world open opportunities for the countries of the Periphery in search of an increased autonomy vis-a-vis the imperialist framework of neoliberal globalization.