The structural change in the world economy with a decay in advanced countries

Abstract

This article focuses on three aspects of structural changes in the world economy. First, advanced countries are decaying with lower growth, accompanied by increased economic inequality and instability. Most of them are facing a demographic and ecological crisis. Second, the dynamic center of the world economy is shifting to developing countries. Their trajectories were diversified into three types: oil-producing rentier countries, stagnating LLDCs (Least among Less developped Countries), and rapidly growing Asian countries. Third, the decay in advanced countries is deeply related to the dynamic changes in developing countries. Finally, against neoliberalism, 21st-century models of socialist alternatives appear in various forms. At the same time, U.S. global hegemony seems shaken, and a sort of interregnum in the world order may become dominant for decades to come. Robert Rowthorn comments on the implications of economic trends for the health and well-being of the American white working class, demographic trends in the advanced capitalist economies, the future role of nuclear power, and the implications for Europe of population growth in the least developed countries. Jayati Ghosh takes up changing structures and distribution in the global economy and responses to neoliberal capitalism.