-
Chapter Twelve: Theoretical Reprise, Summary, Conclusion and Music of the Future
- LANGAA RPCIG
- Chapter
- Additional Information
399 Chapter Twelve Theoretical Reprise, Summary, Conclusion and Music of the Future Overview Conflict, or critical, theory is an approach to analysing society that stresses the differences in power among social groups like classes. This can be applied to those classes within societies, be they national or global, or even to countries within the global economic and trading system. When conflict theory is applied to global politics, this same scheme is followed: the poorer countries of the world are contrasted with the wealthy ones. The wealthy create the rules that are then forced upon the poor. The basic structure of conflict theory derives from theories of socialism. It holds that the social structure of societies cannot be understood unless power and money are taken into account. As an eloquent example, after World War II, the United States laid out the rules of globalization, attempting to enforce global free trade, the dominance of the dollar and the importance of American military might worldwide. Modern “globalization,” and the ideas behind it, stems from the American domination that ensued and its effects. The progression of globalization and the creation of the “Third World” comes from the post-war globe between 1950 and 1970, at the time when the ‘Third World’ had become independent from colonial rule. But, this independence was soon to be lost as the Third World realized that only with access to advanced capital, education and machinery were their economies to develop. The Third World did not itself have the expertise nor the technical acumen that the industrialized states did, and therefore, required oversight from the developed nations as a means for their own internal progress and industry. This also meant that most states in the developing world became dependent on their former colonial masters in a different way than they had been in the past, since only the advanced states, such as the US, France or Russia, possessed the basic mechanical and technological wherewithal that they needed. Therefore, in their drive to become independent and develop economically, The Third World became more deeply entrenched in colonial 400 relations of capitalist dispossession and exploitation by a global corporatocracy. Class consciousness may have declined in Western countries, but a decline does not denote an absence. To truly become a ‘class for itself’ the working class, in all countries and elsewhere, has not just to fight for its immediate interests but to fight for an historical alternative. This is a work in process. Socialism is not inevitable but only the working class can develop the consciousness and organization to bring it about. That certainty remains at the heart of socialist strategy and tactics. Introduction There is broad agreement among social analysts that capitalism changed in significant ways starting around 1980. However, there is disagreement about how to characterize those changes, what the key features of capitalism have been in recent decades, and what name to apply to the contemporary form of capitalism. In this book, the concept of “global neoliberalism” best captures the contemporary social reality. The realities of this era demonstrate that the world is not simply in the midst of a deep economic slump. This is but one aspect of the crisis of legitimacy that confronts almost all of the political and economic institutions that comprise the capitalist world system today. The on-going revolt in the Arab world against political corruption and socioeconomic exclusion is unquestionably the most dramatic manifestation of this phenomenon, but the crisis of legitimacy is not confined to that region alone. The grievances that have fuelled street protests and revolutionary movements from Morocco to Iran are shared in greater or lesser degrees by people all around the globe – the indignados of Puerta del Sol, the aganaktismenoi of Syntagma Square, students and public sector strikers in the U.K., and the hundreds of thousands of protesters who, for a brief time, turned Madison into a Midwestern version of Tahrir Square. This trend captures the transition from the post-war Keynesian settlement between labour and capital to the neoliberal regime that governs the global political economy today. By reorganizing itself politically and smashing the power of the organized working class and its allied political parties in the 1970s, the capitalist class was able to restore profitability and consolidate its political power. But in doing so, it also sowed the seeds of the contemporary economic crisis and the crisis of legitimacy that the slump has [3.144.113.30] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 14:42 GMT) 401 triggered...