Kommt die globale autoritäre Oligarchie? Annäherungen und Konflikte zwischen dem Westen und dem Rest der Welt

Abstract

This paper argues that we are in the midst of a conflict-ridden convergence towards oligarchic, authoritarian rule across the globe. Today’s global power structure is the result of very different processes of class formation on both sides of the historic divide between a liberal West and a series of contender states. This structure is itself dissolving as a result of the demise of the Soviet Union and the conversion of China to state capitalism and the mutation of liberalism to authoritarian oligarchic capitalism. The paper argues that corporate liberal capitalism, based on class compromise in the 1980s, was displaced by neoliberalism, which initially intended to restore systemic market discipline but increasingly degenerated into speculative, predatory forms which undermine the forces of stability in the global political economy and fosteroligarchic enrichment. A contradiction is identified between global oligarchic convergence on the one hand and conflict at the level of political (governing and state) elites on the other, which explains the current turbulence in the global political economy.