This is phenomenally written; I do hope you write here more often, not just when throat seizes up at the thought of tomorrow. I think you are wrong about the general course of things to come and that this year's developments have not been so dire, at least not for most liberals. Outside of China, we're still in Fukuyama's world. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not been decisively repelled and the most probable outcome is that the region develops into a long-term flashpoint with periodic clashes. But this attempted mobilization will not allow for anything like a bifurcation of pre-war Ukrainian territory. And Western sanctions will not disappear anytime soon. If this counts as the rebirth of something that we believed was exhausted in 1945 on the same Black Earth that preoccupies us now, then Korea was the rebirth of mission civilisatrice, rather than a novel form of indirect great power competition. But perhaps this is a pair of differences without distinctions. The climate catastrophes of this year have been terrifying, especially in central south Asia. And there has been next to no global coordination of meaningful aid. On the other hand, the Chinese party-state seems to have competently dealt with the insane heat wave they experienced. Domestically, things have gone better than I expected. California dealt with the summer well-enough and Western states are fumbling towards rational control of water resources and food production. The Democrats did something, even if it is pathetic next to what it would take to deal with what is coming and make something better out of it. The same can be said of American economic hegemony. Powell will crush the possibility of an actual high-pressure economy 4 years from now, but unemployment won't bring 2010 to mind; the dollar will look comparatively better than ever.
Perhaps the political developments in America and other advanced nations are what trouble you most? The elections over there have been quite atrocious and ours will not deliver anything like a solid mandate for coherent reform. These people really are post-fascists insofar as they want to destroy universal citizenship and rearrange what juridical relations operate in their countries. But the law already protects some while solely binding others; these freaks would merely generalize a pre-existing norm. They really do not seek to make something new, they do not have a vision of a radically different future in the way that the earlier fascists did. They have nothing new for the masses and their ability to persuade sufficient fractions of the appropriating class is really dependent on their ability to articulate an agreeable growth model. The incoherence of the American right, for instance, has led to a huge funding shift in favor of the Democrats. The Berggruen Institute set even saw this as evidence of that class fractions' acceptance of a Kaleckian growth model, before inflation really gave everyone a fright. I don't see the center-right and far right in Europe coming up with a coherent growth model anytime soon. The people with political power in the EU really still believe in some kind of ordoliberalism which is not going to make autarky viable anytime soon. What these people will do is make things worse for their enemies, in small chunks here and there, in the way that Republicans have been doing for a very long time. This is wrong, even evil sometimes. But it is not new and given the underlying patterns of the chaos around us do we have reason to believe that they'll really stumble into something internally coherent and powerful by merely trying the same strategies again and again?
This is great but we're not there (end of US hegemony) yet. Seems like it's getting stronger to me.
Reading this from Mexico, a melting country, your vision felt close, precise. Brilliant essay of dark times. Congratulations!
I hope you are being too pessimistic. But this is brilliantly argued
This is phenomenally written; I do hope you write here more often, not just when throat seizes up at the thought of tomorrow. I think you are wrong about the general course of things to come and that this year's developments have not been so dire, at least not for most liberals. Outside of China, we're still in Fukuyama's world. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not been decisively repelled and the most probable outcome is that the region develops into a long-term flashpoint with periodic clashes. But this attempted mobilization will not allow for anything like a bifurcation of pre-war Ukrainian territory. And Western sanctions will not disappear anytime soon. If this counts as the rebirth of something that we believed was exhausted in 1945 on the same Black Earth that preoccupies us now, then Korea was the rebirth of mission civilisatrice, rather than a novel form of indirect great power competition. But perhaps this is a pair of differences without distinctions. The climate catastrophes of this year have been terrifying, especially in central south Asia. And there has been next to no global coordination of meaningful aid. On the other hand, the Chinese party-state seems to have competently dealt with the insane heat wave they experienced. Domestically, things have gone better than I expected. California dealt with the summer well-enough and Western states are fumbling towards rational control of water resources and food production. The Democrats did something, even if it is pathetic next to what it would take to deal with what is coming and make something better out of it. The same can be said of American economic hegemony. Powell will crush the possibility of an actual high-pressure economy 4 years from now, but unemployment won't bring 2010 to mind; the dollar will look comparatively better than ever.
Perhaps the political developments in America and other advanced nations are what trouble you most? The elections over there have been quite atrocious and ours will not deliver anything like a solid mandate for coherent reform. These people really are post-fascists insofar as they want to destroy universal citizenship and rearrange what juridical relations operate in their countries. But the law already protects some while solely binding others; these freaks would merely generalize a pre-existing norm. They really do not seek to make something new, they do not have a vision of a radically different future in the way that the earlier fascists did. They have nothing new for the masses and their ability to persuade sufficient fractions of the appropriating class is really dependent on their ability to articulate an agreeable growth model. The incoherence of the American right, for instance, has led to a huge funding shift in favor of the Democrats. The Berggruen Institute set even saw this as evidence of that class fractions' acceptance of a Kaleckian growth model, before inflation really gave everyone a fright. I don't see the center-right and far right in Europe coming up with a coherent growth model anytime soon. The people with political power in the EU really still believe in some kind of ordoliberalism which is not going to make autarky viable anytime soon. What these people will do is make things worse for their enemies, in small chunks here and there, in the way that Republicans have been doing for a very long time. This is wrong, even evil sometimes. But it is not new and given the underlying patterns of the chaos around us do we have reason to believe that they'll really stumble into something internally coherent and powerful by merely trying the same strategies again and again?
Thanks for writing.