Can Global Capitalism Endure?

Abstract

The period from 2008 into the third decade of the twenty-first century has been one long protracted crisis for global capitalism, as much structural as political, that has been aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.  The era of globalization has involved an ongoing radical transformation in the modalities of producing and appropriating sur­plus value.  There is an extreme and still increasing concentration and centralization of capital on a global scale in the financial conglomerates that in turn act to interlock the entire mass of global capital.  Now the system is undergoing a new round of restructuring and transformation based on a much more advanced digitalization of the entire global economy and society.  The agents of global capitalism are attempting to purchase for the system a new lease on life through this digital restructuring and through reform that some among the global elite are advocating in the face of mass pressures from below.  Beyond transnational policy coordination among states, the structural power that the transnational capitalist class is able to exercise from above over states will undermine reform unless there is a mass counter-mobilization of power from below.  If some regu­latory or redistributive reform actually comes to pass, restructuring may, depending on the play of social and class forces, unleash a new round of productive expansion that at­tenuates the crisis.  In the long run, however, it is difficult to see how global capitalism can continue to reproduce itself without a much more profound overhaul than is cu­rrently on the horizon, if not the outright overthrow of the system.