Suchergebnisse

IT IS NOT TOO EARLY TO TRY TO DRAW SOME LESSONS FROM THE SUBSEQUENT ATTEMPTS TO CREATE, ON THE RUINS OF THE COMMUNIST SYSTEMS, POLITICALLY VIABLE AND ECONOMICALLY SUCCESSFUL DEMOCRACIES. THIS ARTICLE ADDRESSES FOUR QUESTIONS. FIRST, WHAT SHOULD WE HAVE LEARNED BY NOW REGARDING THE PROCESSES OF POST-COMMUNIST POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION? SECOND, WHAT SHOULD WE HAVE LEARNED REGARDING WESTERN POLICIES MEANT TO AID AND PROMOTE THAT TRANSFORMATION? THIRD, WHAT RESULTS CAN WE EXPECT TO FLOW IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE FROM THE ONGOING EFFORTS AT TRANSFORMATION? FOURTH, WHAT ELSE SHOULD THE UNITED STATES NOW BE DOING IN THAT CONTEXT?

This crises is the neoliberal system crises. At the beginning of the nineties, after the collapse of the socialism, liberal capitalism has been marked as the unchallenged winner and universal model of the future world order. Development of the society (state) has been understood as a general privatization, liberalization and deregulation followed by economic growth as a natural consequence of the market mechanism and invisible hand. That system has developed greed. Wealthy people have become wealthier and poor people have become poorer. Income inequalities increased and resulted in a great crisis. Exit from the crises is in the great transformation or transition from neoliberal system towards the welfare state which will provide – within different models – (1) production of public goods (health, education, housing, welfare) that are available to everybody, (2) ensure income equality and, (3) preserve the environment for the next generation. Invisible hand and visible hand of the state should be coordinated, and reproduction of the added value should be divided equally between labor and capital. That is the a way out from the crises and a condition for the sustainable long term development.

Polanyi offers a powerful vision of a "great transformation" that will reverse the subordination of society to the economy and reassert the primacy of social protection in the context of modern society. Pursuit of the great transformation is one way of conceptualizing the quest for "development" in the positive sense of ecologically sustainable human flourishing. This paper explores how the contemporary interaction of national and global political dynamics affects the trajectory of Polanyi's "double movement." Does the shift of economic power to globally organized capital while the space for contentious politics remains primarily at the national level "checkmate" the movement for social protection? Or is there more potential for political contestation and policies supporting social protection at the national level than the "global checkmate" thesis claims? And, if so, can this potential be magnified by productive, synergistic alliances between national and global movements, resulting in a global auxiliary effect instead of a global checkmate effect? Answering these questions requires analyzing the relative autonomy of national political regimes vis-à-vis global capital as well as evaluating the ability of movements to connect effectively across levels.

Over the past 300 years, the world has managed several great transformations, to borrow the title of Karl Polanyi's famous book. The society and economy of the United States and other advanced countries, for instance, have moved from being agrarian to manufacturing-based and from being rural to urban. Obtaining the necessities of survival, which used to consume all of a family's efforts, now takes but a few hours a week. Many advanced countries have transformed from authoritarian regimes to democratic pluralistic societies. Seemingly similar societies have managed these transformations differently, and almost surely, different societies will respond to the challenges posed by this next transformation, which may truly be called "the Great Transformation," differently. How countries respond will, however, have profound consequences for the nature of society in the twenty-first century. It will affect not only disparities in well-being (the degree of inequality) but also the magnitude of social tensions—and even the pace of innovation going forward. Economists do not have a crystal ball, so they cannot tell whether the pace of innovation will decrease (as some have suggested) or not. They cannot tell how fast and to what extent robots and artificial intelligence will replace humans. They cannot even provide clear links between the ways in which society responds to robotization and the future pace of innovation. But economic research in recent years has provided a framework for assessing alternative possibilities and policies—a rough guide to their likely consequences. We are not totally rudderless. Indeed, I will argue that the worst nightmares—a world run by and for robots in which humans become the servants of the machines—are science fiction. We have it in our means to make sure that such a world does not emerge.