Abstract
This essay outlines a critical perspective on geopolitics and political economy and relates it to a global conception of organic crisis. It assumes such a perspective is needed to help explain some of the conditions, contradictions and challenges of the emerging world order of the early 21st century. This requires an appraisal of what we can call the contemporary morbid symptoms of world order and identification of some of its key issues, forces and historical structures.
This chapter is based on and significantly expands my “The Geopolitics of Global Organic Crisis”. In Greek, translated by Iraklis Oikonomou. Utopia—Review of Theory and Culture, Νo. 111: 25–36 (2015).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
This quotation comes from a letter sent by Marx to Arnold Ruge (1843). His letter concluded:
In short, therefore, we can formulate the trend of our journal as being: self-clarification (critical philosophy) to be gained by the present time of its struggles and desires. This is a work for the world and for us. It can be only the work of united forces. It is a matter of a confession, and nothing more. In order to secure remission of its sins, mankind has only to declare them for what they actually are (Marx 1843).
- 3.
Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/19/global-wealth-oxfam-inequality-davos-economic-summit-switzerland. See also Oxfam (2014).
- 4.
Also involved in the political frameworks of these geopolitical arrangements are diplomacy, covert intervention and the growth in the criminalisation of dissent. Geopolitical arrangements are often justified by the expediency of forms of law that are applied in arbitrary ways. Geopolitical practice is typically hypocritical (e.g. NATO backing for the most corrupt regime in Europe in Ukraine in order to countervail Russian power). Its practices are frequently antithetical to any concept of the rule of law that requires all people(s) be treated equally, fairly, with due process and impartiality.
- 5.
Financial Times, 28 December 2006, p. 13.
- 6.
On this latter point, see the essays on the crisis of global governance in Gill (2015), particularly those by critical international lawyers, Upendra Baxi and Richard Falk.
- 7.
The UN Population Fund has stated that the single biggest cause of global health inequalities—as well as the principal cause of death for women—is childbirth.
- 8.
Robert Peston, “Global Debts Rise $57 Trillion since Crash”. BBC News Business, 4 February 2015. These sums are based on a survey by McKinsey and Co. See: http://bbctakeaway.herokuapp.com/news/business-31136707
- 9.
Joe Miller, “Eurozone stimulus ‘reinforces inequality’, warns Soros”. BBC News Business, 22 January 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30943216
- 10.
I thank Michele Benericetti for researching these numbers and for making the chart. The data is from: Oxfam, A cautionary tale. Briefing Paper No.174 (2013), p. 7: See http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp174-cautionary-tale-austerity-inequality-europe-120913-en_1.pdf
- 11.
Robert Peston, “Why has the ECB punished Greece?” BBC News Business, 5 February 2015. See: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31148199
- 12.
This is despite rapid growth in countries such China and India, involving the intensification of consumerism.
- 13.
- 14.
The financial crisis may be stimulating some decentralisation of the financial architecture with many new initiatives, for example the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR), a regional reserve pooling arrangement with a capitalisation of just over US$2.3 billion that largely lends to members’ central banks; and the BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) commitment to the creation of a new development bank with a capitalisation of US$100 billion, to finance joint development ventures and bypass the World Bank and the IMF. I thank Isabella Bakker for highlighting this point.
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Gill, S. (2016). Critical Global Political Economy and the Global Organic Crisis. In: Cafruny, A., Talani, L., Pozo Martin, G. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical International Political Economy. Palgrave Handbooks in IPE. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50018-2_3
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