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Will There Be A Global Resistance Economy?
Alastair Crooke's latest is, as usual, very interesting:
China and Russia Launch a ‘Global Resistance Economy’
What is ‘it’? It is not just a trade and investment pact with Tehran; neither is it simply allies helping each other. The ‘resistance’ lies precisely with the way they’re trying to help each other. It is a mode of economic development. It represents the notion that any rent-yielding resource – banking, land, natural resources and natural infrastructure monopolies – should be in the public domain to provide basic needs to everybody – freely.
The alternative way simply is to privatise these ‘public goods’ (as in the West), where they are provided at a financialized maximum cost – including interest rates, dividends, management fees, and corporate manipulations for financial gain.
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The point is that – at the economic plane – the U.S., hyper-financialised sphere is fast shrinking, as China, Russia and much of the ‘World Island’ turn to trading in their own currencies (and do not buy U.S. Treasuries). In a ‘war’ of economic systems, America therefore starts on the back foot.
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China has spectacularly made its entrance in the Middle East, and is challenging the U.S. with a resistance agenda. FM Wang, when he met with Ali Larijani, special adviser to the Supreme Leader Khamenei, framed it all in a single sentence: “Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries, and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call”. This single comment encapsulates the new ‘wolf warrior’ ethos: states should stick with their autonomy and sovereignty. China is advocating a sovereigntist multilateralism to shake off “the western yoke”.
Wang did not confine this political message to Iran. He had just said the same in Saudi Arabia, before arriving in Tehran. It was well received in Riyadh. In economic development terms, China earlier had linked Turkey and Pakistan into the ‘corridor’ plan – and now Iran.
How will the U.S. react? It will ignore the message from Anchorage. It will likely press on. It is already testing China over Taiwan, and is preparing an escalation in Ukraine, to test Russia.
While I do not agree with every point – Iran and Russia are less socialist than the above assumes – the core push is IMHO correct as far as it is relevant to China, Russia and Iran. But can it go beyond them?
Anyway, there is more food for thought in it.
It’s too early to tell. The biggest variable here is Russia.
We already know what China’s going to do until 2049. Of all the variables, China is the most predictable.
Russia, however, has a big problem in its hands. It seems it is divided into three main ideologies:
1) the communists, who seek to resovietize Russia, with its due reforms, a la China;
2) the Christian Orthodox supremacists (Duginians), who seek to turn Russia into an Empire based on the Christian Orthodox religion, with the ultimate goal of conquering Istanbul and thus creating a warm waters exit through the Bosphorus to then play on the “big chessboard”; and
3) the old fashioned neoliberals, remnants of the Yeltsin era (Saint Petersburg intelligentsia), who seek to turn Russia into a normal Third World country, at the services of the USA (rules-based international order).
Putin is the only thing that keeps those three different factions at bay. He managed to do that with some kind of chimera system, where neoliberalism reigns supreme (aggressive inflation controls, precarization of the working class, protection of the oligarchies) but in exchange of a little bit of mercy to the people, the preservation of the defense sector and some eventual kabuki. The Orthodox Church is appeased with some token laws (anti gay propaganda bill, Christianization of the Armed Forces, historical revisionism to make the Tsar look good etc.) and the good ol’ tax exemptions and other hidden State funding.
However, Putin will not be in this world for much longer. Some made a lot of fuss on the new bill which would allow him two more presidential mandates (i.e. govern up to 2036), but this is a fallacy: Putin will certainly be long dead by 2036, as he’s already too old for a Russian man.
After Putin’s death, we’ll see a struggle between those three ideologies for power. If the non-communists win this struggle (which is practically certain to happen), then China is fucked, as its complete isolation will be possible.
Besides, Russia still is economically neoliberal: the Yeltsin structural reforms are still in place today. That means the Russian economy will eventually collapse again, a la the 1990s (this is an inevitable collateral effect of neoliberalism, regardless of who is administering it). Economic collapse may be followed by the rise of the Christian Orthodox supremacists to power, which could strike a deal with the USA in order to sacrifice Turkey in exchange for a full hot and nuclear war against China. That’s the worst possible scenario for China and humanity.
Another possibility is for the neoliberals to stick to power until the end of times, a la the West, surviving the next big economic crash in Russia. Russia would then degenerate to a normal Third World country (a la Brazil). This is also bad for China, as this kind of Russia would open the gates to the American capitalists, this time privatizing even their mineral, oil and defense sectors to the Americans. This could even culminate with the accession of Russia to NATO, thus transforming NATO in the PTO (“P” for “Pacific Ocean”). The USA would then not only have the territory to encircle China by land and from the north, but also the Russian/Soviet technology to utterly crush it in an eventual WWIII.
Therefore, the only solution I see for Russia – and, by association, for China and the entire Eurasia – is Re-Sovietization. Russia must imitate the Chinese socialist method, and restart from where the Perestroika stopped while correcting its mistakes.
Why? Well, for starters, that would shield Russia from the inevitable economic crash it will have if it persists with the Yeltsinite (neoliberal) model. With Russia socialist again (with its due characteristics, a “market socialism with Russian Characteristics”), it would have the tools for a constant and high enough growth rate, with the appropriate distribution of social wealth, so that it would be shielded from the cyclical phases typical of capitalism. This would greatly increase its national security not only because its people would have a higher morale and sense of social duty, but also because it would gain more capacity to continue to integrate with China (and, therefore, a path towards uniting Eurasia).
Secondly, it would further secularize its people, thus getting rid of the danger of Orthodox Christian imperialism.
Thirdly, it would greatly enhance the general educational levels of its populations, thus shielding it from pseudo-scientific obscurantism (Liberal propaganda, religious mysticism) and from pseudo-scientific indoctrination (neoliberalism, bourgeois economy etc. etc.).
Fourthly, it would be a step further in the direction of the unification of Eurasia, and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the American Empire (specially from Latin America), as it would serve as an inspiration, further weakening the American Empire, thus further enhancing Russian national security. We already know these effects from the rise of the old Soviet Union (without which modern China, Vietnam, Cuba et al wouldn’t exist) and we know how much little things such as an S-300 in Venezuela and Syria can do for those cursed peoples, so I don’t think it would be any different with a Re-Sovietized Russia allied with the Popular Republic of China.
China is completely impotent here. It will let Russia be whatever it wants to be and prepare for the worst case scenario. The only certain thing here is that Russia, whatever decision it wants to make, will have to make it quickly: Putin will not be around for much longer, a new capitalist crisis is looming and the old generation that was still raised in the Soviet Union (Lavrov, Zakharova, Shoigu, Peskov etc. etc.) are also starting to fade away. The new generation of Russians will certainly be more liberal, more pro-West, and will certainly privatize whatever they can to the Americans when they take power; the window of opportunity for an independent Russia is small.
Posted by: vk | Apr 6 2021 19:19 utc | 8
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