World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the fall of the USSR, the rise (and failure) of the European Union - all are conflicts in which Europe was central or primary, and all involved a battle of ideologies. The undeniable but totally unreported failure of the European Union combined with the staying power of China means the verdict is in: the ideology of liberalism has lost.

Is this the new “end of history”?

The nationalist view of modern history obscures the fact that it is ideologies which matter, not borders. Ideologies are what produce and define management systems - i.e. governments - and it’s crystal clear that the last 15 years have seen the socialist-inspired management system (China, Iran, North Korea and to a lesser extent Russia) defeat the liberalism-inspired management system economically, militarily and politically. Liberalism is at a Great Depression-level nadir in terms of global admiration.

The French Revolution was not French imperialism whatsoever but an idea: that feudalism must end. World War I was an idea: that liberalism - with its components of imperialism and high finance domination - was at least better than absolute monarchism. World War II was an idea: that both liberalism and socialism must be toppled by nationalist-corporatist fascism, but fascism lost and was absorbed by the liberalist camp. The Cold War was an idea: that liberalism and socialism cannot coexist, and - in the battlefield of Europe only - socialism lost. The “unipolar world” was an idea: that liberalism will usher in the “end of history” after (allegedly) defeating socialism and absorbing monarchism and fascism.

The ideology of liberalism viewed Europe in the 1990s as a rabid imperialist would view the moon if it had oxygen and water: virgin space to create a new world. The pan-European project was indeed this new world, as it is more liberalist in conception than even the United States. The EU/Eurozone was supposed to be liberalism’s highest, most shining city on a hill.

I was re-reading Sergey Glazyev’s influential article Patterns Of Formation And Disappearance Of Global Economic Poles from Spring 2023. Glazyev is a longtime post-communist Russian politician, economist and the current Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission. He is often called among the top few potential successors to Putin, and his article is outstanding - something Xi and Khamenei could come up with but never Trump or Biden. It provides a major distillation of the new multipolar view of the world, and via some excellent and unique historical perspectives which are simply beyond the ken of most Western analysts.

In it he describes - but only if you really read it closely, as he only mentions this at the very end - what I’ll call a “Imperial vs. Integral thesis”. The latter worldview is being implemented by a diversity- and sovereignty-accepting China - this is exemplified by its multinational and multicultural Belt and Road project - to replace the Imperial worldview of the diminishing West. It is the rejecting of international cooperation which is the very essence of competitive liberalism and imperialism, after all - they don’t even work together among their own bloc, as evidenced by the plundering/self-immolation of the EU.

He quotes late-20th century Italian economist Giovanni Arrighi’s use of a “World Economic Order” concept and relays his summation of the succession of the most dominant poles of the global economy since the discovery of the Western Hemisphere: “Spanish-Genovese (Genoa financed the Spanish expeditions), Dutch, English and American ruling elites, now superseded by the Chinese communists.” In short, the management efficiency of the systems (not just their elites, as Glazyev repeatedly says) of these poles became dominant, propelled global economic development and -crucially - served as a model for other countries.

“They (the dominant pole) also serve as a model for periphery countries, which try to catch up with the leader by importing the institutions imposed by it. Therefore, the institutional system of the world economy permeates the reproduction of the entire world economy in the unity of its national, regional and international components.”

The pan-European project is precisely explained here: Europe took American liberalism as their model as a way “to catch up” with the US, but it has been nothing but catastrophe and open failure.

“The institutions of the leading country, which have a dominant influence on the international institutions that regulate the world market and international trade, economic and financial relations, are of primary importance.”

But what do you do when the institutions of the leading country no longer provide a workable model? Then you have the Western world in 2024, and this is why the failure of the EU/Eurozone is the biggest story of our century thus far: Liberalism’s efficiency has declined, and to the point where different models which were once on the periphery have proven to have qualitatively more efficient modes and institutions - socialist democracy - and they are now acquiring global dominance.

Glazyev writes that these management systems are so different that they have only transitioned from one to the other via a major war and social revolution, in order to crush the obsolete management system. This is what happened to - if I can give some examples - the feudal system in 1789, the slave/colony based economy in 1865 and the system of absolute monarchy in 1918. It is their refusal to adopt the more efficient, and always more moral and democratic (Glazyev stresses neither of these latter two critical components), system of governance that leads to the stagnation and decline of the once-dominant “World Economic Models” (WEM): “…the core countries of the old WEM are plunging into a structural crisis and depression caused by excessive concentration of capital in the obsolete productions of the former technological mode.”

This particular version the pan-European project is precisely this over-investment in an obsolete mode, and that mode is liberalism.

Lastly, in an interesting section Glazyev astutely notes that outside of Arrighi’s analysis of World Economic Model dominance does indeed stand Russia.

“As a result of this competition, a global leader emerges and steadily increases its dominance. Besides them, there is also Russia, which maintains its global influence in various political forms throughout the period under consideration, whose historical role Arrighi has completely ignored.”

This is what I mean by analyses which are simply beyond the ken of most Western analysts: huge chunks of the world are often simply omitted by them in their “global” analyses.

Glazyev is entirely right: he notes that from 1492 on the people of Rus held an empire that was really not much inferior to any other of the pole leaders - Imperial Spain, the seafaring Dutch, the English, the Americans and now the Chinese are not so very much more advanced than mighty Russia, no? Western-centric historians, politicians and analysts have ignored this fact of history, and many even blithely accepted the stupidities of John McCain’s gallingly ignorant description of Russia as a “a giant gas station pretending to be a real country”.   

Even Arrighi never considered: What about Russia? Indeed, but to Glazyev I could say: what about Persia/Iran, which he barely mentions?

Glazyev’s key mistakes, probably caused by adherence to liberalism

We must correct Glazyev’s over-excited relegating of the US into a complete non-pole of global power. Centuries of stolen wages and plunder simply don’t evaporate, and no nation is going to violently repossess much of America’s property. So let’s say that Glazyev is really talking about a tripolar system here in his vision of the future, and he basically admits as much later:

India, China and the West - choose your “World Economic Model” to follow.

A couple problems, however,

Firstly Glazyev both correctly and incorrectly estimates India. However, his analysis is mostly praiseworthy in perceiving that India is a huge part of the global future, which most Westerners simply cannot admit.

He notes that India’s constitution openly declares it to be a socialist republic (Indian Constitution: India is a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”), and he notes that in 1969 India nationalised their banks. Where Glazyev errs is by believing that India is still “democratic” - and Glazyev clearly implies that he means “liberal democratic”, as he holds Switzerland up as a sort of equal to Indian “democracy” because of their use of referendums. The two are not the same whatsoever, and this is a false grouping by Glazyev - should Switzerland ever nationalise their private banks the rest of the liberal West would immediately invade and retake their ill-gotten gains.

He also errs by believing that by being “communist” China is NOT democratic - this is completely false, as China simply follows the model, rules, mores and structures of socialist democracy and not liberal democracy. Glazyev, being a very successful post-communist Russian liberal democratic politician, apparently does not believe that China can be both socialist and democratic, and he also believes that India is “democratic” even though nationalising their banks is not just anathema but even war-provoking for any liberal “democratic” country.

Glazyev also persists in the maddening, widespread refusal to call “liberalism” simply “liberalism”. There is NO difference between “globalism” and “liberalism” in the sense that - as Marx essentially noted in 1848 France - both are run by and for the 1%.  A “financial oligarchy that aspires to world domination… which consists of the obfuscation of national institutions of economic regulation and the subordination of its reproduction to the interests of international capital” - this is what liberalism has been for over 175 years! So we must realise that Glazyev fails to make the correct distinctions between “liberalism” and “socialism”, but getting this wrong is what non-socialists do all the time, in their effort obfuscate the awful failed project which is 175+ years of liberalism.

Important points indeed, but the larger point to make here is that Glazyev is correct in seeing the future as a three-way fight between the models of left-wing socialism (China), right-wing socialism (India) and liberalism.

And, as he notes, much like the earlier fight between socialism (USSR), liberalism (USA) and fascism (Germany) this is another battle of three where only two poles can prevail.

Similarly, in 1914 there were also three poles - socialism, liberalism and monarchism - and monarchism would be absorbed by liberalism. To socialists monarchism is, of course, anathema. The same goes for fascism - absorbed by liberalism, anathema to socialism.

But it’s this exposure of liberalism as the now-clearly inefficient governmental mode which is so historically vital for us to understand and proclaim today. Liberalism is the now-discredited, obviously inefficient WEM which is on its way out historically.

The defeat of Ukraine on the battlefield has shown that liberalism - with all its imperialist menace and all its tax revenue fascistically devoted their military - cannot fight against the more efficient socialist-inspired (on the military-economic planning level) Russia. The victory of China on the economic field since 2008 has shown that liberalism cannot fight against the more efficient socialist-inspired model there either. As Glazyev writes:

“The reasons for the PRC’s superior performance lie in the institutional structure of the new WEM (World Economic Model/management system), which ensures qualitatively more efficient management of economic development. By combining the institutions of central planning and market competition, the new world economic order demonstrates a quantum leap in the efficiency of socio-economic development management compared to the world order systems that preceded it: the Soviet one, with directive planning and total statism, and the American one, dominated by the financial oligarchy and transnational corporations.”

Even National Geographic, a mouthpiece for US imperial policies and propaganda, ran a glowing article about the Trans-Iranian railway in March, 2022.