Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate that the current world system driven by capitalism will end in the middle of the 21st century when a new world system diametrically opposed to the current one will have to emerge. Before getting to the heart of the matter, it is important to conceptualize what a world system is. The current world system is composed in each country by the economic, political, social and environmental systems and, globally, by the systems responsible for the world economy, the global environment and international relations, systems that interact with each other at the national and global levels. The occurrence of advances and problems in each of the economic, political, social and environmental systems of each country impacts internally producing reciprocal effects between its various systems, generating progress or crises and, also, globally, on the systems responsible for the global economy, global environment and international relations whose impacts depend on the size of each country in the world system as a whole, that is, the larger the size of the country in terms of economy, environment and international political insertion, the greater its global impact.
Despite having contributed to the progress of mankind since its emergence in the 12th century, the current world system driven by capitalist dynamics has produced and has also produced economic chaos at the national and global levels, generating endless economic recessions and depressions, produced and is producing serious damage of a social nature in all countries represented by excessive concentration of income, increasing social inequality and endemic hunger and misery, produced and continues to produce the environmental degradation of the planet that tends to lead to the depletion of its natural resources and to change catastrophic climate change and has produced and has also produced serious problems in international relations represented by the two great world wars and constant international conflicts across the planet. A new world system will have to emerge with the end of the current world system because capitalism is a system that operates according to the principle of entropy by presenting the universal tendency to evolve into increasing disorder and self-destruction.
In addition to the need to build a new world system to avoid the serious economic, social, environmental and international relations damage described above, another great justification for a new world system to replace the old world system that is driven by capitalist dynamics lies in the fact that the world capitalist system is evolving towards self-destruction towards its end, which should happen in the middle of the 21st century when the global profit rate and the growth rate of the World Gross Product will be zero. The world capitalist system will end in the middle of the 21st century because there is a downward trend in the world profit rate from 1869 to 2007, in the profit rate of large corporations in the United States from 1947 to 2007 and in the growth rate of the Gross Product From 1961 to 2007. To determine when these rates will reach zero in the future, maintaining the downward trend, and calculating using the least squares method of Statistics, it can be concluded that they will occur between 2057 and 2059.
Until the end of the capitalist system in the mid-21st century, the holders of political and economic power will try to prevent the fall in the rate of profit by increasing the exploitation of workers and using the automation of productive activity, which generates mass unemployment, and raising levels political repression across the planet with worsening political and social tensions around the world. In the middle of the 21st century, economic and environmental crises will feed each other, causing the masses of all countries in the world to seek to carry out the social revolution to change the world in which we live. It is important to note that in an environment of chaos, revolutionary solutions can be born to try to change the world for the better, but also counterrevolutionary solutions can be born to maintain the status quo. It is important to note that in an environment of chaos, totalitarian solutions can arise either with social revolutions or with counter-revolutions, as opposed to a managed change that could lead to democratic solutions. Therefore, social revolutions and counter-revolutions will dominate the world stage. To avoid this scenario, governments around the world should structure solutions that contemplate the managed and rational transition from capitalism to a new political, economic, social and environmental order worldwide.
A new political, economic, social and environmental order to be implemented worldwide that would be beneficial to humanity would mean building a new world system radically different from the current world system driven by capitalist dynamics since the 12th century. This new world system should seek to achieve progress on 3 new bases described below: 1) economic and social progress in each country to eliminate or reduce social inequalities; 2) progress in international relations to eliminate chaos in the world economy, guarantee world peace and order the planet’s environment; and, 3) environmental progress in each country and globally based on sustainable development.
In order to achieve economic and social progress in each country in order to eliminate or reduce social inequalities, it is necessary to adopt the model of social democracy existing in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland) where the most evolved social welfare state in the world was built. In order to achieve progress in international relations aimed at eliminating chaos in the world economy, guaranteeing world peace and ordering the planet’s environment, it is necessary to have a global democratic government and a world parliament in which all countries of the world would be represented. To achieve environmental progress in each country and globally, it is necessary to have a global democratic government, a global parliament and that the model of sustainable development be adopted.
The defense of Scandinavian social democracy as a model of society to be adopted by all countries in the world with the necessary adaptations is justified because, according to the UN, Scandinavian countries are the best governed in the world, they are the ones that present the greatest economic progress and social among all countries in the world whose people are considered the happiest in the world according to the World Happiness Report 2019. It is an extremely successful model of society that brings together the positive aspects of capitalism and socialism constituting, therefore, in a hybrid system. This means that the model of capitalist society existing in the vast majority of countries in the world should be replaced by the model of Scandinavian social democracy.
Many may ask why not to implant socialism in the Soviet molds with the nationalization of the means of production? The end of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, the failure of economic development in Cuba and North Korea and China’s abandonment of socialism based on the Soviet model with the adoption of a hybrid economy of state capitalism, demonstrate the infeasibility of the Soviet socialist model. In order to evolve towards a communist society defended by Marx, it is necessary to pass through an intermediate stage of mixed economy along the lines of Scandinavian social democracy. The communism defended by Marx can only be built when social democracy in Scandinavian molds is implanted in all countries of the world and there is a true economic, social and political integration on a planetary scale.
Progress in international relations to eliminate chaos in the world economy, guarantee world peace and order the planet’s environment can only be achieved with the constitution of a democratic world government that would be elected by the world parliament to be constituted with the participation of countries from around the world because current international organizations, such as UN, IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, among others, do not have the power to promote progress in the planet’s international relations.
Democratic world government would translate humanity’s most advanced stage of political evolution because, throughout history, humanity has evolved from the village to form city-states, from city-states to constitute nation-states, from nation-states to constitute economic blocs like NAFTA and Mercosur or the economic and political union of states like the European Union. The next step for humanity would therefore be the establishment of a global governance to reach its highest stage of development with true economic, political, social and environmental integration at the planetary level based on a planetary social contract approved by all the peoples of the world.
Success in bringing about political, economic, social and environmental changes at the national and global levels depends on the existence of a world government. Besides that, the existence of world government is absolutely necessary to ensure world peace on our planet. Why are there wars? Achievement ambitions, economic and commercial interests and political and / or ideological competitions are the real causes of wars throughout history. How to avoid them? Historically, relations between nations have had three characteristics: balance, empire and hegemony.
The balance between the great powers took place between the 15th and 16th centuries when the dynastic regimes of Spain, Portugal, Holland, England and France were fighting each other for the conquest of the riches of the East and the Americas and, in this period, no great power imposed itself on the others. The balance was repeated between the 17th and 18th centuries when the Netherlands, England and France, fought for the conquest of world markets. The main wars, in the 17th century, were the Anglo-Dutch, Franco-Spanish and Anglo-Spanish when England and France prevailed over the other powers. In the 18th century, the most striking wars were the Anglo-Spanish war and Trafalgar’s battle between France and Spain against England, both with the victory of England from which it became the dominant power in the world. There was a balance, too, from the end of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War in the 20th century, when England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States faced aimed to the conquest of world power. The result was the outbreak of the 1st and 2nd World War. In this period, Germany, Japan and Italy were defeated militarily and the United States and the Soviet Union rose to superpower with England and France becoming second-class powers.
England already held a monopoly on violence on a world scale as an empire from the 18th century until the First World War in the 20th century when it was challenged by Germany that aspired to the redivision of the world. The situation of hegemony of a great power occurred from the end of the Second World War until 1991 when the United States shared with the Soviet Union the shared world hegemony when exercising domination over their respective areas of influence. With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States exercised its hegemony in practically the entire globe. This situation was maintained from 1991 until the crisis of the 2008 world capitalist system. The American hegemony was shaken by the 2008 world crisis when the United States lost the ability to impose its will on a global scale and began to share its decisions with others great powers and even emerging countries. At present, the characteristic of the international system is that of balance between three superpowers, the United States, Russia and China.
The facts of history show that none of these forms of relationship between national states (balance, empire and hegemony) is capable of preventing the occurrence of war. The time has come for humanity to equip itself as urgently as possible with the instruments necessary to control its destiny and enable a democratic government of the world. This is the only means capable of preventing wars from occurring and ensuring the survival of the human species. If everything continues, as there is no international structure, not even the UN, which works precariously, without any power, will be able to rule the world. This is the worst scenario because no country, no matter how powerful, or a group of countries, will not be able to solve global economic, political and social problems, much less exercise governance over planet Earth. None of them would have the legitimacy to exercise world power.
A democratic world government should not replace the governments of each nation and make them its vassals. National governments would maintain their autonomies being governed according to the interests of their people while the democratic world government would aim to defend the general interests of the planet. What would not be admissible would be for any national government to take measures that are inconsistent with the decisions taken by the world parliament that would translate the will of the majority of the peoples of the entire world. The world government would avoid the empire of one country and the anarchy of all countries. The construction of a world government imposes itself to face major systemic disasters such as, extreme ecological crisis resulting from global warming, economic crisis of great amplitude as the one that is registered at the moment and tends to worsen in the future, the globalization of crime organized, the fall of a meteor on planet Earth and the advance of terrorism. The preservation of international peace would be the first mission of any new form of world government.
Just as there is an urgent need for economic and social progress in each country and progress in international relations, so too is environmental progress in each country and globally based on the sustainable development model that must ensure that the needs of current generations occur without compromising the needs of future generations that can only be achieved with the existence of a global democratic government and the signing of a Planetarium Social Contract that would establish the bases of relations between countries in terms of economy, international relations and the environment and of the relations between human beings and the nature.
It is important to note that the current world system is characterized by the most absolute disorder at the national level due to the absence in the vast majority of countries of planning related to the development of their economic, social and environmental systems and without feedback and control mechanisms that allow correcting directions. It can be said that the chaotic current world system at the national level in most countries can only be eliminated with national economic, social and environmental planning with the adoption of feedback and control mechanisms compatible with international planning with the adoption, also, feedback and control mechanisms. The current world system is also characterized by the most absolute disorder at the international level due to the lack of coordination with all countries in the planning of systems related to the world economy, the global environment and international relations and the absence of feedback and control mechanisms that allows the correction of directions. The chaotic world system today at the international level can only be eliminated with the existence of a global democratic government to promote the regulation of the world economy, the environment and the international relations of the planet.
It therefore appears that, in addition to being necessary, profound political, economic, social and environmental changes are inevitable in the economic systems in each country of the world, in the international system and in the environmental system of the planet so that a new world system is built. This proposal can be considered utopian in view of the difficulties of its realization, represented by the interests of economically and militarily powerful countries and even of subordinate countries in the international system that do not renounce their sovereignty and multinational corporations that would not like to be subordinated to international economic regulation and environmental requirements. People all over the world need to understand that they will not achieve political, economic and social progress in their countries without political, economic and social changes of a global nature. The failures of the peoples of many countries in the struggle for their political, economic and social progress happened because they were restricted to the domestic level and did not assume a global character. Humanity needs to fight for a new world system to exist in each country and globally because maintaining the current world system will put its own survival at risk.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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