Late Capitalism and the World System - Essay Example

Late Capitalism and the World System Introduction The term “late capitalism” came into the fore in the late 1950s and started dominating the world’s postmodernism culture. According to scholarly research findings, David Harvey and Yoshihiro Francis are some of the prominent theorists of late capitalism and their works contribute enormously to social and political debates. David advocates for restoration of Marxist and social class methods for criticizing the world capitalization. On the other end, scholars associate Francis with rise of neo-conservatism in the US and the world. In spite of their contributions, both of them have one problem in common: failing or omitting to address ecology and politics (Harvey 40). With that respect, this essay will seek to highlight and address this problem as well as identify solutions provided by both theorists. Francis Fukuyama assert that the loss of social order as depicted by capitalism was a not matter of poor memory or nostalgia but rather a matter of hypocrisies committed in the early ages of communism. Most recently, as Francis reveals, there has been frequent occurrence of seismic shifts during the fall of 1980s. These shifts involve strategies set in place by governments of the developed countries such as the United States with the aim of harnessing economic power (Harvey 43). The issue regarding if the information age democracies have the ability to withstand social order while facing economic and technological change are part of the greatest challenges encountered by these economic super powers. Philosopher Francis argues that, there exists a strong logic backing the evolution of political institutions pointing towards modern liberty democracy, basing on mutual relations between stable democracy and economic development. However, the most worrisome aspect as described Francis is that, this progressive tendency lacks social and moral development. His failure to include politics and ecology in his work derives bases from the general tendency of the contemporary basics where liberal democracies fall victim to excessive individualism. Francis makes it clear that the liberty of the modern state premised on the concept whereby the interests political peace, the government would not be in a position to sideline differing moral claims as put forward by traditional culture and/or religion (Harvey 45). In their theories, there is no examination of the ecological implications of modernism or the theoretical practices of postmodernism in relation with the environment to assess whether they repress modernist assumptions or encourage non-exploitation. Their failure to address these issues inevitably reflects the supposed conditions of postmodernism and discussions based on political stratagem. As a matter of course, their theories omit space analysis into spatial politics as opposed to other theorists (Harvey 46). Indeed, theories of postmodernism bear a strong family resemblance to those ambitious sociological generalizations that bring people the news of the arrival and the inauguration of a new type of society baptized as postindustrial society. To their own relief, these theories have the obvious ideological mission of illustrating that the new social formation does no longer obey the laws of late capitalism. Situation of the problem Their failure to address politics and ecology has made learners fail to understand that despite the increasing global division of poverty and wealth, dependency theory together with its thesis concerning the structural domination of the capitalist West over the developing countries or simply, the Third World, is all but dead. According to Francis and David’s theories of late capitalism, the passing of dependency theory has been faltering, slow, and at the same time inexorable. Now, it is a reduced theoretical political memory in both mainstreams in international relations writing mentioned only as interesting historical lineage (Gray 47). This omission is not very helpful, at best, since they treat it as a once relevant attempt to understand a long gone era when it was upon nation or states to act as one unitary agent within a grand international system commonly referred to as economic imperialism. Today, post structural questions about globalization consume dependency theory as a chaotic colonial identity and process that is an ambivalent subject of position. Mainstream theory in its various disguises namely, radical, conservative, and liberal, takes granted the very structures of global late capitalism that dependency theory in all its faltering is overconfident dogmatism which criticizes every other theory of late capitalism. In general, amorphous conceptions of post colonialism, globalization, and interdependency tend to replace the hard-edged connotations of dependency, imperialism, structural wretchedness, and underdevelopment (Gray 59). This twofold softening of the structural wretchedness theories mirrors darkly the Western mass cultural representations of the developing countries. The mirrored images take two forms in which the first one appear as an aesthetic zed theatre of horror whereby this theory can only rescue a few from among the mass of unredeemable and on the other as a romanticized dissimilarity between the two regions. Rooted in the proposition that “everything is process”, the perspective of the world systems assert that failure to incorporate ecology and politics into the late capitalism theories is a significant loss of an established level of social political complexity. However, despite the omission of politics and ecology in the theories of Francis and David, the systems of the world rarely analyze and weigh rise and collapse, growth and decline, and centralization and decentralization of the world systems, given they should particularly focus on useful notes investigating reasons behind the world crisis due to political interdependency (Gray 67). As such, the existing theories of collapse tend to assume crises and failures of environment in the subsistence economy are the bases of the collapse. Concerned with the question on how the pursuit of economical power connects with one another in the development of late capitalism, David Harvey played a huge role in stimulating the resurgence of debate of imperialism. David concentrated on how to situate the last US aggressive policy of administration within the tectonics of global capitalism. He described it in his own endeavor in the opening of his new imperialism (Linden 43). He sought to uncover part of the transformations taking place beneath all the surface volatility and turbulence that opened up a terrain of debate on how to best react and interpret the world’s current situation. The common thread to both David and Francis is their shared view that the logics of economic power should situate in an inducible but dialectical relation to political logics. With reference to theorist Francis, any Marxist theory of imperialism should be able to challenge and explain what has been taking place since the termination of the Cold War and the great financial depression that cropped up in late 2008. The results of this late set of historical changes is a world order that makes for a dramatic contrast with 1992 where one increasingly eliciting tendency to multi polarity of the US capacity to pursue its interests freely (Linden 51). This pursue relied in the name of the world system as a whole in which it increasingly inhibited the relative economic and political power of the US rivals. Whatever people might make out of all this, it is quiet simple that the crisis ridden and fast changing nature of economic life and global politics in the past ten years provided ample grounds for elaborating and testing the competing theories of the world system. It is in opposition to this background, then, that in this essay considers the work of David Harvey. Along these lines, there lie four analytical and critical basics. To begin with, the prevailing debates situate the contested legacies context within Marxist imperialism theory (Linden 63). This analysis makes out some essential implications of the parasitism idea criticized by Francis due to its relation with imperial heartlands of the east and west bondage. In addition, the notion of finance capital entails that imperialism is in advent need of reformulation. The fourth part moves to the major part of convergence between Francis and David; the need to conceptualize imperialism as the intersection of economics and geopolitical logics of power. Via the course of these four themes the essay seeks to show the strengths of a more traditional Leninist approach to the global system; understanding imperialism as a specific stage of evolution of capitalist development based on corporate oligopoly (Linden 83). Truthfully, the omission and failure to address politics and ecology in their theories sets endless motions regarding the future of spatial politics and postmodernism. Critical reflection of historical changes as asserted by these theorists The capitalist order evolution has been a dominant and recurrent subject of debates between Marxists across the 20th century. Great writers developed the concept of imperialism in order to describe both colonial conquest and economic subordination in the world. They also sought to argue intriguingly about developing an historical and evolutionary account of the changing forms of capitalist trade and economic production within a single and internationally consolidated system (Gray 87). In the period of post war, the communist collapse and decline of the great socialist internationals that allowed Marxist into the universities they once could not join from created an academic Marxist milieu. This period passed baton and the task of reappraising the classical tradition that transformed the international order following the war. As elaborated, the latter stimulated great debates certainly. It also extended research into wider areas. The only demerit it presented is that, as opposed to other debates among major Marxist writers, it tended to disconnect from the practice of politics. In the classical tradition, programmatic and political consequences demarcated very clearly the tendency of down playing the post war debates (Gray 95). This appeared to take place due to the sharp polarization on the wider and left social instabilities and intensive politics of the first half of 20th century. Another consequence of the intellectual lineage stages of imperialism theory is that, this stage marked these arguments and contestations. Firstly, the political split pointed out in the Second International in 1914 over the World War I, paved way for the development of different analytical frameworks. These frameworks, done by revolutionary sides and reformists, analyzed the nature of the international system as well as its crisis ridden or stable prospects. Secondly, the academic turn in the post war encouraged greater heterogeneity as a penumbra of distinctive competing paradigms. It also encouraged the development of world system theory, unequal exchange theory, and the dependency theory, which happened under the monopoly capitalism school (Harvey 51). In spite of the long shadow cast upon these developments, the work of Francis was particularly influential. As competing schools brought together different aspects regarding their approaches, they dropped others in order to develop new theories. Francis Fukuyama and David Harvey, for instance, took up the idea of periphery states exploiting others and dropped fundamental Marxist assumptions about ecology and politics. All theoretical and practical discussions of imperialism act as an overarching theoretical and historical influence on both Francis and David’s efforts. The work of Lenin produced a part of wide ranging debate between Marxists in his generation. Their main concern was to understand how capitalism was evolving (Gray 113). This is because, it moved from a situation where it was struggling to dominate the globe to become the dominant international system, where it incorporated ever-greater degree of social systems. Naturally enough, this theoretical task facilitated Marx’s understanding of capital and his developed framework. It necessitated different levels of concretization and abstraction of the new historical circumstances. The strengths of David and Francis work offers a theoretical reflection on the classical tradition and at the same time situate a question within the context of continuing Marx’s capital. The endeavors of their works are influential and historical just as much as they are theoretical. However, the challenge for Marxists after Marx is that, they reached a more historically understanding of the contemporary changes, which is specific in nature as regards the world of economy. The work of Marx established a set of theoretical prescriptions whereby it theorized the substantive essence of capitalist relations. It also categorized respect of other thinkers and creatively reestablished, in the light of changing political transformations, the system of capitalism (Gray 129). As illustrated, these stipulations are crucial not dogmatism as they are part of achieving the kind of historically focused application of Marx’s theory. This makes it genuinely scientific and testable and, as a result, opens to empirical refutation. Additionally, it is worth noting that, it emphasizes on strategies for continuing Capital by developing a concrete theory that is different from capitalist phases. Nevertheless, the same emphasis would impose a constraint on the efforts of this theory (Leff 32). These constraints include the conceptualization of imperialism whereby, it would be more consistent with the abstract account for constitutive relations and tendencies as well as the capitalists’ mode of capital mechanisms. They also develop a good reason as to why they depart with the constitutive account. Even though this might seem like a dogmatic confinement of empirical research, it is worth noting that this is not the intention of this essay. The enforced dependencies of the global systems are complex and highly vulnerable. They are also highly unstable and are edging to a near term collapse. Continued inequities within the global economy call for national and international conflicts (Leff 47). Simultaneously, there are those sacrificing social ecological resiliency to fuel the engines of economic growth. Despite the fact that the global society realizes the diminishing returns of the increasing economic and social complexity, the system of the world becomes increasingly vulnerable to collapse. Moreover, it is more likely that the collapse of this world system will be catastrophic continue to increase due to increased tight linkages between components and processes of the world system. The decisive moment of postmodernism is the precise need to affirm the completely extraordinarily depressing and demoralizing original new space of the globe. It is moving closest to the surface of consciousness as a coherent new type of space, which is in its own right (Leff 52). Ecologically, even though there is work of disguise or concealment in this consciousness, the new spatial content appears still articulated and dramatized. Yet the prior features of postmodernism enumerated in this essay can now see themselves as constitutive aspects of the dame general spatial object. These tensions serve as references of concurrent increasing social and economic instability. Both theorists settle at these solutions The primary distinction between the works of Francis and David is that, the formers perspective concerning world systems is that, he views economic and social subsystems of capitalism as depicting balance or equal importance. In simple terms, the system does not pose economy as the most important or the only force of this system. Indeed, the arguments of these theorists intertwine and cannot reasonably separate (Leff 89). Both David and Francis settle their claims by insisting that the social and political sub systems be given equal weight to the economic product as they are all philosophies of “communicative action” that envisions all social forms. They put it so because, these aspects are both formal through communication between rational individuals and their understanding of how capitalist system operates. The omission of politics in their theories present some unique features of capitalism that illuminate and confuse the perspectives as applied to non-capitalist societies, particularly intimate link between capital, knowledge, and power. The work of Francis is exemplary and grasps the world’s history and sociology ambitiously distilling the essential significance of contemporary social and economic trends. His preposition of neo-conservatism was timely considering the prevailing social and economic conditions at the time (Haneier 151). David, on the other hand, uses an interdisciplinary, wide-range approach to analyze the modernist objective of rational conquest of social and nature space, including urban planning, political economy, and social theory, among others. After analyzing the problems of late capitalism, the theorists choose different solution courses. Fukuyama embraces neo-conservatism while Harvey sticks to Marxist and social class methods. Conclusion and revision In conclusion, to enhance the adequacy of neo-conservatism and Marxism as solutions, mediation between cultural and economic practices would be appropriate (Harvey 56). If these theorists could conceive late capitalism with more historical and social terms, then it is possible to break from what appears to be a focus on only one side of the nation state. Given this perspective, both Francis and David’s work is extraordinary and exceptional. Nonetheless, their failure to incorporate politics and ecology make the structure of their notions resilience. As such, learners fail to understand the depression and repression that might erupt due to lack of adequate knowledge regarding ecological and political issues. Works Cited Gray, Matew. Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics. Routledge: Taylor & Francis, 2010. Print. Haneier, Helmut. Civil Society: Measurement, Evaluation, Policy. DongGuang: Earthscan, 2004. Print. Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. Print. Leff, Laurel. Buried By The Times: The Holocaust And America's Most Important Newspaper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Linden, Marcel. Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History. Boston: BRILL, 2008. Print. Read More