THE DOMINANCE OF CAPITALISM
Capitalism is the only System, it has prevailed in its specific neoliberal form and the World is now unified, in this respect. The Economies of the countries are more interdependent than ever before. Thus, an “accident” could cause chain ruptures and upheavals, depending on the conjuncture. The second and decisive difference is that Capitalism prevailed but the Western World, contrary to its reasonable expectations, won but did not dominate.
The world is currently divided into countries of equivalent Power. Equivalent means, in this case, that no country of planetary scope is able to use all its available tools and ultimately the means of war, to impose itself, as in the Cold War. But now the balance is dynamic, changing, unstable, not frozen, as it was then. How long this peculiar balance will last is another question. The fact is that the old protagonists, during the Cold War, USA-Russia-China, are the same as today. The newly arrived players, e.g. Brazil or India, are still too far behind or too weak for planetary games. The (same) protagonists are also in approximately the same order of Power, although this is changing rapidly, especially in the available war tools. War capability is a separate issue. This is the concise (but also schematic) picture of the world today. A necessary complement is that while direct conflicts between the protagonists seem to have been ruled out, their conflicts continue, direct or indirect, armed or not, in various regions, almost the same as those of the Cold War. Europe remains the "butler" of the US, despite the advertised German power.
A characteristic of the former Soviet World, including China, is that they do not produce ideology and Culture, even of a capitalist type. They fight/compete with the West on the basis of economic and/or military Power while the Western World has also run out of Ideas. The rivalry of the two Worlds gave rise, if not to Culture, at least to Cultural activity, even if moderate and certainly warlike. However, the king is not completely naked. The ideological project for another society has not disappeared but is giving way to the renewed embrace of the Homeland, the Nation, as a refuge for survival. Excommunications, discrediting, fear, do not change the tendency. From Russia to China, the main weapon of the (ideological) confrontation with the West is (badly or well-meaning) nationalism or patriotism, as a sign or attempt to rally the Home Front. Conversely, in the West the same phenomenon, nationalism or patriotism, also internally divides each country and Western unity. It pits nationalists and patriots against the neoliberals of Globalization/Memorandums. When the important conflicts are a matter of Nations/States, the inevitable dominant ideological derivative is not class conflicts but rallying around the Nation/State. Societies, as the supreme judge, are primarily interested in their survival, not in the “progressive” or “regressive” nature of their choices, according to anyone’s judgment. This is not, however, a straightforward return to the old ways. Mass migrations are an irreversible (as well as ancient) phenomenon and force, for example, the National Front in France to include even black immigrants in its fold, in view of power - the curses against the European far right do not, unfortunately, improve our knowledge of the ferments and changes in the European space. The globalization of Capitalism obliges countries of planetary scope to form very broad coalitions, from Russia to China, including the smaller countries in between, while in the West closer economic cooperation between the USA and the EU is promoted. Nationalism/patriotism seems to be called upon to survive in a broader (internationalized) institutional framework, something unthinkable in the era of the dominance of individual Nations/States. Whether the EU will be dissolved (Marine Le Pen's wish but also the wish of Leftist tendencies), whether De Gaulle's idea of an "EU of Homelands" will be revived or whether we will end up with a "Europe of the peoples" (of currently unclear content) is an open question. German Europe is on the table but its future is ominous.
They are gradually reorganized with fierce confrontations/conflicts (see Ukraine), transnational "gatherings" without any margin for non-integration for the small and/or weak. Both before and after the global dominance of capitalism, the tendency to form Empires remains. (Parenthesis: Turkey wanted to join this trend through neo-Ottomanism but did not understand that as long as the blood-based Lords live, the chief servants have no luck.) The words remain the same but the meaning changes because in each specific situation different demands correspond. Which give tangible content to the timeless "Bread, Education, Freedom".