Transcending the Long Twentieth Century: Why We Should and How We Can Move to a Post-Capitalist Market Economy

Abstract

“The Short Twentieth Century” was Eric Hobsbawm’s subtitle for his history of the last century (as perhaps is unsurprising: it was published in 1994).² Hobsbawm’s point was that the ideological struggle that had dominated since the First World War reached a certain end-point with the fall of the European Communist regimes in 1989–1991. In the 2010s, we remain in the aftermath of that moment and of two cataclysms since then. The first was 9/11; the second was the economic crisis that began to become evident in 2007 and is symbolized by the demise of Lehmann Brothers, which fled for bankruptcy almost exactly seven years after 9/11. These three set the immediate context for the current debate about economics. The end of Communism gave a great opportunity for the world to move beyond the binary alternatives of more-or-less laissez-faire capitalism and more-or-less statist socialism that, between them, had held such sway in the twentieth century. The opportunity was not taken. Rather, the version of the former called (from the 1990s) neo-liberalism, which its adherents saw as vindicated by 1989–1991, became hegemonic. It gave the content to the “Washington consensus” that set the terms of policy making until the financial crisis. A main reason why that opportunity was missed is that, in the decade from the end of Communism to 9/11, the critics of neo-liberalism—given prominence by protesters at international summits such as Seattle (1999) and Genoa (2001)—were in general extremely inarticulate about what they positively favored.