In 1989, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama hypothesized that the ongoing collapse of communist states indicated the end of human sociopolitical development, and that our present Western-style democracy represented the “final form of human government.” The battle between political ideologies that had defined the human odyssey was supposedly concluding and we had reached the “end of history.” As globalization continued to progress, Fukuyama said, liberal values associated with democracy and capitalism would gradually but surely spread across the world, revealing themselves to all peoples as the most superior values by which to organize society.

Indeed, when the theory was conceived, anti-capitalist and other revolutionary societies across the world were disintegrating and the US was emerging as an uncontested superpower. Some communist-led states like China and Vietnam did not completely dissolve but de-regulated their economies to imitate capitalism. Fukuyama’s theory captivated Western political academia, which had spent decades trying to portray global resistance to Western ideas, such as interest in socialism and anti-imperialism, as an unfortunate anomaly rather than a natural dialectical reaction to the exploitation and inequality associated with capitalism. In the psyche of Western pundits, the counter-hegemonic bloc of nations that arose during the 20th century, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia to Cuba, were strange phenomena that were only momentarily disrupting an imagined “normal” global situation where Western values and militaries would dominate the world. Once these outlier nations were defeated or collapsed, it was presumed that similar forms of resistance would never rise again.

Yet as of the 2010s, events of the past few years have shook postmodern assumptions. The “end of history” theory is considered irrelevant, outdated, if not outright ridiculous, and Fukuyama himself has even doubted it. Leftist author George Ciccariello-Maher describes current events in his book Decolonizing Dialectics:

“By contrast [to Fukuyama’s end of history theory], new struggles are emerging, new ruptures are throwing forth new and renewed identities that deepen contradictions and press toward different possible futures. I do not refer to what for years was offered to disprove liberal optimism–namely the resurgence of political Islam– although this too is a clear enough indication that history has yet to reach its terminus. I refer instead primarily to those struggles that have surged forth in opposition to the neoliberal onslaught and which pose the possibility of a postneoliberal world: the Latin American “pink tide” (especially in its darker red variants), a veritable global wave of riots and rebellions returning like the repressed to the heart of the Old World (Paris, London), and more recently the broad upsurge comprising the Arab Spring, the Spanish indignados, and the Occupy Movement.”

The unexpected rise of political “ruptures” has spelled the death knell for the end of history theory and has renewed curiosity into what kind of unknown future we are lurching towards. The following essay will navigate our changing world by discussing how and where social movements have been reborn, and how certain electoral shocks have suddenly up-ended traditional political establishments in the West. Then, we’ll pivot to the international arena to examine challenges to Western hegemony like Islamism, the Pink Tide, and the rise of China. All of these phenomena together indicate humanity’s flight away from the supposed certainty of a Western-sponsored capitalist world order.

What forces today are resisting neoliberalism and Western hegemony, which were just recently considered invincible? What are their contributions to rebuilding alternative thought and what possible futures do they propose? What our the deeper, structural causes of current crises?

Immiseration and growing disillusionment

Before we jump into the geopolitical realm, it’s important to understand how growing economic and social difficulties contrast heavily with the supposedly dynamic, opportunity-filled world that capitalism implicitly promised us in the postmodern era.

The immediate post-Cold War world was characterized by enthusiasm that humanity was approaching an era of permanent economic vibrancy and exponential technological advance. Yet, this imagined progress is not benefiting ordinary working people in ways it should have. Karl Marx once described a tendency under capitalism for workers’ wages to remain stagnant, or at least fail to keep pace with increases in value being produced, while the economy itself is growing. Though workers may be working harder, more efficiently, and producing more wealth, they may not see any actual material increase in their own economic standing. The extra value created by a growing economy, instead, may easily be hoarded by the ruling class, which at the end of the day sets the compensation rate the working class receives. Marx called this “immiseration,” and is a scientific summation of the phrase “as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.” Though he wrote of the concept in the mid-1800s, Marx predicted a phenomena that has defined the contemporary era with astounding accuracy.

As early as 1930, world-renowned economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandkids would be working 15-hour weeks, mainly due to technology advances [5]. In 1966, Time magazine also published an article saying:

“By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the US will, in effect, be independently wealthy. With Government benefits, even nonworking families will have, by one estimate, an annual income of $30,000-$40,000” ($100,000-120,000 in 2017 value) [6].

Paradoxically, economic burdens on workers are not fading but intensifying. The 40-hour work week is still standard, and some estimates put the number at 47 hours to include off-site work. Furthermore, vacation time has decreased, an average family’s wealth is less than it was 35 years ago [7], and Americans have been so busy they’ve lost an hour of sleep since the 1940s [8]. Worker productivity has soared to 400% of what it was in 1950, yet the average wage in the US has remained virtually stagnant for decades [9]. In fact, since 1973, when the average wage was at $22.41 in today’s value, the number has fallen to $20.67 in 2014 [9]. Though we hear about a “recovery” from the 2008 recession, between 91% and 99% of income gains in the years after have gone to the top 1% of richest Americans. The average income of the top 1% of Americans increased from $871,100 to $968,000 between 2009 and 2012, while the bracket of 99% of Americans actually experienced a slight reduction in income [4]. The rich are recovering fine, workers are not.

Though unemployment levels appear decent at the moment (5% in 2017), there could be a somber reason for this: full-time jobs are slowly being eclipsed by precarious part-time employment, which the Department of Labor still counts as “employment.” In the short period from 2005 to 2015, contingent or temporary employment increased from about 30% to 40% of employment in the US, accounting for a loss of several million secure jobs to lower-paid and short-term work [10].

Young people are especially struggling. Many problems youth face did not exist for previous age cohorts, such as huge tuition costs, an average of $33,000 of debt for college graduates, and an acute housing affordability crisis. A Pew Research report indicates young adults are economically worse off than their predecessors ever were:

“Millennials are the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations (Gen Xers and Boomers) had at the same stage of their life cycles.”

To put it bluntly, American society is not only failing to progress, but is going backwards on many levels. In any sensible society, technology should help ease human workloads, not intensify them; youth should be more economically secure than their parents (or at least as secure); wages that provide lives of poverty should gradually rise, not sink even lower.

The intensification of work life has its beginnings in the 1970s, but sped up as Ronald Reagan (and Margaret Thatcher in the UK) imposed right-wing economic policies involving deregulation, cutting government spending on social services, degrading workers’ benefits, and privatizing public institutions. Since then, similar “free market” policies have shifted toward the mainstream across the West and have been adopted by politicians of all stripes. Even leaders supposedly representing centrist or center-left parties like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair began adhering to “neoliberalism,” as it’s now known, or at the least did nothing to roll it back. Neoliberalism also took on an international character, as Western nations, banks, and powerful financial lenders like the IMF and World Bank compelled Third World nations to enact similar programs. The result has been the staggering polarization of wealth into the hands of a few and thereby the creation of the defining economic issue of our era: wealth inequality. Oxfam famously reported in 2017 that only 8 rich individuals worldwide owned an equal amount of wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people. The average American CEO now makes 300 times more than their average worker, up from 20 times as much in the mid-1960s [11].

Economic troubles have coincided with a decrease in optimism. Yearly polls among Americans measuring “satisfaction with the way things are going in the US” has been slowly declining since 2000. In 2006, the percent who are “satisfied” dropped below 40% and has fluctuated but has never returned above this number. Averaging about 25% for several years, those “satisfied” hit 17% in July 2016 [12]. Not only are Americans becoming chronically pessimistic about social problems, but they’re losing faith in political system’s ability to deal with them. 64% of Americans agree with the statement “the old way of doing things no longer works and we need radical change,” 72% say “the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful,” and 75% say “America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful” [13].

A new age of unrest

It’s said that if you place a frog in boiling water it will panic and jump out, but if you put it in lukewarm water and slowly bring the water to a boil, the frog will remain still, failing to notice it’s in danger. Inequality and the erosion of economic security has not occurred all at once, but for decades both have been slowly boiling the working class. As Karl Marx would be eager to point out, the working class in industrial capitalism is not a complacent frog: it is the first productive, exploited social class in history to be highly capable of understanding and organizing around its class’ interests.

In 2011, Time Magazine awarded its prestigious “Person of the Year” award not to an individual, but to a type of person: the protester. The lead article in the issue of that Time article gave an inspiring account of how protesters had returned to relevance after being sidelined and even mocked in recent years:

“Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the ’70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the ’80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, … Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.

And then came the End of History, summed up by Francis Fukuyama’s influential 1989 essay declaring that mankind had arrived at the “end point of … ideological evolution” in globally triumphant “Western liberalism.” … Credit was easy, complacency and apathy were rife, and street protests looked like pointless emotional sideshows — obsolete, quaint, the equivalent of cavalry to mid-20th-century war. The rare large demonstrations in the rich world seemed ineffectual and irrelevant. … ‘Massive and effective street protest’ was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.”

Indeed, the year 2011 catapulted social movements to the forefront of the world’s attention, and plunged the world into a protracted period of unrest. Three massive, multi-national movements reached their climax that year: the Occupy movement, the European anti-austerity movement, and the Arab Spring. “Protest culture” was alive again.

These protests were felt worldwide. Brazil has been in a constant state of unrest for various reasons: high living costs, transportation fees, the burden of hosting the World Cup on lower classes, and most recently presidential corruption. In Turkey, one of the nation’s main parks was filled with millions of anti-government protesters for several months. Hundreds of thousands of students have marched in Chile, South Africa, and Quebec for affordable education. Albanians, Romanians, and Bosnians have taken to the streets numerous times in the past few years against corruption, unemployment, and living standards. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans rallied against the state’s collaboration in drug cartel violence and more recently against gas prices.

The current revolutionary wave has also taken on an unmistakably international vibe. Communication between activists, shared political slogans and tactics, and mutual inspiration across borders has been common, further indicating that the lust for a new order beyond corrupt, neoliberal plutocracies masquerading as “democracies” is indeed global.

Movements in the US

Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20th, 2017, but the day after was arguably more historic: the largest protest in United States history took place and shattered the previous record, with 3.5 to 5 million people turning out nationwide. In the weeks afterwards, several issue-based mobilizations such as the “March for Science”, and “No Ban, No Wall” protests drew attendance which would’ve typically required months of planning to achieve. Protests against Trump are occurring at a consistently unprecedented rate and willingness to take to the streets is approaching a high the United States hasn’t seen in a long time.

Yet by the time the mass rallies against Trump broke out, many participants were veterans of other movements. The US had just recently been the birthplace for the Occupy movement, which started on Wall Street but was spontaneously joined by hundreds of cities worldwide. During the Cold War, “class warfare” was a taboo subject and even the mention of conflicting interests between rich and poor was enough to put one under suspicion of communist sympathies. It should be astounding, therefore, that a huge class-based movement directly accusing the rich of controlling politics and hoarding wealth at the expense of the masses occurred in the US. Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests have loudly drawn attention to the long-simmering issue of racism, something traditionally assumed to be confined to social movements of the past. Movements like Occupy and BLM, though they do not directly change policy, are extremely significant in that they damage the ideological pillars that uphold our current system. Once people notice that core beliefs which are so imbibed in our political culture are not actually invincible, they gain courage to challenge the system as a whole. Today, the pillars that uphold capitalism and white supremacy are wobbling.

As with many anti-hegemony movements, youth are leading this cultural revolution. Political pundits have criticized Millennials for not turning out to vote at the rates of older generations and call their lack of electoral enthusiasm “disappointing.” Yet, Millennials spearheaded both the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements, and they cast more votes for Bernie Sanders in the primaries (+2 million) than they did for Hillary Clinton (800,000) or Donald Trump (700,000) combined. Millennials don’t feel disinterested or hopeless when it comes to social change, they simply view moderate, establishment politics as stagnant, impractical, and unrepresentative of their interests, and feel the need to invent new methods and ideas by which to engage their world politically. Millennials’ incredible surge of support for Bernie indicates they will indeed vote in droves if someone seems to promise the urgent social change they desire.

Millennials are not too fond of capitalism, either : 39% view socialism favorably and 33% view capitalism favorably, shocking statistics for a country fresh out of an era of hysterical anti-communism as well as a demonstration that youth are quickly abandoning the formerly sacred beliefs of their parents and grandparents.

The European anti-austerity movement

The worst recession in modern history (2008) occurring simultaneous to a European debt crisis sent several European Union countries spiraling into economic chaos. Unemployment in Greece and Spain soared to over 25%, Portugal reached 16.5%, and France, Ireland, and Italy all exceeded 10%. The knee-jerk reaction of the European Union’s Central Bank was to encourage “austerity,” an ideological grandchild of neoliberalism, which is the policy of slashing public spending to help pay off debt. The quality of healthcare, education, and unemployed services deteriorated as the “welfare state” Europeans boasted and left-leaning Americans idealized was artificially eroded.

Since austerity became popular among institutions steering EU policy, it has become increasingly normative among economists to view it as a failure. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote in 2014:

“Austerity has been an utter and unmitigated disaster, which has become increasingly apparent as European Union economies once again face stagnation, if not a triple-dip recession, with unemployment persisting at record highs and per capita real (inflation-adjusted) GDP in many countries remaining below pre-recession levels. In even the best-performing economies, such as Germany, growth since the 2008 crisis has been so slow that, in any other circumstance, it would be rated as dismal.”

In a sense, austerity not only failed to improve the economic situation but backfired in the faces of EU policymakers by contributing to a wave of public anger that inspired massive street demonstrations across Europe, including occasional riots, as well as the rise of radical parties who openly lambast the EU. Nonetheless, they’ve stubbornly clung to the policy. Formerly a celebrated institution that represented diversity, open borders, economic cooperation — in a word, the future — the EU has become hotly debated by its own constituents. In 2016, the UK became the first country to hold an official vote on withdrawing from the EU, which voters approved by a 52% to 48% margin. Polls show that Europeans, especially those in countries hit hard by the recession, are growingly distrustful of their political systems, highly concerned about wealth inequality, and are disapproving of “free-market” economics at higher rates. As we’ll discuss next, this has had political implications on both sides of the political spectrum.

Anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-EU, or anti-austerity sentiments expressed in the streets in both the US and Europe have made their way to the ballot box. Though multiple parties contest the elections of European nations, almost all are still de facto two-party systems much like the United States, with two rich, well-known, respectively liberal or conservative parties dominating the electoral scene for decades. Nonetheless, the prestige, donors, and experience of traditional centrists in the US and Europe is being matched or overpowered by the sheer enthusiasm fueling candidates on both the far-left and far-right.

Why the right is rising

Where social and cultural revolution loom as a possibility, there always follows conservative panic.

Donald Trump is the most obvious example of this trend. He’s said to have attracted supporters by leaching off anti-establishment attitudes, speaking in plain non-political terms, vaguely calling out the “corrupt elite” (which he is blatantly a part of) and promising to aggressively tackle issues facing ordinary people. He also tied in racist overtones that blame the country’s problems on vulnerable populations, such as Muslims and immigrants. It has not been uncommon historically for any given society’s vulnerable groups to be blamed in times of hardship. Trump and far-right populists as old as Hitler have utilized this rhetoric, which appeals to traditionalist working-class voters who feel pressure over a dire economic situation, but misidentify the source of their problems by interpreting the social world through hierarchical social structures which they’re familiar with and which they benefit from, such as racism.

In Europe, anti-immigration ultra-nationalists have been rising but have not yet taken power anywhere. The candidate for the French “National Front” party has climbed in presidential elections from 10% in 2007 to 18% in 2012, and now to 21% in 2017. In Austria, the far-right candidate Norbert Hofer nearly took power with 48% of the vote. The far-rightists in the “United Kingdom Independence Party” captured 12% and the “Alternative for Germany” is now polling at 15%.

The electoral left

Forces to the left of establishment parties in Greece, Spain, France, the US, and the United Kingdom are also shoving their center-left counterparts over and trying to occupy the mainstream electoral platform, much to the resentment of their moderate foes. The appearance of these forces has shifted “progressive” discourse decisively leftward. In the case of Greece and France, the traditional center-left party has essentially been defeated and has shriveled into irrelevance due to the popularity of another left-wing party. In Spain, new leftist party “Podemos” is now neck-and-neck with the center-left party in polls, severely upsetting the two-party system. Their many ideas include include withdrawing from NATO, creating a universal basic income for all, putting huge taxes on the rich (in the most extreme case, French leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon wants a 100% tax on any income over $425,000), scrapping student fees and debt, and reinvesting in public infrastructure.

In the United States and United Kingdom, progressives in the mainstream Democratic Party and Labour Party set their sights on capturing leadership roles within the party rather than forming their own. Bernie Sanders achieved 43% of the vote in the Democratic primaries, though there’s good reason to believe if he had the same name recognition, financial donors, media attention, years of preparation, superdelegates, or support from party bosses that his opponent had, he could have easily made up 7-8% to put him over the the top. Today, Bernie Sanders is by far the most popular politician in the United States [14].

In the United Kingdom, perhaps the most important undoing of traditional center-left politics may be occurring. In 2015, a minor, unknown member of Parliament named Jeremy Corbyn threw his hat into the Labour Party’s leadership election, which involves voting by ordinary party members much like the US’ primary elections. Like Sanders in the US, Corbyn only hoped to get a few percentage points and bring his radical ideas some attention. Instead, he won in a shock landslide, took the helm of the party, and filled his cabinet with officials who were just as, or more radical than him. Corbyn proposed scrapping all tuition fees, introducing a “maximum wage” for the rich, nationalizing energy, railroad, and mail services, and introducing rent control to make housing affordable. While Corbyn is wildly popular among UK youth, his victory sent the media and his own party’s old guard into a hysteric tirade of denunciations, saying he’d never stand a chance at actually getting the Labour Party into power. The next year, 2016, his own party’s members of Parliament issued a vote of no confidence against him and forced another leadership election to try and oust him. Again, Corbyn won with huge numbers, this time even increasing his vote share.

Nonetheless, the incredulous propaganda campaign against him, which called him a “disaster,” a “Leftie who hates the royals,” and “a terrorist sympathizer” took its toll. Labour was expected to have one of its worst performances ever in the 2017 general election, and the Conservative Party, which already had a majority in Parliament, was set to make even more gains. In yet another shock, Labour made ambitious campaign promises, attacked the Conservative leader’s embarrassing unwillingness to debate or speak about ordinary people’s’ issues, and pulled off the quickest polling surge in UK history. In just 2 months, Labour went from 25% in polls to achieving 40% of the vote, only two percentage points behind the Conservatives. Polls now indicate that Labour has overtaken the Conservatives and would win if a new snap election were to be called, which may occur as the chaotic Conservative leadership is having trouble governing and has a very weak popular mandate.

The Greek tragedy

As of now, only one European party associated with this populist wave actually took power; the Greek coalition of assorted communists, democratic socialists, and ecologists known as the “Coalition of the Radical Left,” which was elected in 2015. Also called “Syriza” in Greek, its leader adorned a poster of Che Guevara in his office. Propelled by their promise to end backbreaking austerity that the former conservative government had implemented at the request of the EU in exchange for bailout money, all eyes in Europe were fixated on Greece as its new defiant leaders marched proudly into negotiations with the infamous EU regime (known as “the troika,” including the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission) to secure a fair bailout deal with minimal austerity. It was essentially the first inch of political power for those who wanted a drastic break with a cruel program that the entirety of Europe had accepted. As negotiations intensified, Greece held a referendum in July 2015 in which 61% of Greeks voted “no” to the austerity-laden bailout deal the nation was being offered. The government held the referendum for a clear reason: to signal to the EU that the people were on its side.

What happened next has been called a “tragedy,” and accusations of “betrayal” have widely been tossed at Syriza. The troika not only didn’t back down to soft Greek threats of leaving the EU, but in cold, calculating strategy it withdrew its former offer and demanded more austerity, more outsourcing, more degradation of public service, and more privatization than it had before. Syriza accepted, fearing that only other option, exiting the EU, would make its abysmal economic situation even worse. The supposedly historic referendum had been pointless. Yet, the fact that the troika demanded even harsher measures only confirmed the sinister and malicious nature of the EU leadership in the minds of many, as its objectives were clear: punish the Greek people for challenging them, demonstrate that successful resistance would not be tolerated, and to “make an example” of the nation. Author of “Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future,” Paul Mason, writes:

“They had ‘smashed’ Greece. It was done, symbolically, to reinforce the central message of neoliberalism that there is no alternative; that all routes away from capitalism end in [disaster]; and that revolt against capitalism is a revolt against a natural and timeless order.”

The troika’s subduing of Greece was not as much a bold move to assert solid power as it was a paranoid grasp to fading power. The troika knew the stakes were enormous and their system of finance capitalism was in crisis. Whatever conclusion came of the Greece negotiations could set a precedent and energize radicals across the continent, and the insurgency had to be put down. For the moment, they abated hopes that the electoral left could provide a practical alternative, but ultimately they’ve failed to extinguish those hopes.

Reasons to be optimistic

The left of our century is in an introspective era comparable to its pre-1917 status. It has no ideological flagship that is inspiring realistic hope for change the way the Bolshevik Revolution and the existence of revolutionary societies around the world did in the 20th century. While a direct replication of old models is unlikely, capitalism is increasingly creating conditions that are fomenting working-class resistance, and the left is searching for solutions that reflect modern attitudes and can successfully replace or degrade modern systems of inequality, with the flaws of old socialist systems in mind. Updating solutions to our era is necessary, since structures and popular attitudes have evolved since the days of classic thinkers like Marx or Lenin. Just as the Soviet model was an experiment that sought to birth a post-capitalist world, contemporary post-neoliberal models will present themselves through experiments as well, such as the attempts to build “21st Century Socialism” in Latin America, and the prospect of breaking with transnational capital that almost occurred in Greece, and may occur in the UK. Regardless of the outcome of any individual struggle, we’re witnessing a mass questioning of the status quo so widespread and irreversible that it passing without being synthesized by some form of major social change seems increasingly unlikely.

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher, argued that to revolutionize society, a battle of political culture must be waged alongside actual organizing. Redefining what is and isn’t possible is critical in convincing the masses that they have revolutionary potential. Even if the progressive candidates of Europe and the US are not revolutionary, they are disturbing the supposed “common sense” that has the masses convinced that capitalism is eternal — and this indeed may be the important task of the moment. Paul Mason writes how Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, for one, has contributed to this:

“[Corbyn’s success] defies this ‘common sense.’ Gramsci was the first to understand that, for the working class and the left, almost the entire battle is to disrupt and defy this common sense. He understood that it is this accepted common sense – not MI5, special branch and the army generals – that really keeps the elite in power. Once you accept that, you begin to understand the scale of Corbyn’s achievement. Even if he hasn’t won, he has publicly destroyed the logic of neoliberalism – and forced the ideology of xenophobic nationalist economics into retreat.”

On the 2017 campaign trail Jeremy Corbyn declared “this is the new mainstream,” alluding to the clear fact that he had, indeed, fundamentally shifted political discourse and smashed the media’s conception that his success was impossible. Furthermore, mainstream political pundits are stricken with cognitive dissonance in the wake of such electoral shocks. While analysts are taking extraneous efforts to portray political outsiders as dangerous, the mainstream analysts themselves, who make disastrous poll predictions and are increasingly out-of-touch with popular discontent, are the ones increasingly being seen as bizarre. Andrew O’Herir writes in a piece called “The Age of Revolution” that:

“they represent these collapsing institutions — sometimes they are those institutions — so [in their eyes] the collapse cannot really be happening. Leading political figures and the mainstream commentators who validate their zero-sum game of partisan warfare have been indoctrinated to believe that their power is eternal and their wisdom infallible. (Such is always the fallacious viewpoint of the ancien régime.) Faced with evidence that their power is fading and that their conventional wisdom was completely wrong, they must constantly reassure themselves that none of this is a sign of structural failure. Instead it’s an unexplained but temporary anomaly, an underground leak in the plumbing of democracy that will soon be repaired. Their shared assumption that politics and society have always functioned a certain way, and always will, prevents them from perceiving that ‘always’ ended some time ago.”

Lastly, the media is giving greater attention to the populist right, yet leftist ideas are in a more prime position to shape politics and more accurately reflect the attitudes of Western workers. If the election of Trump makes it seem that right-wing sentiment is dominant, we should be keen to remember two things: first, that Bernie Sanders would’ve crushed Trump had he been the Democratic nominee, and second, the majority of Trump voters say the main reason they voted for him was to oppose Hillary Clinton, not out of ideological agreement. Trump, who is now the most disapproved starting president in US history, cannot realistically claim that he and his policies have a popular mandate. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, polls reveal popular support for progressive policies regarding healthcare, foreign policy, and immigration that starkly contrast with those the Republican Party endorses.

In the UK, we should also remember that even at UKIP’s peak it achieved only 12% of the vote, and now has sank to less than 2%. The Labour Party on the other hand, led by the pro-Palestine, heavily pro-nationalization, and former outcast Jeremy Corbyn, is now the most popular party in the nation. Corbyn took his strong finish in 2017 as a mandate to double down on radicalism and proposed seizing homes of the rich to house victims of an apartment fire in London that left hundreds homeless. Astonishingly, 59% of Brits supported the idea.

In France, there’s been fear over the rise of the ultra-nationalist Marine Le Pen, who finished with 21% in the first round of presidential voting. The attention on her seems to gloss over the success of left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who finished close behind her with 19.6%, as well as the fact that if the two rivals faced off in the 2nd round, Melenchon would’ve won by a large 60%-40% margin.

The social movements of the 2010s aren’t single-issue campaigns that seek to influence specific policies within the context of our sociopolitical system, but instead seek to shake the very foundations of that system. They imagine a new world, not a slightly reformed version of the current one. Ambitious masses of activists have put forth new critiques of the roots of class inequality, gender and race-based oppression, capitalism and neoliberalism, the authoritarianism of financial capital and its international sponsors, and the inescapable corruption of so-called democracies. The Occupy movement was derided for “not accomplishing anything” and not proposing policies. The irony in this criticism is that Occupy activists imagined greater change than which the current system would’ve allowed anyway. While many ideological subsections of the movement diverged, the seemingly common assumption was that whatever system exists currently rotten to its core. Appealing for change to the same politicians they called corporate sellouts would defeat the point.

Fidel Castro once said “it has befallen us to live in the most critical era of the history of humanity.” Though he didn’t specify, it’s not hard to guess what he meant. We’re dealing with highly exceptional circumstances in the grand scope of human history. Never before has such a globalized world polity existed, meaning that events on one side of the earth will necessarily impact others in all corners; only recently have weapons of war had the power to literally eradicate all planetary life; never before have humans had to wonder if our impact on our ecological surroundings will fundamentally alter or destroy natural processes that keep us alive; and never before has the world’s wealth, value, and property been concentrated into the hands of such a small elite. It’s true today more than ever that if our species is to continue to exist, its long-term future will be charted by the decisions we make now.

Ruptures in the International Order

Along with alternative politics arising in the West, the international ascendancy of the West is threatened. The first two phenomena we will examine here, Islamism and the Pink Tide, are primarily geopolitical in nature and provide renewed intellectual alternatives to Western-backed political models. The next event, the rise of China (and others) is both economic and geopolitical, as China too refuses to abide by Western demands that all nations mirror its own “liberal democratic” model, but also has been slowly siphoning economic power away from the US sphere of influence. The common factor among all three is that they contribute to a gradual reformation of the formerly stable world structure that the West has relied on to exercise its firm monopoly on economic, military, cultural and political power.

Before moving forward on this, we should note that US-led attempts to spread “freedom and democracy” across the world have been poorly-disguised attempts to establish obedient client states and restructure their economic systems toward privatization and reliance on Western investment. Therefore, when Western democracy is discussed henceforth, it will be interpreted as an imperialist talking point with no genuine connection to popular power.

Islamism

The rise of political Islamism is appropriate to discuss solely because it represents a prime example of a contemporary counter-hegemonic ideology, yet still one that doesn’t represent a positive alternative. Often called the “Islamic Revival,” the movement is cultural and political in nature and has its practical roots in three seizures of power in the Middle East: those of Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan (1977), Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran (1979), and the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan (1992). Emerging from an era where secularism, nationalism, and quasi-socialist economics in the Middle East were dominant, all three revolutionized social life in their countries by creating religious education systems, strict courts, punishments, and laws based on religious fundamentalism, placing restrictions on women, and in many cases putting non-believers to death. Since then, Islamist armed movements have risen in Algeria in the 1990s, and more recently in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The Islamist movement was given a major boost in the fallout of the Arab Spring. Western intellectuals believed the goal of revolting Arab populations in 2011 was pluralistic democracy; yet authoritarianism survived but was simply altered in form and figureheads. The revolutionary wave facilitated the rise of religious parties, from extremists like ISIS to moderates like the Muslim Brotherhood, instead of liberals and republicans. Even before the Arab Spring, American attempts to militarily enforce its own political system on the furiously resistant Iraqi and Afghan nations failed embarrassingly, worsened by the fact that the Bush administration insisted the American invaders would be welcomed as liberators. The resistance to US occupation was also led primarily by groups which wanted an Islamic theocracy. These events upset the assumption that Western styles of social organization would spread across the world with few obstacles, even penetrating highly authoritarian areas where the concept of democracy had never existed in the national discourse.

However, rather than offering any new, forward-thinking solution, Islamism is a regressive movement that relies on re-popularizing archaic conservative beliefs, such as sectarian bigotry, religious fundamentalism, and patriarchy. It is also confined to the borders of Muslim-majority nations, and is therefore incapable of serving as a universal alternative to capitalism, property and class relations, or the global balance of power.

Pink Tide

The Latin American “pink tide” has been a recent wave of leftist political forces taking power through electoral means in a region long controlled by right-wing US-backed dictatorships. Unlike Islamism, the pink tide will be reflected on as the first sign that progressive resistance to neoliberalism was not vanquished in the post-Soviet era.

The movement arguably began in 1998 with the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who promised to eradicate poverty and corruption, a goal he approached through expropriating Venezuela’s huge oil industry from its wealthy owners. Left-wing leaders were elected next in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Perú, and El Salvador. All have attempted at differing extents to expand social welfare programs, combat poverty, and even nationalize industries, directly challenging the economic programs espoused by the West. Some have also incorporated intersectional approaches towards long-neglected issues of gender inequality, treatment of indigenous communities, and rights for disabled persons. The most radical among them, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela, have declared their country’s path towards a socialist economic system and viciously decry US imperialism as a great menace to the world. They condemn the US’ international record, especially its bombings in the Middle East and its support for Israeli apartheid in Palestine.

The pink tide has served as an important beacon of left-wing thought that defiantly confronted the unipolarity the West was enjoying, especially in an era that appeared bleak for progressivism. The idea of “Socialism of the 21st Century,” as a few Latin American leaders have called it, was a hard example of the continued practicality of left-wing methods in tackling poverty, expanding education and healthcare, re-creating a sense of anti-imperialist solidarity between nations, and forging alternative socioeconomic models.

Despite these contributions, the movement has seen setbacks in recent years, and the Latin American center and right-wing is using highly efficient tactics to reverse it. Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo and Honduran president Manuel Zelaya were deposed by military coups, Brazilian Dilma Rousseff was forced from power after right-wing forces pressed politically-motivated corruption charges, Kristina Kirchner’s party in Argentina lost elections in 2015, and opinion polls project Venezuela’s socialist president to lose upcoming elections in 2018.

Nonetheless, the pink tide is far from “defeated” as some hostile commentators have rushed to declare. The parties and candidates countering left-wing forces, often advised and funded by the US, are mostly being coordinated from the top down and aren’t succeeding in winning the hearts of ordinary citizens. In the cases where the right-wing has returned to power, they’re met with indifference at best, and regular mass demonstrations at worst, as is currently the case in Brazil and Argentina. Leftist control of Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Cuba are likely to survive in the near future, and leftist presidential candidates in Brazil and Mexico are currently leading in polls, and a widening field of left presidential candidates are shaping up in Colombia. While it’s true that the right-wing is resurgent, the long battle of dominating discourse, capturing popular trust, and enacting policy is only just heating up in Latin America.

Rise of China; US hegemony in crisis

While not a movement, the rise of China is also an important development of our century, and has coincided with a consensus among world-systems theorists that American hegemony is gradually declining. While this may seem counter-intuitive since we have thus far discussed American dominance extensively, recognizing gradual American decline does not contradict this. Globalization and the rapid inter-connections being sowed between different societies is still spearheaded by Western political and economic values. The US military itself, as the most powerful in the world, is still powerful enough to punish with devastating effects those who don’t fall in line with the Western-sponsored world order, even if they’re on the other side of the planet. Their tactics have i included invasions, bombings, sanctions, or deliberate isolation, as was the case with Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba.

However, while remaining a terrifying world power, US “hegemony,” in the sense of its overall share world power, has deteriorated in visible ways. In 1950, the US supplied 50% of the world’s gross domestic product, compared to 21% in 2003. During the same period, the US’ share of manufacturing production also tumbled from 60% to 25%, and the American share of all foreign direct investment fell from 47% to 17% [1]. The US also went from being the biggest financial lender to being the most indebted nation. Much of the former US share in these categories has been absorbed by China, nations of the European Union, India, and Brazil. China, for one, is expected to overtake the US economy in overall GDP in the very near future. Some predict it could be as early as 2020 [2]. Emboldened by its economic tempo, China has launched an ambitious, comprehensive program called the “Belt and Road Initiative” to develop, assist, and expand trade with the Central and Southeast Asian nations, and to create new trade routes to nations as far as Europe and Africa. The plan, which has the potential to drastically alter Asian economic alignment toward further integration with China, is being compared to the post-WWII US-sponsored “Marshall Plan” because the plan could include substantial Chinese funding of economic projects in nearby developing nations, partly in hopes they will be pulled into to an emerging Chinese sphere of influence.

As Fareed Zakaria opens his book The Post-American World, our re-aligning world is not “about the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else.” The US is not losing its absolute power, others are gaining relative power. This silent and slow loss of hegemonic standing has made a mark on the American consciousness, especially among conservatives. Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” appeals directly to a sense of lost power. Evidenced in renewed aggression toward the Syrian and North Korean governments, international relations during Trump’s presidency have been marked by futile attempts to re-project American strength. Unfortunately for the pro-Trump crowd, which celebrates his actions as steps toward reclaiming world leadership, the US’ slipping status is a long time coming, and a few risky endeavors will not reverse a long-term trend. In fact, rather than empowering it, Trump may be isolating the US further, most notably evidenced in his brazen withdrawal from the internationally-celebrated Paris climate agreement.

What does the decline of US hegemony mean for the future? While the US is likely to remain the most militarily advanced power for a while, it will slowly find itself with less relative ability to project its interests overseas. For example, if a phenomenon similar to the pink tide were to break out, the US may not have the means militarily, economically, or diplomatically (or even the will) to contain it. Anti-leftism and anti-socialism, American values sown deep into the national fabric and imposed worldwide for the past century, are not necessarily values shared by other rising powers. Potential unilateral attacks on other nations similar to the 2011 bombing of Libya will, and already have, seen more determined challenges from Russia and China and less European cooperation.

A looming confrontation

A major component of Obama’s foreign policy was a “pivot to Asia” whereby US Navy ships and resources were deployed in calculated strategy to prevent Chinese influence from expanding in the region. Even before Obama’s era, the rise of China has sat in the minds of the American elite as a threat that the US must “do something about” eventually. A suddenly assertive Russia has also just entered the international scene and ambitiously intervened in Syria and Ukraine, directly challenging Western objectives in both arenas with military force. As a Pentagon report bemoans, ““While the United States remains a global political, economic, and military giant, it no longer enjoys an unassailable position versus state competitors” [15]. With the election of Trump and an ideology of intense jingoism now steering the US government, the chance of a major war involving the United States is approaching a new high. American arms manufacturers are excited about a financial boost during his presidency and there have been notable increase in efforts to modernize military technology, indicating their belief that war material may soon be needed. Within the Pentagon, US military officials are clearly thinking in more confrontational terms than they were just a few years ago. A Le Monde article describes how a recently released US defense budget reflects this:

“US defence secretary Ash Carter said the new budget ‘marks a major inflection point for the Department of Defence.’ Whereas the department had been focused in recent years ‘on large-scale counter-insurgency operations,’ it must now prepare for ‘a return to great power competition,’ possibly involving all-out conflict with a ‘high-end enemy’ such as Russia or China. These countries, Carter declared, ‘are our most stressing competitors,’ possessing advanced weapons that could neutralise some US advantages. To overcome this challenge, ‘we must have — and be seen to have — the ability to impose unacceptable costs on an advanced aggressor that will either dissuade them from taking provocative action or make them deeply regret it if they do.”

Real Clear Defense, a non-partisan military analysis site, published an article in May 2017 titled “The First Signs Of A National Mobilization For War Are Appearing,” which argued that American preparation for industrial mobilization resembles that of major powers before World War II [3].

The Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to predict how close the world is to any human-caused global catastrophe, is currently 2 and a half “minutes from midnight,” a startling indication of impending danger. The clock’s proximity to midnight is meant to indicate humanity’s approach toward disaster, and its current status is nearly the closest it’s ever been. At the end of the Cold War in 1991, the figure was 17 “minutes from midnight.” It’s current position is due in part to a tense international atmosphere, the renewed arms build-up between major powers, and lack of global action on climate change.

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Citations

[1] https://monthlyreview.org/2003/12/01/u-s-hegemony-continuing-decline-enduring-danger/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)#Long_term_GDP_estimates

[3] http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/05/12/the_first_signs_of_a_national_mobilization_for_war_are_appearing_111371.html

[4] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/19/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-99-percent-new-income-going-to/

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/sep/01/economics

[6] https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2011/12/transcript-thom-hartmann-what-happened-notion-leisure-society-1-december-11

[7] https://www.thenation.com/article/inequality-is-worse/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[8] http://www.gallup.com/poll/166553/less-recommended-amount-sleep.aspx

[9] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

[10] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/25/news/economy/part-time-jobs/

[11] http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/ceos-now-make-300-times-more-than-their-workers-this-city-is-putting-a-stop-to-that/

[12] http://www.gallup.com/poll/1669/general-mood-country.aspx

[13] http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2016/voters_say_money_media_have_too_much_political_clout

[14] http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/329404-poll-bernie-sanders-countrys-most-popular-active-politician

[15] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/pentagon-study-declares-american-empire-is-collapsing-746754cdaebf