RELATED TOPICS
Elsenhans, Hartmut, State, Economy
and Power and the Future of the International System
by Hansi Elsbacher
The state will in future not be
absent, but continue to intervene in the economy by so-called linkages
(favouring of companies in high-tech industries) which promotes exports.
There will be a generalised
struggle for rent appropriation in order to secure a favourable position
in the international division of labour. It is cheaper than international
credit and does not require demand-creating investment.
The efficiency of this state
intervention depends on political arrangements between the state, private
business, and labour.
The new definition of the third
world: countries in which a considerable amount of the population is „marginal“,
i.e. unemployable by capitalist entrepreneurs, and earning less than their
subsistence. There will be no rising mass incomes, hence a division between
- not capitalists and labourers, but - those „better off“ who can create
governmental, or private, monopolies and those who cannot, i.e. the marginal
population.
The state loses legitimacy with
its (shrinking) resources. Members of the middle class, who formerly
benefitted from the development state, set up small private business. In
order to secure their new legitimacy, they appeal to the population by
means of traditional, undifferentiating, religious messages, i.e. ethnic
mobilisation.
The members of the new middle
class have no interest in promoting a welfare state or redistribution,
for instance agrarian reforms, because they are too much committed to their
property rights. Internal markets are weak, so the focus will be (and is
already) on exports, which makes for the appropriation of rent. Since such
state intervention/disruption of market forces is not accepted in the North,
it will be met by counter-measures.
Size becomes a major factor,
because a large economy requires less funds for subsidising internal consumption.
There are difficulties involved in trans-national labour movement cooperation.
This and ethnic mobilisation in combination with a changed world order
will make regional ganging-up more common. Regionalisation will aim at
improving one’s position in the world market.
Because of a fear of escalation
of conflict (a lesson from the cold war) and due to a more internationalised
world economy, with thickly interwoven interests, the major political powers
will refrain from military intervention with each other. The smaller ones
can, in the vacuum, however achieve much by the use of violence.
The decisive feature of the
future international political system will be regional alliances used by
the international „rent-seekers“. The neo-corporatist arrangement (between
state, private business, and labour) will decide which region or group
of actors it is that wins in the international contest.
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