The role of the USA as a global power is becoming fragile. China is likely to soon overtake the US in terms of economic strength, and the US and its allies are no longer able to avert systemic crises. In this text, the Chinese economics professor Minqi Li, who teaches in the USA, poses the question of how capitalism will continue if the USA, in its role as the globally active guardian of its external conditions of existence, may soon fail completely.
The basic thesis of the text is that there is a fundamental tension between capitalism as a principle that thrives on the competition of different actors, but at the same time needs a reliable framework on a systemic level that only a hegemonic regulatory power can guarantee. These are, for example, reasonably stable external political and ecological conditions. However, if the competitive situation no longer finds such a containment – and there are currently indications that this is the case – the system cannot endure.
Li counts himself to “New Left” in China, which is evident in the text’s rhetoric, but many of his observations are interesting, as is the historical outline of the development of the world economy since World War II, at the end of which the USA rose to become a hegemonic force.
However, the text does not contain much room for optimism about the future: neither the control of nuclear weapons nor the limitation of the climate crisis seem likely if the actors in the global political arena only concentrate on competing with each other.