Between 1920 and 1991, the ideological landscape of the Western world appeared to be sharply divided. On one side stood the apostles of capitalism, who envisioned a global order anchored in free markets, private enterprise, and liberal democracy.
On the other were the champions of communism, who sought to establish a world governed by central planning, social equality, and the collectivist ethos. Both camps aspired, in their own way, to universalism: a one-world government guided by their respective doctrines.
Yet this apparent binary—capitalism versus communism—obscured a deeper continuity. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ideological contest did not end so much as it evolved. The Cold War’s stark opposition between East and West gave way to a new synthesis, in which elements of both systems were absorbed into a broader architecture of Western hegemony.
Post-1991, the West no longer needed to choose between capitalism and communism. Instead, it began to blend them—deploying capitalist tools to ensure economic control, and communitarian or collectivist rhetoric to engineer social conformity. Global governance institutions, multinational corporations, digital surveillance regimes, and moralizing bureaucracies now work in tandem, creating a new technocratic order that draws selectively from both traditions. The dream of a one-world government persists, but now it is pursued through ideological fusion rather than confrontation.
This convergence is masked by the enduring myths that each system tells about itself. Capitalism continues to present itself as the path to individual freedom and prosperity; communism, as the vehicle of equality and fraternity. But such notions, while emotionally potent, are ideologically sanitized. In practice, both systems have exhibited authoritarian tendencies. Both have shown a readiness to subordinate the individual to abstract ideals—whether markets or the collective—and both have been instrumentalized to justify sweeping interventions into the political, economic, and even spiritual life of societies.
To believe that capitalism inherently delivers freedom, or that communism guarantees justice, is to remain entrapped in a narrative crafted by Western ideologues to legitimize global dominance. In truth, both are mechanisms of control—different masks worn by the same imperial will.
The modern world order, shaped by this hybrid ideology, is not a triumph of one system over another, but a testament to their convergence. And unless this fusion is critically examined, the dream of a truly plural, autonomous world may remain forever deferred.
Dear Dr. Verma,
ReplyDeleteWhat would you propose as an alternative to the siren song of capitalism and the out-of-grasp freed markets?
@thombrogan: The question is--why do we think that there should be an alternative to capitalism? We don't need an alternative to capitalism. Humanity has thrived without all these "isms" for tens of thousand of years. Every country can have its own system based on its cultural,georaphical, and historical conditions. The moment you think of a world which is ruled by capitalism or communism, you create distortions in the natural systems of humanity.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your reply, Dr. Verma.
ReplyDeleteI had; and do; believe laissez-faire capitalism means freedom and prosperity, but I’ve read so much Libertarian and Objectivist praises of such a practice that I took your criticism to heart and assume I’m missing something or am “brainwashed” as you’ve put it.
Is your point that existing nations do not need their current regimes and cultures overthrown and replaced with alien cultures and political systems to participate in global trading?
@thombrogan: Libertarianism and objectivism are ideologies created by "full time" academics, philosophers, fiction writers who had limited knowledge of history and were out of touch with reality. There is simply no proof that libertarianism and objectivism can lead to the creation of a free market society.
ReplyDeleteAmerica was not created by objectivists. The conquistadors, the colonists, the imperialists, the slavers, the puritans, the settlers who first tamed America (from the 15th century to the 18th) were not objectivists or libertarians. Even Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and other founders were not objectivists or libertarians.
The world is far more complicated than what the "simplistic" theories of the objectivists and the libertarians.
I am not saying that that the existing regimes do not deserve to be overthrown. I am saying that "capitalism" is not the messiah that will lead to a better world. Capitalism is a "false dawn," just as communism was. Both capitalism and communism are failures. I would highly recommend the book by Prof. John Gray: False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism.
Gray, by the way, is a staunch anticommunist and he often speaks in libertarian events.
https://www.amazon.com/False-Dawn-Delusions-Global-Capitalism/dp/1565845927/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=False+Dawn%3A+The+Delusions+of+Global+Capitalism&qid=1669822428&sr=8-1