Neoliberalism and the U.S. turn to naked imperialism

The sustained structural crisis of the capitalist world-economy

     In my May 18 commentary, I noted that the capitalist world-economy is characterized by two fundamental contradictions.  First, the world-economy imposes peripheral structures on peoples in vast regions of the world, who do not accept the peripheral role assigned to them, and who therefore form anti-systemic movements that seek to attain their political and economic independence.  The capitalist world-economy is thus characterized by a permanent condition of conflict between the West and the Third World; and within the peripheralized zones, between those sectors that have an interest in accommodation to Western interests, and those who favor a more sovereign road.  Secondly, the capitalist world-economy has reached and overextended the natural geographical and ecological limits of the earth, and therefore it can no longer expand as it once did; new discoveries that fuel economic advances must be found in territory already conquered.  (See “The capitalist world-economy and its cont…