In an effort to review the underling conditions and causes of the present crisis, it seems that the following converging factors are true:
Real wages have been stagnant or declining vs. inflation for three decades and have reached a critical point of stress.
Neoliberal foreign policy has deteriorated domestic industry, transferring instead to developing nations.
Excessive military spending has starved the U.S. budget from maintaining domestic necessities like healthcare and education.
Like in 1991, oil interests, responding to aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East, drove up oil prices, causing domestic strife and a slowdown in global trade.
Deregulation of financial markets allowed and caused the market collapse that tipped the hand on the diseased domestic and global economy.
The world financial system was so heavily invested in the SP Mortgage schemes that no country will escape this depression.
The above points have been expounded upon by various interests and spatter a significant portion of even the lauded pages distributed by the New York Post. Here on these pages, views have come from unexpected sources, traffic has increased dramatically, and new perspectives come from brothers and sisters far away, working on their own causes. This brings us to a certain level of understanding, an even footing from which new conclusions may be approached.
A good deal of attention has been paid to the role of information technology in this crisis and the future of democracy. This is important work, since a more informed understanding of the next few years forms a structure upon which achievable plans can be erected and sculpted into reality. Is it possible, however, that technology is not yet the most powerful force in society?
There has been much said about debtor resistance to financial capital. Again, a truly massive democratic movement can not sustain itself without achievable, universal goals to rally the people. Here, there is a good deal of work left to do, especially at the ground level. Can those strategies ever mean anything more than temporary solutions to a transitory economic state?
Stand on those questions for a time. Be assured they will remain while something else takes the stage. What has been said above all comes from an informed conception of the present world. Unreality has always been a much more attractive way to look at this world, however. It might even prove elucidating to take an unwarranted perspective on weighty issues. Science Fiction has served a role in this type of analysis since its first development under the weight of a rapidly nationalizing, ceaselessly industrializing community of intellectuals. Through their visions of electric life, and mechanical wonders, these first futurists were expanding upon the ethics of their own time. The steam powered future was a safe place to explore human values, politics, and dangers without upsetting a paranoid ruling class.
With that in mind, the trends in contemporary science fiction prove useful in highlighting the present situation that is not simple enough to understand as a whole. Is it any wonder that cyberpunk enthralled readers and speculators alike in the midst of the neoliberal revolution? From Blade Runner, to 5th Element, to Firefly, deeply sensitive humanists extrapolated a world where corporate power could not be restrained from its inexorable rise to primacy. The Star Trek crew battled Russians in space, where The Next Generation brought down the wall. Enterprise instead related how the small minded creatures with a never quit attitude learned to walk the stars as humans aught to.
Cyberpunk heralded a world where humanity was lost somewhere between the net, machine implants, and corporate greed. This period of fiction predated the mystical optimism of the singularists, so machine parts on a human frame meant a sort of death of the soul and the internet was just one more tool of global control. One more consistent trait to the genre was that it was universally a Japanese world. Decades of stellar growth and a conversely floundering American business community prompted an undeniable pattern forming around a preeminent Japan, or rather, her corporation’s eventual dissolution of state power. When Japan’s economy collapsed, however, the prophecies of a world that lived under its dominance ceased to be published or even thought about.
Futurist fiction drifted to other things for a time, without quite finding a center. In fact, despite several market fads, a new school of science fiction can’t truly be pinned down just yet. It seems Vernor Vinge’s singularity is an insurmountable wall past which authors feel unqualified to climb. In the absence of a discernable future to extrapolate, steampunk and fantasy literature has experienced a remarkable rise.
A few die hard writers haven’t given up their rockets and hyper drives just yet. While no new themes have emerged, one striking consistency has emerged, the primacy of China. Joss Whedon's Firefly universe stands as the most popular image of this as a network series where all the characters regularly blurt un-translated mandarin and are surrounded by Chinese culture and writing. If China has replaced Japan as the default post-American power of choice, what does that say about what is happening now?
China is expected to post 8% growth to GDP for 2008 - once again, the largest gain out of all countries. In the wake of Neoliberal trade agreements, western heavy industry has coalesced there and in other Asian countries. The jobless recovery of the previous recession is slated to repeat on a wider scale during this depression due to the continued emigration of industry and service jobs. If it is true that domestic recovery will depend upon a return to manufacturing and infrastructure, and we folded that hand long ago, which player is going to win the pot?
Watching the Asian markets will be essential to understanding the world on the other side of this depression. China is presently investing their $600 billion stimulus package into retooling and modernizing their factories on a massive scale. While they can’t help but be carried along in the wake of the crisis, they stand a good chance of staying afloat in general. Since they presently hold $2 trillion in US currency, they also find themselves well funded to outlast the deeply indebted western nations.
There are some trials to overcome, however. The region’s inflation driven economy survives on a significant trade surplus which is drying up. China’s present plan is to readjust their target markets to developing nations, for instance, by producing low cost clothing lines that could supply African and South American states’ rapidly growing urban populations. More peripheral, but not insignificant countries like Brazil are already recovering from the crisis and this play could be a winner.
The Asian markets are holding the cards, the developed, maintained, and growing infrastructure to produce their way out of recession. The West, however, will be forced to rebuild and radically modernize what they have ignored or sold off. It is difficult to pierce the veil over Chinese politics, but with their recent adoption of the 3G wireless standard, internet access will continue to expand, a process that will result in more connection and communication. Coupled with a consistently rising standard of living and real wages, it is time to watch China for a return to democratization and inclusive reform.
Now, place this along current discussions surrounding technology and debtor resistance. Are we prepared to enter the world of tomorrow, when we lack the tools today? Resisting oppressive debt will free potential revolutionaries from burdens no person should bear, forced on the people by powers that have less and less basis in material reality. Technology and the careful adoption of new practices will ensure that these oppressed today are active and connected tomorrow, because networking is a better lever to pull on society's hinges. Put all this in context with a world balance of power that may just be shifting to another sphere. In a world past capitalism, there shouldn't be spheres of power, and we'll get there if we live long enough to get anywhere at all. A refocus of power to the Asian markets, however, could radically change to path to change.
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