Branko Milanović v odličnem komentarju kot odgovoru na kritiko Martina Wolfa v Financial Timesu opisuje, kako so ameriški mainstream ekonomisti v sodelovanju z Bidnovo administracijo porušili fundamente povojne mednarodne trgovinske ureditve. Trump bo le še dokončal njihovo delo in dodal še geografski ekspanzionizem z zasedbo ozemelj, za katere meni, da so strateški za Ameriko. Milanović se sprašuje, katere bistvene sestavine neoliberalne globalizacije so sploh še ostale nedotaknjene (več spodaj).

O tej temi sem že večkrat pisal v času prvega Trumpovega mandata, ko se je večina ljudi in tudi ekonomistov zgolj sramežljivo čudila Trumpovemu iniciranju trgovinskih in tehnološke hladne vojne in niti ni opazila njegove efektivne imobilizacije Svetovne trgovinske organizacije (z neimenovanjem ameriških arbitrov, zaradi česar WTO vse do danes ne more presojati o teh nedovoljenih trgovinskih praksah). Takrat (februarja 2017) sem svaril, da je trgovinska vojna realna nevarnost globalizaciji in svetovnemu redu. Globalna trgovinska vojna se, če eskalira, kot nas uči zgodovina, lahko razvije v sfero politike in vojaške spopade. Takrat sem opozoril na dogajanje v 1930-ih letih, ko so ZDA leta 1930 s Smooth-Hawleyevim carinskim zakonom zakuhale globalno trgovinsko vojno, ki je po desetletju depresije in kaosa trgovinskih in valutnih vojn na koncu privedla do 2. svetovne vojne in največje morije v zgodovini človeštva.

In zdaj smo tam – onstran trgovinske vojne in že v fazi vojaške eskalacije.

Kako se bo končalo tokrat?

Na sedanjo situacijo je treba gledati kot na obdobje, ko se en imperij razpada, kar nikoli ne poteka prostovoljno in le izjemoma mirno (sesutje nekdanje Sovjetske zveze). V tem obupnem poskusu obrambe neubranljivega nekdanjega primata poslavljajoči se imperij običajno uporabi vsa orodja in mehanizme, ki so mu na voljo. Tudi za ceno, da zažge in požge ves svet. Vendar zaman. Na pogorišču nekdanjega sveta zmagovalec postavi temelje nove globalne ureditve. Po drug svetovni vojni so bile to ZDA (s sateliti zahodnih držav), ki so na tronu zamenjale V. Britanijo po neuspešnem Hitlerjevem poskusu blitzkrieg prevrata in postavile novo “brettonwoodsko mednarodno trgovinsko ureditev” (z IMF, Svetovno banko in GATT (WTO)). Tokrat bo to Kitajska (s sateliti BRICS+ držav), ker je pač največja globalna gospodarska, tehnološka in vojaša sila na svetu, ki tudi ima interes glede stabilne mednarodne ureditve.

In do takrat bo preteklo še precej časa. Kitajska ima čas. Počakala bo, da se ZDA z vojaškimi, trgovinskimi in tehnološkimi vojnami ter notranjo socialno krizo izčrpajo. Tako kot Rusija počasi sistematično izčrpava vojaške zaloge Nata v Ukrajini. Nato se bo ameriški povojni imperij sam zrušil vase.

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I do know that many mainstream neoliberal economists like to treat the appearance of Donald Trump as an Act of God. They treat him as an earthquake or some sudden storm whose origin nobody can fathom. It has been argued however (and I think that it is obvious) that the seeds of his ascent were actually sowed by neoliberal policies which have gradually lost popular support. It is not by accident that 77 million people voted for Trump nor is it accidental that similar movements are currently taking place and politically destabilizing large Western countries like Germany and France. This internal aspect and the role of neoliberalism in increasing inequality, reducing social mobility, increasing morbidity and mortality among the middle classes in the US, dissociating interests of the rich from the rest of the society, have been extensively documented in both economic and political science literature. I do not want to expand on that.

I would like, on the contrary, to focus on the abandonment of neoliberal principles in the international arena. This is a particular relevance for the Financial Times which is considered by the so called international development community as the newspaper of record. The Financial Times has an international perspective which is, for example, lacking in the Wall Street Journal. But the Financial Times has been misleading its readers into believing, or not noticing, that most of the neoliberal establishment has actually abandoned the principles of globalization which the very same people have been defending before, for some 20 or more years. The Financial Times has, in my opinion, failed to do so because of its strident anti-China policy and obsession with China’s success. Now that obsession with China’s success or rather dislike of its success (or wish for its failure) makes sense only if one looks at China from a strictly political or a strategic angle. There China may be a great competitor, rival or even a foe of the West. But it makes no sense at all if one is looking at China’s success from an internationalist or cosmopolitan point of view which is, in principle, what development economists are supposed to do. From that particular point of view the success of any developing country whether it be China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Chad, Paraguay, or Mali should be applauded. So this is the first inconsistency.

There is also the inconsistency whereby Chinese success is in part interpreted to be due to the stealing of technology from the West. There I can vouch after having worked for more than 20 years in the World Bank that the permanent complaint that I’ve heard was that poor countries are “unfortunately” unable to successfully use the technology from the more developed nations because of their corruption or lack of education. Not that the West was not keen to share it with them. So when a country like China finally showed that indeed it can copy Western technology, use its size as a bargaining chip, and improve upon foreign technology, from a cosmopolitan perspective to which presumably the Financial Times is dedicated, that success should have been saluted and welcomed. On the contrary, it was derided and presented as a theft. The international organizations should, in fact, advise Ethiopia and Tanzania how to replicate China’s copying of Western technologies rather than treating it as act of illegality. This is the second inconsistency.

The third, in a way a multiple inconsistency, is that international aspects of neoliberal globalization have been abandoned by the people who used to defend it. I will discuss them one by one.

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So what can we think when we attempt to look at the overall picture? We conclude that all essential ingredients of the neoliberal globalization have been abandoned by the mainstream economists and by Democratic administration in the US as they will be further abandoned by Trump. It is in that sense that Trump’s assumption of power on the 20^th of January represents a symbolic date for the final rejection of these principles. The goals are no longer free movement of goods because tariffs stop them; movement of technology is limited because of the so-called security concerns; movement of capital is reduced because the Chinese (and most recently Japanese as In the case of US Steel) are often not allowed to buy American companies; movement of labor has been severely curtailed. So what essential ingredients of neoliberal globalization have been left intact?

My point here is not to argue whether the abandonment of these principles is good for the United States or Europe or China or the world, or not. It is rather simply to show that it was not Trump who is the only agent of change, but that these principles have been in abeyance for at least a decade or perhaps a decade and a half. The Financial Times has misled its readers by not clearly stating that its promotion of trade blocs and revision of other key principles means in reality the abandonment of neoliberal globalization as a project. This is happening because of (1) geostrategic competition with China and because (2) such neoliberal policies have domestically been harmful for Western middle classes.

An important problem which is seldom noticed (and the Financial Times should have noticed it) is that giving up on these principles leaves the Bretton Woods system in disarray. As I mentioned in one of my earlier pieces there were two essential framings of the international system: in 1944 and then, although not as formally as in 1944, in the early 1980s with the introduction of the Washington Consensus on the global scale in the formally communist countries as well as in India, Africa and Latin America. But while the Washington Consensus was, and can legitimately be, criticized it had at least certain consistency. The current abandonment of the principles of neoliberal globalization leaves the entire field of international development in chaos because it is not at all clear what types of policies should be suggested to, or imposed on, the rest of the world. One cannot imagine how a World Bank mission to Egypt could argue for reduced tariff rates or lower subsidies while at the same time the most important country, not only economically but in terms of suggested or enforced economic ideology, the United States, is raising its tariffs and subsidies.

The entire ideology which underpins international economic relations has to be rethought. Perhaps we have to create a new system which would allow for trade blocs and tariff rates, no labor migration, and no transfer of technology but it has to be codified and explained to the rest of the world. Yet nobody has so far as much as mentioned that we (the world) need to create such a new system.

This is why we are currently in the situation where the rules do not exist anymore. They are being treated in an entirely ad hoc manner: a certain set of rules are being used in one country or in one set of countries and other rules are being used in another set of countries. All of this is justified on the grounds of national interest.

This is not an illegitimate position to take but one has to be clear about what it implies. It implies the return to mercantilistic policies where the interests of individual countries are paramount. It also means the abandonment of any cosmopolitan and internationalist perspective where the rules are at least in principle universal. We no longer have universal rules and the main culprit for not having universal rules is not Trump, but the view of the world where domestic political interest and the so-called security concerns are above everything else. This is not a world of globalization, but of parceled regionalisms and even nationalism.

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