1. In which sistem of coordinates to examine the phenomenon of "financism"
Does financial capitalism represent just a random variant of the
common essence of the development of the capitalist system ? Or is it rather
the definitive incarnation of its whole logic, its triumph ?
The answer to this question can not be found within the classics of
economic theory, their horizon being limited to the industrial phase of
development - the general trend and the full economic significance of which
they (and above all the Marxists) did investigate completely and correctly.
Post-industrial society is still in many ways an obscure reality.
In its analysis there are no adfirmed classics, although many authors
have cast a deep-searching look upon this phenomenon. The task of understanding
"financism" is ours, whether we like it or not.
Even to move the first steps in the direction of a consistent overview
of this theme, we have to consider the whole history of the economic paradigm,
and individuate there the place of "financism"- not just from the
point of view of quantitative chronology, but from the point of view of
the qualitative relevance of this phenomenon in the general development
of economic models.
And yet, even here, at the zero-stage of formulating the problem, we
come across an element of uncertainty undermining the frame of the analyisis.
Is there really one and one only history of economics? Such a history did
exist indeed, but in two (or three?) alternative versions. There is an
acknowledged history of economics from the Liberal position (capitalism
as the expression of the modern and most progressive paradigm in economics),
as well as from the Marxist position (socialism and the overcoming of capitalism
as the expression of the modern and most progressive paradigm in economics).
And further, there existed one third orientation (i.e. economic "heterodoxy"),
which absolutely declined to evaluate the economic paradigm according to
this rough formula (progressive - unprogressive), as the classical economists
used to do. But this "third way" economic school (a report on which I made
in the "Economic-Philosophical Collection") remained marginal, in spite
of the presence of first class economists and philosophers in its ranks.
2. A problematic evalutation of financism in the Marxist perspective
The events of the last decade have shown a clear-cut success of
the historical trend of Liberal economics. And precisely in the context
of Liberal economical and philosophical thought the first theorizations
on post-industrial society were born. Socialist thought remained instead
completely within the borders of the industrial paradigm, and the dramatic
fall of the Soviet system introduces unmistakeable accents in the story
of this scholarly disputation.
The Liberal systema was capable of
- eluding the socialist revolutions;
- dissolving the proletariat:
- preventing it to consolidate itself into a revolutionary party acting
on a worldwide scale;
- winning the ideological war against the socialist field.
From all these aspects, the Liberal model successfully defeated the
Marxist threat.
Apart from the position of tactical advantage, we are confronted here
with a most relevant conceptual conclusion. I can understand people sharing
a certain set of weltanschauungen will hardly accept this conclusion
- and even the thought of such generalization might be disturbing to some.
Nevertheless, a large number of factors is driving us to think that the
Liberal paradigm - that is, specifically, consistent Capitalism - is just
the economic paradigm which incarnates in itself the true spirit of modern
world. Liberal-capitalism, more than socialism (and of "third-way" economic
models), proved to be the most up-to-date economic regime
Being such the state of things, it would be wrong to decipher a posteriori
the Socialist systems as proving less adequate, while sticking to the modern
economic paradigm. Everything is much more complex: the anti-capitalist
orientation and the philosophical premise, lying just at the roots of the
socialist economic model, appear as a species of anti-modern tendencies
relative to economy - but not only relative to it. It is not a blind alley,
but the last fight (though veiled and externally stylizeded according to
the look of "modernism") of the anti-modern paradigm of a weltanschauung
which finds expression in economic theory and praxis (see A.Dugin, "The
Paradigm of the End", Elementy n.9).
Nowadays the socialist position is not worth a dime: not only
Marx's predictions about the transition of the industrialized West to socialism
proved to be true only in the Eastern agrarian-asiatic mode of production;
even the last Marxist argument was beaten - the fact of the existence of
Marxism (of the winnning, realized Marxism - although in a voluntaryist,
blanquist-leninist way) in many areas of the world.
How to conclude - from this starting point - that socialism itself represents
a more "progressive" phenomenon? How to signify that the real course of
world history (the infamous historical necessity) runs precisely in its
direction? It is impossibile. A fact emerges, more and more clear: that
socialism has been the outcome of a resolute general effort - not a product
of the objective course of histoty, but precisely of the insurgency against
this objective course - the effect of an heroic insurrection and of moral
deed of heroism, in which the maximum of tension tied up both the revolutionary
élite and the national mass.
In this frame, the geographical and cultural peculiarity of the countries
where socialism succedeed does not appear anymore as a random element,
but as an important though not determinant factor. Geopolitics does correct
economic policy (see A.Dugin, "The Paradigm of the End ", cit..).
Socialism won in the countries of the East as an enemy - cultural, historical,
ethnical, and religious - of Eastern orientations and priorities. The russian
eurasist (and orthodox jew) eschatological messianism of the bolshevik
commissars proved to be a much more weighty argument than the sophisticated
abstractions of political economy. Marxist universalism did not prove to
be comparably valid. And as a conceptual common language, Marxism fell
to pieces together with the Russian-Soviet Empire.
Today's attempts to decrypt the fhenomenon of "financism" in a Marxist
orthodox perspective are clearly doomed to failure, since orthodoxy itself
was destroyed. Orthodoxy is confronted - first of all - with the most serious
challenge of providing a non contradictory Marxist explaination of the
paradoxes of the XXth century - and above all of the tragic fate of socialism
in its last decade. Only after performing this task, it would be possibile
to move further on. But, having performed such a task, would orthodox Marxism
be the same as before? This is hard to believe.
In this way, Liberalism has the qualities to analyze "financism" according
to its own peculiar perspective. The movement towards a purely financial
economy will be in this view the movement towards a more modern and "progressive"
stage. Since capitalism itelf is regarded as modern and "progressive",
so much modern and "progressive" will be financism.
3. "Real domination of Capital"
Liberalism assimilated from the socialist (and even Marxist) weltanschauung
what from a paradigmatic point of view did not contradict the foundations
of capitalist logic, and destroyed all remaining forms - those really alternative
- at the end of an ideological, economical and geopolitical war.
The post-industrial stage of development of capitalism - during which
its transition to a purely financial stage of the economy did happen -
coincided with the globalization and totalization of the liberal paradigm
itself. Financism is a stage module of development of the capitalist paradigm.
Besides, it is a module linked to the metamorphosis of this paradigm into
something that has no alternative. Financism is a logical limit, towards
which the most self-sufficient development of Capital is attracted.
In the unpublished Book VI of "Capital", Marx offered a description
of this stage as the eventual cycle of "real domination of capital", which
would set in the event that the alternative, revolutionary proletarian
subject had not won the battle in the previous stage of "formal domination".
This Marxian theme of the non-predetermined nature of the final outcome
of the world struggle between Labour and Capital is something that orthodox
Marxism always feared just as much as any living being fears fire. (see
Jean-Marc Vivens, "From formal to real domination of Capital", Elementy
n.7).
Hence the suggestion to situate "financism" in the eschatological zone
of the economic history of capitalist development. Such an approach will
be perfectly correct from the perspective of the main tendency of capitalist
development - the progress of alienation. First the alienation of the product
of labour from producers, then the alienation of the whole sphere of production
into the system of banking credit, finally the translation of the whole
economy into the mode of virtual financial speculation.
4. Liberalism as alienation, "progress" as decay
Financism is the crown of capitalist logic and represents in itself
the last, highest stage of alienation.
In this process of total alienation, the natural course of historical
development is clearly shown from the perspective of traditional society.
But a theme constantly emerges in Tradition - that of Heroes, Prophets
and Saviours, resisting against historical enthropy, agaist the gravity
force of the Existing. (Marx and the Marxian doctrine can quite rightly
be counted as analogous to this "pre-eschatological" insurgency). But sooner
or later this initiative also falls under the grindstone of fate, and apocalyptical
conditions grow worse.
This traditionalist perpective views "progress", "natural course of
history", "modernism" as fate and evil, as the inertial fall of a weighty
mass, as a consequent coolness of Being. History is alienation, according
to traditionalists.
The history of civilization is seen as alienation by Rousseau (the "bon
sauvage", wasted by society), Hegel ("alienation of the Absolute Idea"),
and Marx ("estrangement from originary communism").
The happy turn ("right democracy" in Rousseau, "Prussian State " in
Hegel, "World Revolution " in Marx) happens notwithstanding the inertia
of history.
So the "end of the world" (this ontologically positive event, according
to Christians) follows the era of the anti-christ. And the coming of the
anti-christ is detected as the unmistakeable sign of the approaching Second
Coming. But of course, this does not mean that the certain announcement
of the Second Coming getting near can reach also the "prince of this world".
There is only one good thing in the climax of alienation - once this lethal
process has reached its limits, it shall be eradicated by the punishing
right hand of the transcendental principle.
5. Financial economy and the dialectics of evil
Liberalism is the natural trend of development of the "philosophy
of economy", autonomized, separated from all other social structures of
value in its qualitatively modern incarnation. Financism represents the
peak of development of the modern economy. That is - the invariance of
the "status quo".
One different issue is the way we evaluate "financism", and, more in
general, the "liberal-capitalist" path of economic development. If we see
"financism" ("real domination of capital") in dark colours, then - whether
consciously or not - we find ourselves on the opposite side to the spirit
of modernity. This cannot be disguised behind the talk about "progress".
The natural course of history (also economic history) does not suit us;
we consider historical enthropy as immoral, and we want to set ourselves
against it. In this case, we have to turn ourselves - in a voluntaryist,
leninist way - not only to the outfit of "non-financist" views about the
economy, but also to all economic models which are non-modern, anti-modern,
based upon the "heroical" (according to Werner Sombart's definition) impulse
to overcome the evil course of contemporary world.
"Financism" is not a question of mechanical deviation from the economic
paradigm of capitalism; it is a normal stage of its development - the stage
of its world-wide triumph.
It is stupid and irresponsible to complain about the fact that the mass
of financial speculation on the world stock markets by far exceeds the
budgets of developed countries, or that fictitious transfers of capital
through computer nets undermine the development of material productive
sectors, shifting investments to the sphere of a virtual economy. Alienation
of finance from the productive sphere, virtualization of the economic substance
are the normal final chord of capitalist development.
6. The indemonstrable imperative of revolution
We can fully agree with all extremely catastrophist prognoses being
made by impartial analysts about the ethical significance of these trends.
As a matter of fact, increasing the virtual economy to the prejudice of
the real sectors of production inevitably leads to economic disaster. The
informational element in post-modern societies aims to definitively substitute
reality, by replacing it with its illusory but still powerful operating
system. This will prove lethal, at a certain point.
And yet - according to the traditionalist views of society (and to other
non-liberal and illiberal doctrines) - this is the absolute logic of every
immanent process, in which a transcendent principle either does not intervene,
or can not intervene, if it does not want to. Capital (as the utmost alienation,
as a total reduction to the materialist quantitative principle) has been
struggling for a very long time to become the one and only subject of human
history. And it made it with "financism". As a representation, he obtained
a much easier victory than in its original form. Virtual, fictitious economy
puts the principle itself of reality under exploitation - just as it puts
under exploitation the reality of economy and its onthology (though this
ontology cannot be independent, it necessarily stems from the more general
supra-economic metaphisycal and social form).
The antithesis (even theoretical) to "financism" could be manifest in
the previous stages of capitalist development.
Economics is but a language, by which any message can be formulated.
The liberal model of the economy ("economics") is the message of triumphing
alienation and enthropy, of the atomization of the social, political, cultural
and historical whole. Such is the message of "modern spirit", the message
of Enlightment. "Leftists" (radical democrats, Rousseau, socialists, communists)
and "rightists" (fundamentalists, traditionalists, integralists) long time
ago interpreted the liberal gospel (in philosophers like John Locke, Jeremy
Bentham, John Mill, and in economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo)
as the incarnation of evil in this world, as the dissolution of any organic
essence. This is the deadly, nihilistic spirity of modernity, based upon
the "exile of the Gods" (M. Heidegger), upon the "death and assassination
of God" (F. Nietzsche), upon "exploitation" (K. Marx).
"Financism" is nothing absolutely new, it is Liberal-Capitalism in its
purest form. It is "modernity" having totally overcome its antithesis.
This is why protesting against "financism" on a national or world scale
is impossible without a global revolution of consciousness, without an
excellent revisitation of every anti-liberal ideology, without the expression
of a new integral Alternative - and what is more, an Alternative not only
against the result ("financism" itself), but against its cause ("capitalism"
"liberalism", " modern spirit").
Searching for such Alternative within the limited sphere of economy
is unthinkable. Such Alternative will have to transcend the whole set of
modern discourses, the whole "language of modernity". Only after that,
when the global philosophical paradigm of Final Revolution will have been
forged, that alternative will get an economic form - as the pragmatic way
of stating a transcendent imperative, inductively indemonstrable and empirically
unevident.
This is the role of the "new prophets", the "new saviours", the "new
heroes".
Anti-financism is but the most exterior level of the deepest and most
radical struggle against capitalism and liberalism, the necessity of which
does not spring out of pragmatic interests, but from the depth of the dignity
of the human subject as a species - a subject who, even into the abyss
of being forsaken by God, rejects any reconciliation with the blood-stained
world, and stands up for a higher ontology, for a new sacrality, for justice
and brotherhood, for freedom and equality.
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