Saturday, August 27, 2022

West’s neoliberal ‘age of abundance’ is over, as war and sanctions boomerang home

France’s President Macron warned of the end of “an era of abundance.” Western wars and sanctions are boomeranging back at home. The neoliberal phase of capitalism is collapsing, having lost cheap Russian energy and cheap labor and consumer goods from China, and with regime-change ops failing.


By Benjamin Norton
The 2022 G7 summit in Germany

France’s President Emmanuel Macron, a former banker, warned that “we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance,” calling it “a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval.”

Western wars and sanctions are boomeranging back at home. The neoliberal phase of capitalism is collapsing.

Neoliberalism has lost the key pillars it was built on: cheap energy and raw materials from Russia, cheap labor and consumer goods from China, an unsustainable bubble of household debt, low to zero interest rates, and Washington’s ability to organize regime-change operations in any country where a government tried a socialistic or state-led economic model.

Sources
Macron warns of ‘end of abundance’ as France faces difficult winter,” The Guardian
A ‘Tsunami of Shutoffs’: 20 Million US Homes Are Behind on Energy Bills,” Bloomberg
Annual per capita disposable income of urban households in China from 1990 to 2021, via Statista
New Study Confirms That American Workers Are Getting Ripped Off,” New York Magazine



Russian gas exports to Europe, by country, from 1970-2005, via ResearchGate


China’s GDP per capita from 1978–2017, via Unicef


US household debt from 1945 to 2018, via the New York Federal Reserve


US household debt from 2000 to 2021, via Statista

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