26 January, 16:00
The modern world is undergoing a profound transformation driven by shifts in economic and social paradigms. While Giovanni Arrighi and David Harvey explored the crisis of capitalism and the prospects of changing global hegemons in their works, today we witness not so much a change in hegemon in the traditional sense, but rather a fundamental alteration of its form.
The United States remains a global leader, yet the very nature of its hegemony has evolved: dominance is now rooted in digital financialization, informational capitalism, and enhanced control through technology.
Arrighi speculated that U.S. hegemony could be transferred to another center of capital and foresaw the rise of China. However, his analysis did not fully account for the possibility of capitalism itself undergoing a paradigm shift. Despite economists’ predictions and historical trends favoring the relocation of the financial world’s center, the U.S. not only retained its hegemony but also adapted to new challenges. This adaptability is evidenced by its financial flexibility, dominance in high-tech industries, and cultural soft power.
China’s model, as Arrighi noted, is indeed unique, relying on economic influence rather than military power. While this approach once seemed innovative, it too appears outdated. Nevertheless, China continues to grow economically, despite facing internal challenges ranging from a demographic crisis to structural imbalances in its economy. In any case, China remains a significant economic player, though not in the hegemonic sense understood in the past.
The Critique of Capitalism and the Rise of Financialization
David Harvey’s critique of capitalism highlights a crucial point. Financialization, as a mechanism for capitalism’s adaptation to crises, has led to a detachment from material production. This detachment generates instability, as symbolic production (digital assets, brands, simulacra) lacks the resilience of physical production.
Digital Financialization as the Foundation of a New Economy
Financialization, which began in the 1970s, marked a shift from material production toward managing assets, shares, and financial instruments. Today, this process has reached new heights thanks to digital technologies. Cryptocurrencies, algorithmic trading, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and asset tokenization are reshaping the rules of the game.
However, digital financialization has its downside. It exacerbates inequality because access to these tools is limited, controlled by corporations and elites with the resources and expertise to manage such assets. Financial crises could become more frequent and destructive due to reliance on algorithms and speculative capital.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, reverting to 19th-century rhetoric, emphasized national production, job preservation, and economic growth. This sharply contrasts with his calls for massive investments in artificial intelligence, presenting a peculiar response to the crisis of the postmodern paradigm. For many feeling alienated in a post-materialist value system, this divide symbolizes a conflict between two realities: traditional capitalism and the world of “simulacra.”
Informational Capitalism: Data as the New Value
While classical capitalism was based on the exploitation of labor, informational capitalism exploits data. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Meta (formerly Facebook) generate profits by analyzing and monetizing user behavior. Data has become the “new oil” of the 21st century, and its collection and processing are now the primary form of “production.”
This model, however, exacerbates issues of privacy and control. Users, whose data is utilized, become objects of manipulation and surveillance. Advertising, public opinion shaping, and behavior prediction are tools of informational capitalism, making individuals both consumers and commodities.
The Digital Panopticon: Control Through Technology
One of the most alarming aspects of the new paradigm is the increasing societal control through digital technologies. Social credit systems, pervasive surveillance, and algorithmic decision-making in governance and corporations create conditions that can be described as a “digital panopticon.”
China’s social credit system, which uses data on citizen behavior to assess their “trustworthiness,” exemplifies this. However, similar mechanisms are being implemented in democratic countries under different pretexts. Facial recognition cameras, digital footprint analysis, and automated decision-making based on big data are becoming global norms.
The Virtual Third World War
In the digital power struggle between superpowers like the U.S. and China, nations such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea, despite their significant cyberterrorism and hacking capabilities, appear as primitive tribes wielding wooden spears against high-tech fortified structures. While they prepared for a battlefield-based World War III, the real war has already shifted to a new arena — the virtual realm. Here, the fates of nations are decided, critical infrastructures are controlled, and the battle for global dominance unfolds.
The Future of Global Hegemony
U.S. hegemony, the successor to the Genoese, Dutch, and British cycles of capital accumulation in the world-system’s evolution, remains dominant but is undergoing a phase of transformation, adapting to the new challenges of global capitalism.
Today, U.S. power is based not only on military and economic strength but also on global dominance in the digital realm. American corporations control nearly all global platforms and technologies, from operating systems to cloud services.
However, the rising influence of China, particularly in technology and economics, presents new challenges. Instead of traditional opposition, we see the emergence of a bipolar world, where hegemony is shared between two digital superpowers, each promoting its model of development.
We live in an era of hegemonic transformation, where digital financialization, informational capitalism, and technological control are shaping a new reality. The future ahead is far from utopian ideals of brotherhood, equality, and freedom. It increasingly resembles a digital dystopia, where every step of an individual is tracked, analyzed, and monetized. The question is whether humanity can adapt to this reality and find ways to preserve its fundamental rights and freedoms — or, perhaps more poignantly, whether anyone will even remember these rights, however trampled, as virtues 50 years from now.