After the “End of History”: Progressive Alternatives to the Refeudalization and “Techno-Socialism”

After the “End of History”:
Progressive Alternatives to the Refeudalization and “Techno-Socialism”


Buzgalin A.V.

Dr. Sci. (Econ.), Professor of the Faculty of Economics, Director of the Centre for Contemporary Marxist Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow buzgalin@mail.ru

ID of the Article:

Rubric: In memoriam

For citation:

Buzgalin A.V. After the “End of History”: Progressive Alternatives to the Refeudalization and “Techno-Socialism”. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2023. No 11. P. 163-172




Abstract

The article continues the author’s publications in the journal “Sociological Studies”, in which it was shown that contradictions of the neoliberal model of late capitalism pose a threat of the society involution towards conservative liberalism and refeudalization. The new text demonstrates a possibile implementing of a progressive alternative to this trend and criticizes currently popular idea of “technosocialism”. The author argues that the developing relations of transit to the “kingdom of freedom” in the space of late capitalism presupposes (1) the active regulation of social reproduction in order to effect a transition from the orientation of socio-economic development to profit and GDP growth to eco-socio-humanitarian priorities; (2) reforming property relations in the direction of socialization; (3) redistributing part of the parasitically used excess incomes by simulacra people (rentiers, financiers, show business persons, professional sports stars, etc.) for the purposes of social development and (4) the progress from manipulated democracy to dialectical unity of civil society and essential democracy. The subject of these changes – a kind of “progressor” – can become a union of creative workers of the public sector (“socialists”) with highly professional industrial proletariat realizing their strategic interests politically and ideologically.


Keywords
“the end of history”; late capitalism; neoliberalism; conservatism; refeudalization; “realm of freedom”; post-capitalism; socialiat

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Content No 11, 2023