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this seems to me a largely incoherent phase.
the kind of period that demonstrates the wisdom behind the old adage: may you not live in interesting times.
in some ways, i almost agree with politicophile insofar as to think about a time period requires that you take a huge range of variables into account--some of them, like the eradication (or at least treatability) of diseases that in earlier phases had been real scourges--some aspects of infrastructures development in the industrialized world (i like indoor plumbing and i like electricity, for example)--this isnt so bad.
before the rest of this post, i shuold note that other folk above have pointed out a problem with the op in its vagueness. the vagueness of framing results in vagueness of responses. what follows is necessarily also vague. nothing to be done. nothing? nothing.
to my mind, the single biggest problem that plagues this period is neoliberalism.
it is clear to anyone who looks, who is not blinded by the reasuring fiction of "free markets" that this economic ideology is a failure--one that requires a range of responses that have not yet really been worked out. neoliberalism is a catastrophe for the southern hemisphere in an obvious sense--it is also a catastrophe for much of the industrialized world. it is a catastrophe for the united states--but here, we continue to operate in a bizarre, dysfunctional ideological bubble within which neoliberalism continues to not have a name and "news" is oriented around the avoidance of structural consequences of this ideology.
one example for the u.s. among a legion of possibilities: the american educational system has been geared toward reproducing a class organization that no longer obtains---the basic reason for this is transformations in the organization of industrial producton beyond the boundaries of nation-states. the dominant ideology in the states does not and cannot address these transformations, primarily (i think) because to address them would entail a critical relation to capitalism--one that the corporate media is not interested in encouraging. the mindless cheerleading for capitalism is like the passengers on the titanic applauding a particularly attractive turn of phrase by the ship's orchestra as the ship begins to break apart. i am sure that such transport and applause feels nice, and that one can affirm one's sense of well-being by doing it, but the applause changes nothing about the macrosituation and could be seen as a kind of collective delusion that can be understood--from a distance--as a direct reflection of a sense of powerlessness in the face of it.
anyway, the educational system in the states is geared toward reproducing a class model that is already 40 years out of date--there is little hope (without a radical rethinking of how the system is organized) of adjusting to the new situation as a system, and so you have the prospect of american social reproduction producing increasing levels of dysfunction. what are kids supposed to do from what were working class areas, who pass through schools funded locally and which are therefore designed to reproduce a vanished class order? where are they going to go, what kind of future awaits them? the military? gigs as guards in an expanding prison-industrial complex? it seems to me that neoliberalism is selling out the futures of a vast segment of the society in which we live, and this as a direct function of its absurd view of the state as agent of irrationality--but more profoundly as a function of the refusal to even see--much less address--structural problems.
to even start to change the educational system, it would seem to me that funding for schools needs to be removed from the local level and allocated equally across then by states. on the basis of this centralization of funding allocations, system/programmatic adjustments would become possible in a timely fashion. but for the american right (that inceasingly marginal segment of american paleo-politics) this would smack of socialism. better to build more bible schools in church basements. maybe theswe folk imagine that a neo-imperialist american military would absorb these folks. that is delrium.
soemthing needs to be done.
the consequences of not doing anything will be kinds of social turmoil that will make the worst of the late 60s seem like a walk in the park.
the possibilities of fascism loom very large.
the outcomes of this flight from reality, this refusal to face structural problems, are and will be nothing short of obscene.
the neoliberal dismantling of states as regulatory mechanisms, both at the levels of economic activity and--particularly--at the level of regulating social reproduction: both are revealing their disastrous consequences.
the dismantling of economic regulation does not usher in some brave new world of heightened competition, but rather functions to open up economic space for highly concentrated forms of activity. the american model is one of centralization, standardization and exploitation of economies of scale. this model is marketed as "free"---with respect to the southern hemisphere, "liberalization" means the wholesale destruction of local economies. take agricultural production, for example. neoliberalism is a simple extension of colonial-style economic dependeny-under the aegis of neoliberlaism, country after country that had been able to feed themselves now find themselves having to import food--there is no reason for this---there is no reason why ghana, for example, should have to import basic foodstuffs. except neoliberalism, which is more about the dumping of american agicultural-industrial overproduction than anything else.
one could argue that the same economic ideology is behind the curent "problem" of migrant laborforces (documented and otherwise)---a way to deal with it is not to fence borders, mobilize the military to walk back and forth near the fences, or to make arbitrary declarations about the national language (all neofascist-style responses) but to undertake the development and implementation of models for econoic activity that encourage and sustain local autonomy.
this period is transitional. it is difficult because, at bottom, the scope of curent types of economic activity are no longer confined to nation-states and nation-states (and the ideologies through which they operate) have not even started to come to terms with this basic fact. basic changes in ideology are coming, but right now it is impossible to tell what they will look like. so there is no way to tell what the future will bring. so it is impossible, really, to know what this period will end up looking like in the longer run. i think it will be the endgame for neoliberalism, a period of extreme polarization and injustice. if there is a future, folk there will look back at this period and wonder how reasonable people could have been so stupid. at least i hope this is the case.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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