The Clash of Capitalism

The Real Fight for the Global Economy’s Future

Capitalism rules the world. With only the most minor exceptions, the entire globe now organizes economic production the same way: labor is voluntary, capital is mostly in private hands, and production is coordinated in a decentralized way and motivated by profit.

There is no historical precedent for this triumph. In the past, capitalism—whether in Mesopotamia in the sixth century BC, the Roman Empire, Italian city-states in the Middle Ages, or the Low Countries in the early modern era—had to coexist with other ways of organizing production. These alternatives included hunting and gathering, small-scale farming by free peasants, serfdom, and slavery. Even as recently as 100 years ago, when the first form of globalized capitalism appeared with the advent of large-scale industrial production and global trade, many of these other modes of production still existed. Then, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, capitalism shared the world with communism, which reigned in countries that together contained about one-third of the human population. Now, however, capitalism is the sole remaining mode of production

It’s increasingly common to hear commentators in the West describe the current order as “late capitalism,” as if the economic system were on the verge of disappearing. Others suggest that capitalism is facing a revived threat from socialism. But the ineluctable truth is that capitalism is here to stay and has no competitor. Societies around the world have embraced the competitive and acquisitive spirit hardwired into capitalism, without which incomes decline, poverty increases, and technological progress slows. Instead, the real battle is within capitalism, between two models that jostle against each other.

Often in human history, the triumph of one system or religion is soon followed by a schism between different variants of the same credo. After Christianity spread across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, it was riven by ferocious ideological disputes, which eventually produced the first big fissure in the religion, between the Eastern and Western churches. So, too, with Islam, which after its dizzying expansion swiftly divided.

Foreign Affairs