In this unorthodox literature review, I perform a ‘violent reading’ between the abstracted spacetime of the USSR (a regional level in the past) and that of today’s unipolar capitalist world system (a global level in the present). Siding with the Marxist school claiming that the Soviet Union ultimately was an example of state capitalism, the aim of this violent reading is to identify tendencies within our latest global capitalism towards a gradual ‘sovietification’ of our common world. Three excursions into the sovietification of capitalism are conducted in the fields of economy (secular stagnation), governance (bureaucratisation and the merger of political and economic spheres), and ideology (structures of feelings of cynicism and fear). The analysis identifies five signs of a ‘sovietification’ of capitalism. First, today’s global capitalism mirrors the USSR’s late-stage productivity crisis, marked by stagnation and blocked creative destruction due to state dependency and unproductive capital accumulation. Second, financialisation has produced a ruling coalition of capitalists, politicians, and communicators that merges political and economic power, resembling Soviet bureaucratic control. Third, pervasive bureaucracy and surveillance now manage economic life and suppress dissent, echoing Soviet experiences. Fourth, ideological hypocrisy and disillusionment weaken democratic legitimacy, paving the way for authoritarian and nationalist tendencies. Finally, intensified geopolitical rivalries and rearmament revive state-led accumulation through military-industrial competition, paralleling Soviet-style state capitalism.
Erik Hansson (Tue,) studied this question.