The Age of Transition

Everyone agrees the world is changing in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and with a supposedly new globalization. But are these the essential changes? In order to see where the world is headed in the next quarter-century, it is crucial to analyse correctly where it has been since 1945. It is the contention of this book that the post-1945 world already saw its major moment of change in the years 1967-73, a moment in which there was a conjuncture of three major turning-points, each leading to a downturn. These comprise, in the short-term, the end of the world economic expansion in the current 50-year Kondratieff cycle; in the medium-term, the beginning of a decline in the dominant role of the USA; and in the long-term, intimations of a possible systemic disintegration of the 500-year-old capitalist world-economy. Separating out these effects, the book analyses what constitutes the long-term structural crisis of the world-system into which we have entered, and the very difficult period of transition which has begun.This concrete analysis of the coming decades in the light of the previous ones is a product of the world-systems analysis of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations. The period 1945-90 is analysed in terms of six main vectors: the interstate system, world production, the world labour force, world human welfare, the social cohesion of the states, and the structures of knowledge. The book concludes with two global overviews: one for 1945-1990, and one assessing global possibilities, 1990-2025. It paints a picture of dark days ahead, but one in which there are real historical choices.