Review of Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic by William I. Robinson

 

William I. Robinson, Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic

(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2022), 185 pp., $17.95

Book review by Steve Ellner published in the journal “Socialism and Democracy”

 

In previous works, William Robinson, among other mostly Marxist

analysts, has written on the highly adverse and troublesome effects

of the so-called fourth industrial revolution consisting of a “new

wave of digitalization” (86) and computer technology, artificial intelligence,

platform-based industry, biotechnology, laborless production

and other technological inroads, which have thoroughly transformed

capitalism. In his new book, Robinson demonstrates with abundant

facts and examples how the Covid pandemic accelerated these developments,

which constitute the core of twenty-first century global capitalism.

One result was that inequality “reached unprecedented levels

worldwide” (84). Indeed, what Naomi Klein called the “shock doctrine”

played out during the pandemic beginning in 2020, when

Rahm Emanuel commented “never let a crisis go to waste” (37),

thanks to trillions in bailout money allocated to big capital. Robinson

debunks the “fairy-tale” arguments of the mainstream champions of

the fourth industrial revolution who ignore its negative, if not nefarious,

impact and see it as “ushering [in] a new age of prosperity,

democracy and abundance for all” (85).

 

Robinson refers to Marx’s thesis linking technological development

and systemic change – what some misleadingly call “technological

determinism.” Marx famously wrote that the windmill was to

feudalism what the steam engine was to industrial capitalism. While

Marx noted the horrendous conditions of factories in 19th-century

England, he was quick to point out that capitalism in its early stage represented

a progressive and favorable historical change. In contrast, the

fourth industrial revolution, for all its attractive features (Google Maps,

movie streaming, etc.), is a horror show, as described by Robinson.

High up on this list is the police state, which Robinson discussed in

his previous book The Global Police State,1 and which the COVID pandemic

strengthened. In a dynamic that paralleled events after September

11, 2001, the pandemic served to justify the abridgement of

democratic rights, including “draconian ‘antiterrorist’ security legislation”

in 14 countries “that often made legal the repression of social

movements and political dissent” (41). As in the case of the Patriot

Act, these measures are unlikely to be temporary and may serve as a

“smokescreen to consolidate a global police state” (50). The pandemic

encouraged the development of increasingly sophisticated methods of

surveillance (as analyzed in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by

Shoshana Zuboff)2 through the use of digital technology to “surveil

the movement of potentially infected individuals” (46). The new

wave of digitalization accelerated by the pandemic has also led to

the use of “autonomous weaponry, such as unmanned attack and

transportation vehicles, robot soldiers, [and] a new generation of

superdrones” (79), as well as “predictive policing,” a practice which

discriminates against vulnerable sectors. These methods of enhanced

state control are just a few examples of the three-fold convergence

that the book documents: the “advanced digitalization” (54) of the

fourth industrial revolution, the COVID pandemic, and despotism

and the departure from traditional norms and practices.

Robinson has long argued that transnational capital (TNC) has

replaced national capital as the dominant force in the age of globalization.

His Marxist critics claim that his thesis is at odds with the existence

of a strong nation-state such as that represented by Washington

and even with the concept of imperialism according to Lenin, which

is territorially based. According to them, the existence of an imperialist

state that defends national capital, and is as powerful as Washington is,

precludes the possibility that the TNC has become hegemonic. Robinson

responded by pointing to the emergence of a Transnational State

(TNS), as exemplified by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).3 More

importantly, Robinson argued that the nation-states, and that of the

United States in particular, represented the interests of the TNC

more than those of national capital. Under Trump, however, the TPP

was scrapped, at the same time that the polarization of Cold War II

sharpened conflict over national interests.

 

In this book, Robinson answers his critics with a nuanced, and in

my opinion more convincing, explanation of the coexistence of a hegemonic

TNC and a hegemonic nation-state. Along the lines of the theory

of the state formulated by Nicos Poulantzas,4 Robinson discards the

notion that the state is a mere instrument of the hegemonic class fraction,

in this case the TNC, and argues that the legitimizing function of

the state enters into contradiction with the capital accumulation

imperative of the TNC. Robinson adds that “geopolitical frictions”

such as those involving Russia and China, “are used to justify rising

military budgets” (51) and in the process foster “militarized accumulation”

(25). Indeed, the legitimizing function can plainly be seen in

the case of the war mongering of Democratic Party centrists and Republicans

that, at least until now, has resonated among many voters and

thus serves to bolster legitimacy. In short, the legitimizing function

has a dynamic of its own which at times “overdetermine[s] economics”

(52), specifically the maximization of profits of big capital. Robinson

adds that “we can expect the contradictions” between the two functions

“to intensify in the post-pandemic world” (53).

 

Robinson clearly considers the fourth industrial revolution a phase

in capitalism and calls the changes that the Covid pandemic accelerated

“capitalist restructuring” (90). Indeed, his characterization of the

fourth industrial revolution as an example of the internal transformation

of the capitalist system is derived from Marx and Engels. Both

famously observed in The Communist Manifesto that “the bourgeoisie

cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production,

and thereby the relations of production, and with them the

whole relations of society.”

 

Robinson stops short of engaging those theoreticians, across the

political spectrum, who argue that the salient features of the fourth

industrial revolution resemble feudalism rather than representing a

new stage of capitalism. These “neo-feudalism” (or “techno-feudalism”)

writers, who include the Greek Marxist economist Yanis Varoufakis,

argue that what Robinson calls “capitalist restructuring”

represents a break with the capitalist system. Varoufakis calls the

new system a “post-capitalist dystopia” that is “worse than capitalism.”

5 The neo-feudalism writers maintain that digital platforms,

accumulation by dispossession, the predominance of fictious capital,

prison labor in privatized prisons, central banks’ massive printing of

money that replaces profits as the driver of the global economy and

other developments largely discussed by Robinson do not involve production

that generates surplus value, which is a basic component of

capitalism. Furthermore, these modes do not involve “free” labor

markets, which are also specific to the capitalist system. Yet a deviation

from pure capitalism does not signify a complete break with the

system. As David Laibman observed in Passion and Patience: Society,

History, and Revolutionary Vision, regardless of how an economic

system is defined (be it slavery, feudalism, capitalism or socialism),

seldom in history has it existed in its pure form in a given country or

region.

 

In the chapter “Whither the Global Revolt?” Robinson analyzes

resistance to neoliberalism in the twenty-first century through a globalization

lens. He looks at the popular insurgencies that broke out in two

waves following the 2008 crash, which he calls a “veritable tsunami of

mass rebellion not seen since at least 1968” (102). One began with the

“Arab Spring” and included the Occupy Wall Street movement and

the protests in Spain and Greece led by Podemos and Syriza, and a

second between 2017 and 2019, which included protests throughout

Latin America as well as the “yellow vest” movement in France. Robinson

contends that the protests were driven by what the Financial Times

called a “‘global mood’” (103) and “had a truly global character” (102).

Actually, the dynamic in which events in one country have a ripple or

“demonstration” effect throughout the region or the world has been a

constant throughout history. For Robinson to demonstrate the unique

qualities of the post-2008 “global revolt” he would have to show that

there were solid organizational links among protest movements

throughout the world. Such links existed, but as Robinson recognizes,

as in the case of the World Social Forum, they were tenuous and hardly

a driver of the “global revolt.”

 

Robinson goes on to point to the limited effectiveness of the Black

Lives Movement and other anti-racist protests in 2020 in that they were

“devoid of any critique of capitalist exploitation that linked race to

class” (130), as is also generally the case with identity politics. These

movements have only been successful in “eradicating the symbols of

racism and oppression” and for this reason “they were quickly embraced

by many political and corporate elites” (131). To be effective, it is essential

that the social movements adhere to a class analysis and that they “be

part of amore expansive transnational counterhegemonic project, including

transnational trade unionism…and transnational political organizations

that put forth a transnational transformative project” (120).

 

While Robinson’s critique holds true, his analysis resembles the sharp criticisms

now common among leftists who fail to recognize the potential of

identity politics – even short of class analysis – to expose contradictions in

the capitalist system and the double standards of those who support it.

Since the publication of his first works about globalization over two

decades ago, Robinson has offered considerable evidence to substantiate

his theories about contemporary capitalism. This book is no exception.

The information it marshals about the innovations of the fourth industrial

revolution demonstrates their far-reaching implications, which

Robinson persuasively argues require a rethinking of theoretical analysis

and strategy. Most importantly, the book shatters the illusion that the

new wave of technological innovations in a capitalist context represents

something other than a threat to civilization as we know it.

 

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Steve Ellner http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9969-3350

© 2025 Steve Ellner