Andrei Fursov: The one who wins will live
Andrey FEFELOV. My first question, Andrei Ilyich, to you, as a historian of modernity. We are talking about some kind of ultimatum, which was set by the West Russian oligarchs. We know that this ultimatum ends in February, Valentine’s Day. Behind this ultimatum what do you see? - the struggle of international elites, global elites with regional ones?
Andrei Fursov. There are several trends that overlap. On the one hand, this is a struggle of global elites, tops with national-regional, with national-state ones; on the other hand, it is increasing pressure on Russia, more precisely, on the power-economic regime existing in it, from a certain part of the ruling circles of the West, like both formal and informal - the so-called “deep-seated power”, which in the West is not only deeper, but also broader and more powerful than formalized state structures. Here it is important to talk about trends, and not about individual events and facts, because, as the CIA chief Allen Dulles correctly noted at one time, a person can be confused with facts, but if he understands trends, then he will not be confused.
One of the trends of the past 2017 year is the increasing pressure of global elites on the elites of the national-state level. This process has been going on for a long time, but it was clearly voiced, in fact, by declaring war on 12-13 on October 2012, Christine Lagarde in Tokyo at a joint meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then she said that it was necessary to lay down the legal and moral basis for exemption, i.e. the expropriation of the “young money” dishonestly acquired. “Young money” is just the money of the oligarchs of Russia, China, Brazil and others, and the high-ranking officials associated with them, acquired, as Christine Lagarde said, in the trade in raw materials.
Immanuel Wallerstein would object to her very simply. At one of the meetings of the Moscow Economic Forum, Wallerstein said the following. Yes, of course, corruption in the developing world, including in Russia, but judge for yourself, corruption is most of all where there is most money, and most of all money is in America, just there corruption is wrapped in lobbying.
Andrey FEFELOV. Of course, there is a global wallet, where the regionals put their money, and globokratam sin to not use this wallet.
Andrei Fursov. Field of miracles in the land of fools. Moreover, once, in the years of the “fat financial cows”, it was possible to put in this wallet, and they were told - carry your money. And then, when the struggle for the future was seriously launched, the essence of which — who will cut someone off from the public pie — here, as the hero of a Soviet film said, is not up to the skirt honor, here the big fish devour small ones. And starts taking property. It is grounded in different ways: someone is accused of being oligarchs associated with a certain big boss, someone is simply corrupt, someone is not in the position that is needed by the owners of the world game. The basis is a simple fact: in the post-capitalist future there will not be enough social pie for everyone, this future itself will not be enough. And this concerns not only the lower classes and the "midles", but also the tops. And the fact that this post-capitalist future is approaching, more precisely, a certain part of the world leaders approached it and brings it closer as it could and can, there is no doubt. It is symbolic that in the centenary of the Great October Socialist (i.e. anti-capitalist) revolution, the Rome Club published a report postulating the necessity and inevitability of changing the world’s existing mode of production and consumption and the (neo) liberal ideology that shaped it. The end of capitalism and the coming left turn is an agenda that is becoming mainstream, never reaches the Russian ort, which apparently believes that pineapples and hazel grouses are forever.
Here a serious, and double, external-internal contradiction arises. The dismantling of capitalism requires a left turn, and we already hear the steps of this Global Commander, but the Russian elites - these "children" of the 1990s, criminal redistribution and Yeltsin's betrayal - do not want to hear these steps, they are scared. They did not even dare to worthily mark the centenary of the October Revolution (but the French, for example, the bourgeoisie was not afraid to celebrate the centenary and the bicentennial of the bloody French Revolution, which, among other things, demonstrated its historical maturity). This is outside the country. But leftist sentiments are growing and expanding within the country - especially among young people. This can be seen both in the polls regarding Stalin (more than 70% of the positive answers in the cohort of 18–24 years old) and in the polls who the Bolsheviks or their opponents would support in the revolution and civil war (more than 90% for the Bolsheviks). It seems that the government and the population, the people, are dispersing in different directions, not only socio-economically, but also ideologically, and this is very dangerous.
The bottom line: a significant part of the Russian top is increasingly at the same time under the external press in the short term - right (sanctions, etc.), in the medium term - left and under the inside, with pressure from both sides will increase as the geopolitical aggravation situations (“partners” will try) and as the economic situation worsens. In principle, the left turn would be the basis of the new program of power. As he said on the eve of his “left” turn, i.e. the abolition of serfdom Alexander II, it is better to cancel it from above than it will from below. The situation is the same today. “Top” is really preferable. I really do not want shocks in which the authorities in Russia have plunged the country three times - at the beginning of the 17th century, at the beginning of the 20th and at the end of the 20th century. Believers say, God loves a trinity, but about the fourth time nothing is known. In the end, at least the conservation instinct should be “experience, son of difficult mistakes” should prompt something, otherwise you will have to hope that an “accident, God the inventor” will happen, only his “wonderful discoveries” may turn out to be very unpleasant and will grieve someone to the impossibility.
It is necessary to note one more thing aggravating the problems of the Russian Federation. On the one hand, the Russian oligarchs have the very “young money” that Lagarde was talking about. At the same time, Russia is the only country with such a ruling elite that has nuclear weapon. This makes Russia the main target, and the more so, the more nervous the Americans are about losing their hegemony. When the USA declares Russia, China and Iran “revisionist states”, i.e. revision-oriented states, the revision of the American-centric monopolar world, they thereby fix their weakness - no one will revise the world for which strength. China is pushing the US in the economic sphere, the Russian Federation - in some regions - in the military-geopolitical, while having a weak economic base. In other words, post-Soviet Russia paradoxically makes the combination of strength and weakness a target. Russia's weakness, compared with China and India, lies in the huge gap between the rich and the poor. Of course, in India and in China, he too.
Andrey FEFELOV. Is he more, probably, still in these countries, Andrei Ilyich?
Andrei Fursov. It depends on what indicators. The concentration of wealth in the hands of 1% of the population of Russia gives 1: 71, followed by India - 1: 49, the average - 1: 46.
Andrey FEFELOV. That is, we still have no middle layer?
Andrei Fursov. However, the middle stratum in China and India is a rather difficult question. The Indian editorial of one of the most recent (13 – 19 in January 2018) issues of the London magazine The Economist is called “The missing middle class”. But experts, including Indologists, have been convincing us for many years that India has a powerful and ever-growing middle class. The article clearly states a simple idea: growing inequality in India impedes the development of the middle class. From 1980 to 2014, 1% of Indians put in their pockets nearly a third of all additional income related to economic growth. India moved from the salary level of 2 dollars per day to 3 dollars, but did not take the next step - to 10 or at least to 5 dollars, the article says. Only 3% of Indians have ever flown by plane, only slightly more than 2% have a car or truck; Of those 300 million Indians that HSBC (“Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation”) ranks as middle class, many live on the 3 dollar per day. And this is called the middle class? Worldwide, there is a decline in the number of the middle class and the deterioration of its economic position. There can be no other way in criminal capitalized capitalism: it does not fundamentally reward those who work. The subtitle of G. Standing’s book The Corruption of Capitalism published in 2017: “Why rentiers thrive and work does not pay off” (“Why rentiers thrive and work does not pay”) is quite indicative. We in Russia have been observing this situation since the beginning of the 1990s. And the “middle class” that the reformers swindlers promised us, resembling the King and Herzog from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” turned out to be a hearth painted on canvas from another famous work.
If there was no middle class in post-Soviet Russia (and, obviously, it will not be), then in the West, the last 30 years, it has become increasingly shrinking - its happy life has been very short. In essence, the departure of this class undermines capitalism as a system. The leading expert on world economic inequality, the author of the best-selling book Capitalism in the 21st Century, T. Piketty, explains this simply: it is the presence of the middle class that ensures mass consumption, massive demand and massive investment in construction.
Unlike 1950 – 1970-ies, in the last 20 – 30 years, middle-class families formally cannot afford to buy housing. They are forced to rent it, which worsens their situation even more: for example, in the UK in 2013, housing fees rose 5 times faster than wages. According to economists, families who rent housing in the UK all their lives lose thousands of pounds more on 561 than do family owners; in London this figure is even greater - 1 million 360 thousand! However, despite this property is not affordable. Loss of property by the middle class - is this not camouflaged indirect expropriation, I ask? In other words, the disappearance of the middle class leaves a huge hole into which capitalism falls.
As for Russia, we still live by the achievements and legacy of the socialist era. Therefore, the poverty that is typical for India, the countries of Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as for many areas of New York, Paris, London is unimaginable not only in Russia, but even the current Central Asian "countries", the former Central Asian republics which the Soviet Union dragged into civilization and statehood and whose leaders, who managed from their villages and villages to get to the Soviet cities and their careers, were obliged by the USSR, the CPSU and the Russians, are watered today with mud and the Russian Empire and the USSR. It suffices to compare Dushanbe, Tashkent and Astana, on the one hand, and Mumbai, Calcutta and Dhaka, on the other.
Suffice to say that 732 has a million Indians - 54% of the population, this is the official Indian statistics - there is no access to toilets, neither public nor private. In China, this figure is 25%, that is, 340 million. Well, in countries like Ethiopia there are 93%.
Of course, Russia has a completely different situation. It is enough to drive around a large Russian city, relatively speaking, Togliatti or Irkutsk and the city of Mumbai and compare where civilization is and where not. At the same time, in different countries, depending on their historical past and cultural perceptions of social justice, there are different “moral and economic” ideas about permissible poverty, where poverty ends and poverty, rejection and deprivation begin.
A recent report from the Higher School of Economics says that 8% of the Russian population do not have access to medicines, 17% do not eat up. I think that these 8% are included in 17, but in any case we get 20% of people who, in general, social reality pushes, if you call things by their proper names - to the grave. There is no medicine, no food, a weakened organism - the whole bunch of diseases associated with malnutrition and these misfortunes. That is, in this respect, Russia is vulnerable. And it is absolutely clear that if the economic situation in Russia worsens, as economists say, both liberal and illiberal, this gap will widen.
On the other hand, the Russian Federation has nuclear weapons and it is impossible to talk with it as you can talk with Brazil or South Africa. Therefore, in pressure on Russia, the West is not on the path of an ordinary war, but an ersatz war, a hybrid war whose fronts are everywhere. For example, in the field of sports of the highest achievements, which has long been turned into a mixture of business, crime and politics. The Russian Federation received a serious blow on the front of the new Cold War as the Olympics, a very sensitive blow. The logic here is simple: is sport important to you ?! have you invested in sports ?! - then we will make you come under the white capitulary flag, repent and on top of everything, pay reparations –15 million dollars.
Andrey FEFELOV. By the way, with the Olympics, everything is mysterious: the fact that this is a military act - those who made the decision that the athletes still have to go under the white flag cannot help but guess. It was immediately clear that there they will chmorit.
Andrei Fursov. I do not understand only one thing - how could the officials who are responsible for this, so long, stupidly and irresponsibly sway? It was clear that the Russian Federation, after long humiliations, would not be allowed into the Olympics, and it was necessary to respond immediately and firmly. For example: they have a “Magnitsky list”, it was necessary to immediately roll out a “list” to them — of course, Bach or someone else, rather than chewing snot and bowing. Unfortunately, about the Olympics, our higher bureaucracy, as well as on many other issues, only wipes off, and the spit is getting more and more, because in the West they are used to it - they will die. And how not to wipe? Children in England, money in the States, yachts in Monaco.
Now Russian athletes are going to the Olympics, not representing the country, and all the talk that we know that they are ours is a poor consolation for idiots and negligent officials. We may know anything, but this is neither an international legal nor an international state fact. The cowardly and mediocre bureaucratic bastard has cracked the situation and seeks to save his own skin by sending athletes under any flag, under any sauce, so that in the event of their victory foully cling to it.
Perhaps the right, but a tough decision would be this: Russia does not travel as a state, the athletes say: guys, you can go, we cannot forbid you, but you go at your own expense, because you can’t imagine the state of the Russian Federation in this case. But then it turns out that athletes who are not guilty of anything are punished because of officials. And why are sports officials not being punished with a bang and disgrace? I repeat: I do not blame the athletes - the officials are to blame. And it is very strange that these officials still occupy their posts, it was necessary to knock them out of these posts in disgrace, because they are to blame ... What demand from the West? - this is the enemy, he should act like this, but why should he be substituted for these blows? So you fight badly, you lost the battle on this front. I am afraid that a similar action about the World Cup is not far off. In the West, intelligent people. And if, from the very beginning, Russia had a tough reaction, then the West would have behaved differently. The West understands power very well. Power and will were not manifested. There was a lack of will and willingness to substitute the offender cheek or another part of the body.
Andrey FEFELOV. Let us return to the global trend of social stratification. We touched the Russian Federation and India. And China?
Andrei Fursov. In China, of course, with Chinese characteristics, the same thing is happening as in the whole world. The growth of inequality in the PRC has reached such a level that this has already been reflected even in science fiction novels. Recently, in China, Hao Jingfang's sci-fi novel Folding Beijing was released, winning the Hugo Award — the prestigious international science fiction award. In the novel, Beijing’s near future is shown this way. In China, there are three groups of population: the top, the middle class and the lower classes, their numbers in Beijing are 5 million, 25 million and several tens of millions respectively. The differences between the groups are not only material, but much more profound, affecting sociobiology - the right to vital functioning form of wakefulness. Representatives of the top in the novel stay awake for a day, 24 hours - from 6 in the morning one day to 6 in the morning another. Then they take medicine and fall asleep. And then the middle class wakes up, awake from 6 in the morning to 10 in the evening of the same day, i.e. less. Then the bottoms wake up, they only have 8 hours - from 10 evenings to 6 in the morning.
Here, in a sci-fi form, shows the social process that concerns life itself. In this regard, I recall the film “Time”, where social differences are also associated with time, that is, with life, with time allotted to it. But in fact, class distinctions have already been transformed into socio-biological or, if you will, into anthropological. Just look - the average life expectancy, say, in the same Rome was 22 – 25 years. But the Romans from the higher groups lived on 75 – 80 years. The English aristocracy also lived for a long time, with an average life expectancy in 45 years in England at the end of the 19th century. That is, the rich and notable already the last 2-3 thousands of years living 80-85 years. This means that their socio-economic status is transmitted for a lifetime; This means that, among other things, exploitation is the appropriation of not only a foreign economic product, but also - through time - a foreign life. And if this process is reversed in the “happy thirtieth anniversary” (1945 – 1975), now, especially after the disappearance of systemic anti-capitalism in the person of the USSR, everything returns to normal. Capitalism takes on the usual shape of the "iron heel", devouring someone else's time. The Germans talked about Lebensraum - space for living, now it’s time to talk about Lebenszeit - time for life, time-as-life, devouring which dying capitalism is trying to prolong its life.
Andrey FEFELOV. It is very interesting. Perhaps, we just often ignore the temporary category, although, as it turns out, it is very eloquent.
Modern Chinese futurology at such a high level indicates that society is heading for the future. In this case, we are talking about the dystopia, in which society reigns social and, probably, digital control over the population.
Andrei Fursov. And this is another trend - the strengthening of social control with the help of numbers (the flip side is the growth of digital dementia of the population). Someone is talking about chipization, someone is talking about the abolition of money and the introduction of cards - this is, indeed, increased social control. Our Russian optimism is that social control in Russia will not work out. Someone will steal or break something.
Andrey FEFELOV. Even during the presidency of Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev there was an attempt to introduce a universal electronic card UEC. The Orthodox called this project the forerunner of the Antichrist, trying to resist it. A few years later, it turned out that our officials had managed to completely "cut" the Antichrist.
Andrei Fursov. In this regard, the Russian official is our support and reliability. As Nekrasov said, the truth, having in mind something else, “will endure everything”.
As for China, this is a fairly organized society, and there strict social control is the norm. In the West, the possibilities of social control, which over the past half century has been successfully turned into social training, are multiplying due to technical possibilities. There is an obedient, comfortable population, to whom they will say something - it will fulfill it. But in Russia the situation is still different both socially and technically. In addition, we have a wonderful thing - such a value as social justice. First of all, it exists in Russian culture, and secondly, it is powerfully nourished by socialism.
Andrey FEFELOV. That is, injustice is not the norm?
Andrei Fursov. Injustice is not the norm. If an Indian perceives social injustice as normal, the reason is the caste system; if, say, the Brazilian perceives it normally, because he lives in a peripheral capitalist country, then for the Russian it is not the norm. In addition, in Russia there were traditionally specific relations between the dominant groups and the oppressed. In 1649, the Council Code enslaved the population, and not only the peasants who served the nobles, but also the nobles who served the state, and the townspeople. Under Peter III, this agreement was terminated. The nobles received the right not to serve, although most still continued to serve, because the nobles were financially poor class. Therefore, Sukhov-Kobylin has a proud epitaph: “Never served.”
Andrey FEFELOV. And I thought it was already when Catherine usurped power.
Andrei Fursov. No, this decree was issued by Peter III literally several months before his death - in 1762. Ekaterina paid the impostor on the throne to others - by a decree on the liberty of the noble 1785 of the year. But this is one line. After it became clear that the nobles could not serve, the peasants decided that they would be released the next day. They were released, indeed, the next day, but after 99 years. Peter III's decree was from 18 in February 1762 of the year, and 19 in February of 1861 was released by the peasants. However, since 1760, the peasants perceived their relations with the bars as unfair: if the nobles can not serve the state, then why should the peasants serve the nobles. Sociocultural superimposed on class hostility — nobles and peasants personified two different sociocultural structures. But European nobility, especially English, managed to impose their values as national on the bottom. Hence, the fundamentally different relations of the upper and lower strata in Western Europe and in Russia: Pushkin wrote about it this way: “The Russian peasant does not respect his master, but the Englishman respects his master.”
In BCNUMX, a reform was carried out that liberated the peasants, but at the same time deprived them of a third of the land - again injustice. Therefore, what is called everyday Russian rudeness is the reverse side of the described reality. Someone, I do not remember who, from our rich travelers, said that in Russia, unfortunately, even in an expensive restaurant, if the waitress has a bad mood, she will definitely make it feel, but in France or Germany it is impossible. Yes, this is one side of the matter, because people there are absolutely well trained. And our system did not roll a man, did not narrow it, as Dostoevsky’s hero would say.
Ultimately, the existence of social justice as a value determines that the population will never accept the results of 1991 of the year, and this creates a constant problem in the relations of the population and the lawyers. Attitude towards the rich and noble in the same India or in the same China is completely different. And Chinese socialism laid down on a completely different tradition than Soviet socialism.
Andrey FEFELOV. And, accordingly, social stratification and economic inequality also falls on different traditions in different countries.
Andrei Fursov. Moreover, the uneven development of different regions within the same country, including in the global processes some regions and excluding others, further reinforces inequality, finally depriving the losers to ever change their destiny.
In India, for example, there are super-developed sectors in electronics. But these are growth points that have minimal relevance to India. They are associated with the same points in China, in the United States, in Europe. Moreover, Indian capital has invested much more in British industry than the European Union: given the long-standing ties of Great Britain and India, the British are more relaxed in contact with Indians than with their European neighbors. Great Britain and India are very different countries, but they have one thing in common: perhaps in no country in the world are the leaders so cruelly and arrogant towards the lower classes, as in Europe - in the United Kingdom, and in Asia - in India. And these two traditions superimposed on each other. In many police stations in India, for example, there are still portraits of the chiefs of these sites from colonial times. Although India became independent in 1947, the tradition of the British rajah is preserved, especially since the British united the principalities and polities of the subcontinent into a single whole. Before the British, India in its present form was not, there were Great Moguls, there were Marathas, there were Sikhs, there were states of the south, and they fought among themselves. And the British came, they squeezed everyone with an imperious hoop and united them. It is symbolic that one of the claims of the leaders of the national liberation movement of India to the British was that they no longer observe their own rules, that white Sahibs did not behave as they declared correct.
Psychologically there were a number of very interesting moments in the development of colonial India. For example, sociopsychologists pay attention to how the attitude of Indians to white women changed during World War II. Prior to that, a white woman was looked from the bottom up as a special creature. And during the war in India, American comics and pin-up pictures began to spread, where women were slightly half-dressed. This convinced the Indians: a white woman is the same as an Indian woman, with all the ensuing consequences. In general, the war greatly changed attitudes towards whites in general and the British in particular - they were defeated by the Japanese, i.e. Asians. And then the national liberation movement, on the one hand, and the understanding that came to the West that in the new conditions it is possible to economically efficiently exploit the countries of Asia and Africa without political costs led to the dismantling of the colonial system, the main beneficiaries of which were the United States and American TNCs. The euphoria of gaining freedom in the former colonies of the Afro-Asian world very quickly changed to apathy and the realization that the gap between the West and the former colonies is growing, but now the metropolis does not bear any moral and political responsibility for those who were tamed. At the same time, while the West was engaged in the Soviet Union, China rose, which made an economic breakthrough. The latter, however, should not be overestimated: China, with all its purely quantitative economic power, is a workshop. The design office is in a different place. And in this respect, the Chinese understand their situation very well - both military and economic.
In addition, Russia, Russians for the West, are in a certain sense socioculturally less acceptable characters than the same Chinese or Arabs. For example, the Nazis announced at one time the Japanese honorary Aryans. Likewise, it will be easier for Americans to declare Chinese as honorable Americans than Russians. From the Russians comes the constant threat of non-standard thoughts and behavior, and consequently, victories.
20 years ago, a German woman came to one of our academic institutions with a dissertation on a specific topic - she explored the structures of Russian everyday life and analyzed those situations where Russians use certain subjects for other purposes. Well, for example, you come to the accounting department. What do flowers hold there? A plastic bottle is cut, the ground goes there - and here it is a flower. Or, say, a lock on the barn, so that water does not pour in there, a plastic bottle is cut off, a nail is nailed, and it closes it. The German woman called this phenomenon barbarism, because civilization, in her opinion, is when a thing is clearly used for its intended purpose, the function is rigidly tied to a substance. We have the same - "call at least a pot, just do not stick it in the stove." In our TV, in the framework of the program “Bye bye”, there was even such a rubric - “crazy hands”. This is a play on words: crazy and very skillful. The rubric showed exceptional ingenuity, adapting those objects that were originally intended for something completely different for various functions. It was the Russian ingenuity that helped us win many wars, including the Great Patriotic War. The irregularity of thought and behavior is due to the harsh natural conditions, the changing seasons, the short growing season, the special historical conditions that constantly forced us to look for ways to survive - and victories over circumstances and a superior opponent: the rich and well-fed Europeans did not encounter such problems on a similar scale. Hence the elevated conformism.
Andrey FEFELOV. This is a German civilization.
Andrei Fursov. No, Western Europe in general. Our civilization non-standard, the ability to survive in different conditions and creates problems for them. Andrei Platonov said this very well: “A Russian person can live in one direction, and in the other direction, and in both cases will remain intact.”
Andrey FEFELOV. When we talked about social control, I remembered how a balloon rose every morning over Kabul. This is an occupied Kabul, 2010 year, and this balloon carried out optical tracking. And in the evening on the winches of NATO, the NATO pulled up again to the ground. Huge American patrol vehicles were moving across Kabul, there were hefty Negroes who carried the burden of a white man in Afghanistan. And these pictures symbolized a lot ... Now you have made a very big trip around India - what pictures, what images do you have after your trip?
Andrei Fursov. Well, firstly, of course, these are colossal contrasts. They are visible to a much greater degree in southern India than in northern India. For example, Delhi is a city of contrasts, but Mumbai, the former Bombay, is an even more contrasting city, where when you leave a luxury hotel, you don’t get to the same elegant street as in Delhi in the center, but into a slum area. Moreover, in Mumbai, as such, there is no city center, these are several cities, but, nevertheless, in the city itself, and not at all on its outskirts, there is a Dharavi district - with an area of two square kilometers, that is, two million square meters, where two million people live: one person per square meter. It is the height of 1,5 – 1,6 meters of a closet, and it’s not even the house of Kuma Pumpkin from “The Adventures of Chipollino,” because the house of Kuma Pumpkin was still made of bricks, and this is thin plywood, thick cardboard, pieces of a refrigerator, etc.
Andrey FEFELOV. It’s like Kobo Abe’s Man-Drawer novel.
Andrei Fursov. Nearly. Second floor, third floor. But the most interesting thing is that this is one of the sights of Mumbai, where rich tourists lead, show them how people live. In fact, this is a non-human existence. At the same time, there are 10 – 15% rich and super-rich Indians who live in a completely different world. These worlds practically do not touch, which is also caste. Of course, this does not compare with the stratification in the United States, because there is more social fat, but the process goes everywhere. Naturally, the worst situation is where there is little social fat. Once Marx used the phrase: "Pagan, withering from the plagues of Christianity." It is from the ulcers of capitalism that they languish most of all and suffer not in the core, which robbed the periphery, but in the periphery, because it is no longer needed. It was once needed, but now it is not needed, now it is thrown away.
Andrey FEFELOV. Squeezed lemon sandpaper.
Andrei Fursov. Yes, that's right. And the current periphery of the capitalist system is reminiscent of what happened in the northeast of Brazil at the beginning of the 19th century. In the 18th century, this area was actively exploited, then everything was squeezed out of it and thrown out. Most of the Afro-Asian and Latin American world is not needed in the post-capitalist digital world. And the problem arises - what to do with this population? This problem within the framework of the capsystem, in my opinion, is unsolvable. Huge masses of the population, which the wave of technical and economic progress is pushing into the abyss. Half a century ago, the American sociologist B. Moore noticed that revolutions are born not from the triumphant cry of the ascending class, but from the dying roar of that class over which the waves of progress are about to close. Today there are a lot of such people in the world, for whom the progress of the current owners of the world game leaves almost no chance. I am sure: they will give battle to their owners, and on “their field” - I mean African-Asian migrants in Western Europe and Latin American - in the USA. They will not be able to create a new world - rather the Dark Ages, but the old one will be destroyed. And the post-old world will be a world of uncertainty, a world of functions, walking on their own, regardless of substances - the world that is familiar to us, Russians. And the game in that world will require sophistication.
Andrey FEFELOV. And mobilization.
Andrei Fursov. Of course. Most importantly, a necessary condition for victory - the elite must associate itself with a society of which it is a part. The elite that associates itself with “Barvikha Luxury Village” and which, for this “Barvikha Luxury Village”, will surely surrender everything, and will lose everything. She will be cleared away.
Andrey FEFELOV. There is no other base other than Russia for these elite groups. They think that someone will take them somewhere for their money, but this will not happen.
Andrei Fursov. This is all the dreams of Ostap Bender - the very one that was accepted and completely cleaned off at the Romanian border. So, in this respect, the one who will be will win - and this is a paradoxical situation! - with the people.
Andrey FEFELOV. And the second point, I think, is very important, the only way to survive is to win.
Andrei Fursov. Indeed, victory is a condition for survival. As Confucius said: “He who jumped the farthest away will jump again.” We rephrase it: the one who wins will live. This is a tough condition, it is the imperative of the great crisis of the XXI century, which we are entering. Braudel called the time between feudalism and capitalism a social hell. And now we live in an era that is increasingly beginning to resemble social hell. And the same Braudel in his fundamental work “Material civilization, economy and capitalism. XV – XVIII centuries. ”Put the question: is it possible to escape from the social hell? Can. But not alone. Alone, no one will break out. You can escape only collectively. In the post-capitalist (post-catastrophic?) World, only those ruling elites who have a powerful magic weapon, unity with their people, will fall. A ticket to the future in the conditions of an impending crisis, war of all against all will be received only by those elites who identify themselves with their countries that are rooted in their culture and share the same values, interests and goals with their people. The only thing that can be the elite of the Russian Federation in the conditions of the 21st century crisis is unity with the people. This is a necessary condition for victory, sufficient - the will to win, which is forged in accordance with the principle "do not believe, do not be afraid, do not ask."
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