HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

Abstract. The analysis of the origins of the modern civilizational crisis is presented through the prism of a materialistic understanding of history. The integration of productive forces objectively leads world society to democratic globalization, to a monolithic democratic world. Against this background, the current processes of deglobalization are perceived as a failure of the social evolution due to the incompatibility of the base and superstructure: the economic base in the global space is predominantly modern-capitalist, and the state-political superstructure in some places still remains authoritarian-archaic. On this basis, the current conflict between authoritarian imperialism and democratic globalization flares up. The resistance of autarkic regimes to the onslaught of global integration processes, eroding the economic basis of their authoritarian power, lies at the heart of the current civilizational crisis. The article not only sets out the origins of the failure of social evolution, but also gives economic recommendations for overcoming it.

Novelty of the research. For the first time, the Marxist method of materialist understanding of historical processes is used in favor of capitalist liberalization and the triumph of democratic globalization.

Keywords: Historical Materialism, Formational Concept, Social Evolution, Civilization, Globalization, Democratization.

Authoritarianism is the cause of the civilizational crisis

The treacherous aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is a manifestation of a deep civilizational crisis of our time, which has become a consequence of a failure of global-historical evolution. The reason for this is a twice mutated relic of the wild Middle Ages in the form of modern authoritarianism, a kind of "dinosaur" of the feudal past, which has survived, unfortunately, to this day. This autocratic mutant has been distorting social evolution for more than a century, starting with the colonial-imperial fever at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, having raped it with two world wars and threatening a third... A hundred years since authoritarianism has been terrorizing humanity with its imperial ambitions, counteracting the centripetal tendencies of globalization processes that are destructive for it. Instead of a monolithic world, today we have a multipolar world in which not a single global problem can be solved, starting with economic and to environmental ones. In the abnormal conditions of deglobalization and geoeconomic fragmentation, even the best macroeconomic programs and methods of their implementation are unable to cope with the pressing problems of today. Because if we start to solve them correctly (for example, by overcoming the astronomical state debt by reducing budget expenditures, and not by yet another state borrowing), other problems will immediately “emerge”, even more serious, up to the most acute socio-economic, socio-political and military-political ones. And this is not the worst thing that can happen.

In order to understand the deep sources and nature of the modern civilizational anomaly, one should (without emotion, impartially) pay attention to the Marxist methodology of the materialistic interpretation of historical processes. For Marx, with all his ideological shortcomings, came closer than others to a genuine understanding of the essence of social evolution, having laid the materialistic factor of the development of productive forces at its foundation. Another thing is that, having taken the path of a materialistic understanding of history, Marx immediately (without having managed to fully follow this path of knowledge) resorted to suggesting voluntaristic sentiments in the mass consciousness: he passionately called on the proletariat to reorganize human society, neglecting the objective laws of social evolution, unceremoniously violating them. But this is already on his conscience. Marx's theoretical developments, nevertheless, deserve attention. And we should focus on them as much as possible in order to understand the essence of modern processes. This is the focus of the author's article: based on the ideological principles of the materialistic understanding of history, to give a holistic picture of modern civilizational development in order to understand the problems facing it and determine ways to overcome them. This refers, first of all, to the destructive tendency of deglobalization in the modern world: the sources of its origin, the driving forces and counteraction to the threats it poses.

Democratic globalization is not someone's invention, but an objective process of social evolution dictated by the development of productive forces. In order to "ban" globalization, it is necessary to reverse economic integration. Is it possible?.. Without a global cataclysm - no. A similar drama is unfolding before our eyes now. The basis of the modern conflict is the process of forced disintegration initiated by authoritarianism. It is from this angle that we should consider the attempt of mafia-authoritarian Russia to tear Ukraine out of global integration processes by military means, forcibly drawing it into its agonizing autocratic empire. Such a course of events contradicts the natural tendency of social evolution. In order to counteract neo-authoritarian revenge, the countries of the world democracy should, having united on a single economic platform, mobilize the unused reserves of the market economy by reforming, first of all, their defective financial system. Only by uniting into a single whole can the countries of the democratic community resist the axis of authoritarian evil, thereby restoring the natural movement of civilization in the mainstream of social evolution toward a monolithic democratic world.