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Is this the end of globalisation

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the current fragmentation of globalisation is not a contingent policy failure or the result of poor leadership, but the necessary expression of deepening contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. The central thesis is that the era of free trade—which temporarily overcame the barrier of the nation state to the development of the productive forces—has exhausted itself. The turn to protectionism, far from being an aberration, is the logical response of competing capitalist powers to the crisis of overaccumulation, the rise of China, and the declining capacity of the world market to absorb surplus capital. The end of globalisation as we have known it is therefore not a political mistake but a structural inevitability.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is firmly rooted in the classical Marxist tradition of imperialism, drawing directly on Lenin's Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism and Engels's observations on free trade and protectionism. It deploys the Marxist understanding of the relationship between the nation state and the development of the productive forces: capitalism historically created the national market, but the productive forces have now burst those limits, only to find themselves hemmed in by them once again. The article also draws on the International Marxist Tendency's earlier analysis from A New Stage in the World Revolution, which situated the post-war expansion of world trade as a temporary and partial overcoming of capitalism's barriers. The theoretical framework is thus one of capitalist decline: the progressive role of the world market has been exhausted, and the system is now destroying its own achievements—supply chains, international relations, and the productive forces themselves—under the pressure of inter-imperialist rivalry.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in January 2023 and directly addresses the conjuncture shaped by the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the escalating US-China conflict. It cites BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's declaration that the war has "put an end to the globalisation we have experienced over the last three decades" as a starting point. Specific conjunctural data includes:

  • The ratio of world trade to world GDP peaked at 31 percent in 2008 and has since stagnated or declined.
  • Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is analysed as a protectionist measure, requiring "Made in America" conditions for electric vehicle subsidies and green energy investments.
  • The US ban on semiconductor machinery exports to China, targeting TSMC (Taiwan) and ASML (Netherlands), is presented as a key example of unilateral US action forcing compliance from allies.
  • German Chancellor Scholz's Foreign Affairs article is quoted, acknowledging "the end of an exceptional phase of globalisation."
  • Macron's call for a "Buy European Act" and the anonymous EU official's characterisation of the EU-US relationship as a "historic juncture" are cited to show the fracturing of the Western alliance.
  • The IMF estimate that every one-point reduction in tariffs resulted in a 0.4 point increase in investment is used to project the opposite effect from rising protectionism.

The article connects these developments to the broader crisis: protectionism will raise the cost of machinery, fuel inflation, force interest rate hikes, and provoke recession. It is not a policy choice but a spiral.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several lines of analysis open for further development. It does not explore in depth the internal class dynamics within China—the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party, the state capitalist class, and the Chinese working class—nor does it examine the specific impact of protectionism on the global working class in terms of wage compression, unemployment, and the restructuring of labour markets. The argument also does not address the question of how the working class can organise internationally in the face of fragmenting supply chains and rising nationalism, beyond a general call for socialist internationalism. These themes are developed elsewhere in the IDOM corpus, particularly in articles on the war in Ukraine, the nature of the Chinese state, and the crisis of the European Union. The broader Marxist tradition—especially Lenin's Imperialism, Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy, and Trotsky's writings on the United States of Europe—provides the theoretical resources for extending the analysis.

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The foundational text for the article's understanding of inter-imperialist rivalry, the export of capital, and the redivision of the world.
  • Engels, "The French Commercial Treaty" (1881): Quoted directly for its analysis of how backward nations used protectionism to shield themselves from British industrial dominance.
  • IMT, A New Stage in the World Revolution: The earlier document that established the IMT's analysis of the post-war expansion of world trade as a temporary overcoming of capitalism's barriers.
  • Trotsky, The United States of Europe: Relevant for its argument that the productive forces demand a supranational economic organisation that capitalism cannot provide.
  • Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy: A companion text to Lenin's, offering a more systematic account of the internationalisation of capital and the nation state.
  • IDOM articles on the war in Ukraine and the crisis of the European Union: These develop the geopolitical and economic dimensions of the conjuncture in greater detail.

Key Quotes

  1. "Globalisation has to be understood as a process, which was brought about by certain conditions; conditions that are no longer there."

  2. "The massive development of world trade in the period 1948-73 was one of the main reasons for the post-war upswing in world capitalism. This enabled capitalism—partially and for a temporary period—to overcome the main barriers to the development of the productive forces: the nation state and private property."

  3. "There is therefore a close connection between economic crisis, protectionism, crises in international relations and war. We should remember, as Clausewitz pointed out, that war is politics by other means. And, as Lenin put it, politics itself is only concentrated economics."

  4. "Unlike in the past, its power is no longer used to defend the general interests of the capitalist class against the Soviet Union or world revolution, but its own narrow interests against the other major powers. It has thus taken up the role of a declining power, attempting to shield itself from competition, somewhat like Britain at the end of the 19th century."

  5. "Neither free trade nor protectionism can resolve the contradictions of capitalism."

  6. "Free trade and liberalisation can no longer take us one step forward, whilst the turn to protectionism just makes things worse. We are socialists, Marxists and revolutionaries. We see in this collapse of globalisation only another stage in the crisis of the system as a whole."