2. New Pragmatism for New Times

I am leaving aside the changes in the cosmos that occur as a result of explosions or collisions between celestial bodies, which we learn about after a time that is a function of the light years separating the occurrence of the fact from the time it reaches the consciousness of earthly observers.

The first volume of Marx’s fundamental work Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie was published in German in 1867. Marx’s contribution to philosophical and economic thought has been extensively discussed by Stedman (2016).

Keynes’s fundamental work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in 1936.

The older people get, the more they prefer capitalism to socialism. While some 43% of the 30-49 age group are still in favour of socialism, some 62% are in favour of capitalism (the answers did not necessarily add up to 100%), and among people over 65 years of age these figures amounted to some 35% and some 77%, respectively. These relations are shaped differently among supporters of Democrats and Republicans; the former have significantly more supporters of ‘socialism’, the latter of ‘capitalism’ (Harting 2019).

Comparative international statistics specify 224 states and territories (CIA 2021), while the United Nations counts 193 independent states. The Vatican, which does not belong to the UN, is also a state as defined by international law.

During just the first two months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as many as 5 million Ukrainians fled abroad, of which about half went to neighbouring Poland.

It is not entirely clear what will be the ecological effects of Western countries resigning from importing energy resources, especially oil, from Russia as a result of economic sanctions imposed on it in 2022–2023. Replacing Russian oil with imports from some African deposits, especially from Angola and Nigeria, may have mid-term negative consequences for the natural environment.

Yet, to the surprise of many, the bad time for the yachts has suddenly come; at least for the ones owned by the Russian corrupted oligarchs. They were not much of a public concern for couple of decades when they were built and lucratively sold for stolen money being in the meantime laundered mostly in the US and the UK. Only in 2022, when severe sanctions have been imposed on Russia in the aftermath of its attack against Ukraine sovereignty, people of the world learned that yachts of a value exceeding one billion dollars have been arrested. And, how interesting!, that on the average the Russian oligarch yachts are by 3 m longer than the ones owned by the American billionaires; 61 and 58 m, respectively.

The Gini coefficient in China is as high as 46.5, similar to that in the USA, where it is estimated to be 47. Currently, in the former case it is already falling, while in the latter, it is rising again.

The Gini coefficient is the most widely used measure of inequality in the distribution of income. Theoretically, in extreme cases, it equals 0 when everyone earns an identical income, and 100 when one takes all the income and the others have nothing. In practice, the extremes fluctuate around 25 (e.g. Slovenia 24) and do not exceed 70 (e.g. South Africa 63).

With a population of 1.39 billion, China produces 18.6% of the gross world product, as measured by PPP, which is more than the USA (16.6%). During the 70 years of the People’s Republic of China, between 1949 and 2019, GDP per capita, this time calculated at the exchange rate, grew at an average annual rate of 6.8%, increasing almost 14 times.

An interesting comment has been made vis-à-vis the media presentation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict: “…there is clearly some truth and much exaggeration in both the American and Russian positions. All of which raise questions about the media’s performance in such a polarised and militarised environment. After all, only a free press is able to interrogate state power and propagate the facts about the war. I am in no way surprised that in authoritarian Russia, the government has intimidated and silenced critics of its war, but I am rather shocked by the venomous attacks on critics of US foreign policies by their fellow journalists and citizens, accusing them of acting as a “fifth column” on “Putin’s payroll”. I am not sure which is worse, journalists forced to toe the official line, or doing it voluntarily, even enthusiastically, in order to get ahead in Washington or London. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a repeat of the disastrous Gulf War coverage of two decades ago, where much of the influential Anglo-Saxon mainstream media sided rather blindly and foolishly with the official line. For some reason, many of the same gung-ho armchair journalists and chickenhawk pundits, who got it all wrong about the disastrous Iraq War, feel the need, yet again, to incite Western establishments and enlighten them with military insights.” (Bishara 2022).

I use the term ‘new pragmatism’ without any relation to the philosophical current also known as ‘new pragmatism’ (Gunn 1992) formed in the late nineteenth century. I introduced this term not as something in opposition to ‘old pragmatism’ but using ‘new’ in the sense of different, distinct from what used to be.