Geopolitics: The Postliberal and the Quarter of a Century that Concludes

The West's ultraliberal agenda is evidence that the system is being reset so as not to disappear completely. More than a sign of strength, it’s a sign of weakness. The demolition of the State and the creation of a framework for incontestable corporate power are the bases of a procedure in which the common citizen loses space for participation from civil society. The condition of being poor is judicialized. This explains the presence of people with major crimes in the ranks of power and the discretionary use of laws for political purposes towards rivals. Contradictorily, the ultraliberal world is postliberal. I mean that with the changes that are being made since the dismantling of constitutional guarantees and the Welfare State, a moment will be reached in which the elites govern directly without counterweights. Until now, liberalism has kept, at least in speech, the need for the division of powers, also for a free press; however, more and more we see in practice how corporations are capable of co-opting politics through payment, making all types of power of the common citizen inoperative.

Furthermore, it happens that the ultraliberal agenda uses social movements as spearheads, emptying them of real critical content, transforming desires and subjective self-perceptions into one-sided discourses, with which hatred and polarization of identities prevent true mobility of the oppressive classes. Since the emergence of social media, narratives have replaced verifiable truths. It’s important to have the loudest speaker. Digital platforms have liquefied the creation and development processes, making any product dependent on the perception emitted from these sites. The independence of voices is increasingly unrealistic, if it depends on not having your account closed or being silenced.

Postliberal is, in effect, the elimination of civil liberties that elites reluctantly had to give up as part of the processes of struggle. We are talking here about procedural guarantees, presumption of innocence, equality before the law, due process, untouchability of the person and the right to dignity. The powerful know that they are shielded by fact. The poor are exposed. Having property is once again the filter that guarantees your rights, not simply being born. The postliberal world denies natural law, which not only goes to the doctrine of human rights and dismantles it, but also questions the visions linked to Western Christian humanism that for centuries was the compass of this part of the world. The destruction of everything that gives a person rights goes hand in hand with subjecting the worker to more leonine rules. In many places the eight-hour day no longer exists, in others it has gone backwards and contracts do not guarantee salary or position; They are issued as an internship and paid with survival bonuses. Underemployment is a phenomenon linked to the periphery, emigration and the difficulties that the social division of labor has posed on a global level. A center with all the conditions, a precarious periphery, without services, forgotten.

Given all this, the post-liberal agenda blames the victims and criminalizes them. If there’is an uptick in violence and insecurity, it points to the emigrants, to the cultural other. Constant exclusion and stigma act as cancellations which, in a social media environment, work perfectly. The frustrated masses require two things: promises and a visible enemy. Thus, Western democracies are increasingly resembling what Orwell drew in his famous novel. The postliberal also has a liquid entity, it avoids the molds of institutions, corrodes them and destroys them from within the system. You can talk about a corruption case in the media, but you cannot dismantle the corruption. You can say that there are laws against drug trafficking, but not touch the real centers that support the industry. And so, what’s legally and politically correct, they function as wild cards that sometimes appear in the media, but do not touch the real power establishments. A criminal, if he is a millionaire, can be head of state. Facts are interpretations, if you have the money to pay for those interpretations. Interpretations are facts and they condemn you based on narratives if you are poor.

Above all, the dismantling of the State and guarantees, what the West is destined to do in this century it's a regression to legal pre-modernity. The law has become identity-based, not impartial. Court proceedings are political weapons used to overthrow and cancel. It's the machinery set in motion for the total demolition of norms and the establishment of the discretionary power of money. Private property displaces democracy from politics and establishes itself as the moral and structural principle of power. It doesn't matter if you have citizenship, if you have access to the principles of the constitution; if the powers decide you're worthless, they discard you. That's the direction the post-liberal world is heading in this quarter-century that has already passed.

As we approach 2026, with elections in November that could define the political face of the United States, no change in this process of dismantling liberalism is foreseen. Both Democrats and Republicans, from opposite poles, maintain the same methodology of power: social division, denial of facts, discretionary use of the law, instrumentalization of identities, and culture war. The worst part is how politics in the West operates by osmosis, contaminating processes in other countries. Post-liberalism is the end of liberalism, but not of its consequences, of class oppression. More than that, it's about the strengthening of elites in their seats of power and the pressure they exert downwards.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff