Russian historian sees connection between Alien movie, post-capitalistic format of power

MINSK, 30 April (BelTA) – How a new post-capitalistic format of power is born has been explained by the Russian historian, Director of the Institute for Systemic and Strategic Analysis Andrei Fursov in a recent episode of BelTA’s project On Point.

The historian recalled that capital transformation took place at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. “Gradually, it is turning into something else – into information platforms where instead of controlling materialized labor they control information flows, human behavior, and social ties,” he emphasized.

Since the 1980s the format of the state has been weakening, the analyst stressed. “At one time, Anglo-Saxons coined the term – ‘fading away nation-states,’ which means disappearing national states or the decline of national states. And if the state weakens, then supranational structures also lose their significance. In this situation the most active segments of capital, of the state bureaucracy, and of supranational structures began to interact very actively and created some cluster. It is not quite accurately called ‘deep state’,” Andrei Fursov said.

However, according to the historian, this is not a completely accurate definition. “The state is a formalized structure while power is an informal structure. It is stable, but informal. These are the most active segments of capital, of the state bureaucracy, and of supranational structures that use states for their own purposes – as a screen and as a means. In other words, it is a kind of alien in kind of a shell. Just like in the movie Alien if you remember. Sooner or later this shell will tear and that will be the real form of organization of power in a post-capitalistic society, which will negate both the state and supranationality, and so on,” he emphasized.

According to the analyst, a fundamentally new post-capitalistic, post-state form is getting born right now. “Moreover, the formation of this structure is accelerated by the special services, which are very actively becoming autonomous. And this autonomy is needed to create such a structure,” he concluded.