One of the most crucial challenges of modern geopolitics and geoeconomics is the request to see their humanistic dimension.
Since the 1980s, the finalization of human relations inevitably led to fundamental questions: how far can 1 go, commercialising human life? How much of humanity can be put up for sale to keep the individual alive?
Are we out of the net?
Issues that were inactive in the sphere late science-fiction – present they must be seriously considered by liable policy leaders. In particular, this applies to nations that do not give in to easy dominant civilizational trends and are attached to their own values. We request to realize that the progressive digitalisation of our functioning as marketplace actors: taxpayers, workers, employers – is gradually focusing our attention on the manifestations of our activity only digitally, online. In the current phase of capitalism, it is becoming increasingly hard for us to prove that we simply be if we do not present evidence of our activity in the network, in the banking system, and preferably a separate digital ID, in which these data are collected and subject to further commercialisation and trade.
Indeed. within the current phase of capitalism we be as models, monitored, funded and commercialized by algorithms, now called AI. Let us make an arrangement if any of the participants of this conference vanish without a trace – the sales and social platforms on which it is logged would be able to make a client profile that continues customs, buying and search data of the missing person. This is an absolute key to knowing at what phase of capitalism we are now in. In fact, they are no longer needed on a massive scale by manufacturers, in any case surely not in Europe, but, paradoxically, consumers are increasingly needed.
It won't be like it utilized to be.
They say generals always prepare their countries for wars that have already been lost. Similarly, economists are only prepared for historical crises. Although the effects of globalisation and the mechanisms for simplification, formerly called liberalism-reaganism-thatcherism, have been evident for respective decades now, the chief economical focus is on the patching of income holes with a increasing debt spiral, while politicians are increasingly inclined to the view that the next planet war seems completely acceptable alternate to the inevitable disaster.
Under the circumstances Russia's primary problem is that its ruling would like it to be as before, and China, that they would like nothing to change compared to the current state. Both attitudes, unfortunately, sin with anachronism. Looking from the position of Western Europe, where I live, 2 scenarios can be imagined:
- Under the first guarantor of the current capitalism model, access to inexpensive energy resources supplied by Russia would be to complete the absurd rule of war in Ukraine itself,
- As part of the second model – not contrary to the first – for the alleged energy transition and the gradual strengthening of the alleged renewable energy sector, it is absolutely essential to cooperate with China, producing the essential components for advanced installations off and on-shore and electrical mobility. Not to mention that it is inactive China and Beijing-controlled communication routes that warrant the continuation of the consumer model of capitalism, viewed by the factories of Southeast Asia.
However, despite the apparent multilateral benefits and guarantees of stability, these scenarios are not implemented.
They don't request people anymore.
Our gentlemen act as if in any mad impulse they request neither Russian energy nor Chinese REEs nor Asian production. The situation looks like the West simply no longer needs average people, someway working there, something consuming there, just working regular as a possibly embarrassing but essential component of the system.
So what if we became expendable? What if we don't gotta work for the greater profits of our masters or buy to guarantee the stableness of the financial trade? If the value of money has so far gone distant from work that no 1 notices this relation anymore, due to the fact that the interest rate on capital trading is more important? Are we certain it's just about giving us extra time for sports or artistic activity? A Maybe we've just become unnecessary costs.?
The paradox is that all day Western societies are fed news About how much a threat Russia and China are to their lifestyle. Meanwhile, that's what Moscow and Beijing do the most to save even the remnants of consumer capitalismguaranteeing the stableness of global relations. In my opinion, the 2 most promising planet powers are making a mistake due to the fact that It's impossible to save what was there.
Another planet System
Russia and China are facing a immense challenge today, possibly beyond the political elite of these countries. Any form of stabilization, standardisation, alleged return to earlier relations, undermined by the current US administration – would be a disaster and surrender. But will there be forces in Moscow and (especially) Beijing capable of creating an alternate strategy another than liberal (what is crucial to Russia) but preserving global elements (what is crucial to China)?
The alternate is not just about planet war and the demolition of humanity as we know it (while maintaining life, wealth and the standard of surviving of the advanced 1%). Rejecting the imagination of Moscow and Beijing to make a strategy that would benefit together from the patterns of both free trade (as in China) and community (as historically in Russia) would mean disaster and giving up a field of something, which for deficiency of better names is called transhumanism erstwhile I like to name antihumanism. A man who is neither a maker nor a consumer simply ceases to be needed as a being – it is adequate for only his avatar to be active, performing the basic and required marketplace functions!
Russia and China may not want to see themselves as a civilizational, even a genre. Both Moscow and Beijing are very strong trends to "just do business", but this proves naivety alternatively than realism. Unfortunately, It will no longer be “as before”. So the last question is whether on all sides there are inactive people able to conclude multilaterally beneficial economical account-based agreements, given the chances of endurance of humanity in the form we know – or all this will make the algorithm that considers humanity an insignificant point in the estimate.
Konrad Hand
Speech at the Cooperation between Europe and Russia conference in the fresh Geopolitical Context: Reconcilation or Continued Confrontation? organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Serbian Center for Geostrategic Studies in Moscow, 17 October 2025.
