World trade declined somewhat due to the 2001-02 recession, but has rebounded nicely since then.
> The crisis of this arrangement presents the opportunity for the
> proposition of a new global order by the "global aristocracies" -
> that is to say, the multinational corporations, the supranational
> institutions and the other dominant nation states.
The EU and East Asia's business networks aren't aristocracies. Judging from house organs like the ECB, the BIS and the Nikkei Shimbun, the multi-bourgeoisie seems quite aware that the US oiligarchy is a doomed atavism.
> It is increasingly clear,
> in fact, that the majority of the world is excluded from the primary
> circuits of economic production and consumption.
Eh? The majority of the world lives in cities and is indeed hooked up to those circuits. Relative immiseration and polarization are at all-time highs, but this isn't the same thing as absolute immiseration.
> Another priority would be reversing the processes of privatization
> and creating common access to necessary productive resources - such
> as land, seeds, information, and knowledge. Making resources common
> is necessary for the expansion and renewal of creative and production
> potentials, from agriculture to internet technologies.
Knowledge is fine, but needs to be mobilized or utilized by someone or something to be effective. To paraphrase a classic slogan, one, two, many Vietnamese-style developmental states!
-- DRR