Geography is history in space, and history is geography in time. In the context of deglobalisation, the relationships between space and time have become much more complex and interesting.
A recent commentary by Natalia Rutkevich drew attention to the profound changes in the territorial organisation of France under the influence of globalisation. Many studies have been devoted to these changes, of which I would like to especially note the book by the French geographer Christophe Guilluy
. In his opinion, there is a deep split between metropolitan France (the 15 largest agglomerations, which are home to 40% of the country’s population) and peripheral France, where the remaining 60% live. The reason is simple: the people of metropolitan France benefit from globalisation, while the people of peripheral France lose from it.
Guilluy explains this phenomenon from a Marxist position, using the concept of the bohemian bourgeoisie (bourgeoisie bohème — bobo), who he says profit from globalisation processes. This new bourgeoisie, which exists alongside the traditional iteration, has realised that the defence of its interests lies not through the class struggle, but through the mixing of classes, in order to create the illusion of inclusiveness. This bourgeoisie makes all kinds of ECO and BIO themes fashionable, giving rise to the hipster lifestyle and thus tries to camouflage the very fact of its existence, appearing to be part of the middle class. Bobos vote left. Paris, the richest city in France with the most expensive real estate, has long been a bastion of the left precisely because of them.
Guilluy believes that in modern conditions, an open society is a myth. The cost of housing in metropolitan France is prohibitively high for residents of peripheral France with their very modest incomes. Based on this, he likens globalised metropolises to medieval cities, surrounded by walls and inaccessible to residents of adjacent territories. Social housing (HLM) does not improve the situation at all, because it is located where the crime rate is very high, and middle class French, including those who have fallen into poverty, do not want to live there at all. Accordingly, HLM housing goes almost exclusively to immigrants. This is the mechanism for the formation of immigrant enclaves, the so-called lost territories, where not only ambulances, but even the police do not arrive. Maps 1 and 2 comprehensively reflect the current situation. Processes of the same kind are taking place, according to Guilluy, in other countries, be it Britain, Sweden or the USA. Let us add that very similar phenomena are observed in Russia, with its pronounced regional inequality and very significant social inequality.
Maps of real estate prices and concentrations of highly paid workers
These two maps show the outlines of the new strongholds
Map 1 shows the cost of housing in thousands of euros per square metre. Map 2 shows the share of highly paid workers in the total number of households in 2012 (the national average is 11.44%).
Christophe Guilluy
Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut
Р., Flammarion, 2016
However, the processes described are not at all irreversible, since globalisation itself, which isn’t happening for the first time, is reversible. The first globalisation continued from the middle of the 19th century until 1914. Its apogee was the Belle Époque, the last decade and a half before the First World War, when the world was in many ways even more integrated than it is now. Visas, for example, were invented only after that war. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) recalled in his last book “The World of Yesterday: Memoires of a European” about travels to the USA and British India, which he made not only without a passport, but even without any idea about what it was.
The second globalisation began in 1945, and there is a temptation to see Belle Époque 2.0 as the time between the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Protectionism increasingly intensified after the crisis of 2007-2010, but the military actions in Ukraine sharply accelerated deglobalisation. A study carried out by the IMF shows that when countries are divided into three conditional blocs — American, Chinese and countries not included in them — there is a decrease in trade between these blocs, which in 2022-2023 amounted to 12-20% (Gopinath, 2024). It is logical to assume that deglobalisation processes will develop with the greatest intensity in Russia, which against its will has become the world’s principal revisionist power — all three Russian presidents at one point sought to bring the country into NATO, Vladimir Putin attempted to do so twice. The maximum manifestation of these processes is also facilitated by Russia’s absolute leadership in the number of sanctions imposed on it.
Post-Soviet Russia is far from fully formed as a social state, as evidenced by its high social inequality (the Gini index was 0.403 in 2023). This has largely been facilitated by its resource specialisation in the international division of labour. However, large-scale military operations in Ukraine, the intensity of which is increasing, have forced its defence industry enterprises to work at maximum capacity. This is evidenced by a 21% increase in the volume of mechanical engineering production in 2023, with a 3.5% overall increase in industrial production. This has led to the rapid rise of cities and regions in whose economies the role of defence industry enterprises is significant.
These cities and regions suffered heavy losses in the 1990s and were far from fully recovered until very recently. Now in Izhevsk, the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, a city with a population of slightly more than 600,000 inhabitants, three shopping centres have already been repurposed into workshops for the production of drones due to lack of time for the construction of industrial buildings. Izhevsk flourished in Soviet times, as it was one of the powerful centres of the defence industry, but until recently the shabby facades in the city centre (which otherwise featured clean streets and excellent transport) eloquently indicated that the city had become significantly impoverished. Now the well-being of its residents has increased significantly, and this is typical of many Russian cities, large, small and medium-sized. Moreover, their residents, who were marginalised during the period of liberal reforms, regained dignity and pride, as well as a sense of belonging to great historical events. It is obvious that the growth of the military economy will give a powerful impetus to the development of many sectors of industry, agriculture and non-material production.
Map 3
New economic geography of Russia
Map 3 shows the top 10 regions by salary in 2023 (they are shaded in blue, the numbers correspond to their ranks). This “magnificent ten” includes 8 regions which export resources (oil, gas, gold, diamonds, in the case of Kamchatka — fish and seafood) and the two capitals — Moscow (No. 3) and St. Petersburg (No. 10). The same map shows in red the 10 regions with the highest expected wage growth by 2026, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economy. The numbers, as in the previous case, indicate ranks. Among them there is not a single region from the “magnificent ten”, nor are there any among the next five regions with expected high wage growth (No. 11-15), they are filled in pink (data source — Vlasti…, 2023). The pink shading shows the Republics of Buryatia and Tuva, which are quite poor, especially the latter, since they are known for the active participation of their volunteers in the Special Military Operation. Payments to these courageous people significantly contribute to the well-being of their families and the economic development of their republics, but are not reflected in salary statistics.
The new economic geography of Russia, which is emerging more and more clearly (there is a bitter irony in the fact that Paul Krugman developed his New Economic Geography precisely to describe the impact of globalisation on the spatial organisation of the economy at the national level Krugman Paul
, forces us to think about the problem of time and its directions. Sergei Kurdyumov (1928-2004), director of the Mstislav Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, a recognised leader in synergetic research in the Soviet Union, often said that the main difficulty in modelling social systems is the coordination of the times of their subsystems.
Now we are close to a conclusion about the multidirectional flow of time in the era of deglobalisation. It is unlikely that a fourth energy transition, completely retrograde, will be imposed on all of humanity. For the first time in history, it is proposed to move from more concentrated energy sources to less concentrated and, accordingly, less efficient ones. Climate arguments are not always convincing due to the fact that discussions about global warming are politicised to the extreme, and this, to put it mildly, does not contribute to getting closer to an objective truth. But even if the increase in average planetary temperature is due to anthropogenic influences, all the costs of reducing the carbon footprint are wasted money (for solving the problem, not for those who profit from it), since China, India, and other countries of the World Majority will never sacrifice the prospects of their socio-economic development for the sake of the interests of the West, which seeks to slow down those who are gradually catching up with it.
Russia, as a northern country, will certainly gain more than it loses from global warming. The southern regions of Siberia, with its vast expanses and rich resources, are becoming increasingly favourable for human life. The Northern Sea Route can become one of the world’s most important transport arteries, which will significantly contribute not only to the economic development of the country, but also to the improvement of its geopolitical position. Our vast spaces with their resources — mineral, climatic, water, agricultural, forestry, chorological — will allow us to gain time for the deep reconstruction of the country — social, economic and spatial — and for the reorientation of its external relations to the East and South.
The Soviet ideology also set for the future the task of developing waste-free technologies and creating a circular economy, as it is called now. This fruitful and inspiring idea, like many others, was almost forgotten after the historical defeat of the USSR and the collapse of the Soviet model of socialism. Now the country is freeing itself, albeit slowly and inconsistently, from vanquished complexes and is beginning to rethink its historical experience. The deeper processing of raw materials, not to mention the introduction of waste-free technologies, requires a significant increase in energy production and a reduction in its cost. This task and achieving carbon neutrality cannot be solved in parallel, they are alternatives.
With some degree of convention, we can assume that the country is gradually moving onto a trajectory leading to the creation of a social empire, according to Anatol Lieven. After his inauguration on May 7, 2024, Vladimir Putin signed a number of decrees providing, in particular, for a reduction of the Gini index to 0.37 by 2030 and to 0.33 by 2036. A month later, it was announced that indexation of pensions of working pensioners would be resumed in 2025 This indexation was suspended in 2015 due to a deficit in the Pension Fund and led to an almost twofold decrease in the number of working pensioners. The serious deterioration of the situation on the labour market in recent years suggests purely pragmatic reasons for this decision. But the whole idea of a social empire is imbued with the spirit of high utilitarianism, according to Descartes (1596-1650). Victory in a war against a superior enemy is impossible without building a powerful social state based on broad popular support. It is very characteristic that in the inaugural decrees the average salary was replaced by the median one — this is a clear guideline for the movement towards greater social justice.
Elisée Reclus (1830-1905), a remarkable French geographer and revolutionary, taught that geography is history in space, and history is geography in time. In the context of deglobalisation, the relationships between space and time have become much more complex and interesting. The decline of liberal globalism significantly expands our intellectual freedom, because previously Marxist historical determinism was simply replaced with the “end of history.” Now we are able to consider time as being almost as heterogeneous as space.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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