Keywords

1 Introduction

From a systemic point of view, a crisis is a sign of structural reorganization of the system. The current world economic crisis is not an exception. It is a consequence of major structural changes in the global social system. A change in the system structure, in turn, is the reaction of the system to external challenges.

Twentieth century was a complicated one for the European world. The confrontation between European elites led to world wars, in which tens of millions of Europeans were killed and considerable material welfare was destroyed. These wars delayed the development of European nations. The last confrontation of the superpowers of the European world, the Soviet Union and the United States gave birth to the “Cold War”, the war of intelligence and incriminatory evidence, the war of terrorist activities and underground criminal economy. The consequence of that war was the slowdown of the European world scientific progress, enhanced development of the underdeveloped allies and as a result, the occurrence of a real threat to lose technical and social leadership. “Decline of the West” became a real social problem. The European world could overcome and adequately respond to external challenges. The current global restructuring of the European world is a true reason for the global economic and social crisis.

2 European Civilizational Systems

To understand the essence of the current processes we will consider the dynamics of the European social systems. The general structure of civilization and its functions are determined by the nature of interaction of elites controlling basic social subsystems. Since the primary function of any society is economic security and protection, the elites historically were the basic industrial and power elites. With the complexity of the society structure, information function, the social control function: collection and analysis of information, social monitoring, building the information society field are becoming increasingly important. Priestly elites traditionally exercised these functions. Today these functions are the main functions of the Vatican.

All these functions are complementary within a single social system, and are common for all social systems. Accordingly, the representatives of relevant elite groups are complementary. The dominant elitist group determines the specificity of a particular social system. Despite the simplicity of the model, it gives an insight into the basic social processes of the European world. Historically, there are three important European civilizational projects: Roman, Biblical and Technocratic.

The Roman project is a republican system dominated by power structures. Procurement and priest systems, as they should be in the army, were auxiliary systems. Power as the system core predetermined the policy of territorial colonial expansion of Rome, robbing the colonies and slavery of prisoners of war. Power domination ensuring the right of a strong one to live at the expense of a weak one was made into the system’s principle. The overall structure of the system is a militarized civil society of free people. Fundamentally, the society management system had elite pagan model of “Olympus of Gods” sanctifying the power of the aristocratic elite and democratic relations within it. The result of the Roman project was the creation of a powerful European empire that flourished at the expense of colonial plundering.

Along with the development of society, the role of information management structures are increased. Therefore, the Roman project was inevitably replaced by the Biblical project that gave rise to the state systems with dominant theocratic priestly elites, servants of God on the Earth. Power took backseat. Religion has become a unifying factor. The church became the core of the Christian state. Its members controlled the whole society. The church as the state security system shaped the laws of society, provided ideological support, carried out a total social control, including control of information and social bases and education system. In this project, the army and craft structures were servicing subsystems.

At the heart of the Biblical management system are the relations of social domination (supremacy). On the basis of the Biblical model of “monotheism” or, which is the same of sole command, powerful hierarchical control structures were formed. Basic social structure in this model was a monarchical state. System Biblical principle of “right of the elected” provided power and “divine favor” to the cast of “the chosen people”. The domination of the elected, their sacred right to levy tribute on the population was maintained by force. This system is characterized by the policy of territorial expansion under the pretext of “bringing the lost sheep to the God”. The more “herd”, the more tribute, the higher the standard of living of the chosen people. Unlike Rome, subjugated nations converted to Christianity of ten were incorporated into the empire as subjects. The Christian systems where all are the slaves of God by their status, were characterized by the phenomenon of serfdom peasants. The result of the Biblical project was the development of large European Christian empires, such as the Austrian, British, Spanish or Russian. The same processes also were in the Muslim world.

The main vector of human evolution is the path of technological progress, the pass of artificial man-machine symbiosis. Technical systems provide unconditional dominance of a human in the environment. Therefore, technocratic elites play more important social role in the development of technology, and technical corporate structures determine the level of society’s development. Today, the concepts of “developed country” and “technically developed country” have become synonymous. Modern wars have become mainly wars of economies. Technically undeveloped countries, even with more population and larger controlled territory, begin to lose to technically developed countries.

As far as clumsy hierarchical structures of Biblical totalitarian society did not contribute to scientific and technical progress, they had been gradually replaced by the bourgeois republics, which created conditions necessary for technological development. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries are the period of collapse of the Christian empires in the European world. Corporate industrial elites begin to play a dominant role in the national bourgeois republican systems. Technocratic project starts replacing the Biblical project. The basic model of a new project becomes the basic civil model of a free industrial city, the version of ancient free civil society, the society of democratic freedoms and liberal economy. This time is a period of scientific and industrial revolutions, which led to a sharp civilizational separation of the European world from the rest of the world and its global dominance. The dominant position of corporate structures begins to define a new vector of geopolitics—the economic territorial expansion, the struggle for spheres of influence, markets and sources of raw materials. The era of neo-colonialism, the era of economic exploitation of the underdeveloped nations began. Today the Technocratic project enters a new stage.

When changing systems, new elites do not fully eliminate the old ones. One part of the old elites withdraw, resisting the new reality, and the other part is transformed to the new conditions and creates kinship alliances with the new elites. An example is the symbiosis of aristocratic military and priestly elites of the Middle Ages, in the modern era it is the symbiosis of aristocratic and priestly elites with industrial elites. Modern European elites have the same mixed character.

The structure of any social system contains a dominant core headed by the leader. The Establishment of a new global system involves a development of such a core and identification of a new leader. Therefore, the formation of a new global system is characterized by intensification of the struggle with the elites of the previous systems, and aggravation of the intra- system struggle between the countries for leadership in the new global system. Rome and all Christian European empires had to endure a fierce struggle. The same struggle for leadership unfolded in the Nineteenth to twentieth centuries among the developed European countries in the process of forming a new world system.

3 Unification Projects of the European World

The European world, despite internal contradictions of regional elites, have always been treated as a single super-system, which unity is based on the biological, cultural and technical community. Modern European history had several attempts to form a single European system. Every such attempt had been made in the country, claiming the leadership role, with the participation of a significant part of the European elites. Representatives of other European elites opposed to leaders. In one country, one part of the elites supported the changes, and the other part opposed it. The European world had been in a transition state for a long time.

British aristocratic revolution became the transitional stage between the Biblical and Technocratic projects. The British elite has managed to create conditions for rapid technological development in the country by substituting absolute monarchy with aristocratic oligarchy and giving a part of civil rights to the bourgeoisie. Technical leadership allowed Britain to dominate the world over a 100 years, creating the largest colonial system. Britain maintained leadership in the European world until the Second World War.

Republican-technocratic projects opposed British Biblical and Technocratic project. French bourgeois revolution was the first international project of force integration of Europe under the Roman imperial model, headed by the Republican Emperor Napoleon. The Revolution had an anti-feudal character. It had contributed to the establishment of bourgeois relations, gave a powerful impetus to the development of capitalism in Europe, and was the catalyst of the bourgeois revolutions in other European countries. The French revolution was crushed by the combined monarchies of Europe. British Empire succeeded to maintain its leadership in the European world for 100 years.

Russian socialist revolution is an international project of uniting Europe under the Republican technocratic model of manufacturers’ dictatorship, the “dictatorship of the workers and peasants”, under the principles of a new European social-democratic ideology that created conditions for an intensive technical development. Lenin was the top-manager of the project in Russia. The technical development of Russia was implemented in a short time with the help of the USA and some the European countries. Russian project could not be implemented for internal reasons. State counter coup of “Stalinist” team actually led to the restoration in the country of Biblical models of monarchy state based on theocratic party system and opposition of the new “Eurasian” communist elites of the country to a significant part of the European technocratic elites of the Western world.

German national socialist revolution is an international technocratic project of force uniting Europe under the Roman imperial republican model of the “Third Reich”, with Hitler as a leader. As in Russia, reindustrialization of the country, which allowed Germany to unite most of the European countries by force, was implemented in a short term with the help of the developed countries. The Revolution was crushed by the unified forces of Russia, UK and USA. Although the project was never implemented, as a result of this confrontation, Britain lost its colonies and a leading position in the European world, giving leadership to the USA.

The American bourgeois revolution is an international technocratic project of unification of the European world within the Roman imperial republican model. Creating preconditions for social and technological development, the USA gradually became a technical and economic leader, the first in the Western European world, and then in the entire European world. Under this system, a project of European unification was implemented peacefully. Today the development of a new European empire goes into its final stage.

4 Confrontation of Civilizational Systems

Last civilizational confrontation between two systems, the communist Biblical and Western Technocratic, after the Second World War in terms of nuclear deterrence made it impossible to start armed conflicts. The main way to counter systems was the “Cold War”, the war of intelligence. Both systems used similar methods. There were intensive information wars. The main emphasis was made on the recruitment of agents of influence. Incriminatory evidence was the main method of recruitment. Therefore, there was a growing level of corruption in the control structures, bribery and blackmail became conventional means. To eliminate competing structures, totalitarian and terrorist groups were created and maintained in the third world countries. Shady criminal feeds were widely used for the delivery of weapons and drugs into different parts of the world. Drug trafficking as a means of financing criminal groups acquired large scale. Social impact of information services, intelligence and counter-intelligence was growing. In the struggle for spheres of influence, development programs of underdeveloped countries—allies were implemented. To finance illegal activities, uncontrolled offshore zones were created, which simultaneously conventional firms used for tax evasion. As a result, the share of shadow economy significantly increased. In such circumstances, the criminalization of systems was inevitable. Under these rules of the game, not the most developed or strong won, and the most vile.

In the “Cold War” situation was not in favor of the West. Through an extensive communist network deployed legally in virtually all countries of the world, strong “fifth columns”, funded by the Soviet Union to lobby its interests were created. Thanks to them, the Soviet Union had access to virtually all the technical secrets of the West. The only problem was that the Soviet system, built on the best Biblical models, did not create the necessary preconditions for the emergence of skilled technicians. In the acute shortage of technicians and backward technological base, alienate projects were difficult to implement in the country on their own. Technological gap became palpable. Therefore, the need to eliminate opposition was understood in the Soviet Union as well. However, attempts to reduce the level of confrontation taken under Khrushchev and Gorbachev were suppressed. Ultimately, not without the domestic assistance, the socialist camp collapsed. Most of the countries of this camp were integrated into the European Union. Influence of the communist systems in the world has declined significantly. Today last relapses of its opposition to the European world can be observed.

After the collapse of the socialist camp, the American project defines the essence of global processes in the European world. European world has actually become single and unipolar. The core of the new world was formed and its leader was defined. The threat of another world war was reduced dramatically. Opportunity for structural reforms in the European world appeared.

5 Outlines of the New European System

The main task of the Technocratic project, defining the contemporary changes in the European world, is to create conditions for the intensification of technical development as a prerequisite for the maintenance of global leadership.

As far as the internal human freedom is the most important prerequisite for technological development, the increasing role is played by propaganda of free civil society models, as the prerequisite for the people with such a consciousness. Open struggle with Biblical totalitarian models worldwide began.

The European world dismantles and restructures Biblical systems at the quick pace. The Catholic Church is actively involved in the process of European restructuring. Today we are witnessing the most radical reforms in the Catholic Church, the most important institution of the European social monitoring. Personnel changes at the top level were made to conduct reforms. Elimination of compromised bishops, rejection of ostentation, establishing tight fiscal control over the use of church funds began. The reformed church became one of the most effective control institutions of the remaining systems of Biblical project. Today it makes an effort to eliminate the contradictions between science and religion and facilitates the spirit of freedom in the European education system controlled by it. The role of other systems of Biblical project has been steadily declining in the European world. In recent years, the role of the international Jewish control system has been reduced. Active opposition to Muslim competing systems began to take place. Along with this, the role of traditional European pagan systems is increasing.

Clearing debris of the “Cold War” began. Technical corporations do not need incriminatory evidence. They do not need spies and terrorists. They need qualified professionals. Undercover communist and terrorist networks like al-Qaeda created during the “Cold War”, now are no longer needed. Moreover, left to themselves, acting on habitual criminal models, they pose a threat to the new European world. Therefore, the fight against terrorism and the shadow economy, a breeding ground for terrorism, has become one of the most important tasks of the new system. Safety of the new system is impossible without reliable global control over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons. And this control is carried out by tough means today. Access to the club of nuclear countries is closed today.

Representatives of the new technocratic elite established effective means of a technical intelligence and social monitoring. Intensive development of computer technology has led to the creation of fundamentally new systems of a social control. Electronic payment systems today largely allow control over financial and material flows, which significantly hampers the activity of “shadow” and criminal organizations. In the future, a complete rejection of the traditional paper money will dramatically reduce the level of crime and the shadow economy and significantly reduce the level of corruption in the European world. Financial control is impossible without control over shady offshore financial centers. Today, the majority of offshore zones are under international control. For the prevention of crimes, more effective means of video recording, identification of the personality, “lie detectors” and monitoring systems locations of people are developed. With super-power computers and storage facilities of colossal amounts of information, one can now collect in global information network almost complete information on the activities of individuals and organizations. The new world is becoming more controlled. In such circumstances, activity espionage and terrorist networks becomes increasingly inefficient. Accordingly, the social role of traditional undercover intelligence, working on blackmail is reduced.

Technical development allows abandoning the policy of territorial expansion. Renunciation of territorial annexations is the norm of the modern European politics. The developed countries today send the expansion vector into space. Important task of space exploration today is the basic factor of social and technological development. Space technology will open access to space resources, as well as allow creating materials and substances in the new conditions that are impossible to create on the Earth.

Another new factor of social development is biotechnology and genetic engineering. Today it allows changing significantly the direction of human evolution. The main direction of improvement is determined by the task of technological development. The human society has always had a few people capable of technical innovation. Therefore, today there are intensive works on the program of creation of the “superman”, the artificial development of people, genetically having high potential for technological creativity. Genetic engineering with the new education system will provide rapid acceleration of scientific and technical progress.

Development of genetic identification leads to reformat of the European world on fundamentally new principles. The role of national states formed on the cultural and territorial basis is reduced. Every year, such factors of unification as common territory, religion, culture or language become less important. Moreover, all the more important become generic biological factors determined by human genes. The European world of the future is a single space where national boundaries are of the same administrative nature as the borders of modern Russian regions. Representatives of the «global tribes», having the same genetic identification, will populate this space. A similar model can be illustrated on example of modern Russia, where, for example, Moscow and Kazan Tatars consider themselves as one nation. The only difference is in the method of identification. In the long term, cultural associations will inevitably give way to genetic associations. Since own specific biochemical processes characterize each biological group, there may not be equally useful food or equally effective drugs for all groups. It is obvious that the genetic type imposes certain restrictions on the choice of sexual partners when forming a family. Therefore, the collapse of modern cultural and ethnic groups, including, as a rule, several genetic groups is inevitable in the future.

Global social changes make impact on the nature of economic relations. Since the modern European world is built on a technocratic model, the exfoliation of regions of the world in terms of industrial development is inevitable. International cooperation is more profitable for the developed regions than internal cooperation. Industrial heterogeneity imposed on the ethnic heterogeneity even today leads to increased growth of separatism. An increasing number of European regions claim on their desire to get the sovereignty. Today, no one in the world is fundamentally protesting against the possibility of self-determination of Venice, Catalonia, Scotland or Quebec. Because even after receipt of sovereignty, they will still remain an integral part of the single European world and save all the economic, technical, cultural and family ties.

To maintain global technical advantages, the European world need to become a reasonable technical and economic self-sufficiency. In this regard, the degree of economic integration of the European world in a single European market is increasing and their aid to other countries is being reduced. Today, only Russia and Belarus are not formally included into the European economic system. Currently, the coverage of integration is growing. There are active negotiations between the USA and the EU on economic integration within the single “Atlantic market”. Recently, a new core of the European financial system was created. In October 2013, six central banks of the USA, Canada, Britain, the EU, Switzerland and Japan signed an agreement on currency swap arrangements, which creates a system of solid mutual obligations with regard to the currency exchange rate (Rakesh and Muneesh 2014). As a result, the dollar ceased to be the world’s sole reserve currency, and it is no longer necessary to bear the “burden of the world”. The goals to bring back part of the manufacturing that was transferred to other countries become a priority.

The European world reduces its dependence on raw materials through intensive development of innovative energy technologies and energy consumption technologies. According to the U.S. plans, announced by President Bush in 2006 (Bush 2006), the country will reduce hydrocarbon exports by 75 % by 2025 due to innovations. The current new structure of the geopolitical system directly affects the economic policy of the European world. The level of economic planning and government regulation is further enhanced. The level of long-term planning is increasing. Prospective scientific, technical and social programs are developed. Both the USA and the EU carry out a rigid quota output and prices control. Liberal market economy with its principles of self-regulation, private property and competition goes to ideology as a means to keep the spirit of freedom, entrepreneurship and initiative.

Eliminating global threat makes European countries face a serious problem of “excess population” (Krujilov 2014). Mobilization reserve of population is no longer needed either for the army or for the production. For this reason, the number of armed forces has been steadily declining in the European countries with their simultaneous technical strengthening. Currently the slogan of full employment is actually removed from the agenda. More unrestrained automation of productions inevitably leads to a reduction in the number of unskilled labor. This situation makes changes in the demographic and immigration policies in the direction of a gradual decline in the population and reduction of immigration quotas. Reduction of working hours could be a radical solution of this problem.

For the same reason, the principles of post-industrial consumer society are gradually abandoned (Smart 2010; Baudrillard 1998; Rorhmoser 1996). When a country begins to work on long-term promising programs in the conditions of optimum population, artificial stimulation of the economy by consumption becomes irrelevant. Guaranteed social order becomes the economic development incentive. Consumer as an incentive for development and new jobs is no longer needed. Moreover, it is even harmful as every slacker is harmful in the production system. Programs to reduce the number of “superfluous men” are already being implemented. The unipolar world has no more need to develop and procure the former allies who became unnecessary. As a consequence, there is a reduced level of aid to underdeveloped countries. Social benefits to the poor and unemployed are being reduced.

6 Conclusion

Social and economic transformations in the European world go at their full pace. Today, structural reforms are close to their completion. The European world is emerging from the crisis.

In the near future, we can expect the planned results of this process:

  • Processes of scientific and technical development in European world will be accelerated. The European world becomes again industrial. The civilization separation of European world from underdeveloped countries will grow. Decrease in threat of the global conflicts gives the chance not to care of development of the former allies.

  • Level of European world’s integration will increase: from formation of the European Union to creation of new Atlantic trade alliance and new international currency policy. Every year the European world will become more and more self-sufficient. Its global influence will grow.

  • Implementation of perspective scientific and technical programs, such as the program of space exploration or the “immortality” program, will intensify scientific and technical progress sharply. New technologies reducing to 60 % dependence of the European world on export of hydrocarbons are created.

  • The planned beginning in “physical” economy will amplify. The role of large corporations, locomotives of scientific and technical progress, will raise. The importance of speculative financial economy will steadily decrease.

  • Strengthening of the planned beginning forces to refuse concepts of “consumer society” and “liberal economy” gradually.

  • In the conditions of decrease in threat of the global conflicts, “the excess population” as a mobilization reserve becomes a social problem. Therefore, the developed countries will need to implement programs of gradual reduction of population.

  • As social homogeneity is one of important prerequisites of society’s stability, it is possible to predict gradual refusal of “multiculturalism” policy and transition to more tough immigration policy.