First published at LINKS
Introduction
There are countries that shape global politics and those that are shaped by it. Serbia belongs to the latter. As a small nation on the receiving end of global forces, Serbia often provides a sharper lens through which to observe the systemic crises of global capitalism. The saying goes, “When America has a cold, the rest of the world sneezes,” but smaller countries like Serbia are often the first to display the symptoms of these crises. In 2024, Serbia offered a particularly clear reflection of the three core dimensions of the capitalist crisis: political, economic, and systemic. These crises are not just incidental; they are manifestations of the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system. This text adopts an explicitly Marxist framework to examine these dimensions, highlighting how Serbia exemplifies broader global trends.
1. The political dimension of the crisis: Decline of liberal democracy
The global crisis of bourgeois liberal democracy has reached Serbia with full force. Kagarlitsky’s (2024) critique of the “hollowing out” of democracy is evident in Serbia’s parliamentary elections of December 2023-January 2024. The Serb Progressive Party (SPP) secured a victory, receiving 48% of the votes—twice as much as the opposition—despite various political and corruption scandals that have plagued its more than a decade in power. While the SPP often vilifies the previous government (now in opposition) to deflect criticism, this strategy has diminishing relevance over time. Instead, the victory can largely be attributed to the opposition’s inability to present a credible alternative to the electorate. This was exemplified in their campaign name, Serbia Against Violence, which emphasized what they opposed but failed to articulate what they stood for.
The SPP, in contrast, employs various methods of regime legitimation. Along with its continued criticism of the previous government, it frequently points to indicators such as GDP growth and increased FDI as markers of its success. These themes will be analyzed further in the text.
Popular mobilizations, such as student protests over the Novi Sad Railway Station disaster and public outcry against the lithium extraction project in Jadar and, more recently, the destruction of the Old Bridge over the Sava in Belgrade, reveal another facet of the political crisis. These protests, while significant, lacked coherence and vision, resembling what Ishchenko (2024) describes as “Maidan revolutions”—uprisings that fail to consolidate into organized political movements. Furthermore, these protests reflect the global trend of the weakening of the left as it merges into the liberal democratic discourse.
Kagarlitsky offers a piercing analysis of this predicament, arguing that the left, in its retreat from working-class politics, has increasingly aligned with the urban bourgeoisie, adopting politically correct positions that prioritize symbolic issues over material struggles. This alignment has vacated political space for the right, which has opportunistically co-opted elements of the working-class agenda, leading to a general rightward shift in the electorate. In Serbia, like many post-socialist countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, the absence of a genuine left-wing movement exacerbates the political vacuum (unless someone genuinely believes that SPS, long in cahoots with the ruling party, is a left party). The SPP victory is only in part due to the party’s populist rhetoric, which helps it maintain influence in its key electorate. It owes even more to the opposition’s lack of an articulate program that appeals to the majority.
The majority sees the opposition as part of the same ruling elite striving to get to the source of wealth and takes the position that the devil they know is better than the devil they don’t. This situation bodes ill for the future of protest movements, as the absence of a cohesive and independent left often leads to cosmetic political changes that fail to improve the conditions of the working class. Instead, such movements frequently end up cementing the power of foreign and comprador bourgeoisies, leaving the structural inequalities of capitalism untouched.
The public opinion poll conducted by Demostat in May 2024 reveals a striking contradiction between public satisfaction with personal living conditions and dissatisfaction with governance and democracy. While 81% of respondents are content with their living conditions and 60% with working conditions, only 29% express satisfaction with the state of democracy, and 38% approve of the Government’s performance. Key areas of dissatisfaction include the fight against corruption and crime (67%), justice and courts (53%), and political freedoms and human rights (42%). Interestingly, mistrust is highest not toward the government but toward trade unions (61%), NGOs (69%), and opposition parties (69%). These findings encapsulate the paradox of citizens being “happy with their lives and unhappy with their government,” highlighting the disconnect between personal well-being and the state of governance and democracy in Serbia.
Serbia’s recent trajectory confirms its alignment with the framework of political capitalism as defined by Branko Milanović (2021) or the “party state” model (Pešić, 2007), particularly as the events of 2024 have underscored the defining characteristics of this system. The political and economic fallout from the controversial lithium mining project, public anger over the Novi Sad Railway Station tragedy, and widespread dissatisfaction with the handling of election disputes collectively highlight how state and party structures intertwine to consolidate power while managing dissent. These events illustrate the inherent contradictions of political capitalism: steady economic growth, heavily reliant on resource exploitation and foreign investment, is sustained alongside democratic backsliding and systemic corruption.
Endemic corruption is a central feature of such a system, as described by Milanović and Pešić. Discretionary decision-making, inherent to this system, allows elites to blur the boundaries between state and party functions, channeling resources and opportunities toward politically connected actors. In Serbia, the merger between government and ruling party structures amplifies these dynamics, making corruption a recurring accusation during popular protests. Public mobilizations in 2024—sparked by infrastructure failures, election disputes, and controversial projects—frequently centered on allegations of corrupt practices, highlighting the perceived exploitation of state power for private and partisan gain.
This deepening corruption not only erodes trust in governance but also stifles avenues for meaningful opposition, as the intertwining of party and state limits the scope for institutional accountability. The protests of 2024 thus underscore the systemic nature of corruption in political capitalism, as well as its role in fueling public dissatisfaction and amplifying demands for transparency and reform.
The erosion of trust and the failure of collective action in Serbia reflect a broader global trend: the decline of bourgeois democracy as a stabilizing force within capitalism. As corruption becomes endemic in systems of political capitalism and populism or political extremes capture voter preferences, the legitimacy of democratic institutions weakens. This trend is evident not only in Serbia but also in countries like France, where the collapse of the centrist Barnier government mirrors the polarization of Serbia’s political landscape. The global crisis of liberal democracy, characterized by rising discontent, institutional decay, and the inability to address systemic inequalities, is no longer a distant specter but an immediate and pressing reality.
2. The economic dimension of the crisis: Countering the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TFRP) underscores a central contradiction of capitalism: the pressure to maintain profitability amid declining returns on investment. Thus, the average rate of profit on US non-financial sector capital has been in a general decline over the past decade, only partially recovering in 2021 and 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic as profitability declined again in 2023 (Figure 1). Contemporary capitalism counters this tendency through three principal strategies: increasing surplus, generating waste, and expanding to the periphery. These dynamics are particularly evident in Serbia, where global economic crises intersect with local manifestations of dependency and exploitation.
Figure 1: US non-financial sector’s rate of profit on capital employed (%). Source: Michael Roberts (2024)
a) Increasing surplus: Green Transition and labor exploitation
Globally promoted as a solution to environmental and economic challenges, the “Green Transition” often masks the intensified extraction of surplus value. In Serbia, the controversial Jadar lithium project, spearheaded by multinational corporations, exemplifies this trend. While marketed as an environmentally friendly initiative, the project primarily serves the interests of global capital by exploiting Serbia’s natural resources and cheap labor, reflecting what Samir Amin identified as the use of technological advancement to amplify surplus extraction at the expense of workers and ecosystems.
The Global Green Transition, as argued by developing countries, also “kicks away the ladder” (Ha-Joon Chang, 2002), placing an excessive burden on them while stymieing their development. Simultaneously, it creates significant investment opportunities for Western capitalists, often shouldered by state subsidies. In the context of the Jadar project, this dynamic is particularly evident, as multinational corporations like Rio Tinto stand to benefit far more than the host country.
The Serbian government hails the Jadar project as a transformative investment that could increase GDP by anywhere from 2% to 16%, depending on the scope of value-adding activities. However, GDP is a highly imperfect measure—not only because it excludes many economically and socially valuable non-market activities but also because it reveals nothing about how the product is distributed or reinvested. The government implies that the GDP increase would translate to improved living standards for the population, yet this assumption remains highly questionable. If the lion’s share of profits is expatriated by Rio Tinto, Serbia becomes little more than a geographic location where that profit is generated, without significantly impacting its development trajectory.
Internally, this exploitation is reflected in the persistent gap between labor productivity and wage growth in Serbia (Figure 2). Over the period from 2010 to 2023, average net wage growth consistently outpaced labor productivity (measured as output per hour worked). This trend became particularly pronounced after 2015, highlighting the decoupling of wages from productivity gains.
From a Marxist perspective (Capital, Volume 1), this divergence can be interpreted as a form of redistribution within the working class, rather than a fundamental shift in the dynamics of capital accumulation and surplus value extraction. While rising wages may temporarily improve workers’ living standards, they do not fundamentally challenge the structural logic of capitalism. The surplus value created by workers is still appropriated by capital, and the observed wage increases could reflect the need to maintain social stability or incentivize labor in a context of low productivity growth.
Looking ahead, as Serbia reintegrates into global supply chains and resumes its role as a peripheral economy within the capitalist world-system, the sustainability of these wage gains remains uncertain. Foreign direct investment and export-oriented industries will likely prioritize cost competitiveness, potentially reversing the trend of wage growth outpacing productivity. This dynamic highlights the precarious nature of wage gains in addressing systemic inequality without broader structural changes to the mode of production.
Figure 2: Serbia’s wage and labor productivity. Source: Author, based on the National Bank of Serbia and ILOSTAT data.
This trend mirrors broader global dynamics, particularly in advanced economies like the United States and the European Union, where wage stagnation has been a persistent issue despite steady productivity growth. In the US, for instance, productivity increased by over 60% between 1980 and 2020, yet real wages grew by only 17% during the same period. Similarly, within the EU, significant disparities exist between the productivity and wage trajectories of member states, exacerbating inequality. These trends highlight how the global neoliberal economic order systematically prioritizes profit maximization and capital accumulation over equitable distribution, reinforcing a race to the bottom for workers in both core and peripheral economies. Serbia’s experience, therefore, is not an isolated case but a localized manifestation of a global phenomenon that underpins contemporary capitalism.
This “pass-through” arrangement—where wealth flows through Serbia only to return to its origin with little left behind—reflects the structural inequalities of global capitalism. It highlights how GDP growth, in isolation, is a poor proxy for meaningful development, particularly in peripheral economies. Moreover, local resistance to the project underscores the growing discontent with such exploitative arrangements, as communities question the ecological and social costs of hosting extractive industries for negligible national benefit.
b) Generating government waste
Another mechanism to counter the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is the generation of waste through unproductive expenditures. Serbia’s growing militarization mirrors global trends of using military expenditures as a tool to absorb surplus capital. The country’s 2025 decision to reintroduce conscription and purchase 12 French Rafale fighter jets, at a cost of €2.7 billion, reflects an increasing reliance on militarization, not as a strategic necessity but as an economic imperative.
Baran and Sweezy’s (1966) analysis of monopoly capitalism elucidates how military spending functions as a pseudo-solution to systemic contradictions, creating demand without addressing structural issues. Kalecki (1972) further explained the appeal of military Keynesianism to capitalists, noting that it is “limitless”—unconstrained by the physical infrastructure needs of society—and does not compete with private sector provision, instead funneling resources to private suppliers for “wasteful” purposes. In Serbia, this form of waste aligns with the significant increases in its military expenditures, which rose from 2.2% of GDP in 2018 to approximately 3.6% of GDP in 2023. This represents one of the fastest increases in military spending in the region. Had Serbia maintained its 2018 level of military expenditure, approximately $1.02 billion—equivalent to 1.4% of GDP—could have been redirected toward socially useful purposes, such as education, healthcare, or infrastructure development.
Figure 3 highlights Serbia’s sharp rise in military expenditures, which outpaces nearly all European countries, including NATO members. Despite not being a NATO member and therefore not bound by the 2% GDP defense spending guideline, Serbia’s defense budget has grown at an extraordinary rate, standing second to none in Europe except Poland (whose exceptional increase is driven by its unique geopolitical situation).
From a Marxist perspective, Serbia’s escalating military expenditure represents a transfer of resources toward unproductive activities that sustain capitalism’s inherent contradictions while deepening its peripheral status in the global economy. Military spending absorbs surplus capital, fulfilling a role in maintaining economic activity without addressing underlying structural issues such as low productivity and economic dependency. This trend reflects the dual pressures of domestic political stability and regional integration into global arms markets, underscoring the opportunity costs of prioritizing militarization over structural transformation.
Figure 3: Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP (Serbia and some European NATO members). Source: Author, based on the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data.
This form of waste is compounded by bloated government expenditures in the public sector, particularly in public enterprises. While the non-public sector has narrowed the wage gap from 22% to 5.4% over the past four years since August 2020, the public sector still leads in terms of salaries. Notably, public state enterprises feature even higher average salaries, reaching up to 152,997 RSD. This wage structure, while providing stability for public sector employees, raises concerns about inefficiencies and misallocation of resources. Higher public sector salaries may not always align with productivity and can divert funds from critical investments in infrastructure, health, and education (Amin, 1974).
Together, these patterns of militarization and inefficient public sector spending reflect systemic waste, reinforcing structural inequalities rather than addressing them. This misallocation of resources highlights the limitations of such expenditures as a means to counter the inherent contradictions of capitalism.
(c) Expansion to the periphery: Foreign direct investment
Serbia’s reliance on foreign direct investment (FDI) exemplifies capitalism’s expansionary logic, where peripheral economies are integrated into global value chains primarily as sites for low-value-added production. Chinese investments in key sectors such as mining (e.g., the Bor copper mine), steel production (e.g., the Smederevo steel plant), and energy underscore how foreign capital dominates Serbia’s economy, extracting resources and profits while leaving the structural weaknesses of the domestic economy unaddressed. This reliance locks Serbia into its peripheral status within the global capitalist system, with short-term GDP growth masking deeper dependencies.
In 2024, Serbia achieved an investment-grade credit rating (BBB-) with a stable outlook from S&P, which government officials hailed as a milestone. President Aleksandar Vučić and Finance Minister Siniša Mali highlighted the anticipated benefits of this upgrade: increased FDI inflows, lower borrowing costs on capital markets, and improved economic growth, employment, and living standards. However, this optimistic outlook underscores Serbia’s ongoing dependency on foreign capital markets and external financing to sustain its economic model. While the investment-grade rating is likely to facilitate further borrowing and attract investors, it fails to address the structural constraints of an economy reliant on low-wage labor and resource extraction.
Samir Amin argued 50 years ago that an increase in FDI in developing countries strengthens their dependence on goods and services produced in the capitalist center and results in an increase in capital outflows. Indeed, the contrast between rising FDI inflows and growing total capital outflows highlights the contradictions of Serbia’s integration into global capitalism (Figure 4). From 2007 to 2023, FDI inflows steadily increased, peaking at €4.56 billion in 2023. At the same time, total capital outflows (including profit repatriation, reinvested earnings, and interest payments) more than quadrupled, reaching nearly €9 billion in 2023. While FDI provides immediate capital inflows, it is accompanied by systemic value extraction, as profits generated in Serbia are repatriated to foreign investors, reinforcing the country’s role as a surplus exporter within the global system.
This dynamic is further reflected in Serbia’s debt servicing burden. Despite a significant decline in the foreign debt-to-GDP ratio—from a peak of 73.1% in 2012 to 59.4% in the first quarter of 2024—the debt service-to-GDP ratio has remained stubbornly high, around 10% over the past decade, reaching 11.4% in 2024. In 2025, the country is expected to pay €1.88 billion in interest alone, an increase of €300 million compared to 2024. Despite government claims of improved borrowing terms following its investment-grade credit rating, the reality suggests otherwise. For example, loans denominated in dinars for EXPO 27 projects attract interest rates exceeding 8% (3-month Belibor + 3.3%), highlighting the rising cost of financing. This indicates that while the overall stock of debt relative to GDP has declined, the terms of borrowing or the repayment structure have placed significant strain on the economy. From a Marxist perspective, these trends reflect a continuous transfer of surplus value to global financial markets, where peripheral economies like Serbia incur high costs to sustain their integration into the global capitalist system.
While Serbia’s leadership promotes FDI as a path to economic modernization, the reality is that such investments often prioritize profit repatriation over local development. Resource-intensive industries and environmentally damaging projects exacerbate social and ecological challenges while leaving little room for long-term, sustainable growth. Ultimately, Serbia’s strategy of attracting FDI and cheap capital serves to entrench its position in the global division of labor, ensuring that the benefits of growth remain unequally distributed both domestically and internationally. The rising outflows of surplus value starkly demonstrate that while FDI might promise modernization, it ultimately perpetuates dependency and the peripheral status of Serbia in the global economy.
Figure 4: Serbia’sFDI inflows and total capital outflows. Source: Author, based on the National Bank of Serbia data.
Global fragmentation and decline of Western hegemony
The weakening of Western hegemony and the rise of multipolarity are reshaping global politics, with Serbia positioned at the intersection of competing forces. This transition reflects broader systemic changes in the global capitalist order, as declining centers of power contend with the ascent of new players. Giovanni Arrighi‘s The Long Twentieth Century (1994) provides a theoretical lens to understand this shift, highlighting how periods of hegemonic decline often coincide with the fragmentation of established power structures and the emergence of new centers of accumulation.
Serbia’s balancing act reflects its pragmatic approach to navigating these shifting dynamics, maintaining ties with both Eastern and Western powers. This pragmatism is particularly evident in its response to EU pressure to impose sanctions on Russia, as Serbia continues to rely heavily on Russian natural gas. Over 90% of Serbia’s gas imports come from Russia, with Gazprom remaining the dominant supplier. This reliance underscores Serbia’s economic vulnerability while highlighting its cautious steps toward diversification.
In 2024, Serbia began operationalizing a gas supply agreement with Azerbaijan as part of its diversification strategy. While gas exports from Azerbaijan represent less than 15% of Serbia’s domestic demand of roughly 2.5 billion cubic meters per year, almost all of which is imported, the initiative is considered significant for diversifying energy sources. This move aligns with the European Union’s broader strategy to reduce dependence on Russian energy, even as Serbia seeks to maintain its favorable gas contracts with Russia.
The EU’s Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, launched in 2024, allocates €1.58 billion to Serbia over the 2024-2027 period, making it the largest recipient in the region. This funding, consisting of €525 million in grants and €1.05 billion in favorable loans, aims to support infrastructure development, the green transition, and digitalization. While the plan underscores the EU’s strategic interest in Serbia as a key regional partner, it also highlights the conditional nature of EU support, tied to reforms under the Reform Agenda. For Serbia, this initiative represents both an opportunity to advance its development goals and a challenge to navigate growing tensions between aligning with EU standards and maintaining its ties to Eastern powers like China and Russia. This balancing act, central to Serbia’s foreign and domestic policies, continues to shape its geopolitical and economic strategies.
n 2004, Serbia sought to diversify its partnerships beyond the West. The visits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron to Belgrade in 2024 exemplify the country’s strategic balancing act. Xi’s visit in May resulted in 28 agreements spanning infrastructure, energy, technology, and trade, underscoring China’s strategic interest in Serbia as a regional gateway for its Belt and Road Initiative. Macron’s visit in August, on the other hand, highlighted the European Union’s ongoing attempts to maintain its influence in Serbia and ensure alignment with EU policies. These visits represent contrasting global forces—East and West—vying for influence in Serbia, but they are far from the full picture.
A political analyst reviewing the geography of high-level visits to Serbia in 2024 could equally defend opposing theses: that Serbia is a Russian stooge aligned with the East and anti-EU, or that it is a pro-Western, ardent EU aspirant. On the one hand, the “Eastern” narrative is supported by visits such as those of Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov (coinciding with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit in October), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (often seen as a thorn in the EU’s side), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. These high-profile engagements reflect Serbia’s strengthening ties with non-Western powers, emphasizing its efforts to align with rising multipolar trends.
On the other hand, the “Western” narrative draws upon a similarly impressive roster of visits. In addition to Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (October), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (June), and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (July) all visited Serbia in 2024. These visits underscore the EU’s strategic interest in anchoring Serbia within its sphere of influence and advancing the country’s EU accession process. Serbia also hosted Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in May, signaling solidarity with Ukraine and its Western allies.
Yet, 2024 showed no surge of enthusiasm for EU accession within Serbia itself. A February 2024 NSPM poll revealed that support for Serbia joining the EU had fallen to 42.8%, with 36.8% opposed—a sharp decline from 75% support in 2006. Another poll indicated that 76% of respondents opposed EU membership if it required recognizing Kosovo’s independence. These results highlight the increasing political divide and the challenges surrounding Serbia’s EU integration process.
The EU’s ability to drive reforms through conditionality—a key factor in moving candidate countries to align with EU standards—has significantly weakened. No new negotiation chapters have been opened since 2021. Even the opening of Chapter 3 (on services), a relatively technical issue, has faced objections from eight EU member states due to Serbia’s non-compliance with EU foreign policy criteria. This stagnation reflects the broader disillusionment with the EU accession process, both within Serbia and among EU members, further complicating Serbia’s geopolitical positioning.
Serbia’s diversification strategy is also evident in its foreign direct investment (FDI) patterns (Figure 5). While the European Union collectively remains Serbia’s largest investor, China has emerged as the single largest investor in the past four years, with FDI inflows reaching €1.37 billion in 2023. This growth is particularly pronounced in sectors such as mining, energy, and infrastructure, reflecting China’s strategic interest in Serbia as a gateway to the Balkans. Meanwhile, traditional EU investors like Austria and Germany maintain their presence but are increasingly overshadowed by the growing influence of non-Western powers. Turkey also plays a growing role in FDI, aligning with its expanding trade relations with Serbia.
Figure 5: Top five investors in Serbia. Source: Author, based on the National Bank of Serbia data.
However, as discussed above, the influx of FDI—whether from the EU or China—does not come without challenges. While it provides immediate capital and supports GDP growth, it also facilitates significant capital outflows. As highlighted, total capital outflows from Serbia have more than quadrupled since 2007, reaching nearly €9 billion in 2023. This dynamic underscores the structural constraints of Serbia’s economic model, where the benefits of FDI are offset by profit repatriation and other forms of surplus extraction. From this perspective, even China’s growing role as Serbia’s largest investor does little to mitigate the country’s peripheral status in the global economy, as foreign investments prioritize profit over local development.
This multivector approach exemplifies Serbia’s ability to maneuver within a fragmented global order. While trade ties with China and Turkey have expanded significantly, the diversification of FDI sources highlights the complexity of Serbia’s integration into the global economy. However, this diversification also exposes contradictions inherent in Serbia’s geopolitical positioning. While closer ties with China, Turkey, and others bring new opportunities for investment and trade, they also risk deepening dependency on external powers, albeit different from the West.
From a Marxist perspective (Arrighi, 1994), Serbia’s balancing act reflects the declining stability of the global capitalist system, where the core-periphery hierarchy is increasingly contested. The fragmentation of Western hegemony may open space for smaller states to assert agency, but it also highlights the enduring mechanisms of dependency, extraction, and surplus transfer that underpin global capitalism. Serbia’s experience demonstrates the potential and limits of navigating these tectonic shifts in global power, as the country remains firmly embedded in the contradictions of a fragmented world.
Serbia as a Mirror of the Global Crisis of Capitalism
The events in Serbia throughout 2024 offer a microcosm of the global crisis of capitalism. Politically, the deepening erosion of liberal democracy mirrors global trends of polarization and stagnation. The continued dominance of the Serb Progressive Party, despite widespread dissatisfaction, highlights the inability of opposition forces to present a coherent alternative, a phenomenon Kagarlitsky aptly attributes to the retreat of the left from material struggles. The rise of populism, the absence of a genuine left, and the hollowing out of democracy reflect the systemic contradictions of capitalism, which is unable to provide stability even in its core, let alone in its periphery.
Economically, Serbia illustrates how capitalism counters the tendency of the rate of profit to fall through surplus extraction, waste generation, and peripheral expansion. The persistent gap between productivity and wage growth highlights the intensification of labor exploitation. Military spending and inefficient public sector wages, while absorbing surplus capital, fail to address structural issues and instead deepen Serbia’s dependency on external financing. The expansion of foreign direct investment, particularly from China, underlines the contradictions of globalization. While FDI provides short-term capital inflows, it is accompanied by systemic capital outflows and profit repatriation, reinforcing Serbia’s role as a peripheral economy within the global system.
Geopolitically, Serbia’s balancing act between the East and the West encapsulates the fragmentation of global hegemony. The competing visits by leaders from China, Russia, and Turkey on the one hand, and the EU and NATO-aligned countries on the other, underscore Serbia’s strategic importance in a multipolar world. Yet this diversification, while politically significant, fails to alter the underlying economic dependencies that tie Serbia to the core-periphery dynamics of global capitalism.
Taken together, these dimensions reflect the broader crisis of global capitalism: a system marked by declining hegemony, deepening inequalities, and systemic contradictions. As Rosa Luxemburg argued, “Capitalism, by its very nature, drives beyond national boundaries. The contradiction between its expansionary tendencies and the constraints of national and global systems leads inevitably to crises and, ultimately, its own demise.” Serbia’s experiences in 2024 not only mirror these global trends but also offer a stark reminder of the enduring struggles of peripheral economies to navigate the crises of a deeply fractured world order.