i always took the various “socialism or barbarism” quotes as hinting at the various fascist resurgences. that no longer seems like a satisfying answer to me. after all, how can there be a reactionary fighting force of capital without any capital? i recently read the following:
Sometimes, as in the Roman Empire, the inability of new forms of production to develop meant that eventually there was no longer enough wealth being produced to maintain society on its old basis. Civilisation collapsed, the cities were destroyed and people reverted to a crude, agricultural form of society.
- Chris Harman, How Marxism Works, Chapter 3
what would this look like after capital? what if the proletariat, for whatever reason, never takes power on a global scale? in short, what is barbarism?
i hope this is a coherent and answerable post. it’s very late for me so maybe there’s an obvious hole in my logic that i’m just not seeing that deflates the whole thing.
Barbarism doesn’t just mean, “People or states doing evil things”.
What OP was most likely referring too was the breakdown of globalism and fragmentation of the human population into infinitely small cliques, warlords, factions, and failed states that are scrambling to survive the collapse of logistical chains.
War zones are an edge case as the normal laws of society break down under the constant state of emergency. Gaza is also a forced scenario that would otherwise not exist if the constant pressure of Israeli aggression were removed. While things have certainly gotten worse, Gaza is also still a part of the globalist system, and relies desperately on foreign imports and aid to eek out a tiny subsistence existence.