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.
I agree. I think that after a period of collapse you’d see a lot of like “experimental” ideologies. People remixing old ideas and trying out new things while claiming to be the “enlightened” ones who know best. Who won’t make the mistakes of the past. I think ultimately these will all pale in comparison to AES states and the rest of the world will slowly just willingly start copying them. Simply because success speaks for itself.