How long do you give western civilisation?

[El Rojo]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but anyhoo

How long do you imagine the capitalist way of life can continue? No civilisation, no empire, lasts forever, and our own is starting to look somewhat shaky. Oil is running out, immigration is increasing, despite all attempts to thwart it, nuclear proliferation of unstable nation-states is also on the rise. The entire economic system is in debt, and to top it all, global warming by at least 2 degrees (assuming Copenhagen is somehow a sucess) is inevitable.

Personally, I give western civilisation no more than half a century. I hate to put a timescale to revolution, but i would estimate socialism or barbarism in 50 years.

[RedRise]

Gosh - the end seems very close when you put it like that. But define western civilization? The British Empire that started America, Australia, etc is long gone. And the 'east' is catching up. What we refer to as 'western' civilization is fast disappearing but that does not mean we will become uncivilized. Heck, since when did only the west have a civilization? And how is that any better/worse than what is in the 'east'?
Also, assuming your theory is correct for a moment, where do you predict the revolution would start?

[bcbm]

i think that if we don't seriously change some fundamental things about global society in the next five to ten years, we're going to see some drastic and not necessarily positive developments in the next twenty to fifty years. but i'm a bit of a cynic.

[El Rojo]

fair enough about western civilisation. it was badly put. call it the "western way of life." yuck. you know, fossil fuel guzzling, digital, globalised. admittedly culture and traditions vary throught the world, but the coke billboards are omni-present.

and i haven't the foggyest when the revolution will start, here in Blighty im not seeing many signs.

[ComradeMan]

Well leaving aside 21-Dec-2012...! :)

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but anyhoo

How long do you imagine the capitalist way of life can continue?
No civilisation, no empire, lasts forever, and our own is starting to look somewhat shaky.

Oil is running out- well perhaps by 2040/2050 we will see the last drops of oil run out if no new reserves are found. But don't forget Antarctica, how long will they be able to keep their hands off those reserves- especially if the ice-caps are melting anyway? The global capitalist economy and industrial world do not give a hoot about a few penguins.

immigration is increasing- I don't see this really as a problem in itself but rather a sympton of a greater problem. If people are mass emigrating from developing countries it means that all is not well in those countries. If we then ask the question as to why all is not well in those countries we come round full circle again to the root causes.

nuclear proliferation of unstable nation-states is also on the rise- This is worrying, but I am cautious about the idea of stable and non-stable nations. I don't think anyone should have nuclear weapons and I don't like nuclear energy. Afterall the US is the only nations that has ever used nuclear weapons against anyone and yet feels it has the right to dictate who should and should not have these horrible weapons in the first place. Doesn't that strike you as a little hypocritical in the least? What is worring is the idea of small, radical and extremist groups getting their hands on weapons...

The entire economic system is in debt, and to top it all- the economic system is in debt I agree, largely due to the excesses and greed and perhaps downright dishonesty of the capitalist system which has feet of clay. Clobalisation is not a good thing in my opinion, certainly not in the space of 10-15 years and now we are beginning to see the results.

global warming by at least 2 degrees - well I wouldn't want to have a house in Venice, Rotterdam, Florida, Bangladesh or a small atoll in the pacific. We are potentially facing a huge loss in land territory and where are the people going to go?

I think another point that you have omitted is the demographics of an aging population. In Italy there was a protest recently by the apolitical B-day youth protesting in general at the fact that whilst young people in Italy today are bombarded by materialism and consumerism and they can have any kind of mobile phone they want it is increasingly more difficult to buy a house and have a family. The birth rate in Italy has dropped alarmingly and this demographic imbalance- a sign of "progress" is also going to have its repercussions.

I give it until about 2050 at the latest. I am not predicting some kind of apocalypse but I do think there will be a socio-economic collapse and a massive re-thinking of politics in general.

I would like to add here that when people talk about the US being the world's superpower they are buying into the great myth. The US is only a superpower because it says it is all the time. Whatever the case, I am sure that the 21st century is going to be China's century, for as Napoleon once said "Let the dragon sleep, for when she wakes the world will tramble" or something like that anyway.

[New Tet]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but anyhoo

How long do you imagine the capitalist way of life can continue? No civilisation, no empire, lasts forever, and our own is starting to look somewhat shaky.

"Starting to"? Comrade, this has been going on for more time than you and I actually remember.

By the late 1840's, Marx and others had described the decay and fall of capitalism with considerable prescience and clinical exactitude.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/


Oil is running out, immigration is increasing, despite all attempts to thwart it, nuclear proliferation of unstable nation-states is also on the rise. The entire economic system is in debt, and to top it all, global warming by at least 2 degrees (assuming Copenhagen is somehow a sucess) is inevitable.

Oil is a good point in fact. It was the discovery of large oil deposits in many regions that gave renewed impetus to capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th Ceturies, I think. Dirty, rotten, stinking oil.


Personally, I give western civilisation no more than half a century. I hate to put a timescale to revolution, but i would estimate socialism or barbarism in 50 years.


How can we decide? And what is to be done in the meantime?

[New Tet]

Gosh - the end seems very close when you put it like that. But define western civilization? The British Empire that started America, Australia, etc is long gone. And the 'east' is catching up. What we refer to as 'western' civilization is fast disappearing but that does not mean we will become uncivilized. Heck, since when did only the west have a civilization? And how is that any better/worse than what is in the 'east'?
Also, assuming your theory is correct for a moment, where do you predict the revolution would start?

Hopefully, in our minds.

[New Tet]

i think that if we don't seriously change some fundamental things about global society in the next five to ten years, we're going to see some drastic and not necessarily positive developments in the next twenty to fifty years. but i'm a bit of a cynic.

Which "fundamental things" did you have in mind?

[rebelmouse]

I believe that nature will destroy us all because of capitalism, when it will be happen, i don't know. it could be 2012, or 2200... in the meantime, capitalism will increase control and secure their surviving. I don't think that we are enough strong to realize revolution and destroy present system, but I believe that we should work about it in any case. I think that capitalism will be very weakened by itself, from inside, because of their greedy/ness and contradictions inside of system, and revolutionaries should be then there to finish it, to abolish it forever. but when it will be... we can not say. we could not foreseen/predict financial crisis last and this year, so we can not predict next crisis. it can be happen anytime.
in any case, to stop global capitalism, we must stop global traffic of their goods. united mass strike of transport workers can damage global capitalism (corporations, they keep 75% of world market in their hands) very much. therefore our longer strategy should be to employ more and more revolutionaries in transport centers (truck drivers, train drivers, the main european harbors (hamburg, rotterdam, etc))....

[bcbm]

Which "fundamental things" did you have in mind?

capitalism, our general treatment of the world. small things.

[gorillafuck]

immigration is increasing
So?

[the last donut of the night]

The funniest thing in this thread is how comrades are applying some teleological mismatch story to current history when they should know better than that.

It is a very entertaining thought that one day, conditions will be so shitty that the revolution will just arise out our asses. I would love for this to be true; it'd mean a whole less work for a lot of us. However, we know this doesn't happen, and the communism will not be brought out of paper by the supposed 'fall' of 'civilization'. It will be brought by the proletariat, and the proletariat only.

Hell, with nuclear weapons and an increasing scarcity in energy reserves, it is entirely possible that capitalism could destroy our species. It'd be such a sad thing to know that 150 years of effort have gone in vain because we sat on our asses, staring at our computers, and hoping for some prophecy to come true.

[bcbm]

It will be brought by the proletariat, and the proletariat only.

this much is true. i'm not sure how much time we spend staring at our computers or not will really effect that, though.

[mikelepore]

How long do you imagine the capitalist way of life can continue?

I believe capitalism will last for an unlimited time, until those of us who believe in creating a new system can find an effective way to educate and recruit people, and a coherent political and industrial program worth recruiting people over to.

In saying an unlimited time, I mean this literally. If capitalism's opponents don't shape up, we will eventually have people living on intergalactic starships who will have to go on strike for a living wage and a forty-hour workweek. No matter how stark the absurdity appears to the revolutionary observers, the social system as-is can go on indefinitely.

As automation makes productivity exponentiate further, we may eventually have 0.001 percent of the people owning 99.999 percent of the wealth, but that development would only be quantitative. The fundamental nature of the system can continue largely unaffected.

[turquino]

Nature puts a bound on capitalism. The depletion of Earth’s natural resources, particularly fossil fuels and valuable minerals, will threaten the indefinite continuation of capitalist production. We might soon see peak oil, and may have already witnessed peak gold. The danger of a peak isn’t that oil or gold production will end, but that they will require increasingly large amounts of abstract human labour to extract. The rise in value of these resources will cause a fall in the rate of profit of industries that utilize them. Capitalists live for profit. Thinner and thinner profits will strangle innovation and spur greater monopolization or bourgeois state-ownership of industry. Eventually even the ability to replace worn out constant capital will be strained and expansion will disappear. I can’t predict what will happen after that.

Of course, this is assuming humans don’t wipe themselves out in a nuclear war first. If the chance of a conflict escalating to nuclear war is 5% every year, then after 10 years there is a 60% chance of no war; after 25 years just 28%. Like a game of Russian roulette, played for enough years it will be the end of humanity.

[RHIZOMES]

Oil is running out, immigration is increasing, despite all attempts to thwart it,

Oh no, not immigration!! It'll be the fall of the West as we know it!!


nuclear proliferation of unstable nation-states is also on the rise.

Funnily enough, all of those "unstable" nation-states are an enemy to the US. What a coincidence. Because Iran and North Korea just want to bomb the entire the world to smithereens, am I right? Nothing to do with the fact the US wants to give them a regime change. :rolleyes:

Fuck this chauvinist thread.

[ZeroNowhere]

Funnily enough, all of those "unstable" nation-states are an enemy to the US. What a coincidence. Because Iran and North Korea just want to bomb the entire the world to smithereens, am I right? Nothing to do with the fact the US wants to give them a regime change. :rolleyes:
I'm pretty sure they were referring to Israel and India.

[RedRise]

The depletion of Earth’s natural resources, particularly fossil fuels and valuable minerals, will threaten the indefinite continuation of capitalist production.

We may be depleting the earth of the things that we use today but I have no doubt that, if we don't completely wipe ourselves out, we will find another power source. And nuclear power, as long as we don't have any more Chernobyls, is pretty stable for the moment at least. My view is that when we run out of oil and there hasn't been a revolution the somebody is going to find something else they can exploit and off they go all over again. There is still the chance that we will completely screw up our planet and all die out but can't we be optimistic for just a sec?
Also,


If the chance of a conflict escalating to nuclear war is 5% every year

Where did you here this?:confused: There I was thinking that the world, thanks to so-called politics and other 'less violent ways of conveying the message', was becoming a more peaceful place. I possibly have this completely wrong.:o

[El Rojo]

To clarify, when stated that immigration is on the rise, in no way did I intent to suggest that this is a bad thing, I am just saying that if the current trends are followed, this seems to lead to a policestate, fortress europe scenario, with increasing deportations and border security.

When I stated that nuclear proliferation is on the rise in unstable nation states, in no way is this an attack on said states. Whatever one's stance on anti-imperialist states such as Iran and N Korea (i was thinking Pakistan) it cannot be denied that there is always a degree of risk of nuclear conflict if opposing states have nuclear weapons. Shit, nobody even knew how much nuclear material the russians left in Khazakstan, it is known that Iran was shopping for fissle material there. its a miracle we are not all glowing green already.

Nor am i suggesting that we sit back and wait for the collapse of civilisation to bring about revolution. This was merely idle speculation concerning our timeframe, how long the current political/economic system has left. The western way of life has outlived all predictions of its downfall, but we cannot assume that conditions will stay as stable as they are now (although it may be pushing it to call our current situation stable)

[Dimentio]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but anyhoo

How long do you imagine the capitalist way of life can continue? No civilisation, no empire, lasts forever, and our own is starting to look somewhat shaky. Oil is running out, immigration is increasing, despite all attempts to thwart it, nuclear proliferation of unstable nation-states is also on the rise. The entire economic system is in debt, and to top it all, global warming by at least 2 degrees (assuming Copenhagen is somehow a sucess) is inevitable.

Personally, I give western civilisation no more than half a century. I hate to put a timescale to revolution, but i would estimate socialism or barbarism in 50 years.

2050-2070 capitalism will go into tatters, due to the biosustainability crisis (most of the world's ecosystems would have collapsed by then).

[Luisrah]

I'm guessing that the world really needs to be horrible for a revolution to come up.

Things aren't changing because people are active in politics that much. When this starts to REALLY go wrong, and when everyone can feel it on their skins and know what's going on, then, and only then will this change.

Because we will be there to show the people what needs to be done for a better life.

[the last donut of the night]

I'm guessing that the world really needs to be horrible for a revolution to come up.

Things aren't changing because people are active in politics that much. When this starts to REALLY go wrong, and when everyone can feel it on their skins and know what's going on, then, and only then will this change.

Because we will be there to show the people what needs to be done for a better life.


Yes, but it would be so much better to not wait until shit gets that bad because it would be so much easier to just take existing wealth from the capitalists' hands and just hand it over to ourselves instead of having to rebuild industry.

[danny bohy]

Revolution is not an apple that will fall when it is ripe. you have to reach up and snatch it down- che guevera.

and i think 2050 is very optimistic. Industrialism will not stop until it cannot go on. i mean really look at the state the planet is in already. forests disappearing, pollution every where, mass extinction and global warming. if they havent changed by now there not going to. i dont think anyone is stupid enough to think the world is in a good way. People in developed countrys are so lazy and greedy its just so much easier for them to remain in denial. not until the world is awash with toxic waste, nuclear fall out and there is no poles or forests will they stop and consider a new way.

[cska]

I would say about 15-20 years till America collapses. The other developed countries should follow suit 5-10 years afterwards. I'm not sure if Russia is going to collapse any time soon. China will collapse at some point because of he massive demographic crisis they will have on their hands, but I will have to look at the population curve to estimate when.

[cska]

Revolution is not an apple that will fall when it is ripe. you have to reach up and snatch it down- che guevera.

and i think 2050 is very optimistic. Industrialism will not stop until it cannot go on. i mean really look at the state the planet is in already. forests disappearing, pollution every where, mass extinction and global warming. if they havent changed by now there not going to. i dont think anyone is stupid enough to think the world is in a good way. People in developed countrys are so lazy and greedy its just so much easier for them to remain in denial. not until the world is awash with toxic waste, nuclear fall out and there is no poles or forests will they stop and consider a new way.

Here in America we aren't industrialists anymore. People aren't motivated to learn and work, and most of the GDP is services, not production. And we can't import smart Asians anymore.

[Luisrah]

Yes, but it would be so much better to not wait until shit gets that bad because it would be so much easier to just take existing wealth from the capitalists' hands and just hand it over to ourselves instead of having to rebuild industry.

Better that than another fascist nightmare, which would probably lead again to the ''bring back democracy'', and before you knew it, socialism would be far for another 100 years.

[Xael]

It seems pretty undeniable that by the year 2100, things will be extremely different than they are right now.

Obviously, we all have pretty much the same idea as to what should be done to fix this, or else we wouldn't even be on this site.

Sooo, we know that infinite consumption and population growth can't happen on a planet that doesn't have infinite resources or space respectively, and we all believe that a marxist revolution would lead to a more stable society, given its success, "greenification", the hope that global warming is false, reversible, or not yet bad enough to kill everyone, etc. Sooo...why hasn't it happened? Well, I'd have to agree with Luisrah....these ideas of future suffering exist only in the abstract mind because we aren't dealing with them in a way we can feel, and thusly, despite our common ideas, don't feel that the issue is pressing enough to risk our lives in revolution. I have a sense that nothing would happen unless you could feel the effects of the fall in your own daily life. I'm sure as hell not ready to pick up a gun and revolt right this minute, even though I know theoretically that the result would be worth while, and better than what we are doing now. I suppose that this may just be part of human psychology....the prevalence of the tangible over the abstract, mixed with some good ol' self-preservation.

[The Ben G]

I would give it between 15 and 150 more years. By then either a revolution has sprung up or the capitalists exauhst the worlds natural rescources.