Capitalist Intensification and the End of Times

Climate change and economic and social regression

In most end-of-time type movies, the plotline usually involves the earth coming together and realising its shared humanity as protagonists — usually American — save the world. This narrative is accompanied by poetic images and speeches are used about how we are all citizens of earth and want to live in comfort and peace. This is not going to happen.

As the world surely heads towards catastrophe, we do not have the tools or the mindset to come together as human beings. Worse than that we are being actively held back from even coming close to the level of kumbaya we need to have anything remotely close to a movie ending.

As such, the world will not be saved, catastrophe will strike, and with it more famine, war, disease and oppression will come.

I want you to focus on the word more which I have used above. What is to come is not going to be something new, it will simply be an intensification of what we already have, and this intensification has already begun. Famine, war, disease, and oppression are not some distance threats, they are already here in a more acceptable, sterilized, and normalized way than in the shocking CGI world of movies. Unlike biblical references to the apocalypse, ours will not be caused by celestial intervention, it will be the natural conclusion of the systems and tools we use to govern the world with. We are our own apocalypse.

How we got here

In 2008 we witnessed one of the largest financial crashes ever. The financial bailouts and austerity measures that followed and continue to be implemented have resulted in a significant drop in quality of life for almost everyone around the world. This as production rates and output continues to grow. Although globalisation has resulted in reduced prices for consumer goods, this impact is nowhere to be found when it comes to essential needs such as rent, housing markets, and education.

This dynamic didn’t start in 2008, rather 2008 presented an intensification of a process that has been unfolding since globalism was adopted in the 70’s. Since then, productivity has risen by 72.2% while hourly wages rose only by 9.2%. This has meant that the gap between rich and poor has widened to astronomical figures.

On the other hand, failures in international diplomacy have also lead to one of the biggest refugee crises. Interventionist follies in Libya and Syria (as well as Iraq and Afghanistan previously) have made millions of people seek refuge and better living conditions in Europe with similar dynamics now unfolding in the US and Canada. This happened in a climate where ISIS terrorist attacks were striking across Europe creating a deadly mix of economic and security concerns. A climate that has resulted in already changing demographics in Western countries to be seen through an even more critical lens leading to dramatic increases in hate-related crime and a sense of identity loss.

These two major changes have lead to a rise in existential anxiety, and with the absence of a progressive response/way forward, a regressive path was too easy to fall back on.

Nationalist intensification

Nationalism is back in vogue and is being presented as a counteraction to globalism. Hoping to restore glory and prosperity two currents emerge here, the first, a historical revisionism which harkens back to a purer/better time seeks to cut a nation from the rest of the world.

This is presented best in the isolationism of Trumps America First and the UK’s Take Back Control moto which arose with the Brexit vote. Nevertheless, this movement is seen as a withdrawal into the nation and away from international or supranational bodies such as the UN, EU, NATO and others or at least a rise in scepticism towards them. Nationalism, then, is an intensification of an us vs. them model of thinking.

Again it is important to understand why nationalism is an intensification of a process and not a new process altogether. The first clue to this is that there was never a time where America was not putting itself first or a time when the UK was not in control. It is just that the methods in which these were practised where different.

With a nationalist/isolationist mindset. Free trade is seen as suspect, tariffs are imposed, and manufacturing is revived. However, countries find themselves in a situation where these old tools no longer work since multinational organizations already have the infrastructure and power to easily pursue the lowest-cost country to operate in. This has led to an intensification where countries now compete to be hosts. This means reducing barriers to operation including workers rights, cutting regulations that protect consumers and the environment, and providing incentives for organizations to grow be it tax cuts or subsidies. This results in reduced budget and naturally a culling of social services which have already been greatly reduced by a program of austerity following the 2008 economic crash.

Ultimately, this has resulted in a race to the bottom that has increased the financial precarity of most people as social assistance systems are stripped to the bone killing social mobility and job prospects are less paid and less stable due to the removal of workers rights all in the name of restoring growth on a macro level. This intensification will also be seen on an international level, as competition increases so will confrontation for resource rights and trade routes.

The interesting thing to note about all of this is that this is exactly where the world already was before the 70’s this form of economic competition is specifically what brought on globalisation, free-market agreements, and international regulatory bodies. This is to say that the only thing this regressive strategy will be successful in doing is repeating history and bringing us back to this very same spot years down the line, that is, if we are still around.

Authoritarian Intensification

Re-drawing us and them economically also has a significant social impact, especially when taken with the ‘golden age’ narrative. Naturally, going back to the methods of the old, the methods that ‘works’, also means creating the same social conditions that allowed them to work. Demographic changed as such is no longer seen through a ‘melting pot’ lens, rather they are seen as impediments to achieving golden age status. This is also the case with individualistic struggles that will be seen as a threat to establishing an order that can ‘take a country back’.

A clear space to witness this in is gender-identity. Here the backlash for things such as transexual rights has seen severe backlash even though the impact of providing any such rights for other is non-existent. The backlash seen here is extremely illiberal and is shut down even violently in places precisely because it is seen as a challenge to order, a challenge that can get in the way of doing what needs to be done to get things back on track.

To deal with this challenge, those in power will find allies in unscrupulous places to quell any event that may challenge their legitimacy.

Again, this is not to say that this sort of pushback was not present in the past, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Gay and civil rights activists fought a prolonged battle to attain the rights we already have. The same can be said for immigration activists who like to see clear paths to citizenship, but even those hard-earned rights are now under threat due to this intensification.

The Impending Crisis

It is easy to see how intensification compounds instead of solves the problems at hand. Reduced standards of living lead to calls of change which, absent of an alternative, leads to the adoption of antiquated methods that require authoritarian leadership.

On its own, this intensification can and will be reversed with time — after it has done significant damage. However, as it stands, we do not have the luxury of time, especially considering that the biggest threat we currently face is the near inconquerable one of climate change.

I want to be clear here, I don’t think Climate change is going to be the end of the world. Climate change is simply an incredibly salient and horrifying third level of intensification. If you think that current cases of mass migration are bad, imagine what will happen when natural disasters such as droughts and floodings become regular occurrences.

As it stands, the actions being taken against climate change is woefully inadequate, and competitive economic intensification means that a lot of what was being done could soon be abandoned or that, cynically, the only ‘green’ initiatives that will be maintained or adopted are the ones that ensure the preservation of current systems. Systems that are already failing to meet the basic needs of their own citizens.

What is to be Done?

It should be clear by now that if we don’t undertake drastic changes, the intensification brought on by climate change will only push us further into regression. Holding on to the systems that brought us here is simply unsustainable.

As such, it is not globalism or internationalism that needs to be disavowed, rather a new kind of globalism and internationalism needs to be adopted. One that truly sees this problem as a world problem and that seeks to address it as such irrespective of borders and economic interest. This means moving away from the capitalist profit-driven system altogether.

The world already operates at a level where we overproduce our basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing, yet the world's resources continue to be ravaged, intervention over resources and trade routes continue to dominate violent politics, and inequality increasing for the sake of private profit, profit that does not trickle down. Why are we still doing this? Obviously, the needs of the few are being prioritized over the needs of the many here, even at a local level.

Only by getting rid of the capitalist for-profit system can we engage with problems such as climate change from a rational and collaborative perspective as opposed to a cynical and spiteful one that has seen the US pull out of the moderate Paris Climate Agreement, and if the famine, war, disease, and oppression that is sure to come with climate change is not enough to get us to abandon this defunct system, then maybe we deserve the end of times.