Rules: you’re not allowed to say “never.” We already know it’s possible it will end when everyone dies because of nuclear war or climate change or some other disaster. Name a specific year (within this century plz) and describe why capitalism will end at that time. Whoever is closest will get an extra food coupon at the local worker canteen. If you joke around I will be extremely disappointed in you :heartbreaking:
a lot of these are joke posts, but I’ve had a hunch for a while that it’ll be sometime in the first half of the 2030s. By then, things have gotten bad enough quickly enough, and there’s been enough time for proper buildup if the trends we’re seeing now stay at the same rate. It’s enough time for the left to get serious mainstream enough to counteract rising fascism, though I think over the next few years (5-7 give or take) it’s gonna look like the opposite is happening before we end up shifting into the direction necessary for capitalism to end. There will be some BASED moments, some really tragic “we came so close” events, some absolutely horrific “holy shit we’re doomed” points.
to give specific date predictions :curious-marx:
- it’ll wobble between getting closer and seeming like it’s getting further away, some big events but no dramatic real change up to 2024
- 2024-2026 things get a lot more dangerous for us, seems like capitalism/fascism has won for good, multiple compounding climate-change-caused refugee crises will be a major catalyst of right wing violence, left wing pushback is present and in some places massive, but largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. A lot of people will resign to “this is the way things are now”. War between PRC and NATO over Taiwan if it hasn’t started already
- 2027 is when climate resistance really kicks into full gear, get ready for some Pipeline Fireworks! “ecoterrorists” join the ranks of refugees as a major boogeyman, massive crackdowns on anything vaguely left-wing, (think somewhere between McCarthy and “first they came for the communists”) heavily repressive police states become the new norm even in places that currently aren’t as heavily policed, but especially in poor, poc dominated areas, refugee settlements, etc. Major shift in the war in favor of China, as NATO countries begin to spread themselves thin
- 2028-2031 Revolutionary groups become major players on the world stage with varying levels of success, I’d wager Latin America, South and West Asia, and possibly (big possibly) the US are the first to see some results. I wanna say the Phillipines is the first to successfully pull off a revolution, possibly as part of a new Pacific theatre, since this whole comment is based on pure gut feeling. If the US seems some action, it would probably be like a longer-term summer 2020, but with a bit more organization and deliberate actions being taken. Attempts for liberal astroturfing of these movements fail and some areas of the US (at the scale of mid-sized cities at the largest) become totally controlled by revolutionary groups. US government refuses to acknowledge these areas exist.
- 2033 If you are a member of the United States government, then pick a god and pray or pick a hell and lie there. Hasta la bye bye to freedom land as we know it, the eagle is dead. I will personally go over there and give every single consenting revolutionary of the former US a big, sloppy, socialist fraternal kiss (and more if requested, I have enough stamina for you all, volcel police be damned!!) This makes international news. (I’m talking about the kiss here, but the fall of the US will make headlines too) The US isn’t the only one to fall, and by now a large number of areas are explicitly socialist.
- 2034 onwards is kinda just war of attrition at this point. Capitalism doesn’t fully go away until maybe the 2050s or later, but it’s no longer the global status quo. We can say we have won at this point.
Damn gut feeling went off. I’ll be living in a barrel in the middle of the forest eating questionable mushrooms and talking to frogs whenever the tabloids find this post and ask how to get a hold of the modern Nostradamus
It sounds nice. My only major issue is that I don’t know if war with China is possible because then how will the hogs get their treats? It also generally seems too optimistic to me.
I don’t think war with China will be a decision made with any rationality to it honestly, mostly a desire to put them in their place and keep a global US hegemony that results in immense blowback that any rational person (read: not the people deciding to go to war) saw coming miles away.
2034 is less “global communism achieved” and more the point at which things shift more or less irreversibly in our favor. I say 2050s because frankly we’re gonna be fucked by the climate past the point of no return by then if we don’t get our shit together, and capitalism is antithetical to alleviating climate change. I’m optimistic because we’re fucked if the optimist path doesn’t play out and there’s no chance in hell I’m resigning to doomerism.
In 2063, following humanity’s First Contact with an extraterrestrial intelligent species, ten years after the end of World War III.
My favourite part of that episode is the final scene:
You know, Commander, having seen a little of the 21st century, there is one thing I don’t understand: how could they have let things get so bad?
That’s a good question. I wish I had an answer.
Both look directly into camera and stare, unblinking, for one minute.
Scenario 1: The CPC loses power. The international bourgeoisie regains the upper hand in geopolitics as the earth warms. AI advances to the point where human labor is displaced, but it is under the firm control of the capitalist class. This results in massive violence and wars of population attrition. Climate change is still a thing; none of the social or ecological problems have been solved. Life on Earth begins to resemble a Ulysses Tuggy novel. The remaining humans are subjected to extensive cybernetic mind control, kept in perpetual digital serfdom. Assassination drones prevent anyone from building power among the underclass. The few dozen of the world’s trillionnaires and hundreds of multibillionnaires escape Earth to live on the Mars Colony. Capitalism extinguishes itself and devolves into techno-feudalism in 2055.
Scenario 2: China gradually grows and becomes the economic and military world hegemon. Luckily, they were the first to reach the breakthrough in quantum computing. The US balkanizes, and by a combination of caution and good luck, none of the nukes are fired. Led by China, world socialist movements are victorious, and we are well on our way to the next horizons of human development by around 2082.
Scenario 3: We reach the point of peak everything. Climate change gets really bad, with 1 billion refugees fleeing across the planet, and we run low on oil, phosphorus, cobalt, rare earths, topsoil, and freshwater aquifer levels. Technological collapse causes social collapse around the globe. It doesn’t happen evenly- some places hold out for a while longer- but the several thousand localities are all sent back to 1800s technology or worse. There’s a wide variety of political/economic forms that take root, but anything that can be called capitalism is defunct. The new hodgepodge of protean civilizations advance in various directions at various rates, but the most successful ones are the ones who got together early on in the collapse, dedicated to principles of ecology, appropriate technology, and communism, which are blended together in new religious movements. The global network of capital and commodities finishes flickering out by 2110.
when the next crash happens
Capitalism ended around 1973. We haven’t been in capitalism since before most here were born.
