Philosophy Now Forum

in looking at history, one can see the ruins of prior
isms and ideologies.... we see them in churches and
ancient ruins like the Parthenon, and the pyramids of
Egypt....and in the passing of religions like the Pagan
religions of Rome and the Nordic countries...

we have many different types of isms and ideologies that
once ruled the world... from religious, from Thor to Marduk,
to name a few ancient gods, to the economic, from the million year
long hunter-gatherer economy to capitalism and all of the prior
economic systems... which includes Mercantilism, Feudalism,
centralized markets systems with the King being the focal point... Egypt
for example, agrarian economics, and slave base economies...

at one point in time, Feudalism was the economic system of choice...
and today, its barely remembered... as the environment changes,
and needs and desires change, the economic system must change...

and what of tomorrow? will capitalism be the economic system of
choice? given the probability that the next 150 years will be times
of incredible tribulations, I would say no, capitalism will not be
the economic system of choice... especially given the major
problems that capitalism has and will give us, capitalism will be
abandon...and then the question becomes, what is after capitalism?

as the world spirals out of control given the extremely vexing problems
that capitalism has created, to name a few, global warming, overpopulation,
the loss of resources, the coming wars over water and power sources,
income inequality, the dehumanization of human beings, the
current extinction event happening in the natural world,
given the weakness of capitalism, as our resources dwindle,
our standard of living will continue to fall, as it is falling today...

the question we are faced with is, what is our next economic system?
what is after capitalism?

If I were a guessing man, I would say we will have a more centralized
government system... to prevent the same conditions that have
been caused by capitalism... in which the final nail in the coffin
in the lie, that within capitalism, we can create public goods with
private vices... there is no possibility of this being true.....
private vices lead us to public vices.. and we see them on display
every single day within capitalism.... private vices lead us to
public vices like greed and violence and hatred and lust...
which is the definition of the MAGA/GOP party today... public
vices that aren't even being disguised anymore.. vices
as bigotry, prejudice and hatred, are being openly
discussed today as desirable goods...when in fact, they
are vices best discussed, if at all, best discussed behind closed doors...
vices that have no defense or public value...

but vices that only have a place because capitalism cares not about
the public values like love or peace or curiosity or justice or hope...
these values have been negated because they don't contribute to
the only value that has the approval of capitalism... which
is the value of money/profits... the pursuit of money is the only
religion left in America today... it is the one religion everyone
in America is supposed to bend the knee to....

so, now what? the question has been asked, what happens after
capitalism?

Kropotkin

what I find interesting is that within capitalism, people are
dehumanized, devalued, alienated and yet, seem to be quite
ok with that if, if they are making enough money to buy a new car,
or perhaps a new TV set....

our value is the same as within capitalism... that of money and net worth...
but what of our value as a human being? within capitalism, that
is irrelevant and unimportant.... for we are the means to the end,
which is the creation of profits.... and values like love and hope and beauty
and peace are insignificant... because they don't create profits....
and human beings only have value if they create profits... otherwise
human beings are inconsequential to capitalism... of no value...

and capitalism has the exact same failure as communism.. where the
individual is less important than profits in capitalism
and the dialectical materialism in communism...
which is to say, the individual doesn't matter at all, in either
capitalism or communism..... the individual is expendable
in both....easily sacrificed for the benefit of capitalism and communism..

so we need to work on both the individual aspects of existence
and the collective benefit of all.... which is to say, we must
find another way within economics to become human...

each economic system has major flaws... the hunter-gatherer
economic system, which was the longest lasting economic system
in the history of the world, was no longer feasible when the population
rose above a certain number... that following the food is no longer
an option when the population is large and thus a burden in moving...
building cities allow us to bring the food to us, and not to move
the tribe to follow the food....this major shift in thinking has
been, perhaps, the greatest shift in a mind set in human history...

and think about the rise of the city... where we had to create new rules
and behaviors to make the city life work...now problems like income inequality
wasn't a problem in the hunter-gatherer economic society... and the problems
of the hunter-gatherer society isn't a problem for us today....
the next problem to solve in this new system of a city based life...
is the question of trade... we must trade to gain goods, that were
no longer within our reach.. unlike earlier in which we simply
traveled to the resources and used them there...
and so the second problem of the city was getting resources to
the city...and here we see the beginning of organized wars...
what to do if we were, for whatever reason, unable to get much
needed resources? War is one such answer.. and a 10,000-year-old answer...

but the two World Wars have, if nothing else, shown us the impossibility
of engaging in wars...it took the world decades to recover from
the two World Wars... and the next world war, if it isn't a nuclear war,
will be so damaging that we might never recover from it..

we have come to the point of our story, where we can't afford
to have a war for the fear it might destroy everything...
war is no longer the human answer.... we can't afford it....
which leads us to ask, now what?

if Marx did nothing else, at least he brought out the now
well known idea that we are, in some degree, economic animals...
whereas before Marx, the thought was that human beings were
either creatures of god or political creatures.... we now have
Homo Economus...economic man.....and this is relatively new...

but as powerful as this idea is, we must ask ourselves,
what will come afterwards? what is the next version of
human beings going to look like, if not economic or political?

the next idea of human beings, might be, might be, that
we are what our possibilities are.... we are no longer economic man
or political man, but we are what are possibilities are...
instead of seeking such transitory values that lay within the economic
or political... we seek out what is possible for us, both individually
and, and collectively.....the future is what we can become...
it is no longer possible for me to hold on to the possibilities of my
past, to become a great runner or to be a great baseball player...
those were my goals, my possibilities of my youth, but they are no
longer my possibilities... I no longer am able to play sports or to even run...
those days are gone and thus those possibilities are gone...I will never
break the 4 minute mile as I once dreamed of.... but my possibilities have
changed... I can reach other possibilities.. It is possible for me to become
a great philosopher... that is one possibility for me... but for you, perhaps
your possibility is to become a writer or a priest or to travel the world....
your possibilities are your possibilities, and not my possibilities...

but my possibilities are also an engagement with the collective possibilities
of being human... we can become, collectively, wiser, more loving,
we can engage with our collective possibilities in which we seek out peace
or security for all of us, not just for me....

and that become our focus... to engaged in our collective possibilities,
not just our individual possibilities.....

it is no longer about me, but it is about us... and what is possible for us....

and so, we have a goal, and so what economic system best matches
our intended goal? certainly not capitalism which has created the bulk
of our collective problems that we have in the world today....

so, after capitalism, what is possible for us economically,
politically, socially and philosophically? that is the question facing
us today... what is possible for us individually and collectively...
and what system/systems can best meet our collective and individual needs?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 6:33 pm at one point in time, Feudalism was the economic system of choice...

Feudalism or perhaps neo-feudalism has been on the way back for quite a while. And this has been noticed by analysts on both the left and right....
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... 278510002/
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Neo-Feuda ... 1641770945
https://www.project-syndicate.org/comme ... is-2021-06
https://medium.com/predict/the-rise-of- ... dfe499130a
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10 ... alism.html
https://prospect.org/economy/rise-of-neo-feudalism/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... feudalism/
https://www.firstthings.com/article/202 ... dal-future

And if you look at the plans of the World Economic Forum they are pretty open about this, while avoiding the word 'feudalism' of course. We already have an oligarchy in the US, which has overlaps with Feudalism. And the lords and ladies are hardly content with some overlaps.

Further their are trends returning paganisms in various forms and indigenous/shamanistic/animistic religions.