“The End of the World” is a specific Western entertainment. As far as one can tell, it doesn’t particularly worry the Chinese or the Japanese. The origin of this specific phobia is clear—the Revelation of John the Theologian and the associated idea of the finitude of the world, with the stipulation that this very finitude is necessarily accompanied by mass troubles.
Generally speaking, the “end of the world” from natural causes can occur at any moment. Asteroids and comets are just waiting for a convenient opportunity; if global warming fails, a new ice age will complete its work. Earthquakes, the movement of magnetic poles, the Earth slipping out of orbit, new incurable diseases, man-made catastrophes, nuclear weapons, and so on and so forth—all this can become the cause of a quick and spectacular end of the world. And it is precisely for this reason that there is no point in talking about it.
It makes sense to talk about the “end of the world” as social changes that will alter our way of life so significantly that one could say the world as we knew it no longer exists. It is worth talking about this because social changes, despite their inertia, do not have an obligatory character. They depend entirely on the will of the people participating—and not participating—in them.
In this sense, the “end of the world” has already occurred in the memory of many Ukrainians. This is the dissolution of the USSR, which completely changed the world as we knew it. Now, apparently, something similar is brewing, only on a somewhat larger scale.
What is happening? We see how a movement against the established status quo is spreading in recently calm and prosperous Western societies. The opinion that the political class has completely “separated from the people” has never been more widespread. Is all this caused only by the crisis? Will Western citizens calm down once the crisis ends?
In history, it has often been the case that mass movements and even unrest did not lead to any result; it has also been the case—as with the USSR—that a seemingly immovable system disappeared in an instant. Therefore, saying exactly how events will develop and at what specific moment the “end of the world” will occur is difficult. The process can last an unpredictable amount of time. One can only speak to the essence of the process we are observing now.
It seems that the essence of the process is connected with the crisis of the state as an institution. Incidentally, the dissolution of the USSR was also part of this process. The state cannot manage the tasks it considers its own. The trouble is that the state always has the same response to troubles—its own expansion. The expansion of the state creates problems, and to solve them, it resorts to new expansion. It simply cannot behave differently. The very basis of modern concepts of social relations assumes that the state is obligated to combat any misfortunes arising in society.
This circumstance, long known, has now been proven in practice—for example, by the American economist Robert Higgs, who showed how the American state expanded from the First World War onward. The limit of such expansion is totalitarianism, when the state replaces all social functions of society. Then totalitarianism collapses, and the process begins “anew.” If, as post-Soviet experience shows, infantile social templates dominate in people’s minds, then the state returns and again begins to expand under the joyful applause of the citizens.
The fact that Russian, Chinese, and German totalitarianism were actually established as a result of revolution and had powerful support in the form of extremely populist ideology does not mean that it cannot be established gradually, as a result of slow state expansion. Mass ideology and mass totalitarian parties allowed the Russians, Germans, and Chinese to make the transition to totalitarianism quickly, but this transition can probably occur without them. If we compare what the capitalist powers—England and the USA—were in the 19th century with what they have become now, the difference is simply striking. The movement toward the expansion of control and, ultimately, toward totalitarianism is alarming.
The dissolution of the USSR and the socialist bloc, coinciding with a short conservative revolution in the West, somewhat slowed the growth of the state, but now, apparently, we are experiencing a stage of its next expansion. Moreover, such expansion, which proceeds at different rates in different countries, covers them all. Those who see the USA and the West as their enemies try to protect themselves from them… by expanding the state and increasing violence toward their own citizens.
In just the last month we could observe several significant events that testify to the rapid growth of the state. This is the adoption of SOPA—a new “copyright protection” law in the United States, the ACTA agreement, which threatens censorship on the internet, and such pleasant little things as inspection of your laptops and smartphones at customs. Finally, the United States adopted a military budget, and in it is hidden another provision that allows the government, without trial or investigation, to arrest American citizens and foreigners and detain them indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism or (sic!) “support of terrorism.” The FBI also distinguished itself, stating that the movement of “sovereign citizens,” who dislike the existing order, particularly the Fed, and who oppose taxes and demand a return to the gold standard, are extremists with all that follows.
Note that the growth of the state now has an international character. For “copyright protection,” “combating money laundering” and the like in the “democratic world,” national borders practically do not exist. The non-democratic world, for which these borders still matter, as we said, protects itself from the growth of the democratic “global” state by expanding its own, “narrowly national” one—that is, it pours gasoline on the fire.
Another important detail: copyright violations, money laundering, drugs, pornography—these are all “crimes without a victim.” That is, the state is here both prosecutor and judge. And it is precisely in these spheres of “crimes without a victim” that we observe a rapid growth of state activity, and, I repeat, activity that already has a supranational character.
It is clear that these trends are directly aimed against the internet. The internet is extremely dangerous because it is not only a source of information but also a medium for people to communicate with each other, bypassing all states. The internet makes the state entirely unnecessary, and the state’s survival depends on how quickly people understand this. This, of course, cannot be allowed, and one can be sure that most efforts will be directed precisely against the internet in the near future.
A separate issue is the “fight against terrorism.” If you think about it, terrorism does not differ, let’s say, in any way from the activities of serial killers or maniacs. However, no one thinks to restrict citizens’ freedoms at the legislative level on the basis of the possible threat of a maniac-killer appearing. “Terrorism” is such a semantic trap, a label that completely frees the hands of the punitive apparatus. Accusations of terrorism are essentially medieval accusations of witchcraft or heresy. For such accusations there are special bodies and special procedures, and often the accused must prove innocence rather than the accusation proving guilt.
However, let us return to the “end of the world.” For our purposes, it will mean the end of the state as we know it—that is, the end of the “welfare state.” This “end of the world” will be relevant for those who live under this model and, above all, for Western and post-Soviet countries.
Variant 1. Completely peaceful. Alas, hardly probable. The point is that the process of state growth is based on citizens’ belief that this is the only way to solve their problems. Here, for now, there is only one real prospect—the United States, where some traditions of civic self-reliance have survived. Europe in this regard seems hopeless.
Variant 2. Collapse of the financial system. The most probable scenario, though unpredictable both in terms of timing and consequences. The collapse can occur at any stage of state growth. Depending on circumstances, the collapse can either significantly slow the expansion process or completely destroy the state, if, for example, commodity money begins to be used as an alternative.
Variant 3. Growth to the state of the USSR. Western states still have room to grow. The EU can become a single state with unified policy, some kind of world central bank may arise, and, consequently, a kind of world government. The world will turn into a dystopia from cyberpunk novels, which will also end, sooner or later. The saddest thing here is that in such situations, revolutions usually mean a system reboot. French absolutism was replaced by Jacobin terror, and Russian autocracy—by red terror.
Variant 4. A small victorious nuclear war. There is no need to overestimate the ability of states to control themselves and each other. Some future war with some future adversary can easily turn into a small nuclear nightmare. Moreover, the more nations like Iran obtain nuclear weapons, the higher the probability of such a course of events.
Variant 5. Technological. Such ends of worlds have sometimes occurred for purely technological reasons. The invention of the stirrup allowed steppe nomads to gain a decisive advantage over farmers and conquer virtually all of Eurasia. The transition to firearms meant that you no longer needed five years to learn to shoot a longbow—a week was enough and the soldier was ready. Firearms significantly influenced the process of the emergence of modern nation-states in Europe. In our context, the cause of such an “end of the world” could be any technological breakthrough in the field of weapons, or the gradual development of technology to the point where an atomic bomb can be assembled in a garage. The day this happens will be the day of the end of the world. A personal atomic bomb will return any movements for separation and autonomy from modern states to the realm of political feasibility. It should be understood that this process cannot be controlled, and that such a state of affairs will inevitably come. It is better if the “end of the world” happens before this time, because if there is no state, then a personal atomic bomb loses all meaning.