While all evidence is primarily circumstantial, I believe that the world is likely on its path to an older mode of existence. The conditions of the world that constituted the Renaissance may rapidly be upon us, transforming the nature of politics, religion, economics, and so on. The modern world has eclipsed and we live in what conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck has called sattelzeit, or a transitional time. This is why all the collective efforts at categorization seem wholly inadequate, if not inane. Morons will continue to discuss the threat of "fascism" or "communism", but these concepts are dead and buried. They are constantly reanimated because no one quite knows how to describe the phenomena that seem to govern the world. There are no corporatists who worship the state as the means to build the nation (in light of grave economic catastrophe in Europe). There are no vanguards leading the industrial wage-earners to create a dictatorship and own the means of production. At the very least there *are* communist parties in existence, though they have often adjusted in light of world-changes. Leninism, Titoism, Stalinism, Maoism, Dengism, and so on are real world efforts to adjust in light of the limits (if not failures) of Marx's political economy. But even many of these are phantoms. So what are we left with?
The age of mass mobilization has come to an end. The age of industrial economies has come to an end. Despite the propaganda parades of the Chinese troops, there will never be a mass invasion of Taiwan or any other part of Asia, except in the fever dreams of the Pentagon. The PRC will reclaim Taiwan, that's beyond a doubt, but in the way they regained Hong Kong. It will be a modest and subtle process of funding pro-unification politicians, and waiting them out. China has a far stronger grip on its allies than Russia, and I doubt the US would have the means to pull off a color-revolution if Taiwan elected more pro-Chinese politicians. Industrial economies will not reflect the latter nineteenth century with its drive towards centralization and consolidation. There will not be a US Steel or Krupps again. Instead industrial production, like most of the economy, is becoming increasingly diffuse. Information technology allows corporate models to disperse their operations in a way where the giant monoliths of factory production or corporate governance will not be needed. A giant office tower or steel stack is not necessary, and in fact would be vain aesthetics. Thus, as much as Trump gained working-class support when he promised to bring back jobs, these were shreds of a rusted form of government. It was probably just a campaign slogan, even if it was a valiant idea for men who desire a return to work at a good paying job. Nevertheless, these centers of massive production will not return.
Instead, what will replace these will be highly specialized elite divisions. Militarily, combat will be small professional units who are integrated with drones, satellites, and far-away command centers. Economically, production will happen to very specialized firms that coordinate with each other for large jobs. The internet allows fast exchange of information over a large space, not conceivable when the telegraph was the only means of communicating. Through video-calls members of a staff can be present from all corners of the world. Additionally, since centralized military organization will become increasingly defunct (except as a symbol of power), specialized military operations will increasingly fall under the purview of mercenaries. I do not consider the existence of military contractors like Blackwater or Wagner PMC to be inherently sinister, though it's a favorite liberal whipping boy (as if national militaries are not prone to similar abuses?). When the company formerly known as Blackwater's Eric Prince admired the East India Company, I think he correctly sees the future. It will not be clumsy and massive governments, drowning under their own parliamentary procedures (which are often simply voided or ignored by members of executive bureaucracy), which will effectively carry out national projects. A royally chartered company like the East India Company could handle affairs entirely on its own (even as the British parliament was wary of its pretensions, as well as the moral corruption of quasi-Mughals like Warren Hastings raised). The importance of dispersing, not centralizing, government powers will only intensify.
The Modern Era was the era of centralization and integration. This began in the nineteenth century, witnessing the behemoth corporate structures in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. It was the mass mobilized struggles of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. It was mass deployment and industrial production for both World Wars. This order came to an end by the 1970s, that era of malaise when the US slipped from manufacturing dominance. The heady years of material prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s. The great convergence of labor and management (first skillfully welded together in Bismarck's Germany, and then pieced together in the New Deal) left both too bloated to adjust. The AFL-CIO is a shadow of its former self. Unionization, as other forms of consolidation, is not only weakly political, but often not preferred. Leftist criticisms of the "gig economy", as opposed to the old wage method, are often half-aware at best. Again, the old paradigms of unionization, labor politics, and class consciousness fail to make sense. The gig-economies do not now exist because some cigar-chomping shareholder came up with a new devilish scheme to strip the working-class. Rather, it reflects the greater push towards decentralization. The worker is now, in a manner, a part-owner. This is precisely what the World Economic Forum envisions with a stakeholders capitalism. The Uber driver is his own businessmen (which, from some anecdotal experience, is preferred to a wage job because at least you can choose when you want to work).
The great executive bureaucracy, in places like the US, will continue to fragment. That does not mean disconnection, but rather a more widespread and dispersed form of interconnectivity. Many elementary conspiracy researchers often confuse the heuristic for the reality, believing organizations like the CIA or FBI are solid entities. Even in the middle of the twentieth century, at the zenith of centralized and consolidated corporate governance, these organizations were subdivided into certain networks and channels that nearly operated autonomously. These will continue to break apart and be "privatized", operating as the government even as the government reorganizes. This is a different form of "big government", but leftists who want a new New Deal, or right-wingers who crudely consider Joe Biden mere socialism (it is a form of socialism, but this term too is defunct), will not understand what seems like larger government and privatization at the same time. It will not be the NSA spying on people, but Alphabet and Facebook and other forms of social-media and telecommunications. Government agencies will dissolve, but not disappear. The CIA has been increasingly winnowed as a serious power, with perhaps the last major public appearance in the Plame dust-up (where a faction in the Bush II government bullied the CIA into supporting a war in Iraq).
Conceptually, what may be used to describe this reality? We do not have capitalism or socialism, there is no communism or fascism. Even nationalism, in an age of globalization and open borders, has become increasingly impossible to define (though it still has some vitality). Near empty signifiers like "neo liberalism" or "post modern" are a sign of intellectual exhaustion and incoherence. It's no surprise, however, that these terms continue to circulate. The post-war order in 1945 is Year Zero for the Anglo-American world-order. Anti-fascism and anti-communism are two ideological pills to enflame the masses for action. Brown scares and red scares are part of the founding myth, along with other events like the Holocaust, JFK assassination/Vietnam, Fall of the USSR, 9/11, and, perhaps, 1/6. These reaffirm a certain narrative of "making the world safe for democracy" through maintaining free-trade, parliamentary government formality, and multiculturalism. Therefore these empty concepts will be deployed to shore up this order according to a crude moral compass. Roosevelt, Churchill, MLK, Reagan -- Good. Hitler, Stalin, George Wallace -- Bad. Figures like Nixon straddle the compass, but still operates within it as a believer in the post-war consensus (and as a statesman, like his lieutenant Kissinger, he committed himself to future leaders, meeting with Clinton). It is very difficult to think outside this box.
I think, on the contrary, that in reality that the world is headed towards something that resemble, more & more, the Renaissance. We are not there yet, however there are a few things that may quite nearly create something simultaneously revitalizing and destructive. **Of course this presumes that Christ will not yet return** However, the mental exhaustion seems to have reached a head. If space becomes a new frontier, just as the Americas did, then there may be a creative expansion of the imagination. Like the Renaissance, diffusion will become increasingly the norm. The Holy Roman Empire, as the premier power in Europe, had already begun to severely decay and fracture. Imperial free-holding cities, Italian city-state republics, new confederations among the Swiss and the Dutch, small but voracious kingdoms, all of these could replicate what would happen if the current world-order would start to shudder. The Renaissance began at the same time as the shake-up of Christendom, with a time of three popes and the conciliar movement. The Byzantines were on the verge of collapse, ending a millennium of Roman Empire. Small armies, paid by princes and councils, conducted small warfare. New technology in travel (seafaring), information (printing-press), and war (guns) began to transform the nature of warfare. Bottling up in a castle was no longer possible. Soldiers no longer wore plate for different uniforms, and organizing accordingly.
While it's hard to say what new concepts will be developed to describe new realities increasingly cut off from the all-encompassing shadow of the twentieth century. Politically and economically it will be unclear. Theologically I have some hope. The old forms of Christian organization will wither away and perhaps reveal something new. Confessional wars have basically died and the Reformation is effectively over. The denomination system is increasingly incoherent and broken, especially as another Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy may show the weakness of these systems. Parachurch organization will continue to spread. The Catholic Church may formally appear the same, but if Francis succeeds than it will be entirely unlike its past forms. What it will mean to be Catholic or Protestant, or even Orthodox, is unclear. Will Evangelical gain more significance as a term, or will its fairly empty significance only continue to decay? This is not to say that the Truth will change, or has changed, or that the Church will change. However, new social contexts will breed new organizations. One sees this in efforts of the Renaissance to create new religious societies, both lay and clerical. There were new ideas afoot that would eventually reform the Tridentine Roman church, as well as influence Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Eurasian efforts at transformation. Christianity has lots its potency, but nevertheless it remains in the shadows in the US at least, even if it's dead in Western Europe. Who knows what forms it may take in various countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Nevertheless new religious forms will continue to sprout in relation to the meaninglessness of life that will pervade the North Atlantic.
I am quite hopeful for what will come, even if this creativity will involve destruction. One will finally know the Modern age has ended when the Holocaust is listed among other slaughters and Hitler is simply grouped with other conquerors (Ghengis Khan, Napoleon) in a history of warfare and nations. Light will continue to shine, even as darkness swirls. For those who can see, clarity will be available as Athena's owl takes flight. Soon, at least, one may think afresh.
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