It Rhymes with "20th Century"

I made the claim in the last post that Marxism and Nationalism are enjoying a resurgence at present.  I would add that they may well enjoy a bright future if it happens that Liberalism broadly defined is seen to be failing.  Liberalism is the ruling regime in the form of democratic capitalism, having emerged victorious from the Second World War and the subsequent Cold War.  Liberalism as currently practiced has run into some difficulties with the capitalism part suffering from a form of gigantism, and democracy having come down with a case of disinterest.  Like any human system, the perception of its efficacy is of primary importance.  If people stop benefiting from or believing in the system of democratic liberalism they will look to alternatives.

By saying that Marxism and Nationalism will gain traction in the 21st century doesn't mean that we will repeat what occurred in the 20th century or that WWIII will be fought with the same ideological mix that WWII was fought over.  ( An interesting note:  WWIII is not a word according to spellchecker but WWII is.)  Also, in saying these ideologies are likely to re-emerge doesn't mean I am advocating either one.  What they represent is a fall back position for people when the current system, with all the hopes and dreams it promises, begins to unwind and stops working for people.

What I wanted to describe with the case of North Korea was exactly this fall back ideology, or a fall back means to provide a social order.  There they have a primordial nationalism that supplanted Communism over the course of the 20th century.  It turns out that communism was great as a revolutionary ideology but proved to be weak tea when it came to holding the fabric of society together.  I think something similar happened in all of the communist countries.  It's impossible to describe North Korea as a successful country fulfilling its own dreams and aspirations.  It's likely that it will either implode or explode due to the psychological hemorrhaging of its collective cognitive dissonance in the coming years.  It is only the process of re-emergence of forms of organization around ideological ruling principles I want to point out.

These forms have two aspects we can look at:  modern and primordial.  Modern nationalism is an expression of a primordial tendency to identify with whatever society you are born into and that your individual chance of survival depends on this identification.  The tendency is for people to be willing to subsume their own identity within that of the "nation" warts and all because the "other" is having none of it.  Modern forms of nationalism is the stone age mind fitting itself in modern garb (paleoconservatism).  This is not a criticism as such.  Nationalism is a human tendency lying around that is easy for leaders to exploit when times get tough, or when the nation feels it is under threat.  It's not an accident that nationalistic behavior manifests itself during wartime. 

Marxism is another matter.  It is strictly a modern ideology because it is a critique of a modern system (capitalism) and a proposed self-consciously modern industrial system.  It sees itself as taking the baton from capitalism when the anticipated failure of capitalism is apparent.  I'm using Marxism as a blanket term which includes communism and socialism, but it's important to realize the differences among them.  Contemporary Marxists still believe the prediction that capitalism will destroy itself because of its "internal contradictions.  Whether Marxists have it right or not is another story, or if they have it for the right reasons.  But I think they have enough that's right, class struggle for example, to offer a plausible explanation for what is happening in the economy.

But Marxism is also a moral philosophy.  In this way it has a powerful primordial element which transcends its modern foundation that will appeal in a time of scarcity.  Governments will respond in one way or another to falling economic participation and a Marxist upwelling would seek to influence what that response is.  But as is commonly said about Marxism is that it's long on analysis and short on prescription, meaning, as I see it, the practical program runs against human's natural tendency to accumulate and to horde.  Communes, for example, are generally short lived.  The only durable forms of communal living outside the family are religious. All moral philosophies and ethical systems run into the same problem.

Both of these ideologies are present in the world and increasingly active.  In the midst of the death throes of the European Union, you are starting to see both nationalism and Marxism increasing in popularity.  Greece is having a critical election right now and the left wing Syriza, a radical left party, threatens to default on Greek debt if they take power, which is a real possibility.  On the far right side you have nationalistic parties on the rise in France, Britain, Belgium, and anywhere else you care to look as a reaction to the troubles of the EU.  This is all just a prologue for what's to come given that the EU can't pay for itself. 

Managing decline is a tricky prospect.  A lot depends on how people generally understand what's happening.  This is a function of ideology.  Ideology, though, being based on how people understand what's going on, is likely to be extremely varied and based on old themes.  Nationalism and Marxism are two very general descriptors which lay out familiar narratives.  But an ideology based on an explanation of the decline, with a program for how to manage decline in a civil manner, might be able to ascend and form the operating principle for managed decline.  That will be the subject of the next post.