Many commentators are currently speculating that the proliferation of outstanding events unfolding in the 21st century are a result of the dying pains of the American dominated century and the growing pains of an emerging Asian dominated century. It has also been characterised in the bourgeois and petite-bourgeois press as the end of the old and known ‘liberal world order’ and the beginning of an (as yet) unknown ‘authoritarian world order‘. For example, in reading an opinion about the current orientation of Trump’s new political perspective I recently came across the following;

“What remains largely unexplored is the clash between two radically different visions of order — both globally and domestically. While many are only beginning to grasp the end of the liberal order, few truly understand what is meant to replace it. It is no surprise, then, that many Europeans and progressive Americans struggle to interpret the US government’s message — we have yet to learn the vocabulary of this emerging order.” (International Politics and Society. Tuesday 18 February 2025)

Even on the left, some are, therefore, trying to grasp what the unknown world order will look like. However, all such characterisations are being prompted by superficial political considerations and so are unlikely to reach any serious or logical conclusions. In fact, since there are no signs of any radically new socio-economic thinking and acting, the new world order, like the old world order, will be a hierarchical world order on the same socio-economic basis as exists now.

Therefore, it will be a world order based upon cold and hot war competion between the various elite alliances of geographically based capitalist modes of production. In a parody of a Feudal derived cliche, it will be a case of; ‘the king is dead, long live the king’. In other words the current unnatural system will continue under different political managements and owners of capital. Yet what follows in the next quote , is a view from a supposedly radical left position, which also cannot see any further than future hierarchical mass societies, containing billionaires and led by self-selected political elites.

“Russia has many greedy oligarchs, China a long list of billionaires, not to speak of the rulers of India, Iran or Egypt. But in opposition to total world control dominated by the USA and symbolized by the likes of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg and Koch, a multipolarity system in the world based on equality, such as advanced by Putin, might be a partial response to the behemoth which is still worldwide the strongest, militarily, economically and, at least until the recent inauguration, politically as well.” (Emphasis added. RR)

In the midst of, and in the wake of, such genocides and near genocides against civilian communities, as are occuring daily,  is such a partial response to the current  abandonment of any pretentions of humane conduct in mainstream global affairs, really the best that the left can envision and anticipate in 2025? I sincerely hope not! There needs to be many more definitive and pointed attempts to place human affairs within the context of life on earth as a whole.

In human affairs, the mode of production determines everything else erected by human labour upon it and the current hierarchical mode of production, as yet, has no serious rivals. Furthermore, all such anthropocentric focussed speculations about political changes are intellectually disconnected from the real material contradictions at play in the socio-economic foundations, of humanity and in the biological contradictions between humanity and its insatiable consumption of the rest of organic life on earth as a whole.

The immediate socio-economic foundations of humanities existence, (foundation 2) lie in its collective mode of production, which at a minimum, is supposed to guarantee the bio-chemical essentials of species life on earth such as food, clothing, shelter and safety, which are necessary for the survival of all the members of its communities. The fact is however, that the current mode of production supported by the hierarchical elites in every modern community, does not, and has never guaranteed food, clothing, shelter and safety for all members of their communities. That was never the intention of the bourgeoisie or the aristocrats they overthrew.

In fact since the inception of hierarchical mass societies, many thousands of years ago,  whole populations of humans have been wiped out by ecologically-triggered diseases, weapons of mass destruction, elite devised systemic poverty and now climate change events. That systemic failure is again causing many of the social and political changes and the numerous destabilising characteristics currently exhibited in all modern nations on every continent and on every island upon the globe.  However, this immediate socio-economic foundation of human societies, (i.e. foundation 2) rests in turn upon the biological, ecological and cosmological foundations of the planet earth (i.e. foundation 1).

Of course, the machinations of human socio-economic life have no effect upon the cosmological basis of the planet earth, and only a minimal effect upon the inorganic material of it. However, those human machinations in foundation 2, (those within the mode of production) to provide the biological essentials, do have an immediate impact upon the biological and ecological foundations of life on earth (foundation 1.). And it is upon the latter which all else rests. For example, in the US, a fungal disease has been imported from Europe and has attached itself to Bats (as a source of fungi nourishment) in some US States with serious knock on repercussions. Thus;

“Fungal disease killed bats, bats stopped eating enough insects, farmers applied more pesticides to maximize profit and keep food plentiful and cheap, the extra pesticide use led to more babies dying,” Eli Fenichel of Yale University told the New York Times in September. “It is a sobering result.”

Yet this ‘sobering‘ result of human baby deaths, is far from the whole picture of what is taking place even in this one particular instance.  Within the interconnected species web of life on earth, bats do far more than just eat insects, they are food sources for other animals, who may also now become infected, and there are many other interconnections, between bats and organisms both large and small. Also the fact that a fungal disease has killed not just one or two bats but whole colonies of them, across large areas, begs the question as to what has happened to the normally excellent immune system of this ancient species of flying mammalian life? Plus what has happened in the evolution of that particular fungus to make it so lethal, and what else might it now be lethal toward?

The really ‘sobering’ thought should be the following. That humanity, led by the profit motive pursued by the few for the benefit of the few,  who do not know, or care about how many more such unforseen circumstances are occuring, is in serious trouble.  These types of results of certain elite humans, drunk on scientific prestige and profits,  interfering with the evolution of life forms and their niches, with only the slightest level of knowledge about either, ought to be classed as an ecological and biological offence against innocent species on the level with deploying weapons of mass destruction.  But then genocide, is classed as a sociological offence of the highest order, but that doesn’t prevent it from happening, and from others making a profit from selling such weapons to enable it.

Yet it should be obvious that the essential materials for human food, clothing, shelter and safety, are all products of other life forms and this will be so under any mode of human production. Human life lives off, lives in, and is ‘naturally’ protected by, organic life forms and inorganic materials. But human production methods and their active personifications are now directed toward consuming those living and none-living natural materials at a rate determined by the elite owners and controllers of land and capital, not by the natural reproductive rates of those species which provide the basic essentials necessary for life on earth to exist.

Furthermore, it should also be obvious that the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, depend upon the uninterupted bio-chemical reproductive efforts of millions of visible and invisible species occupying the entire biosphere of planet earth. But the interruptions, dislocations and destruction of these species and their ecological niches, (both large and small), by human activities in foundation 2, have been increasing year on year. Consequenly, they are steadily undermining foundation 1’s,  organic and climatic ability to sustain itself and underpin humanities foundation 2 activities.

But amazingly, none of these fundamental issues appear within the current speculative considerations of current and future world events as viewed through the anthropocentrically focussed lens of right wing, left wing and centrist narcissistic new world order speculations.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2025.)