this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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To play devil's advocate, I think that the US is extraordinarily stable. So far, two halves of the population pitted against each other in a defective democracy, what a fantastic situation for any ruler. Plus, people have been mollified enough with, in global comparison, very high wages as to not resort to armed resistance.
If that system collapses, a non-democratic oligarchy might have its day. But doesn't that simply mean replacing an, on its surface, voluntary participation in the reproduction of capital with a completely compulsory one? That, and overt persecution of minorities.
Sure, it will suck for almost everybody, and the new rulers might just close the borders to let no-one escape. And there will be blood, at home and abroad. But the system itself, perverted as it may seem, can survive this way for generations, if not centuries. Indentured servitude, anyone?
For a maybe more optimistic view of the future, though, here's what Thucydides wrote in "The Peloponnesian War":