The Nightmare Vision

 A friend of a friend writes: 

"One way to think about the Trump-Musk-Putin project is that it is Neo-Barbarism. The old left critiques of ‘Neoliberalism’ actually assumed the horizon of a liberal democratic order (credit John Gamey). In other words, however ‘radical’ critics of Neoliberalism thought they were being, they were attacking the established order from within a framework which assumed the existence of nation states, international trade, intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations and liberal democratic institutions in at least many of the most important states. 

"What the Trump-Musk-Putin axis does, is to blow this all up (credit Nancy Ries). They are not only destroying the old order, but also rendering standard critiques of Neoliberalism irrelevant. In their new world , instead of nation states there will be billionaire barons allied with armed garrisons; instead of international trade, coerced resource extraction; instead of social participation and welfare provision, massive repression and individualised struggle for survival. 

This explains why Trump can talk so freely of seizing Canada, Greenland, Panama: he no longer assumes any of the external or internal constraints on power holders that have, however unevenly, developed over the last 200 years. This is not about going back to 19th Century colonialism or further developing 20th Century Neoliberalism. Rather, this imagined future corresponds most closely to something like the western part of the Roman Empire in 500s and 600s: magnates with armed hordes swirling across ill-defined territorial boundaries, slaughtering and seizing resources, while production falls off a cliff and the standard of living of the mass of the population falls to unfathomably low levels."

Now...

You know, the way to see the nightmare dystopian vision of these dark ages late late Roman Empire tech bros is, 

Once you get over the shock, 

IT'S STUNNINGLY UNIMAGINATIVE

It's out of Gladiator slash Alien 

IT's CRAP