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Anthony Arnove answers the following question

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Question

What's after capitalism? Wera Koseleck


Answer

Anthony Arnove: Well, the question has no guaranteed answer because what’s after capitalism depends on how capitalism is replaced. The worst case scenario of course is that there is no after capitalism. Capitalism is going to lead to the destruction of the environment or capitalism is going to lead as a result of its economic conflict to the kind of political and military conflict that creates nuclear war and the destruction of the human race, so that there will literally be no after capitalism. The capitalism will prove to have been the economic system that led to the demise of humanity, and with it other species on the planet as well. But, another possibility is that capitalism will be replaced by an alternative economic system, not of a more liberatory variety, but of a more repressive variety, a variety which really we've seen generated by capitalism. The great socialist Frederick Engels spoke about a choice between socialism and barbarism. Rosa Luxemburg echoed that statement eloquently. We do face a choice between socialism or barbarism, between replacing capitalism with a humane economic system and democratic economic system. Or other possibility that we will see is the rise of the kind of fascism that capitalism has produced when it goes into crisis, the kind of fascism that we saw in the 1930s in Germany, in Italy, and Spain, and the massive destruction that brought about. So, really the question is up to us.