Capitalism may lead to barbarism rather than socialism
Evidence
The savage destruction of Baghdad in 1991, the worst since the Mongols sacked that city in the thirteenth century, was the gift of this global perestroika making one recall Marx once more. As he famously put it in his correspondence on the Gotha Programme: capitalism does not lead necessarily to socialism, it may lead just as inexorably towards barbarism. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 354
Categorization
- XREF: Marx’s barbarism-vs-socialism formulation echoes the shadow-of-improvement tension in the reader’s knowledge base, and the 1991 Baghdad destruction parallels imperial overreach themes in Reluctant Fundamentalist’s setting. — connects to: Marxism holds that capitalism’s collapse could end in barbarism, not only communism. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 161; Horkheimer feared state capitalism could replace socialism as the successor to capitalism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1158; Capitalist contradictions operated at higher and more dangerous levels in Germany — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1203