Foreseeable Future - 1998-2008

S.Zabelin, from “A time to seek, and a time to lose.” 1998

Scenario of a likely accelerated collapse of the world economy

March 15, 1998

Crisis of the limits of growth of the world economic system world3 model of the club of Rome
experts Donella and Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Rengers (Beyond growth. M., 1994) predicts
for 2015-2020. Taking into account the observed acceleration of all socio-economic and political
processes, primarily the processes of economic globalization and the flow of real influence from
state power structures to the leadership of transnational corporations, it could be assumed that the
crisis era would have included a de facto (but not legally) denationalized humanity, largely freed
from powerful national military machines, the presence of which can only interfere with the
freedom of trade.
It could be assumed that over the next ten years, humanity would significantly Deplete the
reserves of fossil natural resources and cause almost irreparable damage to natural ecosystems,
forcing them to quickly change in an unfavorable direction for human life.
It could also be assumed that in the same ten years, humanity would have advanced far along the
path of computerization and Informatization of all aspects of life, along the path of
Westernization of the way of life (or, at least, expectations and preferences) and the associated
decline of national cultures of many peoples of the planet.
It could be assumed that at the same time, in the background, and due to increasing stratification
of the world community to the prosperous and the poor of the nation, the prosperous and the
poor members of the same nation, among the disadvantaged majority would have started the
process of self-organization, the process of the emergence of alternative communities, connected
due to the Internet, a global community, an alternative world of transnational corporations.
In this case, the real scenario of the crisis would largely depend on the degree of severity of the
above-mentioned and other processes, which are almost unpredictable today.
However... However, analytical materials that appeared in print in connection with the financial
crisis in Southeast Asia confirm the assumptions that the processes modeled on World3
developed somewhat faster, that the physical growth of production in the world has already
stopped (or is close to it), and the published economic growth indicators are only a reflection of
the growth of the share price of leading companies.
In other words, we will not be at the top of the economic growth curve (in the future) in 2015-
2020, but we have already been at the top (at present) in the years 1995-2000, and a global
systemic (socio-economic) crisis, similar to the systemic crisis of the USSR, can break out
literally any day. The 30% drop in the price of oil (since there is no revolution in energy saving)
is explained only by negative phenomena in the economy as a whole.
"The price of oil ... fall sharply. In the next 10 years, or more, they will be at an unprecedented
low level... this will mean the end of investment for the westernmost oil refining industry..."
Ahmed Zaki El-Yamani, former Minister of oil industry of Saudi Arabia.
Financial News. April 16, 1998
The political, technological, psychological, environmental, etc. background of the crisis in 1998
differs significantly from that anticipated for a year, such as 2008, in a variety of parameters,
including:
- a smaller population of the planet;
- a lesser degree of replacing the power of States with the" power " of transnational corporations;
- less disarmament of States;
- less disturbance of natural ecosystems;
- less developed electronic information infrastructure;
- less violation of national cultures;
- less organized alternative social movements.
Therefore, the consequences of the crisis will be significantly different, including to an even
greater extent similar to the consequences of the crisis in the USSR, which, as we have
repeatedly said, was the first developed industrial country to experience a full-scale crisis of the
limits of growth in exact accordance with the scenario of the club of Rome. With the
fundamental difference that during a global crisis, earthlings will have nowhere to wait for either
humanitarian aid or political advice.

1. The most obvious consequence of the crisis in any scenario is the deep deglobalization of the
economy. If the crisis occurs in the near future, we should expect a rapid restoration and
strengthening of all interstate borders and barriers, the restoration of full sovereignty of state
structures over their legally owned territories, that is, the reverse collapse of the world into a set
of closed state economic systems with varying degrees of self-sufficiency. It is very likely the
collapse of large systems, such as the USA, Canada and Russia (and maybe not only large,
remember Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia), on an economically and politically independent
subsystems (associations of States, regions and republics in Russia, French - and English-
speaking regions of Canada, etc.).
A crisis that is remote in time would rather lead to a radical change in the political map of the
world due to the self-Assembly of new "countries".

2. In any scenario of the crisis development, it is not difficult to predict the disappearance of the
world market as a phenomenon and the economic catastrophe of the majority of industries (and
after them, the States) that are export-oriented, as well as industries formed by enterprises
scattered across different countries.

3. If the crisis occurs in the near future, it is quite obvious that all international bodies, from the
UN to the world Bank, will disappear from the political arena, as well as the concept of
"international law".
On the contrary, a crisis that is remote in time could bring to life the idea of a world government
and / or Parliament as saving for an already unified humanity.

4. Justifying the crisis situation, the state authorities of most countries will completely free
themselves from all obligations for social protection of citizens, education, science and health,
which were "assigned" to them in the last 100 years, focusing on strengthening and improving
law enforcement and police structures, including structures of violence against their own
population. Such a transformation, as a natural (and not a reasonable) rational response to the
crisis, will be accepted by the population of any "democratic" countries, and therefore civil
society and the rule of law will have to be forgotten for several tens or hundreds of years.
This will lead not only to the establishment of authoritarian regimes in most States, but also to
the actual loss of scientific achievements of the last centuries, and most likely, to the denial of
science itself as the basis for organizing life and managing society.
"I have made a fortune in the world's financial markets, and yet today I fear that uncontrolled
capitalism and the spread of market values to all areas of life threatens the future of our open
and democratic society. Today, the main enemy of open society is no longer the Communist, but
the capitalist threat”.
George Soros. Freedom and its borders. "Moscow news". February 23 - March 2, 1997.

5. Inequality in the ability to quickly organize a self-sufficient economy should cause an upsurge
in armed international conflicts for a new division of the world, in which the entire accumulated
Arsenal of weapons of mass destruction can be used, since all and every obstacle from the
international community (with the exception of a symmetrical or asymmetric armed response),
including obstacles to the legal and illegal trade in weapons of mass destruction, will be
removed.
The core of the conflict Iraq, the United States, as well as rocket attacks on US forces in
Afghanistan and the Sudan capital of Khartoum suggests that the most likely initiator of a third
world war using nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons will make the United States
lacking, due to the global financial crisis, almost all of the sources and attributes of global
domination, but not ambitions and arsenals.

6. In the coming years, there is no reason to expect an organized counteraction to the crisis
development of world civilization, as well as an organized counteraction to the collapse into
barbarism. The history of Soviet society, objectively the most educated society on Earth in the
twentieth century, confirms this. Over the past decade, this society has demonstrated a lack of
resources, the ability to understand the reality of what is happening, the ability to adequately,
that is, scientifically, analyze the crisis and offer a meaningful program to overcome the crisis.
But the world around the former USSR did not show greater wisdom.
As a result of the crisis, if it is not provided with organized global "resistance", humanity in
social, political and, most likely, technological terms will be thrown back a couple of centuries,
and maybe much more.
"... the analysis gives sufficient grounds for the statement that there is a civilizational paradox of
reforms in Russia. First, instead of transitioning from" socialism " to capitalism, the Russian
economy suddenly began to transform into a feudal economic model. Secondly, instead of
building a civilized society, the vector of reforms has turned towards civilizational regression. At
the same time, the speed of anti-civilizational processes in a country of 150 million people is so
great that it does not guarantee that the regression will stop at the stage of developed
feudalism."
Igor Gundarov. Progress in the development of feudalism in Russia.
"Independent Newspaper". November 22, 1996

The systemic crisis of civilizations is not new in the history of mankind. Thousands of years
before the birth of Christ, the civilizations of Ancient Egypt, Assyria and Babylon flourished and
disappeared, followed by the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, then Byzantium
and the Ottoman Empire and many others disappeared, and the colonial super-empires of great
Britain and France collapsed before our eyes.
From a systemic point of view, all of these crises were twin brothers, they are all crises of limits
to growth, limits to growth of the managed system compared to the control (for example, Rome,
the Ottoman Empire, the colonial empires of France and Britain), the limits to growth, a
withdrawal of natural resources (apparently, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria).
Now it is the turn for a global supercivilization, no less heterogeneous, that is, diverse,
multicultural, than the Roman or Soviet one.
On the ruins of all the listed and not listed civilizations and super-civilizations today we find
relatively barbaric societies, that is, societies that are far from advanced in technical, political,
cultural or spiritual dimensions. The leading civilizations that followed them in time arose in
geographically remote areas, on other cultural grounds. And it would be paradoxical to assume
that the global civilizational crisis will have other essential consequences, consequences other
than a deep socio-political and technological rollback to comparative barbarism. Especially since
most of humanity is still barbaric from the point of view of a computerized minority. In order to
avoid misinterpretation, I want to clarify that the term "barbarism" does not carry an estimated
load in the coordinates "better-worse", but only records the use of historically "passed",
"previously used" social, economic and production technologies, which can be more sustainable,
more environmentally friendly, and more spiritual than modern, compared to "modern".
From a realistic point of view, the twenty-first century (or at least its beginning) seems to be an
age of war of all against all, an age of cultural decline, an age of zero value of human life. All
this will be compounded by a series of global environmental catastrophes, the sharp edge of
which will naturally be directed against the human race. One of the first catastrophes is likely to
be the "deconservation" between 2002 and 2005. chemical weapons submerged in the Baltic sea,
since it is difficult to assume that huge funds will be allocated to the problem by the countries of
the "developed" West or by the distressed Russia (see Izvestia, March 5, 1998).
In the course of armed conflicts, it is almost inevitable that nuclear reactors of "peaceful" power
plants and chemical weapons depots will be blown up (with the resulting global consequences)
(their coordinates are known to an accuracy of meters, movement is impossible, and the
readiness to bomb was demonstrated by the United States in early 1998 in Iraq), after which
humanity as a complete system can be forgotten for several centuries.
Unlikely "peaceful" development promises the poisoning of the biosphere is not radioactive and
chemical substances, and "simple" carbon dioxide as a technological rollback does not change
the trends in the use of hydrocarbon fuels, whose reserves are far from exhaustion, which would
mean the escalation of the processes of anthropogenic climate change, which can be prevented
by the decline of global production of paper and related timber trade. Reasoning about the
Renaissance period is beyond the scope of scientific analysis, both because of the remoteness of
the period from our time, and because of the almost complete unknown state of the world on
which the Renaissance will be based. I want to believe that descendants will take into account
our mistakes, but, alas, this does not happen often.
The pessimism of the above is egregious. And the author will be repeatedly branded and cursed.
But the sober analysis and calm presentation of the consequences of the crisis are based on the
real history of the most educated 300-million community of Soviet people, who have already
experienced a similar crisis over the past decade and a half.
During this time, an industrially developed country that paved the way for humanity to Space,
turned into an agricultural and raw-material backwater, recognized as a "super" power only by
virtue of possessing nuclear weapons.
During this time, 5 local wars (Tajikistan, Chechnya, Karabakh, Abkhazia, Transdniestria) broke
out on the land of friendship of peoples without quotes, which have already claimed hundreds of
thousands of human lives.
During this time, 300 million community split into an immense multitude of small associations,
competing more than collaborating, at the same time trusting in the Messiah who will put all the
suffering, clothe, feed, and, taking hands, have a bright future.
During this time, among 300 million people, there was not a single one who offered society an
acceptable program for overcoming the crisis. Turning the thesis around, we can say that the
300-million-strong society did not make a choice in favor of one or several proposed programs to
overcome the crisis, tacitly agreeing (but not supporting) what the state authorities, new
businesses and criminal structures are doing to society.
Of course, human genius can do many things, including prevent the implementation of the
described scenario, the question is how to make it come out of the underground for creation, and
not another murder.
What to do!
The scenario described above will necessarily be implemented in the worst possible scenario if
everyone continues to think or pretend to think that continuous economic growth and boundless
globalization are the future of humanity; that in the near future, underdeveloped countries will
gradually approach the "developed" in terms of living standards and democracy. And build your
behavior based on this assumption. There is nothing worse than incorrect forecasts. I think we
have already seen this in Russia.
Therefore, the worst thing you can do is to continue doing what you did yesterday or the day
before, in the Holy hope that it will pass or form itself.
It will not pass and will not be formed. And the thirteenth year of the vowel fall into the abyss
should have convinced us of this (we fell "before" without a word for another ten years).
The least you can do is start thinking, that is, carefully understand what is happening, realize the
reality of the upcoming crisis and try to explain it to as many other people as possible - from
housemates to politicians and businessmen, without hoping that someone will do it for you.
The greatest damage to Soviet and Russian society has been and continues to be caused by a lack
of understanding of the essence of the changes taking place, by General confusion, and by the
fundamental uncertainty of the future. And no one can be blamed for this: we were and still are
the first testers of the growth limit crisis. This is probably the eternal mission of Russia-to be the
first in the tests.
In the next crisis, we have every opportunity to enter prepared, armed with the necessary
knowledge and understanding. And if we are not prepared, there will be no one to blame for the
next round of suffering: the fools themselves.
We have every opportunity to prepare the rest of humanity for this crisis, if there are those who
understand, if there are those who want to learn, and not to teach.
The most that can be done is to begin to behave intelligently, that is, to try to unite those who
have understood or are able to understand and act. At least at the level of mutual fame, mutual
awareness and trust. The organization of cooperation of like-minded people is the only chance of
a reasonable way out of the civilizational crisis. Alone, even simple survival will become a game
of Russian roulette.