Political Eschatology: A Wave of the Future?

Among the realistic perspectives of the immediate future is the hypothesis of ultra-imperialism re the tendency toward world empire over wider & larger areas, viz, a Pax Romana. This hypothesis is shared by revisionist Marxists & by ex-Marxists from K. Kautsky to J. Burnham & G. Orwell. In contrast to this hyp, there is the perspective of barbary forecasting an imminent breakdown of civilization from the depletion of material & human resources through wars of mutual destruction. There are also Marxist sources for this hyp. Both of these perspectives can be shown to be derivative of a 3rd hyp, the perspective of Caesarism. This perspective re the increasing regimentation of society or the militarization of civil life was systematically developed by O. Spengler, but finds support from a variety of other sources. Whether or not we are presently confronted with an irresistible wave of the future, at least it is cognitively neither completely determinate nor indeterminate. Modified AA.