Collapse of Western Civilization, Oreskes/Naomi

Capitalism: A form of socioeconomic organization that dominated Western Europe and North America from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, in which the means of production and distribution of goods and services were owned either by individuals or by government-chartered legal entities called “corporations.” Typically these entities were operated for-profit, with the surplus value produced by workers funneled to owners, managers, and “investors,” third parties who owned “stock” in a company but had liability neither for its debts nor its social consequences. The separation of work from ownership produced a concentration of wealth amongst a tiny elite, who could then purchase more favorable laws and regulations from their host governments. One popular notion about capitalism of the period was that it operated through a process of creative destruction. Ultimately, capitalism was paralyzed in the face of the rapid climate destabilization it drove, destroying itself.

Communism: A political ideology rooted in the early European industrial revolution that favored workers’ rights over those of financiers and managers, and state planning over market forces. Adopted primarily in Eurasia in the early to mid-twentieth century, it was largely abandoned in the late twentieth century due to its failures to deliver on its economic promises, and its susceptibility to political corruption and human rights abuses. However, it became resurgent in a modified form labeled neocommunism, focused on the necessity of government intervention in response to the crisis of the Great Collapse.