The Capitalist Empire of Apocalypses

In 1962, the American foreign policy establishment invented the doctrine of “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD). The MAD doctrine stated that the world could be annihilated in a nuclear inferno if America was involved in a nuclear war. Perhaps “mad” was the right term to denote the predatory and expansionist foreign policies of the American government.

Capitalism is supposedly an ideology of liberty, rights, prosperity, peace, and happiness—that is what the Americans would like the world to believe. However, since they became a superpower, after winning the Second World War in 1945, they have shown a tendency to concoct “mad” apocalyptic doctrines. No other empire has conceived as many apocalyptic doctrines, and used its power to impose them on other nations, as America has. 

I am not trying to judge these “Made in America” apocalyptic doctrines—I don’t care if these doctrines are right or wrong. What I know is that the doctrines were conceived and propagated by the Americans (with the support of their political ancestors, the West Europeans). The Americans are a modern version of the Trojan priestess Cassandra—they regularly foretell new visions of worldwide apocalypse.

Ice Age,  Acid Rain, ozone layer depletion, Global Warming, Climate Change, and other environmental apocalypses will, according to the American and West European elites, destroy mankind if curbs are not imposed on industrialization and urbanization. But America and Western Europe are the most industrialized and urbanized parts of the world—this makes them the fountainhead of all the environmental apocalypses that they are predicting. 

In the 1980s, the Americans were claiming that HIV AIDS could wipe out 70 percent of humanity. In the 1990s, they were claiming that mad cow disease and bird flu could kill millions. Like the mystic nuts of the Middle Ages, the Americans love to make doomsday predictions. Even the entertainment that they produce is mostly apocalyptic—Netflix has hundreds of serials and movies on environmental catastrophes, killer epidemics, and zombie outbreaks. 

The tendency of the American capitalists to imagine their own destruction and the destruction of the rest of the world is never going to go away. “End of the world is near”—this has been America’s persistent message to the world since 1945. Nowadays they are claiming that a large chunk of humanity will be wiped out due to a fast-mutating and omnipresent flu virus. When the fear of the flu virus subsides, they will concoct some other apocalyptic doctrine.

The Americans love being a superpower. They love playing the hegemonic role in the world. They keep concocting apocalyptic doctrines because they want to frighten the masses in all nations into submission. American capitalism is pessimistic, nihilistic, and hegemonic. Till America remains a superpower, mankind will live in a persistent fear of apocalypses.