Chapter 6
History after Marx

Marx's philosophy was one of the Enlightenment, whose dominant initial characteristic, as we have just recalled, was the emancipation of citizens through access to knowledge. Furthermore, his aversion toward the bourgeois system, of which he was part, is largely due to the failure of the 1848 social revolt that aimed to realize a part of the Enlightenment ideal. From there on, Marx outlines two paths. In The Communist Manifesto, first, he advocates for the simple overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the collectivization of the means of production. In Capital, next, he proposes a more moderate path, namely a state intervention of the social democratic type, to counter simply the excessive exploitation of workers by the capitalist bourgeoisie. Let's now look at what History has unfolded and the lessons we can draw from it.

The 20th Century and Its Unsuccessful Experiments

The additional insight from the full course of the 20th century allows Thomas Piketty to show that without the support of wars, social struggle is not sufficient to ensure a reduction in inequalities. In other words, the system of regulation of capitalist excesses by law, proposed by Marx in Capital, is not sufficient. This is already observed by Marx at the end of Capital, namely the systematic deficiencies of its implementation. We will look at this in more detail in Chapter 7.

Similarly, we must stop seeing the 'Thirty Glorious Years' as a kind of lost golden age to which we could return, for example, through nationalism. Indeed, this period is not the result of an irreversible social progress, but as Thomas Piketty shows, it is merely a transient positive effect, a byproduct of the two major wars of the 20th century. And as a consequence, the current years are an inevitable return to normality, that is to say, a shocking level of inequality, just like in Marx's time.

Next, the experience of the Soviet communism showed us that the proletarian revolution advocated by Marx in the Communist Manifesto solved nothing by itself, that is, the fundamental problem was not who exercises power, but how power is exercised. Underlying this error is the idea that class struggle, that is a particular form of the 'us against them' struggle, is a constituent of human nature. However, as we saw in Chapter 2, what is a constituent of human nature, inherited from our genetic evolution, is the struggle for social status. In other words, if we forcefully merge the two groups that were in intense struggle, namely the working class and the management, the struggle does not stop, but other groups form which start to struggle on another modal of the 'us against them', for example those in the party against others.

Conversely, the rise of fascism has shown us the danger of too little regulation of capitalism by law. Indeed, this is translated into an inability to bring the social organization to a morally satisfactory level in the face of the expectations of the population, which has increased following technological progress. It leads to a progressive distrust of elites, which fuels the rise of populists, then their access to power, and finally the recourse to dictatorship to remain in power once facts do not follow promises. This unfortunate escalation is again underway at the time we are writing this book.
When we bring this explanation of totalitarianism closer to the tripartite division presented in the previous chapter, we realize that a shift in the social organization usually has two sources: on the one hand, real living conditions, and on the other hand, symbolic representations.

Finally, May 1968 can be seen as a dogmatic counter-reaction aimed at imposing Rousseau's vision of a man naturally good corrupted by society. Hence, a rejection of the existing symbolic social structures, namely the first two functions of Dumézil, the priestly as well as in its ecclesiastical and academic forms, and the warrior in its police and capitalist forms.
The problem with Rousseau's vision of man, although appealing, is that the scientific experiments of the nascent sociology, which we mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3, had already definitively invalidated it as early as the 1950s.

More specifically, in the 16th century, geocentrism was the fixation of revealed truth that opposed the birth of modern science, that is, of dogma opposing reason. This led in particular to the condemnation and execution of Giordano Bruno for heresy, and what shows that it is a fundamental problem and not the result of particular unfortunate circumstances, is that four centuries later, Giordano Bruno has still not been rehabilitated by the Catholic Church. Today, Rousseauism has become the other form of dogma opposing reason. In this new form, the dogma is that of the idealized man of the Enlightenment, and the nascent science is sociology. The new religion is called coaching; it also promises us happiness, but in this life, provided we substitute our critical thinking for the religious application of cognitive-behavioral recipes.

When we put together all these experience elements from the 20th century, what appears is that the Left, whether moderate or communist, is no longer a credible method or alternative to regulate in the long run or to replace capitalism. But we must also understand that capitalism itself is not a system capable of regulating its own excesses, hence it implies regular periods of war or totalitarianism. This comes down to saying that Marx does not offer a solution, but that letting things be or pretending to reform the capitalist system without changing its nature is just as illusory.

In the end, the 20th century appears as a century where what does not work is discovered, but not really a solution beyond Marx's invalidated proposals. The only significant progress is brought by Keynes, who taught us that not only do we have to protect individuals from the perverse effects of capitalism, but also protect capitalism from itself by taking control politically as soon as the system goes into crisis. The problem is that this protection is effective in the short term to avoid rapid and massive collapse, but not in the long term to avoid the sequence of loss of trust, populism, and totalitarianism.

The 21st Century and Social Networks

One of the notable facts at the beginning of the 21st century is the emergence of social networks. We will not be interested here in the commercial aims of the companies that provide this infrastructure, nor even in the risks that mass profiling poses for our societies in the long term, but in the motivations of individuals who participate in these social networks, and in the potential effect of these on the social organization.

It seems clear to us that the main motivation for joining social networks, conscious or not, is the strategy of alliances, driven by the objective of social ascension mentioned in Chapter 2. The power of this instinct inherited from our genetic evolution explains perfectly why joining social networks was quick and massive, and that problems of widespread profiling were ignored by individuals.
Next, what seems remarkable regarding the potential effect of social networks on social organization is their similarity to the real world.
The documentary Caribbean Primates showed that individuals can either prioritize a caring network, as Chester did, or an aggressive network, as Tony did. We find exactly the same phenomenon at the level of social networks, where on one side there are networks for exchanging gossip or crowdfunding, and on the other, networks whose base is common hatred.
Next, we saw that the social exchanges aimed at establishing alliances, whether caring or aggressive, ultimately led to permanent struggle among rhesus macaques. Again, social networks seem to present the same dynamics as the real world. Either people adopt popularity as a social success criterion, or they use the social network as a tool to form alliances in the real world, that is to say, to build their network to ensure their social success in the real world. However, those who adopt popularity as a social success criterion are in permanent struggle for it.
Finally, one of the problems related to cognitive dissonance is that individuals tend to select their sources of information according to their beliefs, which often leads them to maintain erroneous convictions. Again, social networks pose a problem, but the selection of the newspaper you read or the TV channel you watch previously produced the same kind of bias.
Finally, social networks have the apparent novelty that anyone can express themselves, which the written press did not allow, and only a few on television, but which already existed at the level of any political or associative gathering.

In the end, social networks appear simply as a new media, which, like the press, then radio, then television in their time, only accelerates the speed of information propagation, and therefore reduces the level of critical distance.
Should we then conclude, as Gérard Bronner does in The Democracy of the Gullible, that the massification of information related to the development of the Internet is causing a regression in the level of truthfulness? In our opinion, no, provided we adapt the functioning of professional media, as we will propose in Chapter 20.

Our Age

Before moving on to the description of the solution proposed, let's clarify the context of the problem we are trying to solve, and to do this, let's start by better defining what characterizes our era.

Singularity

The most singular element of our time, compared to all previous ones, and therefore also to that of Marx, is that the Earth has suddenly become the limiting factor for our development.
Now, our current social organization, which we recall corresponds roughly to Marx's recommendations in Capital, that is, regulation of capitalism by law, is also trying to resolve the new ecological problem by law. That is the practical side. From the symbolic side, ecological sensitivity does correspond to the expression of the need for a new social organization to master the consequences of the technological revolution, but this aspiration struggles to find a proposal for practical modalities. We find the same split at the level of ecology as we had at the level of social justice. On one side, the hardliners who want to leave capitalism, and on the other, the moderates who want to simply amend it. In this sense, although he talks relatively little directly about ecology, one can see this book as a radical ecological proposal in the sense that its central object is indeed the implementation of a social organization adapted to the current technological level.

Continuity

Conversely, once we set aside the major difference of the resilience capacity of the current terrestrial ecosystem having become the limiting factor of human development, many elements of the current era, that is to say, that of the second industrial revolution, are in continuity with the era of Marx, that is to say, that of the first industrial revolution.

The second industrial revolution (computing, robotics) and the explosion of communication means simply amplify the shift that had already occurred at the time of Marx: the main objective is no longer production, but becomes to find at all costs outlets for the products.

The chronic instability of the capitalist system persists. Marx claimed that this instability is inherent to capitalism, and despite the optimistic and peremptory declarations of economists convinced that now we understand how the system works, so we know how to regulate it, history, including recent history, gives reason to Marx.

Changes are rapid, but contrary to popular beliefs, they are not more rapid than in the 19th century. Indeed, the upheavals related to the arrival of the train were just as violent and rapid as those related to the arrival of the digital era.

Let us now address the social aspect of our era.

The production social structure has not fundamentally changed. Simply, after slavery and the working-class misery, we now rely on the exploitation of a relocated working class, mainly in Asia and Africa.

Social Relations

Elites have become notoriously incompetent because they are illiterate in the digital world. They are then unable to think about the organization and largely lose their credibility. This is an important difference from Marx's time. At the time of the first industrial revolution, a boss who toured his factory could have a fairly accurate idea of the situation just by observing the functioning of the machines and the workers, and the flow of production. Conversely, in the digital age, the boss is largely shortsighted. The image he has of the state of his computer system depends totally on what he is told and not on a direct observation. Moreover, as soon as the production flow involves data and no longer goods, he becomes unable to organize it without the help of specialists.

The union elites are also outdated, digital illiterate, and unable to think about the human-machine complementarity (1). Therefore, demands have gradually shifted from being synonymous with progress to being retrograde. Lacking the ability to propose a model for the future, we have ended up demanding the return to an idealized past, or simply seeking the status quo.

In the end, before people were for this or that system, now they are gradually becoming against the system but for nothing else. Thus, we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21st century a return of a populist without content, with the associated risks.
The successive phases of such a drift are:
1. No impression of social justice, that is, the feeling that the elites do not deserve their position
2. We vote for an alternative man
3. As he does not address the real issue, either he disappears or he becomes a tyrant.

(1)
The term 'human-machine complementarity' refers to the fact that production is now ensured by a mix of automated and manual operations. Therefore, to obtain an efficient and quality production, it is important to ensure a good articulation between the two. However, we often see that the automated side is the subject of the largest investments, and this leads to considering humans as mere complements to machines. This produces in the end a degradation of working conditions, exactly as Marx observed during the first industrial revolution. See the more complete explanation provided in Chapter 15.