Part one of this article introduced Sankofa, and identified the current, and increasingly pivotal, moment in history as the crux for applying this idea. The initial backwards-looking perspective taken from this concept focused on a wide-ranging cross section of historical events in which different societies faced calamities and notable moments of great threat, difficulty and loss of life. From this, some key common themes, underlying drivers and implications were extracted, which provide the foundation for the second part of this Janus perspective. Namely, a look forward at the potential pathways for human civilisation that radiate outwards from the present.
The pathway that will be followed and the future that will emerge are of course inherently unknowable, being subject to the chaotic dynamics of complex systems. Taking this moment as the initial starting condition, it is nonetheless possible to sketch out some broad possibilities and systemic ‘modes’ that could manifest from the trends, drivers, and meses that shape reality now. These may comprise ‘business as usual’ pathways, whilst others take yet darker turns, or they may alternatively be disrupted by trends with the potential to generate new and more positive outcomes. Put another way, for some possible pathways, there be dragons of the type that Sankofa part one described, whilst down other pathways much more hopeful visions beckon.
Future studies, scenario planning, horizon scanning and war gaming are whole disciplines in themselves, and have been the subject of a wide range of academic studies, thought pieces and other speculations. The Limits to Growth (D Meadows et al., Universe Books, 1972) presented amongst the first really well thought-out and robustly underpinned set of pathways for the future (collapse, in most cases…), but a more contemporary analysis of pathways for civilisation, which takes into account the febrile dynamics of the 2020s, is presented in Navigating the Polycrisis: Mapping the Futures of Capitalism and the Earth (M Albert, MIT Press, 2024). This book presents a comprehensive, thoroughly-researched, and highly readable analysis of potential global-scale pathways for the 21st century, and provides the basis for the forward look in this article.
Key outlines it provides include the nature of the developing polycrisis, planetary-scale systems thinking, the key facets of scenario modelling in this context, and the nature of the ‘socio-ecological problematique’ (an alternative term for polycrisis, meaning the array of deep and interacting challenges facing collective humanity). The main output of the book’s analysis is seven qualitative ‘World System Pathways’ (WSPs), which are proposed to emerge from differing interactions of a number of systemic ‘attractors’ at global scale.
Key amongst these attractors are ‘fossil nationalism’ (continuation of mass fossil fuel use through cooperation between fossil capital and populist movements); ‘neoliberal drift’ (continuation of a neoliberalism-dominated system, despite its lack of legitimacy, due to no sufficient opposition emerging); ‘ecosocialism’ (climate justice and labour movements reshaping the political economy away from profit and growth); and green Keynesian (green finance, manufacturing, social movements and politics accelerating the transition to more sustainable energy and food systems). The following paragraphs summarise the key features of the WSPs:
- The first two WSPs are grouped together as collapse scenarios because they both describe failures of the global system, with the severity and totality of the collapse being the differentiator. WSP1 (Breakdown) describes a full-blown collapse scenario emerging from a convergence and vicious spiral of socio-ecological crises, war/terrorism, and opportunistic exploitation by elites. The preceding context is global stagflation and heavy greenhouse gas emissions from a prolonged period of fossil nationalism, and the outcome is a comprehensive breakdown of the global order and large-scale human die-offs, leaving only scattered survivors. WSP2 (Neofuedalism) represents a much less profound, ‘softer’ breakdown with a ‘fortress world’ emerging in place of total failure. This emerges from the same context but the world system fragments into complex multiplicity of residual states, quasi-states and other communities organised along feudal capitalist, warlordism and other systems, which compete for resources and territory. Some global elite cooperation may persist to manage these tensions; this system could feasibly stabilise along historical mercantile lines, or ‘revert’ towards WSP1.
Navigating the Polycrisis presents some fictional analogies for the WSPs, which is expanded here. There is a rich library of dystopian fiction to bring WSP1/2 to life; in terms of the driving dynamics, key works include The Peripheral (William Gibson; specifically, ‘the Jackpot’), Earth 2100 (ABC), The Bone Clocks (David Mitchell; final chapter), and Leave the World Behind (Rumaan Alam). For the worlds that may emerge, The Road (Cormac McCarthy), Juice (Tim Winton), The Rover (Roadshow Films), and the Mad Max saga (Warner Bros.) capture WSP1, whilst The Wall (John Lanchester), The Precedent (Sean McMullen), Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler), Austral (Paul McAuley), The Windup Girl (Paulo Bacigalupi), and The Second Sleep (Robert Harris) describe possible versions of WSP2.
- The next three WSPs are captured under the umbrella term of ‘techno-leviathan’, which describes a world of competing blocs of nations, economic models and advanced fourth industrial revolution technologies (e.g., AI, robotics, biotechnology). WSP3 (Volatile Techno-Leviathan) sees technology-enabled mass unemployment, rentiers and inequality, but these technologies also keep climate tipping points at bay (i.e., via geoengineering) and secure the elites against mass terrorism and rebellion. The preceding context combines neoliberal drift with technological breakthroughs, resulting in capitalism being usurped by multipolar security and power assemblages; this system hovers between WSP4 (stabilisation) and 1/2 (runaway climate change or geopolitical strife). WSP4 (Stable Techno-Leviathan) is a more stable variant arising from a period of green Keynesianism, characterised by stabilising global temperatures and a long period of growth. 20-50% of the global population in the core nations live comfortable, high technology lives in dense megacities, supported by polluted and depleted ‘sacrifice zones’ in a radicalised, surveilled and contained world periphery. WSP5 (Ecomodernist Socialism) overlaps significantly with WSP4, but with greater authoritarian social governance and redistribution. Extractive pressures may still drive towards WSP4 (or even WSP3), though steady-state or degrowth transitions would also be feasible.
Techno-leviathan type scenarios are a staple of fiction, with high-technology, unequal dystopias of WSP3 having been vividly depicted in works including Elysium (TriStar Pictures), Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt), the Blade Runner saga (Warner Bros.), The Creator (20th Century Studios), Make Room! Make Room! (Harry Harrison, along with its better known interpretation Soylent Green, Metro Goldwyn Mayer), and American War (Omar El Akkad). For WSP4/5, more positive yet flawed high technology futures include Existence (David Brin), Her (Warner Bro. Pictures), Hum (Helen Phillips), and I, Robot (20th Century Fox).
- The overarching theme of the final two WSPs is a lower technology global economy which undergoes degrowth following a protracted ‘polycrisis storm’ arising from neoliberal drift or Keynesian stagflation. WSP6 (Fortress Degrowth) emerges from ecosocialist movements in the global core, which strive for egalitarian degrowth. The context of deep crisis along with fears of ecological scarcity and excessive migration from the global periphery drive these movements towards militarised borders and strong counter-terrorism efforts, which have the potential to evolve into fortress/lifeboat style ecosocialist assemblages, or even ‘ecofascist’ states. WSP7 (Abolitionist Ecosocialism) describes an ecosocialist world-system combining contraction and convergence (i.e., egalitarian degrowth) between the global north and south and the abolition of security assemblages. The end of militarised global apartheid permits migrants to be resettled, and coordinated geoengineering and rewilding allows a large (9-10 billion) global population to be sustained even with a high degree (3°C) of climatic warming. WSP7 is the most desirable outcome for the world system, but also the one likely requiring the most elaborate orchestration, along with a hefty dose of luck, to come about.
For degrowth scenarios, the more dangerous world depicted in WSP6 is captured in darker fiction such as Children of Men (Universal Pictures), The Deluge (Stephen Markley), and The Mandibles (Lionel Shriver). The more hopeful worlds depicted in WSP7 are perhaps less well represented than explicitly dystopian scenarios, but aspects of works such as The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson), Ecotopia (Ernest Callenbach), and The Great Transition: A Novel (Nick Fuller Googins) capture some of the ways in which ecosocialism may come about and how it may look ‘on the ground’.
The WSPs described in Navigating the Polycrisis are by no means predictions nor do they comprehensively bound all possibilities; instead, they are an indicative set of sketches to guide thinking on how global civilisation may evolve in coming decades. They are therefore ideal for this look-ahead, which when combined together with the look back in part one, inform the Sankofa perspective. Although great gulfs of social organisation, technology (e.g., hugely complex global circulatory and nervous systems – transport networks and the internet), knowledge, and sheer physical size (regional vs global reach) separate the historical examples in part one and these world system pathways, there are still multiple themes that bridge and link them.
The extremes of the possibilities
WSP1 and 7 ‘bookend’ the range of possible pathways in terms of the very worst, and most desirable, outcomes for human civilisation in coming decades and beyond, so define the envelope for other, more moderate potential outcomes. The historical events described in part one were deliberately selected to showcase some of the worst pitfalls that societies can and have faced, so naturally correspond to the ‘lower end’ of the WSPs. Although they certainly don’t all automatically correlate to the worst case of WSP1, one example does map to this breakdown scenario; the Classical Mayan collapse.
This is because Mayan society experienced a severe failure of its supporting systems, followed in short order by the total disintegration of its social and physical infrastructure, and a depopulation so rapid and total that grand cities became ruins that were swallowed by jungle for many centuries. The confluence of factors which can lead to collapses of this magnitude and totality have been well studied and documented (e.g., here, here, here, and here), and have applied to numerous other historical societies (e.g., the Mississippian Cultures). As described in part one, climate (by dictating the success or failure of agriculture) and the size and nature of societies (by dictating their responsiveness to changes), were key amongst these factors.
In the case of the Mayan civilisation, additional ‘X factors’ may have been climate and inequality (and potentially mercury contamination; see part one) acting together. The lowland Mayans comprised a highly stratified, autocratic society with centralised government and elites. Multiple studies (covering everything from historical analysis to the mathematical basis), have highlighted the destabilising dangers of extreme inequality, and for Mayan society, a fatal weakness may have been the prominence of and reverence for their elites, who then failed so completely to foresee or prevent external calamity, or to lead effectively when it did occur.
Looking at the present and to the future, this is sobering to contemplate. Anthropogenic climate change poses an all-enveloping threat which has the potential to undermine our fundamental support systems on par with the historical events described, or potentially worse, given the huge contemporary populations dependent on fragile food systems. In parallel, grotesque levels of economic inequality are well developed and accelerating at global scale, and technologies are appearing and evolving at a pace and intensity that may induce hard-to-foresee instabilities (more on this below).
At the other end of the scale, WSP7 describes the highest-preference outcome for the world system, in which stability would be achieved primarily through heavily emphasising egalitarianism (i.e., by seeking to break down inequality and avert conflict i.e., ‘no one’s safe until everyone’s safe’) and putting Earth systems front and centre (i.e., through climate stabilisation, and nature restoration and preservation). There is not really a good historical analogue; though periods of the Roman Empire have been described as ‘the happiest age of mankind’, this was true only for elite parts of Roman society and was achieved off the back of conquest and mass slavery, so is not at all comparable to the world described in WSP7.
Considering the current ‘direction of travel’ for much of the world, achieving an outcome resembling WSP7 would be a great challenge, and from the perspective of the current inflection moment, looks improbable. It would require significant shifts in the social, cultural and political ‘bedrock’ of much of the world, along with increases in caution, restraint and decency in the use of technology, and would require us to actively counter many of our collective maladaptive traits. This outcome is of course far from impossible, but this Sankofa perspective would suggest that we may be more likely to be drawn towards other systemic ‘attractors’ that have acted in the past.
Middling possibilities
The characteristics of the ‘softer’ breakdown described by WSP2 (or the somewhat similar WSP6), namely a crisis-driven fragmentation into a more diverse ecosystem of simpler political and economic organisations, may be apparent in several of the historical events described in part one. In the case of the Bronze Age collapse, many great civilisations disappeared, but the Mediterranean rim was not abandoned to be reclaimed by nature. Far from it; the Phoenician city states (amongst others) largely avoided the fate of the other civilisations in that region and subsequently thrived into the new Iron Age. The context of several other of the historical events was complex patchworks of societies operating at more local (at most regional) scales, with variant forms of governance, often competing for dominance in resources and ideology.
This organising principal has been prevalent through much of human history, with large empires and the modern system of sovereign nation-states being more unusual and ephemeral forms of organisation; the current nation-state system emerged from the Peace of Westphalia (which ended the Thirty Years War), and superseded these more localised and fluid forms of organisation in Europe and beyond. Large empires have been observed to collapse time and again through history, and the nation-state system may not be much more durable; it could prove to be an edifice held together by the fossil energy of the industrial era and therefore prone to fragment as those energy sources wane. This would support the idea that more localised systems of organisation (i.e., reversion towards WSP2/6) are a ‘strong attractor’ for human societies.
Although the ‘techno-leviathan’ WSPs are defined by the influence of highly advanced technologies (e.g., AI) on societal evolution, giving limited scope for direct historical comparisons, there may still be some informative analogies and links in terms of the disruptive influence of technology. Firstly, technology in the form of the printing press may have been a significant contributory factor in the initiation and spread of the Thirty Years War and the wider ‘General Crisis’. This innovation transformed the way that information moved through societies after its invention during the 15th century, and application for printed newspapers and propaganda material allowed memes to spread much further and faster than word of mouth could, driving tipping points in societal behaviour. This illustrates the potential for new technologies to be rapidly, unpredictably and extensively disruptive to existing societal equilibria.
Another technological destabilising factor may manifest around disruption of the ‘state monopoly on violence’, which has been a key factor in the balance of power in the global nation-state order. An example from the historical events in part one may be the 1875-78 hunger crisis, which partially arose from exploitation of the periphery by centralised and self-interested powers. The subjects of the British Raj were in no position to fight back against the might of the imperial forces exporting food from India; although their descendants were able to enact justice through their fight for independence decades later, they were largely powerless at the time. By contrast, under ‘techno-leviathan’ WSPs, widely-distributed AI-cyber-nuclear-bioengineering capabilities could allow exploited peoples to have access to dangerous means to effectively take their fight to oppressive elites.
The availability and use of such capabilities (no matter how just) would likely be highly dangerous and destabilising to societies (the events of The Sum of All Fears (Tom Clancy) might be an apt fictional analogy). The success of the ‘Sea Peoples’ during the Bronze Age collapse also highlights that the defences of even powerful and highly-organised societies are never infallible. Of the middling possibilities, numerous historical examples indicate that fragmentation towards more localised polities under times of societal stress may be an attractor, and the modern world system may also be vulnerable to this. Examples from history also hint that the ‘techno-leviathan’ scenarios could provide such societal stresses, and the unpredictable emergence of technological disruptive factors could be driving force for such fragmentation and simplification.
Future thrutopias
What Sankofa indicates is that dispersed and varied governance based around more local circumstances has been an attractor through history, so a fragmentation of existing societal systems that leads back toward that is a credible possibility for the future. In the context of the current moment and looking forward, this could mean a great many things, and certainly not necessarily some sort of universal breakdown into a multitude of defensive, paranoid and armed fortresses ‘firewalled’ off from each other (i.e., dominated by feudal city states or warlords, as seen at many points in the past), though the degradation of the world order into a ‘law of the jungle’ type situations, defined by conflict, couldn’t be ruled out.
Less drastic, gentler and more positive forms of fragmentation could involve rollback of economic globalisation (whether planned and deliberate, or as part of a more uncontrolled breakdown) so that supply chains and other interactions become more regional and local once again, or for very large and populous states to generate more internal variation (i.e., allow the emergence of more autonomous regions and cities), or rearrange along confederative lines, or even fragment more extensively. Even if the organisation of human societies were to become more diverse and localised, it is feasible that larger scale co-ordination could still form via ‘supra-national’ type organisations (of which the EU has been a template), to manage the resulting complexity.
Any of these outcomes which broadly correspond with WSP2/6 could be described as forms of ‘thrutopia’ i.e., neither the idealised yet out-of-reach utopia of WSP7, nor the ‘hard fall’ of WSP1 (a potential catastrophe to be avoided at all costs), nor the potentially unstable, unjust and dangerous technologically-dominated dystopias of WSP3/4/5. Variants of WSP2/6 may be preferable outcomes in terms of avoiding the pitfalls of the most challenging moments of history, giving better odds for achieving wider social justice, and preserving Earth’s life support systems by arresting the destructive momentum of globalised, neoliberal capitalism.
Achieving even forms of ‘thrutopia’ will likely be fraught with risk, and how we might get there in light of the rapidly developing polycrisis of the 2020s becomes the key question. This will require leadership with long-term vision that can break the narrow vested interests of oligarchy and plutocracy, undoing the baggage of long histories of colonial looting, and truly recognising the Earth System as so much more than just a bank account. These aims are oft-said but the chasm separating them from the narrow perspectives and manias of the global leadership we actually have right now, is the nub of this challenge. Perhaps perspectives like Sankofa can help define and drive the systemic changes needed, or perhaps not, but one thing it highlights is certain; there is a needle to thread to get this right.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick King is a chartered earth and environmental scientist working primarily in professional consulting and the energy industry. He has worked with the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University since 2018 on subject areas including energy and global risk and is also affiliated with the Schumacher Institute think tank. He has also presented and written opinion pieces about a number of environmental and systems thinking topics.
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