Towards what future? Are we near the end of Western Civilisation and the “refined” market economy?

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Lourdes Viladomiu

For some time now I have struggled to understand what is happening. Above all, I find it difficult to grasp why such a deep sense of unease has spread throughout contemporary society. Some people are entering 2026 with mistrust, even fear. Others speak openly of a precipice.

What is going on? What has distanced us from that once optimistic vision of Western civilisation—the civilisation of modernity, prosperity and growth? The civilisation that placed the United States and Europe—together with a small circle of allies—in a position of clear supremacy.

When I taught Economic Development at the UAB, the major reference authors oscillated between the optimism of the 1960s—when it seemed that all countries would eventually take off if they overcame certain stages—and, later, the search for the factors responsible for explaining why some were left behind. Overcoming obstacles meant progressing towards prosperity. And that prosperity was meant to be universal.

The key question is this: why did the second half of the twentieth century work so well in the wealthy countries? Why did Western civilisation reach that dominant position?

Drawing on historical materialism, I believe the answer—simplified—is a good alignment between structure and superstructure. Put more plainly: between the way production was organised and the values that structured society.

By structure we mean technology and the social relations that make production possible. By superstructure, ideology, values, norms—what we usually refer to as “civilisation”.

After the Second World War, manufacturing productivity experienced its golden age. More cars, more refrigerators, more televisions per hour worked. Automation drove output upwards. But for this system to function, a state capable of distributing purchasing power was essential: taxation, the welfare state and labour regulation.

The welfare state took responsibility for basic services—education, healthcare, social protection—and allowed households to allocate their income to consumption. Labour regulations guaranteed wages and rights that turned workers into consumers of what they themselves produced.

This productive model was completed by consumerism as the central ideological axis. Work was the core of society because it enabled consumption. Advertising created desire: the car, the house, the neighbour’s lifestyle. The mass incorporation of women into the labour market—also driven by public-sector employment—represented a huge leap in consumption. A second income changed everything.

Western civilisation, heir to Judeo-Christian values such as effort and work, evolved towards a form of practical agnosticism: everyone could take part in the race of consumption. Within rules, with a degree of respect, and without resorting to practices deemed “uncivilised”. The market was seen as a space of opportunity, and social conflicts were softened through increased state intervention.

Fear of communism helped to produce a more “refined”, more civilised market economy, with growing equality of opportunity—including for women.

And then we reached the twenty-first century.

What has changed?

Why is Western civilisation becoming polarised?

What is happening to production and to social relations?

The conception of the state has gradually shifted towards seeing it as a vast dispenser of rights. Progress has become confused with the almost unlimited expansion of a catalogue of entitlements: to healthcare, education, housing, basic income, citizenship, animal rights, gender self-determination, protection against violence, universal services. The list continues to grow.

Each identity group—women, racialised people, LGBT groups—demands additional rights in the name of present or past grievances. Quotas, differentiated regulations and exclusive spaces proliferate. The call is always for more state intervention. Yet rights come at a cost, and the question of who should pay—and how—generates polarised positions.

Many workers and entrepreneurs demand precisely the opposite: less state, lower taxes, more market. They are people who perceive no return—economic, social or moral—from what they contribute. From their perspective, heavy interventionism has eroded the culture of effort and opened the door to woke, animal-rights or identity-based discourses that, they argue, disorient society. Some propose a return to church, military service, authoritarian schooling and sacrificial labour. Many idealise the past and call for an authoritarianism they regard as cleansing or restorative.

Meanwhile, what has become of advertising and of homogenising consumerism? Social media have replaced it all. Through data and cookies, they steadily erode privacy and configure us as individuals embedded in mutually antagonistic tribes. Confrontation seeps into everyday life.

At the same time, within the productive structure itself, manufacturing productivity is giving way to digital and intangible productivity. A world that is difficult even to classify, let alone to name: applications, software, chats, algorithms, clouds, search engines—an often invisible universe.

These intangibles radically transform work, industry, services and labour relations. Work ceases to be the centre of the system and is replaced by machines governed by algorithms. The algorithm dictates production and everyday life. And whoever controls it aspires not only to control production, but also values—that is, civilisation itself. A simultaneous control of structure and superstructure.

For the owners of algorithmic technology—the so-called techno-Caesars—the welfare state is a nuisance. They see it as a vast, inefficient and opaque structure, lacking a clear direction: an organisation that extracts resources through constant fiscal coercion while offering little in return. What is needed, they argue, is a new state at the service of new technologies.

For the ideologues of artificial intelligence, this technology will lead to unlimited abundance and solve all problems. In this way, they claim, coherence will once again be achieved between the mode of production and a new “global technological civilisation”.

We are in the midst of a transition. And historical adjustments are rarely gentle. Digitalisation and AI require energy, food, raw materials and human intelligence—the very same resources that sustained the industrial revolution. And those resources were redistributed through conflict, wars, shifts in hegemony and new forms of public intervention.

Will contemporary society be capable of making this transition without resorting to violence?

That is the great unknown. Perhaps that AI guru is right who claims that the great challenge of the future is learning how to coexist without violence. And it seems we have much to learn: perhaps “Western civilisation” was not the right school after all.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons