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The provided text offers a sweeping historical and predictive analysis of global systems, focusing on the evolution of power structures from ancient times to a projected future. It traces the shifting dominance of religious, military, and mercantile orders, detailing how the mercantile order, characterized by market forces and democracy, gradually displaced previous systems and moved westward across successive “cores” like Bruges, Venice, London, and finally, various American cities. The analysis suggests that the current American-centered system, the “ninth form,” is reaching its end due to internal contradictions and global challenges, including ecological scarcity and rising powers in Asia. The author posits that this era will be followed by a super-empire of surveillance and a period of hyperconflict, ultimately leading, through massive upheaval, to a decentralized, altruistic hyperdemocracy on a planetary scale by the late twenty-first century.
This extensive historical analysis traces the rise and westward migration of the mercantile order and its intrinsic link to the development of democracy. The text details how historical power structures—religious and military—have repeatedly given way to the mercantile power centered in ever-shifting global cores, from the Middle East to modern-day North America, and particularly focusing on the current dominance of the California-centered ninth form of the mercantile order. Crucially, the source projects two possible catastrophic future scenarios, a turbulent Hyperconflict or an all-encompassing, surveillance-driven Super-Empire, which ultimately must be transcended by a global, ethical Hyperdemocracy to ensure humanity’s survival and address mounting ecological and social crises.
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