Political Memes

Ok.

Every post-apocalyptic society we can point to is fictional. After all, we’ve never actually experienced an apocalypse on that scale.

But just off the top of my head, The Book of Eli depicts a post-apocalyptic society that has largely devolved into anarchy, with power concentrated in the hands of warlords and whoever can enforce their will through violence.

Cyborg presents a similar picture: societal collapse, competing factions, and survival through force.

Then there’s Mad Max, where civilization has collapsed into violent competition over increasingly scarce resources, with whoever controls the necessities of life holding the power.

But I’d also venture to say that many of the post-apocalyptic societies people point to as examples of socialism are actually post-scarcity societies, or at least societies in which scarcity has been resolved to some degree. When the necessities of life are readily available, the incentive to hoard resources and compete for basic survival diminishes. That creates the conditions for people to organize society around collective needs rather than individual accumulation.

In other words, what people identify as socialism in these fictional settings may actually be the result of a fundamental change in the material conditions of society.

The interesting question isn’t whether people are naturally selfish or naturally cooperative. It’s how the conditions people live under influence which behaviors become necessary for survival. When resources are scarce and institutions collapse, people may turn to violence and self-preservation. When their basic needs are reliably met, cooperation and collective ownership become much more practical.

Of course, neither outcome is inevitable. Scarcity doesn't automatically produce anarchy, and abundance doesn't automatically produce socialism. But the material conditions of a society have a tremendous influence on the political and economic systems that can realistically emerge.