ABSTRACT
The rapid expansion of the global economy towards its ecological limits will produce an increasing scarcity of the means of subsistence. Shortages of clean water, fertile land, fish stocks, forests, oil, shelter from storm, flood, and fire, and sustainable ecosystems, will increase pressure at all levels of society, exacerbating mass migration, illegal immigration, social conflict and war. The result may resemble Hobbes’ account of the ‘state of nature’, where conflict arises from competition and fear: anticipation of aggression from others produces pre-emptive aggression in an attempt to attain security. In such a condition, just as there is a scarcity of resources, there is also a scarcity of ‘glory’—reputation of power being power leading to competition for honour as a source of conflict.1 Then anticipation of an apocalyptic future may be transformed into present violence, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fundamental determinant here is an orientation towards the future-a piety, a faith. Just as in the religion of capital where faith, manifested as expectation of a return on investment, determines the present, so it is in the religion of death where fear of the future, manifested as anxiety, may shape our conditions of existence.
