Humanity is moving into new Dark Ages because we are experiencing also growing social disintegration in all countries of the world, the increase in international conflicts and even the life survival threat in the planet resulting from catastrophic climate change in progress. The gigantic crisis of the world capitalist system and the decline of the US as hegemonic power economic and military associate the struggle of modern barbarians represented by the people of the peripheral capitalist countries seeking emancipation of spoliation exerted by the major capitalist powers led by the United States. The invasion of modern barbarians occurs with the presence in Western Europe and the United States of terrorist groups coming mainly from Islamic countries.

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THE WORLD TOWARD NEW DARK AGES
Fernando Alcoforado *
The "dark ages" is a period of history that emphasizes the cultural and economic
deterioration that occurred in Europe between centuries V and IX resulting from the
declining of Roman Empire. The term Dark Ages referred to the Middle Ages was
widely used in the past. Some historians have used this expression because they had as
references to Greco-Roman culture and the Renaissance. According to these historians,
the Middle Ages were a time with little cultural development, because the culture was
controlled by the Catholic Church. They claimed also that almost did not happen
scientific and technical development because the Church prevented these advances to
place faith as the only way to be considered. The label "dark ages" is used in the
traditional clash between light versus darkness to contrast the "darkness" of this period
with the earlier and later periods of "light".
Generally, the Dark Ages refers to the period of history that began with the fall of the
Western Roman Empire. The term "darkness" was used to characterize retrograde
practices that were prevalent during this period of the Middle Ages. The Dark Ages
happened when the last emperor of the West, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by
Odoacer, a barbarian. This event took place in 476 AD. The Dark Ages were also the
years of the Muslim conquests. Along with other nomads and warriors with horses and
camels, Muslims crossed the decadent empire, wreaking havoc and spreading
intellectual and social heresy in his way. The Muslim conquests prevailed until the time
of the Crusades that occurred from 1096 to 1270. This old conflict between Christianity
and Islam remains today.
The Dark Ages was a troubled time. Intruders wandering on horseback attacked the
camps. Religious conflicts have arisen. The Muslims conquered land. The lack of good
literature and cultural achievements and barbarous practices prevailed. The period of the
Dark Ages was also seen as a time of faith. Men and women were seeking God. Some
people were seeking God through the most serious rituals of the Catholic Church, others
in Protestant forms of worship. Intellectuals, in turn, saw any religion, by itself, as a
kind of "darkness". These thinkers argued that religious beliefs alienated people creating
a false reality. They were dominated by emotions, not reason. Religion was seen as
contrary to rationality and reason, and that mentality was that initiated the
Enlightenment - a move away from "darkness". Science and reason gained ascendancy,
progressing steadily during and after the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.
The end of the Roman Empire and the "breaking" of the slave economy are explained
by some historians as results of barbarian’s assault that resulted in the destruction of the
slave economic system. Other historians have sought to see in the own internal crisis of
the empire, particularly from the fourth century, successive antislavery and peasant
revolts that plagued the last years of the Roman Empire as causes of Roman decadence
and its fragility in the face of barbarian peoples. That is, the Roman Empire was
doomed before the attack of the barbarians, and the presence of Germanic tribes had the
role to make complex a crisis in full swing. Other historians identify the end of the
Roman Empire in the military expansionism and its crisis, with the consequent
difficulty of remaking the contingent of slaves, as well as the collapse of tax and
financial structures of the empire that played a central role in the Roman crisis.

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The Roman Empire was, in fact, object by a great wave of social unrest, often faced
with incredible accuracy by the Roman authorities. Some historians saw in the anti-
slavery and peasant revolts manifestations of banditry or simple "riots" in a world
assailed by the barbarity not taking into account the profound misery of the vast
majority of enslaved Roman populations. The Roman social order was seriously shaken
since the reign of Commodus (180 AD), when there is a deep insurrectionary movement
in Gaul. This movement, which extends to the fifth century, was a consequence of the
increasing pauperization of the working masses of the field.
On the whole, throughout the Roman Empire impoverished. The cities destroyed by the
first invasions are poorly rebuilt, mines are abandoned (maximum signal Roman
impoverishment) and circus games are interrupted. Along the people the situation is
much more dramatic because the fields, misery launches on major routes bands of
vagabonds and unemployed, in search of work, money or food, turned into bandits.
There was a step to in more or less armed gangs emerge as a real threat to the
established order. There wasn´t politically organized in groups and grouped around any
ideology.
In the contemporary era, the equivalent of the Roman Empire is represented by
imperialism exercised by the United States and the barbarians are the people of the
peripheral and semi peripheral capitalist countries - objects for centuries of imperialist
spoliation exerted by the great powers throughout history. Just as the end of the Roman
Empire is explained by the military expansionism and the collapse of their tax and
financial structures the same is happening with the United States that weakened
economically and financially, no longer meets more conditions to expand its military
power all around the world. Just as the Roman Empire was doomed before the attack of
the barbarians, the United States also have the same characteristics.
Just as the successive anti-slavery and peasant revolts that dominated the last years of
the Roman Empire were also causes of Roman decadence and its fragility in the face of
barbarian peoples, the governments of the United States and its allies are struggling to
keep subjugated populations within their countries, especially in the current moment of
profound crisis of the world capitalist system responsible for the fall in economic
activity and rising unemployment that reaches deeply into the proletariat and the middle
class. The maintenance of public order is becoming increasingly difficult in these
countries. The contemporary era of capitalism decline points towards that we are
striding toward an era as obscure as was the Dark Ages in the Middle Ages.
Humanity is moving into new Dark Age because we are experiencing also growing
social disintegration in all countries of the world, the increase in international conflicts
and even the life survival threat in the planet resulting from catastrophic climate change
in progress. The gigantic crisis of the world capitalist system and the decline of the US
as hegemonic power economic and military associate the struggle of modern barbarians
represented by the people of the peripheral capitalist countries seeking emancipation of
spoliation exerted by the major capitalist powers led by the United States. The invasion
of modern barbarians occurs with the presence in Western Europe and the United States
of terrorist groups coming mainly from Islamic countries.
Everything indicates that we are already on the verge of a transition from the capitalist
system in decline to the advent of a new economic system whose passage will be as
traumatic as that of slavery to feudalism in the Middle Ages given the difficulty or
impossibility of reconciling the interests of imperialist powers led by the United States

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and the dispossessed people of the world. This difficulty or impossibility results from
the fact the dominant capitalist system is characterized by the omnipresence of its
mercantile ideology which occupies at the same time all the space and all sectors of life.
This ideology says nothing more than, to produce, to sell, to consume, to accumulate! It
reduced all human relationships in market relations and considers our planet as a mere
commodity. The duty imposed on us is the servile work. The only right that he
recognizes is the right to private property. The only god he worships is money.
The omnipresence of the market ideology with the worship of money makes mankind is
subject to the action of the totalitarian mercantile system. The man, society and the
whole of our planet serve this ideology. The totalitarian mercantile system
accomplished what no totalitarianism could do before: unify the world in their image.
Today there is no longer possible exile. Until the collapse of the world capitalist system
will be produced death and destruction on a scale unprecedented in human history in
every corner of the Earth. Barbarism characterized by riots and social revolutions in
each country and international conflicts will be the main brand of the world capitalist
system until the end of its trajectory. As the capitalist oppression spans all sectors of
life, the possibility of revolt acquires aspect of a civil war on a national and global scale
that already manifested today. The destruction of the totalitarian mercantile society that
prevails today is inevitable because the capitalist system is already condemned to death.
We are just at the beginning of riots, revolts and social revolutions that reborn
everywhere in the world and announce the end of the new Dark Age and the emergence
of a new Renaissance.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015) and As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016) .