METAPHYSICS OF POWER: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL POLITICAL TERRAIN

Abstract

The paper argues that the ontology behind the global power politics of the past rested on the ideology of capitalism, slavery and colonialism as sources of economic emancipation. Thereafter, the same ontology shifted the attention of global politics to industrialization and techno-industrial nihilism, which directly had the positive impact of opening up the global information super highway. However, future outlook of global politics indicates that attention would shift away from arms struggle, brought about by techno-industrial nihilism, to space struggle as a result of two factors. The first factor is the negative impacts of climate change and the second factor is high population density on the earth’s surface. These two factors would determine the future of global power politics which would likely be the politics of space struggle. This future global power politics is already at an incubation stage in the form of space tourism. Space tourism would eventually pave way to full habitation of other planets by man. When this happens, nations with greater population of her citizens outside the earth would continue to dominate the global political space and call the shots in the global political terrain. On the whole, the paper discusses the challenges, conflicts and empirical events that would shape the next fifty years and beyond. Most importantly, it addresses the problem of climate change and introduces new conversations about the future of space tourism which would likely be the next economic booster for powerful nations and would deserve greater attention in the future as a determinant of power. It recommends that the future of global politics as a discipline should be directed towards the study of space, especially space tourism. This would be for economic and political reasons as a determinant of power. In addition, the paper introduces new knowledge in the politics of space struggle, and establishes the link between climate change, high population density and the politics of space. Finally, using a heuristic and analytic methodology, the paper examines the challenges, conflicts and contradictions before the world as it pertains to the issue of climate change, population explosion, poverty and forced migration and how it would influence global power politics in the next fifty years and beyond.