 Bauer’s prognosis anticipated aspects of Karl Kautsky’s 1915 theory of ultraimperialism, though without the latter’s optimism that this trend heralded a reduction in conflicts among contenders for hegemony. Imperialism, moreover, did not stimulate, but hampered economic growth, since insecurity and permanent military mobilization undermined productive activity. The historic function of the globalizing process was to eliminate national identities, laying the basis for an eventual cosmopolitan rebirth. Bauer saw nationalism as a dissipated force. The emerging world order was framed not by the defence of national interests, but by a struggle for transnational supremacy among elites with no local loyalties. The growing centralization of political power was abetted by the levelling forces of the socialist movement, with its own internationalist pretensions. This trend also underlay what Bauer called political pauperism, a generalised disqualification of individuals from participation in political activity. The conclusion of this process would be to perfect mass society, which Bauer had analyzed since the 1840s. The principle of substance, non-differentiation, and conformity would reach its ultimate extension, and could then be overthrown. World imperialism would issue in an all-embracing catastrophe, the apocalyptic end of the old, Christian-Germanic order. Only then would new cultural possibilities emerge. Though these could not be predicted in detail, they would involve the emergence of an unprecedented creative individuality, freed from religious and metaphysical illusions.