I could see that argument being made. The current system of global exploitation is fragile in its own way, and because of it's internal contradictions has to face those someway, someday. But that synthesis doesn't have to be a 'positive' outcome.

If there was a sufficiently large disaster, or just due to the inevitable march of climate change, the logistics and energy needed to power inter-continental resource extraction & manufacturing wouldn't be able to keep up. Im a pessimist; It's going to be a bloody fucking mess, because leviathan is going to thrash itself to death trying to suck down negative EROEI like a star's core going supernova.

The problem for any post-collapse situation is we've hoovered up the low-to-middle hanging fruit up. Coal, gas, oil, ores, arable land, potable water, biomass, almost everything. There's the ruins of society & landfills to recycle, but if there's a slide, primary extraction is gone. Hard to re-build when your most concentrated energy source is woodgas & ethanol from already depleted, post-oil farmland.

Edit: I guess i went a bit off-topic, sorry. I'm not sure that a regression to a pre-industrial level is likely, at least for most of the globe. The steam engine & magnets are staying probably staying around, simple enough that if the idea remains alive the machines will too. I could see capitalism 'regressing' or reforming itself to resemble early guild capitalism. The collapse wont be total, and it won't hit everywhere all at once. Pockets of industry will remain, if not at mass-production assembly-line levels. Capital can still maintain artificial scarcity, even in times of greatly fucked nature, if they are able to control the output of what industry remains.

Edit 2: Read the Sand Book. I really like it as a decent scrying into the future, but to be honest I have my own problems with it and would love to hear someone else's review of it. Might make a post about it later.