By Steve Halpern
Fifteen
years ago, I self-published my novel: Looking
Back From 2101. In my novel I transported a Jewish factory worker, Harry
Goldberg, into the future world of the year 2101. The future world that I
imagined had no poverty, and no racial or sexual discrimination. All
enterprises did their best to operate in harmony with the environment. From the
perspective of this future world, my characters had discussions where they
talked about how and why the world had been transformed.
My
novel has a similar format as Edward Bellamy’s novel Looking Backward that was published in 1888. Bellamy lived at a time when humanity first
discovered the many possibilities of electrical power. So, even before these
inventions, Bellamy wrote about how there would be televisions, radios,
telephones, computers, as well as aircraft.
However,
the basic change Bellamy imagined was not of a technical nature. He felt that
humanity would no longer be motivated to provide for their individual families
alone. He felt that humanity would change so the core value would be human
solidarity. In other words, an injury to one, would be viewed as an injury to
all.
Edward
Bellamy’s first cousin was Francis Bellamy and they both had similar political
outlooks. Francis Bellamy wrote a piece of literature that millions of school
children recite every day, known as the Pledge
of Allegiance.
However,
the first words of Francis Bellamy’s Pledge
were, “I pledge allegiance to my
flag.” Francis Bellamy felt that his flag would represent the future world
his cousin Edward imagined in the novel Looking
Backward. Francis Bellamy protested when the words to his Pledge were changed to “I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”
A
few years after Bellamy wrote his novel, H.G. Wells also wrote a novel about
the future titled, The Time Machine. Unlike
Looking Backward, Wells’ portrayed
his future world to be a horror story.
Since
that time there have been numerous books and films that portray the future to
be a horror story. Two of those films are Avatar
and Hunger Games. Kevin Costner
had leading roles in two films with horrific futures. These were Waterworld and The Postman.
So,
at this point we can ask the question: Since literally everyone would like to
imagine that a better world is possible, why do the majority of fictional
portrayals about the future imagine a horrific future world? We can begin to
see the answer to this question in the words of the Declaration of Independence of the United States. I believe the
following words are relevant:
“Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security.”
This
quotation illustrates what I would consider two distinct trends in human
history. One trend is that humanity has adopted to what I would call horrific
political economic systems for long periods of time. These systems were
slavery, feudalism, as well as the early years of the capitalist system. But
then there is the other trend outlined in the above quotation. This is when the
people find the political systems they live under to be intolerable and masses
of people organize to bring about fundamental change.
Looking
at the world as it is today we can wonder why people haven’t organized for this
fundamental change a long time ago. Today, about half of the world’s population
lives on about two dollars per day or less. Because of these conditions the
United Nations estimates that about 30,000 children die every day of
preventable diseases. Hundreds of millions of people in the world do not have
enough food to eat, and are without direct access to electricity and running
water.
Why
do these conditions persist when the resources have been available for quite a
long time to eliminate poverty? Before we can answer this question, I believe
we need to look at how the capitalist system has functioned throughout its
history.
The History of Capitalism
In
the first years of capitalism, chattel slavery was the law. This kind of
slavery was an institution of the Greek and Roman Empires. In the capitalist
system workers are not owned outright, but are directly tied to the wages
system. So northern capitalists became convinced that they needed to organize
to militarily defeat the slave owners who controlled the U.S. government for
sixty years. Therefore, the Civil War was actually the second revolution in the
United States.
The
U.S. government also went to war against Native Americans for over 100 years.
The first nations of this part of the world organized communal societies where
everyone shared in the work as well as the wealth of their world. These norms
were intolerable to capitalists who’s core value was the accumulation of
private property.
When
this country industrialized, working people found themselves toiling for twelve
to sixteen hours per day. They commonly lived in one-room cold-water flats.
Health care and education were unknown to the masses of workers.
Black
workers experienced institutionalized discrimination and didn’t have
citizenship rights where Jim Crow segregation was the law. Women didn’t gain
the right to vote until 1920. In the Jim Crow states most Black people weren’t
allowed to vote until the mid-1960s.
The
labor movement carried out a series of strikes from the year 1877 to the years
1934. Then, in the middle of the depression workers mobilized and forced
employers to recognize the union. After the Second World War workers continued
their battles in an all out strike wave. Then, the Civil Rights Movement
erupted and the government was forced to do away with Jim Crow segregation.
Many
liberals argue that since the labor, civil rights, and women’s movements were
able to force the government to change it’s policies, all we need to do is to
organize to force the government and employers to make changes again. Clearly
working people need to organize ourselves. However, history has shown that the
capitalist system can not be made to serve the interests of working people.
After
the labor and civil rights victories, the government worked with capitalists to
move their factories to nations where the prevailing wages are two dollars per
day or less. Many people who were aware of this shift thought that this was an
example of corporate greed. While greed clearly was a factor, this was not the
primary reason.
In
the capitalist system there is an absolute law that costs must be reduced while
sales of commodities must increase. By moving factories to nations throughout
the world, capitalists created new markets and cut costs at the same time.
These events happened during the past forty years when the overall standard of
living in the United States deteriorated.
So,
understanding this history, we can say that increasing poverty is not something
that can be eliminated in the capitalist system. No, dire poverty has always
been an absolute necessity for capitalism. Without the hundreds of millions of
workers who toil for ten dollars or less per day, the capitalist system would
collapse.
Where is the money?
Every
year advertising agencies spend hundreds of billions of dollars in an attempt
to convince working people that we need to have the commodities they promote.
Rarely, if ever, do we see a discussion of the goods and services working
people actually want and need. When we think of these goods and services, I
believe they are desirable for our entire lives. Today, we can only have these
things when we have the money required.
I
believe there are about eight things working people want and need. These
include: food, clothing, housing, transportation, communication, health care,
education, and exposure to cultural activities. Cultural activities would
include: music, art, sports, dance, literature, theater, recreation, and the
film. If we had a government that supported the interests of workers and
farmers, the top priority would be to ensure that everyone would have a lifetime right to all these things. How
would this be possible?
The
capitalist system gives us visual aids to answer this question. In most of the
largest cities of the world, there are massive buildings known as skyscrapers. These buildings typically
cost hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. In order to work in these buildings, most people need to wear
expensive clothing that conforms to a dress code. So, what are the enterprises
housed in these astronomically expensive buildings?
Well,
there are banks, investment companies, insurance companies, advertising
agencies, corporate law firms, and corporate headquarters. When we read the
last few paragraphs, there appears to be something strange going on. The
enterprises housed in the skyscrapers do not contribute directly to the goods
and services people want and need.
Clearly
bankers never build homes or cars. Insurance companies never do the actual work
of providing health care. Advertising agencies never actually produce the goods
and services they promote. Corporate officers, rarely if ever, do the actual
work that they benefit from. Corporate lawyers usually defend the interests of
corporations against the interests of workers. Yet, the price of literally
every commodity we purchase includes the cost of the enterprises housed in
these skyscrapers.
At
this point one might think that something very strange is going on. Massive
amounts of money are used for enterprises that do not directly contribute to
the goods and services people want and need. However, this state of affairs
only illustrates a part of the problem.
Anyone
with a computer can Google the question: How much money is invested in
derivatives? The astounding answer is $1.2 quadrillion. That is
one-thousand-two-hundred-trillion dollars.
If
we combine the gross national product of every nation in the world, that amount
of money would be about $60 trillion. This means that the amount of money
invested in derivatives is about twenty times more than the gross national
product of the world. Derivatives are nothing more than extremely complex bets
on how the stock market will perform.
Today
Bernie Madoff resides in a federal penitentiary. He was sent to prison for
violating the laws that regulate the sales of bonds. Derivatives are not
regulated by the government. The people who invented derivatives received Nobel
Prizes. Therefore the massive investments in derivatives underscores that this
was not a mistake of people who didn’t know any better. No, this investment is
literally essential for the day-to-day functioning of capitalism.
So,
when we look at the unvarnished reality of the capitalist system, we can also
begin to imagine how the world might be transformed.
What can a socialist world look like?
When
we look at the above facts, we come to an inescapable conclusion. If the funds
used to benefit the affluent were used to benefit all of humanity, there can be a profound improvement in the
standard of living.
James
Cannon was a founding leader of the Socialist Workers Party. In 1946 he gave a
speech that outlined what he thought a Socialist America would look like. He
argued that in the future working people would give a certain amount of time to
needed labor during their entire lifetimes. How much time would people need to
work? This was Cannon’s opinion:
“I
incline strongly to the idea that the great majority will elect to get their
required labor time over with in their early youth, working a full day for a
year or two.
“Thereafter,
they would be free for the rest of their lives to devote themselves, with
freedom in their labor, to any scientific pursuit, to any creative work or play
or study which might interest them. The necessary productive labor they have
contributed in a few years of their youth will pay for their entire lifetime
maintenance, on the same principal that the workers today pay for their own
paltry ‘social security’ in advance.”
We
might think about the fact that these words were written in 1946 before the
widespread use of computers and automation. Yet, when we look at the massive
waste of capitalism that I’ve outlined, these words merely outline what a
rational use of workers’ labor might look like.
When
we look at the world from this point of view, we can ask another question: Why
are there wars in the world?
As
I’ve said, every day about 30,000 children die of preventable diseases.
Hundreds of millions of people live on $2 per day and lack direct access to
water and electricity. In order to maintain this state of affairs, capitalists
and their governments have supported some of the most repressive dictatorships
in the world. When the people choose to fight against these dictatorships, as
they did in Vietnam, the United States government used it’s military power to
intervene.
During
the war against Vietnam, I can’t remember even one media outlet that argued
that the money used to murder the Vietnamese people might be better used to
unconditionally improve the standard living of that nation. A workers
government in this country would make the elimination of poverty throughout the
world its main priority. In this kind of environment, the idea of war would be
inconceivable.
Today
students and workers are alienated from school and work. When we come to grips
with our reality, we can say that this is only logical. In the extreme, working
people have become addicted to drugs so they might escape from the profound
alienation they feel. Many, if not most workers, look forward to having a drink
at the end of a grueling workweek.
Think
about how this would change if all of society was dedicated to improving our
standard of living. Certainly we would continue to have some stress, but this
stress would come from doing the things we genuinely want to do.
If
you have read this column, you might be thinking that these might be nice
ideas, but they are completely unrealistic. Only a tiny minority of people are
thinking about making the kind of transformation that I’ve outlined. For those
who are thinking along those lines, the following information might be useful.
When
we look at the enormous amount of money invested in derivatives, we can say
that the money we receive in our pay packets is borrowed money. Without the
continuing performance of these derivatives, banks as well as investment
companies will close their doors.
In
1929 there was an international depression that lasted for nine years. The
Second World War and the loss of 67 million lives was the only way the world
escaped from that depression. The coming depression, I believe, will be even
worse than the last one. We will not survive another world war when there are
literally thousands of nuclear weapons capable of eliminating human life on
this planet.
My
opinion is that working people have the capacity to transform ourselves into
creating a movement capable of rebuilding the world on new foundations. This is
why I wrote my novel Looking Back From
2101.
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