What would a rational vision of the future look like?

Looking Back From 2101 is my novel that imagines what a socialist future world would look like

By Steve Halpern

This past year, people throughout the world experienced a significant change in our lives. Most of us were completely unprepared for the fact that we would need to wear facemasks, and work to isolate ourselves from the potentially fatal disease of COVID-19. 

Then, we began to see how the government was completely unprepared for this profound crisis. Hospitals were in short supply of protective equipment and ventilators. We all searched for facemasks that were initially hard to find. 

However, we also know that there was another pandemic that occurred in 1918. Epidemiologists, as well as many others were aware of that event. They warned that another pandemic would be inevitable. However, for over 100 years, the government made a concerted effort to support investments that would in no way protect us from the pandemic we just experienced. The following is a list of some of those investments.

1. Banks received trillions of dollars in investments. Yet those banks do not directly produce any of the goods and services we all need and want.

2. Insurance companies claim that they are “health care providers.” Yet those same insurance companies have a record of maximizing their profits by finding ways of minimizing payments for health care.

3. Advertising agencies are funded at a rate of about $200 billion every year. While corporations view advertising as a necessity, workers would prefer to do away with all advertising.

4. Today, there are about two-thousand billionaires in the world. Capitalist governments don’t have a problem with allowing these people to have more than they could ever use, while hundreds of millions don’t have enough food to eat.

5. Trillions of dollars have been spent for the so-called “Defense Department.” This astronomical amount of money was allegedly spent to keep us safe. However, today we can say that COVID-19 was responsible for more deaths in this country, than the Second World War. Included in this massive spending is money to maintain about 3,000 nuclear weapons capable of destroying all human life throughout the planet.

So, when politicians argue that they have been doing everything in their power to battle the pandemic, the above facts expose their lies. 

A catastrophic downturn of the economy?

Recently, I listened to a 60 Minutes interview with the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powel. Powel expects a significant growth in the economy of the United States in this next year. However, Powel also acknowledged that there is a small possibility of a “catastrophic” downturn. 

So, we need to ask the question: Why in the world would there be a “catastrophic” downturn to the economy? Certainly, there are sufficient workers who are ready, willing, and able to work to provide for the needs of everyone. Today, there are sufficient materials, not only to provide for all, but also to work towards eliminating poverty in the world. So, what is the problem?

We live in the world of capitalist economic relations. This system has the potential to produce massive amounts of commodities. However, when those commodities go to market, they need to be sold for a profit. So, when there aren’t enough consumers to purchase commodities, capitalists shut down production. These are the conditions Jerome Powel talked about when he spoke about the potential for a catastrophic crisis. 

In other words, in the capitalist world, overproduction ironically is the reason for catastrophe. I learned that lesson when a job I had at an automotive manufacturing plant was eliminated. The reason given for the elimination of about 2,500 jobs was “excess capacity.” This is another way of saying that too many commodities on the market is the reason for economic crisis.

What kind of government will we need?

Saying all of this, we can conclude that we need a completely different political economic system. I say this because the fundamental reason for the problems with the economy and the pandemic stem from the corporate drive for profits. 

A worker’s government would make a priority of human needs over profits. That kind of government would make it a central priority to prepare for future pandemics. A worker’s government wouldn’t just talk about the word “democracy.” That kind of government would make it their priority of doing away with poverty throughout the world.

However, when we talk about the future, there is another point we need to make. In thirty to fifty years, the world will run out of oil. Literally every corporation in the world relies on a continuous supply of oil for all of their profits. Without gasoline most workers wouldn’t be able to go to their jobs, and corporations wouldn’t be able to transport commodities. 

So, we can say that the end of the word supply of oil will mean unimaginable difficulties for future generations. We have seen how the government in this country was completely unprepared for the pandemic. We see how government officials today are, in effect, indifferent to the fact that the world is running out of oil. 

So, now that I’ve attempted to identify some of our most pressing problems, it is time to look at some possible solutions. In order to do this, I think we need to look outside of the political parameters the so-called news media writes about.

With the emergence of the capitalist system a new class emerged called the working class. This class produces all the goods and services we need and want. However, while workers receive a salary, capitalists control the wealth we produce. Those capitalists use that wealth to sustain their enormous wealth. They do this while working relentlessly to cut their costs, and thereby compromise the interests of the working class all over the world.

Understanding this reality, we can say that we need a more profound change than merely replacing one capitalist politician with another. We need to replace the capitalist class in a similar way that the capitalists replaced the rule of the feudal monarchies of kings and queens. So, who would the new leaders of the government be?

Those leaders would be members of the international working class that produces all wealth. These are nurse’s aids, sanitation workers, construction workers, farm workers, meat packers, housekeepers, as well as all kinds of factory production workers. These workers have different priorities from capitalists. How could these workers run a government differently from capitalists?

First, we can say that while the oil resources of the world are limited, nations throughout the world have the capacity to feed everyone. Yet today there are over 800 million people who do not have enough food to eat.

The pandemic has been one of the lead stories every day in the news for the past year. However, according to estimates by the United Nations, about 29,000 children die every day of preventable diseases. 

One of the causes of these diseases is the fact that many of the world’s children do not have the resources to wear shoes. So, parasites enter the feet of children and many eventually die of diarrhea. The problem is that capitalist governments throughout the world carry out policies that, in effect, ensure that there is a holocaust of children literally every day. The press rarely, if ever, mentions this fact.

Clearly, a government of working people would make it the top priority to ensure that all these children have what is necessary to live long and rewarding lives. The resources have been available for a long time to make this dream a reality.

Available oil reserves will last for about 30 years

However, while there are sufficient amounts of food to feed the world, energy resources are limited. This reality has been a direct consequence of government policy that supports corporate power.

The initial system of transportation in this country, after the horse, was rail. Rail transport is the most fuel-efficient system. With rail, passengers board trains, and travel to their destinations without needing to think about traffic jams, insurance, maintenance, or fuel prices. While there are over 30,000 automobile fatalities on the roads every year, railcar transport can be much safer. Given these realities, I believe it is an absolute necessity to expand railcar transport, as well as to greatly reduce automotive transport.

We can also see how much of the residential housing built over the past fifty years were suburban homes that have one, two, or three car garages. What good are the cars in those garages when the world’s supply of fuel is running out? 

Clearly, today no one has the answers to all the questions for how humanity will deal with the dwindling supplies of oil. My opinion is that a rational future would mean that there will be communities where large numbers of people will learn to live together. Those communities would work to be self-sufficient with respect to food production, health care, and education. How would this happen?

Today, I believe we need to face the fact that the enterprises housed in the skyscrapers of cities do not directly contribute to the needs of working people. These enterprises include banking, insurance, advertising, and corporate law. However, those massive skyscrapers could be converted to indoor farms capable of producing food all year round.

So, instead of importing food from all over the world, those skyscrapers could provide large amounts of food. Clearly, we can see how this idea is completely inconceivable when thinking within the confines of the capitalist system. However, we need to think of the world in terms of how the needs of people can be met, while the world is running out of oil.

For a new world that respects the human dignity for all

Today, we all work to provide for the needs of our families. Given the reality of the world in the future, my opinion is that we need to develop different goals. In the communities of the future people will need to work together to ensure that everyone has the means to live. While this will entail a lot of work, the amount of work required to provide for our needs might be considerably less than the work we do today. 

In the future, humanity will see that we can no longer sustain banks, insurance companies, advertising agencies, or individuals who own tens of billions of dollars. If we are to survive as a human race, we will need to ensure that everyone is treated with the human dignity the working class of the world deserves.               

Saying this, we can also say that one of the routine aspects of capitalism is discrimination. There is discrimination against Black people, Latinos, women, immigrants, and Native Americans. So, we need to ask the question: Why would these communities support a worker’s government, if that government fails to deal with the question of discrimination?

Black people want to be able to safely walk the streets and to have access to excellent an education, as well as health care. Women don’t want to be discriminated against on the job, and then have the primary responsibility of caring for children. Immigrants would like to have the option of returning to the land of their birth, and have the resources to live. Native Americans would like to have real control over the land where they live and not need to worry about government interference. A worker’s government would make all these goals their priority.

Throughout the history of the United States, the government has argued that citizens of this country have interests that are opposed to the interests of other countries. A worker’s government would work to cooperate with all the nations in the world. 

After all, don’t workers throughout the world have the same interests? Don’t we all want food to eat, clothes to wear, a decent place to live, and access to education and health care? So, why not work with our international working class to accomplish these goals? 

Thinking about what a future world might look like, we can also think about the norms of the human race for thousands of years. Native Americans routinely lived in communal societies. In that world, the work of women was appreciated, and equality of the sexes was the norm. Leaders routinely were relatively poor because they were responsible for providing for those who had difficulty providing for themselves. 

The future world will have technological advances that our Native American ancestors couldn’t even imagine. We have the potential to educate large numbers of doctors and educators who will be capable of providing health care and education throughout our lifetimes. There will be large numbers of engineers who can design homes, factories, transportation facilities, hospitals, universities, theaters, and restaurants that can meet the needs of the entire human race. We also have the potential to accomplish all these tasks while working in harmony with the environment.

I’m writing this blog in an attempt to look at the possibilities for the future. Clearly, there is another future that is also possible. In that future increasing numbers of people will not have food to eat, a place to live, health care or education. What we learned from the horror of fascist Germany might also be our future. This is indeed possible if capitalism continues to exist at a time when oil resources are running out.

So, I think we need to start talking about what kind of world we want to live in. The working class of the world has a long history of resistance to repression. My opinion is that we need to go beyond resisting repression, and think about putting in place a government that will advance the interests of the working class of the world.

As Karl Marx and Frederick Engels argued in their Communist Manifesto, “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.”