A Dark Future?

Political Futurology in an Age of Decline

Futurology is the study of present trends, and an attempt to extrapolate the way they might evolve in the future. Many futurologists concentrate on technology, which has massively expanded human agency and is likely to have exciting effects in the future. Here, I am more interested in the future of society and politics, and the evolution of ideas in those areas. While technologists tend to provide their audience with the exciting sci-fi techno-futures of AI and space exploration, I am more interested in the direction of society and its effects on human happiness and survival – which is problematic and important. I will be using history as a tool for this, as looking to the past we can see how society reacts to various situations and extrapolate from there for current or future situations that may be somewhat similar. While the results will not be exactly prophetic, they may give us a vague idea of the options we have and what they are likely to result in.

1. The history of geopolitics and its direction in the future.

2. The history of political ideology and its direction in the future.

3. Why classical liberalism and neoliberalism undermine themselves.

4. Why nationalism exists and why it leads to conflict.

5. Is socialism the answer? The contradictions of equality, personal liberty and collective freedom.

6. Religious ideology: Can environmentalism replace religion?

7. Technology and the future.

8. A dark future?

9. What a world dominated by China would look like.

1. The history of geopolitics and its direction in the future.

Between the time that western Europe started sending out settlers, priests and traders to the rest of the world and the industrial revolution, competition between empires was non-ideological, merely a matter of security, wealth and power. Geopolitics was a matter for the elites – although the expansion of an empire could sometimes enrich its citizens, it often didn’t. Wars happened all the time, but they had little economic impact, armies were small and the chances of an ordinary citizen witnessing any violence or destruction was minimal. The industrialisation of war and the economy changed all that. By the twentieth century wars had a massive impact on ordinary people both in terms of their chances of being involved in violence and the effects on the economy. A state’s interests in other lands could benefit its citizens in general and political change in far off places could spell disaster for the homeland. Rather than merely supporting one team against another, as a matter of sport, geopolitics became an important interest of the majority. The elites could no longer maintain their geopolitical interests by themselves in an era of mass mobilisation, they needed the consent of the people. Therefore, in the west managed democracy became the norm, whilst in Russia and China authoritarian majoritarian ideological regimes attempted to maintain the support of the people through solidarity against the return of the previous hierarchy, and coercion.

With the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the rise of Fascism in the 1930s, ideology played a central role in the Revolutionary Wars, the Second World War and the Cold War. But there were periods in between in which geopolitics became non-ideological and again just a matter of world domination for the sake of greater security and power.

The current geopolitical situation is much like the decades leading up to the First World War: The world is divided into competing imperial blocks, all of these controlled by the right with only a little ideological difference between the contenders. Although there is plenty of left-wing activism, the chances of the left gaining any state control seems minimal. Society has an air of doom about it, with various world shattering calamities being predicted as a result of imperialism and the self interest of the elites. The first time around the left successfully rose to worldwide dominance but only as a result of the disasters of the Great Depression and the World Wars. It led to the relatively stable situation of the Cold War, with the West being dominated by the ideological hybrid of socialism and classical liberalism, and the East by totalitarianism and centrally controlled economics. On the map, the West looked to be ascendant, an American ‘empire by invitation’ made up of poor Asian regimes encircled the Soviet bloc – they were essentially US proxies surrendering to economic subservience in return for military security. Although it was not without its problems, the period was one of the most secure that humanity has experienced. If it takes such disasters for the world to settle down and be comfortable, we are in trouble: We have suffered a new Great Depression, various climate disasters and a pandemic, that have not had the desired effect. A new World War might do the trick theoretically, but in practice would lead to the end of civilisation and perhaps the human race. According to these lessons of history we have the choice between self-destruction or a continuing dystopia of increasing oligarchic power, increasing poverty for many and the political polarisation of society.

A slightly more optimistic reading of history – from a selfish western point of view – would be the story of the western world in the nineteenth century. The French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars were brought to an end by the conservative victors. The allies attempted to wind back the clock as much as they could against the idea of ‘Liberty, Fraternity and Equality’. Monarchies were restored, where possible aristocrats and churchmen were put back in power and where that wasn’t possible the capitalist elites were given control. However, there followed a series of revolutions and reform movements and by the early twentieth century all of the great powers of the West had something akin to democracy (with important provisos) and powerful trade union movements. If the great powers of the present time can restrain themselves from thermonuclear war then could it be possible through popular pressure for our societies to reform themselves into a system that would certainly be non-optimal but nevertheless relatively comfortable and secure? There are certain drawbacks – firstly, that the society the nineteenth century reformed itself into was responsible for the world wars, so arguably quite a lot worse than non-optimal. Secondly, we do not have much time due to the worsening climate crisis: Can we trust that mere compromise with our self-interested rulers will save the day?

Whatever the outcome of present imperial struggles (barring the end of the world) China will grow more powerful. Russia will probably grow more problematic – as it cannot acquire the imperial power that it wants and is beset by many (for the moment, repressed) small anti-Russian nationalisms. While Europe maintains its liberal principles at the same time as being organised on a basis of member co-operation that allows no voice for the people at the European level, it will most likely remain paralysed. Within a few decades the dollar will lose its status as the reserve currency for the world and the USA will struggle to afford its enormous military power. The western world is in decline, while it does have a chance of revival, western politicians are stubbornly refusing to take it – preferring the status quo or self destruction through setting the people against each other. If the West were to revive, it would remain an important civilisation but would not have the power it has become accustomed to. It would be much like medieval Byzantium after the fall of Rome – a continuation of empire with many impressive attributes, but smaller, and not really a main player in the game of geopolitics.

The laws of geopolitics tell us that those on the peripheries end up being at the centre, and that no empire lasts forever. England was a rainy backwater before it took to the world stage, America was a vast wilderness before it became a super-power. China is an ancient civilisation that failed the test of modernity and more or less collapsed. The Chinese have re-invented themselves and are seemingly destined to be the super-power of the future.

2. The history of political ideology and their direction in the future.

Since the American and French revolutions dominant political ideologies in western society have either come in threes, or there has been one dominant ideology at a time. The single ideology before this point was that of the Divine Right of Monarchs. Aristocrats and churchmen would deputise for the monarch and the establishment was based on the inheritance of land and the religious righteousness of this ancient established order. The UK was eccentric in that it had a parliament – but parliament was a way for the country and the monarch to negotiate with each other in order to keep the peace – parliament was not the ruler. Although the American War of Independence got rid of the divinely appointed monarch across the Atlantic, for their first few decades of independence the mainstream ideology of the American patriots was not that different from the British one. The monarchy was replaced by an elected president and the constitution, but the political mechanisms acted in much the same way. Americans still treat their constitution as a source of mystical and divine power, in a way that other republics seldom do.

It was the French revolution that provided the new political ideas, the most obvious one being nationalism. To begin with nationalism had democratic implications – the nation was the people and it was the people who should decide its direction. How the people should be represented in making these decisions was a thorny issue, the British parliamentary system was often viewed by revolutionaries as a mere petitioner to monarchy and prone to the over-weaning power of landlords. Napoleon Bonaparte solved the problem by divorcing democracy from nationalism and embraced popular dictatorship. If society could not live in equality, fraternity and equality through democratic nationalism, then classical liberalism evolved as an alternative.

Through the nineteenth century classical liberalism, divine monarchy and nationalism were the trinity of political ideologies available to run western society. By the turn of the twentieth century in most western states a mixture of two or three of these ideas had become the mainstream – most monarchies were equipped with parliaments that were reforming towards a democratic franchise, in all the states a strong nationalistic outlook was necessary for those seeking power, and while the Latin American republics and Russia dismissed liberalism altogether, they strongly relied on nationalism, and the South American dictators ruled with the trappings of monarchy. It was this hotch-potch that defined the various Conservativisms of the western nations. Whilst socialism and Marxism were birthed during the nineteenth century and were able to force some reforms to the system, they were unable to break into mainstream politics until the First World War. The non-western world was ruled through imperial appointees, white settlers or crumbling native regimes that had become proxies of the west. As far as their governance had any ideology it was merely to survive in a world dominated by Europe. The exception was Japan, which had wholeheartedly embraced European methods and saw itself as an equal to the European powers.

The world wars and the Great Depression destroyed the established order. Everywhere, Conservatives tried to fight off communists and fascists. Nazism was defeated by an alliance of conservatives and socialists – not only in the sense that the western powers were allied to the Soviet Union, but in the one that American and British Conservatives were forced to make great concessions to the left, and that Stalin had completely embraced nationalism and dictatorship and left the substance of Marxism well behind. Keynesianism was adopted throughout the West as the post-war economic settlement. John Maynard Keynes was a liberal at heart, but established that if the majority is to remain content, and society stable, that governments must intervene in the economy to ensure solvency in general. In western Europe much of the major industry was nationalised, in America the ‘New Deal’ provided federal taxes to build new infrastructure and maintain employment. The horrors of Nazism eradicated nationalism as a mainstream idea, and in both the East and the West a kind of internationalism was adopted within the two spheres. The Soviets became the complete masters of their satellite states whilst western Europe made its first moves towards unity and the establishment of NATO allowed the US presidents to entitle themselves ‘leaders of the free world’. The mystique of monarchy evolved from one of divinity to soap opera – monarchs lost their political importance and became more like a ceremonial decoration.

In the 1970s the ‘decline of the West and the rise of the Rest’ combined with the oil crisis destroyed the Keynesian settlement that had dominated western politics. It was replaced in the West by neoliberalism and the free market, which became the globally established ideology after the fall of the Soviet Union. The market became king, regimes privatised or closed down state industries, deregulated the financial systems and furthermore privatised or out-sourced much of the government infrastructure. Rather than give the majority a financial stake in the economy – as envisaged – a series of economic recessions meant that ownership and control was gradually reduced to the very richest. This ‘one percent’ were then able to acquire even more wealth through investment, and by the sponsorship of politicians and parties made governments into their collective proxies. Ostensibly, democracy spread with neoliberalism, but in many states it became a matter of the people choosing between candidates who mostly represented the economic elite in one way or another. Until 2008 easy credit gave the impression of an infinitely expanding economy despite the fact that wages were stagnant – except from in China and some other traditionally poor states that had taken the West’s place as the producers of the world’s manufactured commodities. The terrible crash that followed gave the lie to the new economic theory.

Populations that had once accepted neoliberalism now deserted it. The world has again acquired a selection of three ideologies, after a long period of the dominance of one succeeding the other: Socialism, neoliberalism and nationalism compete for our attention. The old neoliberal elites – despite their lack of popularity – have hung on to power, for it is they who own the economic fabric of our society. In many places – notably the USA, the UK and Russia they have formed an alliance with nationalists. With their penchant for a levelling of the economy socialists are anathema to the super-rich, whilst xenophobia and prejudice against cultural minorities is quite compatible with a free market economy. Along with others, the UK – with Brexit – and the USA – with Trump – have somewhat divorced themselves from the global market, favouring a national one. Whilst Trumpian supremacy was overturned in America through an alliance between socialists and neoliberals it has yet to be seen whether this combination can improve the situation, and the far right is very much alive in the USA. In the UK there has been no such alliance against against the right. After Jeremy Corbyn led a popular surge of socialism his defeat has led the Labour party to ostracise the left and embrace the dying embers of the free market ideal. If it weren’t for their arrogance and incompetence the Tories would have a clear field for their brand of oligarchical nationalism.

The history of the nineteenth century and the 1930s tends to suggest that two or all of these ideologies will merge into a new, dominating, single ideology. History has also proved that nationalism is the most destructive of the three – although there are problems with the others it is nationalism that causes world wars. We can only hope it is left out of the settlement or its influence becomes severely diminished. Keynesianism was destroyed by an appeal to personal liberty in a troubled time – possibly the same can be done to nationalism. The natural solution is an alliance of neoliberalism and socialism similar to the political alliance that was victorious in the Second World War. But for reasons stated above this would be difficult. Another option would be for socialists to cancel out the more damaging elements of nationalism by reaching across the divide: These two ‘isms’ actually have a lot in common, they are both reactions against a world dominated by a global elite who have little regard for the majority. Nationalism reacts more against the globalism while socialism more against elitism, but to some extent they both react against both, and both have an interest in rehabilitating those who are left behind by the current establishment. An appeal to democracy against the over-weaning power of the super-rich would both satisfy the right’s demand for national control and the left’s demand for a more just economy. Such is the enmity on account of the ‘culture wars’ – a conflict fuelled by the establishment to keep it’s enemies divided – that such an alliance is difficult to imagine at the moment. But the culture wars will not continue forever, like all political controversies it will die down or somehow be resolved: Transphobia will go the way of the homophobia of the late twentieth century. The question of immigration can be resolved in a way that both satisfies the demand for a living wage amongst natives and the demand for labour. Whether the over-managed ‘democratic’ system will be in a mood to listen to this is another matter. Some western nations seem to be heading towards an authoritarian system like the Russian, Hungarian or Turkish ones.

3. Why classical liberalism and neoliberalism undermine themselves.

Classical liberalism originates from seventeenth century ideas inspired by the British civil wars and as a reaction to French absolute monarchy, they espoused individual liberty and a social contract with the state. The American and French revolutions enabled these ideas to be put into practice. Classical liberalism is possibly the most successful political idea of all time – though it has its drawbacks. It maintains the freedom of speech and assembly, and gives individuals the agency to make their own decisions and look after themselves. Although it naturally implies a democracy, liberal regimes are not necessarily democratic. Fundamentally, it applies to everyone, but this has not prevented ‘liberal’ regimes from excluding people on the basis of gender, race, wealth and religion.

Classical liberalism’s problem is that it gives its adherents the freedom to campaign or act against it’s own ideological principles. For example, socialists and nationalists can keep within the framework of classical liberalism whilst undermining it. For some ‘have nots’ liberalism advertises a liberty it does not provide, and they will attempt to undermine the capitalistic aspects of classical liberalism for their own self interest. Although the ‘haves’ often call themselves Liberals with a capital ‘L’, they reduce the ability of the ‘have nots’ to resist, and therefore also undermine liberalism. The classical liberalism of the West in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries firstly collapsed, and then after the war became a socialist-liberal hybrid.

Liberalism goes hand in hand with capitalism, and relies heavily on the idea of private property – ‘liberty’ implies the right to acquire things (and power). But capitalism only gives freedom to those who have something to sell other than their own labour – otherwise you are selling yourself, implying your own slavery. You may still have a choice of who to sell your labour to, and this is actually more liberty than a medieval peasant had. Debt is also a major function that undermines liberty. Currencies are based on debt, taxes are paid and work is done to pay off debt – individual existence accrues a debt that has to be worked off. It is those who control the debt who have reached the top of society.

Due to the pressure from the Soviet bloc, it was rational for western liberals to make concessions to the left – they could guarantee some economic justice whilst maintaining many liberal freedoms and therefore induce socialists not to be too radical. Keynesianism was popular in the West, but it immediately attracted criticism from academics who felt it was too illiberal. Seeing that classical liberalism had essentially wiped itself out, these academics created the idea of neoliberalism, which would elevate some liberal ideas and give them the capacity to defend themselves against others. When Keynesianism fell in the 1970s it was due to the oil crisis, the loss of the European empires and the recovery of non-western states that had been the victims of these empires. These were all geopolitical problems, not problems to do with Keynesianism itself. There was nothing to stop the Western world from reforming the ideas of Keynes in a way in which it could live within its means, rather than exploit everybody else. In the 1970s workers were kept in jobs due to the strength of the unions, despite the fact there was apparently less work to do. There was actually plenty of useful things that these workers could have been set to doing if governments had the will, they did not have to be made redundant – as they were in the 1980s. The neoliberals seized their chance and the old order was done away with.

Neoliberalism took the liberal ideas of private property, economic competition and the market and put them on a pedestal. Individuals still had freedom and agency, but only in respect to the market. Any political opposition to the free market ideal was made impossible: As all political representatives belonged to the class of ‘haves’ in whose self interest it was to defend these ideas, the ‘have nots’ were left with few political candidates to represent them. ‘Small Government’ left national regimes with little to do but to act as a kind of referee between various competing economic interests. Although many states made liberal reforms in the areas of race, sexuality and gender, they took an ever-decreasing interest in economic justice or actual management, and as the power of democratic government decreased so did the power of democracy. Despite its obvious illiberal elements neoliberalism may have survived if it’s economic model had worked. But it didn’t: The neoliberal idea that the free market is self correcting and ideologically driven towards its own survival has turned out not to be true. This is firstly because all powerful elements within a free market are working towards a monopoly that would put an end to the free market. Secondly, because the market was never free – governments have repeatedly intervened to prop up corporations that are ‘too big to fail’, thereby subsidising the rich whilst leaving everybody else to pick up the bill.

As governments surrendered their power it became difficult for them to oppose the monopolising tendencies of giant multi-national corporations. The West had already embraced a kind of internationalism because of the Cold War, it made sense for national governments to deepen this co-operation and club together to strengthen themselves. As the West included all of the rich nations it was easy for it to continue its economic dominance of the world this way, despite the end of old-style imperialism. International institutions, such as the UN and the IMF, having been founded to encourage economic security, were weaponised to promote the free market. The old global trading system – in which tariffs were recognised as necessary for stability – was replaced by a new one dominated by large banks and which promoted free trade. Poorer countries were allowed to enter the Western club so long as they bowed to the free market, free trade and the western economic elite. Those considered not neoliberal enough were excluded – and so was Russia on some other basis. This amorphous system which primarily concerned itself with the flow of capital and the migration of labour to where it was needed, became known as ‘globalism’. After the crash of 2008 globalism has become the main target of those who oppose the free market. The world is heading towards another crash due to the spike in gas prices. Will the public ire now become more pointed toward the elites?

Classical liberalism allows a lot of liberty relatively speaking, so much that liberals are able to reject liberalism. Its economic workings are such that ever more people are bound to reject liberalism, unless it is tempered with economic restrictions. Neoliberalism allows much less liberty, except for the people who are wealthy enough to be powerful in the market, whom become smaller in number as time goes on. Everybody else is a slave to the market. Neoliberalism assumes that people have no ideological interests, just economic ones. As the free market progressively destroys itself, a larger and larger majority are bound to come out against it.

4. Why nationalism exists and why it leads to conflict.

At first sight nationalism seems like a rational reaction to the rule of the global market. Civilisation has been traditionally organised on the basis of nation-states since the end of the medieval period, and it is logical to organise states so that their citizens have a language and culture in common. Since the end of the Second World War and the establishment of an international order, nation-states have become sacrosanct – adjusting borders or destroying states became impossible, and nation states became the building blocks of internationalism. This idea has been weakened recently with the invasions of various countries by powers who wish to control them – the Russia-Ukraine war seems to be an attempt to destroy the idea of the Ukrainian nation. But it seems that the Russians are failing in this and the nation-state is the obvious idea to fall back on if globalism has been rejected.

Whilst the roots of nationalism are democratic, its democracy is not fundamental to it, for immigrants and other minorities may be designated as unworthy to form a part of the nation. The culture of the nation can only be discerned by its traditions, so those who reject its tradition may find themselves in the unwanted minority – even a native with the wrong opinion or lifestyle can be seen as ‘disloyal’. Xenophobia is to some extent a part of human nature – of course you trust people you know more than you would strangers. Some people can assume that they ‘know’ people whom appear to be like them – who speak the same language and share the same culture and look like them. They become fearful of their nation becoming transformed into a foreign culture that they are not a part of. They insist that a community can only be a community if its individuals have certain things in common. This leads to anti-democratic conclusions – outsiders should be deprived of rights, and if this leads to violence or chaos then a strong-man should be relied upon to guarantee order and defend the native culture.

Theoretically, there is nothing to stop nationalists embracing socialism as far as recognised ‘members’ of the nation are concerned. But they tend not to, for socialism’s support for internationalism and equality is off-putting to nationalists. Nationalistic support for tradition tends to counter the economic aspects of socialism, as traditional cultures have tended to be non-socialistic. Traditionalism is much easier to combine with classical- or neo-liberalism, for most ancient cultures come with some sort of class system where some people are ‘better’ than others. This is not to say there cannot be social mobility, the right is enthusiastic about rewarding hard workers and the talented with power and wealth. But it also defends inherited privilege on the basis of liberal individualism and whatever class system has survived.

The world wars and the Nazi final solution give an obvious warning from history when it comes to nationalism. Right wingers like to point to the Soviet Union and Stalin’s crimes against humanity, but forget that the USSR started no world wars and its crimes had nothing to do with socialist thought. As stated above, the Soviets turned out to be completely anti-Marxist, arguably more so than the West. Whilst socialism promotes equality, nationalism cannot help but promote a lack of it, due to its unwillingness to include those whom it designates as non-nationals or disloyal. Although Brexiteers in the UK often seem to have had no problem with foreigners who remain in foreign lands, the inferiority of non-nationals at home is always likely to bleed over to become the inferiority of foreign nations, especially if there is any argument among nations. A globe divided up into nation-states that are unwilling to promote strong international institutions is likely to become a globe full of conflict, due to a lack of any other way of overcoming economic problems or irredentist claims on disputed territories. This can be seen with the current Russian invasion of Ukraine: there is no way to peacefully negotiate Ukraine’s strategic status, due to the UN’s lack of power and a complete lack of trust between nations.

It seems that the world is falling for nationalistic oligarchy. Whilst France and Germany resist the idea with liberalism and socialism, the right is in the ascendant in the USA and the UK, with Democrats and Labour weakly demanding neoliberal orthodoxy. Russia is deepening into a kind of Stalinism that comes from the direction of the right rather than the left. It is possible that socialism or liberalism will revive in a few decades, as socialism did in the 1940s and liberalism did in the 1980s. Given the precarious nature of existence for current youths it seems likely that it will be an environmentalist and left-wing revival. History tells us that the world will only change after it has given the current ideology a chance to fail – and also that it takes a disaster on a global scale.

5. Is socialism the answer? The contradictions of equality, personal liberty and collective freedom.

Socialism is a vague term that covers the ideas of an economic safety net for the people, government ownership of the means of production (or some of it), or the Marxist demand for the workers control of the means of production. It demands good quality services for the people usually funded by tax. Nowadays socialism is assumed to be democratic, but this was not always so – some ideologues asserted that a single party or a dictator could adequately represent the people, and in states with no electoral tradition this indeed seemed necessary.

The economic arguments of socialism are rather obvious – its opponents point out that it undermines the individual pursuit of wealth and economic power, which is a human trait that will always be with us. Its proponents would make the moral argument that greed and venality should be discouraged, and that they are disruptive to the community in general. Arguments over equality, liberty and freedom are rather more complicated, as these ideas are often used interchangeably when they are in fact different – although obviously related.

Fundamentally, equality is a mathematical function – an apple and an orange are both fruit, and should be treated as fruit, but are in fact different and therefore not equal. This does not mean one is better than the other, just that they are not the same. Is it acceptable to treat different people differently, so long as they are treated as people? And what is an acceptable way of treating all the people? Left-wingers have the understandable habit of defending minorities and women against prejudice, but often provoke accusations of attempting to heighten the rights of minorities relative to others (however fallaciously). Surely it would be better to promote a universal framework of rights that applied to everybody whilst accepting their differences. To be successful socialism must build solidarity among the exploited majority. Although minorities are discriminated against, dividing everybody up into these minorities based on race, sexuality, gender and religion and fighting the perceived chauvinistic majority does just the opposite, and has handed victory to the right. Some way must be found of treating people as people without this division.

All great religions promote some version of the Golden Rule – to ‘treat others as you would be treated yourself’ – and to this could be added ‘...if you were in that situation’. This obviously relies on a person’s ability to imagine themselves in that situation – which is not easy for everyone, for they may opine that they would never get into that situation, say of being a transexual. It would require research and education to discover how some situations arise for people. But the Golden Rule treats the people as just ‘the people’, not as specific minorities with specific problems. Maybe it would be better to help the narrow-minded become more broad-minded rather than just shout at them?

Personal liberty and collective freedom contradict each other, the more you have of one the less you can have of the other. Collective freedom only tends to work democratically, with all individuals having an equal say on – among other things – the framework of personal liberty. If the collective has the freedom to rule over everything, that leaves no room for personal liberty: At the same time, if there is so much personal liberty that individuals have control over everything in life, there can be no collective freedom – for everything is based on the power of the individual and there is no collective. This is likely to result in chaos – for if I have the personal liberty to kill people (or pay for healthcare) how can people weaker than me be safe (or people poorer than me get healthcare)? In an effort to keep order, societies with high levels of personal liberty end up being unequal – some people are given the right to do as they wish whilst most aren’t. A weak collective is easily taken over by certain interest groups, who will decide on the framework of personal liberty in light of their own interests. It is undemocratic, as many have no or little say in the way society works so there is little collective freedom. This is the way society has turned out in most of the world – despite the fact that most of us have the vote to decide what interest groups rule us, these interest groups have a lot more liberty than the rest of us, and they are deeply limited in the scope of what they will do.

Giving up personal liberties to restore collective freedom would mean that the majority actually gives up little – it would be the super-rich who are constrained in their actions, it would benefit the majority and make society more equal. Some people are in principal against this idea, for they think that people should be rewarded if they are able to climb to the top. The idea of hierarchies are natural to human societies, so why not embrace it? But who is ‘the top’ there for? What is it’s job? Does it need or deserve the freedom to do whatever it wants? If society is to have cohesion or justice these are things that must be decided by society in general rather than the hierarchy itself.

What undermines the above theory is the human desire to follow leaders voluntarily – sometimes in a slavish kind of way. People will sometimes give their personal liberties over to the leader, in return for a sense of righteousness and superiority. This is most obvious in religious cults, but in a more limited sense for celebrity followers, mid-level employees of corporations and the followers of demagogues such as Trump. It is quasi-socialistic, for the individual gives up their liberty in the assumption that the leader has the best interests of his followers at heart (it is nearly always a ‘him’). If Trump says something, for these people it must be right, for Trump has said it. In return they get the feeling of righteous indignation, and get to take part in a kind of ‘crusade’ to put the world right – as they see it. This leaves no room for personal liberty or real collective freedom – for one man gets to decide the direction of a whole movement without any scrutiny over his reasoning or honesty. These movements are nearly always corrupt or abusive to their own members, and are often called out on this. Better education is another solution – if people have the confidence to think for themselves they are less likely to so totally rely on the selfish thought of a leader.

Even if you are not a socialist, you would have to admit that socialism does not promote wars and discrimination against the weak, and does not promote the economic exploitation of those who can be exploited. Some people may be willing to put up with these terrible wrongs in return for a high level of personal liberty or the feeling of superiority and pride in the nation – an idea bigger than themselves. But despite it’s flaws socialism looks like the best of the three ideologies available if you prioritise stability and general contentment. Perhaps it is unexciting – more like an elderly person retiring in comfort than a dynamic quest for victory. It’s flaws can be somewhat countered by education – for if people understand their differences better, and that there may be good reasons for being different, the collective is more likely to function and safeguard whatever personal liberties it has decided on. A problem is that a good quality education system will only come about through the rise of socialism – understanding each other is not a priority of neoliberals (who would prioritise money) or nationalists (who would prioritise tradition).

6. Religious ideology: Can environmentalism replace religion?

The three ideologies I have mentioned so far ignore religious ideology, which for many people is a far outlier and not to be taken seriously, but for a very vocal and motivated minority all important. In the Middle East, the USA and somewhat in India and Africa, it is a part of mainstream politics – it would be even more powerful in the Middle East if the region were democratised. Religious fundamentalism arose as a reaction against the capitalism of the West and the communism of the Soviets – both of which certainly had their negative aspects. If you are to reject what appear to be the only modern ideas available, it makes sense to fall back on ancient tradition. Like nationalism, religious fundamentalism is very reliant on tradition – but in a different way, for while nationalism is usually about an ethnic community, religion is a moralistic one. It is anti-progressive, for you could argue that while progress has made us all more comfortable it has not necessarily made us happier – it’s as if we have gotten what we want rather than what we need. In some ways religious fundamentalism is an appeal to humility.

However, the call to be ‘humble’ among fundamentalists is deeply contradictory. For their immediate assumption is that their ‘humility’ makes them superior, and that if everybody would just believe what they believe the world would automatically and magically be better. They tend to reject evidence in favour of an optimistic belief in magic as set out by ancient texts. To some extent this is only natural, for before humanity had any access to the scientific facts it was by default religious – this seems to be the natural state of human beings: Our progress has taken us away from our nature, it could be argued that the unnatural state of modern humanity is what makes us discontent. Our brains are evolved to deal with hunting and gathering on the savanna, whilst our society has evolved into something incredibly alien to this. But the fact should not be ignored that science has made us more comfortable, longer lived and given us far more agency. The contradiction between human nature and human ability cannot be solved easily.

For anybody who does want to take notice of the evidence, religious fundamentalism does seem backwards and destructive – a call to throw away everything humanity has achieved. But it is possible to understand why it is appealing to some people, especially if they have been brought up in communities or families where these traditions have survived. Humanity has always seen life as a narrative, and religion offers a compelling narrative of the wicked being punished, the good being rewarded and the ‘good guys’ winning in the end – much like most epic cinema. In the days before any equitable or powerful justice system religion held societies together. In a society where justice systems are being hollowed out it is hardly surprising it has made a return. Science is merely another narrative, more convincing to most as it has better evidence to back it up. While science has offered us more comfort and agency it has nothing moral to say, whilst religion does actually try and be moral (although often fails).

But humanity’s lack of humility has not helped it. Since it has become clear that humanity can do whatever it wants without any kind of reference to a higher ideal it has been ruining the planet Earth and has fought a series of self destructive wars. Our capacity to destroy ourselves has become an existential question for humanity, one that becomes more and more urgent as time goes on and one that those in power attempt to avoid dealing with. A ‘higher’ ideal that constrains humans would be good for humanity - humility in the face of nature would save us from climate disaster. Like religion it would uphold a moral order by which we can survive, and like religion it is naturally mysterious, for none of us know why the universe exists, and for most of us the big bang theory, evolution and weather goes far beyond what we know of physics and might as well be magic. Pantheists would say that the universe is God (whether that be a conscious entity or just a living system). The reason for life is to carry on living and to guarantee the survival of the species. That is what religion is about and environmentalism is no different.

We actually have all the tools to avert climate disaster, we do not need to develop new technologies to save the planet, the only reason why environmentalism has not been fully embraced by those who rule us is because it would constrain the freedom to make profit. The short-termism of the five year political cycle and the yearly profit margin leaves no room for long term planning, the future can be considered something that ‘somebody else’ has to deal with. Even when the calamity is already here, it can be assumed to get worse in the future and therefore what we are suffering is ‘nothing much’ and the real problem is out of our remit. One thing that the totalitarian regimes of the Soviets and the Chinese did do well was plan for the future, with a long succession of five year plans that were meant to improve the lives of the people, and actually involved sacrifice in the present. The free market system does just the opposite, essentially borrowing money (and the right to pollute) from the future and spending it now, leaving the people of the future to suffer the consequences. If there were a greater moral structure that politicians had to abide by this would not be happening.

Could such a ‘great moral structure’ be agreed upon? In a sense it has been already, by people who are willing to be realistic and are ready to solve problems in a pragmatic manner. Those who are well off refuse to give up their luxuries for a future they would rather not think about. Those who are struggling feel powerless to do much and will prioritise their survival in the present in any case. Only by increasing equality, democracy and the power of the collective can we overcome this problem. We need a mainstream political narrative where we are saving the world. Religious narratives are usually built on history – the Jews were punished for their wayward ways with the destruction of their temple and their country by the Assyrians. If the wild-fires that blaze across the world every summer could be worked into a narrative of human ‘sin’ and natural ‘punishment’, humanity as a whole might take more notice. Whilst there are strong environmental movements already, there are still many people who feel it is in their interests to look the other way, for they don’t see themselves being involved in the narrative of the end of the world. The elites often feel they could scrape through quite comfortably while it is the less fortunate who either die, become uprooted or deal with the economic consequences. The deniers see activists as ‘weird’, and there is little moral pressure for them to change their attitudes, for they are highly committed to a narrative of ‘normality’ that has become anachronistic.

Climate change has occurred before in the prehistoric era. As well as being caused by temperature changes in the sun, vast natural expulsions of carbon dioxide have caused it too – making it certain that human activities do make a difference. This has usually caused extinction events, with various species disappearing for ever – but so far, life has always recovered. The most pessimistic predictions for our future involve a kind of feedback loop in temperature rises and the eradication of all life. A less doom-laden prediction would be swathes of the Earth becoming uninhabitable – this is occurring already and seems set to continue. Humanity is likely to survive, but this cannot be guaranteed – if it does, society will be vastly changed. Climate scientists state that we have less than ten years to get the house in order, otherwise there may be many deaths. Migration will increase as people flee territories that have become uninhabitable, as they are now. An environmentalist religion would say that we have to fight Armageddon in order to survive.

Although there is no way of really knowing how bad future climate disasters will get it seems obvious that humanity is not doing enough to minimise them, and that climate disasters will become worse. A really shocking climate disaster may well change the attitude of humanity, but it would also most likely mean that it is too late to do anything to save the situation and we would be set on a route to the worst possible outcome. However, this disaster may leave any survivors with a much better attitude towards the planet Earth and their fellow humans, and a more humble and less selfish attitude towards life.

7. Technology and the future.

A hundred years ago the majority of westerners did work that was necessary for the continuation of society. This cannot be said for the present day, for most westerners work in the service sector, most of which is there to make us more comfortable rather than providing what is actually necessary. Hospitality, entertainment, advertising, insurance, administration and even a lot of the health and education services are all very well and good, but history has proved that the human race does not really need them, having survived millennia without them. In the West people struggle to find employment, for there are few jobs available that actually produce useful goods. While this is somewhat to do with the development of poorer countries over the last forty years, it is also a symptom of technology being able to make things for us – as the poorer countries get wealthier they will struggle with the same problem, as workers come to demand more and technology becomes comparatively cheaper to use.

Robotics, information technology and increasingly artificial intelligence have taken much of the work and will take more of it in the future. Ostensibly this should mean that the human race spends more and more of its time at rest, having an easy life while the technology does the work. But society has yet to catch up with this idea, it insists that people should not survive on handouts and should compete for work that is increasingly not there. Unemployment or under-employment is a phenomena throughout the western world, along with a growing gap between the rich and the poor in most places. The anthropologist David Graeber calculated that 20% to 50% of the workforce had jobs that are ‘bullshit’ – they have no use whatsoever. John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the end of the 20th century a majority of people would end up not having to work - ‘...there will be ever larger... groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed.’ Instead, people are forced to find work, whether it is of some use in making people more comfortable, but actually unnecessary – such as delivering parcels or providing new social media platforms – or complete ‘bullshit’ – as in analysing data to write a report that will never be read or acted upon.

The obvious solution to this is Universal Basic Income and Universal Basic Services, which would guarantee everybody an income they can live off whether they work or not, and provide services that are universally necessary free of charge. Most western countries are actually wealthy enough to do this to some extent, and in Denmark something similar to UBI has increased the rate of employment and actually made the country richer. These ideas are anathema to an elite that promotes a work ethic which is not only unnecessary but damaging to society as a whole, and whose power and wealth is dependent on undermining collective responsibility and the continuation of the free market system. Given the ever increasing price of property, the problems of fossil fuel supply and refusal to completely replace these fuels with sustainable ones, and the stagnation of wages and increasing shortage of meaningful work, it seems likely that at some point in the future societies will be forced to accept a system where ordinary people can survive without necessarily working. Not to do so will lead to an ever larger and more discontent underclass and an economy that is always scraping along the bottom.

If society were to normalise current conditions on a permanent basis, in the future it would have to return much of the population to some kind of neo-peasantry and give up completely with democracy – current living standards cannot be maintained for the future without some redistribution of wealth. The alternative is far brighter, if it is possible to enact it before the economy (and possibly the world) goes beyond the point of no return. For the last ten years the economy has been run in a way that makes more than half the population poorer and poorer. The affluent part of the population can only stay affluent if everybody else can pay for its services, if everybody else runs out of money the now affluent will become insolvent. Even without climate disaster and the possibility of world war, if the economy is left to its own free market devices it will eventually destroy itself in a more permanent way than economic depressions have managed so far.

Robot servants were a popular science fiction trope of the 1960s, and the same kind of fiction produced tales of space exploration and humanity spreading out amongst the stars. It is unlikely that this will happen in the way that was predicted. Billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos like to play at being spacemen, and talk of putting factories in space. Lack of gravity, lack of air resistance and automation should make space-manufacture super-efficient. But they ignore the fact that getting the massive amounts of resources necessary for production into space would take vast quantities of fuel and do more environmental damage than ground traffic currently does. However, if the resources were able to be collected from the asteroid belt or Mars it would solve this problem. The billionaires of today do not have anywhere near the scale of resources to achieve this, but some states may have. Such a task would probably take the collective effort of the human race rather than a few super-rich. China is currently working towards putting people on the Moon with a view to building a base there and executing such a plan.

The idea of large scale human colonisation of other worlds is somewhat less plausible. Given the opportunity, who would want to live on Mars, the Moon or in space? Migrants generally travel to places that are easier to survive in than their homelands – the Earth would have to become so uninhabitable to make space-colonisation desirable that it would be unlikely that humanity would have the resources to go there under those conditions. Theoretically, Mars could be terraformed – carbon dioxide would be actively needed for its atmosphere so it could become a base for fossil fuel industries. But terraforming Mars is predicted to take centuries, by the time we would be able to start the human population on Earth would be in decline rather than growing – it would seem there would be little motivation for the project. People in space would likely only stay temporarily to work as caretakers in automatic factories or mines, there would possibly be a few colonies of rich eccentrics, but the off-world population would remain very low.

The chances of exploration and expansion beyond our Solar System are even more unlikely. With current methods of propulsion it would take 40,000 years to get to the nearest star, and there is no foreseeable advance that could reduce this by very much. Light speed travel, along with a general understanding of dimensions beyond space-time, are out of reach of most human minds. Unless some special augmentation of the human brain is invented – that would most likely end our humanity – such sophistication is beyond our reach. The Buddhists say that ‘everything is impermanent’, and history seems to confirm this – so the era of increasing sophistication in human technology will come to an end at some point. There is a glass ceiling that humanity cannot advance beyond, for the human brain does not have infinite capacity.

In the next century we may look forward to a time where most people only work if they want to, and many of our consumables are produced off-world. But in order for this to happen the human race would have to collectivise its efforts – small groups investing in projects for the sake of profit will not get this job done. The profit would come in the form of comfort and freedom for many rather than money for the few.

8. A dark future?

Joseph P. Overton came up with his 'Overton Window' in the 1990s. The theory postulates that only some of the political ideologies available are in the mainstream, and it is only those that the population recognises as valid - not fringe ideas. This is his 'window', which can broaden and contract and move to the left or right over time - making ideas that once seemed impossible 'doable'. It's movements can be traced over the preceding 140 years: Democracy for most men came about in most of the West in the 1880s, from which point conservatism dominated. From the end of the First World War conservatism was challenged by communism and fascism. From the late 1940s until the 1980s Keynesianism ruled, followed by neoliberalism. In the 2010's this was replaced by nationalistic populism. It can be seen that each of these periods lasted from 30 to 40 years - enough time for the population to learn of any flaws in the ideology - and each ended with some kind of crisis. We can therefore estimate that the current period of nationalistic populism may last until the 2040s, at which point it will cause a crisis and be replaced by something else. Obviously, we are quite early in the period at the moment, and it might turn out that nationalistic populism is forced to compete with socialism and neoliberalism.

The fact that dominant ideas will come and go is rather dependent on democracy. Before the onset of democracy dominant ideas could last for a century or more, for without democracy the elites are not forced to take notice of popular ideologies or of the disquiet of the population. The problem with the above prediction is that nationalistic populism, if it is successful, is likely to undermine democracy. Another pessimistic fact is that our economy crashes every seven to ten years and each time it does the elites get richer whilst the majority gets poorer. This further undermines democracy as the elites enhance their economic power over everybody else and their power over politicians. Will there be democracy to speak of by 2040? It is quite possible that a right wing oligarchic system could continue no matter what the people think of it. In this situation revolution becomes a possibility - for it is democracy that makes revolution impossible, as most would think it unnecessary in a system where the people have some control anyway. In a world where much of the work would be done by robots and A.I. - which would be owned by the elites - it is difficult to see how a revolution couldn't be violent, for the cessation of human work in the form of industrial action would not be that detrimental to the elites. As with the Luddites in the 19th century, destruction of machines would be a valid revolutionary strategy.

An incident that could trigger revolution would be the dollar's loss of its status as the world's reserve currency. The reserve currency is the currency that most governments borrow in, for it represents the wealth of the most economically powerful country. This in turn makes the dollar worth more and makes the Americans richer. At a point when it is obvious that the Chinese economy is more powerful than the American one the world will start borrowing in Chinese Yuan, the value of the dollar will plummet and America will be very much worse off. Under these circumstances it will be difficult for the USA to maintain its huge military-industrial complex and its global hegemony. It is quite possible that American conservatives will attempt hang on to their status as a superpower at the expense of the American people in general, provoking revolutionary activity.

Another effect of America's loss of global power may well be an escalation in international chaos. Economists predict that China will not achieve the global power that the USA has now for about a century - which means there will be several decades where there is no global hegemon. Regional powers such as Russia, India, Iran, Brazil and Indonesia will no longer be restrained by a 'global policeman', or suppressed by a global bully. They will be free to enact whatever neo-imperialist agenda's they see fit. In a world of increasing resource shortages there is likely to be aggressive competition to control the resources that are there. History has seen some very extreme leaders in control of nuclear arsenals - and possibly some that are mentally unstable - but none of them have been self-destructive enough to start a nuclear war. This trend is likely to continue - but the more tension there is between powers the more likely thermonuclear devastation will be triggered by accident.

For the moment the world has enough resources for the whole population to live comfortably. However, many people still go without meals or a secure supply of energy. By the middle of the twenty-first century it has been calculated that the human population will reach about 10 billion, before it starts to decline. This future decline in population does not imply an easing of the resource situation, for the decline would be due to the 'westernisation' of Asian and African populations and small western populations use more resources than large peasant populations. There are already problems internationally with gas supply, and these problems will continue unless there is a much greater effort to rely on sustainable energy. It has been calculated that the Earth can feed its 10 billion population if all wilderness that is agriculturally viable is converted to agricultural land - as is currently happening in Amazonia. This does not include land for re-forestation that is needed to bring climate change under control. Given the fact that resources are distributed so badly, and there will be such a squeeze, food poverty and possibly energy poverty will only increase. Conflict between the 'have nots' and the elites will increase, and governments will be under pressure to seize control of what resources they can.

On top of the crises of an unjust economy, political polarisation, lack of security and resource shortages there is the more obvious climate crisis. More land will become uninhabitable and migration will increase - if the sea levels rise hundreds of millions of people may be forced to find new homes. Unless richer states which are less effected by climate change learn to accept immigrants and refugees this is likely to cause even more conflict, as large numbers of people on the move demand access to a land which they can live in. As temperatures rise land in the Arctic circle will become habitable - the northern coasts of Russia and Canada that are at the moment hardly populated could support large populations. It would be logical for refugees to settle here - but will governments allow 'strangers' with a different culture to settle en mass and change the nature of their homeland? They may well be forced to.

9. What a world dominated by China would look like.

A lot is said about the restrictiveness and authoritarianism of Chinese society. While it is quite legal to discuss whatever you like in private in China, public discussions covering politics, religion, or 'dangerous' ideas from the rest of the world can be met with criminal punishment. There is little freedom of information and political involvement is restricted to party members. On the other side of the coin China is about the only country that has a progressive direction written into its constitution: For forty-five years or so Chinese governments have been single-mindedly working on a project to transform 1.4 billion peasants into western style workers and professionals with the appropriate lifestyles. They have been quite successful in this, they have expanded the economic choices available to most Chinese citizens in a way that is economically sustainable (although not ecologically so) and have began similar transformations in Africa, South America and Central Asia. While it is difficult to argue that the Chinese system is communistic, Chinese capitalism is different from that of the rest of the world. Although the elites certainly do get disproportionally enriched, the priority is the enrichment of the whole population – something that western neoliberalism leaves up to the free market, and can be seen not to have worked.

Most Chinese citizens are still poor, and while they remain so China will have competitive labour, and a lot of it. The lack of freedom actually benefits China economically – for it is not easy to organise people into increasing their collective wealth if they have the right to do anything they want to do. Restrictions on freedoms in other countries always benefit the elites, but in China they are designed to benefit the people in general. While all this remains true, China will have the upper hand in economic competition whatever the economic situation is. But as better lifestyles become more available in China, the people will demand better wages and more rights – success means that eventually China will lose its competitive edge with labour, unless it becomes a lot more repressive. This is why it is investing abroad – Chinese elites will profit from the enrichment of the people in other poor countries.

Since 2012 the West has been trying to restrict China by starting a new Cold War. Western military assets in the South China Sea keep most of the East Asian states loyal to America and make it difficult for China to invest in its own neighbourhood. It also makes logistics difficult for China as far as its allies further afield are concerned. But seeing as the West is dependent on China for much of its cheap goods, it is not in a strong position. Furthermore, China is building its own back door in the form of the Belt Road across Central Asia – this will give them unhindered access to the markets of Eurasia and Africa and make the blockade in the east moot. Given that the West is also in decline and China will most likely improve its situation whatever problems it faces, it seems fated that China will win this contest unless there is some sort of devastating event like a nuclear war or a large rise in sea levels. Even then the Chinese may fare better than others, due to their enhanced loyalty towards their government.

In the future it could be that left-wing oppositional movements in the West seek an alliance with China. China is hardly left-wing, but it represents the future and an alternative system to the status-quo – it may even become more socialistic when its population starts demanding more rights. This may give any revolutionary regimes in the West a share in power in a Chinese dominated world. If the West sinks enough into the economic mire that it is currently in, western states may find themselves in need of Chinese help, and become clients of the Peoples’ Republic as parts of Africa have. On the other hand, a cold war of some kind is likely to continue, with the West either providing a left-wing or a nationalistic oligarchic opposition to a dominant China. In any period of international chaos China will seek alliances with anti-western regional powers – as it already has with Russia – and will seek to dominate the world through this alliance. When the British Empire dominated, much of the world mimicked the British politics of constitutional monarchy, and while America has dominated the world republican democracy has been popular. In the same way, when China dominates the world one-party technocracy is likely to rule. We are already seeing democracy undermined in favour of allegedly ‘competent’ economic management.

China is unlikely to be unopposed: The British were opposed first by France and then an expansionist Germany, and the world wars ended British hegemony. The USA was opposed by the Soviet Union, before ruling the roost after the Cold War. China will most likely continue to be opposed by the West, although in the future the West will be the underdog with China having most of the rest of the world on its side, and possibly a presence in space. It is likely that at some point the West will collapse and implement Chinese style politics, just as the Soviet Union did in relation to the West.

Nothing lasts for ever. If in the next century the world is a Chinese dominated one, and their project is successful in enriching the people through a technocratic, holistic, directed market style of capitalism, they would soon face new opposition. There would obviously be calls for more democracy and freedom. Africa or South America may become a nexus of opposition – these continents containing many resources and burgeoning populations, and preparing to come in from the periphery. However, in a world lacking democracy the rise of opponents may be slow. Unlike the West, China has no history of expansionist wars that stoke opposition – China may mange the world in a more pacific and competent manner than western empires have. The reign of China may well be long. But all this is dependent on the state of climate change: If the climate cannot be stabilised any twenty-second century hegemon will be in a state of decline, as will the human race.