It is, of course, not possible
to predict the future with much accuracy, but that should not stop people
giving it a go for fun. Overall, I am really optimistic about the next hundred
years – possibly because I don’t see much point in being pessimistic. So here
are my seven predictions for trends
that will dominate the coming decades:
(1)
The global population will stop growing and
then start falling. This will happen quicker than people expect and it will be
a good thing. (a) It will make the world more stable because there will be
fewer angry young men with nothing to do. (b) It will reduce pollution and end
the threat of global environmental catastrophe. (c) It will facilitate the
rewilding of large areas of the globe. (d) It will facilitate more aesthetic
architecture and landscaping. Declining population (along with more
technological progress) will not actually damage living standards – it will
increase them. (Also: women will continue to have more and more control over
their own lives and men will continue to whine about it).
(2)
Technology
(the information revolution, machines, robots) will mean fewer and fewer stable
middle-class private sector jobs. The private sector model of stable employment
will collapse. For societal stability a Basic Income will eventually be
required, as well as a Right to Work. Essentially, anyone who wants to work
will have a right to a public job, in return for which they will receive extra
income above the Basic Income. If people want to work for themselves outside
the public system then they can also do so, and they will still receive the
Basic Income. The Basic Income will be an unconditional right for each and
every citizen whether they work or not. These ideas seem outrageous and
unworkable now – but once they are implemented they will work fine and they
will seem as natural as the air we breathe. Humankind will be liberated from
the scourge of wage-slavery, just as it previously liberated itself from
chattel-slavery and serfdom.
(3)
The relative power of the West will continue to decline and this will cause chaos but
in the end it will be a good thing, allowing non-Western regions to take more control
over their own destinies. The EU model of transnational co-operation will be
copied by regions such as Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and
sub-Saharan Africa. This will allow these four
regions to defend their interests against other regions and also against the
mega-states of China, the USA and India. As the developing world
becomes wealthier there will be less emigration and immigration. People will
tend to stay where they are.
(4)
There will be
another financial crisis, even
bigger than the last one. Public rage at this will give rise to a new
phenomenon of anarcho-terrorism against the financial system – there will be
targeted assassinations of CEOs of investment banks and mutual funds, plus
bombings of global financial centres. All this will eventually lead to a final
overthrow of the current financial system – the sector will come under
democratic-public control and\or ownership.
(5)
As noted above,
and contrary to what everyone now expects, emigration and population movements
will decline and people will tend to stay where they are born – this will lead
to more localism and to strong
native communities – people will take more and more pride in their local food,
land, buildings, wildlife, environment, communities, religions, families,
heritage and traditions. They will increasingly make their own food, clothes
and furniture.
(6)
In parallel with
this there will be a handful of global cities that will be multiethnic,
youthful, dynamic centres of innovation, connected with each other, autonomous,
increasingly detached from their localised hinterlands. In these global cities new forms of voluntary institutions
will develop to gradually replace the profit-maximising corporation – these new
institutions will evolve in unexpected ways from cooperatives, universities,
charities, social networks, clubs, online communities, political parties,
associations, unions, and so on.
(7)
Despite all the
progress, people will continue worrying,
and being miserable and they will continue to think that the world is about to
end at any moment, and that they live in the worst time in human history, even
though for most people it will be the best time in human history to be alive.
