Ideologies of the future

[Anders]

One thing I like to play around with is ideologies. They shape politics, how people see the world and of course give good motivations for PCs. So what would be the big ideologies of 2320AD?

Nationalism seems to have been doing very well, a form of pragmatic centralism incorporating both free markets and corporativist structures for key industries and projects. The big ideological issues might have less to do with economics and more with colonialism - how to use space, where to go and what to do there.

Marxism seems to have disappeared from the map, which is a bit odd - it never got the chance to fail as it has in our history, so it would still look like an appealing option to many. Perhaps it was refuted in the late 21st century when the nations trying to reconstruct along socialist lines simply failed. Otherwise, we should expect socialists to be around and try to reform society.

But beyond that? Demarchism has been mentioned, and there are clearly some libertarians around. Religious (and nonreligious) conservatives seem to be a human constant. But are there any other new ideologies that are starting to bite?

Included as replies are two ideas, but IMHO they are far too mild and mannered to have a dramatic impact.

 

[Anders]

Agorism

Agorism is an offshoot of the demarchy movement, where democratic or demarchic voting is used to say what we want, while betting markets determine how to get it.

It was developed by researchers at Lalor University in New Canberra. They were concerned with the long history of political mistakes that occur even in democratic states, let alone nations like Imperial France and Manchuria. They reasoned that finding better ways of aggregating information and determining what policies will actually do good would improve governance. In the mid-23nd century the "cybercracy movement" of administration had been tried. The cybercrats used widespread data collection to try to collect all relevant information for computer-supported decisionmaking. It failed to deliver results. The agorists thought that the main problem was the implicit assumption that everything was easily measurable: the
happiness of people, the kind of health they had, foreign policy success - all these are hard to quantify. People, especially administrators, had a vested interest in misreporting. Worse, cybercracy assumes that the values underlying society are objective and not just expressions of what people feel.

Agorism attempts to use people to gather relevant information about the state of society, rewarding them for accurate insights. There are still elections and elected officials, but their purpose is mainly to define what is good and just rather than suggest what is to be done. Welfare is calculated according to the definition set by the parliament (which weights together what is valued) by an independent statistics branch of government. Policies are suggested by various think-tanks, online forums for citizens and special committees, refined and vetted for practicality, and then publicly announced. The proposals are then subjected to betting markets where people can bet on whether doing or not doing a certain policy will lead to greater or lesser welfare. If the market preductions clearly estimate that a proposed policy will improve wellfare, then that proposal automatically becomes law.

The clever trick is to use the markets to aggregate the information the citizens have, and make it profitable to be accurate in predictions about the consequences of different policies. If somebody thinks that raising taxes will decrease welfare, he can make money (and reputation, if the bet was announced in his name) from being proven right. Supporting stupid ideas will lose you money.

While mainly an academic exercise, agorism has been considered as a possibility for running some outposts and orbital habitats. Agorists have also begun to demonstrate the utility of basing decisions on betting markets across the Core. Some sociologists think agorism might be a good form of government for heavily networked smaller Core societies or perhaps Nibelungen. If colonial independence and demarchism spreads agorism might have its chance.

[This is based on Robin Hanson's idea "Futarchy", described at
http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.html and
http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf ]

 

[Anders]

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is a reaction to the excesses of nationalism over the past centuries. They criticise the shortsightedness and quarrelsomness of current nation-states, promoting greater international cooperation and occasionally the eventual coalescence of nations into global governance. Cosmopolitanism is much stronger as a movement in the Core than in the colonies, although many colonists hold cosmopolitan values on their own.

People discussing cosmopolitanism usually distinguish between the "universalists", the "treaty-builders" and the "globalists".

Universalist cosmopolitans mostly strive to improve international relations, make it easier for people to travel and recognize each other as humans with equal value and strengthen international projects like OQC or the World Meteorological Organization. It is a well-meaning movement that few people have anything to say anything negative about. In the Core the most well-known cosmopolitan is the human rights lawyer Clinton Baumgartner, who consistently has worked for better international law and conflict resolution in India and South America.

The treaty-builders have clear political goals: they want to create more and stronger treaties like the ESA, Scandinavian Union, United Arab Republic, Vogelheim or the Confederation of Palestine to integrate nations more firmly with each other, ideally merging them. They cite the past success of such treaties and promote them locally. Many of their ideas were developed from the writings of Ibrahim Al-Ali, who in the late 21st century analysed the possibility of more confederations.

To some extent the reunification of Germany was a treaty-builder triumph that turned into disaster: president T.H. Schumpeter was influenced by many of their ideas, but although the unification worked it also caused colonies to break off and a worsening of international cooperation.

At present one of the more promising programs is to convince Australia and the US to form a closer pact; public support for the "Vega Association Treaty" is slowly growing. Another area where treaty-builders have high hopes is India, where the Mysore alliance seems to be getting somewhere; cosmopolitans are doing their best to get other nations to accept and support this. In France the treaty-builder politicians are trying to strengthen support for ESA rather than seeing it as a tool for the Empire; this has put them in total collision cource with imperialists and nationalists who accuse them for running German and Manchurian errands.

The globalists (their enemies call them hegemonists) think that the age of nation states is completely over and world government is the logical solution. At the very least there should be just one government per solar system, but ideally there should just be one universal human government representing all of humanity. Key decisions should be made at the highest level, while local issues can be decided in the federated former states. This fits a global economy with global communications and fast transports much better than the current patchwork of competing nations.

Globalists have never been a major group, but support for them seems to be growing at a surprising rate. The Russian pundit/ideologist Vasily Proskuryakov has been developing a plan for global peace, prosperity and freedom based around setting up a Federation of Humanity. The Federation would help coordinate the currently separate interstellar organisations like OQC and SAMN, resolving disputes and generally acting as for pre-Twilight UN. According to Proskuryakov, once the Federation had proven itself international treaties would gradually extend it. In order to make nations want to join membership in the Federation would also include various automatic trade treaties, reductions in tariffs and mutual defence obligations. There has been some serious attention to this idea, especially from the Tirane nations and independent colonies.

 

[kafka47]

post-Transhumanism

neo-Bolshevism

anarchical liberalism

trans-worldism

one-worldism

details to follow

 

[Colin]

From the point-of-view of early 21st western nations, most of the nations of 2320AD are socialist nanny-states. Colonies exist, in many cases, to provide an outlet for those for whom this sort of life doesn't work, and also, truth be known, as a source of aggressiveness should the need ever arise. There are exceptions to this, such as most of South America, where the pacifists have run off to the colonies. Call it national pragmatism.
While nationalism exists, strengthened by the Kafer war, it has also been replaced by many people with loyalities to trans-national corporations, foundations, and other organizations. Even hobby clubs engender a greater feeling of loyalty to many on Earth then their respective nation-states.

 

[Anders]

While nationalism exists, strengthened by the Kafer war, it has also been replaced by many people with loyalities to trans-national corporations, foundations, and other organizations. Even hobby clubs engender a greater feeling of loyalty to many on Earth then their respective nation-states.

This is interesting. This may also explain the growing instability of the international system. But it still seems to be a bit weak for an ideology - I might be loyal to Hyde Dynamics Inc, but what does that *mean* to me?

Ideologies are ways of looking at things; a socialist and a libertarian reading the same news story will interpret it completely differently. How would the Trilon and Hyde Dynamic employees differ in their reading?

One group of ideologies that might be interesting are of course green ideologies (they have also been mentioned, and NARL is likely one of the clearest and most powerful exponents of them). They see the world from the perspective of ecology. Good government is about harmony with the ecology, good and bad are defined from what is sustainable or not, biology is seen as foundational. An interesting take on this: the green megacorps. Transnationals with strong green values, while still out to make profit - demonstrating the superiority of green thinking over mere greed or nationalism. I can imagine some colonization, agritech and oceanic corps doing this.

Maybe there should be an information ideology, especially among the people using the Link: the world as information exchanges and information flows. Good government improves the reliability and quality of information, forces that limit and disrupt information flows are bad. This might be a bit of David Brin style transparent society (privacy is dead, but we need to monitor Big Brother to keep him in line), hacker ethos and anti-censorship liberalism. Add some economic theory to this, and it could become quite political.

 

[Colin]

Corporate ideologies are likely about change, movement, expansion. Read "Voice of the Whirlwind" and it's Outbound Policorps. The smaller transnats likely don't engender much loyalty, but the truly huge ones like Trilon likely do. "Join us and make a difference!". There is likely some sympathy at certain echelons in these corporations for the transformative meme in Provolution, as there is in the Life Foundation.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: last comment
Would corporations in the 2300AD era, try to become the equivalent of present day "nation states" in their own right, as Colin has pointed out in his last post with the Voice Of The Whirlwind reference....?
(BTW does anyone know the current exchange rate between 7 Moons & Brighter Suns currency, as I need to change some money...?).

 

[epicenter00]

"Corporate Nationalism" is actually mentioned in the 2300 sourcebooks, though along with Cyberpunk, I found the idea to be pretty 1980s. Since the 1980s, even Japanese corporations have withdrawn from the idea of taking care of their workers, especially non-productive (retired) ones. Modern-day corporations have no loyalty to their employees, exploiting the inability of employees to relocate to successfully to keep their costs low and profits high through successive waves of outsourcing.

On the other hand, as Colin pointed out, nations in 2300 seem to nanny their people a lot more, so such callous pro-big-business attitudes might not be tolerated by governments as they are in our current world. If such attitudes like taking care of "your people" have re-emerged in companies, Corporate Nationalism would certainly be strong trend in 2300, I think - once some company, we'll say Trilon, provides all the benefits of being a citizen of a country (ie; phsyisical and fiscal security) without the problems of being a citizen of a country, identifying yourself as a member of a corporation rather than a citizen of a country would become more attractive. For instance, in 2320, a French person in Manchuria would probably have a difficult time, especially if he (or she) waved a French passport. However, if they were a Trilon employee, Manchuria might not have anything against Trilon -- suddenly, it's much more attractive for that "French" person to identify themselves not as French as someone from Trilon. Likewise, that same French employee might resent having to pay French income taxes even though he or she hasn't stepped foot in France for years or even decades, claims no social welfare from France, and doesn't even have a home there anymore.

 

[rfmcdpei]

"Corporate Nationalism" is actually mentioned in the 2300 sourcebooks, though along with Cyberpunk, I found the idea to be pretty 1980s. Since the 1980s, even Japanese corporations have withdrawn from the idea of taking care of their workers, especially non-productive (retired) ones. Modern-day corporations have no loyalty to their employees, exploiting the inability of employees to relocate to successfully to keep their costs low and profits high through successive waves of outsourcing.

Kie-Yuma is the perfect company world.

I'd speculate that megacorporation-dominated societies might be standalone viable if their economies are more diverse, with smaller businesses--whether truly independent small businesses or autonomous divisions--alongside the core units.

 

[Anders]

I like the idea of corporate nationalism: it is an alternative to nationalistic nationalism for people who travel much or are less than sanguine about their home country. There might be strong links here to cosmopolitan thoughts: instead of having nation states providing everything, corps could do the same. This might actually be a real ideological core to corporate life, together with an emphasis of expansion and Progress - most nations pay lip service to those goals, but probably want to spend most resources maintaining what they already have in order to not make voters annoyed. Only the big colonizers have managed to convey an expansion vision to their people. Meanwhile the corporations have a much more natural drive to go outwards - but they prefer to get nation states foot the expensive initial colonization bills.

 

[Lapthorn]

As Colin has said, the world of 2320 is quite nanny-statish compared to ours. It's not inconceivable that corporations in such a world might revert to the 1950s-1980s model of providing broader social services to employees, laying the foundations for "corporate nationalism". In effect, society might choose to forego the greater efficiency (and scope for personal freedom) of modern profit-maximising. shareholder-value-focussed capitalism in favour of the greater stability and slower growth of state-managed capitalism. Particularly if living standards are already very high.

I wonder if the shock of the Kafer war might foster "cosmopolitanism", or a nationalism centred on Earth / humanity as a whole? I can see the Soviet-style posters with a Frenchman, a German and a Manchurian fighting shoulder to shoulder on Aurore...

 

[epicenter00]

As Colin has said, the world of 2320 is quite nanny-statish compared to ours. It's not inconceivable that corporations in such a world might revert to the 1950s-1980s model of providing broader social services to employees, laying the foundations for "corporate nationalism". In effect, society might choose to forego the greater efficiency (and scope for personal freedom) of modern profit-maximising. shareholder-value-focussed capitalism in favour of the greater stability and slower growth of state-managed capitalism. Particularly if living standards are already very high.

It really depends, I think, on how rough the period between, say, 2020 and 2300 has been in regards to how much unchecked greed and desperation by Earth's populations have devastated the Earth. If things like environmental damage, has led to a lower quality of life for even the wealthiest people on Earth (or the wealthy have been made aware of these problems, perhaps even by force) -- say living conditions on Earth have became even worse than they're projected to be 2030 for the real world, but this occurs in the mid to late 2000s or early 2100s. This is entirely possible because people who are trying to rebuild the world after the Twilight War are probably not going to care a single fig about "sustainable growth" hand-in-hand with a belief that massive population die-offs post Twilight War have let the Earth go "fallow" long enough to recover, nevermind the fact that mineral deposits don't really regenerate just because you leave them alone for 50 years. Coming face-to-face against the consequences of rampant exploitation might have a sobering attitude on human attitudes.

Of course, being a cynic, I can't have the future being anywhere near perfect. So in my 2300, the attitude of "We only have one Earth, use it well" has mutated into "If you're going to do it, do it out there, not on Earth." Dirty mining, petrochemical exploitation, genetic raiding, and so forth all occurs, just not on Earth. Indeed, since the Second Age of Colonialization has begun, standards of living on Earth have blossomed, buoyed artificially by government subsidized exploitation of colony worlds. The corporations have served as arms of Earth's exploitation of the stars. Given their Earth attitudes, corporations take care of their employees as ever since the nations of Earth realized that "globalization" meant outsourcing of your tax base which eventually hurt you, because once there's no reason to bribe them, even politicans stopped getting fat checks from lobbyists - so they banded together to keep companies from "dodging the bullet" constantly. This kind of crude exploitation has roused the ire of people living on colonies (as opposed to corporate employees living on colonies who are more like locusts with the "rape-and-run" mentality) who desire a greater say in how their world is going to be used (and abused) - if the governments don't listen, they agitate for independence (making them fertile grounds for Provolution cells). Another factor is that corporations are beginning to realize, looking at the "corporate haven" of Xie Yuma ... wondering if they can sever their ties to Earth completely in the pursuit of profits...

 

[Anders]

As Colin has said, the world of 2320 is quite nanny-statish compared to ours. It's not inconceivable that corporations in such a world might revert to the 1950s-1980s model of providing broader social services to employees, laying the foundations for "corporate nationalism". In effect, society might choose to forego the greater efficiency (and scope for personal freedom) of modern profit-maximising. shareholder-value-focussed capitalism in favour of the greater stability and slower growth of state-managed capitalism. Particularly if living standards are already very high.

I think this is very likely and fits with many of the canon descriptions (which were very 80's in their outlook on companies). Corporativism (having big companies allied with the government) seems very plausible in many of the nations. It is the less national megacorps who would have to compete with the nanny-states in terms of services to attract good people, leading them to become increasingly nationalistic. The state-allied corps simply rely on the state to provide nice services and an environment the employees like.

My own experience in growing up in Sweden, the epitome of a nanny-state, is that it is so comfortable that it lulls both citizens, companies and the politicians into thinking that there is nothing else. Which makes any unsolved problem or surprise a major political problem, and the demands rise ever higher. The boxing day tsunami still causes political fallout since the government did not respond as promptly as the citizens felt they ought to had done - apparently many Swedes feel that it is the job of the government to rescue Swedish tourists halfway across the world instantly and efficiently.

Building on this, I would expect the Core societies to be extremely risk aversive and have some truly impressive contingency handling systems. Agencies would also do their outmost to dampen the impact of anything external; the Kafer war was a huge cultural shock because it was obviously not under control, and the majority expects things to be under control.

This strengthens the ideological divide between Core and Colonies, with some of the up-and-coming companies being more Colonial in their mindset even if they are located in the Core - especially if they are producing disruptive technologies. As I see the cybernetics industry it is right now recovering from a dotcom-like crash in the 00's, and it is finding itself opposed by much of Core society. So it turns outwards, looking for cut-rate enhancements for colonial sale instead. And some cybercorps are starting to think that there might be something to the ideas of colonial independence...

 

[Anders]

I wonder about the economic benefits of turning your company planet into a de facto nation. Obviously corporate taxes can be removed, and whatever rules helps the company the most can be enacted, but that is likely not a huge benefit - one could always relocate the headquarters to a friendly nation, or make the nation friendly through a bit of lobbying and pressure. Running a corporate nation is not much different from running a planned economy (maybe this is the form of socialism in 2320? Employee-owned megacorp states?)

I think Trilon is actually being strategic about Kie-Yuma. They have created a state ideal for other corporations to move to. Trilon economists foresaw the eventual end of the old colonial economy and that the arms would start to become producers and consumers of advanced goods. At that time there would be a big shift away from the Core, and a boom for companies placed right to benefit from the new economy. So Trilon set up Kie-Yuma to become the new Singapore/Hong Kong of the French Arm. Other megacorps will come, adding lots of business to the system economy - they do not have to build their own nations to do it (that likely took some *brilliant* lobbying and bribing from Trilon - somehow I don't see the US allowing Microsoft or Walmart to secede). It has not yet blossomed, but it is just a matter of time. Conspiracy theorists of course wonder how much the company knew or had planned of the Kafer war and the problems of Beta Canum and Kimanjano...

(BTW, is there any official Trilon logo?)

 

[Peter Schutze]

Isnt trilon and Kie Yuma technically under US jurisdiction / law ?

 

[Anders]

Isnt trilon and Kie Yuma technically under US jurisdiction / law ?

Not since independence in 2309. Before that it was under US jurisdiction, modified by "corporate policies and regulations". Given that most environments would have been privately owned by the company, such policies could have been pretty far reaching.

I would expect that post-independent Trilon likely just adopted much of the US legal system. Now the legal department work through it to update it, giving the Board of Directors various laws to update. ("Proposed removal of law 556533001: Eyeglass recycling will henceforth be permitted.")

Hmm, that brings up the issue of division of powers. Is there an independent judiciary? In the past the legal department acted as the local magistrates, but serious crimes were referred to the US legal system. Some possibilities are: Trilon outsources the judiciary to another company (say, Arnor Arbitration Services Inc) or even several companies. They could outsource it to the US government, paying them for it. They have set up a semi- or fully independent body to act as a judiciary that is not directly under board control, perhaps a foundation. Or they could have decided division of powers is for wussies, let the legal department handle it all - matrix management can handle the conflicts of interest.

Most anarchocapitalist thinking on state-free legal systems (great inspiration of exotic legal systems in sf; see Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia and David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom) have been based on the assumption that there are many companies around on a free market; this is not true on Kie-Yuma. Conversely, socialist legal systems mainly differ from civil law systems in their lack of respect for private property, but Trilon likely respects that strongly. However, the socialist law tendency to regard the Communist party as above the legal system (party functionaries not subject to criminal prosecution but disciplinary measures taken by party committees), might apply to top level Trilon management if you want a more dystopian company planet.

 

[Lapthorn]

I think a functional definition of "states" might be useful here. One useful definition of the state is the body holding the legal monopoly over the use of force in a given territory. If Trilon has this attribute on Kie Yuma, then it is the state, even if it calls itself a corporation.

State governments that had their origins as corporations could ironically be quite socialist, i.e. they will use state power to intervene aggressively in economic life in favour of particular groups - such as awarding themselves monopolies. You might then get discontent from those paying over the odds for life's staples, to guarantee fat profits to an inefficient monopolist. But that's basically a political issue.

A couple of real-world cases to kick around:

1) the British East India Company of the C18th - mid C19th: started as a trading corporation, ended up usurping state functions to ensure a suitable framework for its business (probably a gross oversimplification and possibly flat wrong - I'm no expert)

2) modern-day Russia (hope this doesn't offend anyone - I don't want to stray into the pulpit): the major corporations are state-owned; the managers are also government ministers / senior politicians. Easier to do when you're a big natural resource exporter as even the government can dig a hole in the ground with tolerable efficiency, particularly when the stuff that comes out of the hole can then be sold for $100 a barrel!

 

[Anders]

I think a functional definition of "states" might be useful here. One useful definition of the state is the body holding the legal monopoly over the use of force in a given territory. If Trilon has this attribute on Kie Yuma, then it is the state, even if it calls itself a corporation.

Yes, Trilon is definitely a state. It got land, it got an army, it is recognized by most nations. But it actually doesn't have complete monopoly on violence, since other corporations are allowed to have security firms (according to Colonial Atlas). These are likely subordinate to Trilon Security, but still seem to go slightly beyond Weber's definition of a state as a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory".

Trilon is also a business corporation since it has transferable shares, perpetual succession capacity (it will not vanish if shareholders die or vanish) and limited liability. There is no reason why an organisation cannot be both a business and a state at the same time. One could imagine a country where a new constitution gives every citizen tradeable shares in the government.

 

[Lapthorn]

[QUOTEThere is no reason why an organisation cannot be both a business and a state at the same time. [/QUOTE]

Trilon is a corporation in certain jurisdictions (i.e. the US on Earth), and a state on Kie-Yuma.

Conceptually, I would say there is a difference between a corporation and a state, at least within a given piece of territory. A corporation can only exist within a body of law - to be "incorporated" is a statement or summary of legal status (e.g. of property rights and limited liability of shareholders). The state is that which grants legal status in an unanswerable fashion owing to the state's monopoly on the use of physical force within a territory. There is a fundamental difference between states and corporatiions for this reason.

Both states and corporations can undertake economic activity, i.e. can decide on the allocation of resources among competing productive processes. However, only the state can (legitimately) use violence to enforce its decisions; corporations must abide by the decisions of the state (or suffer the consequences).