Most essays or speculations about a possible future world beyond the current system (mostly based on capitalism) describe local, decentralized forms of government including some form of direct democracy.
And there are many. They all seem to almost converge. An "easy" prediction, that of many experts, or a widespread wishful thinking, perhaps too optimistic? What if it didn't go that way?
Who moved first? Who could do it first?
If we look (carefully) for alternatives to utopian visions, we won't struggle too much to find them. And there's no need to imagine the future or observe the present: someone has already explored different hypotheses about what will come after capitalism. He did it without writing essays, but operating in the political, social and economic reality.
Let's consider the path of Singapore, passed in a short time from the third world to the first world under the guidance of Lee Kuan Yew, with an absolute avant-garde position on the food of the future (read: vertical farms) and on alternative energies (with mega plants powered by renewables). The same China, with its internal dynamics, has "hybridized" its political system, making it a sort of "state capitalism", in a rather short time.
Several Arab nations, especially the UAE, are also taking significant steps to modernize their societies (with a irregular trend and several very obscure points, it must be said). Could they go beyond all or part of capitalism and introduce different forms of organization? And how would it be?
The end of capitalism does not necessarily imply democracy
I take a step back to the beginning of this post, to ask myself a question: can the large number of analyzes on "democratic" post capitalism depend on the fact that there is an intrinsically democratic or self-regulating nature in a post-capitalist society?
It's not written anywhere. Marx himself spoke of a dictatorship as a transition mechanism towards an eventual extinction of the state.
For this reason, also in light of the current geopolitical "bottlenecks", I believe it will be necessary to introduce a dystopian variable into this equation.
Steps backwards across the planet: will the future be a "benevolent" authoritarianism (so to speak)?
The transition from a system as pervasive as the current one to direct democracy is an extraordinary thing, and it will take time. There have been encouraging signs over the past decade, but the current trend is not so good.
Freedom House reports a decline in democracy all over the world that has lasted for 16 years: everything suggests that its collapse is not far off. Maybe less than 30 years from here.
For this reason, considering current trends, we must more than ever contemplate the possibility of "global" drifts towards more authoritarian models.
Few people like the idea, and I don't like it at all, but I think it is necessary to consider it as a possible future.
What do you think? Looking ahead a few decades, do you imagine more direct democracy or more top-down control, politically and economically?
Let me know on the Futuroprossimo social channels.
