A Brief History of the Future
Book Notes #29
This book, written in 2006 and translated in 2009, is not so much a prediction for the future as it is the plans for the future by the governing elite, as is evidenced by the Henry Kissinger recommendation on the front cover—”Brilliant and provocative.” The author, Jacques Attali, lays out a list of questions, which reads more like a list of plans.
Will peace in the Middle East one day be possible?
Translation: We may end the wars in the Middle East but it is up for debate.
Will global birth rates in some countries recover as mysteriously as they declined?
Translation: We will restore birth rates through immigration.
Will oil supplies run out in twenty or fifty years?
Translation: We will broadly eliminate the use of oil in twenty to fifty years.
Will we find substitute energy sources?
Translation: We will use substitute energy sources.
Will poverty and inequalities in wealthy countries become the wellspring for new violence?
Translation: We may use poverty and inequality to cause new violence.
Will Arab countries one day experience a democratic movement like that of Eastern Europe?
Translation: We Arab countries will experience the “color revolutions” that we failed to implement in Eastern Europe.
Will the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca, through which the bulk of the world’s oil flows, be blocked by ships sunk by pirates?
Translation: The U.S. Navy will allow the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca to become blocked if we need to.
Will North Korea end up using nuclear weapons?
Translation: North Korea will remain an excuse for American military activity in the Pacific.
Will the West use force to prevent Iran from acquiring them?
Translation: The West will use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Will a terrorist attack in the West topple a government?
Translation: We will use “terrorist” attacks to change governments.
Will it lead to the installation of authoritarian police regimes?
Translation: We will install authoritarian police regimes in the West.
Will new technologies make new forms of dictatorship possible?
Translation: We will use new technologies to create a new form of dictatorship.
Will religions become tolerant?
Translation: Religions will be made tolerant.
Will we discover new ways of doing away with cancer, AIDS, obesity?
Translation: We will find new ways to cope with these problems instead of solving them.
Will a dominant new religion or ideology emerge?
Translation: A dominant ideology will be created.
Will the exploited workers in Chinese Bangladeshi mines rise up in revolt?
Translation: We will color revolution China if necessary.
Will the American credit crisis plummet the world into another great depression?
Translation: The risk of another great depression necessitates any alternatives.
Will genetically modified food or nanotechnologies prove a threat or an opportunity.
Translation: We will feed you genetically modified food and use nanotechnology.
Will the climate one day be so degraded that life on earth becomes impossible?
Translation: All of this is about the climate religion.
Will a religious war once again pit Christianity against Islam.
Translation: There could be a war with “Islam” so we need a military state.
Will new forms of sexual relations undermine morality?
Translation: new forms of sexual relations will undermine morality.
The author makes clear in the forward that this is a religious text:
“Viewed from an extremely long-range standpoint, history flows in a single, stubborn, and very particular direction, which no upheaval, however long-lasting, can permanently deflect: from century to century, humankind has asserted the primacy of individual freedom over all other values.”
“It has done so through progressive rejection of all forms of servitude, through technical advances aimed at minimizing human effort, and through liberalization of lifestyles, political systems, art, and ideologies. To put it another way: human history relates the individual’s assumption of his rights as an entity legally empowered to plan and master his fate free of all constraints—except respect for the right of his fellow man to the same freedoms.”
Translation: Unlimited freedom of action with no constraint shall be the whole of the law, and you will not be allowed to reintroduce constraints upon society.
“I predict that in the course of the twenty-first century, market forces will take he planet in hand. The ultimate expression of unchecked individualism, this triumphant march of money explains the essence of history’s most recent convulsions. It is up to us to accelerate, resist, or master it.”
The author not-so-subtly reveals his Marxist background here, not dissimilar to that exhibited by intellectuals such as Nick Land. It is the acceleration of capitalism that will bring about the unity international world.
“Carried through to term, this evolutionary process means that money will finally rid itself of everything that threatens it—including nation-states (and not excepting the United States of America), which it will progressively dismantle. Once the market becomes the world’s only universally recognized law, it will evolve into what I shall call super-empire, an entity whose structure remains elusive but whose reach is global.
If—even before it struggles free of its past alienations—humankind balks at such a future and cuts short the process of globalization through violence, it could well fall back into barbarous devastating wars, pitting nations, religious groups, terrorist entities, and free-market pirates against one another. I shall call this era of struggle hyperconflict.
Finally, if globalization can be contained rather than rejected, if the market can be held in check without being abolished, if democracy can spread planetwide while remaining accessible to all, if imperial domination of the world can be brought to an end, then a universe of infinite possibilities will be within reach, an era of freedom, responsibility, dignity, transcendence, respect for others, and altruism. I shall call this era hyperdemocracy. It will culminate in the creation of a democratic world government and an assortment of local and regional institutions of governance. Through future technologies, it will empower everyone to advance toward disinterestedness and abundance, sharing equitably in the benefits of the commercial imagination, protecting the freedom of its own excesses as well as those of its enemies, bequeathing a better-protected environment to coming generations, and—with all the world’s accumulated forms of wisdom—generating new ways of living and creating together”
What the author calls an “evolutionary process” is actually a plan. The author fear mongers using the absurd “hyperconflict” scenario, where he asserts that only alternative to this plan of globalization is hyper-violence. Finally, I cannot actually discern the difference between what he calls “super-empire” and “hypderdemocracy,” but maybe that will be become clear down the line. We also see the key word of “governance” rather than “government” applied at the local and regional levels. You will receive “governance” but there will be no government which can be held accountable. Additionally, as it is with all of these Marxist fantasies, elusive “future technologies” hold the key to all of these new developments—we even saw exactly such thinking in Pavel Gubarev’s book, which I previously reviewed on this blog.
The author then tells us how authoritarian regimes gave way to markets, which created democracy. “Market democracies” appeared in the twelfth century, and expanded. Eventually, “market democracy” will eliminate all “dictatorship,” and by 2035 the United States will no longer rule the world; it will be “polycentric.”
By 2060 “at the earliest,” if humanity has not destroyed, itself then the American empire, hyperempire, and hyperconflict will no longer be conceivable. This is where hyperdemocracy comes in. I guess, the difference betwee “super-empire” (or is it hyperempire now?) and hyperdemocracy is that hyperempire is the future of cyberpunk dystopia and hyperdemocracy is where world socialism kicks in.
As the author puts it:
“Driven by ecological, ethical, economic, cultural, or political necessity, new forces, altruistic and universalizing, will seize the reins all over the world.”
One aspect of religious texts like these is the bombardment of the reader with collective nouns and synonymous adjectives.
“They will rebel against the tyranny of monitoring, or narcissism, and of norms. They will lead steadily toward a new balance (planetary this time) between the market and democracy—hyperdemocracy. Exploiting ever newer technologies, global or continental institutions will organize collective living, imposing limits on the production of commercial artifacts, on transforming life, and on the mercantile exploitation of natural resources. They will prefer freedom of action, responsibility, and access to knowledge. They will usher in the birth of a universal intelligence, making common property of the creative capacity of all human beings in order to transcend them. A new, synchronized economy, providing free services, will develop in competition with the market before eliminating it, exactly as a the market put an end to feudalism a few centuries ago.”
Notice how the author refers to “new forces” rather than an elite cadre of people putting this plan into action. Authors of books like this always “hide the ball” and avoid exposing the fact that this is a plan and not some natural “evolutionary” course of events.
The author nauseatingly concludes the forward with his own self-congratulation:
“Readers familiar with my work will again encounter (in more fully elaborated form) theories articulated in my earlier essays and novels. In them I predicted (well before they became common coin) the world’s geopolitical tilt toward the Pacific; the financial instability dangerous financial bubbles that have or soon will become global; climate issues; the fragility of communism; terrorist threads; the arrival of nomadic forces, which I shall explain and elaborate on later; and the major role of art—particularly of music—in fostering global diversity. Attentive readers will note certain changes in my thinking—which after all (and most fortunately) did not descend from heaven in finished form.
And finally, since every prediction is first and foremost a meditation on he present, this essay is also a political work. I hope that you will be able to use it to your best advantage at a time when so many major choices are looming”
The naive reader will be impressed by Atalli’s record, but he is not so much “predicting” as he is recounting the trajectories the elite people he hobnobs with are planning.
This is a work of religious fanaticism and also an esoteric text. Most readers will simply casually read through the work and come away with a sense of optimism. However, with the requisite understanding of the esoteric elements of the text, such as the outright Marxist components, the informed reader can “translate” the text as a I somewhat mockingly did early to reveal its true nature.
For example, the phrase “global diversity.” That sounds nice. But how could music increase “global diversity?” Would could possibly already be more diverse than the entire world? If we “hyperlink” back to another part of the text, where he mentioned the dissolution of nation-states, we can understand that “global diversity” doesn’t mean making the world more “diverse.” It means global de-cohesion, which will facilitate dissolving the specifically Western form of the “nation-state.”