Economic Science Fictions

by Davies, William;

  At that time the United Kingdom’s factories were critical to mercantilism. This economic system involved the colonies shipping raw materials to Britain, with factories using those inputs to manufacture valuable goods. The end results were then returned and sold back to the colonists. Upon realising that the entire mercantile system was in jeopardy, certain elements in Parliament who stood to lose their livelihoods pressed for military intervention. Many formerly wealthy factory owners also petitioned for redress. They proposed reforms that would fundamentally change the law towards machine breaking. At that time the laws dealing with property damage uniformly suggested that anyone found guilty would be transported – i.e. sent to Australia or another distant colony looking for settlers. Industrial and mercantile interests, which quickly coalesced into the ‘Property First Party’, wanted to change the punishment for machine breaking to death by hanging. Fortunately, for Sustainomics as we know it, the Property First Party failed to pass this legislation. Lord Byron, poet laureate of the Luddite Movement, and eventual MP from Nottinghamshire, whipped up popular sentiment in favour of the Luddites with his volume Poems in Celebration of Luddism. These poems were eventually set to music and included the first recorded noises, which were mostly of machines. This began the first era of ‘Industrial Music’, which is recognised as the official traditional music of the Hemispheric Union.

  Tides Turn towards the Luddites, and Their Ultimate Victory

  In 1813 the Luddites set their sights on Manchester, which was the heart of industrial cotton processing in England. Although the British army had by then been called out to put down what Parliament was dismissively calling the ‘Luddite disturbance’, there simply was not the manpower to spare. The army’s reserves were spread thin and taxed heavily defending Britain from the French and Americans.

  Richard Arkwright’s factory in Manchester was the first to be liberated. The Luddites swarmed the factory and others near it, to the jubilant reaction of wage earners. Once the major factories in Manchester were under the control of the former wage earners, tradespeople and small artisans, support for the Luddites swelled even further. By 1815 the government had no choice but to declare an amnesty and to grant all the Luddites’ demands.

  In late 1815 Parliament passed the Luddite General Amnesty Law. This law overrode all previously imposed legal penalties and sanctions that might have been imposed not only on Luddite leaders but also on supporters. In 1816, as a result of further political pressure arising from a groundswell of popular support, Parliament passed the Democratic Factory Act, followed by the Luddite Peace Accords. The Democratic Factory Act of 1816 outlined what we now recognise as prototypes of today’s Luddite Councils and cadres, and this law was also the official genesis of Sustainomics.

  Textile Factories under Early Luddite Rule

  Contrary to some of the partisan accounts of the day written by factory ‘owners’, the Luddites were for the most part very careful with industrial machines. Upon the surrender of a factory, the Luddites would break one or two machines that were especially dangerous and had injured a worker. After breaking the isolated machine to make a calculated statement, the Luddites would carry out a thorough assessment of the facilities. Lt Mellor had a natural facility as an auditor and accountant. He would analyse the books and records of the factory to ascertain its profitability and the suitability of the factory for continuing in its present course, if it paid living wages and did not use child labour.

  Reflecting Mellor’s business genius, the majority of the factories that were surrendered to the Luddites were up and running under worker-owned management within a matter of days or weeks. The workers in Luddite-run factories were treated as the owners of the shop, as if they had established it from the start. As long as there was no threat to human life, the factory machines were treated respectfully and with reverence. Mellor was committed to repaying the factory owners the true value of the land and machines, and payments were made through 1816. The Luddite Peace Accords of that year established a compensation fund that extinguished any existing claims.

  Resulting Peace and the Economic Power of the Cadres

  In 1817 Manchester hosted a ceremony in which the Luddites ceremonially stowed away their hammers. With factories under worker control, the Luddites turned their goals towards a political movement that promoted smart growth and democratic technology policies. As part of the peace, factories came to be seen as partially owned by workers, with workers holding seats on every factory’s board of directors. Workers were no longer paid hourly ‘wages’, an antiquated notion indeed, but instead given dividends on the production that they dedicated themselves to guiding. They were also no longer called ‘wage earners’ or ‘employees’, terms that implicated servile or subordinate status. Instead, they came to be known collectively as ‘cadres’, though to this day some of the archaic terminology still exists. The organisational structure the cadres pioneered has long endured, and in fact is the ubiquitous form of corporate holding in the Hemispheric Union.

  Establishment of the Luddite Councils

  In the early 1820s each factory set up its own distributed ‘Luddite Council’, which was elected from the cadres. Growing out of a notion that industrial technology was outpacing the human ability to respond to it – or, for that matter, even comprehend it – the Luddite Councils were set up to discuss and debate proposed technological changes. To be certain, some inventions were seen as those that could have either positive or negative results, and for the most part inventors continued to tinker and be incredibly productive. But it was understood that there needed to be a communal discussion of the nature of technological change and advancement as the technologies were being implemented. The cadres were not convinced that the free market should be the only determinant of technology. Instead, they firmly believed that technology had to be adopted democratically and used for the common good, not just the interests of the few. Ludd’s speeches during this time made the point that technological goals and resource allocation were to be decided in advance based on social needs and prioritisation, and invention was to be paid for and encouraged in those areas.

  The first round of consideration by the Luddite Councils determined that, given the food shortages during the past decade, agricultural technology, food distribution, health and nutrition would be the top priority.

  To track and improve food delivery systems, many cadres became involved in the design of analytical engines, pioneered by Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter. During the 1830s these analytical engines became more sophisticated and had a place in every Luddite factory. Other cadres became adept at designing and fixing harvesting and planting machines that could operate virtually autonomously. Great advances in communications were also needed. The Luddite Councils provided monetary grants for new and improved forms of communication, and by the 1830s telephonic intermediaries were in widespread usage. Rudimentary data storage areas were set up around the world and analytical engines were set to analysing them. Luddite Councils used these results in order to set budgetary and technological priorities.

  Role of Lyanna Ludd and Continued Development of the Luddite Councils

  When she reached adulthood, Ludd’s daughter Lyanna headed two of the major Luddite Councils, directing and carrying out their policies for many years. The original purpose of the Luddite Councils was to provide citizens with a forum for discussing and debating technology and the common values that they wanted to embed within those technologies.

  Under Lyanna’s, as well as her daughter Sophia’s, guidance, the Luddite Councils had a member of the board on every factory when the cadre numbered more than 25. When new technology was proposed, the Luddite Councils typically supported the changes so long as the labour-saving gains were then distributed as dividends to the cadres.

  Further, Lyanna and Sophia both strongly supported the idea that everyone, regardless of gender, race, religion or age, had important contributions to make to the cadre. Unlike other
societies at the time, which pushed women into lower-paying work, under Lyanna’s guidance full economic equality for women was achieved. Social equality did not come until the twenty-fifth century, but Lyanna’s work provided important groundwork for social change within the cadres.

  Advances of the Luddite Councils

  Robert Owen, a well-known industrialist from Scotland who was also a utopian visionary, consulted with many worker cadres. In particular, Owen helped the children who had been working in many factories. In many instances these children were orphans or residents of poorhouses. In consultation with the cadres, it was determined that the proper place for these children was school. Owen and the cadres established special schools of engineering and technology so that the children could learn how to construct new and better industrial machines. It was a graduate of one of these Owenite schools, Alyssa Tell, who invented the telephonic intermediary. Most advances were not made by individuals, however, but by groups of cadres working together on shared goals. These working groups were highly effective.

  Worldwide Effects of the Luddite Councils

  Throughout this time the standards of living of members of cadres worldwide rose drastically. Combining increased production with shared gains to workers meant that the average person became prosperous. Beginning in the 1850s, it was common for every household to have its own analytical engine. Beginning in the 1860s, the rudimentary backbone of what we now know as the Dataverse began to be formed, in response to a Luddite Council directive.

  Labour-saving technology meant that work was also more evenly spread out, with most workers in the United Kingdom working for paid remuneration five hours per day, and for four days per week. Citizens spent their spare time on families, hobbies and civic pursuits. Dangerous and dirty activities were no longer delegated to cadres but outsourced to machines.

  The United States implemented labour-saving technology across the country, which resulted in universal emancipation in 1849. Former slaves were recompensed with 40 acres and an analytical engine. Perhaps no one understood then the advantage that possession of an analytical engine in a household conveyed. The result was that it was the children of these former slaves who became some of the greatest US analytical scientists.

  Using an advanced version of the analytical engine, as well as information from the Dataverse, William Johnson, the child of former slaves, discovered the cure for cancer in 1855, and later planted the seeds of the anti-telemoric treatments that would vastly increase human lifespan.

  Automatisation of Manufacturing

  During the 1910s, with the blessing of several Luddite Councils, three factories in the north of Britain decided to change manufacturing altogether. Using analytical engines for design and sophisticated printing machines, they created the first ‘garden printers’, which could be set up in any household. Suddenly manufacturing became centred back in the household, rather than in the factory. Essentially, the modern era of production had begun, which then made other advances possible, such as space exploration, which started in the 1920s.

  As time went on, the Luddite Councils realised that they needed a set of guiding principles in order to rationalise which technologies they supported. There were some technologies that had been proposed that were outright dangerous or would have a negative impact on society as a whole.

  Many tinkerers were interested in labour-saving practices not because they wanted commercialisation but because they were intellectually curious and were generally interested in improving Human Flourishing. This philosophy undergirds all the great inventions that have been achieved since then, including quantum and biological analytical engines.

  In numerous instances, inventors petitioned to have a technology that had no known usage approved. This is the story of the faster-than-light drives and space elevators. These advances were constructed almost entirely using automatised manufacturing.

  Luddite Philosophy

  Contrary to the propaganda distributed by factory owners of the Regency period, Luddites were not antagonistic to technology per se. In fact, many Luddite leaders, including Lt Mellor himself, promoted technologies that were used for the purpose of improving the health and welfare of the cadres. Luddites destroyed only the machines that were dangerous and had caused human injury, and they were destroyed only to demonstrate a point.

  These actions boil down to a motto central to Luddite thought: ‘Principles over property’. As a philosophy, Luddism asks its adherents to ask how technology will assist in Human Flourishing. If the answer is that the technology does not lead to Human Flourishing, Luddism questions the purpose of the technology.

  Luddite philosophy also rests on the notion that the adoption of a new technology may resolve an existing problem, but that it may create future problems and concerns. Thus, technology must be viewed from all angles, and, if a technology is found to have negative consequences, social resources must be devoted to changing or fixing that technology. For Luddites, the idea of voluntary and democratic adoption of technology in a sustainable fashion is a central tenet of their philosophy.

  Rebellion against Luddism: the Asteroid Revolt

  Beginning in 2342 a faction of hoarders, the intellectual heirs to the Property First Party, stole technology from several Luddite Councils. Hoarders were fixated with employing subordinate ‘wage earners’ whose rightful dividends from technology were appropriated from them.

  Chased from the Earth in 2095, these hoarders holed up on several asteroids and began to harry the space elevator and the colony on Mars. The only armed conflict in centuries took the cadres by surprise, and it was with some reluctance that analytical power and resources were diverted to quelling the threat. As had been the case during the first industrialisation period, the ‘wage earners’ welcomed liberation and embraced the members of the cadre. Only four injuries were sustained during the Asteroid Rebellion, and all the wage earners had been successfully reintegrated into the cadres by 2096.

  Sustainomics

  As globalisation and world government developed under the Hemispheric Union in the twenty-third century, many Luddite philosophers realised they had reached a point at which resources were being strained and environmental destruction was occurring at a fast pace. As such, votes were taken in support of fixing this issue, and the Luddite Councils offered subsidies and prizes to scientists who had the best ideas for green technology.

  At the same time a series of contests and prizes were issued for those who could develop ideas for expanding the reach of humankind, thus making better use of the Solar System’s resources. It was this system of cooperation that had led to the first landing on Mars, and its terraforming by smart machines in 2012.

  Faster-than-light drives paved the way for further expansion in the twenty-second century, but throughout all these changes and advances the Luddite Councils adhered to the principles of Sustainomics and its core mottos: ‘Don’t build what you can’t maintain’; ‘Respect for human life and the environment’; and ‘Principles over property’. These principles have served the Hemispheric Union well and led to an unparalleled number of technological advances.

  17

  Public Money and Democracy

  Jo Lindsay Walton

  Part I: The Comedy of the Commons

  Imagine you are in the near future. It is the day the inquiry finally publishes its report. The inquiry that took years. The inquiry that you forgot was even happening. The inquiry commissioned after that deadly ‘fake news’ incident (remember it?) – the one that you assumed was just fake news about fake news. The inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the UK press – or, let’s say, what’s left of it.

  And there are shockwaves

  We won’t get into the details. One detail, however, is important: the claim that even well-respected media organisations have, for years, regularly published content that is unverified, known to be false, or expressed in a deliberately misleading manner, later withdrawing or amending that content once the initial tra
ffic spike has faded. The report shows convincingly that this is standard practice, and that cultural, legal and economic incentives brutally punish news organisations that attempt to do things differently.

  And the effect on democracy, admonishes the report, has been catastrophic. Journalistic due diligence is being outsourced to members of the public. Twenty thousand people read the fabrication. Two hundred read the retraction. Then comes the referendum. The inquiry is withering about ‘relict news’, old and completely discredited stories that still hold the top spots in search engine results. The inquiry is particularly withering about revenue-focused ‘clickbait’ articles.

  In due course the media absorb, analyse and disseminate the key findings of the inquiry.

  DAFT DAME VOWS: ‘I’M GOING TO BAN CLICKBAIT!’

  SOMEBODY JUST MADE A FIVE-YEAR-LONG INQUIRY INTO THE UK PRESS … AND IT’S PERFECT.

  HOW TO FIX THE PUBLIC SPHERE WITH THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK.

  Later, of course, they take it all back.

  But then, even later, a new law is passed. Let’s just call it the ‘“I said, I’M SORRY!” “There. That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”’ Act. The real name is even less catchy.

  The gist is simply this: all major news outlets must make reasonable efforts to ensure that any apology, correction or retraction is given prominence proportionate to whatever misinformation gave rise to it in the first place.