We have heard occasional comments along the lines that Social Futurism or its affiliates are apparently Anti-Capitalist, but committed only to “half-measures”. I expect that we will hear this kind of comment increasingly in future, and it can range in tone from mild rebuke to antagonistic accusations of “populism”, so we need to address the matter now. Sometimes these issues are couched in terms of whether we are radical (usually implying too radical, or not radical enough), so I would like to address that question too.

​To start with, Social Futurism is not avowedly Anti-Capitalist, and I think I am safe enough in saying the same for Technoprogressivism more broadly. However the WAVE Principles, which unify a connected subset of Social Futurist groups, refer to opposing dysfunctional Capitalism, as follows:

"The current global economic system is deeply dysfunctional. This dysfunction is not a result of specific crises, but is endemic, designed into the very basis of an unbalanced system. This dysfunction causes widespread suffering, and therefore must be stopped. Removal of dysfunctional systems must coincide with implementation of functional alternatives. Debt trading within and on behalf of WAVE organizations is strictly forbidden."

My personal take on this can be summed up with a metaphor; that of an unborn child. Human civilization and its potential are that child, and Capitalism is the womb or environment it has grown in. Without such an environment nourishing the right kind of advances, we could never have seen our potential fulfilled, even if the growing pains have at times been hard to bear. But now it is time for our civilization to be born into a new context. We have over-stayed our welcome in the old context, and the environment is becoming toxic. It’s time for a new paradigm.

So, we Social Futurists are definitely not supportive of an eternal status quo, even if we would like to see as peaceful and constructive transition as possible. In that spirit we may be highly critical of various institutions and societal mechanisms, but to focus on opposition to Capitalism would be too restrictive and reductive. We wish to focus on our potential future. Of course this all opens up a lot of room for potential confusion over who is “on the same side”, and so I would strongly recommend that we focus on the details of specific proposals. Who stands for what, exactly, and can we agree with it?

There are a lot of different questions we could ask of ourselves and others in that vein. And we will. But in order to start somewhere tangible, I offer a set of four questions below, which I think everyone joining this conversation should answer at the outset. I offer my own answers, below. Furthermore, as mentioned in my previous post I recommend that the fourth anniversary of Zero State and the WAVE movement (May 1st, 2015) should be dedicated to an event where these themes are fully discussed and a common Social Futurist position established.

1. Should workers own the Means Of Production?

According to Marxists at least, this is the classic test of Socialism. In that view, if you believe in worker-owned Means Of Production (MOP) then you are a Socialist, and if you do not then you are not. Whether you agree with that litmus test or not, it certainly is an elegant one I must admit. I mention it because when someone suggests your approach to social justice consists of “half-measures”, you must then ask what would a full measure be? The answer to that question makes a person’s ideological commitments clear, and the Marxist answer is just as clear; a full measure would involve the eradication of the Capitalist investment class entirely, leaving the means of production in all businesses wholly owned by the workers in those businesses.

Leaving aside arguments for and against Marxism, my primary concern is to ask what the Social Futurist position on this question is. As I have discussed previously, I believe that it would be a grave error to limit Social Futurism or Technoprogressivism to the realm of Marxist definitions. Socialism existed before Marx, its possible manifestations are broader than his views, and the same goes all the more for the broader realm of social justice activism.

That said, while Social Futurism cannot be limited to insisting upon worker-owned MOP, that is certainly one tool in the toolbox we may use to work toward a better future. I personally have a lot of sympathy for new business paradigms that can promote innovation and mutual support within their organizations by embracing new modes of what has traditionally been called “Syndicalism“, or “Anarcho-Syndicalism“. We don’t have time to go into the issue here, but I will point to an earlier post in which I mentioned new types of software-based organization which appear to have the potential to work within our current Capitalist context to create pockets characterised by experimental new paradigms of social organization. Those modes of social organization seem to effectively amount to worker ownership of the MOP, although that’s hard to be sure of, when means of production are becoming increasingly hard to categorise as the 21st Century wears on.

Finally, I’d like to note that none of the above is any kind of endorsement of Anarcho-Capitalism, which I consider to be an unfortunate oxymoron, since Capitalism tends naturally toward the concentration of power in the hands of resource-controlling Capitalist elites. But more on that in the next two sections.

2. What is your position on Centralization and Authoritarianism?

This one is quite simple. I personally am very much opposed to centralization and authoritarianism, and feel strongly that Social Futurism by definition cannot endorse such things.

With that out of the way, I can explain my reason for including this question: So far, most of the people judging Social Futurism to be composed of “half measures” have taken a strongly Socialist or even Marxist view, and above I was deliberately non-committal about Social Futurism’s relationship with the idea of worker-owned MOP. Rightly or wrongly, another commonly-perceived characteristic of governmental Socialism – particularly historical Communism – is centralised authoritarianism. Sometimes of the most brutal, Totalitarian kind. If your idea of a “full measure” explicitly endorses or even implicitly requires such an approach to organising society, then Social Futurists are by definition not just in disagreement with you, but implacably opposed to you and your views.

The first couple of questions have really been about Socialism. To cut a long story short, if you consider your position to be Socialist then that’s fine by us as long as you don’t insist that worker-owned MOP are mandatory or advocate centralization & authoritarianism. If you must insist on any of those things, then your views are incompatible with Social Futurism, and frankly any comment that we are committed to “half-measures” rings very weakly when it is clear that your idea of a “full measure” amounts to atrocity.

3. Do you consider your views to be radical, revolutionary, or reformist, and does it matter?

From my comments above, you might be forgiven for thinking I propose a very mild, milquetoast approach to social justice. That is not the case. I am not a reformist, although I believe there should always be room for reformists within Social Futurism / Technoprogressivism.

The idea of worker-owned MOP may not be something I insist upon (despite encouraging), but I do admire its boldness. I don’t like the idea of “half-measures”, myself, at all. Additionally, I may not be a Marxist but I do agree that the idea of profit from Capital investment (known to Marxists as “surplus value”) does sit at the dysfunctional heart of our society like a kind of Operating System badly in need of an upgrade. I am a revolutionary in the broader sense (i.e. including technological and sociological, not just political revolutions), and I think the unquestioned dominance of the old system needs to be ended. Where alternative modes and institutions can be created, giving people true choice, then I believe they should be.

So as I say, I believe there is a need for reform and transition, but my own disposition is to go right for the beating heart of the problem, democratising choice and profit. We can’t go into the possibilities for that here, but we will and soon, and for now I just want to emphasise that I don’t think such an agenda is aiming for half-measures. In the long run, of course, anyone who wants to run society on any basis other than the profit motive has to consider whether they would support development of a Resource Economy.

4. Do you advocate transition to a Resource Economy?

A Resource Economy (AKA “Resource Based Economy”, “Natural Law Economy”, or “NL/RBE”) is one in which resources are managed directly rather than via the mechanism of money where possible, and those resources are managed intelligently for the benefit of as many people as possible, rather than concentrating them in the hands of a tiny minority. I mention it partly because I personally think this is where Social Futurism works to go in the long term (despite a lot of obstacles needing to be resolved along the way), and partly because Social Futurism could in principle be accused of “half-measures” from a Resource Economy advocate’s point of view – although that has not happened yet to my knowledge.

My initial reservation about this idea was that it sounded prone to centralization and authoritarianism, which is extremely dangerous. “Experiments” in centralised resource management have killed many millions in the past, in Communist countries. But I’ve come to believe that this could work in a decentralised way with modern and emerging technologies, and that most Resource Economy advocates are committed to ethical decentralization. Other issues which I feel need to be addressed tend to fall somewhere between that and the question of how to achieve peaceful transition to new ways of doing things. For example, I personally believe that at a certain level currencies will always emerge to cope with acceptable artificial scarcities, such as whiskey aged the old-fashioned way or unique works of art. To my mind a legal and ethical framework descended from our current one could handle such matters, as long as other forms of manipulative artificial scarcity were banned and the use of money was therefore entirely voluntary where essentials were non-scarce. Also, many Resource Economy advocates believe in transition modes such as money creation not based on debt, Universal Basic Income, Land Value Tax and so on, but there are a great many questions about how all these things could potentially fit together.

For now, my purpose is simply to make it clear that Social Futurists are bent on nothing short of entirely transforming society, through technology, with positive social change characterising every step of the journey if possible. That is a revolutionary idea, certainly not a matter of “half-measures” from any historical perspective, and we welcome anyone who would work with us toward such a future. We can begin by putting together a global, virtual meeting for 1st May 2015 in which these ideas are developed further, and plans are put in place to begin realising them. I hope you will join us.