Moving to a new world order?

From the time humans lived in caves, the biggest and strongest male got the most meat and the selection of females. Over the centuries, little changed except those at the top had to have their supporters to keep them there and these also shared in the best meat. As populations grew and people moved out of the caves, the ruling group had the better huts and with choice of women, hastened to breed. The initial class structure was thus established. 

The advisers in the top group realized the disparity between the haves and have nots could lead to resentment, so religions were invented to keep people believing that no matter how shitty their life on earth, not to worry because there was this wonderful heaven as a final reward if you did what you were told and or died fighting the leader’s wars. This was prompted with a bit of purging along the way to make sure the message sunk in.

That worked for more centuries but as populations grew and became more interconnected, different ideas permeated. With then now the advent of online search capabilities, the current generation realized that while the much loved and touted Bible had some uplifting passages, it was only a story and woman did not come from a man’s ribs and snakes didn’t talk. More important was the realization that life’s purpose was not really doing what you were told so you could live with past loved ones in a glorious heaven. No heaven and you didn’t have to accept your allocated place in life and accept a social divide between the rich and poor.

The outcome of this resulting new world order evolves into where the division between the haves and have nots becomes more defined and is amplified under the effects of Covid-19. Suddenly it is the poor who are losing jobs and school leavers unable to find one, small business crashing and people losing houses unable to pay their mortgages. Against this, those in the wealthier class who have not lost a day’s pay can buy up the distressed homes and businesses at fire sale prices exacerbating the class divide. These same super savers are even retaining more funds as they have managed to cut back on travel and other work expenses along with not entertaining or even eating out. This will now also affect not just the earlier level of disparity with the poor but also impact decent citizens who have worked hard all their lives to suddenly find they have lost everything with no hope of ever replacing what they had. The divide between rich and poor will be further exacerbated where post virus the technology and online retail sectors will recover quickly while all others will decline. During Covid there has already been a major switch to technology replacing humans and this loss will accelerate in future with as outlined under my UBI book scenario, experts predict how 50 percent of all jobs are slated to be lost to AI in the next 30 years.

So how will society react? Already there have been politically based riots with race used as an excuse when in reality it is again between the classes and the wealth divide. It is unlikely that this disturbance will subside after the next American election, no matter the outcome. A Trump win and more protest: a Biden win with all the “free stuff” and a different anarchy would evolve requiring draconian measures to finally sort things out. When people become totally desperate, they give up and don’t care about the consequences. This is where revolutions begin as when during the great depression had not WWI rescued the US economy, with 25% unemployment, socialism was just around the corner. People become desperate when there is no money to buy food as outlined in my recent UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME AND THE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT. Feed people and you have control even if you have to pay them for nothing except to accept the form of government. America has trouble controlling a population of 330 million with democracy while China keeps the lid on 1.4 billion with their socialism designed to keep people fed.

With the Covid crisis and the way governments have introduced rule by decree and local police interpretation keeping the population guessing as to what comes tomorrow, the public are being conditioned to doing what they are told. Once conditioned by a system not blamed on politics, it is not that difficult to switch this to an authoritarian rule. Yet it is still necessary to keep people fed but when a generation has had it fairly easy, food alone might not be enough. So again, look at China and its revolution.

Working and moving all over China one finds that the people have settled into acceptance of what they are told with most people seemingly feeling better off than fifty years earlier. Some individuals have done even better even if this remains linked to the party manifesto. On the other hand working conditions in some factories remain appalling but then people are happy to at least have jobs and in the “commune” part of Communism, people labor in “Work units” where extra benefits are shared among everyone in the unit, whether on legal activities or otherwise. Testing the reaction of workers once on holiday or during overseas training outside China reveals how they are basically happy with their system but still find it intrusive where one woman recounted how while interviewed for her current ministry job they had brought up some comment she had made at a meeting during university days. They dislike this complete monitoring but have developed a level of acceptance. Testing against Chinese belief and the justification of existence, the basic response is that everything is about family and propagation of the line. Provided this is working the people will go along with anything hoping their progeny will have it better. So is there a New World Order heading towards what might be called Democratic Socialism, something which is really socialism but still labelled democratic, even if democracy embraces a new definition?