The Next 100 Years -- A Fictional Account

Afterword: the Phoenix Trilogy

Sometimes I wonder if we will ever make it to the future, I worry about so many problems that seem to be impossible to solve. The easiest way to solve problems may be to write a novel -- you can make things come out well or poorly. Fifty years ago I set out to write a story about how capitalism might be changed -- for the better, I hoped, or possibly for the worse. This years I finished the story-- its available on Kindle for anyone to read, an economic thriller in three parts The Phoenix Agenda Trilogy. At the end of the last book Recovery and Rebirth, the end product of the story is revealed. Reading it again, I thought, someone might find this version of the next 100 years instructive or just plain, stupid. Enjoy!

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…excerpt from the Journal of Social Economy, Volume 75, Number 3, “The Corporate State … Historical Developments Leading up to the Development of the Corporate Council and World Economic System” September, 2020

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Economic historians date the rise of the Corporate Councils, and their current role as the sole economic authorities managing the global economy to October, 2021 when in a single month the Society of the Phoenix, owners of the majority of the private capital traded on markets, forced a sudden change-over in the Boards of Directors of over 200 publicly traded companies accounting for nearly 20% of global output. As a result of this change in ownership positions, companies agreed to work more cooperatively using a set of principles of good corporate behavior laid down by the Society, or more critically, by Michael Ross working with Peter Morris’s plan for global corporate reimagining of the role of private capital forcing these firms to consider all of their stakeholders when making business decisions including competitors, communities, and their workers.?The each company for themselves, the idea of dog-eat-or-be-eaten capitalism of the past was no longer acceptable.

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?While in law and theory each Corporate Council is regulated and answerable to the United Nations Political Council, in practice the UN Council had little real authority except to suggest changes in business practices that appeared to be self-dealing and at odds with the agreed International Corporate Codes of Good Conduct.?It was the emergency created by the sudden collapse of world equity markets in October, 2020 that allowed these non-competitive, massive, business units to be formed and sanctioned.?Once established and working, once economies were growing strongly, governments began to step back from excessive regulation assuming that the internal corporate codes of conduct at the heart of the Morris Plan would insure that no company would try to gain advantage by dumping harmful chemicals or entering into price fixing with their competitors.??But the risks to governments from so much power being in the hands of managers meant that governments were envious and knew in time they would have to act, but how to do it and what to do, became a private topic of debate among the political elites. ????

Historians trace the initial reorganization at the end of the “Great Disruption” that began in late October, 2020 when global equity markets collapsed.?This event, one hundred years ago this year, started the process of corporate consolidation into unified relatively free of conflict business combines substituting Corporate Councils in place of governments with respect to the management of the global economy.?While undoubtedly this created more stable economic conditions, it also led to a new uniformity of belief bridging the long held ethnic, religious, and political divide that had allowed wars and ethnic conflicts during the previous millennia of human development from primitive peoples forming into tribes an later into nation states to an advanced, world-spanning civilization in which legal norms ideally should be standardized making it simpler to do business in countries everywhere.?This began with a universal maximum and minimum rate for corporate income tax and then morphed into other rules mainly in the area of the environment and labor regulations.?Corporate Councils used their power to force governments to standardize the rules as they applied to this class of multi-nationals or international companies in return for pledges to be responsible social partners.

They made tolerance of individual differences elements in their hiring decisions, but reducing the advantages of formerly privileged groups, including native born whites, this caused a backlash.?Citizen groups, vigilantes, started a war against corporate assets claiming that they were now being punished for the color of their skin or their Religious beliefs. ???

?In response to these acts of anti-social behavior, governments enacted laws that added to social tensions creating the fuel for further nationalist activities and in some cases civil conflicts that had to be put down by force.

Ironically even as the world economy began to operate efficiently, leveling out social and class differences, the tensions within the body politics grew worse.?Gradually old ideas started to emerge and politicians on the left and the right began to lobby for changes and the break-up of corporate assets. ?

Why Governments Agreed Allow Corporate Combinations?

In this article, we look back objectively at the past one hundred years, at the start of the ?reforming of capitalism from Adam Smith’s paradigm -- self-interest at the center of the economic equation -- ?to the post-market collapse new Economic paradigm of a more cooperative form of the free market capitalism so that companies worked cooperatively to solve problems and the private sector higher wages and stable demand for labor insured full employment and efficient environmentally sound growth through coordination and cooperation among companies.?Government support, welfare, was thus replaced by corporate support for communities.?Poverty during this period declined and benefits of the globalized economy were more widely shared across rich, middle and poor countries alike. ?But even utopias have problems and these quickly emerged to haunt the idealized world that the Society members and the Ross’s hoped would emerge from the economic storm set off after the market collapse in October, 2020.

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Days after the great collapse of October, 2020 were ones of turmoil as millions were forced out of work by short-sighted corporations and as financial capital and individual retirement accounts were wiped out by the equity market collapse.?Short falls in margin accounts added to the negatives and bonds were sold driving down prices but increasing yields for any investors with liquid assets it was a time of rising interest rates, but collapsing economies—a paradox.????Losses on 401 K pensions meant that for many men and women close to retirement there was the potential to be both out of work and also forced to live on government assistance and existing social retirement accounts.?The net loss of income to the economy was substantial, possibly a 50% decrease in quasi-liquid assets as measured by pre-crash and post-crash share values.?This sudden, unanticipated, loss of wealth also slowed consumption while the Pan-Pacific dock strike meant that companies began to close plants and stores to lay off retail employees.?The value of non-commercial property declined leaving many mortgages underwater and adding to the already massive strain on banks—large and small.??As the employment situation became worse, more homes were put up for sale driving down property values further.?Combined with the near panic and collapse in commercial real estate as a result of the Masters bankruptcy, the underpinnings of the capitalist economy – asset values and income streams from work – unraveled setting off a deep recession and the potential for a global race to the bottom as firms went into their fortress modes—cutting employment, holding off on new investments, and generally acting as if the sky were falling.?The business and popular press covered this as sensational news making any effort by government to rebuild the lost momentum nearly impossible.?Kirsten Anderson’s efforts in the first few months of the crisis were to rebuild confidence in the future.?She was unable to get the kind of stimulus needed from a recalcitrant divided Congress and the Federal Reserve’s conservative faction made “Fed action” ineffectual and even counter productivity. ???

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In the end, the new approaches to compensation of workers , including the redistribution of Trust shares in companies controlled by the Phoenix Trust, broadened the base of ownership more widely than in pre-crash periods. The importance of Trust companies forced other firms to apply for membership in one or more of the regional groupings. ?Gradually most companies large and small became members of and governed by the social compact developed by the Corporate Councils. ?This stabilized the economy in the short run, but led to stagnation of new ideas and new products. In short the companies within these global conglomerates were protected and secure, workers were guaranteed employment.?Economies grew at a stable rate, but the energy of the old approach was lost once the risk-reward calculus was adjusted to reflect the mean of human behavior.?No longer could one or a few individuals break off successfully, invent a new product?or new company and then get richly rewarded by venture capitalists or capital markets.

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The original Morris Plan believed these councils would ?be benign oversight committees to coordinate responses to economic disturbances or disasters.?A mutual help society for the largest, most powerful, firms in the world to maintain strong, positive, and beneficial growth to the greatest number of people by all means at their disposal, up to and including make-work projects for the public good” was the original Morris mandate. But as profit sharing and share distribution advanced leaving individuals with shares to trade?global equity markets gained new life, but “Wall Street” never regained the power and influence that it had had pre-2020.?

New smaller, innovative companies developed during this period helped by broad based support from the Corporate Council members buying partial ownership and offering preference to associated companies in buying decisions. ??A new investment fund was set up during this period to fund small businesses including companies from minorities or under represented regions of the world.?Efforts to spread growth beyond the largest and richest nations continued to have problems due to limits on education, resources, and infrastructure for developing manufacturing for local needs.?But advances in technology also allowed for more localized production of non-durable goods and food supply.?With stronger circular flows within these countries and regions and with barriers to entry from governments that had stopped individual initiative through red tape and rent seeking government officials reduced, eventually, within thirty years, real progress in raising standards of living in these underserved countries and regions could be observed.??With economic growth came more political and social stability and the gradual reduction in corruption.

Planetary Stewardship agreements helped in reducing carbon emissions and forced investments in new energy sources replacing fossil fuels as the basic energy source for both industrial, transportation, and residential power.?????The problem of global climate change and the cost of adaptation represented the defining challenge for our world even today, one hundred years after the 2020 collapse.?The Corporate Council approach to coordination, while better than the “go it alone” of the past could not stop the worst effects, but did allow the development of new technologies that make life more bearable.?Sea level rise continued to inundate entire coastal plains so that the planet we live in today is far, far different even in geography and arable land than the world a hundred years in the past.??

Nationalism and Tribalism – Dual Problems for the New Corporate Councils

Nationalism continued to plague the recovery. The emphasis on national identities and customs conflicted with the uniformity demanded by Corporate Councils controlling the productive assets on which national prosperity and employment depended.???Politicians and progressives saw the perils of putting so much power in the hands of faceless managers no matter how benevolent and forward thinking.?In the United States problems arose when corporate goals conflicted with national goals despite the fact that the largest group of companies was historically US corporate domiciled firms.???By 2050 the Global Corporate Council had organized security services to protect property from police forces starved for public funds and demanding that companies pay for “protection”.?The breakdown of authority of local officials led to fights over taxes and zoning that sometimes turned armed conflicts pitting corporate actors against their political govenors.?

For employees caught in the middle of these arguments between corporate authority and the authority of the State, these times were difficult.??This led to the first great crisis of the new capitalism, described in the next section.?During this early period national identities remained strong with historical roots conflicting with the need for a uniform narrative that came out of the global business paradigms that were at the root of the Morris Plan – cooperative growth and development to meet global requirements for food, shelter,?health, and sustainable growth. The Corporate Councils pressed local nation States for a new form of “international citizenship” allowing free access across borders and local laws (similar to the ‘status of forces agreements’ of US forces in foreign lands).??This led to the Corporate Wars of 2050-70.??

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The Corporate Wars of 2050-70

This period of instability was a longtime coming as the private sector demanded more rights.?US Supreme Court decisions based on a special interpretation of the 14th Amendment gave companies many of the same rights as individuals.?The combination of companies into stronger associations only enhanced this and by 2050 national governments found itself unable in many cases to assert its own authority.?The great recession of 2051-53 created a backlash as the corporate citizenship rules that had worked for so long were ignored in the interest of “profits” for the whole.?The first stage was a series of strikes by workers and a slow-down in global trade.?But the power of the corporate sector to reallocate resources and to freeze out entire economies often leading to spiraling inflation as consumers found little to buy in stores, forced a retreat.?

But the governments fought back by uniting in a new global governmental body.?Workers and retirees were caught in the middle of this fight. As governments tried to impose their will or to break up these companies, they found that these firms and their partners were too integrated into the very fabric of economies.?Small and medium businesses were impacted and unemployment surged as economic growth reversed.?Lacking the ability to retaliate against the companies, the governments began a purge of senior officials only to find entire businesses closed down rapidly leaving millions of workers without income and stores with nothing to sell.?Unrest led to riots in major urban centers ultimately to a retreat by governments.?

The cost of this disunity was what some have described as a lost decade or more of growth.?Living standards fell in the poorest countries, but in the end a new social and economic compact emerged.?Corporate Councils were forced to adopt binding rules guaranteeing governmental bodies a say in their organization and regulation.?Some of the monopoly power that had accumulated as they grew powerful was diluted with the sale of shares to governments and to workers and finally to individuals.?

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Stability and Growth – 2070 – Present

Nation State Councils agreed to at the conclusion of the Corporate Wars joined together into regional groups to insure they had more power to influence the powerful, inter-regional, Corporate Councils.???We identify five major regional social systems – the North American Council, the South American Council, the Euro-Asian Council including Southwest Asia, the Pan-Asian Council, and the African-Gulf Council. Forced to work together the still individual nation states had to gradually unify their laws including labor laws under pressure from regional Corporate Councils that sought flexibility of labor movements.?A free flow of labor within these regional groups and reciprocity agreements to balance skills started to have the impact on the social-racial balance.?English became the primary language of global trade and ultimately some of the regional groups adopted English as their primary language to simplify problems of multiple languages connected to previous nation states and tribal groups reasserting individual identities.

By 2120 with the spread of English now called the “Common Tongue” combined with ?the standardization of legal code led to the globalized world we are now living in.?To most people living today even the names of these countries and political divisions are simply historical anomalies.?If students are taught about these countries it is to remark that the signature of the time when national identity was paramount was war on a mass scale or the fear of war including the risks of weapons capable of a mass extinction of the human race.?Others point to the inability to work cooperatively towards solutions to the problem of environmental disaster.?If there was one single outcome of the 2020 collapse of the market and the restructuring of global corporations into Corporate Councils it was the destruction of the national identity and replacing it with an understanding that we are all in this together if we are to survive what is coming.??.?

Not since the time just after flood when all people of the earth spoke the same language and united to build a tower to heaven before God sundered the people and their languages, had the earth spoke a single, unifying language and closely aligned set of rules and regulations.??

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A New World Order Emerged from the Phoenix Storm

A hundred years has not been enough time to mitigate the damage done by 300 years of unchecked industrial development.?With world population reaching a steady-state 9 billion, and with ever increasing standards of living taxing the ability of the world’s resources to support this development, National Councils were forced to work cooperatively with business to mitigate the negative impacts on the environment already destabilized by 300 years of pollution. Entire coastlines had already been lost to oceans and eco-systems were under stress despite the changes in energy production and supply. ?By the turn of the century, 2100, a new unified planning commission was created to plan for the needs of an increasingly affluent global community.?New sources of non-polluting energy were introduced replacing coal burning; water treatment and desalinization allowed for more efficient cities and higher yield urban farms to limit requirements for transportation of food and supplementing larger agri-businesses; and a new global food bank allowed poorer communities to improve nutrition.??

New networks of inter-urban transport were added to reduce the need for automobiles and energy efficient and low pollution vehicles were mass produced.?In advanced countries a thirty hour work week opened the door for more low impact service businesses to grow to take-up the higher income that came as a result of sharing of productivity improvements of more automated factories with workers through higher wages.?The share of services rose to an average across all advanced and emerging nations to between 70 and 80% of total output.?

World output reached over $ 350 trillion dollars by 2100.?Income differences narrowed but remained significant between the poorest and the richest nations.?With global output as large as it was the Corporate Councils pushed for opening up new Frontiers replacing the previous efforts at adding military equipment with technological projects and major global infrastructure projects including satellites to adjust weather patterns by cooling and warming the atmosphere steering rain and moderating rising temperatures thus limiting the effects of droughts.?New airports, urban centers, and a connecting network of high speed rail?allowed connections within countries and between regions.?Long distance trucks were transported rapidly on these networks allowing multiple trips for delivery and reducing greenhouse gases while recharging long distance trucks that ran on efficient electric power supplies from safe, subcritical, fission reactors.

Space exploration absorbed the expenditures that had been devoted to defense.?Commercial use of space including tourism and mining asteroids advanced propulsion systems and improved materials made these advances possible.???The final frontier, the efficient, fusion power plant, offered the potential of ships reaching near light speed.?Research continued to developing new energy sources and dreamers continued to believe that long distance, inter-stellar, travel possible through worm holes or developing new propulsion systems that could propel space ships into hyperspace allowing humans to exceed the speed of light with all its distortions on the time-space continuum.??????

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The first near light speed ship was launched in 2121 combining new fusion reactors with advanced materials, mankind started a new adventure.?It was a joint effort of??engineers and scientists from almost every nation on earth.?The crew on board, most in suspended hibernation, came from almost every country on earth.?The journey, expected to take at near light speed of seven years, but with reaching that speed and slowing down the actual length of time could stretch to more than 40 years.???With the distortion of time and space taken into account the ships return, if it returned, would be more than a hundred earth years.??It might be possible, if new hyperspace systems could be developed during this period that explorers from Earth could be on Alpha Proxima to greet the astronauts, but reaching that, the ultimate goal, of faster than light travel might well be impossibility. Still with resources finite on earth and living standards ever rising, the goal of finding new worlds beyond Earth remained the driving ambition of a unified global system and of the Corporate and National Councils.

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Summary and Conclusion – A Remarkable Century of Progress

What began in 2020 with a global collapse morphed into a world spanning system that has reduced poverty and almost eliminated regional and inter-racial and inter-religious conflicts.?It isn’t perfect but it is a far better world than the one that existed pre-2016.?Steady, consistent, and broad based growth replaced booms and busts. The corporate code of conduct insured that all stakeholders gained from expansions.?Poverty, while not eliminated, was alleviated.?Billions of people moved from poor to lower middle class, from lower middle to a broad based upper middle class.?Without the fear of sudden changes in economic fortunes and with portable health insurance, individual initiative for starting and developing new businesses with the backing of the Corporate Council’s venture capital bank new companies were formed – some survived and some fell by the wayside, but the net result were waves of new business formation that ultimately will reduce the influence of Corporate Councils on the global economy.???

Individual freedom from want was assured with National and Corporate support reaching almost all impoverished parts of the globe.?But in return for this, citizens were expected to act responsibly with some freedoms allowing free expression by individuals or groups limited by laws intended to protect the rights of the broader society for life without conflict.?The question that some ask, given the long history of human conflict, is how long can this “perfect world” last?

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