The Utopian World Championship

Hank Preiser: Redirecting the Global Market Economy Toward Bellamy's Quest for aJust Society

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Summary

This essay examines the positive aspects of a global market economy against inherent flaws tending to undermine its sustainablity.

Mounting problems on the horizon will require major attention to shore up a system not in equilibrium with human needs of the majority of peoples in the global society. Among the more pressing concerns and their associated costs are:
• Servicing debt (International Monetary Fund and the World Bank)
• Military policing of uncooperative nations
• Increasing worker income and benefits
• Caring for elderly, handicapped and destitute persons
• Fighting urban and white collar crime
• Safeguarding a deteriorating environment.
• Exhaustion of natural resources
• Idleness of large segments of the population
• Widespread civil unrest
• Epidemic worldwide health problems
• Proliferation of firearms in the civilian population.
At issue here is whether or not unrestrained capitalism can be modified by harnessing its positive energies for the common good. By adding some democratic socialistic concepts, as brilliantly expounded by Edward Bellamy, to the present capitalistic structure, can we remove the brutalizing effects of unregulated competition and substitute the humanizing benefits of a cooperative society? It is fairly obvious that the productive capability of capitalism is peer to none, but the distribution of its output is distorted and destructive to the human spirit. For the engine of capitalism to run smoothly and efficiently, increasing supply must be matched by increasing demand (aggregate demand of consumers, governments and business investments) to keep the system in balance. Some fine tuning is required, a difficult but not impossible task. It is also time to reassess the duties, responsibilities, and performance of the modern corporation and its expected role as a “good citizen.”

The paper summarizes the major components of Bellamy’s economic model from his most famous novel, Looking Backward, a model which is further refined and amplified in Equality. In the discussion that will follow, some of the factors that promote or impede the implementation of Bellamy’s proposals will be addressed.
Bellamy’s overarching timeless message is that when humanity by common consent learns to share its labors and resulting wealth equitably and live in harmony with the natural environment of the planet, abundance and leisure for all can be realized, in the framework of a peaceful and civil global society.

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The disparity of income is even more unnerving as reported in The Futurist:
...Right now (1997), there are 1.6 billion people in the world who are worse off than they were 15 years ago. Furthermore, 3.3 billion people—60% of humanity—makes less than $2 a day. Thirty years ago, there was a 30-to-1 difference between the richest 20% and the poorest 20% of humanity. Now, it is 60-to-1. The incomes of the poorest have actually declined….

It is instructive on the one hundredth anniversary of his death to reassess the major tenets of Bellamy’s economic model as depicted in his scholarly works, Looking Backward and Equality. ,

Some of the major problems associated with an unregulated GME will be examined to determine whether solutions, or adaptations thereof, proposed by Bellamy are relevant to the survival of such an economy. At the outset, it would appear that the centralize authoritarian and socialistic approach ascribed to Bellamy would be in diametric opposition to the free trade capitalistic momentum of today’s multinational corporations. However, on closer scrutiny, some restraints on unfair competition (monopoly and oligarchy) and repressive labor practices (child and prison labor), as well as more equitable distribution of wealth, and the institution of a universal social safety net might save globalized capitalism from self-destruction. Many of these measures were adopted in the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. They virtually halted the rise of Marxist Communism in the U.S.

What is at issue here is whether or not unrestrained capitalism can be modified by harnessing its positive energies for the common good. By adding some democratic socialistic concepts, as epitomized by Bellamy, to the present capitalistic structure, can we remove the brutalizing effects of unregulated competition and substitute the humanizing benefits of a cooperative society? It is fairly obvious that the productive capability of capitalism is peer to none, but the distribution of its output is distorted and destructive to the human spirit. For the engine of capitalism to run smoothly and efficiently, increasing supply must be matched by increasing demand (aggregate demand of consumers, governments and business investments) to keep the system in balance. Some fine tuning is required, a difficult but not impossible task. It is also time to reassess the duties, responsibilities, and performance of the modern corporation, a unique institution (fictitious person) created and granted by government to limit liability of its owners, in return for its expected role as a “good citizen,” incumbent on all members of society.

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