Gemeinsam mit dem "Economist" schrieb der Shell Konzern 2000 einen Autorenwettbewert mit dem Titel "The World in 2050" aus. Die wesentlichen Anforderungen waren: "Essays should focus on any of the social, political, economic, commercial technological, scientific, or environmental issues that we will face in the world of the mid-21st century. The jury will be looking for a wide range of subjects in the winning essays." Das folgende Essay war der Versuch eines Beitrages:

Science, the stock-market and the rebirth of socialism

In the 19th century, socialism originated as a political concept, inspired by humanitarian motives. Stripped of all peculiarities, it can be defined as a socio-economic systems where each individual lives in full harmony with the whole. Theories leading to a premature realisation of this ideal held two then untenable premises:

· the human individual is predominated by social instincts rather than egotism,
· the state knows best what is best for all.

The promised benefits to be gained by socialism where appreciated by most people alike: A planned economy would guarantee material and mental welfare for all. Wastage of human or other ressources through unpredictable fluctuations of the market would be near impossible.

The history of the 20th century abviously refuted the practicability of such and similar ideas. Although two states claiming to be „socialist“, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, gained some military distinction, other countries defining themselves as basically capitalist proved to be more successful in the long run.

Today, the word „socialism“ does either produce nostalgic feelings among some people of the older generation or it is simply a piece of historic vocabulary.

The following article will suggest that socialism as defined above has a good chance of creeping in through the back-door of western capitalism during the coming decades. By the year 2050, each human will be fully reconciled and content with his social destiny. Economic and social matters will be settled on the basis of sound and far-sighted scenarios.

It is the express aim of the author to produce a realistic – even compelling – prospect. It is not at all the authors wish that this should be mistaken as a desirable utopia. Quite on the contrary.


The stock-market, the state and collective intelligence

Actors on the stock-market today are only interested in financial revenue. That this may be so even at the cost of ethical considerations is a well known and much criticised fact. Yet a fact it remains. Yet also, the history of the past century has led to a growing awareness that social stability and individual welfare fo the masses seem to go hand in hand with succesful economies. Politically and economically unstable or underdeveloped regions are not considered as attractive for long-term investigations.

For this reason, investors specialising in long-term engagements will increasingly appreciate and use reliable indicators of long-term socio-economic developments. A number of more or less professional tools are already available. State bureaus of statistics offer sound empirical data of the past. Academic institutions reflect on the future on the basis of scientific theories. The press constantly gather, merge, digest and condense events from all over the world. Theatres, music, soap operas, the advertising industry, fashion and the like try to distil and bring to some point the emotions from the masses of human indivuals. Computer programmes are trained to predict the future.

All have an influence on the day-to-day fixing of exchange rates.

Professionalising the evaluation of these indicators will lead to a more manageable judgment of disposable capital. How much weight should be given to new revelations about the private life of the president of the United States of America? How important is the outcome of the first truly democratic election in some African state? What will be the impact of the discovery of some new piece of nano-technology? How reliable are the findings of an opinion-poll?

Global players on the stock-market, such as investment fonds for example, will have a vital interest that major decisions are not taken by erratic individuals. A single person, however gifted, may well take seemingly judicious decisions a number of times. Admittedly, there are genii among us. But in the long run, no company is well advised to rely on the genius of single indivuduals. Professional investment fonds will define precise rules as to the weight they give to each hypothetical indicator of future developments. They will define these weights as variables of the temporal and geographical horizon to be evaluated. Trying to assess the potential of mining activities in central Asia over a 50 years period will have to give another weight to local opinion polls as the assessment of the potentials of a fast food chain in the same region.

Organising and constantly optimising the cognitive faculties of large economic units will increasingly be an object of „quality management“ as, for example, currently laid down in ISO 9000. Before long, decision taking will be among the more important processes dealt with in this standardisation norm. Large investment fonds will use this norm to exactly define which decisions should take consideration of which institution to what degree and apply optimising strategies to these rules. In other words, the stock- will learn to make ever better predictions of long-term developments. It will become an integrating agent of the dissipated intelligence of societies.

At the beginning of this article, we accepted the assumption that social stability may go hand in hand with long-term economic success. It this assumption holds true it will sooner or later be validated by the collective intelligence of the stock-market. And any government interested in the welfare and prosperity of its citizens may then resort to this intelligence to design its policies more effectively.

A government contemplating an increased tax on the consumption of ecological ressources may, for example, publicly announce its scheme and then await the stock-markets reaction. Actors specialising on long-term investments will thus be good advisors to governments interestend in long-term socio-economic stability and prosperity.

In fact, responsible governments and professional long-term investors may soon begin to live in an ever closer symbiosis. The stock-market will provide the cognitive intelligence of wholesale economies, whereas governments will become predominantly executive organs acting on the implicit advise of long-term oriented stock-exchange rates.


State-of-the-Art Humans: Gains and Costs

Many people today are pure brain-workers. They only contribute to company profit by manipulating data in a computer system. Writing texts, making technical drawings, reading e-mails, designig a homepage, ordering spares via the internet are only some examples. To do this they only need their brains to think, their eyes to look at their monitors and their fingers to control their keyoards and computer-mice. They do not need their legs, they do not need their ears, they do not need to be good runners, they do not need hair, it doesn`t matter whether they are fat or thin pretty or ugly.

Yet their bodies cost a lot of money. Health systems are on the political agendas of many countries. Bodies need rest. Bodies need houses to live in. Bodies need to be physically transported from one place to another via roads, trains, aircraft or ships.

What is more, bodies often limit the brains life-span and thereby destroy much experience and knowledge. A student dying at the age of 17 in a car-crash is an investment without any return on it. And a good IT-specialist dying of a heart-attack at the age of 55 is simply a loss of human capital.

Some mental properties of humans may also be regarded as detrimental to company profit. Social and sexual interests, hobbies, family matters and frustrated ambitions do often seriously interefere with efficiency at work.


Redisigning Humans: Some First Steps

Genetic engineering, neurobiology, computer-sciences and nano-technology are some fields of research which increasingly suggest definite means of altering human bodies and brains. Already, genes can be associated with certain maladies, cameras and microphones send electrical impulses direct into human brains to produce meaningful images and sounds in formerly blind and deaf patients. Paralysed people can already control computers via electrodes implanted in their brains. Computer chips implanted in human tissue can successfully stimulate legs of paralysed people to perform walking movements. Neurobiologist have already identified areas in human brains responsible for certain emotions or actions.

Such and similar possibilites will at first be used to prevent, cure or alleviate serious illnesses. The blind and deaf will see and hear, the paralysed will walk again and gain direct access to computers. Genetically caused diseases can be ruled out by testing or manipulating embryos before implanting them into the placenta. Chips implanted into human brains will influence our thoughts and emotions to deal with schizophrenia, autism, depressions and the like. It would be inhumane not to allow these new tricks of science to be implemented.

Some researchers already dream of human brains completely linked with computer systems, living tissue embedded within a silica environment. The present tone of voice in scientific publications rather supports than ridicules this vision.


Putting two and two together: redisigning humans along economic considerations

The strong influence the stock-market implicitly exerts on politics and a growing awareness that long-term social stability and economic planning are one key to economic success will sooner or later lead to to the definition of new types of humans. These humans will be content with their lot. They will be adapted to specific social or economic duties, both physically and mentally. They will be programmed to be most happy when fulfilling their allocated task. This will both safeguard global social stability as well as productivity and efficiency at company level. Some examples will illustrate this point:

· A farm labourer destined to live in tropical Africa will be designed to love hot and close weather. He will be programmed not to desire things out of his social or economic reach. His personal happiness will not be troubled with scientific curiosity. His body will be sturdy and black.
· An IT-specialist will not need a full body at all. His brain will be directly connected to electrodes. He will have no sexual or other bodily impulses. His main interests will be with programme code, geometry and algorithms.
· A plumber will have a small supple body with strong arms. His interests will always gravitate back to pipes and water, screws and physical work.

Technically, this or something very similar, will be possible in a few decades. Any country announcing to allow or even promote these manipulation with human nature will be rewarded by rising stock-exchange rates. Sooner or later, this will be an irresistible stimulus for governments to legally allow such measures. If they should prove to be an economic success, other countries will have to follow suit.

Human individuals will not necessarily resent this development. If a government knew that there would be a rising demand for cooks over the next thirty years, parents who wish to have happy children may perhaps wish to have their child programmed to like cooking and have a strong sense of taste and smell. If some legal arrangement would then guarantee that the - yet unborn - child would be promised a good education and a job as a cook, what would be wrong with this?

This state of affairs would be socialism in the true sense. Each individual lives in full accordance with society. Personal happiness plays an important role in political decisions. And the close symbiosis between politics and economics guarantees long term stability and prosperity.


Conclusion

If you have found these ideas at all realistic and interesting so far, you may as well read „Brave New World“ by the English author Aldous Huxley. Written in 1932, this book describes a world state in which individual humans are bred and conditioned to be fully adapted to their social destiny. Humans are classified in castes and each caste can be identified with a certain social destiny. A lower caste likes physical work and abhors reading. A higher caste, obviously, is conditioned quite differently.

Aldous Huxley painted a world in which everything was well. Yet, reading through the book, one still feels uneasy. Something is wrong. But what? Why should we shrink to make humans happy by using simple technical tricks? Is not happiness the one big goal in each persons life? Is it the fact that up to now we have tried to make the world match our wishes and not to adapt our wishes to the world?

In a few years, Huxley’s Brave New World will be technically feasible. And there will be strong economic desires to realize it. It is up to our generation to decide whether human destiny ought to exhaust itself in the pursuit of personal happiness or whether we ought to seek some higher aim.
Science, the stock-market and the rebirth of socialism

Hybride Mensch-Maschinen