Non-barking dystopians
Just noticed this... Many aspects of our current US/UK/EU tyranny were anticipated by various dystopian writers. Huxley got consumerism and "flexible gender", but we've gone beyond his vision now. He's obsolete. Orwell warned us about the manipulation of language and meaning, but again our current tyrants have gone WAAAYYY beyond his worst nightmares. Percy got Al Sharpton and "hate" "crimes" and "microaggression" and Twitter. CS Lewis's NICE is exactly Google.

What did these dudes miss?

They missed the economic aspects.

Orwell assumed standard Marxism, and the others simply didn't pay much attention to economics. Huxley actually went backwards by attributing Ford-worship to his dictators.

These dystopians were thinking and writing between 1938 and 1971. In other words, they were writing during the EXACT years when NORMAL capitalism was working well. Thanks to Ford and FDR, the economic system was giving decent jobs to MEN of all skill levels, and was providing decent stuff and services to the households headed by those MEN. So the economic side of modern society wasn't punching these writers in the face and requiring close attention.

The only dystopian who came close to modern economics was Butler, with his reversal of banks and churches. He didn't get QE, but he got ZIRP. Mainly, his reversal is what makes those evils possible. He was writing in Gilded Age 1, so he was able to see its repetition in Gilded Age 2.

Erewhon is unfortunately tiresome, written in the form of an expedition with too much attention on the explorer and not enough on the place. This passage, if you can sand down the verbosity, gives the attitudes of the Erewhonians:

“Embezzle a large sum of money under singularly distressing circumstances!” I exclaimed to myself, “and ask me to go and stay with him! I shall do nothing of the sort! ... And when I next saw my teacher I told him that I did not at all like the sound of what had been proposed for me, and that I would have nothing to do with it. For by my education and the example of my own parents, and I trust also in some degree from inborn instinct, I have a very genuine dislike for all unhandsome dealings in money matters, though none can have a greater regard for money than I have, if it be got fairly.

The interpreter was much surprised by my answer, and said that I should be very foolish if I persisted in my refusal. He then went on to say that one would have thought from my manner that my proposed host had had jaundice or pleurisy or been generally unfortunate, and that I was in fear of infection.

“I am not much afraid of infection,” said I, impatiently, “but I have some regard for my character; and if I know a man to be an embezzler of other people’s money, be sure of it, I will give him as wide a berth as I can. If he were ill or poor -—”

“Ill or poor!” interrupted the interpreter, with a face of great alarm. “So that’s your notion of propriety! You would consort with the basest criminals, and yet deem simple embezzlement a bar to friendly intercourse. I cannot understand you.”

“But I am poor myself,” cried I.

“You were,” said he; “and you were liable to be severely punished for it,—indeed, at the council which was held concerning you, this fact was very nearly consigning you to what I should myself consider a well-deserved chastisement.”

And here is the economic system itself:

Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the Erewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; I had, however, gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinct commercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to the imagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuch as the banks that were conducted upon this system were decorated in the most profuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied with music, so that they were called Musical Banks, though the music was hideous to a European ear.

As for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so now: they have a code in connection with it, which I have not the slightest doubt that they understand, but no foreigner can hope to do so. One rule runs into, and against, another ...

I gathered that they have two distinct currencies, each under the control of its own banks and mercantile codes. One of these (the one with the Musical Banks) was supposed to be the system, and to give out the currency in which all monetary transactions should be carried on; and as far as I could see, all who wished to be considered respectable, kept a larger or smaller balance at these banks. ...

The Musical Banks paid little or no dividend, but divided their profits by way of bonus on the original shares once in every thirty thousand years; and as it was now only two thousand years since there had been one of these distributions, people felt that they could not hope for another in their own time and preferred investments whereby they got some more tangible return; all which, she said, was very melancholy to think of.

Having made these last admissions, she returned to her original statement, namely, that every one in the country really supported these banks. As to the fewness of the people, and the absence of the able-bodied, she pointed out to me with some justice that this was exactly what we ought to expect. The men who were most conversant about the stability of human institutions, such as the lawyers, men of science, doctors, statesmen, painters, and the like, were just those who were most likely to be misled by their own fancied accomplishments, and to be made unduly suspicious by their licentious desire for greater present return.

Sounds mighty familiar.

In a normal economy, churches operate on faith. They have lots of mysterious music and mysterious rules, and their followers take the word of the High Priests on absolute faith.

In a normal economy, banks are businesses that operate under strict scrutiny. Every penny of their accounts, and every aspect of their judgment, is constantly audited. A bank that shows bad accounting or bad judgment is quickly closed.

In the modern Erewhon, banks operate on faith and churches are strictly audited and BOMBED DOWN TO BEDROCK when the government decides they're 0.000000001% heretical.

Outside of economics, this bit is amazingly prophetic:

I also questioned them about the museum of old machines, and the cause of the apparent retrogression in all arts, sciences, and inventions. I learnt that about four hundred years previously, the state of mechanical knowledge was far beyond our own, and was advancing with prodigious rapidity, until one of the most learned professors of hypothetics wrote an extraordinary book (from which I propose to give extracts later on), proving that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man, and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life.

Recognize the "professors of hypothetics"?

One huge thing was completely absent from all dystopias, even including Erewhon. The tyrannical power of debt. This should have been clear to everyone. Debt slavery has always been around, and was still plainly visible during the golden age of relative equality and solid employment. Sixteen Tons was a big hit in 1955. Why didn't someone write a dystopia based on universal debt and zero savings? For some reason the whole subject wasn't interesting to lit types.

Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Alternate universe

  ¶ 3:53 AM