Slovenia 20 years from now
One should bare in mind the story of the 1938 US Department of Merchandise Future development study, which discussed the technological trends for the following twenty years. In the contents of the study, neither computers, antibiotics, reactive aeroplane propulsion, atomic energy utilization, nor the possibility of a Second World War were taken into consideration. These potential elements of future development were, however, evident and should not have escaped the attention of an intelligent and informed spectator in 1938.
After that era came three decades of seemingly unstoppable growth and progress, which could only have been hampered by a tsunami of nuclear war; and the next three decades, during which the world seemed to be slowly coming to a halt.
Looking at the year 2006 through the eyes of 30s or 40s, we are astonished more by the things, which never came into being, than impressed by the things which were realised.
There exists nothing like the ‘long sleep’ or the retreat of the individual for ten or thirty years, as described by Heinlein in the ‘Doors into summer’. There is no jam of electric cars in the streets during the rush hour, actually not even electric motorcycles exit. People are still dying of cancer. Our teeth are being filled as before, not even the cigarettes light up by themselves. The babies of today might well live for three hundred years, but the majority of present day adults will ‘be gone’ before the second half of this century (it is not even clear, if the poorer segment of the population will receive a noteworthy pension in their old days). Nuclear fusion is still in its earliest experimental phase, and no orbital solar power plants are circling around the planet (not even experimental). The whole world is still propelled by the crude oil. There is no space colony in the Lagrange L5 point between the Earth and the Moon and the latter is still uninhabited, its dark shadows not being penetrated by the lights of settlements and scientific outposts. The war in Iraq is slowly gaining on resemblance to the Vietnam era. The developed countries do not face the problem of overpopulation, but their established ‘pay as you go’ pension system is becoming increasingly unstable. Formally still valid and not officially buried, the eight-hour working time is in fact more or less a thing of the past. The declarative prophecies of the Dialectic materialism do not need to be taken seriously anymore, but the old religion seems to be holding in the saddle as firm as in the times of the Bolsheviks. The black Bolsheviks cannot send you to the Gulags, however it is still not advisable to incur their displeasure. They have learned almost nothing from the past experience of others and they have most certainly not forgotten most of the things from the past. This is also the fact with the ordinary people, as they seem to have learned little or forgotten almost everything. The television walls of the Fahrenheit 451 are still fiction, and the books are generally not prohibited, but – they are marginal. The United States have gained a dominant stance in the world, however at the same time it seems that under the second Bush administration they degraded in their perception of the world to a level, which had prevailed before the second Roosevelt era. There is once again a dogma prevalent in the Political economy thought, that in order for a minority to live in prosperity, slave poverty of others shall be tolerated. The decline of ‘the End of the History’ idea can certainly be regarded as a welcome gift, but has the 21st century already begun?
What can we expect in the decades to come? The crude world of the Cyberpunk fiction from the 1980s?
Two things seem to be certain:
- There are several future developments of the world possible.
- The state of things to come in 2026 will be affected mainly by present political decisions.
The future of cyber-feudalism seems most probable at this moment, or perhaps the world of a cybernetic patriciate, perhaps even more attractive than can be anticipated by the appearance of this old roman metaphor. The discipline of the subordinates would be preserved at the desired level by an omnipresent threat of the decline to the ‘lower class’, a sociological equivalent of Siberia or Dachau. However, this concept is still open for a number of adaptations, from the benign paternalism, which would actually preserve a portion of the liberal traditions of the western civilisation, remainders from the former centuries, and retain a certain aspect of politeness towards the productive working class; another side of the spectrum being the neo-roman post-liberal pattern.
Even though this future seem to be the most likely one (in its several different variations, from the relative well-being, which would preserve or even advance the living standards of the 20th century, to the various sharp variations of the ‘belts being pulled tighter’), we must admit that the future option of a ‘path to a global Scandinavia’ is not impossible (however it seems to be ‘a future of the past’). We cannot expect a final decision on accepting a certain of these paths in the next 20 years; therefore a compromise of some kind seems more likely. In 20 years we can, however, expect the most probable option to become singled out and thus us becoming aware of it.
At this moment, it is the prevailing fact that the democratic traditions of the open society in the intellectual space of the West and elsewhere in the world are still alive, despite their fragmentation and archaic looks. In some places this fact stands firmly and in some less firmly, but major portions of the lower class in the West and elsewhere in the world are still nurturing the vision of a ‘fair society’ and they can not be held politically irrelevant.
The image of Slovenia in 20 years from now will most probably be determined in two thirds by the European political decisions; if we ignore the possibility of a revolutionary scientific or technological event of major importance, these political decisions (either the public ones or those outlined in the ‘silent strategies’) will predominantly determine the technological development. Despite this subordination to the European flow of decisions, we can at least expect the national political development in the next decade to retain its share of influence.
The two domestic political options for the next decade, which will have the greatest influence on the image of Slovenia in 20 years, are the possibility of development of an open and responsive left-oriented political option and the level of ideological fundamentalism in the development of the right-oriented political segment. It is currently expected that the first option will slowly become unattainable, the second one becoming more probable in the conservative conception.
The European technological alternative, which will cause most turbulence on the political level, will be the question of energy. The answer will probably become more apparent in the next ten years. Apart from the present mixed concept the most forthcoming concepts for the future are an increased role of the fission and perhaps coal, with the distant ‘great alternatives’ of the fusion and solar power (in the form of reappearance of the 30 years old orbital power plants technology proposal). The continuation of the present energetic pattern is only politically viable in the case of formation of the cybernetic patriciate; the fusion energy facilitates the same development in a more sophisticated manner, with the orbital solar option being too problematic for the patriciate environment despite its technological attractiveness. This is why the latter will most probably not come into being (the only alternative being a radical turn in the US policy or a very unlikely autonomous Japanese move).
The two segments, by which we will be able to judge that the high or low tide of European development into a patriciate is gaining form, will be the education and the space program (The highest valuation in the educational segment still goes to high schools and the pre-academic education phase. A fundamental shift in the space program would become feasible with a potential major change in the US, European, Japanese, Russian or a combined political decision to industrialize the cis-lunar space). The tax and health care policy do not seem that indicative, despite their high public appreciation.
In twenty years, one will probably still be able to address the perception of Slovenia as a cloth in between of its larger neighbours and conceive to it a role, similar to that of Poland at the end of the 18th Century. Option for an interstate Alliance is always open, with Austria standing out as the most probable candidate, which would gain most for a negligible cost. The crucial question for Slovenia will be the policy development in Italia, where numerous options coexist and the most probable outcome is a compromise between them.
The deeper trends in the domestic development for the next two decades will be judged by a spectator through occasional examination of the political culture on the local self-government level and in the University in Maribor, which is reflecting greater transparence than the University in Ljubljana and is presenting a broader insight into several issues.
Samo Resnik for SPEM Communication Group at the twenty anniversary of the oldest Slovenian communications agency |
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