I’d have to co-opt a phrase by Marx when it comes to the future, “I do not have a crystal ball”. But if I had to speculate the kind of society that follows this one, I’d have to say that Marx’s prediction is probably not only the most likely, but also the most ideal. But such a society I don’t think would declare itself dogmatically “Marxist”, these are merely my speculations, hopes, and dreams as to what our common future holds.

The United Earth Confederation would serve as a union of sovereign republics and territories. It’s articles of agreement, merely a mutual respect for human rights, peace, liberty, and equality, will be ratified by all member nations and territories. All member nations and territories will have the right to suceed from the union by popular vote. It will be a socialist, and ultimately communistic union without any centralized authority, all territories and republics being equal in rights and privileges. It’s flag shall be the red unicolor flag of the world socialist republic. Real authority will exist only insofar as the long term survival of the human species is concerned (i.e. regulationg emissions, fossil fuels, transfering the worlds energy source into 100% renewable green energy), and in military affairs. It will not be a “one world government” so much as there will be no actual state entity or central authority, either to the central power or individual territories. There will be no state in this new world, the people themselves will be armed and will govern themselves. It’s associations will be purely voluntary and without political coercion or coercion of conscience.

It would have no currency whatsoever or medium of exchange. All disputes between regions, territories, and republics must be settled diplomatically, war itself being considered an act of aggression against the whole Confederation.

Trade will be conducted on an egalitarian basis, with efforts made to rapidly reduce the wealth differential between historically imperialist and historically oppressed nations. The nations and territories of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East will spring fourth as a land of “wealthy nations and territories”.

The whole of humanity will speak a common second language. Hunger, poverty, war and want will be considered primitive conditions of the past, after taking advantage of the means we already have to abolish these grave social ills in our modern society. With a strong emphasis on scientific advancement, humanity will dip its toes into the planets, moons, and stars above.

Work will be preformed from each according to their ability, and each will take from society according to their needs, after a period in which income must be proportionate to actual work (including for former capitalists). The economy will be democratically planned. Workers will have direct democracy on the local level, elected and recallable technocrats and experts will plan the economy on the higher level. The economy will be centralized and decentralized at the same time, in regards to different industries and fields of work. Innovators will be given even more opportunities than they have under capitalism to forge new industries and products, and the workers who create and use the products will provide input for products and the production process itself to be better and more efficient. Bad ideas and bad products will be allowed to fail without the drastic social expense of poverty and unemployment workers and capitalists both face currently under the capitalist system. The relationship between the intellectual workers who draft new ideas and products and the physical laborers who create the products, will truly be voluntary and equal through the democratic process itself, both within and outside the workplace.

The political process in most countries I think, would be as follows: direct democracy and community self-governance on the local levels, representative democracy on the higher levels, with all elected representatives being instantly recallable by popular petition at any time.

There will be freedom or religion in this world socialist republic. It will officially promote state agnosticism as opposed to the state atheism of the “Marxist-Leninist” states of the 20th century. Groups of believers will be free to build houses of worship and promote their views publicly. There will be not only freedom of the press, but also decentralized democratic press confederations of journalists and citizens. Censorship by design, will be impossible.

The internet will be a vital part of the United Earth Confederation. Unlike the internet of today, the world wide web will be privacy respecting by default. It will be so to such a degree that a user simply browsing the net will be completely anonymous. Servers will be location hidden by default making censorship a virtual impossibility. Mass surveillance will be a thing of the past, considered an institutional violation of the rights of humanity.

Later on insofar as the distant future is concerned, it is likely that my predictions will become even more divorced from the actual historical process. I’d speculate that human genetic engineering and cybernetics would become popular trends in some areas of life. People would become genetically resillient to many of the diseases and illnesses that routinely plague humanity today and scientists would ensure a certain level of genetic diversity as a safety precaution through artificial means. I’d speculate that women would finally be liberated of the pain of childbirth through artificial wombs and hatcheries. I’d speculate that neural implants would offer many significant cognitive enhancements and inter-connectedness. Voluntary thought sharing in this era, may come about. The internet may become, quite literally, a way to surf the currently existing and historical thoughts of humanity in a way that is voluntary for all parties involved. I could foresee needless conflict coming about because of these technological advancements, between the so-called “superior” and “primitive”. But I hope the egalitarian spirit of the world republic would displace such conflicts, and that the spirit of socialist voluntaryism would win out. To choose to genetically engineer a child, to work, to give birth in the body or outside of it, to connect to the internet at all, to use cybernetic implants, or euthenasia, should all be purely voluntary matters of individual conscience. I predict that the old will be given new, robotic bodies through science, maybe even uploading their consciousness or transfering itto one of these robots. Even through medical science alone, I foresee a mankind that is ammortal. People will live to become 1000 and sometimes far older.

I predict the word “human” will extend to non-homo sapien organisms, either intelligent extra-terrestrial life if we find it, genetically engineered super-intelligent animals, or artificial intelligence created by man. Such beings should and must have the same rights as man, so much so that the word “human” will apply to them as the term “foreigner” came to be know by our distant tribal ancestors.

I predict marriage and the family will be radically altered in many ways, but that marriage will still be sacred and involiable to many if not most. I predict polygamy will become normal and accepted, even among the religious, that it will be purely a matter of individual conscience to the consenting adults involved. Women will sometimes have multiple husbands or wives, and men will sometimes have multiple wives or husbands. Gender norms too will become radically altered and doing activities traditionally associated with the opposite sex will become normalized. Different gender identities will become widely accepted by all of society.

I would hope at this point that humanity will extend not only to a terraformed Mars and the outer reaches of the solar system, but to Alpha Centauri and beyond. Perhaps we will find like minded civilizations out there who would not consider us too hostile or too primitive, and who would not be too hostile themselves.

All this is speculation of course, we could easily kill ourselves off in a mass extinction event caused by our reckless consumerism and polluting industries, all for the sake of profit. Or perhaps there are still darker paths our species could take. But I have to hope humanity is not as stubborn as it sometimes appears, that radical change will come to our world order, that this change will be a means not only to the long term survival of the human species, but towards greater individual liberty and shared abundance for all. I think my hopes can be said as follows: Out of many, one. A free humanity.