One way to predict the future is to think of a future one desires, and to think of ways that future will be achieved. The most famous example of this can be seen in the writings of Karl Marx. Marx was disturbed by the effects the industrial revolution was having on the lives of the factory workers who made the industrial revolution possible. He managed to convince himself and his followers that in the economic and social chaos of laissez faire capitalism were macroeconomic tendencies that would lead to the creation of an economy and a society without war, poverty, or crime, where everyone would like his or her job.
There would not even be jobs in the traditional sense. In The German Ideology, chapter three, Karl Marx wrote, “In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities.”
Before we sneer at Marx we should acknowledge that the economic system that inspired his writings had serious injustices. Millions of men, women, and even children worked twelve hours a day six days a week in dangerous factories and mines for subsistence incomes.
