The year is 2100. Humanity has averted the worst impacts of climate change, as economies around the world decarbonized by 2050 and even went “carbon negative” in the decades that followed. Since the end of the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, there has not been a major war, and after initial escalation of tensions between the United States and China earlier in the century, there was no new Cold War. Instead of the competition for resources that characterized earlier periods of humanity’s history, an ethos of cooperation emerged.
Historians debate when the turning point occurred, but the leading school of thought pinpoints 2021 as the moment of change. Prior to that point, it was seen as acceptable and even smart economic policy to charge little to no tax on society’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. Countries even competed with one another so that if one nation raised taxes to tackle inequality’s corrosive effects on economic growth and democracy, its neighbor would respond by cutting taxes. This engendered a shift of profits on paper from the first to the second country, even if no actual productive activity shifted its location. In this world, wealth was unmoored from the communities that helped produce it, spawning a global elite that plundered with impunity. This helped spark populist and authoritarian movements around the world.
