A Capitalist Carol, Stave 6
The story so far: The second of two messengers sent by Adam Smith is showing the big-government statist Ed Splurge the dismal results of his policies….
“Spirit!” wailed Splurge. “What is this miserable place to which you have brought me?”
They stood in some kind of a prison, though much more dismal a prison than any of Splurge’s imagination. It heaved with abject members of humanity. Yet even though the place already seemed to be bursting at its seams, more new inmates were arriving.
“What vile country, spirit, treats people so?” he inquired.
“Yours, Splurge,” responded the Ghost of Freedom Present. “The more laws you have passed, the more criminals you have created out of honest men and women.”
“Are there no proper facilities for their accommodation, their education, and their rehabilitation?”
“You know well, Splurge, that spending on such things buys you no votes,” answered the ghost. “So you choose to spend public money on much more visible causes.”
Splurge was downcast in shame; he knew it was true.
“You, Splurge, spend it to buy off the vested interest groups. You take money from those who work hard and use it for your own political advantage.”
“Oh, spirit! Such Public Choice Theory realities pain me! Take me away from this place!”
“There is yet more to see,” said the ghost. “Let us visit some of these criminals that your bulging statute-book has created.”
Splurge and the ghost passed down an endless corridor of bulging prison cells. “These unfortunates,” it explained, pointing to the first, “are victims of your anti-terrorism legislation.”
“But we must have such laws!” objected Splurge.
“There were already plenty,” growled the ghost. “And each new law you passed cast wider than the last, until near any action could be punished in the most dire way. This woman was arrested merely for walking along a cycle path. This old man, for heckling a politician at a party conference. This couple, for a silent anti-war demonstration.”
“This was not meant to be,” pleaded Splurge. “The police must have exceeded their powers.”
“You gave them those powers,” replied the ghost. “Did no one tell you that power corrupts?”
“This man” – it pointed to another wretched inmate – ”is here simply for insulting someone else. This other, for proclaiming beliefs that some find unwelcome. These, for selling fruit in non-metric measures.”
It turned to Splurge. “It is evident, is it not, that in this country you have created, freedom exists only in name?”
“Oh, no,” said Splurge. “This was not meant to be! Kind spirit, say that human freedom will survive.”
“If these shadows remain unaltered, none other of your race,” returned the ghost, “will find freedom in any action.”
Splurge hung his head, overcome with penitence and grief. A sudden tiredness came over him, and all turned dark.
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 6
The story so far: After meeting the first of Adam Smith’s heralded three messengers, the high-spending enthusiast for statism, Splurge, prepares for the second…
Awakening in the middle of a loud snore, Splurge felt that he was restored to consciousness for the especial purpose of conferring with the second messenger dispatched to him through Adam Smith’s intervention.
Consequently, when the bell struck One, he was not surprised to find himself enveloped in an eerie light, the source of which seemed to be in the adjoining room. He rose softly and shuffled to the door.
The moment Splurge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice bade him enter. “Come in! And know me better, man!”
The spirit that introduced itself gave every appearance of one who had known better days. It had a weak, sickly pallor. “I am the Ghost of Freedom Present,” it explained. “Touch my robe!”
As Splurge did so, the room vanished instantly, and he found himself standing, in his night-gown, in the city streets. As before, there were people about, all wishing each other good-day. But many of the shops and ale-houses seemed to be closed and shuttered.
“It must be Christmas morning,” ventured Splurge, as he sought to explain the evident lack of commerce.
“It is,” said the spirit, “but that is not why all these enterprises are closed. He pointed: “This ale-house, for example, shut two months ago, unable to bear the cost of all the regulations – on planning, on its product, and the terms on which it employs its staff. Like thousands of others, it was driven out of business.”
“The young people you see,” it continued, “a million of them, are not in the street for exercise and enjoyment,” – Splurge wondered why anyone should think they might, given the coldness of the air and the light snow that was falling – “but because they have been driven out of work by the minimum wages that employers cannot afford to pay them.”
“Oh, no, spirit!” exclaimed Splurge. “These laws were meant to protect workers! To guarantee a fair deal to the poorest, to the young, to women, to minorities and the vulnerable.”
“…The very groups who employers stop hiring,” said the ghost, “when times are most difficult. As they are now. Thanks to you."
“That was the bankers!” Splurge insisted.
“No!” replied the ghost. “It was the easy credit and loose money you created, in the attempt to create an economic boom. But it was a fake boom, which inevitably turned into a bust – a bust deep and damaging, for these wretched individuals and the businesses that, in a more liberal age, once sustained them.
“Spirit! I cannot endure these Austrian visions!” cried Splurge. “Do not torment me with the unintended consequences of my policies! Take me away from this place!”
“Touch my robe!” answered the ghost; and in an instant, the scene dissolved again.
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 5
The story so far: After meeting the first of Adam Smith’s heralded three messengers, the high-spending enthusiast for statism, Splurge, prepares for the second…
Awakening in the middle of a loud snore, Splurge felt that he was restored to consciousness for the especial purpose of conferring with the second messenger dispatched to him through Adam Smith’s intervention.
Consequently, when the bell struck One, he was not surprised to find himself enveloped in an eerie light, the source of which seemed to be in the adjoining room. He rose softly and shuffled to the door.
The moment Splurge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice bade him enter. “Come in! And know me better, man!”
The spirit that introduced itself gave every appearance of one who had known better days. It had a weak, sickly pallor. “I am the Ghost of Freedom Present,” it explained. “Touch my robe!”
As Splurge did so, the room vanished instantly, and he found himself standing, in his night-gown, in the city streets. As before, there were people about, all wishing each other good-day. But many of the shops and ale-houses seemed to be closed and shuttered.
“It must be Christmas morning,” ventured Splurge, as he sought to explain the evident lack of commerce.
“It is,” said the spirit, “but that is not why all these enterprises are closed. He pointed: “This ale-house, for example, shut two months ago, unable to bear the cost of all the regulations – on planning, on its product, and the terms on which it employs its staff. Like thousands of others, it was driven out of business.”
“The young people you see,” it continued, “a million of them, are not in the street for exercise and enjoyment,” – Splurge wondered why anyone should think they might, given the coldness of the air and the light snow that was falling – “but because they have been driven out of work by the minimum wages that employers cannot afford to pay them.”
“Oh, no, spirit!” exclaimed Splurge. “These laws were meant to protect workers! To guarantee a fair deal to the poorest, to the young, to women, to minorities and the vulnerable.
“…The very groups who employers stop hiring,” said the ghost, “when times are most difficult. As they are now. Thanks to you.
“That was the bankers!” Splurge insisted.
“No!” replied the ghost. “It was the easy credit and loose money you created, in the attempt to create an economic boom. But it was a fake boom, which inevitably turned into a bust – a bust deep and damaging, for these wretched individuals and the businesses that, in a more liberal age, once sustained them.
“Spirit! I cannot endure these Austrian visions!” cried Splurge. “Do not torment me with the unintended consequences of my policies! Take me away from this place!”
“Touch my robe!” answered the ghost; and in an instant, the scene dissolved again.
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 4
The story so far: The high-spending, big-government enthusiast Ed Splurge has been visited by the Ghost of Freedom Past…
Although they had but that moment left Splurge’s apartment behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city. The noise was tumultuous, for there were adults, and more children there than Splurge in his agitated state of mind could count, all talking, singing, dancing, and generally enjoying what was obviously Christmas Day.
They continued, the ghost and Splurge, to a large house. They went across the hall, to a door at the back. In a melancholy room, lined with books sat an old man with a long white beard, quill in hand, writing earnestly, obviously unaware or unmoved by the joy and bustle going on outside.
“Why, it’s Charles Dickens!” cried Splurge. “I did my dissertation on him, and how he exposed the evils of the factory system!”
“Your eyes, and his,” said the spirit, “were clouded by bile and ignorance. “Before the Industrial Revolution, most people were condemned to life in abject poverty, destitute and starving, toiling outdoors in all weathers for an uncertain harvest. They thronged, willingly, to the factories exactly because of the security, income and opportunity that the towns afforded.”
“But the work was still harsh,” objected Splurge, “and the upper classes lived far, far better.”
“Bah!” replied the spirit. “The upper classes prospered by extracting favours and monopolies from the political authorities. Have you not heard that power corrupts?"
“The hours for those without political cronies,” it continued, “were long because this was yet a poor country – until production, exchange and investment made ordinary people rich.”
“Oh, spirit!” cried Splurge. “You mean the capitalist system I decried was the very salvation of these poor wretches?”
“Yes; and what gave them opportunity for self-improvement. Come!”
Suddenly they were at the door of a grand building, proudly declaiming itself “Institute of Education”. People – ordinary mill workers, Splurge surmised – crowded past them, each heading for rooms in which different activities were going on. In this, it was a concert in which they played string or brass instruments. In that, a lecture on Mr Darwin’s new theories. In another, a class teaching reading and writing to adults and children alike.
“Factory owners were fully aware of the benefits of a fulfilled and educated workforce,” explained the ghost, “and made these facilities available. And the workers themselves combined into friendly societies, to make provision for their own welfare needs, without needing the powerful – and corrupt – state that you deem so essential.”
“But you,” it scowled, “would have denied them that every opportunity, and condemned them to starvation on the land.”
“Oh spirit!” begged Splurge. “Take me from here. I can no longer bear these memories!”
He was conscious of being exhausted, and of being back in his own bedroom; and had barely time to reel into bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 3
The story so far: Haunted by the ghost of Adam Smith, high-spending, big-government enthusiast Ed Splurge is expecting the first of three more visitations…
When Splurge awoke, it was dark. Smith’s ghost bothered him exceedingly. It had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled One – which it now did, with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.
Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn – drawn aside by a hand. Splurge found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am to you now.
It was a strange figure – like a child: yet more like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium, which diminished it to a child’s proportions.
“Are you the spirit, whose coming was retold to me? Asked Splurge.
“I am the Ghost of Freedom Past”
“Long past?” inquired Splurge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
“Your past. Your ideology’s past.”
But the strangest thing about this apparition was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using a great extinguisher of a cap, which it now held under its arm.
Perhaps, Splurge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him, but he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.
“What!” exclaimed the ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the lamp of liberty? For that is the light I give!”
Splurge reverently disclaimed all intention of doing that. He made bold to inquire what business brought him there.
“Your reclamation!” replied the apparition, in a voice soft and gentle. It clasped him by the arm. “Rise! Walk with me!” And it made toward the window.
“I am mortal,” Splurge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”
“Bear a touch of freedom,” said the spirit, laying his hand upon its heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall. The city had entirely vanished. It was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.
“Good Heaven!” said Splurge. “I know this place!”
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 2
…It was the living face of Adam Smith. He knew it from that irritating Institute that bore the name. It seemed to emerge, ethereally, from his wallet, and hover before him, a ghostly wig upon its ghostly forehead. But then, as Splurge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a banknote again. To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible self-doubt to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. And though he never took out his own wallet much, it seemed perfectly restored to normality. So he said “Bah! Humbug!” and closed the door with a bang that echoed through the whole lavish apartment.
Lounge, billiards room, private cinema, ensuite bedroom and dressing room. All as they should be. Nobody under the Chippendale sofa or behind the Picassos. An indulgent blaze in the grate. Yet the image of Adam Smith preyed on his mind.
“Humbug!” said Splurge, mentally attributing the apparition to the surfeit of over-ripe Stilton and over-rich port that he had enjoyed at lunch in Claridges. His colour changed, though, when without a pause, the apparition came through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes.
Its body was transparent; so that Splurge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold economic logic; he was still incredulous. “What do you want from me?”
“Less,” said the spectre. “Much less. Less spending and less bureaucracy. For I created the wealth that you are now squandering.” It raised a cry and rattled the heavy chain that it was carrying.
“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Splurge. “Your stony old economics was completely dispelled by the Keynesian revolution.”
“You must,” replied the spirit. “These heavy chains are not mine, but yours. Every politician is doomed to limp through history, loaded down by the weight of the national debt and the burden of regulation that he forged in life. And your chains will be heavier than anyone’s.” It shook the chains and wrung its shadowy hands.
Splurge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face. “Adam,” said Splurge imploringly. “Speak comfort to me.”
“You will be haunted,” resumed the ghost, “by three spirits.” Expect the first tonight, as the bell tolls One.”
The spirit beckoned Splurge to the window. The air was filled with phantoms – many of them, he could see, former ministers from his own party – wailing under the weight of their own spending promises.
But being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the high-spending fatigues of the day, in much need of repose, he fell asleep upon the instant.
A Capitalist Carol, Stave 1
Capitalism was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Its utter demise was reported by the BBC coverage of the financial crash, registered by the Occupy Movement, and solemnised on the steps of Downing Street by Ed Splurge himself, a copy of the General Theory and a thirty-seven-point public spending plan in his hand. Capitalism was as dead as a doornail. How could it be otherwise? Splurge knew capitalism well; they had been adversaries as long as anyone could remember. Splurge’s party had been harping on about the instability of capitalism for seventy years, though nobody else seemed aware of it – certainly not capitalism, which annoyingly went on and on, producing economic growth and prosperity. Even China and India got in on the act, lifting billions out of poverty by entering the global trading network. But Splurge knew that one day, capitalism’s inherent contradictions would strangle it; and at last, inexplicably to his Keynesian advisers but joyously for all that, the day had come.
Oh! But he was a generous hand at the subsidies, Splurge! Soft and proliferous as rabbits, open to any entreaty, always ready to dispense a trifle here, a trifle there, from the public finances. Splurge found it blissfully easy to be generous with other people’s money. And today, the usual band of supplicants – farmers of crops and wind, builders of pointless railways, teachers and doctors – was swelled by new crowds: of bankers, mortgage lenders and insurers, all pleading to him for bail-outs. Before the day was out, he would have nationalized all the latter, with a smile.
“We will need many more public servants,” Splurge told his Downing Street staff, to warm applause. But his press officer, in letting himself out to spread this news, had let two other people in. They were a thin couple, with briefcases and small reading-glasses, who announced that they represented the Office for Budget Responsibility.
“At this stage in the economic cycle,” said one, picking up a pen, it is more than usually desirable that governments should make some provision to balance their books. Many thousands are living on public subsidies. Hundreds of thousands are struggling to pay their taxes. What spending cuts shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Splurge replied. “Are there no presses at the Royal Mint?” he asked. “Are there no work-creation schemes?"
“Plenty of presses,” said one of the representatives, “and running hot as always.” “And countless work-creation schemes,” said the other, “each struggling to create any work at all.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop expansionary policy in its useful course,” said Splurge. “I’m very glad to hear it is still going.”
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the OBR representatives withdrew. Splurge resumed his labours, signing cheques and issuing public procurement orders with an improved energy. He must have been doing it for hours.
And then, “God save you, uncle!” cried a familiar voice. It was Splurge’s nephew, fresh from his class on Austrian Economics. “Recession to you is but a time for paying bills without money, or at least for borrowing it from the next generation. My classmates and I do not know how we will get by, with all the money that your generation has stolen from us!”
“Bah! Humbug!” said Splurge. “Good afternoon, nephew!"
“I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. Like everyone else in the country, I try to keep my books balanced. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great nation!”
“Good afternoon!”
His nephew left the room, without an angry word, but with a look of disappointment about him. The clerk in the outer office involuntarily applauded Splurge’s resolution.
“And you, and your fellow public servants, I suppose, in these difficult times you will be wanting me to raise your pay? Increase your index-linked pensions? Bring in paternity leave? Extend your paid holidays? Recruit more assistants? And cut interest rates?”
“Oh, yes sir!” said the clerk.
“Very well then,” replied Splurge. “We do need to spend to revive the economic system. Have the papers drawn up for my signature tomorrow!”
And with that, spent out by the day’s events, he made his way tired but happy up to his private apartment on the top floor of Downing Street, where a generous supper awaited him.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about this, in that he dined free at the public expense every day.
So let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Splurge, having this free feast before him, felt a strange need to check his own wallet, and saw on one of the banknotes an eery image of someone he thought he had put out of his mind for good…
Why is Polly whining about Downton Abbey?
La Toynbee is whining about Downton Abbey. How it shows the appallingness of old English society and how we're coming back to that masters and servants type world again. Hmm:
To control history by rewriting the past subtly influences present attitudes too: every dictator knows that.
Well, yes, quite.
What we never see is bedraggled drudges rising in freezing shared attics at 5.30am; slopping out chamber pots, heaving coal, black-leading grates, hauling cans of hot water with hands already made raw by chilblains and caustic soda. We never dwell on the hardship of scrubbing floors, or scrubbing clothes, or scouring grease; in pre-detergent days, they were up to their elbows all day long. And yet they had virtually no water or time for washing themselves. Servants were often sooty and dirty. They smelled strongly of sweat, with few clean clothes, says Dr Lucy Delap, author of Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth-Century Britain. She says they used patchouli oil to cover the sweat, the identifying aromas of hard service. In Mrs Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light records Virginia Woolf observing “Mabel sweats when she is making jam”. Even the somewhat more enlightened and sometimes embarrassed Bloomsbury set wrote of their “inferiors”, Woolf talking of “that poor gaping imbecile, my charwoman”.
True.
Modern capitalism promotes the myth that we are all masters of our fate and birth is not destiny, as proof that swelling wealth at the top has been earned.
And that's where it jars. For it is modern capitalism that has stopped people having to carry water in chilblained hands. Stopped the scrubbing over the boiling laundry, the wrestles with the mangle. This is what both Hans Roslin and Ha Joon Chang, quite correctly, refer to as the technology of the washing machine. It's possibly the outstanding achievement of modern capitalism that it has managed to mechanise all of these domestic chores, freeing up large portions of the human race to do something more interesting and less exhausting.
The bits that are left out of Downton Abbey are exactly the bits that justify capitalism itself: the reduction in human drudgery. And no, socialism didn't do this: your humble author has been the less than proud owner of a Soviet washing machine and it did not remove said drudgery. This is exactly what is meant by the complaints that the Soviets concentrated upon heavy industry rather than consumer products.
There is, of course, something else that Polly's left out. Historically, in Britain at least, being a servant was more akin to an apprenticeship than anything else. Something done between puberty and marriage for the vast majority of those who did it. Only those who went on to become the senior servants (housekeeper, butler and so on) were likely to make a "career" of it. Being in service was, for most, a phase, not a life sentence.
No, we most certainly don't want to bring back mass service. Quite apart from the fact that the capitalist technology makes it irrelevant as an institution. But perhaps we could do without those who try "To control history by rewriting the past"?
Abolishing marriage law with a smooth transition
There are several reasons for abolishing marriage law and preventing the government from regulating caring or amorous relationships (of which there are many, besides marriage) but to do this such that the transition is smooth for those affected by it is an important consideration. Many feminists, for example, emphasise marriage’s historical role in discriminating against women, other cultures, religions, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, non-dyadic relationships etc. and that, for this reason, the entire institution should be abolished. My presumption here is not that the institution itself needs to be abolished but that the laws surrounding it do. Brake (2012) wrote that marriage law is usually (though not always) sufficient for ‘amatonormativity’ – the “disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal” which also discriminates against other forms of caring relationships such as friendships, urban tribes, adult care networks, quirkyalones etc. She proposes ‘minimizing marriage’ in such a way that caring relationships are still rewarded by the government but that people have to ‘opt in’ to marriage’s legal rights instead of obtaining them by default. Chambers (2013), on the other hand, suggests having ‘piecemeal’ regulation where people can ‘opt out’ of certain rights they obtained (by default) through marriage.
Brake rightly flags up “transitional problems”; transition management will determine public receptivity with respect to announced liberalisations. In dealing with these problems, amalgamating both Chambers and Brake’s ideas may be fruitful. Suppose a legislative body passes a law on date X stating that all existing regulation with respect to marriage (now defined purely by individual preferences and private contracts between consenting individuals, if at all) will be annulled for those who get married at or after a certain future date, Y (the difference (Y–X) being the ‘grace period’).
So if the law is passed in 2015, and 2020 is the specified year that people who are married in or after are not subject to any government regulation whatsoever, then there is a ‘grace period’ of 5 years. For those people who married during or before 2015, we could apply Chambers’ proposal of letting them keep their default rights (so as not to impose change which they might not want) but giving them the option of ‘opting out’ of certain rights. For those who get married during the ‘grace period’, Brake’s ‘opting in’ option can be applied so engaged individuals’ lives don’t become complicated and their plans aren’t frustrated by policy changes. In this way, it would be a gradual, eased-in movement toward a purer, unadulterated freedom with respect to personal relationships.
How can we possibly survive?
The recent computer crash of the UK's aircraft control system which downed scores of aircaft landings and takeoffs and which could have caused a disaster of huge proportons has been blamed on the faiure of one line of computer code. The authorities have given some very lame excuses why this should have happened, entirely ignoring the fact that this particular line of computer code has served the system well enough for 40 years despite the huge growth in aircraft traffic since then. It is unlikely that the real reason will ever be willingly or fully revealed by the various enquiries that will now be undertaken because it might cause widespread panic all over the world, both among airlines and passengers. Almost certainly the reason why it failed is that a particular cosmic ray from outer space hit a particular transistor junction in the computer. Many of the circuits (on which the old computer codes worked) are still very simple ones. Thus the breakdown of one transistor could do a huge amount of damage -- in this case striking at the total functioning of the many systems surrounding it. What you can be certain about is that the software people did not re-write that particular line of computer code -- it is as good as ever -- instead, the engineers replaced some of the physical computer elements.
Millions of cosmic rays from outer space rain down on earth every second of every hour and every day. They are sub-atomic in size but very powerful for all that. Cosmic rays do a tremendous amount of damage. Every second of every hour of every day, cosmic rays are penetrating life-forms on earth -- and that means us also. We might also mention that, every second, highly damaging rays are also penetrating us from the natural radioactivity that is occurring in rock strata beneath our feet. (In some places -- Cornwall for example -- radiation from underground granite is quite high. The aircaft control system could also have been hit by such radiation -- it will be impossible ever to know but cosmic radiation is more likely.)
As with computer circuits, the DNA in our bodies is being assaulted and damaged constantly. Every day each of us receives radiation which cause small explosions in our genes and potentially could completely disrupt the functioning of our bodies. How can we possibly survive? What's more, how can some of our oldest genes remain just as perfect and useful today as they were billions of years ago when originally formed?
The answer is that our chromosomes (the 23 immensely long strings of DNA, each of which contains something like 1,000 genes) have what can only be called "gene repair ambulances" (more like hospitals!), constantly travelling up and down each chromosome at great speed. Whenever they reach a piece of damaged gene they compare it with its mirror-template on the opposite helical strand, thus knowing how the damaged gene should be restored, and repairing it. This happens thousands of times an hour in each of us, because our genes are infinitely more sensitive to radiation damage than, say, the damage to a computer transistor -- which, in comparison, is a rare event. Nevertheless, the latter occur from time to time. Unlike us, however, computer circuits don't have repair mechanisms.
Not being a computer techie I have no idea how aircraft control systems will be improved in future years all over the world. Whether they will have repair mechanisms virtually similar to nature's own I don't know. But I think we can take it that they will be as well instituted as man can devise. Airlines and passengers need not worry unduly about safety in future years.
However, we can take it that, because nature has had billions of years to devise its own safety methods, man's systems will never be as good -- at least not for hundreds or thousands of years to come. Our computers will always be prone to radiation damage, rare though the serious events may be. But there's another intriguing aspect to all this. This is that some research biologists are already looking at the possibility of DNA, being self-repairable and thousands of times smaller than computer circuits, might be an infinitely better type of memory device than our present, relatively crude computer circuits. Combine this thought with the ever-increasing automatons being devised for manufacturing (and services) and we have the highly likely prospect of DNA-based machine tools, not in hundreds or thousands of years' time, but fairly imminently (say, in 50 or 100 years?). Not only this but we have the prospect of future production tools not only being able to make products of great sophistication but, by changing their DNA-code, are able to switch from making one product one day to a different one the next. This is not science-fiction with its time-travel worm-holes and other nonsenses but an almost certain development one day. Just a thought to leave you with.