Good news for doctrinaire popularists

MoD predictions for 2035

A new ‘probability-based’ report, prepared for England’s Ministry of Defence by Rear Admiral Chris Parry, warns of the dangers to political stability which may present themselves during the 2030s. Competition for scarce resources and climate change in a context of growing population will fuel the continuing conflict in the Middle East and possibly give rise to conflict between Islam and an economically-vibrant and still-atheist China. ‘Terrorism’ will be facilitated by technological developments.

‘The middle classes, warns the admiral, ‘could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx’. In the context of a widening gap between the middle classes and the super-rich, the ‘world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest’. People will increasingly seek the ‘sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism’.