Dramatis Personae
Elpis, Revolutionary
Tiresias, Climate Scientist
Ananke, Fossil Fuel Billionaire
Mammon, President
Thymonides, Revolutionary
Pistis, Worker
Act I. Scene I.
Host. People, I gather you here for the sake
Of the future of civilisation.
Threatened by ecological collapse,
We shall today debate the path of tomorrow.
Pistis. Debate? But we must act!
Host. Thank you, Pistis. There will be time to debate as much.
Pistis. Time! What have we of time?
Host. I see we have a promising debater already.
Crowd. [laughter]
Pistis. Debate me not, I take my leave.
[Exit Pistis]
Elpis. Ah, peace be upon the spirit of good Pistis.
Thymonides. And pray you, what spirit is that?
Elpis. Far from a malicious tone, his rougher accent
Marks the just rancour of the downtrodden.
Thymonides. Indeed, you do him fairly.
But wherefore comes still the full measure
Of his impatient discontent?
Do you imagine that thou thyself
Might lend his grievance voice, were thou to be
Entrusted as his faithful guardian?
We should grasp the whole cause of his unrest
To stir the goodness of his trust.
Elpis. Beyond immediate catastrophe,
His discontent is from lacking recognition.
Each day he labours under strenuous
Compulsion and in dire conditions,
And each day he fulfills his duties;
Indeed, each day he is honourable
Towards his friends, and wards off his enemies
With a show of some courageous deed,
But still he is used up and spat out by those
Who would think themselves his superiors.
Thymonides. What of him who lacks a class consciousness?
Do you come on clear purpose to penetrate his ear,
To silence all noise of obstruction,
And to tear down the very veil of ignorance?
Elpis. Do I fail, sir?
Thymonides. For this we needest swords more than a tongue;
Thy tongue is able, but what would appear
Too many swords may indeed not suffice!
Elpis. I did not take you as a defeatist.
As for myself, I will not be so taken.
[Enter Pistis]
Pistis. Defeat! Speak not to me of defeat.
A hopeless sea in which I drown, not wave.
If ever I am come upon its shores,
Fool me not so much to bear it tamely.
Thymonides. My good Pistis, we are graced by this return,
And have at length, in thy absence, laboured
To bethink wherein lies the nature of our struggle.
How goest thy toils?
Pistis. Ay, they go.
Elpis. Their fruits to the capitalists.
Pistis. Who would go on holiday, were they not always on holiday.
Elpis. To hell can they go!
Pistis. Ay, were profits to be had there.
Thymonides. Come ye both, we must away.
Pistis. To hell?
Thymonides. We will have free time for that yet, but not in this life.
Pistis. The revolution will bring a life of free time.
Thymonides. Plenty with which to tour hell then.
[Exit]
Act I. Scene II.
[The debate]
Ananke. These idealistic fools here today
Would have you believe that ours is a world
Where everyone can be king.
Indeed, where everyone deserves to be king.
Elpis. [aside] Scurrilous pig!
Ananke. But basic economics teaches us
That we live in a world of scarcity,
The same world where for all of history
There has only ever been one king.
Today, I stand before you as that one.
How futile to fight the smooth continuity
Of established order!
The wheels of industry and of progress
Churn ever onwards, and our stores are thronged
With goods of which yesteryear we could hardly dream.
And how we dream! We dream with sickly lust
For fantasies beyond all purchase.
We must come back into the real world,
Where just a handful of visionaries
Is the true source of all value.
Whatever a visionary sees, others cannot.
Thus I beseech ye trust in our gifted sight,
In the wisdom of thy betters. For how
We keep you in awe! Today it is not
The virtue of the worthy that sustains
The social order, but the amazement
Of the common people at the extravagance
Of the few. For what better sign of desert
Than to command labour and its products?
Therefore we should veer not from this ordained
Course, which the inward genius of society
Has seen fit to sanction with my success,
And the success of others like me.
For truly we trust in the money
On which it is printed, “In God we trust!”
And so we should, though these swine would have us
Reduced to begging in the street.
Elpis. Darkness and devils! What arrogant bluster is here to be new-adopted to my hate?
Audience. [murmurs of agreement]
Tiresias. Calm thee, Elpis. Forgive us, good listeners.
Naturally, in the course of disputation,
We exceed the bounds of courtesy.
For not that these agents of our destruction
Should warrant such courtesy, but
We should endeavour to maintain ourselves.
We cannot pretend to claim for our vanity
The achievements of a civilisation
Without the requisite civility
On which these achievements are founded,
The lubricant of the social process.
Allow me, then, in this spirit, to outline
The trajectory of our fate without
An inglorious festival of recrimination.
If thou wilt forgive me thus the exacting standards
Of my inhuman patience, let us now proceed.
Even now our climatological feedback loops
Are in exponential runaway.
By an alarming degree has the planet warmed.
We have passed the threshold for disastrous
Consequences, and have but narrow time
To act; the sole reason we have not yet
Seen apocalypse is the patience of nature.
I do not trespass on your valuable time
Indulgently to point the finger
At those responsible for our problem.
I only ask that they help to fix it.
Ananke. We will do no such thing.
Elpis. Fool!
Tiresias. Then our ruin is certain.
Ananke. The only certain ruin is thine!
Thy envy dressed in the doubtful reckoning
Of a crystal ball, thou cometh to me
As the godhead of science? Thou drawest
False conclusions from thy paltry data!
The inexorable governance of profit
Is the ultimate law of nature,
And the most sacrosanct principle of religion.
What science have you to account
For this ultimate reality?
Profit is the very foundation of progress,
The motor engine of society,
The axis around which our livelihood turns.
It is inviolable, penetrating
The social fabric from the stratosphere
To the core of the earth. There is no other way
But to follow profit!
Elpis. Nonsense! There is always another way. The question remains: where should profit go?
To the owners, who derived the wealth required
To become owners from the work of others,
Or to the workers, the sole source of surplus value?
Ananke. Yes, there is always another way!
Another way to fail! Do you think
That we show not cunning in claiming profit
From workers? Have we not fooled you
With our “innovation” and “value creation?”
Do not the common people in all regards
Rank CEOs over mere employees?
The way of the bourgeois shall prevail!
Elpis. If our current trajectory holds,
Then that way will lead to our extinction.
Ananke. Away with thee!
Tiresias. Come now! Mammon, what sayest thou?
Mammon. Mark you the plainness of mine honesty,
So uncharacteristic of my kind.
I serve the wealthy, the most deserving.
God Himself has given us a sure sign
Of their worthiness with the visible
Blessing of their success.
Do you argue against God?
Elpis. Thou shouldst serve us all an untimely death, sir?
Mammon. I am not in a position to hear a question to which I do not have an answer.
Audience. [shouts of protest]
Tiresias. Then our collective position is final indeed.
Pistis. Ananke, thou owest to people like me
Thy wealth and glory. Without the coal miners,
Thou wouldst be nothing. Do you not here owe
Some reciprocal obligation then?
Ananke. I thank you, but the balance sheet dictates that I owe nothing.
Audience. [murmurs of disbelief and indignation]
Pistis. Then to nothing we all return.
Act I. Scene III.
Elpis. We are bound by strictures of duty and conscience to act! We cannot go gentle into that good night!
Thymonides. By more than that are we bound.
Elpis. What more than a fate we cannot accept!
Thymonides. But neither can we deny.
Elpis. We have the people!
Thymonides. I cannot deny it.
Elpis. If now is not the time for revolution, when will it ever be?
Thymonides. I cannot say that you deal in falsehood,
Though your hope may exceed the eventuality.
Elpis. Let us hope not. Nay, let us hope!
Thymonides. The hope of the people will be our armament.
We must wield it against that cynical lack
Of imagination, which everywhere
Refuses that more is possible.
Act II. Scene I.
Elpis. What ho! The revolution has come!
Thymonides. Now is the time of angels.
Elpis. The angel of blessed history!
Thymonides. We must not lose time; now that the economy is the province of all, and not that of a few, we will surely be able to act in the collective interest.
Act II. Scene II.
Tiresias. By Zeus! A tremendous cyclone has hit Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea, killing hundreds and displacing many more. Refugees from the area are flooding hospitals and makeshift accommodation centres. Devastating wildfires are sweeping across Canada, California, Austria, and France, causing billions of dollars worth of damage. Turkey has declared war on Bulgaria partly to stem the flow of refugees from an economy ravaged by disrupted supply chains, and global average temperatures have reached record heights. Sydney, Venice, and New York City are among many metropolitan areas to have suffered floods. An estimated forty eight million homes have been rendered uninhabitable in coastal regions alone. The US government has issued the largest emergency relief package in history, while global trade has shrunk by half. One hundred and twenty six countries have completely shut their borders as whole populations have been rendered homeless. Flights are grounded the world over. And this looks to be just the beginning.
Thymonides. The revolution was for nothing.
Elpis. Nothingness is immense!
Thymonides. The sun has fallen down and the billboards all leer;
The flags are all dead at the tops of their poles.
The buildings have tumbled in on themselves.
Elpis. We shall get revenge on Ananke and Mammon!
Thymonides. Scurrilous rapscallions! Have you not eyes to see? They have won! We took the mantle from them only to secure the jurisdiction of our doom. It was up to us; we had the slightest smidgen of an inkling of a chance. But we were nothing against the continuous momentum of capitalism, that onward march of history.
Tiresias. It’s not the end. It’s likely we’ll survive.
Thymonides. Survive for what? A pile of ash?
Elpis. Despair not! We have socialism!
Tiresias. We also have this report. [brandishes document] It seems the cost of all the natural disasters and chronic damage to ecosystems will be many times over the amount that the capitalists have lost in profit each year, and which the workers will not be earning.
Thymonides. The world economy will be ruined.
Elpis. O despair not, I say! We must have hope,
Which is like a gust of wind from behind.
Costing but nothing and from nothing
Producing the courage to bear grave cost,
When hence we had lost but all spark of life,
Hope is not merely necessary,
It is our duty—a prophecy
Fulfilled by belief.