Collapse: Collapse, #2

By M J Dees

When the collapse came, Jim and Annabel found themselves in a fight for survival against those who would take rather than create. With England in a freefall towards anarchy, they were on their own.

 

Even their daughter, Olivia, had left to establish a commune with Jim's political enemy but they too soon found themselves under attack.

 

Surrounded by hundreds of miles of hostile territory, can they find a way to defend their land, their lives and their community?

 

Collapse is book two in the dystopian Collapse series

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: M J Dees
• Release date: Oct 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393845850

M J Dees

M J Dees has published eleven novels and ranging from humour to dystopia to political to historical to space opera. He makes his online home at mjdees.com. You can connect with him on Twitter at @mjdeeswriter, on Facebook at mjdeeswriter and you should send him an email at [e-mail] if the mood strikes you.

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You can discover details at the end of Collapse

Part One - Lancashire

7 years and 5 months before the collapse

It had not been easy, but Annabel and Jim celebrated the fact that the local education authority was going to allow Olivia to take her General Certificate of Education, even though Jim and Annabel had homeschooled her for so long.

Jim mused that thousands of children with foreign heritage must have been in the same position and wondered why the central government had not passed a universal decree making education a priority for those who had been excluded.

Olivia herself was struggling with the transition to what Jim considered a ‘normal’ life, and the school referred her to a psychologist who asked Olivia to write down her dreams.

She was already scribbling in the notebook by her bed when Jim went to wake her.

I don’t believe it, Annabel suddenly exclaimed during breakfast. They’ve taken our savings.

Who has?

The Government. I was just reading on the stretch that they’ve frozen bank accounts, then I checked our account and it’s true, the money is gone.

At least we didn’t have much saved.

That’s not the point. Some people have lost thousands.

Annabel was in a foul mood until she returned from taking Olivia to the school bus.

I have good news, she said as she came through the door, waving her stretch at Jim

So do I, said Jim, waving his.

The Old Hall has offered me a gig. she smiled.

That’s good. The bookshop has offered me a lecture.

Nice.

And more good news, said Jim. They are going to come and fetch all the shop fixtures. We’ll get rid of them at last.

Jim walked down to village, to the bakers to see if they had any bread. When he got there, he found a queue of people trying to buy as much as their food cards would allow. Jim was about to join the queue when he realised that his food app wouldn’t recharge until the next day.

However, when he returned, Annabel saw he was wearing a big smile, carrying a full plastic bag.

Did they have more than bread then? asked Annabel.

No, the food app isn’t charged yet.

What’s that then?

Mark was getting rid of all of his old DVDs, and he’s going to give me the machine. I’ll go back for it later.

I didn’t realise anyone still had DVDs.

What’s a DVD? asked Olivia when she arrived home from school.

It’s a disk, said Jim, taking one out of the bag. Each one has a film or some music.

What do you want those for? You can watch anything you want on the cloud.

And when you can no longer access the cloud, what will you do?

We’ll always be able to access the cloud.

I wouldn’t be so sure.

There was a knock at the door.

And that’s my other surprise, said Jim. Come and have a look.

Olivia and Annabel followed him to the front door, which he opened to reveal a farmer leading two goats on ropes.

Oh, Jim, you haven’t finished the pen, Annabel complained.

I’ll finish it tonight.

They better not eat my flowers, and you’re milking them.

Do they have names? asked Olivia.

Mr Benn and Mary Poppins, said the farmer.

Mister Benn? asked Jim. You promised me two girls.

Nannys.

What?

They call female goats nannys.

Okay, well, you promised me two nannys and you’ve brought me a nanny and a...

Buck.

I thought they called male goats billys.

They can be unless they’re castrated, in which case they’re a wether.

So why do I have a nanny and a buck?

If you don’t, you can’t have any kids.

I see.

What are we going to do with the babies? asked Annabel.

Kids, Jim corrected. After the final collapse, you’ll be glad of goats.

What are you talking about? Collapse?

You watch, we are on a path that we cannot sustain.

You don’t think things will get better?

I don’t. We are running out of resources, raw materials.

They’ll come up with something, Jim. They always do.

There is no silver bullet for this, Annabel.

Jim spent the evening finishing the pen for the goats.

7 years and 4 months before the collapse

Jim went back to the village with his recharged food app at the ready, only to discover that the shop had run out of bread. He returned to tell Annabel the news, and they both sat in silence wondering what they would do.

Lucas Davis had done some planting in the garden and there were still Brussels sprouts, kale, leeks, parsnips, broccoli, rhubarb, spring cabbage, spring cauliflower and winter salad. Jim was getting fed up with vegetable soup, roast vegetables, and stewed rhubarb.

While Annabel cooked, Jim chopped wood for the fire. After lunch, Jim caught a bus into Manchester to deliver his lecture about post-Unity Britain at the bookshop. Annabel stayed at home to rehearse for her upcoming concert.

Before he got up to speak, Jim asked the organisers to play No One is Free by Solomon Burke.

What I am about to tell you is not new. It is not even my idea. The secretary-general of the European Realistic Disobedience Front proposed it decades ago. Jim began. Political and economic power were inseparable. The princes were rich and only the rich were princes. Political power delivered the ability to extract wealth from others through coercion or conquest. The power to coerce translated into titles and castles. Capitalism changed all this with merchants emerging as a new class with economic clout if little political or social power. Economic power was distinct from political authority. Merchants evolved into shareholders and financiers. The richer you were, the more shares you could buy and the more votes you had. The few with the most shares could vote for their own interests and accumulate more shares. They essentially got to tell everyone else what to do.

Jim paused to see whether his words were sinking in. The blank faces of his audience gave him no idea.

Imagine a system in which no-one tells anyone what to do and you could freely choose the people or teams you want to work with and how much time you want to devote to different projects, he continued. When hierarchies allocate resources, the results are clumsy, inefficient and oppressive. The desire to please superiors makes full transparency impossible. They keep people in the dark about the benefits or drawbacks of working with particular managers or colleagues, how happy or dysfunctional teams are, how rewarding or boring different projects are. Under a flat management model, there are frequent gaps, but the fact these gaps exist is positive. When people discover that someone has moved from one project to another, it says a lot about both the old and the new projects and teams. When people may vote with their feet, they make a collective assessment of each project’s relative value. Unpredictability is a small price to pay for quality and efficiency.

A hand went up in the audience and Jim acknowledged he would take the question.

Surely there are menial tasks that no one wants to do?

New staff would be taken on informally, Jim answered. There would be no need for a personnel department. Any team can start a search to fill a vacancy either internally or externally, even if it is just to clean the bathrooms on their floor. People recruited for these roles may branch out into other roles in a way that no hierarchy would allow.

Another hand went up and Jim deferred.

Who decides how many people get paid?

A company’s income would be divided into five pots, corporation tax, fixed costs, research and development, staff salaries and bonuses. Collectively, the company would decide the relative proportions of the latter four pots on a one person one vote basis. Anyone who wanted to change the proportion going to each pot would need to propose a new formula. Having decided the amount in each pot, they then divided equally the staff salaries pot among all staff.

Several hands shot up. Jim selected one of them.

What about the bonus pot?

Every year, each member of staff is given one hundred merit points which they may distribute to other members of staff in whatever proportion they wish, they can give all one hundred to one member of staff or one each to a hundred people, but they can’t allocate any to themselves. Whatever proportion of the total merit points you receive correlates with the proportion of the budget pot you receive.

But the system is open to abuse, the questioner shouted out.

The voting system is transparent, said Jim. So if two people agree to allocate all one hundred merit points to each other, it will be obvious for all to see. This system eliminates one of the biggest injustices of capitalism, that the owners of a company control its profits while those who work within it receive only a wage.

That was Roberts’ idea, someone shouted.

You are proposing totalitarianism? someone else shouted.

In theory, Roberts’ idea was that employees should share the net revenues. However, the Unity hierarchies were just as ruthless in their imposition of power management. The formal ownership of a company is less important than how power is constructed within it.

Who owns the company capital? was the next interjection

If every citizen has a bank account at the central bank. I propose dividing this account into three funds, the first to accumulate money from salary and bonuses, the second would be a trust fund that is deposited in every citizens’ account at birth. When they come of age, they have some capital to deploy to join or start a business. Rules would protect the trust fund to stop it being used injudiciously. The third is a dividend fund into which the central bank deposits a certain amount depending on the citizen’s age and which is funded through a tax on company revenues. This fund would liberate everyone from both destitution and the cruel means testing of the welfare state. It would also allow some individuals to provide priceless contributions to society without having to run a business, for example caring, environmental conservation or non-commercial art.

And to be lazy, someone shouted.

It liberates the individual from the current safety net, which simply entangles them in poverty. Dividend gives the poor and unfortunate a platform. It allows young people to experiment with different careers and to study. There would be no income or sales taxes, only tax on company revenues and property. Anyone could lend to companies, they can loan to a company from their own trust fund or accumulation.

What happens when people fall out or want to leave? Jim was asked.

Then they just leave. They can dismiss underperforming or misbehaving employees with a board of inquiry. There is no golden handshake, although members can vote for a gift if they wish. With small partnerships of two members who wish to part company, each submits a sealed bid for what they feel the company is worth.

What about social responsibility? came the next question.

Their flat management structure will keep them relatively small, probably only a few hundred staff. A social responsibility act would ensure that we grade each company according to a social worthiness index by regional panels of randomly selected local citizens from a digital stakeholder community formed whenever a company is registered. These panels who grade the companies using a standard social ratings system monitor conduct, activities and effects on communities. We would publish these ratings online, available to anyone. If a rating falls below a certain threshold, we would order a public inquiry, which could cause the company’s deregistration, in which case we would shut it down or put it out to tender. This would curb exploitative practices.

How did it go? Annabel asked when he returned.

I think it went okay. Some of the audience came up to me at the end and criticised me for not talking about China, but I think they received it well.

Many people there?

Yes, it was packed, and look what they gave me, he brandished a bag full of print books.

What do you want those for? asked Olivia, who had come downstairs when she heard her father arrive. You can get all the books in the world on your stretch. They are all on the cloud.

And what will you do when you can no longer access the cloud?

Don’t be silly, we’ll always be able to access the cloud.

What did you get? asked Annabel.

Jim pulled a book from the bag.

The complete book of butchering, smoking, curing and sausage making.

What did you get that for? Olivia squealed in horror. You are vegetarian.

Practically vegan, Annabel added.

7 years and 3 months before the collapse

Jim went back to the council offices, inquiring whether the university would re-open and if he could resume his old position. He was told that they were aiming to open the schools first and the university afterwards. The self-appointed regional assembly had assumed responsibility for education, and it was not yet clear how funding would be distributed, which complicated matters.

Jim left the council building and went straight to a jeweller and used whatever money he could spare to buy silver coins.

When he arrived home, Annabel was just heading out to go to a concert rehearsal.

What’s that you’ve got? She asked, seeing the small bag of coins.

Silver.

Jim? What is going on? I don’t have time to talk about it now, but we need to talk. We don’t have money to buy silver.

But...

Wait until I get back. We’ll talk then.

However, when Annabel returned, Olivia and Jim were already sleeping.

7 years and two months before the collapse

When Jim left, Annabel was still sleeping. The Assembly had invited him to an Antifa meeting..

The purpose appeared to be to discover the crimes of the Unity campaign by holding question-and-answer sessions with the victims.

They were particularly interested in those who had been interned in camps

I was not in a camp, Jim pointed out. I wouldn’t want people to think I was boasting about my everyday problems.

Nonsense, said the chair. Your experiences are also very important.

She gave them suggested dates for the sessions.

Jim went straight to the Old Hall, which was the venue for Annabel’s concert where she and Olivia were waiting for him.

There were about sixty or seventy in the audience, and Jim thought Annabel played very well.

We have double cause for celebration, Annabel told him after the concert.

I’ve been dying to tell you all night, Olivia squealed with joy. But mummy made me promise to wait until now.

What is it?

You tell him, Olivia.

I got my GCE results.

And?

I passed all of them, and I have a place at sixth form college.

That’s fantastic, well done.

I saw you put the goats together, said Annabel.

Well, we need to if we are going to have kids.

Are we going to have baby goats? asked Olivia.

I hope so, said Jim.

Annabel rolled her eyes.

7 years and 1 month before the collapse

Look at this, said Jim, showing the message he’d just received on his stretch. They have offered me a course of five one-hour lectures to expound on the ideas I shared in my speech at the bookshop.

That’s good.

But that’s not all. The Northern Assembly is contemplating not re-opening the university in favour of more vocational higher education. Can you believe it?

Jim, after the last ten years I can believe anything.

And that’s not the last of it. There’s another proposal here, more lectures on the effect of the Unity campaign on scholarship. I had better go into the city today.

When he arrived at the office building where he had been told to go, Jim found a crowd outside. Jim announced himself to the doorman, who was as coarse with Jim as he was being with the rest of the crowd.

You’ll be in trouble if you don’t let me in, Jim snapped.

I was in a camp, replied the doorman. And now I take orders from no-one.

Me too, Jim lied.

Which camp? asked the doorman.

Jim realised this was an argument he could not win and slipped away. He read that out of the 5 million immigrants that had been in the UK pre-unity, only 250,000 remained. Could they have replicated these statistics in other developed nations around the world? Could this have been another genocide? Another holocaust?

Will Atkinson saw Jim staring at his stretch and, wondering what he was doing, went over to him.

Oh, don’t worry about him, said Atkinson after Jim had explained the run in with the doorman. We’re always having problems with him. He actually was in a camp but he’s completely unsuitable for his job, but they insist on keeping him, there’s nothing else for him to do. We have to do whatever the assembly tells us to.

Jim wondered whether the country had just stumbled from one autocracy into another.

I just came to confirm that you actually want me to lecture on Unity and scholarship, he said.

Yes, that’s right. One hour.

Jim wondered how he would fill an hour on the subject because in his opinion you could address the whole subject in a sentence; either one is objective or one is fanatical.

On his way home, he saw that the cinema had reopened and asked Annabel and Olivia if they wanted to go. They did and invited Mark and Sofia so they could get a lift.

They watched a remake of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, which Jim thought was not as good as the original. He wondered why filmmakers seemed to have an obsession to ruin excellent films by making them again.

The village had no electricity when they pulled up at Mark and Sophia’s, and the house was cold when they had walked up the lane. The wood stove didn’t seem to be efficient enough to heat the house in the cold spell they were experiencing.

7 years before the collapse

There was a ceremony in the city for the victims of Unity in Piccadilly gardens. Hundreds of people had