What If? Part 2
Second in my series of speculative fiction about what Southern California could look like walking the democratic road to socialism. Part 1 is here.
Monday begins before sunrise in Vernon. The smell of fresh tortillas from nearby bakeries mixes with machine oil drifting from the industrial district as freight trains roll slowly toward the Alameda Corridor. Inside Los Angeles Mobility Works, a renovated factory that once stamped auto parts now produces electric buses, light rail cars, and transformers for the expanding Southern California transit network.
Maria Alvarez, a maintenance electrician from Huntington Park, waves to Abdul Rahman, who has already started calibrating one of the robotic welding lines. Across the floor, Rosa Kim reviews production schedules with Jamal Brooks, a machinist whose father spent three decades loading containers at the Port of Long Beach. Their orders come through a mix of regional planning agreements and competitive public contracts, tying production to projects that cities have committed to building rather than whatever happens to promise the highest quarterly return.
The factory belongs to no single owner. Workers elect representatives, municipalities appoint others, and state planners occupy a third of the seats. Meetings can become frustratingly long, but everyone understands who ultimately benefits when the machines begin humming. By seven o’clock, the building is alive, and another workday ripples outward into the city.
Tuesday brings Maria downtown aboard the E Line. Outside Union Station, commuters pour beneath palms while the morning marine layer slowly burns away. At the Southern California Development Bank, housed inside a restored Art Deco office tower, neighborhood organizations and city officials gather around long wooden tables covered with maps.
Carlos Medina from Commerce presents plans to reopen a precision machine-tool plant. Mei Chen argues for financing small manufacturers in the San Gabriel Valley that supply aerospace cooperatives in Hawthorne. Pastor Denise Robinson from South Los Angeles proposes renovating a block of abandoned storefronts into housing above locally owned businesses.
No one expects every proposal to succeed. The questions concern resilience, employment, and environmental impact instead of the quickest financial exit. Capital still seeks returns, but its timeline stretches across generations.
Outside, Grand Avenue is busy as always. Office workers buy coffee, Metro buses arrive every few minutes, and most pedestrians hardly notice that the institutions financing the city now behave very differently. What they notice is that buildings rarely stay abandoned for long.
Wednesday starts near the Port of Long Beach, where utility foreman Hector Salgado kneels beside a newly installed transformer while container cranes tower overhead like giant steel herons. Cargo ships wait offshore beyond the morning haze as electricians finish connecting another section of the regional grid.
A retired schoolteacher walking her dog pauses to ask Hector whether electricity rates are really falling again.
“Looks that way,” he replies, checking the schedule on his tablet. “Next quarter.”
She smiles. “About time somebody figured this out.”
The exchange lasts less than a minute before everyone returns to work. There are no scripts to read, no distant customer service center, only neighbors speaking to the people responsible for maintaining the system they all share.
Thursday is meeting day at the Vernon factory.
The newest production line has exceeded expectations, raising a difficult question. Should the gains finance another expansion or reduce the workweek to thirty-two hours?
Rosa argues that the region still needs more rail cars.
Abdul believes productivity should finally purchase more time instead of more output.
Jamal worries that expansion could create apprenticeship opportunities for hundreds of young workers graduating from trade schools in South Gate and Bell.
The debate spills across the afternoon. Nobody wins outright, but nobody leaves believing the decision belongs to someone else.
Power has not erased conflict. It has simply moved it into rooms where ordinary people possess genuine influence.
Friday unfolds along Atlantic Boulevard. Children stop for pan dulce after school while mechanics roll open garage doors beside worker-owned machine shops. A Salvadoran pupusería fills with warehouse workers finishing the morning shift. Across the street, a cooperative grocery stocks produce from California farming cooperatives while apprentices repair appliances in a workshop connected to East Los Angeles College.
Storefronts still open and close. Entrepreneurs still gamble on new ideas. Markets still reward businesses that serve people well.
The difference is quieter than slogans suggest. Failure no longer empties an entire block, and success no longer requires extracting wealth from the neighborhood that created it.
Saturday belongs to the Los Angeles River Greenway.
Cyclists weave beneath sycamores where concrete once dominated the landscape. Families gather for soccer games while food vendors sell raspados, tacos, and fresh fruit sprinkled with chili and lime. The monthly social dividend appears quietly in everyone’s account, enough to cover groceries, utilities, or school clothes without becoming anyone’s entire livelihood.
Nearby, folding chairs fill a community hall where architects present designs for new apartments near a Metro station. Elena Gutierrez wants more housing for young families. Mr. Han worries about preserving the neighborhood’s small businesses. Union carpenter Isaiah Flores insists that every project include apprenticeships and locally sourced materials.
Nothing is resolved before sunset.
Everything is argued in public.
Sunday arrives with warm light filtering through jacaranda trees in Huntington Park. Maria drinks coffee on her apartment balcony while church bells echo a few blocks away. Children chase each other between apartment courtyards as neighbors carry folding chairs onto the sidewalk to escape the afternoon heat.
Mr. Alvarez from downstairs asks whether she thinks Thursday’s proposal will pass.
“Probably not this month,” she laughs.
“Next meeting?”
“Definitely next meeting.”
He nods.
“Good. Means we still get to argue.”
The future is negotiated in neighborhood halls, transit depots, factory floors, and city offices scattered across a metropolis that has learned to keep more of its own wealth at home.
The basin has reclaimed something deeper than industrial capacity. It has recovered the ability to decide what its economy is for, and to organize production around the people who actually live here. After enough years, the arrangement no longer feels experimental.
Further Reading:
The Economics of Feasible Socialism, Alec Nove
Nordic Socialism: the Path Toward a Democratic Economy, Pelle Dragsted
Reclaiming Public Ownership, Andrew Cumbers