Companies are measured on yearly profits, with continuous (exponential) growth expectations.
Workers are expected to "adapt" and "be flexible".
Long term planning is scorned as "socialistic", the immediate invisible hand of the market solves everything.
Cultural consumption (just the idea of defining culture as consumption-only is revolting) is for short lived products...
We are seeing some fundamental changes in the world (peak oil) which require a completely different mindset: Planning, organization, seeing more than only our own belly... Steady-state economics (well, declining economics, really) as opposed to perma-growth.
The problem is: the cultural framework is so unprepared for the idea planning or addressing problems in a collective way.
My point is: wage stagnation (maintaining lifestyles on debt) is just the tip of the iceberg of society inadaptation to the coming resource constrained world.
Middle-lower class income stagnation was a good explanation for our past problems. But, in the future, there is much more than that on the "Anglo disease" lifestyle that is simply out of touch with the basic premises that will be around.
It is not clear to me that people will be prepared to accept reasonable long-term solutions. The path will not be one of the least pain, on the contrary (although you start to see some of the resource scarcity discourse showing up).
It's self-sustaining in that the narrowmindedness and selfishness of others pushes us to do the same, if only for temporary self-preservation.
Only people that have something and voluntarily renounce it in the name of a greater good can lead, by example. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The consequences of dis-intermediation of the financial system - which is continuing - and the consequent transition from a transaction-based economy to a service-based economy will change everything IMHO. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I would have some (a lot, actually) interest in reading about the possible consequences of the emergence of a peer to peer relationship model as opposed to the the current intermediation model that exists in many of human activities.
Thanks
I wrote
Market 3.0
about seven years ago and was interested to see it recently taken up by Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation on his blog.
The stuff on my site concerning what I call
Open Capital
has long since gone from the conceptual to practical application (in Scotland , mainly) of the partnership-based dis-intermediated legal and financial structures or "enterprise models" I observe emerging and suitable for frameworks for "Peer to Peer" direct connections.
This subject litters my ET Diaries and comments - ad nauseam for many here I know, although I think I have made a few "converts"! "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
