This lecture may appear a bit dry and technical, that’s how finance people speak, but see past that to understand the key themes of what he is saying, this is dynamite. We all know that this is the case, we just probably haven’t fully admitted it to ourselves yet. Since the 2008 crash we have witnessed 11 years of lying, of smoke and mirrors, of quantitative easing, of our own refusal to admit the jig is up. Nothing has changed since then, we have not reformed anything only inflated the problem by kicking the can down the road. Now the developed world is drowning in debt and unable to meet the social responsibilities it has signed up for. Get ready for the roller coaster ride of your lifetimes because the train is going to run off the tracks!
We live in a world here in the West that has become detached from reality. Every day we ignore the ecological un-sustainability of our reality, the economic unreality becomes ever more distorted. Wall street, City of London, banks in general feel they have a right to endlessly make money out of money even if it adds no real value to the economy, money that flows to top to the elites and bares no relation to the world outside of the bubble. Well guess what folks; that bubble is bursting. The West as an economic force is essentially over. We have been the architects of our own undoing as well,.
We believe in house prices, in pensions, in never ending economic growth. Where is the growth supposed to come from when we have exhausted the natural world of its resources and are now turning against our own populations as governments divest from the social economy and their own responsibilities to the electorate. Think about it.. we go to work to do what? To create economic value in theory, what if our daily work does the opposite, it actually makes things worse not better. well that moment is coming up on us. Jem Bendall touched on this is the Deep Adaption paper. The energy and resources in your car and petrol tank that you burn to get to work is worth more than the work you do all day. Think about the implications of that on our economic models.
Facing up to climate change is as much an economic and social justice issue as anything. I think all of these illustrate just how much our economic models and the plutocrats that run the show are failing us badly. This is getting it right and making some interesting points especially when he starts to compare an economic system to an ecosystem. Of course this is what we teach in permaculture, so for me it is interesting to hear that come out the mouth of an unbridled capitalist. He doesn’t touch on the ecological realities of our predicament, but this is an insightful and interesting critique of where we are at.