The financial crisis that's dominated the news this week and the conflicting prescriptions for how to deal with it make one thing clear. No one knows how the global economy works anymore. Sure, some people have some ideas. But no one really knows exactly what to do. The most straightforward explanation of what's going on that I've read comes from Paul Krugman at the New York Times.
But the entire episode highlights what many environmental authors have been saying for some time: the global economy based on cheap energy is extraordinarily fragile. Today folks dismissed as doomsday scenariarios, predicting financial collapse and a return to backyard gardening, seem a lot closer to reality than those extolling the virtues of global cosmopolitan culture. If this last week is the beginning of a true shift in the structure of our economic lives, what will the future hold? What aspects of the global economy will remain in place and which will become distant memories of a bygone era?
There is a great longing for economic security in this country, a security based on a reliable supply of life's necessities. Here in La Plata County, our local food movement is spirited but still far from providing anything close to what we need to survive. The counties and towns that I think will thrive in the future are those with a re-invigorated commons that provide for food production and materials for housing. This is the basic structure that will allow communities to make the most of their natural, social, and financial capital.
What do you think? Should what will be the structure of the economy in the future? How will we define "wealth" and what is responsible action today, at this very moment?
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2 comments:
I do believe that the economic environment is changing, and in a dramatic fashion. We as Americans have been living a carefree and distructive life style for far to long and just now are we feeling the consiqueces. If we do nothing to aid this situation we will just overconsume ourselves to death.
the economy should crash, down into an abyss where we should also cast our shameful and deluded ideas we've clung so tightly to.
what's scary about the economy, is that it acts according to its own reality of wealth and value. to our market, profit is the ends, and through whatever means you make to profit, then the end is good. profit is utility, but at the same time is slavery. once we're hooked on to this bandwagon, its not easy gettin' of.
i propose that the candidates for this country propose a new structure to Wall Street, Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court to create a new system that is as revolutionary as the separation from church and state. We NEED a SEPARATION of Market and the State. We need to make presidential campaigns exclusively public, remove lobbyists from washington, let the people control the wealth (not banks), bring back trade restrictions that protect the domestic economy, make every single entity accountable for putting too much fat in our legislature, tax the rich, care for the poor, provide for our citizens good education and healthcare. just then perhaps we may save whats left of our American work-ethic and inventiveness.
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