Can we "recover?" or must we create something new instead?

[Eric Garland]

Jim Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, a book about the impact of the end of peak oil, believes that this current crisis is the beginning of a significant, permanent shift in how we create wealth in the world. In fact, he doesn't believe recovery is even possible, not in the classical sense.

"At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation.

We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it. "

What do you think? Can we recover the old economy? Can we recover just the sustainable parts of it? Or is something totally new on the horizon?

[Christopher Largent]

Just a passing thought: if we use 19th-Century economist Henry Carey's idea, then we perhaps should always be thinking about the economy as if it is something we are creating anew. His thought experiment is to imagine that we have just settled a town and are facing the challenges of a new economy, given that we came from an old one somewhere. There is always some challenge to rise to, some obstacle to surmount, some problem to solve. In many cases, we learn from the old model; in others, we have to be creative and do something anomalous to the old way of doing things. Again, just a thought ...

[Eric Garland]

You mean, continuously solve problem, not based on dogma, but based on a constant reading of an ever-changing, ever-connected situation? Why...that sounds like pretty decent idea! I thought it was the basis of intelligence-driven organizations. Don't we have those already?

[David J. Williams]

The core of capitalism--that one is a free agent in a market driven largely by private enterprise--will continue to exist, but I suspect everything else is fair game. I certainly think the problematic elements of "late capitalism"--i.e., relentless growth to be achieved regardless of its impact on ecosystems/communities, a focus on "shareholder"/manager value that rarely looks beyond the next quarter, an almost-insane disparity between executive salaries and everybody else, and a relentless subordination of all considerations to profit-taking--will wither. For the sake of the planet, I sure hope so.

[Sarah Dickinson Murray]

Some people think that capitalism will not survive the arrival of a new paradigm, where systems and processes will be recognized and utilized for their value as describing a whole, taking the place of the atomistic point of view where things and beings are minimized and seen as separate from one another. In this world view, there is no place for capitalism, since it was built on the old paradigm of separatism which generates fear, and therefore the need to hoard wealth no matter how much harm is done to others in the process. I happen to be one of those people, but I am looking for answers just as much as anyone else, and as such, I am happy to be engaging in this process of dialogue.

[James Lee]

"Doomers" take a mechanistic view of the world. What they say is all very logical, very scientific. So many facts.

But, they often make the assumption that we do not have the ability to chose, to respond, and to change. Most of us have very strong incentives to survive and prosper. As such, we'll be determined to find a solution, and can do so provided that we have enough time to respond. That's one role of the professional futurist - to give people enough time to formulate a response.

The exact nature of the response can sometimes be difficult to define with any certitude. After all, if you can predict the best solution, do you really have a problem?

Of course we'll be doomed if continue on the current path. But we're smarter than that (I hope!)

[Eric Garland]

I too am caught between the "doomer" mindset of examine structural trends and likely human behavior, and the opposite view that says, hey, this is ALL a human construct, we can capitalize on the limitless source of energy that surrounds us and choose a different path. The former view requires scotch, neat; the latter requires hope, motivation, and dialogue.

I am beginning to think that American business and government institutions are largely unsustainable, and there isn't enough fake-cash-debt bailout in the world to get them resembling what we grew up with. What we choose next may look quite a bit similar, especially in the sense of need entrepreneurs, farmers, engineers, teachers and other talented folks. But having a professional class of absentee gamblers in the investment world may not work much longer. At the very least, we will become less reliant on such capital for the massive social net we wish to provide all citizens.

I am leaning toward a scenario in which much of the energy that went toward globalization goes back toward creating communities, locally sustainable in ever sense from ecological to financial to cultural. The difference will be largely in the superstructure of power - it's harder to create multi-national business conglomerates that way, and this will upset a lot of plans. But it might employ people, improve the quality of our food and civic life and slow global warming - so, y'know, a somewhat easy trade-off.