After a vacation, I am resuming work on World After Capital. I have been struck by the possibility that my book may suffer a fate similar to Keynes’s essay titled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” Written in 1930, during the early time of the Great Depression, the essay speculated on a wildly optimistic development that would see us working only 15 hours per week by now. Similar to language that I have used in World After Capital, the essay starts by noting that

We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another. 

Yes, the world still had one foot in the Agrarian Age while having the other in the Industrial Age. But what Keynes didn’t see coming was that the way the transition would be completed was through World War II (I imagine that he also didn’t anticipate how long and sever the Great Depression would be).

According to Mark Twain “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.” I am not suggesting that we will have a huge recession or depression followed by a World War. But I am concerned that the optimistic vision of what is possible present in World After Capital will not come to pass without a huge crisis first, one that inflicts a great deal of destruction and human suffering.

The best candidate for this is of course climate change with all its attended problems such as rising sea levels, uninhabitable zones, disruptions to the food supply, spread of diseases and more. Political leadership in far too many parts of the world is increasingly appealing to our tribal instincts instead of tackling this as the global problem that it is.

I am not yet willing to concede that this is the only way. And as I argued in a talk at DLD earlier this year, there are continued reasons for optimism.  The last paragraph from the introduction captures this tension:

World After Capital argues for increased freedoms, rooted in humanism, as the way to transition from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age. I am profoundly optimistic about the ultimate potential for human progress. I am, however, pessimistic about how we will get there. We seem intent on clinging to the Industrial Age at all cost, increasing the likelihood of violent change. My hope, then, is that in writing World After Capital I can help in some small way to move us forward peacefully.

It is also a good reminder for me to redouble my efforts.

After a vacation, I am resuming work on World After Capital. I have been struck by the possibility that my book may suffer a fate similar to Keynes’s essay titled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” Written in 1930, during the early time of the Great Depression, the essay speculated on a wildly optimistic development that would see us working only 15 hours per week by now. Similar to language that I have used in World After Capital, the essay starts by noting that

We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another. 

Yes, the world still had one foot in the Agrarian Age while having the other in the Industrial Age. But what Keynes didn’t see coming was that the way the transition would be completed was through World War II (I imagine that he also didn’t anticipate how long and sever the Great Depression would be).

According to Mark Twain “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.” I am not suggesting that we will have a huge recession or depression followed by a World War. But I am concerned that the optimistic vision of what is possible present in World After Capital will not come to pass without a huge crisis first, one that inflicts a great deal of destruction and human suffering.

The best candidate for this is of course climate change with all its attended problems such as rising sea levels, uninhabitable zones, disruptions to the food supply, spread of diseases and more. Political leadership in far too many parts of the world is increasingly appealing to our tribal instincts instead of tackling this as the global problem that it is.

I am not yet willing to concede that this is the only way. And as I argued in a talk at DLD earlier this year, there are continued reasons for optimism.  The last paragraph from the introduction captures this tension:

World After Capital argues for increased freedoms, rooted in humanism, as the way to transition from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age. I am profoundly optimistic about the ultimate potential for human progress. I am, however, pessimistic about how we will get there. We seem intent on clinging to the Industrial Age at all cost, increasing the likelihood of violent change. My hope, then, is that in writing World After Capital I can help in some small way to move us forward peacefully.

It is also a good reminder for me to redouble my efforts.