I've just come from looking at a short video on wsj.com about luxury brands—cars to jewels—on offer at a luxury show in Vienna, and earlier today I read Harvard (and British) historian Niall Ferguson, also on wsj.com, talking about China's emergence as the real boss of today's global world. The thing that unites the two scenes is the strain of utter unreality that both exhibit. China—to cite an egregious example of its contribution to the world's excellences or woes (depending on your point of view)—is now the world's largest market for autos—some 14 million in the year currently. Neither China nor Ferguson nor the WSJ seems to be getting it: the "growth scene" is over, but big-time OVER.
What that means to me is that sanity now resides in studying ways to shrink our growth economies, shrink them, that is, intelligently, preserving lives and resources, as much as possible at any given moment, while diminishing threats to life, also as much as possible. What is nutty is acting as if the two-century-long "industrial age" can go on any longer. It will last somewhere between today (2010) and 2030, and that will be it. It would be nice if there were some sign the rulers of the world were taking this on. What I seem to see is a rich ruling class determined to keep their profitable thing going as long as possible, let the poor (that's us) eat cake, and the devil with worrying about resources. The market can take care of that, and if we, the rich, have all the money, what's to worry?
I suppose I have outlined the main thesis of this entire blog in this post. More to come no doubt.
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