You would have to be blind Freddie to think all is well in the world. We have the European Union on the brink of collapse, the USA about to go into a double dip recession, revolutions sweeping through the Arab world, Pakistan a nuclear power close to becoming a failed state, global recession likely and persistent environmental problems which are not being addressed by our leaders. So how did we get to this point and what can we do to rectify the situation?
The problems started a long time ago at the time of the industrial revolution when increases in technology made agriculture and mining easier, it took less people to provide our basics. We put people to work in factories instead and encouraged mass consumption. The solution to this horrid state of affairs was communism which when put into practice created the most rigid and despicable autocracies known to history.
We then used financial services and market gambling too keep the money moving which lead to a couple of world wars, and the great depression. After those human disasters we tried a combination of state owned enterprises and free markets this lead to the 1950’s boom and created rigid bureaucracies both in globalised companies and state run enterprises and eventually stagflation ensued in the 1970’s.
Since then we have patched the dyke with bubbles. Dot.com then housing and derivative bubbles all of which created more work in the financial markets, in PR and marketing and the game of spin and project management. We became sand castle builders. Creating new management systems and complex deravatives, implementing them then breaking them and building again as shown in the charts for professions in Australia and the USA (Charts) employment in agriculture, mining and manufacture have been in decline or at very low levels while production has increased. In Australia mining output has increased threefold since the 1980’s while employment in mining has barely increased. Even construction during the housing boom did not employ more tradies to actually build the homes but more project managers to control the output making the process more top down, and more rigid. While management and professional services, particularly in financial services has increased dramatically.