The neoliberal debacle

Perhaps it is a sign of all times that the truth underlying the average reality appears bleak to those who can take a moment to tear away from the opium of the age. The opium famously used to be religion for people both rich and poor but the opium of our age, especially for the middle class and up, is consumption. Consumption of gadgetry, of entertainment, and of material goods. And the cost that is paid for this consumption is more than just monetary. It constitutes the very human soul.

I have been following the Greek economic crisis with keen interest wondering whether there are lessons to be learned from it, whether it points to deeper trends in the human journey. The crisis is perhaps exacerbated because of Greece's inability to devalue its own currency under the monetary union but the general chaos, I think, is indicative of larger trends. It is the post-2008 world which has finally begun to show us the ugly side of unfettered capitalism whose seeds of destruction were laid all the way back in the 70s with the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system. The monster was given more than a helping hand by the extreme deregulatory emphasis of the Reagan-Greenspan era, supported by the theories of the fine sounding academics in the World's most famous economics departments, most notably in the University of Chicago where Milton Friedman and his steady stream of proteges created a mathematical model of real world economics which abetted and supported a system which has led to the present chaos. What is the human cost here? Figures suggest that income inequality now is as high as it was after the great depression and that the real wages of average workers in the US is below what it used to be in the 70s. What lies in the future? The future, at least in the near term, looks pretty dismal to me for reasons that I have talked about earlier. With increasing mechanization and reach of technology, humans will slowly be displaced from any and all forms of occupations. It's only a matter of when and not if. During this time we will see more extreme levels of inequalities, poverty, misery, and lack of opportunities essentially because of one reason. Human beings will become less and less competitive and for no fault of theirs. However, this will not prevent the game of victim-blaming from those who have benefited from living under a more benign economic climate. They will proudly say, well, you should have worked harder. Hopefully these idiots will die away before it's too late.

The reason I say before it's too late is because I do think that there is light at the end of the tunnel but it is not clear how society would get there. There is already a surplus of goods and services in the World and yet we see extreme levels of poverty and misery. How can a rational person, in good conscience, justify this level of absurdity? In the future, goods and services will be plentiful and a mechanism will need to be designed which redistributes this surplus without any expectation of work. This might be done through powerful central mechanisms but, more interestingly to me, it may also be done through highly decentralized initiatives which will become feasible as the required knowledge and technology will essentially become free. The Greek crisis is a small act in this long term tussle because it essentially represents the painful cries of a people rendered highly noncompetitive through mechanisms outside of their control (the common currency in this case). And the only solution, as the IMF indicates, is through what is essentially a fiscal transfer. We are hearing the usual recriminations from those in power (Germany), that the Greeks should have worked hard...