
News Link • Economic Theory
The Crisis And Revolution Hidden In Plain Sight
• https://www.zerohedge.com, by Charles Hugh SmithAccording to both the mainstream media and social media, the forces that will shape the future are:
1) AI (i.e. technology's impact on jobs and growth),
2) geopolitical competition for AI dominance, energy, resources, trade, military and financial power,
3) finance, which includes cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), federal deficits, hyperinflation / currency devaluation and precious metals --all of which boil down to "what can I do to ensure that my wealth will remain intact whatever happens."
The key issues are technology, finance and market forces--the core drivers of the global economy. Society isn't on the menu other than as a quickly dismissed source of dutiful hand-wringing.
While all these will be influential, no one seems to see the domestic crisis hidden in plain sight or the revolution it makes inevitable. In my analysis, these will be the dominant forces shaping the coming decade.
As I have documented in recent posts-- If We Measured the Economy by Quality-of-Life Instead of GDP, We'd Be In a Depression, For Many, This Recession Will Feel Like a Depression and Crunch Time for Cities, Counties and States--the system has reached its limits and is coming apart.
What is the crisis? There are three self-reinforcing dynamics in play.
The first is the imbalance of the economy and society: The economy now dominates society, and historically this leads to disorder. Everyone looking at technology and finance as the solutions has it backwards: technology and finance are the problems, not the solutions, as they are the primary drivers of the imbalance between society and the economy.
As I explain in my new book's Introduction (free), society and the market forces that drive the economy have different timelines, tasks and priorities.
Market forces are focused on expanding new markets, heedless of consequences beyond profit and market share; the future consequences fall on society, which must take the long view and absorb the impacts on the workforce, social stability and the nation's commons, i.e. the environment.