The message about the industrialised future is crystal clear: there will be fewer and fewer jobs.
Industrialised production including industrialised agriculture is taking over everywhere – the growth, the yields are going ever higher, profits are doing well. We will not need more workers – the answer is less. Go home or to a city as we do not need you.
Much focus has been on jobs in agriculture, retail, the media, but it is the same everywhere – people are becoming a drag. Now the banks are cutting – relieving 10% of their employees.
Are we really thinking about what is going on here: large scale industrialised production being the norm everywhere? The consequences? What is more important – output or people? Who is going to buy the superoutput? Why do we make it? Can we fix the lack of jobs by being more entrepreneurial and more innovative – increase the speed of development? Do we need more output? Move capital from weakening economies – p.t. the West – to areas of higher growth – p.t. Asia, after that move on again?
We must rethink society and our economic system: People being left out in a world of ever growing production capacity is not the way forward.
There is also crisis after crisis, system breakdowns, and at the same time there is great technical progress everywhere.
The costs of this system are becoming increasingly visible: Large scale industrial and agricultural activity is not sustainable, it leads to enormous efficiencies of the wrong kind, huge concentrations of power and reduction of humans to mere operators with a grim future.
So we must change our ways: our methods are wrong, our calculations are wrong, the resulting concentrations and degradations are not what we want.
The farming must change, industry must change, what we use technology for must change, decentralisation must come, ecological principles must become the norm, ownership must be broadened and become common, production must primarily be suited to local communities – i.e. small scale -, global transportation must be reduced to a minimum, the financial and banking systems should be totally changed.
The focus of what we do should be changed from ever increasing materialism to balanced deep ecology: The aim is small scale, local, human, fair, for all to take part – we are not the servants of some large scale operation – we have values, we are creative, we will not serve others, equality is the norm.
Economics is the sum of what we all do, it is not an abstraction for the politicians filled with incomprehensible numbers and unsure relationships. The economics should make sure that all people have a proper living standard, that nobody is left out. Every local society should be independent, organic, decentralised, empowered to solve it own matters. The degree of self-governance should be increased substantially.
The industrialized society must be built down, the huge inhuman large scale systems of finance, industry, agriculture, distribution must be done away with. Globalisation where big companies can rule the world must be ended. Globalisation should be known as the common heritage of principles of ecology and our common knowledge in all areas that is made available for all.
The world must be made manageable, megasystems are not.
The future is a renaissance of organics, small scale industry, conscious urbanisation, new small scale investments to support diverse small scale production, decentralised control, new small scale technology, individual creativity and production, humanising and democratising society.
Humans have a future after all – we are part of a grand system that will serve us well if we are sensible.
