Wednesday 23 September 2009

So much, so good, so what? AD 2100

There is so much going on in the world. G20 shall meet in USA. Ireland is discussing about Lisbon treaty. Commission has lost a case for exceeding its rights in emission trading. China is buying energy sources around the world... they want to get rid of the dollars they gathered, before they lose value.

Still there is something missing in all these equations. All this noise about Lisbon, G20, Barroso cover something below. I think we should go back and read Marx and other sociologues. Not that I am a Marxist... coming from formerly Soviet Block I am far from this. I will be boring... we still have not learnt from the financial crisis. The cheap talk about cutting bankers bonuses hides a bigger problem: what is the role of finance in the current world?

I am looking for a new Keynes, somebody to put new founding blocks for economy. Somebody who would understand the financial markets and put them under social control. Somebody who would show the last 20 years (end of cold war) in the right perspective. BRICs- multipolar world... it is too much a repetition from the Saint League and Europe after the Napoleonic wars. The Iphone as a new Gutenberg revolution? Tempting but how strong is the link between power and communication. A new revolution - similar to the one of 1789 in Paris? American democracy seems too well embedded in the society.

What is the grand scheme, new pattern that would help us understand the new world post Lehman Brothers... Maybe it is time to go to China and see what is going on there? Or Iraq and Afghanistan are signs of the falling empire along the lines of the ancient Rome? Maybe I should start reading Arnold Toynbee and his study of civilisations. When do they fall? What triggers decline. Or XXI century will be the age of Islam?

Kalypso Nikolaidis in the Reflection Group is analysing different scenarios of the future. I suggest you have a look at this page 2100.org Maybe collectively we can be better in foreseeing the future than we used to have.



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