William Irwin Thompson on the transformation of our economy

COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – The Digital Economy of W. Brian Arthur | Wild River Review.

It would now appear that industrial and service economy “jobs” are disappearing at the same time that national currencies are in crisis and public universities and community colleges are being stripped of funds, so that they cannot take up the slack by employing the unemployed. We seem headed for a crisis greater than the Great Depression. The solution, it would seem to me, is not a propping up of the old economy through government bailouts but an entire restructuring of civilization.

On human terms, I fear this is not possible. Homo sapiens is just not that sapient. Earth Day began in 1968, but it was followed by forty-four years of reaction with Reagan, the Bushes, and now even Obama. I am afraid that we are in for a catastrophic transition and a massive dieback, unless you economists can come up with something that is not Business as usual. Germany and the U.S. came out of the Great Depression through war. As William James suggested, we need to come up with the moral equivalent of war.