Sir, – There is enormous surprise, disbelief and rage out there that “fringe” ideas, such as Britain leaving the EU and Donald Trump being elected the next president of the United States, have gained traction and become a reality.
One fringe idea never alluded to is going to become mainstream, whether they or we like it or not. It is the reality that we are failing to adapt to or manage an entirely new unprecedented and extraordinarily successful era of economic activity that advanced technology has ushered into the world.
The new era has three very different, indeed directly opposing characteristics from that which came before. Overproduction replaces underproduction, sufficiency replaces growth and automation replaces work.
By using quantitative easing and bond purchase, both of which accumulate debt on a much greater scale than banks did a decade earlier, we deny reality. We try to pretend demand can be increased sufficiently to consume everything that unrestrained production can supply. We try to pretend that although we can and are grossly overproducing, we can still sustain “growth”, a continual increase of output.
We pretend that automation and robotics count for nothing, and that we can keep people employed, although a growing percentage of their work becomes unnecessary as every day passes.
Brexit, Trump and potential for global extremist politics forge ahead because economic denial no longer delivers prosperity or security for an increasing number of people.
Failing to adapt to technological reality facilitates progress towards a sort of corporate feudalism where wealth is concentrated into reduced remote and unanswerable control, while bonded debt-ridden and dependent serfdom creeps over the masses.
If we persist and fail to recognise the developing situation, and refuse to adapt to new much improved technological economics, we advance towards obscene inequality, political protest, acute radicalisation and serious social disorder. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIC NEARY,
Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.