The 1990s saw the fall of Soviet era communism in a way that could never have been forecast. Certain frames of thinking - Cold War realities - that we had grown up with, suddenly receeded. Anyone of my age will probably have seen When The Wind Blows.
Is Global Capitalism, or more specifically, debt fuelled growth, about to see a similar disintegration? It is possible that the European and US economy will stagger through this crisis, but the writing is on the wall longer term. This system doesn't work either.
What we are short of is an alternative and a strategy for managing the collapse. There will need to be a Global Restart (usually an IT term) of the economy. It is possible to agree on some basic principles for a more just form of economics, such as Sustainable Development and a fundamental redistribution of global wealth, but the specifics about how we manage a transition to that system while economies are in crisis requires a lot of work.
There are some good ideas out there, but will we need the next Jesus, Mohammed, Marx, Einstein or Hawking to articulate that vision in a way that billions will be influenced by them? Or is it possible that with the internet humanity has gone forward far enough that we won't rely on just a single figurehead, but instead see the ideas flow up from the grassroots in a truly revolutionary way. We live in interesting times.
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