Our current economic problems are generally viewed over short timeframes. It’s time we took a longer term view of the planetary economy, where it’s come from and where it’s going.

 

Economic Geography and History

It’s often noted that some parts of the world are very rich, while others are very poor. But a more complete way of thinking about humanity’s economic geography is that the whole world was exceedingly poor until quite recently, then some parts of it became rich.

That wealth-creation was unequal, but given the complex and uneven nature of history it would be extremely strange were that not the case. Even so, the average human at the beginning of the twenty-first century owns wealth incomparable to nearly every other human who has ever lived, during any previous period of history.

Yet in today’s developed economies, anything which compared unfavourably to a world with smooth 2.5% growth rates causes people to feel hard done by. This is ridiculous. Nobody knows how to organize a planetary economy. The only way to work out how to orchestrate such an economy is through trial and error, which is precisely what is currently taking place.

Setbacks are inevitable. We’ve stumbled before and we’ll stumble many times in the future. There was never the remotest possibility that the future economic evolution of human civilisation would involve endless, 2.5% growth rates.

 

I was dreading yet another doom and gloom criticism of humanity. 
Unexpectedly, the viewpoint given is wholly optimistic, inspiring, and suggests 
a different way of looking at the problems we face today
- Hermione Pagni, London Student

 

Details: the planetary economy

The Incoherence of London Occupy – I made multiple visits to London Occupy in 2010. They were fluffy.

One Teardrop Upon the Cheek of Time - the boxes people fall into when thinking about economics (excerpt from Part 5 of the book)

 

Next: Info-Graphics >

 

Links – worldview section:

• The Human Project
• What I’m Trying to Achieve
• The Long Now (with downloads)
• Gaia and Humanity (with downloads)
• Religious Architecture (with downloads)
• Planetary Economy (with downloads)
• Info-graphics
• My Influences