At Last, The Future!: The End of the Age of Capital and the Quest for a New Global Paradigm.

Introduction

Our world is extremely complex. We necessarily understand it through generalisations, simplifications, and rules. This shared understanding is known as a ‘societal paradigm’. A paradigm - or big picture - is simply the shared understanding that enables a culture or civilization to function in a reasonably orderly way. While individuals will have their own ideas on the world and how it works, a paradigm provides a collective way to make sense of the myriad bits of information we process every day, and offers broad guidance on how to respond to events.

Paradigms are shaped by leaders and by prevailing realities. They are taught by parents and teachers, and disseminated across society in general. In any successful community the paradigm is widely shared and enthusiastically maintained. But during a period of rapid change the standard simplifications work less and less well, so confusion and disillusion start to spread. The paradigm becomes decreasingly useful as an explanation for events or as a guide to future action. At this point a new set of useful ideas and simplifications must be developed if a society is to function effectively. But the transition from one paradigm to the next, the paradigm shift, itself is usually - perhaps inevitably - extremely difficult. It can often be protracted and involve intense battles to decide which ideas and attitudes will prevail in the new era. The nations that become the happiest soonest are those that quickly recognise the new imperatives and opportunities, stop trying to prop up the past, and get on bravely with constructing the future.

We are now in the early stages of the most rapid, comprehensive and global paradigm shift yet experienced by humanity, as the age of the capitalist paradigm draws to the end of its useful life. The way we think of morals, the economy, society, and government is changing, as new events and realities show the old ideas to be out-dated. We confront economic, environmental, social, political and demographic crises, and all are interrelated. Governments are failing to provide solutions, and this is at least partly because the problems are different to any faced in earlier times, but also because many governments are in denial about the changes happening in the world around them.

Many people have already embraced new ways of understanding the world, but the lack of a comprehensive paradigm that brings all the new ideas together in a unified big picture means the old ways of thinking continue to be overly powerful even while manifestly failing to explain the present or predict the future.

The scale of change and the depth of the intellectual crisis that is underway means there can be no return to some old idea of ‘normal.’ Just patching up or reassembling old modes of thinking will not be enough. The challenge of coping with many rapidly developing problems has led some to take a pessimistic view about the future of our planet, but I take the view that we can actively take hold of our future and shape it within a new and positive paradigm. To demonstrate that the making of a new paradigm is both desirable and possible I will outline the course of various major paradigm shifts from history. This will demonstrate the way paradigms influence social decisions and behaviours over time, how they collapse and are replaced, and how success grows from apparent failure.

This book is obviously and intentionally a simplified overview of the past and a personal portrait of a possible future. It is an invitation to a way of thinking, and certainly not intended as an academic argument or the last word. Breadth, not depth, is the aim. I aim to combine ideas and analysis from many expert authors to bring economics, technology, environmental issues, new ethical choices, the global political situation and the social revolution together to create a coherent big picture of a possible post-paradigm shift world. Most of writings I draw upon are focused on the problems within one particular field of study, and many are advocating ways of saving the current paradigm rather than finding a replacement. The authors of these words can’t be held responsible for the uses I make of their ideas and information. For more detail or updates readers can go to the original sources or the many alternatives.

While the capitalist paradigm in which we currently live has delivered on its promise to make people materially better off, it has also created a new set of major problems along with some exciting opportunities. As a result we now have the option, and indeed the necessity, to build a better society, but it can’t be a patched-up version of the old one. It will have to be constructed within a new paradigm. Where capitalism has fractured society and isolated individuals, we can now choose to form a new social integration while retaining the material benefits capitalism delivers. We can create a world with more individuals developing to their potential, creating more meaningful relationships, and consciously constructing more fulfilling lives. The future can be sustainable, stable, scientific, social and secure.

I give the name ‘kosmos’ to this set of ideas, using the ancient Greek word to describe order and harmony across the universe. It is different to the term ‘cosmopolitan’ that has been used to describe any citizen of the world who feels comfortable and at ease across many different countries and cultures. In recent times cosmopolitan has come to mean open-minded, in favour of globalisation, and well-travelled. But a cosmopolitan person today can also be seen as a member of a global elite that has constructed a world-order that works very well for its own interests, but not for the majority. The paradigm constructed by capitalist cosmopolitans can be seen to be universal but it is neither orderly nor harmonious. Kosmos is more complex and reduces capital to just one of many important factors.

The conceptual framework of this book obviously lies in the use of paradigms. Thomas Kuhn proposed a theory of scientific revolutions, or paradigm shifts, in the 1960s. He took ideas from social and political revolutions and explained in some detail how scientific change occurred in big shifts, such as from the mechanical world of Sir Isaac Newton to the relativist system of Albert Einstein.

Kuhn’s description of change is relevant to the huge societal paradigm shift now under way. He explained that old paradigms break down when problems arise that the old methods can’t solve, and facts appear that do not fit with the established big picture. Then new ideas are proposed, placing these difficulties in a new picture that makes some sense of them. Younger people, and a few old hands, adopt the new way of thinking. They do this more because the new way offers better prospects for the future of their field than because it is logically superior. Kuhn describes this process as more like conversion than conviction by evidence. Adoption of the new path is based mostly on faith or hope.

With more work by many people the new ideas get stronger and attract more followers. Many older advocates of the previous paradigm never accept the new way but eventually they die out and the new ideas become the accepted paradigm

Through the process of change from one paradigm to another serious communication problems often arise. Specific words come to mean different things to each camp. People talk about the same factors in different ways, and come to speak what are effectively different languages. Many of the old ideas survive, but in a different framework. Newtonian physics continues to be useful within Einstein’s much broader big picture.

As Thomas Kuhn argues, once the paradigm shift has been accomplished, scientists can then get back to normal science. This involves a lot of detailed work in confirming knowledge and extending and broadening it in small increments. Ideas that were previously considered contentious become the accepted wisdom and go unquestioned.

If the shift to a ‘kosmos paradigm’ is to happen it can be expected to follow this path. When people have built successful careers on the old ideas there is no point trying to logically convince them that they must adopt new thinking. They are unlikely to admit that their deep knowledge is no longer working, despite their claims of personal open-mindedness and strict commitment to logic and reason.

Citizens should also recognize that it is not enough to change perceptions in the particular field that interests them. Until the big picture changes they will always be fighting a losing battle. When the new paradigm is strong, progress can be made more easily in the many specific parts of the big picture.

A period of transition must start soon, and any such time of crisis and dramatic change is stressful. Dark days of paradigm failure have always preceded a big step forward based on a new paradigm. Once we are on the new path there will be great opportunities for engagement and success for entrepreneurs in the public, social and private sectors. The generation that takes the big opportunities now on offer could eclipse all previous ages in the scale and speed of change, and the benefits and personal satisfaction delivered by their efforts.

I will begin by outlining the major challenges that have arisen to undermine the capitalist paradigm. Then I follow with portraits of key social paradigms through history. These will serve to illustrate the way paradigms develop and the widely divergent paths humans have taken through history in their quest for better societies. I will explain how capitalism, born in Europe, came to dominate the planet. And then I will offer my own portrait of the ‘kosmos’ paradigm as a starting point for a discussion about the shape of the new order.

A range of outcomes ­­–– including deeply negative ones –– from the current set of crises is certainly possible. So there has never been a more critical moment for citizens to take united action to create the future. If the good and thoughtful don’t, we can be certain the bad and stupid people will. The creation of a new global paradigm can only be determined by the actions of individuals. The achievement of the kosmos paradigm requires political action.

Part One: Challenges to the Capitalist Paradigm

The capitalist paradigm has lost its usefulness as an explanation of current events and as a credible guide to a positive future. For a decade or more it has failed to deliver on its most basic promise - continuous material improvement in the lives of most people, particularly within the rich nations that generated its fundamental ideas.

This section briefly outlines some of the areas of life where new realities have arisen that undermine the capitalist paradigm. For simplicity’s sake these issues are considered separately, but clearly they all interrelate and demonstrate the pressing need for a new approach.

Work

Work is important to any economy, to individual meaning, and to the evolution of social norms and structures. The Ancient Greeks relied on slaves to do the hard and boring work while they busied themselves with more social and political activities, including fighting wars. Their main measure in judging each other’s worth was the degree of acceptance of the responsibilities of citizenship, not the commitment to the work ethic. But in the modern world both left and right wing politics promote work as the core to personal identity and social improvement. The left demand the creation of work as a source of income and security for workers. The right see work as the only legitimate way to earn the means to exist, if you are not already rich.

In recessions, the left wins popularity by driving government efforts to create jobs, and in better times leftist pressure for higher wages has pushed industry to introduce more mechanization and automation. The left was also able to argue for social income support on the basis that the system had failed to provide work. This had the benefit for capitalists that money flowed to people who would spend it immediately, stimulating demand.

Now the right is so dominant that this balance has been lost and the benefits of industry flow to the rich in ways that make the system unpopular and push it towards failure. The main aim of modern capitalists is to eliminate jobs while cutting support for the unemployed, based on the faith that more jobs will be created somewhere else and the system as whole will keep rolling along. This faith has arguably proved justified for a long time but is now starting to fail.

One issue is the sheer size of the global workforce relative to the work available. At the global level there is a vast supply of surplus labour in refugee camps, slums and prisons, reaching numbers of well over one hundred million people and climbing. Less obviously, rich nations have more non-workers pursuing worthless degrees in universities, millions more ex-workers in retirement (with the numbers growing very rapidly, particularly due to longer lives) and people in part time jobs or available as contractors with insufficient work. These people are not working because they are not required. No shortages result from their failure to produce.

Now technology is on track to make about half of all existing jobs obsolete, while those who have good jobs find that work is taking over their entire lives due to the power of electronic networks. A range of studies show that the automation of work is moving from tasks of repetitive manual labour to the elimination of much more complex white collar work. In the US, the Economic Report of the President to Congress in 2016 concluded that 62% of US jobs were likely to be automated in the medium term. The probability was higher the lower the skill level required, with workers earning less than $20 per hour having an 83% chance of losing their jobs to automation. The report also offered the usual platitudes about new work being created, but with little evidence to back that up.

A McKinsey report, based on a more detailed analysis, found that 45% of work could be automated using already tested technology, with more work to disappear as new technology is developed in the near future. Better machine ability to manage normal human language skills would be the basis for another 13% of jobs being at risk.

Beyond the fact that machines can do many tasks more cheaply than humans the trend towards global scale manufacturing also eliminates entire categories of jobs within specific nations. Australia in the 1960s had a thriving car manufacturing industry with many competing producers. After a series of expensive government plans to ‘save the car industry’ the production of cars has ceased, with implications for the Australian steel industry and other dependent producers. No amount of automation could make the production of cars viable in Australia.

Meanwhile, technology is making work a constant part of life for other employees who are expected to be responsive to demands at any time of the day or night. At the most extreme end of dedication to work, biological controls could be used to shape bodies and minds for the better performance of specific tasks. This could go well beyond drugs to aid concentration and surgery for more attractive bodies, to the genetic manipulation of children based on parental career expectations for them.

The claims that as low skill jobs get automated workers will move to higher skills, is not born out by evidence and those higher skilled jobs are also at risk of automation. The new industries create very few jobs. Some are aimed at getting existing workers to create value for companies such as Facebook, or to replace permanent, regulated jobs with casual, part-time, unregulated employment. This destruction of old industrial modes that have high government regulation to protect workers and consumers, by introducing technology-based means of avoiding those standards, has proved very successful.

There are already moves towards cutting income support for the unemployed if they do not engage in the gig economy to earn income, renting out rooms, tools, cars etc. The overriding reality, which neither the right or left of old politics accept, is that the work ethic is rapidly losing viability as the basis for self worth, for measuring social contribution, for distributing income, or as the basis of social order.

A large proportion of people will have long periods out of the workforce due to education or retirement. The amount of work available will decline to the point where working hours must be cut as tasks are shared. Failure to adapt will lead to unemployment creating huge social problems.

There are important implications for education and training. Learning for life, rather than career, can be expected to make a big come-back. Continuing rapid change should make broad competencies more popular than specific skills.The social sector can become more important as a means of creating meaning in life as work declines. It creates jobs, both paid and unpaid, while contributing benefits to society.

One policy response that has growing support in various countries is the payment of a basic income. Studies in India, New Zealand, Switzerland and elsewhere are pursuing this idea and experiments are generating positive outcomes. In India a trial found that the security generated by the receipt of a guaranteed basic income encouraged economic activity and produced many social benefits. People made rational choices on how best to use the money.

Broader studies are finding that, in properly functioning societies, simply giving poor people money achieves better results than setting up expensive support schemes managed by experts and overseen by extensive bureaucracies. This simplification of welfare, if enacted, would destroy those bureaucratic jobs