What the new economy will be like

The next economic paradigm is really pretty obvious but it is two-pronged:

One prong is green, sustainable, ecological, organic lifestyle products and services.  These are not going away.  Anything seen as beneficial to the environment and/or with authentic social value will gather support. 

The concept of "growth" itself is going to shift.  “Growth” is going to shift from the Reagan-Clinton-Bush concept of laissez faire "free market" for the wealthy, democracy only for the wealthy; and, "globalization" for the wealthy; to, "what is for the highest good and the highest good of everyone here?"

In other words, as money becomes more scarce, consumer decisions will go back to being made on human values. 

We can no longer invest in anything and everything, in the “new” just because it’s new.  1950s consumerism was highly correlated with filling an empty place inside us with the substitute of material goods.

Consumers will shift from filling our homes with things we barely need to focus on quality food, sustainable lifestyle items and personal-spiritual growth cultural activity.  We reached the "limits of growth" in outer, external terms but there is no end to inner growth.

The second prong is world government and world regulation based on mutually enjoyable and beneficial relationships, not competition. This is nothing less than a shift from a masculine mindset to a female mindset.  Commerce probably has to be redone from the bottom up and starting with a virtually blank page:  only those orgs that have healthy group process and who grow organically in some sense of the word. 

Ultimately this relational group process will take hold on national and international bases.  World regulations will be determined democratically for all nations who wish to participate. 

That's it!  I see no alternative!  What else could be sustainable?  There is nothing else that needs to be invented; we had it all in the early 1970s.  Now it's all about the courage to DO it. 

I heard the negative masculine bias of the Reagan-Clinton-Bush "free market" accurately described yesterday:  It was the law of the Jungle, and dog-eat-dog, in a suit and tie.

What replaces this will be a more womanly relational approach to group process. 

When the economy gets going again, it will not be at the same inflated pace nor with the same high level of monetization.  That's gone.  It was not sustainable and fictitious.  It was a "rob Peter to Pay Paul" bubble, the last ten years at least. 

Many if not most succeeding businesses will be run by consensus and teamwork, not by a corporate competitive hierarchy.

One expert on changing the cultural engine, changing the economic engine of a mainstream culture, is Carroll Quigley, one of Bill Clinton's most admired college teachers.  Don't Google him; you'll get sidetracked into his lesser contributions.  What you want is his Evolution of Civilizations.  See attached doc for a good overview of this topic.  This is where the good language is for getting from where we are to building healthy replacement cultures. 

Holistic Chambers of Commerce, a movement I'm involved in are strong catalysts now for identifying, nurturing, motivating, educating and inspiring green-holistic-alternative-spiritual entrepreneurs. 

On Marketplace radio they said "the economy will not get going again until you see your neighbors buying new cars again."  This is short-sighted.  The 1950s consumer paradigm is not coming back.  We already have way too many cars, because of too many trips needed, because of too much fracturing of healthy local communities of natural interest. 

The new economy will be built locally by neighbors putting their income into sustainable homes, gardens, farms, businesses and intentional communities. 

My great hope here is after Obama does eight years, he will be encouraged to become the first World President.  To get there he has to start right away moving to seeing the main problem:  where there is no healthy vision of a positive future, the people perish.  The United Nations either has to be RADICALLY reformed or we have to start over on a world government body. 

Love to hear your comments.

Bruce Dickson  ~  ToolsThatHeal.com  *  HealingCoach.org  *  SelfHealing101.net