A Brave New World?
Maybe I was wrong back on October 13, 2008, when in a blog post entitled, “The New Prudence--Or Not,” I suggested that the tendency to conclude that the unremitting wave of economic turbulence would “change everything” was an overstatement. Reasoning from past examples of similar conventional wisdom, I concluded that sobriety in all its forms is often short-lived, born as it is of fear.
Two recent New York Times pieces suggest otherwise in a way that demands consideration. First, on March 7, 2009, Peter S. Goodman and Jack Healy, in “Job losses hint at vast remaking of the economy,” argue just what the title says; namely, that what is happening now is the leading edge of a complete reordering of economic life. “There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations. Firms are making strategic decisions that they don’t want to be in their [existing] businesses,” says John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia as quoted in the article.
Goodman and Healy argue from compelling data that things cannot be the same again; that, in effect, the jobs that have gone away are gone for good. These jobs are not relocating to Bangalore or Juarez as in the past, but are simply vanishing as those industries re-size to reflect reality.
In the second Times piece, Thomas Friedman on March 8, 2009, continues the theme by speculating that 2008 will be remembered in history as the year our insatiable desire to consume hit the wall along with our deteriorating climate. Using Paul Gilding’s term, “The Great Disruption,” Friedman sees ahead a new economics based on an as yet undeveloped new paradigm of sustainable growth. And countries will either opt in or out based on how they respond to what is happening now. Opting in, to Friedman, would be to use the stimulus billions to remake our production model around clean and renewable sourcing.
Was my semi-cynical October 2008 viewpoint wrong? Maybe not--history is on that side. But individuals and organizations alike should begin pondering the implications of the alternative. Maybe we really are witnessing the death scene of an old model and the violent birth of something different. What are the wisest choices given that possibility?