The Next Economy

So I started this blog out referring to Jeff Rubin's amazing book Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller Since then, I have referred a few times to 'the coming changes' without ever outlining what I believe those changes will be. I thought I would rectify that now.

What I am calling the 'Next Economy' is going to be shaped largely by three things: Climate Change, Peak Oil, and less concretely a public backlash against all things cheap and over-manufactured and flavorless.

Climate Change is now so widely accepted that the tables have turned; now people who doubt the effect of global warming are the ones being viewed as the tin-foil-hat wearing lunatics. The changes' most dramatic human impacts of this (for instance, as outlined in Cleo Paskal's book Global Warring) will largely involve the migration of large numbers of people away from areas where water becomes scarce, and where sea levels are rising. As a result, if you live in a desert – now would be a good time to move. And if you live somewhere like Southern Ontario, now would be a good time to invest in Real Estate.

Peak Oil is based on the increasingly accepted view that at least ½ of the oil there ever was has already been pumped out of the ground and burned. What is left, is the hard to get at/hard to refine oil like that which exists in the Tar Sands. That doesn't mean none of us will be able to get any gas in our cars in 5 years time, but it does mean that because the oil left in the ground costs so much more to extract – that the price of that gas is going to steadily climb. This will have predictable effects on our economy, and our way of life – especially considering that the average Caesar Salad travels around 2500 miles from farm to table.

Finally – this will all be shaped by a growing public backlash against the types of behaviors that have caused global warming and accelerated the arrival of peal oil. Wal Mart's 'warehouse on wheels' and it's endless shelves of cheap, disposable garbage that nobody needs. Tomatoes that feel and taste like racquetballs because they were picked under-ripe and chemically 'ripened' in a truck on the way to the store. Big box stores where nobody knows you, understands what you need, or particularly cares. Clothes whose price tag clearly indicate they must have been made in appalling working conditions – with possible child slaves.

This backlash has taken the form of an increased interest in shopping at local boutique stores, in growing vegetable gardens in the back yard, in taking public transit and in 'homesteading crafts' like knitting, sewing and preserving vegetables.

What is the next economy going to look like? Well for one it's going to be much more local than we have been used to. Almost everyone will be on the 100 mile diet, rather than just few hard core enthusiasts. Public Transit will be the preferred method of getting to and from work, and the nature of work will change. As the cost of overseas shipping skyrockets, more and more manufacturing industries are going to come back 'onshore', resulting in entire generations switching their vocations from barista or stock clerk in a big box store to craftsperson or factory worker.

Communities will get a lot more walkable as land uses intensify and diversify. Jeff Rubin says that 10,000,000 cars will come off the road. That means that if you own a home near a grocery store or transit route, your property will be worth a whole lot more than somewhere that can only be reached by car (or pick-up truck!) - unless you are far enough out to participate on the supply end of the aforementioned 100 mile diet.

People won't quibble any more about having a small shopping plaza open next to their suburban cul de sac - at least it will mean they won't have to drive anywhere for their bag of milk or their haircut. People will also have to get used to the meat packing plants and other 'less than pleasant' companies moving back to the city, after having been exiled to the country by a society that wanted less and less to do with where their food actually came from.

Will the future, though, be bleak in a world with paper butcher wrap instead of saran wrap (which is made of petroleum products) and all of us crammed into a limited number of biodiesel buses?

I don't think so, not for a minute. People are incredibly resourceful, and will find all sorts of creative ways of making money with their talents, of sharing their resources, of coming together as communities to help each other out, and of celebrating their collective victories.

The other day I got on an elevator with a well dressed man who was complaining that he had invested thousand of dollars in a snow blower, only to have no snow. “I was hoping to get outside and meet my neighbors for the second time this year as I offer to snow blow their driveways.” he remarked.

In the Next Economy, he will know his neighbors really well – because he will probably be trading that snow blowing service for homemade jam, or hand knitted mitts and a toque.

Greg Brown on his amazing record The Live One describes life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as one where “if you see someone stuck at the side of the road, you damn well better stop. People up there need each other,” he explains. “That's how you build community. All of this talk about intentional community is a bunch of baloney, people have to need each other.”

And that, will be the Next Economy in a nutshell.