The documentary "The World of Money" | capitalist global economic growth has reached its limits
Opening
In the 1950s, a mantra of "upstairs and downstairs, electric lights and telephones; ploughing land without cattle, lighting lamps without oil" recorded the general yearning of our people for the future society at that time.
In 1967, the French writer J. Schulbert J. Servan-Schreiber, who published the world-famous bestseller The American Challenge, predicted the dystopian society of The American in the post-industrial era after 2000:
At that time, time and space will not be a barrier to communication, people's income gap will narrow, computers will liberate all mankind, "only 4 days a week, only 7 hours a day." There will be 39 working weeks and 13 holiday weeks in a year... All of this will happen in a generation. ”
Today, in 2021, looking back at the past and examining the present, young people in China and even the world seem to be involved in a multiple internal friction of knowledge, labor, wealth, and spirit.
What has already been achieved? What's the opposite? Is today's world the way we once wished it would be? Where will the world go in the future? Will life get better? To what extent can individual anxiety be cured? The traditional concept of economic growth is being questioned, but what should capitalism look like in the new era?
This question is very helpful for understanding the current environment and building a perception of the world.
Many scholars believe that the capitalist economic development model has entered an inflection point, and the 200-year industrial revolution is faltering towards the end:
The world's major economies are mired in unprecedented economic stagnation. Industrial countries that have long driven global economic growth in the past have plunged their economies into downturns and stagnation after the 2008 financial crisis;
The gap between rich and poor is getting worse. The wealth of the world's top 62 rich people is equivalent to the wealth of 3.6 billion extreme poor people combined. The rich are using the vast wealth in their hands to influence the future of their countries;
High unemployment spreads across Europe, with people marching and rallying in protest;
Economic fraud, corruption, rampant economic crimes led by multinational enterprises, and frequent cases of harm to the public and environmental interests;
All of these phenomena are moving closer to one problem: global economic growth is likely to be approaching its limits.
discuss
1. Will the world economy continue to grow as it has in the past?
At the end of the 18th century, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was born, laying the theoretical foundation for a growth-based capitalist economy.
"When people pursue their own interests, the invisible hand guides society to prosperity"
The world economy has continued to grow for 240 years, but Adam Smith's native Britain, the birthplace of capitalism, is now mired in the challenge of high unemployment: the number of unemployed and homeless young people has risen sharply, and a well-educated, or skilled workforce is struggling to find long-term stable jobs. This status quo was unthinkable in the past. "Insufficient impetus for the British economy", "Brexit", "a fundamental, not a temporary phenomenon" are the answers given by experts.
The world economy has entered an unprecedented period of stagnation. Negative economic growth and greater risks of deflation than inflation have almost never occurred in the last few hundred or even thousands of years. The most intuitive example is that from the middle of the 20th century, the global economy, although occasionally sluggish, grew rapidly overall. Until the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the global economy underwent major changes, the economies of Japan and South Korea stagnated, and the economies of many European countries had negative economic growth.
Long-term stagnation or recession – rising unemployment – long-term unemployment leading to pessimism and depression – consumption decreases
Scarily, the measures taken in response to the 2008 economic crisis did not seem to have been very effective. The G7 Group's quantitative easing policies: cutting interest rates to 0%, buying assets in large quantities, and increasing monetary reserves are not a recipe for traditional economic theory. The world we live in has become more complex than in the past, and the "invisible hand" is losing its impetus.
quantitative easing:
Lower interest rates – lower deposit rates, higher lending rates – higher amounts of money in circulation – more investment and consumption by businesses and individuals
2. World economic growth is likely to have reached its limits
Tim Jackson, an economist who studies the history of human economic development: Capitalism has achieved sustained growth through expansion, and now it seems that capitalism has expanded to some extent on the limited resources of the earth. People realize that there is a limit to everything, and there are limits to resources, environment, society, and economic development. He believes that it is necessary to break the fixed trend of sustained economic growth in the past, and we must not blindly demand growth, but adjust the economic structure and allow for intermittent economic growth.
Capitalist Expansionary Logic:
Domestic development (subject to domestic resources and the degree of industrial development) - reaching the peak of domestic development - expanding territory, foreign investment and trade - access to cheap labor, broader markets - further economic growth - reaching the limits of global trade - looking for new areas of expansion: financial markets - the financial markets - the financial market growth reached the upper limit and no longer grows
Economist and social theorist Jacques Attally: Capitalism is inherently self-centered, but it is an illusion to think of me first. If capitalism cannot guarantee the popular and public interests, it is not far from decay. Democratic capitalism is the optimal solution, it is a "positive economy" that can largely solve problems involving population, debt, and the environment for the benefit of future generations.
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: "Super capitalism" means high-speed capitalism. The world is closely connected, and the development of science and technology has made things more efficient, product quality improved, and prices have dropped. Everyone is seeking to maximize benefits, better products, services, higher share value has become the basis for the survival of the enterprise. Under this logic, capitalism will return us to the natural state of the weak and the strong, natural selection, and survival of the fittest.
There are two ways of understanding growth, one is to make more things, to spend more resources on making goods and services, so that people will continue to consume, but this way is not sustainable; the other way of understanding is related to the ability and capacity of the economy, this growth model is linked to capacity, involving the environment, public health, education and other things related to the public interest. We need to shift our mindset to promote sustainable economic and planetary development.
3. A new breakthrough in world economic growth
Economist Joseph Schumpeter proposed the concept of creative destruction: describing the destructive blow of emerging industries to traditional industries. The constant destruction of old things by new things is the key to economic growth.
Creative destruction
Economic development is slow – new business ideas are being proposed – commercial products are more convenient and cheaper – demand is increasing – old things are being phased out – imitations are increasing – and profits across the industry are decreasing
Robert Gordon, an authoritative expert in macroeconomics: Scientific and technological innovation is the key to getting out of the economic stagnation period.
The sharing economy is also subverting conventional wisdom through a new economic model: people no longer create profits by making products, but by sharing resources and services. Such as Airbnb, Uber and so on.
Economic and social theorist and Merck's economic adviser Jeremy Rifkin: In the sharing economy, more and more everyday, market-transcendent, profit-transcendent economic behavior is produced and shared, it is a new type of economy, but it is not counted in GDP. It was the new economic system after capitalism and socialism. Capitalism will not disappear, but it will soon cease to be authoritative.
Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, who has been working to level the playing field:
Capitalism should make all workers successful, rather than selectively rewarding executives and other wealthy people. Capitalism puts wealth in the hands of a few and shows amazing creativity, but it also causes great suffering to people. He is trying to reinvent capitalism, piloting a project in Uruguay's largest glass factory: an employee-managed company. 200 workers, no managers, no CEOs, each of whom is involved in the management of the company. There are currently 40 employee management companies in Uruguay, many in core industries.
Dan Price, CEO of Seattle Gravity Payments, deconstructed his $1 million annual salary and doubled the salaries of the bottom employees. The company's profits doubled in a year.
……
epilogue
Adam Smith said that even a man who is considered to be extremely selfish must have some nature in his talents, and empathy is one of them.
Today, individualism seems to be at the heart of our economic and political behavior, and that's because we've developed institutions to overcome the more natural group instincts in our bodies. Self-centeredness has changed from evil to virtue, and those who give their lives to help others, those who were once considered heroes or holy, are now said to suffer from "diseases that please others."
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory constructs a system of self-esteem, in which he expresses in the form of a pyramid that the needs at the top of human beings are the needs of self-actualization.
But perhaps a different theory can be adopted, and the Australian psychiatrist Victor Frankl argued at about the same time as Maslow's theory that the ultimate ideal of human beings should be self-transcendence, and that one must go beyond the need for narrow self-concentration, and by forgetting oneself and dedicating oneself, ignoring oneself and beginning to pay attention to the outside world, one can become a complete person. Self-actualization as a direct pursuit of goals will eventually backfire.
If over the past few decades had been emphasized frankl's theories rather than those of Maslow and other humanistic psychologists, contemporary cultures would have been very different. The attitudes, values and beliefs of all of us will be a different story.
The impact of the world on us is far beyond what most people realize. It's almost impossible to change the environment, but know that anyone who wants to be proficient in an activity must first know its tools and rules. Therefore, since it is inevitable to live in the present moment, understanding the present moment from all possible aspects is one of the best ways to alleviate anxiety.