The great shift is happening now, with the pandemic and lockdown, the great collapse, decay and then rebirth, and it may come overnight. And the future will be in some places unrecognizable or the opposite of the past few decades, since WW2. We have had our ups and downs since that war, but what we are going through now is perhaps a tsunami by comparison. This is a global wave of change that usually only something like a world war or pandemic might bring. And this applies to multiple levels of existence
Economic/Financial
The above is one of the most informative video interviews I’ve seen this week on the current state of the global economic situation as well as the outlook going forward. I highly recommend listening to these veterans of the financial sector revealing their insights. More than one veteran economist that I have listened to this week, as we approach our third month into the pandemic and lockdown, is saying that the current global financial monetary system and entire Keynesian house of cards, is due to collapse at the slightest breath of fresh air right now. Someone has opened the door and an overdraught has blown up to cause some shudders in the global modern monetary theory. It’s all happening in real time as I write this, as new information emerges and as history plays itself out. It’s unfolding before our eyes more hypnotically than a Hollywood blockbuster about a Hollywood mogul who rises to success and then crashes, and burns, all in a sub-plot to a main event which is a global historic 100 year collapse of one empire and rise of another. Blockbuster stuff right there. Labels like the Great Depression 2.0 might be heard in circles of late. Volumes can be said about the economic collapse alone, which you can listen to on the Youtube link for example.
Political
And of course this will all coincide not only with the replacement of the type of currency (digital not paper) but also the economic theory in much of its entirety. Old systems will be redundant as far as monetary policy is concerned. This change is not the short change but the long one. Every century or so we get them. A fiat currency has only ever lasted as a dominant power for a century or so. Ask the British, the French, Spanish, many have had a go running the currency of the day.
Today the Fed seem to be a law unto themselves and thus may represent the hidden hand in the global power plays going down...or up, as the wheel of fortune appears to dictate. But the other powers that are in flux now are those after global hegemony or domination. The USA have had their day, and a new day dawns some say, rising in the east. Enter the dragon, to use a phrase made famous by one of the masters to have walked this planet. And everyone wants to be a master, even being a millionaire is too passe nowadays. While USA has played that role since WW2, the current global tsunami may cause enough chop to tilt the tables politically because those tables are connected to the finance tables too.
Tech
And the financial part of the revolution may well be fueled by the tech revolution emerging now. The fourth industrial revolution, it’s being called. The IOT internet of things, the connectivity with 5G, microchipping IDs and digital wallets, and every aspect of life. We will become one of the things being connected, and the central intelligence will be able to monitor us all like bees in a Hive, and keep us all hive minded. Well, the nation that is first mover in the tech race will invariably be able to take the lead in the coming power grab as the chips fall where they may after this current global collapse. The tech race will determine who becomes the one to write the history books.
And blockchain technology and digital currency are the new innovation to note here too. All banks will use it. All nations will launch their digital currency, and it sounds like China is a step ahead in that regard, certainly to USA. Bitcoin is the dark horse in the race, the outsider, long shot, wild card. It appears to have some potential as a store of value, means of transaction, fungibility (1 bitcoin is like another), and many of the qualities of a hard money, ironically since it’s quite "etheric" or insubstantial materially speaking. Nevertheless, there it is – an inconceivable concept a generation ago. And bitcoin will always be the historic first mover when it comes to digital currency, so it may attain legendary status and hold value in the medium to long term just on that alone. But it will not be the only or even the best digital currency in time to come, which is fine. If we have come this far already, imagine the next generation stuff on the way, you futurists.
psychological/social/societal
Volumes can be written about the psychological ramifications of the current time of the great transformation. We may be obliged to undergo great challenges as a civilization, a planet, a country and an individual. On all levels, as I said initially, humanity will change, will be changed by forces of inevitable and irresistible change. And some people struggle with change. They are not as adaptable, they may bear more of the brunt of the change than we do, they may not survive. If entire political and financial paradigms and parties and ideologies and borders may shift now, this kind of tsunami in undoubtedly going to cause collateral damage of historic proportions.
And society is made up of individuals; a hive may look like quite a swarm but each one is a person here, like you or I with the same feelings, and some of us will bear the brunt. Even some of the middle class, who psychologically are not hardened to the austerities that may come form this collapse. They may crack in greater numbers. The inherently poor nations have always borne the brunt and their shift down the ladder may be relatively less further to fall, being so near the bottom already. Not that this makes it any less relevant. It’s just that the middle class, you and I, the educated who are familiar with earning a decent living in the capitalist system for decades now, if not for our lifetime, we are perhaps less prepared for the bottom falling out of the current system. So mentally society is already taking strain under the lockdown as I write this, at the initial stages of the Great Collapse.
In other words on one level or another, we will all be feeling the transformation of our lives on the planet, like seldom before in our lifetimes. And we need to be prepared right now. This could be the big one. In part 2 next time, I will mention some of the other levels on which we may be feeling the shift as a society.