You Were Warned

I recently saw an interview of noted futurist Alvin Toffler by Newt Gingrich on C-Span (http://www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=192676-1&template=4) Gingrich was discussing Toffler's new book, "Revolutionary Wealth". What struck me most was Gingrich's enthusiasm and interest in Toffler's ideas of the "prosumer economy" described by the NY Times review of Tofflers book as an economy "which involves unpaid work that nevertheless greatly increases quality of life; for example, cooking a lavish meal for friends or much of open-source computer coding." Hmmm. Let us try to fathom what attraction this idea might have to a conservative of Gingrich's disposition.

Could it be that there is a tacit recognition that there's going to be a lot less money to go around in the future? Could it be that there is an interest in persuading people that they are "wealthy" even though they are "money poor"? While I appreciate the gesture in that direction, I am suspicious of Gingrich's motives. For a long time now indices like the Swedish Standard of Living Survey have tried to calculate "well being" in ways other than material wealth. But for an economic conservative of Gingrich's disposition to suddenly take an interest in this kind of measurement of "wealth", invites skepticism and a little creative thinking. I think that the interest this has for economic conservatives is in finding ways to persuade people that their lives possess value over against an economy that is shrinking and extremely dysfunctional.

Economic conservatives like Gingrich know what the future holds. They know, for instance, that peak oil is going to have a devastating effect on the economy. They know, in addition, that the petrodollar hegemony is coming to an end. They know that they US is overstretched in its fiscal commitments (see the Coming Generational Storm). And they know that one of the primary functions of government is to assuage and control social rage. The appeal of Toffler's idea of revolutionary wealth, then, consists in its ability to rhetorically overturn the traditional measures of economic well being that the conservatives have long narrowly focused on, namely income and buying power. When income and buying power no longer matter because the dollar is destroyed by hyperinflation and that real wages put American workers on a par with their Chinese counterparts, the corporate rulers and their political operatives are going to have to find ways to persuade the angry masses that their condition is better than it really is. And that is the genius of Toffler's "revolutionary wealth". Wealth is found in the simple things in life: sunshine, leisure, spare time, all the things that money can't buy. See, you really are wealthy!