The Archdruid Report
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009I strongly recommend this blog – covering upcoming civilization problems, economy, finance, spirituality, illusion, peak oil – The Archdruid Report.
John Michael Greer
The Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), John Michael Greer has been active in the alternative spirituality movement for more than 25 years, and is the author of more than twenty books, including “The Druidry Handbook” (Weiser, 2006) and “The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age” (New Society, 2008). He lives in Cumberland, Maryland.
The consequence of all this pyramid building is that there are not enough goods and services on Earth to equal, at current prices, more than a small percentage of the face value of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other fiscal exotica now in circulation.
Over the longer term, on the other hand, it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of paper assets now in circulation, whatever the currency in which they’re denominated, will lose essentially all their value.
How the trajectory will unfold is anyone’s guess, but the possibility that we may soon see sharp declines in the value of the dollar, and of dollar-denominated paper assets, probably should not be ignored, and cashing in abstract representations of wealth for things of more enduring value might well belong high on the list of sensible preparations for the future.
You can find a lot of yin/yang thinking in his writings.
political power begins with raw violence and evolves toward progressively more subtle means of suasion
And this is author’s practical advice what to do to prepare for the coming times:
My advice remains what it’s always been — concentrate on acquiring skills, and the basic tools needed to put them to work. My point is simply that hoarding cash, or other forms of paper wealth, may well become even less useful than hoarding concrete things.
Other interesting reactions from articles’ comments
My guess is that the total amount of energy extracted from fossil fuels in our age is equal to all the muscular energy exerted by human beings in all the ages leading up to ours. Remember that when a planeload of tourists fly from Los Angeles to Egypt to see the Great Pyramid, they use as much energy as it took to build the Great Pyramid in the first place.
I’ve chosen to participate in the abstract money games that structure life in late industrial society, as there are certain things I want to do and certain resources I value that would be out of reach if I was a hermit, or otherwise living outside the money economy. I don’t take those games seriously; I use them because for certain things, they’re the only game in town just now. Their raw absurdity is simply another detail.
It’s not necessary to stop using money to get out from under the spell that makes people think it’s the same thing as wealth; just treat it as a tool, and remember that its only value is the willingness of other people to take it in exchange.
There’s a great passage in one of Schumacher’s books about that moment of insight where one realizes one’s teachers don’t actually know what they’re talking about. That ought to happen much more often in economics classrooms than it does.
It’s a mistake to chalk up to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity.
When an accountant discovers that the till doesn’t balance, she checks her figures, finds the error, and corrects it. When an economist discovers that the till doesn’t balance, he invents a theory to explain why it shouldn’t balance. There’s no question in my mind which of the two is the useful response.
