Progress invariably linked to the economy

Progress, a recent meeting in Melbourne seemed to agree, was invariably linked to our economy.

A $14 trillion debt threatens to
 unravel the U.S. economy.

Nothing, not even an idea, could be advanced, it was noddingly agreed, until it could be demonstrated that what was proposed would financially enrich the community, or particularly, some individuals.

Money followed barter and is one of civilization’s earliest inventions and its implications have troubled us ever since as his or her success has long been measured by the financial capital they controlled or could influence.

However, while there is no denying the power of such capital, it is always social capital that is overlooked and rarely valued.

With the world locked onto a trajectory that will see us progress into damnably difficult times in which financial capital will be of little value and social capital will have values never seen before, certainly in modern times, or understood.

In times past, and in some countries, your affluence was measured by the size of your woodpile, but as we venture into circumstances unknown, affluence will be more about your social network than the size of your woodpile, although that would undoubtedly be helpful.

The adage suggesting it is who you know rather than what you know is what matters will become increasingly important, but for reasons different to those that have added meat to the adage.

Finding and securing affluence in society as we know and understand it was linked, sometimes to knowledge in a chosen field, but frequently from links within the same social stratum – nepotism was at play.

Rather than preferential treatment for a few, the community of tomorrow should be interwoven, appreciate and work for equality and accept that real wealth is in social capital and not in accumulated goods or bigger bank balances.

So again it will be about who you know, but in this case it will be your neighbours and your immediate community and, importantly, what they know about living in a low-energy and sustainable way.

It’s not about money rather, it’s about a rich social capital in which the wealth of the community will be measured by the fertility of relationships.

America presently faces a dilemma evolving from a dynamic built around materialism, accumulation, individualism and inequality and, subsequently, is troubled by a US$14 trillion public debt.

America has, along with most of the developed world, enriched itself courtesy of easily accessible, cheap and finite fossil fuels, but now the debt is being called in and the country is unable, it appears, to erode its arrears.

Most other countries are in a similar position, having used nature’s bounty for frivolities, rather than building tight-knit, resourceful, self-reliant communities that put social capital ahead of the rude, and often violent, scramble for economic riches.