David Graeber - Bürokratie

«Jeder dritte Job ist sinnlos»

Der amerikanische Anthropologe David Graeber setzt sich in seinem neuen Buch mit der Bürokratie auseinander. Sein Befund: Vieles ist überflüssig und gehört eliminiert.

Gratulation zu Ihrer Kritik an der Bürokratie – Sie treffen einen Nerv.
Oh, haben Sie das Buch gelesen?

Ja, mit Überraschung. Eine Kritik an der ausufernden Bürokratie von einem Linken, normalerweise kommt diese Kritik von rechts.
Das hab ich auch gehört. Vergangene Woche wurde ich auf Friedrich August von Hayek hingewiesen, er soll ein früher Warner vor der ausufernden Bürokratie gewesen sein.

«Ich wurde erst nicht zum Professor promoviert, weil ich meine Zeit dafür verwendete, Bücher zu schreiben, statt sie mit administrativen Auf­gaben zu verplempern.»

Wie viel Zeit benötigt denn ein Professor der London School of Economics täglich für die Administration?
Vielleicht eine Stunde, das reicht. Ich bin hier glücklich, weil ich mein Leben so organisieren kann, dass möglichst wenig Administratives anfällt. Das war für mich an der Goldsmith University, wo ich vorher tätig war, ein Nachteil. Ich wurde dort nicht zum Professor promoviert, weil ich meine Zeit lieber dafür verwendete, Bücher zu schreiben und zu lehren, statt sie mit administrativen Auf­gaben zu verplempern.

Der administrative Anteil hat heute in fast allen Bürojobs zugenommen.
Leider, ja. Das zwingt die Leute, bei der Arbeit mehr zu verwalten, statt kreativ zu arbeiten. Es gibt viele Jobs, in denen man rund die Hälfte der Zeit damit verbringt, zu beurteilen, was man tut, statt etwas Nützliches zu tun.

Die Tools dazu wurden verfeinert und heissen heute Auditing, Benchmarking, ISO-Norm, Kostenanalyse, Qualitätsmanagement . . .
Eine Katastrophe! Man sollte das alles eliminieren, denn das meiste ist Zeitverschwendung. Vieles gehört in die Kategorie der «Bullshit-Jobs», die ich in einem Essay beschrieben habe. Viele verrichten im Bürojob heute Tätigkeiten, um den Tag zu füllen. Sie kommen mir vor wie Geschirrwäscher, bei denen der Chef vorbeikommt, wenn kein Geschirr dreckig ist. Dann machen sie irgendetwas, um beschäftigt zu wirken. Was denken Sie, wie hoch in Grossbritannien der Anteil jener ist, die ihre Arbeit für sinnlos halten?

«Es gibt viele Jobs, in denen man rund die Hälfte der Zeit damit verbringt, zu beurteilen, was man tut, statt etwas Nützliches zu tun.»

Jeder Zehnte?
Deutlich mehr. Nach einer umfassenden Untersuchung hält heute in Grossbritannien jeder Dritte seinen Job für sinnlos, weitere 19 Prozent sind sich nicht sicher, ob er für etwas nützlich ist. Ich denke, die Zweifel sind berechtigt. Wenn ich jene wegzähle, deren Tätigkeit offensichtlich etwas nutzt, Krankenpflegerinnen, Busfahrer, Reparateure – dann muss man vermuten, dass gegen 40 Prozent der übrigen Beschäftigten eine sinnlose Tätigkeit verrichten.

Die alte Form der Bürokratie hat Franz Kafka in seinem Roman «Der Prozess» beschrieben: einen langen Korridor mit geschlossenen ­Bürotüren auf beiden Seiten, die sich nur öffneten, wenn Akten hineingereicht wurden. Inzwischen ist die Verwaltung digitalisiert –und damit auch effizienter?
In der Tat war diese Hoffnung mit der Digitalisierung verbunden. Aber das Gegenteil ist eingetroffen, die Leute brauchen mehr Zeit dafür. Man hoffte ja nach dem Untergang der Sowjetunion auch, dass alles einfacher würde, die Menschen endlich weniger Schlange stehen müssten. Stattdessen nahm in Russland die Zahl der Beamten in den Neunzigerjahren um 25 Prozent zu.

 «Die Bürokratie geht von der Utopie eines perfekten Regelwerks aus, an das sich die Menschen halten. Aber die Menschen verhalten sich nicht freiwillig so.»

Sie ziehen daraus den Schluss, dass die Bürokratie auf alle Systeme übergreift?
Zweifellos. Die Bürokratie geht von der Utopie eines perfekten Regelwerks aus, an das sich die Menschen halten. Davon träumen die Bürokratien in allen Systemen. Aber die Menschen verhalten sich nicht freiwillig so, deshalb wird die Durchsetzung der Regeln mittels Repression erzwungen, erst mit Bussen, Arbeitsplatzverlust und ähnlichem – im Extremfall bis zum Gulag im Kommunismus.

Wichtigster Träger der Bürokratie ist das mittlere Management. Verrichtet es seine bürokratischen Aufgaben aus Leidenschaft, oder ist es dazu gezwungen?
Ich denke, es war gezwungen. Man fühlt sich ja elend, wenn man überzeugt ist, dass ein Grossteil der eigenen Tätigkeit sinnlos ist. Aber irgendwann wurde Bürokratie im mittleren Management dann auch zur Leidenschaft und mobilisierte Energien: Jeder wollte mehr Mitarbeiter und grössere Stäbe haben. Das lenkt wohl von der grossen Leere ab.

«Um eine sogenannte deregulierte Wirtschaft durchzusetzen, grössere Vertragsfreiheit, braucht es offenbar mehr Regulierung – das ist das Paradox.»

In London begann die grosse Deregulierung Ende der Siebzigerjahre unter Premierminister Edward Heath, danach kam Margaret Thatcher, dann der Big Bang auf dem Finanzplatz. Inzwischen ist alles wieder neu reguliert?
Es wurde nie wirklich dereguliert, es wurde bloss die regulatorische Struktur verändert. Um eine sogenannte deregulierte Wirtschaft durchzusetzen, grössere Vertragsfreiheit, braucht es offenbar mehr Regulierung – das ist das Paradox.

Je freier der Markt, desto grösser die Regulierung?
Das scheint so, ja. Wobei ich es anders sagen würde: Je freier sie sagen, dass der Markt sei, umso mehr wird reguliert. Die Wirkung kann dabei völlig unterschiedlich sein: In den USA etwa führte die Deregulierung der Telekommunikation dazu, dass es danach statt wenige grosse Oligopolisten einen regulierten Wettbewerb mittelgrosser Firmen gab. Im Finanzbereich war es genau umgekehrt: Statt ­eines regulierten Wettbewerbs zwischen mittelgrossen Firmen gibt es heute wenige grosse Oligopolisten. Deregulierung sorgt offenbar dafür, dass jene profitieren, die ihre andere Vorstellung von Regulierung durchbringen.

Seit der Finanzkrise 2008 wird der ­Bankensektor stärker reguliert. Das scheint nützlich, um eine neue Krise zu verhindern.
Das sehe ich nicht so. Wir sollten diesem Gerede von der Deregulierung nicht trauen, es war vorher und nachher viel Regulierung. Der Bankensektor lebt davon. Ein Grossteil der Gewinne, die gemacht werden, entsteht durch staatliche Regulierung. Vor der Finanzkrise habe ich eine Jahresrechnung von J.P. Morgan Chase untersucht – es zeigte sich, dass rund 60 Prozent des Gewinns aus Gebühren, Ab­gaben und Bussen stammten.

«Das Internet ist eine Realität wie die Schwerkraft, da mache ich mir keine Gedanken, ob nun die  Vor- oder Nachteile überwiegen.»

Die deutsche Reichspost galt mit ihrer ­damaligen Postzustellung bis zu sechsmal am Tag für Bürokraten aller Länder als Modell einer effizienten Organisation. Auch Lenin bewunderte sie, sah sie als Vorbild für eine revolutionäre Organisation. Aber auch der Anarchist Kropotkin war von diesem Modell sehr angetan, weil sich die ­Postorganisationen weltweit vernetzten, ohne auf Staaten angewiesen zu sein.
Ja, das hat ihn fasziniert – eine internationale ­Vernetzung, ohne dass jemand kommandiert.

Ähnlich wie das Internet heute?
Es gibt in der Tat eine Parallele in der Entwicklung logistischer Netze. Sie entstehen meist im Zusammenhang mit dem Militär, danach gehen sie in die Privatwirtschaft über. Die Nutzer kommen auf den Geschmack, und schliesslich wird das gesamte Netz dazu verwendet, die Leute auszuspionieren und mit unliebsamem Spam zu fluten. Das Internet ist letztlich eine Kombination aus Post, Bibliothek und Handelsplatz.

Überwiegt bei Ihnen die Freude über die neuen Kommunikationsmittel – rasch, ­interaktiv, sozial vernetzt – oder die ­Befürchtung möglicher Gefahren wie Datenüberflutung, Shitstorm, Mobbing?
Das Internet ist eine Realität wie die Schwerkraft, da mache ich mir keine Gedanken, ob nun die Vor- oder Nachteile überwiegen.

Das erfolgreichste Wachstumsmodell in den vergangenen Jahren war China, ­gleichzeitig aber auch ein neuer Höhepunkt von ­Bürokratie. Es gibt dort kaum eine Firma, die an den Wänden ihrer Büros nicht eine staatliche Auszeichnung hängen hat.
Wir haben bis heute erst wenig verstanden, was genau in China passiert. Natürlich verläuft diese Modernisierung sehr bürokratisch und autoritär, aber in der südlichen Hemisphäre sehen viele das chinesische Modell als Alternative zur westlichen Entwicklung. Ich halte das für falsch. Ich sehe den Schlüssel zum Verständnis der chinesischen Bürokratie vielmehr in der Angst der Machthaber, die Kontrolle könnte ihnen entgleiten. In China gibt es jedes Jahr Tausende lokale Aufstände und Unruhen – jeden Tag passiert irgendwo etwas. Die Macht­haber regieren und verwalten in ständiger Angst vor unberechenbaren Reaktionen der Bevölkerung, das lässt sich nicht mit Frankreich, Deutschland oder den USA vergleichen.

«Der Sprache geht es ähnlich. Sie hat klare Regeln, ändert sich aber laufend. Den Leuten ist es schlicht zu langweilig, sich immer an die Regeln zu halten.»

In Ihrem Buch gehen Sie auch auf Spiele ein und deren Verhältnis zur Bürokratie. «Play» und «Game» unterscheiden sich im ­englischen Sprachgebrauch wesentlich: Play ist freies Spiel der Fantasie, möglichst ohne Regeln – Game begrenzt die Fantasie durch klare, bürokratisch erlassene Regeln.
In vielen Sprachen gibt es diese Unterscheidung nicht, aber sie scheint mir wichtig. Play ist pures Spielen, totale Improvisation, bei der alles möglich ist. Das ist für den Moment wunderbar, aber wird rasch langweilig. Interessant bleibt es nur, wenn es zum Game wird, Regeln eingeführt werden, die begrenzen allerdings auch die Fantasie. Kinder verbringen in einem gewissen Alter beim Spielen rund die Hälfte der Zeit damit, klare Regeln zu definieren.

Wenn Kinder sehr klein sind, akzeptieren sie keine Regeln.
Sobald sie den Sinn des Spiels erkannt haben, schon. Der Sprache geht es ähnlich. Sie hat klare Regeln, ändert sich aber laufend durch ihren spielerischen Gebrauch im Alltag. Den Leuten ist es schlicht zu langweilig, sich immer an die Regeln zu halten. Die Sprachregeln haben deshalb etwas Willkürliches und zugleich Moralisches, weil sie die Regeln in einem bestimmten historischen Zeitpunkt für allgemeingültig erklären und ihre Verletzung als falsch. Wäre die Regelung zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erfolgt, würden andere Regeln gelten.

Sie haben auch Comichelden in ihrem ­Verhältnis von freier Fantasie und klaren Regeln untersucht.
Ja, das mache ich gern. Arbeit soll ja auch mit Spass verbunden sein, und inzwischen habe ich viel Freiheit bei der Wahl meiner Forschungsobjekte. Ich habe ja auch die Kultserie «Buffy, the Vampire Slayer» («Im Bann der Dämonen») untersucht und kam zum Schluss, dass die Produzenten dieser ­Serie sich nicht bewusst waren, wie subversiv ihre ­Serie war.

«Die Rechte ist überzeugt, dass Ordnung stets durch Gewalt entsteht – so erklärt sich auch diese seltsame Affinität zwischen Verbrechern, Faschisten und Polizisten.»

Der einstige Comicheld Batman steht für strenge Regeln. Sein Thema scheint aktuell, dafür spricht die Neuverfilmung.
Die Figur Batman ist Opfer einer Verletzung der ­Regeln. Batman wächst nach dem Mord an seinen Eltern als Waise auf und rächt als Erwachsener dieses Unrecht. Er bricht die Regeln, um die Geltung der Regeln wiederherzustellen. Es geht hier um das Prinzip der Souveränität, mit dem sich Carl Schmitt und Walter Benjamin, aber auch Linke wie Antonio Negri beschäftigten: Verfassung und Gesetz entstehen meist nach Revolutionen, Regeln durch einen Regelbruch. Politik ist das Handwerk, mit diesem Paradox umzugehen. Die Rechte ist überzeugt, dass Ordnung stets durch Gewalt entsteht – so erklärt sich auch diese seltsame Affinität zwischen Verbrechern, Faschisten und Polizisten. Sie sprechen dieselbe Sprache und verstehen sich.

Was ist mit den Simpsons? Strenge Verfechter der Regeln sind sie nicht, eher Ironiker.
Das ist eine der spielerischsten Konstruktionen von Figuren, deshalb ebenfalls sehr erfolgreich. Das Play-Prinzip hat sich stets gut gehalten. Aber es reicht nicht. Der Schriftsteller Robert Frost hat es so erklärt: «Freie Verse schreiben ist wie Tennis- spielen ohne Netz.»

(Tages-Anzeiger)

(Erstellt: 26.02.2016, 23:13 Uhr)

A Brave New Dystopia

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/2011_a_brave_new_dystopia_20101227/

Posted on Dec 27, 2010

By Chris Hedges

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from "Brave New World" to "1984." The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley's feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled. 

Orwell, as Neil Postman wrote, warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley, Postman noted, warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse. 

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake," Orwell wrote in "1984."  "We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" in his book "Democracy Incorporated" to describe our political system. It is a term that would make sense to Huxley. In inverted totalitarianism, the sophisticated technologies of corporate control, intimidation and mass manipulation, which far surpass those employed by previous totalitarian states, are effectively masked by the glitter, noise and abundance of a consumer society. Political participation and civil liberties are gradually surrendered. The corporation state, hiding behind the smokescreen of the public relations industry, the entertainment industry and the tawdry materialism of a consumer society, devours us from the inside out. It owes no allegiance to us or the nation. It feasts upon our carcass. 

The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation. Corporations, who hire attractive spokespeople like Barack Obama, control the uses of science, technology, education and mass communication. They control the messages in movies and television. And, as in "Brave New World," they use these tools of communication to bolster tyranny. Our systems of mass communication, as Wolin writes, "block out, eliminate whatever might introduce qualification, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything that might weaken or complicate the holistic force of their creation, to its total impression."

The result is a monochromatic system of information. Celebrity courtiers, masquerading as journalists, experts and specialists, identify our problems and patiently explain the parameters. All those who argue outside the imposed parameters are dismissed as irrelevant cranks, extremists or members of a radical left. Prescient social critics, from Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are banished. Acceptable opinions have a range of A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Huxley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as well as an endless and finally fatal optimism. We busy ourselves buying products that promise to change our lives, make us more beautiful, confident or successful as we are steadily stripped of rights, money and influence. All messages we receive through these systems of communication, whether on the nightly news or talk shows like "Oprah," promise a brighter, happier tomorrow. And this, as Wolin points out, is "the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face." We have been entranced, as Wolin writes, by "continuous technological advances" that "encourage elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, actions measured in nanoseconds: a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose denizens are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge."

Our manufacturing base has been dismantled. Speculators and swindlers have looted the U.S. Treasury and stolen billions from small shareholders who had set aside money for retirement or college. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus and protection from warrantless wiretapping, have been taken away. Basic services, including public education and health care, have been handed over to the corporations to exploit for profit. The few who raise voices of dissent, who refuse to engage in the corporate happy talk, are derided by the corporate establishment as freaks.

Attitudes and temperament have been cleverly engineered by the corporate state, as with Huxley's pliant characters in "Brave New World." The book's protagonist, Bernard Marx, turns in frustration to his girlfriend Lenina:

"Don't you wish you were free, Lenina?" he asks.

"I don't know that you mean. I am free, free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody's happy nowadays."

He laughed, "Yes, 'Everybody's happy nowadays.' We have been giving the children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way."

"I don't know what you mean," she repeated.

The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley's "Brave New World" to Orwell's "1984." The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called "near poverty," coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.

We increasingly live in Orwell's Oceania, not Huxley's The World State. Osama bin Laden plays the role assumed by Emmanuel Goldstein in "1984." Goldstein, in the novel, is the public face of terror. His evil machinations and clandestine acts of violence dominate the nightly news. Goldstein's image appears each day on Oceania's television screens as part of the nation's "Two Minutes of Hate" daily ritual. And without the intervention of the state, Goldstein, like bin Laden, will kill you. All excesses are justified in the titanic fight against evil personified.

The psychological torture of Pvt. Bradley Manning—who has now been imprisoned for seven months without being convicted of any crime—mirrors the breaking of the dissident Winston Smith at the end of "1984." Manning is being held as a "maximum custody detainee" in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He spends 23 of every 24 hours alone. He is denied exercise. He cannot have a pillow or sheets for his bed. Army doctors have been plying him with antidepressants. The cruder forms of torture of the Gestapo have been replaced with refined Orwellian techniques, largely developed by government psychologists, to turn dissidents like Manning into vegetables. We break souls as well as bodies. It is more effective. Now we can all be taken to Orwell's dreaded Room 101 to become compliant and harmless. These "special administrative measures" are regularly imposed on our dissidents, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was imprisoned under similar conditions for three years before going to trial. The techniques have psychologically maimed thousands of detainees in our black sites around the globe. They are the staple form of control in our maximum security prisons where the corporate state makes war on our most politically astute underclass—African-Americans. It all presages the shift from Huxley to Orwell.

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling," Winston Smith's torturer tells him in "1984." "Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."

The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.

Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced. The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity. But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS. The FBI's targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state's official Newspeak. The agents—our Thought Police—seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people. The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting "providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations." Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?" Orwell wrote. "It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself."

Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. His newest book is "Death of the Liberal Class."

Revisions have been made in this column since it was originally posted on Truthdig.

Satyajit Das: Age of Stagnation or Something Worse?

By Satyajit Das, a former banker and author whose latest book, The Age of Stagnation, is now available. The following is an edited excerpt from Age of Stagnation (published with the permission of Prometheus Books)

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only . . . wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C.S. Lewis

The world is entering a period of stagnation, the new mediocre. The end of growth and fragile, volatile economic conditions are now the sometimes silent background to all social and political debates. For individuals, this is about the destruction of human hopes and dreams.

One Offs

For most of human history, as Thomas Hobbes recognised, life has been 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. The fortunate coincidence of factors that drove the unprecedented improvement in living standards following the Industrial Revolution, and especially in the period after World War II, may have been unique, an historical aberration. Now, different influences threaten to halt further increases, and even reverse the gains.

Since the early 1980s, economic activity and growth have been increasingly driven by financialisation – the replacement of industrial activity with financial trading and increased levels of borrowing to finance consumption and investment. By 2007, US$5 of new debt was necessary to create an additional US$1 of American economic activity, a fivefold increase from the 1950s. Debt levels had risen beyond the repayment capacity of borrowers, triggering the 2008 crisis and the Great Recession that followed. But the world shows little sign of shaking off its addiction to borrowing. Ever-increasing amounts of debt now act as a brake on growth.

Growth in international trade and capital flows is slowing. Emerging markets that have benefited from and, in recent times, supported growth are slowing.

Rising inequality and economic exclusion also impacts negatively upon activity.

Financial problems are compounded by lower population growth and ageing populations; slower increases in productivity and innovation; looming shortages of critical resources, such as water, food and energy; and manmade climate change and extreme weather conditions.

The world requires an additional 64 billion cubic metres of water a year, equivalent to the annual water flow through Germany's Rhine River. Agronomists estimate that production will need to increase by 60–100 percent by 2050 to feed the population of the world. While the world's supply of energy will not be exhausted any time soon, the human race is on track to exhaust the energy content of hundreds of millions years' worth of sunlight stored in the form of coal, oil and natural gas in a few hundred years. 10 tons of pre-historic buried plant and organic matter converted by pressure and heat over millennia was needed to create a single gallon (4.5 litres) of gasoline.

Europe is currently struggling to deal with a few million refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East. How will the world deal with hundreds of millions of people at risk of displacement as a resulting of rising sea levels?

Extend and Pretend

The official response to the 2008 crisis was a policy of 'extend and pretend', whereby authorities chose to ignore the underlying problem, cover it up, or devise deferral strategies to 'kick the can down the road'. The assumption was that government spending, lower interest rates, and the supply of liquidity or cash to money markets would create growth. It would also increase inflation to help reduce the level of debt, by decreasing its value.

It was the grifter's long con, a confidence trick with a potentially large payoff but difficult to pull off. Houses prices and stock markets have risen, but growth, employment, income and investment have barely recovered to pre-crisis levels in most advanced economies. Inflation for the most part remains stubbornly low.

In countries that have 'recovered', financial markets are, in many cases, at or above pre-crisis prices. But conditions in the real economy have not returned to normal. Must-have latest electronic gadgets cannot obscure the fact that living standards for most people are stagnant. Job insecurity has risen. Wages are static, where they are not falling. Accepted perquisites of life in developed countries, such as education, houses, health services, aged care, savings and retirement, are increasingly unattainable.

In more severely affected countries, conditions are worse. Despite talk of a return to growth, the Greek economy has shrunk by a quarter. Spending by Greeks has fallen by 40 percent, reflecting reduced wages and pensions. Reported unemployment is 26 percent of the labour force. Youth unemployment is over 50 percent. One commentator observed that the government could save money on education, as it was unnecessary to prepare people for jobs that did not exist.

Future generations may have fewer opportunities and lower living standards than their parents. A 2013 Pew Research Centre survey conducted in thirty-nine countries asked whether people believed that their children would enjoy better living standards: 33 percent of Americans believed so, as did 28 percent of Germans, 17 percent of British and 14 percent of Italians. Just 9 percent of French people thought their children would be better off than previous generations.

The Deadly Cure

Authorities have been increasingly forced to resort to untested policies including QE forever and negative interest rates. It was an attempt to buy time, to let economies achieve a self-sustaining recovery, as they had done before. Unfortunately the policies have not succeeded. The expensively purchased time has been wasted. The necessary changes have not been made.

There are toxic side effects. Global debt has increased, not decreased, in response to low rates and government spending. Banks, considered dangerously large after the events of 2008, have increased in size and market power since then. In the US the six largest banks now control nearly 70 percent of all the assets in the US financial system, having increased their share by around 40 percent.

Individual countries have sought to export their troubles, abandoning international cooperation for beggar-thy-neighbour strategies. Destructive retaliation, in the form of tit-for-tat interest rate cuts, currency wars, and restrictions on trade, limits the ability of any nation to gain a decisive advantage.

The policies have also set the stage for a new financial crisis. Easy money has artificially boosted prices of financial assets beyond their real value. A significant amount of this capital has flowed into and destabilised emerging markets. Addicted to government and central bank support, the world economy may not be able to survive without low rates and excessive liquidity.

Authorities increasingly find themselves trapped, with little room for manoeuvre and unable to discontinue support for the economy. Central bankers know, even if they are unwilling to publicly acknowledge it, that their tools are inadequate or exhausted, now possessing the potency of shamanic rain dances. More than two decades of trying similar measures in Japan highlight their ineffectiveness in avoiding stagnation.

Heart of the Matter

Conscious that the social compact requires growth and prosperity, politicians, irrespective of ideology, are unwilling to openly discuss the real issues. They claim crisis fatigue, arguing that the problems are too far into the future to require immediate action. Fearing electoral oblivion, they have succumbed to populist demands for faux certainty and placebo policies. But in so doing they are merely piling up the problems.

Policymakers interrogate their models and torture data, failing to grasp that 'many of the things you can count don't count [while] many of the things you can't count really count'. The possibility of a historical shift does not inform current thinking.

It is not in the interest of bankers and financial advisers to tell their clients about the real outlook. Bad news is bad for business. The media and commentariat, for the most part, accentuate the positive. Facts, they argue, are too depressing. The priority is to maintain the appearance of normality, to engender confidence.

Ordinary people refuse to acknowledge that maybe you cannot have it all. But there is increasingly a visceral unease about the present and a fear of the future. Everyone senses that the ultimate cost of the inevitable adjustments will be large. It is not simply the threat of economic hardship; it is fear of a loss of dignity and pride. It is a pervasive sense of powerlessness.

For the moment, the world hopes for the best of times but is afraid of the worst. People everywhere resemble Dory, the Royal Blue Tang fish in the animated film Finding Nemo. Suffering from short-term memory loss, she just tells herself to keep on swimming. Her direction is entirely random and without purpose.

Reckoning Postponed

The world has postponed, indefinitely, dealing decisively with the challenges, choosing instead to risk stagnation or collapse. But reality cannot be deferred forever. Kicking the can down the road only shifts the responsibility for dealing with it onto others, especially future generations.

A slow, controlled correction of the financial, economic, resource and environmental excesses now would be serious but manageable. If changes are not made, then the forced correction will be dramatic and violent, with unknown consequences.

During the last half-century each successive economic crisis has increased in severity, requiring progressively larger measures to ameliorate its effects. Over time, the policies have distorted the economy. The effectiveness of instruments has diminished. With public finances weakened and interest rates at historic lows, there is now little room for manoeuvre. Geo-political risks have risen. Trust and faith in institutions and policy makers has weakened.

Economic problems are feeding social and political discontent, opening the way for extremism. In the Great Depression the fear and disaffection of ordinary people who had lost their jobs and savings gave rise to fascism. Writing of the period, historian A.J.P. Taylor noted: '[the] middle class, everywhere the pillar of stability and respectability . . . was now utterly destroyed . . . they became resentful . . . violent and irresponsible . . . ready to follow the first demagogic saviour . . .'

The new crisis that is now approaching or may already be with us will be like a virulent infection attacking a body whose immune system is already compromised.

As Robert Louis Stevenson knew, sooner or later we all have to sit down to a banquet of consequences.