Life After the Crash

So maybe it’s just as well that the crisis is finally upon us. Maybe this time of creative destruction offers us the chance for a fresh start, a chance to build a society that puts ordinary people first and provides the conditions for their happiness.

After the shock of the crisis wears off, maybe we’ll look around like characters in a Fellini movie who come outside at dawn after a debauched night of excess. We’ll turn off the television, log off the Internet, notice the bright colors of sunrise, and speak to the neighbors we’ve never found time to meet.

We may spend less of our lives working as the cash economy shrinks and companies close their doors.

But maybe we’ll learn to share the work and reclaim time for the aspects of our lives that research tells us contributes to real happiness—time with families and friends, civic involvement, exercise, creativity. It wouldn’t be the first time. During the Great Depression, for instance, the Kellogg Company cut employee shifts from eight hours to six to extend the number who had jobs. Productivity went up so much that the company could afford to pay the same for the shorter shift. Meanwhile, civic organizations, adult education, and family life in Kalamazoo blossomed.

Maybe we’ll find ways to trade among friends and neighbors—some winter squash or homemade pie for some childcare or home repair. Maybe we’ll reclaim the skills we used to have, and teach each other how to grow food, fix things ourselves, sew and knit, and pass skills along to our children and grandchildren.

Somehow, in the exuberance of the economic bubbles of the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s, we lost track of something. Money exists to serve us as a tool, not the other way around. Our lives and society do not have to be turned over to the rulers of high finance and their hired representatives in Washington, D.C. We the people can reject the economic orthodoxy that has served us so poorly, and rebuild our economy on a different foundation.