A notable milestone was passed in 2022 when, for the first time, more than 80,000 different people from around the world – from 154 countries, to be exact – visited Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economjcs website.
So, the pieces written by Tim Morgan and the hundreds of responses to each one are reaching around the world. But not being talked about in polite places, such as this thinktank.
The Overton Window provides a nice explanation of why a shrinking economy is politically unacceptable at present.
The public is not yet aware that it is how things are. So, the idea is unthinkable.
It has been suggested that there are six degrees of acceptance of public ideas:
- Unthinkable
- Radical
- Acceptable
- Sensible
- Popular
- Policy
Global warming began to be seen as radical when The Kyoto Protocol became international law in 2005. Now, in 2022, it is being half-hardheartedly included in UK policies.
A shrinking economy, with no more growth, is unthinkable to most people whose jobs and prosperity have a vested interest in growth.
No government would dare mention it publicly, or even talk about it behind the scenes, for fear of leakage into the public domain. Just like the word ‘cancer’ was never uttered in polite society in my young days.
Economic shrinkage will eventually be seen to be how things are.
A big jump from the old ways, bearing in mind all the hurdles involved. Including abandoning the mindset of consumerism when the rising costs of essentials make discretionary spending unaffordable. And the end of classical economics.
Sooner or later, economic shrinkage will fill the window of what the general public will regard as the way things are. For this to happen it must be seen as inevitable. How things will be.
It isn’t a left or right-wing fad or a quirky idea dreamed up by a counter-cultural no-growth movement. It is reality.
It is now seen by an increasing number of thinking people to be inevitable.
In the meantime, if you want to know what is being written, but not yet being said out loud, you should read Tim Morgan’s latest piece.
