Pocketful of Change

Ever since the first panicked rumblings of economic catastrophe started emanating from Wall Street, the news media, as well as popular culture, has been obsessed with doom and gloom. Countless hours of television coverage have been devoted to blaming various institutions for the global economy’s collapse. And since the recession is a global phenomenon, foreign newspapers have gotten into this blame game: they place the fault completely on the U.S. and our “materialistic” society. The rich blame the poor, and the poor blame the rich, which only goes to show that everyone will feel the consequences.

Over winter break, I found myself becoming increasingly despondent, not due to any cold-weather malaise, but because the only momentous events in the world seemed to be Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme and Obama-Blagojevich. Needless to say, I was sick and tired of all the griping about greedy investors and a governor with a weird hair-do. As there is a silver lining to every cloud, there are several reasons why I am thankful for what I like to call “The Recessionary Crisis.” We’ve already seen one benefit: gasoline prices have dropped. Ranging from the philosophical to the practical, the following are not necessarily going to happen, but they are mostly probably going to happen. Because, you know, I see the future.

Ever since the end of the Great Depression and World War II, the American idea that every family should have a home became practical. More and more middle-class families moved out of the cities to the suburbs to raise their children amid cul-de-sacs and strip malls. Along with this new-found prosperity came a need to accumulate objects in order to keep up with a popular but unrealistic idea of what everybody should own. This same state of affairs has continued into the present, where the modern status symbols are McMansions, townhomes, large SUV’s, large televisions, stainless steel appliances, and the like. These things are all fine for upper-class families, but when all Americans, regardless of income, try to obtain the Sex In The City lifestyle, a credit crisis is inevitable. But hopefully, now that homes are foreclosing all over the place and Americans realize how empty their purchases have been, this lifestyle will die. The age of kitsch and empty consumerism will be over. Europe learned long ago that quality and authenticity are better guarantors of happiness than the amount of money one spends.

Another beneficial side-effect is that sustainability will irrevocably take hold as the primary guiding principle of urban planning practice in the U.S. Most of the home foreclosures occur in newly built suburbs. Land developers can no longer afford to purchase farms and turn them into subdivisions, and middle-class families are moving into apartments in city centers. As urban areas try to increase their tax revenue, they will have to redevelop industrial sites, revitalize blighted neighborhoods, and put increased emphasis on mass transit.

In an effort to create jobs, the Obama administration (or state governments) might come up with a modern equivalent of Roosevelt’s New Deal. If this were the case, then infrastructure would get a much needed revamp. In modern America, roads are filled over capacity, power plants are aging, bridges are collapsing, mass transit is inefficient, and prisons are over-crowded. The New Deal prompted the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority to build dams and provide electricity, as well as the Public Works Administration, which built public structures across the country (including UVa’s own Alderman Library). A similar move by Obama and the Democratic Congress (the government’s composition is extremely similar to the government of FDR’s era) could create thousands of jobs and improve the nation’s transportation networks.

Regardless, we will see an increase in government regulation of the economy. The past few decades have seen increasing deregulation, which allowed for predatory lending, the abuse of hedge funds, and the Madoff scandal. Anathema to policies of the Bush administration, there will be a concerted move to increasing government control of the economy (Socialism Lite). Europe would undoubtedly approve of this while many Americans would not. Hopefully, Obama will pull an FDR and do it anyway.

There will also be a simultaneous strengthening of both globalization and localization. In addition to increased government regulation of the economy, various international regulating bodies will be established. Bush already made a move in that direction when he invited the G20 to a conference to create an international economic plan. International regulatory bodies are extremely important, as proven by Iceland. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has bailed out several countries in danger of bankruptcy, including Iceland, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Turkey.

Increased localization will come about as the traditional defense against economic troubles (remember the Hawley-Smoot Tariffs?). Americans will react against any sign of a foreign entity making a profit from Americans, as witnessed in the uproar over the planned sale of Anheuser-Busch to a Dutch company. Students will have less money to spend on college and will opt to go to state schools (read: more hipsters at U.Va.). Stores will start to get more of their produce locally, as the cost of transporting fruit from Chile starts to increase (or even if it doesn’t increase, it will become less affordable). In other words, the U.S. will cease being at the top of the food chain.

This spells the end of the age of unilateralism, where the US was the only superpower and could p.o.lice the world to intervene at will. New superpowers are rising. China and India have a billion inhabitants each and have hugely powerful economies, even now. After a hiatus of twenty years, Russia is once again assuming its superpower throne as it controls almost all of Europe’s energy supplies and the politics of various nations, including Serbia, Belarus, the Central Asia–stans, and Moldova, and can seriously threaten others such as Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic states. In the future, America will still be a superpower, but there will be others. This new multilateralism will make the United Nation’s support for war necessary, at least for the permanent members of the Security Council (including three future superpowers—U.S., Russia, and China). Globalism will become more about the global community rather than American control over world affairs.

Even though the average American will have less money than before, the world will be able to move on to a new age of globalism, unfettered by unilateral imperialism. The Green movement will become mainstream, and economics will become more ethical due to regulation of nefarious banker types. This truly is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.