Here's a bit of thinking for the new year. It may be useful, or not.
It's hard to imagine a more derogatory and less descriptive label than "middle class consumers"* for the group of people that created most of the world's massive wealth, rich technologies, and societal complexity. Worse, it's the type of label that limits how we talk about ourselves, which is particularly grievous in that it obscures a process that is already in motion: we are becoming something new.
What are we becoming? Here's what I see:
- Frugal. Elimination of financial debt and dependency.
- Focused on investing. In home productivity (energy, food, etc.) rather than global markets.
- Thrifty with expenses. New sources of low cost food, energy, security, etc. that are financially sustainable.
- Entrepreneurial. Energy, food, and more sold/traded/bartered at the local level.
- More physical. Not backbreaking 19th Century labor, but the nominal investments required to enable the transition. Re-skilling to accomplish basic tasks.
- Virtual. Knowledge work without commutes, offices, etc. sold to global customers via online collaboration. New skills in social software. Free agency.
- Cooperative. New geographic and global virtual communities. To share ideas, designs, insight, encouragement, physical work, etc. To build community platforms.
That's the just the start of a process that is making us more resilient and will accelerate supermpowerment...
Is there a new way to describe what we are becoming?