domingo, 17 de setembro de 2017

About “The End of Normal” by James K. Galbraith and after-postmodern times


     James K. Galbraith writes in the book about the Great Crisis of 2008, “The End of Normal”, that there was a belief that “growth was not only desirable but also normal, perpetual, and expected”; and “the idea that unlimited growth and improvement were possible, with each generation destined to live better than the one before”.
     It seems to us that this kind of thinking is something original from mankind itself, something “normal”. In true, it is a theory invented by economists after the Second World War. This theory is still orienting many institutions, but in the After-postmodern Times it is not working like before.
    Someone could say that “the crisis is ending”, but we can see, for example, that the Brexit is not yet really resolved. We are in a transition from Post-Modern to After-postmodern Times.
     The growth based on competition maybe has to be substituted by collaboration.
     Theories (until 1970ies) about the beginning of mankind stipulated that evolution was based on competition. In the end of the 20th century there were new theories that stablished “collaboration” (more than competition) as a mechanism for humanity to evolve: mankind needed to be together to face several difficulties.
     Maybe now we are discovering that we need to come back to a similar step to evolve again…