The World Doesn’t Work That Way Anymore

From Alaistar Crooke Excerpt:

“ The Anglo-American approach is premised on the basis that the ultimate measure of a society is its level of consumption. In the long run however, List argued, a society's well-being and its overall wealth are determined not by what the society can buy, but by what it can make (i.e. value arising from a real, self-sufficient economy). The German school argued that emphasizing consumption would eventually be self-defeating; it would bias the system away from wealth creation, and ultimately make it impossible to consume as much, or to employ so many.

List was prescient. This is the flaw so clearly now exposed in the Anglo model: the original failing now aggravated by massive financialization -- a process that has led to the building of an inverted pyramid of derivative financial ‘products’ which has sucked the oxygen from the manufacture of real output.  Self-reliance erodes, and a shrinking base of real wealth creation supports ever-smaller numbers in adequately-paid employment.”