Peter Senge, Bryan Smith and Nina Kruschwitz get it in one:
“Bubbles are not entirely pernicious; indeed, they usually provide some real benefit — at least to some people or for some time. Some dot-com stocks were great assets. Some subprime mortgages did improve lives. The longer the bubble endures, the more people and resources get drawn into it, the more people benefit from it, and the more the beliefs supporting it become entrenched. If a bubble can last for generations, it becomes hard to imagine an alternative to it. But at some point the tensions and inconsistencies between life inside the bubble and the larger reality outside it must be resolved. The bubble cannot expand indefinitely.
The industrial age constitutes an extended bubble of just this sort. Its expansion has continued for more than two centuries, so it is easy to assume that it will continue forever. Its positive impact has been undeniable: Life expectancy in the industrialized world has roughly doubled since the mid-1800s, literacy has jumped from 20 percent to more than 90 percent, and benefits hitherto unimaginable have sprung up in the form of products (canned foods, machine tools, iPods), services (air travel, eBay), and astounding advances in health, communication, education, and entertainment.
But the more harmful side effects of the industrial age have also been apparent from the beginning, at least to those who looked for them. They include a host of environmental crises, including increased waste and toxicity, growing stresses on finite natural resources, a loss of community, and a commodification of daily life that led to a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Biologist Edward O. Wilson calls the view from outside the industrial age bubble “the real real world.” From this perspective, no matter how valuable the assets of industrialization may be, their overall costs make the bubble unsustainable. One might argue about exactly when or how the bubble might end, but there are already signs that the kinds of investments of money, effort, and attention that brought success during the bubble are less likely to yield the same benefits now. Investments outside the bubble are another story. They will produce both more wealth and a more sustainable life, as people leave their old assumptions and practices behind.”
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