Sea Changes

There are three sea changes in the environment of modern life. These are the beginning. Others will follow. They are diverse at one level, but connected at another. Though each is unique in its time and way, the change process which brought it into being is both normal and good. Because what they are changing is mostly bad.

The first is the social climate relating to misogynistic power, for long tolerated and accepted as normal. Favours were demanded as a right, mostly sexual but not always, as manhood enshrined a notion of power which could be exercised from  hovel to  castle, from family to institution, in education, academia, public service, business, charity, politics, show business; the list is as long as the diversity of human activity and engagement. Well, all that is over. Nobody now is willing to put up with it, nor let it go unchallenged. A sea change in behaviour will become universal and secure. There will always be abuse, but it will not be acceptable as a natural event at the margin.

The second is the disconnection between those who govern, either through politics, media or soft power, and those who are ruled or controlled. Gone is the natural trust in authority. The notion of it is seen as corrupt and many of the great and good are now under investigation in all parts of the globe for corruption. No longer are people willing to accept what they are told. They challenge and confirm for themselves the truth, via a technological information exchange that destroys the whole basis of the structures previously used to inform and influence public opinion. Power is judged not on what it promises nor upon what it claims, but on what it delivers at every level down to the very base of daily life. This represents a sea change in the way power can be exercised and imposes previously unknown limitations upon its effect. Above all it makes it easier, much easier, to take it away.

The third is in the financial sector. The long period of dormant interest rates is over. Like a gently rising tide they are flowing back into the system. They are not entirely within the control of central bankers any more, because governments needing to borrow to repair neglected social institutions and physical infrastructures are increasing the bond supply at the same time as QE is ending and inflationary pressures are mounting. Corrections are occurring between the excessive reliance of asset inflation to redistribute wealth ever upwards and into fewer hands, to a new emphasis on wealth creation through investment, which pushes wealth downwards and outwards so that more and more begin to share it. This sea change will alter the shape of globalisation and Western economic models for the good of the many and for a long time to come.

These changes will be accompanied by turbulence and not all impacts will be positive. But in the round and judged by response to need, all of this is more good news than bad.