Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [193]
In terms of full-spectrum prosperity, possessing some of each type of capital lowers vulnerability and increases security. Land and equipment are potentially productive assets, but skills are needed to leverage the asset into productivity. That requires individual capital. An isolated point of production has little value if its surplus cannot be exchanged for reciprocal benefit (profit, access to scarce goods, additional means of production, etc.) so social capital--a market, a network, a neighborhood, a guild, a town, a family--are also necessary. And if there is no infrastructure of transport, roadways, electricity and social order, then exchange and security will both be limited.
It's important to note once again that my analysis could be completely wrong. Perhaps the status quo will manage to create yet another credit-asset bubble which re-energizes the debt-dependent consumerist economy, and perhaps the global energy complex will magically drill 10,000 new wells at almost no cost and deliver "100 years of (coal, natural gas, shale oil, take your pick)" in super-abundance at low cost for generations to come.
Maybe the U.S. can print or borrow a $100 trillion to fill the gap between its income and the future expenses of Empire and entitlements without any consequent ruination of its currency or credit.
If that's the future, then the status quo understanding of careers and work will go on untouched.
We should know by 2010, or 2012 at the latest, which future is unfolding.
If the above analysis is wrong, then much of the paid work which holds the center of the U.S. economy will remain in place, and the "hybrid work/capital" I foresee will remain on the margins.
The ultimate key is the abundance of cheap energy. The entire structure of modern civilization, dating back to the Industrial Revolution, depends entirely on abundant, cheap energy. If that resource become expensive or scarce, then all the "guarantees" we take for granted slip away at once: retirement, travel, entitlements, cheap abundant food, and so on.
If my analysis is correct--that the exponential growth in credit, State over-reach/obligations and energy consumption are unsustainable and about to crack--then (status quo) salaried careers will slip to the margins and hybrid work/capital will occupy the center of the U.S. economy.
At the top layers of the economy, there will always be paid positions for very highly trained research and development staff. If you earn a graduate degree in materials science or immunology, then you will very likely enjoy a long career within that field--though you may not work for one enterprise for your entire career.
But the pipeline for high-level R&D and scholarship is small: if 10 million of us get PhDs in molecular biology, electrical engineering, chemistry, geology, network security and so on, it does not automatically follow that there are 10 million paid positions awaiting us. The pipeline of useful research in all fields is theoretically limitless, but in practical terms it is quite limited. Yes, we can print a trillion dollars and pay 10 million people to pursue all manner of research, but history suggests that this leads to the currency losing most of its value.
So research has to generate marketable value at some point. Very little research does so, hence the intrinsic limits on the R&D pipeline.
The same is true of the professions such as physician, attorney and engineering. The Third World is filled with professionals working in mundane jobs because there are not enough paying slots in their professions.
In the U.S., there are shortages of doctors and nurses in some areas and an oversupply in others. The entire healthcare ("sick-care") system is currently so distorted that the market "need" for physicians and nurses is impossible