Too Much. Too Little.

Our modern world has too little of some precious items and too much of others.  Regardless of which way we head into the future, if a proper balance can’t be found between these two things then little can be done by governments, companies, researchers or activists.

Let’s consider what we have in abundance, perhaps far too much.  Hatred has always been part and parcel of the human condition, but the ability to magnify evil intent is now just a click away.  Entire armies of malcontents have been created in just a generation who have transferred hateful extremes from the tribal to the personal level, leaving modern societies infused with the kind of vitriolic language used at will and capable of reducing public trust to a minute level.

We also have far too much CO2 in the atmosphere.  While millions fight over the cause, the issue is that climate change is on the rise at the same time as consumer demands are on the rise in the East and the West.  For all the polls showing majorities concerned over environmental extremes, few citizens, companies or governments are willing to stake out a more aggressive climate plan that will actually make a difference quickly enough through dedicated sacrifice.

And what about workers?  In the West especially, these have become an endangered species.   Work itself is going missing, which is why millions looking for a career path are left in frustration.  Young and keen minds finish college or university only to discover that the promises of such a commitment didn’t work out by the time they graduated.  It turned out to be a costly gamble, chaining them to heavy student loans and little way to pay them back.

All this is linked to the over-abundance of despair and anger fueling so much of today’s politics. Everything we had in our past – our promise, our healthcare, pensions, mobility, housing, the future for our kids – was linked to our jobs.  In Canada, the underlying premise of a designed federalism between the federal government and provinces was created around the promise of employment.  It’s how the bills were to be paid for affluence. Termed the “social contract,” it represented the collective faith between citizens, their governments, and their companies.  It all now lies in tatters.  How can one capture a good quality of life when jobs themselves are on the decline? To have a job now largely means working for minimum wage, few benefits and a capitalism that is increasingly forming its own rules without effective accountability.

And what of those things we now have to little of?  Earned income is rapidly becoming a precarious commodity.   The middle-class is a glorious achievement of the past, not the way of the future.  The economic fate of citizens has become stagnant and they are feeling the pinch. They work hard over ridiculous hours or split shifts with little to show for it.

All this leads to the shrinking of trust – public and private.  The ability to bank on the future because of the belief that people in charge of power, money and opportunity were looking out for us has taken direct hits. Confidence in society’s managers continues to slide and potential continues unrealized.  It shows in the turbulence of the polls and election outcomes and it is revealed in the inability of the elites to deliver on their promises.  It’s a vicious cycle, not going up but down.

People want to pay their own way to the future, but that option is increasingly being taken away from them.  Instead, we hear of things like a basic income guarantee, job sharing, the need for expensive upgrading of job skills because the promising partnership between capitalism and democracy is growing extinct.

How will the social contract now be rewritten, especially if trust is no longer a real thing?  The fundamentals of an affluent, educated and decent life are slowly being rewritten and the general direction is down, not up, or even forward.  With too much wealth captured by the few and too much poverty entrapping the many; with mansions in the suburbs and the lack of affordable housing in our cores; with too much suspicion and too little trust; with so much unregulated wealth and far too little disposable income; with too much radical politics and too little accountable governance, where will we end up?  

The answer is not fully known but the direction is clear – too much despair, too little hope.  That’s hardly the formula upon which democracy was premised.  Without an effective social contract, all bets are off until the balance between too much and too little is resolutely addressed.