Mar 09
31
The Myth Of Growth
Every thought about how many parallels you can find between one life experience and another, one business model and another, one product and another? Wherever you look, parallels abound.
Right now the big issue for every Prime Minister, Finance Minister, President…. is the Global Financial Crisis or the GFC for short.
But as a report just prepared for the PM of the UK, Gordon Brown, indicates, the problem is not about the banks – it is about society itself.
The problem that the report highlights seems to also apply to the entertainment industry and its relentless search for greater profitability at any cost. It is like an inefficient virus – that is so successful at growing that it kills its host. If the entertainment industry has its way it will, along with the banks, kill the goose that lays the golden eggs – the consumer!
Here is an excerpt from the story published last weekend:
THE ECONOMIC system is broken, and attempts by governments to
fix it by kick-starting growth and consumerism are “delusional” and
“pathological”, the Westminster and Holyrood governments will be warned
by their own advisers this week.
A ground-breaking report by the leading environmental advisers to
First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown will
deliver a damning verdict on capitalism and demand a radical shift to a
fairer, more sustainable society.
…………
The pursuit of economic growth, founded on the increasing
consumption of material goods, has failed to bring social justice,
prosperity or happiness, the report says.
“The narrow pursuit of growth represents a horrible distortion of
the common good and of underlying human values,” the report concludes.
“The market was not undone by rogue individuals or the turning of a
blind eye by incompetent regulators. It was undone by growth itself.”
The report presents a fundamental challenge to the economic policies
being pursued in London and Edinburgh, raising questions about some of
the basic tenets of modern capitalism. We are living in an “age of
irresponsibility”, it says.
The fundamental story here is that P2P is the only true social solution for the future of content distribution. Sure, the business models need to be sorted, but the only way to do that is to get started.