I was listening to Left, Right and Center earlier today on my iPod. It's one of the great programs that KCRW in Santa Monica broadcasts....

In the "end of show rants" Tony Blankly talked about the dearth of Christmas music on the radio this year - all the AM stations in the US are now pretty much talk, and as he was saying, the FM stations are all true to format. The exception is the Classical stations which have some Christmas music.

Bob Shear talked about the problems associated with the hereditary political system in the US, while at the same time defending the anticipated appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the vacancy left by Hilary Clinton.

In a weird sort of way both of these comments touch upon the same thing.

The lack of Christmas music is a reflection of the cynicism and emptiness that we all feel about Christmas. Christmas has for years been descending into a hell of retail opportunism combined with the vacuousness of constantly consuming. The advent of the economic meltdown and the exposure of the bankers' unbelievable wealth and continuing level of remuneration in the face of hardship in the community together with their own continuing greed has just highlighted the emptiness of consumerism even further.

But the comments that Bob Shear made about this hereditary democracy that has developed in the US are another take on the impact of wealth on social cohesion.

The key point he made was that while on the one hand having a "name" on entering politics may create respect the problem is that for first generations to make money they have to take risks. For 2nd and other generations the motivation is not to generate wealth but to keep it. So they become conservative in their approach, if not their political colour.

That is how it used to be in the old days. But in the current generation the amount of wealth that has been generated by some has become so extraordinary that this metamorphosis into conservatism is taking place within one generation in some cases. And it is in industry that it is most visible.

Take the music business. The revolutionaries of the 70's who are still around are no longer revolutionaries. They are now conservatives. Their conservatism in thinking means that they try to exclude new and revolutionary ideas. That is why they cling to the old business models while at the same time espousing the need to "take this release to digital as quickly as possible".

So there is a paradox clearly. Consumers are jaded with consumerism. And business leaders who once were revolutionaries have morphed into conservatives. Could it be that in the neverending pursuit of ever increasing profitability that industry leaders have not just broken the spirit of their customers, but have actually bored them half to death as well?

The future is in new ideas that were better than the old. I suspect that in most industries the philosophy is similar to that in the music industry these days: They pay lip service to the new by signing young, new artists. But to de-risk the investment they do cover versions of old songs. Those aren't new ideas, they are old ideas repackaged.

Look at the auto industry too: Where are the new ideas? Nothing much from the US manufacturers other than putting new bodies on old engines and old chassis. Those aren't new ideas, they are just repackaging. It may make sense from the point of view of wringing the maximum amount of money from an investment in tools but it sure as hell doesn't rock the boat.

The same is happening in so many industries: extracting the last pound of flesh from a consumer trained to buy style over substance.

Well, the economic collapse of the US and the prospect of the rest of the world being sucked into the vortex is not going to mean the end of life as we know it. But is sure as hell is going to spell a change in the way that businesses conduct business. Again paradoxically, it is now going to mean that there is less risk in taking more risk. The more risk being innovation of course. But it has to be true innovation, not just innovation as a thin veneer.

It probably won't happen as quickly as I would like to see it happen. It probably will happen in a rather piecemeal way, but I am convinced that among the industry leaders in all fields of endeavor there are people who will take risks on innovative business models, on new inventions, new technologies, new ideas...

It is time for the old guard whose slavish belief in rear vision thinking to hang up their hats and let the heretics in - they may be young; they may be old. But regardless of their age, they have new ideas that need to be explored, and tried. That way we will stop becoming slaves of conservatism.