what do you plan to be when you grow up…post peak?

Another thought provoking post from Sharon Astyk.

Ok, everyone who thinks that your job will still be there in five years raise your hands. For those of you with your hands up, how sure are you? How secure are you in a deep, systemic crisis? 70% of the economy survives on consumer spending – what happens if 50% or 80% of that dries up – if really all we’re buying is food and oil, and not that much of that?

The truth is that the one thing that all of us should be planning for is a job loss – and by this I don’t mean a short term job change, but a job loss in a deep Depression with extended, widespread unemployment – where there is no unemployment insurance anymore and most of your neighbors can’t get work either. Is this inevitable? No, merely probable, I think. But probable enough that we should be prepared for it to happen.

Although, in the short term, this is a very scary prospect, in the longer term the current economic crisis could be a god send for many. There will no doubt be plenty of opportunities for local business creation. All the things that globalisation has exported to foreign shores could be possible employment. Local food growing without fossil fuels will provide work for far more of us than the 1% or less who now drive combines etc. and it could be just possible that we could shake off the yoke of the corporate boss, and have more freedom and leisure in our lives.
But, in the short term things will be very hard, and will get harder the longer the mass of the people refuse to recognise what is happening and follow the lifestyles laid out for us by corporations and pro-globalisation governments.

It is worth thinking what you will do in this new economy – maybe only watch and thank G-d you got to keep your job. But just in case, it is worth making plans, and perhaps putting a foot into the informal economy, testing its waters and building the beginnings of a new personal economy along with the old.