Sunday
afternoons used to be so quiet. When I was a small boy growing up in rural
England, I always knew it was a Sunday simply by stepping out of the back door.
There was scarcely a sound from anywhere. There was hardly any traffic. No one
really went anywhere, certainly not to work. The clincher, though, was the
distant, monotonous droning of two-stroke engines emanating from a karting
circuit in the next village (Figure 83.1). There would be crescendo followed by
diminuendo, the sharp sound of gears changing, sudden deceleration into the
hairpin bend and gradual acceleration after it. I could see the races with my
ears.
Figure
83.1: The sound of Sunday many years ago
Copyright
© 2015 Karting Magazine
That
was forty-odd years ago. The kart meetings still take place. (I checked it out
online.) The tranquillity which made me aware of them, though, is probably long
gone. The ultimate reason is, by tortuous logic, usury (or high-interest
lending). Allow me to make the connection.
Today,
the whole world is hooked on debt. Whether it is government debt, commercial
debt or personal/household debt, it can never be paid back. Debt expansion is the
only way modern economies can grow, and it is entirely by design. Inevitably, the
world has crossed the financial Rubicon, and the fallout from the eventual economic
collapse will be severe. In the United Kingdom, for example, current debt
interest exceeds the entire Defence budget. By extrapolation, in 2020, it will
exceed the Education budget, and in 2025, that of the National Health Service.
There is no averting it.
If
this disastrous scenario could possibly be avoided, human productivity – with
finite resources, remember – would need to increase sharply and continually. We
would have to produce more and more in a given amount of time, until we reached
the stage of running as fast as possible just to stand still, rather like the
Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through The
Looking Glass.
This
nightmarish eventuality is upon us. The working world now operates seven days a
week as a matter of routine. The introduction of Sunday working, with shops staying
open, has provided us with an extra dose of time which prior to a generation
ago we did not utilize. Forty years ago, when I was a young schoolboy, my own
circumstances were considered unusual because my mother worked full-time. Most
mothers did not; and yet, households still functioned satisfactorily, and
absolute poverty was rare. In 2015, people’s lives have changed, but because that
change has occurred gradually, we have been less aware of it. In the majority
of modern households, both parents now work, but not out of choice: it is a
necessity in order to meet either a huge mortgage/rent or the perpetual
servicing of personal debt. We have all but arrived at a point where it is humanly impossible to ‘run’ any faster. We cannot manufacture more time.
Nor can we service any additional debt. Checkmate.
How
does this affect humanity? A balance of work, rest and play is our natural
state of existence. In today’s complex, fast-paced society, this equilibrium is
being savagely disrupted, and the stresses it imposes are unprecedented. There
is a stark conflict between our frenetic 24/7 existence and a basic
physiological need to switch off and rest.
Of
course, there are many more factors than I have been able to outline in 600 words. The ‘Red
Queen’ phenomenon, when applied to the modern economic structure, is undeniably
complex. My main fear, however, is this: in time, the world’s peoples will wake
up to the ghastly reality that their increasing efforts will surely prove
futile, and that the social and economic system has nothing to offer (most of)
them. What will be the overriding reaction when the masses feel they have nothing
to lose?
In
quiet, solitary moments, I can still hear the go-karts – but my children,
sadly, never will.
Copyright
© 2015 Paul Spradbery