Sir, – The EU proposes to provide €750 billion for immediate relief of its beleaguered economies. Quantitative easing, bond purchasing, loans and every trick in the book will, over the next seven years, be used to raise that sum to the trillions. If all this is spent trying to restore an economic system that technology has rendered redundant and entirely inadequate to manage an entirely transformed economic world, the end situation will be immeasurably worse than the present. Covid-19 is not the cause of this economic mess, it is simply the catalyst that exposes a failed and teetering economic system to catastrophic collapse.
The money will certainly be needed but unless directed towards changing from “growth” to “sufficiency” ideology, with and emphasis on restoring local commerce and revising employment toward sharing wealth rather than creating it, the huge sums will be entirely wasted. Technology can, with diminishing dependence on human input, produce practically everything in great abundance. If “growth” economics persist, gross overproduction will cause stagnation of markets, elimination of historic supply chains and reduced employment, which were the means of trickle prosperity down through all echelons of society. While the security of the majority diminishes, wealth and power will be allowed concentrate in fewer hands.
Spending vast sums to shore up an outdated and unworkable economic system will facilitate the development of a modern type of feudalism. Democracy will be unable to withstand such strain.
This is a critical moment of decision for the human race. If the benefits of technology are not made accessible to all, and wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of the few, the future could be a lot more threatening than the present is.
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PADRAIC NEARY,
Tubbercurry,
Co Sligo.