February 27, 2012
Timeline for a New Order
By Rory Hyde
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The decline of the welfare state and the seemingly relentless drive toward privatization is one narrative within the larger tide of change sweeping through the decades. Starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union – the ‘end of history’ when political and social life would supposedly plateau into a period of numb democracy – the Timeline for a New Order traces an arc to today marked by bubble economics, citizen revolt, technological disruption and climate shocks, and extrapolates to a future world not unlike our own but grayer, greener and more individualistic. This is neither utopia nor oblivion, but something in between, invisible to those who live it, and believable enough to prepare for.
This article was published as part of Volume #30: Privatize!.