Monday 15 November 2010

Carlota Perez and the golden age

In an interview aired on the swedish TV channel AxessTV, Carlota Perez illustrates her ideas about the pattern followed by technological revolutions throughout history, and how this pattern can be applied to the current revolution, started 20-30 years ago with the spreading and development of computer technology and internet.

An interesting point is that she gets to the conclusion that we could be on the verge of a new golden age, where people worldwide from the bottom of the pyramid could raise their living standard into forming a new middle class, generating thus an enormous wealth of opportunities. However the way to the new golden age is far from simple.

One of the forces at work to make all this happen is sustainability and the sustainable lifestyle, that could become the new model to be imitated and aspired by the new middle class.

One favourite quote from the interview is: ...and the very important thing about this environmental thing is that the amount of investments that could be done, the amount of jobs that could be created, the amount of growth that could come out of taking the environment seriously, makes it that saving the planet is almost the second objective, saving the economy is what the environment can really do.

The interview can be found here. The page is in swedish but the interview is in english (with swedish subtitles).