Conclusions

Abstract

There is in much economic and political discourse a strong belief that there remains a guarantee of rising living standards so long as policy is correctly set in the circumstances of the new world to achieve them. Yet any assumption that there must be a way out of the present economic crisis that returns the West to steady year-on-year growth punctured only by relatively short recessions is hard to justify. Such a faith rests on denying even the possibility that the ongoing rise in material living standards witnessed over the past two centuries is coming to an end, or indeed that the carrying capacity of the earth may be less than the material expectations of the world’s sharply rising population. History suggests such a faith has no foundations in past experience. What happens to this presumption as the fallout of the multiple problems around oil at work play out will challenge expectations of democracy and the idea that time guarantees progress.