Economy, Two-Tier

The eventual organisation of the world economy into two parallel systems, one of which will take the form of a non-industrial, neo-traditionalist form of economy, while the other retains aspect of the present techno-scientific economy.

Only such a system can preserve the ecosystem and avoid the impending world economic catastrophe, especially given Asia’s rapid industrialisation. There is, however, little chance of setting up such a system, since it would clash with the inviolable dogma of ‘development’. It’s probable, though, that the revolutionary alternative of a two-tier economy will be imposed by the economic and ecological catastrophes of the early Twenty-first century.

A two-tier economy presupposes that most of humanity will return to a subsistence economy with low energy needs, while the technological economy continues within certain restricted zones. These two economies would cohabit within a single country. Such a model, however, is something of a ‘wager’, unthinkable in the present situation — based, as it is, on the hypothesis of the mid-term unviability of the present world economy and its eventual termination in a catastrophic crisis.

(A more extended treatment of this concept is developed in my Archeofuturism.)