A reflection on fifty years of economical and social development, and a view on options of our future.

When I grew up in Southern Bavaria during the late fifties, we didn’t have fridges and TV. We used a cool storage in the basement, filled with ice from the winter. Dad had a radio with glowing valves, humming in his tiny architect’s studio. A milkman brought fresh milk and farm eggs twice a week, the milk filling one-liter-glass-jars, with a skim of cream floating on top. During Easter time, Grandma walked with us to the forest, and we harvested wild vegetables. In June, it was the season of wild strawberries, raspberries and Mom made ice cream. In fall, we shook our twenty-one apple trees, and collected mushrooms. During winter we roamed the forests and meadows, hiking or skiing. Grandma, Mom and auntie Irene prepared cakes and candies for an exiting Christmas event.

The school years hadn’t come to my life yet, and I accompanied Grandma every morning on her shopping tour through the suburban town. We always visited three or four shops, specialized on vegetables, beer, dairy products, and the two bakeries at the railway line. Every weekday, at 1:30 pm, Mom came back from teaching, riding her bike. We never wasted a piece of bread and prayed before lunch on Sunday, the only time we had meat other than sausage. Every Sunday, we walked to the small pilgrim church hidden in the forest, and attended mess. We, as a family, had always plenty of time.

Then came change. It became obvious in the early sixties. I was some seven years old. The slow humming airplanes disappeared and faster sizzling jets dashed across the sky. The first ‘big’ supermarket opened in town. It terminated the little friendly grocery shops. From now on, we drank milk from plastic bottles, and ate bread bought in the supermarket, when the nearby bakery shut down, too. Grandma stopped doing her shopping and chatting tour. We got our first TV, and a new, stronger power line to the house. Down in the forest, they cut a huge hole that became the new highway, linking cities but separating forests from farmlands.

As change came, some people realized the downsides of the ongoing collective development.

I remember the day I followed my Dad to our small Catholic Church. In the open field, surrounded by oak trees, an Augustine priest gave a rather sharp, even angry homily to an already dwindling audience.

He said: “ Serving is more important, than receiving compensation. If you’re basing your life on compensation, on remuneration, you’re doing wrong.”
His words reverberated in my brain, and I remember asking myself: “ Why should I serve, and to whom? Isn’t paying service something opposed to my individual freedom?”

Many people must have thought like me, and as the boom years roared on, new cars, ‘better living’, a fancy sex life, expensive vacations evolved as new top priorities. But the new, hedonist lifestyle brought a number of subtle things, that nobody had really thought about:

· The family bounds grew loose- the distant uncles and aunties simply disappeared. In my own family this happened, when Grandma died, who had kept the family united;
· Everywhere, new apartment houses rose or the elderly – a sign family didn’t take care of the generation of elderly any longer, as new medicines prolonged lives at all cost;
· Church halls emptied, the flow of pilgrims on the old forest lane behind our forest house stopped;
· Looking for fun, the young generation stopped raising kids;
· Drugs appeared in school, and so did graffiti on walls of public buildings.

What happened was nothing special, but significant – in the pursuit of enjoyment, people had simply sold their lives to money. And soon, money was about to take control of everything:

· Farmers had become people seeking maximum profit, and also doing farming;
· Doctors became doctors to make money;
· Graduate students opted for the career anticipated to yield maximum profit, rather than fulfilling their inherent talents and skills;
· Credit cards appeared- with the promise of increasing freedom, but often opening the gates to modern slavery.

Since the seventies, the grip of money on western societies has steadily tightened. For the poor, life is getting more and more miserable, whilst the middle class is struggling to keep a minimum of decency. Farmlands are exploited for maximum, short-term profit, and may not be able to produce significantly in the future, given drawn aquifers and polluted soils.

Only at the top of society, a wealthy oligarchy is amassing unbelievable treasures. With firm grip on politics and hedge funds, these can increase their wealth by some 20 % a year, whilst others in the middle and lower classes are struggling to make a living. In brief, there are signs that western societies are beginning to break apart, into fragmented blocks of radically divergent life styles and aspirations.

Capitalism is increasingly failing and won’t be able to manage developments for the greater good any longer. We’re clearly heading toward a society characterized by quite a few Ferraris in the garage, (and probably private space ships in the future) but no public roads in good condition left to drive them on, and no drinkable tab water. We are in need of something else – spiritual leadership.

What can be done to stem the tide?

The only way forward, perhaps, is to make money less relevant, and to call for a spiritual revival. Trimming one’s material needs to the essentials, whilst focusing more on spiritual values, could help sever our ill-fated links to Arabian oil and terrorism, the credit card provider bank, and Chinese slave work products. In fact, we may be placed in front of an unwelcome choice: to continue borrowing money and consuming the world until nothing is left, or adjusting our collective lives to a modest, sustainable dimension. Money is the biggest of all drugs, and we must get beyond this insane addiction.

Unfortunately, this may also lead to a reduction of political clout, and a nation’s pride. Yet democracy, so I believe, can only work in a sustainable setting. Ultimately, with the sky above our head, and the earth below our feet, there won’t be an alternative to an honest, ethical and sustainable living from the land. Let’s get ready for change!

© 2007 by Franz L Kessler