The Great Reset? Yes, please

I occasionally work with a young Fijian-Indian man who knows both Fijian and New Zealand culture very well, as he's grown up in both countries (he lives in New Zealand today). I was speaking with him the other day about his family's move to New Zealand. Amongst other things, what was of interest was his claim that life is a lot easier in Fiji, as compared to New Zealand. He told me Fijians would largely live off their land, as his family once did. His family lived simply and well in their warm and fertile country.

Yet, as we in the West believe, New Zealand is supposed to have a superior living standard because New Zealand is a much richer country, according to measured GDP per-capita.

But real living standards are ultimately existential - not consumption (as such). Sure, you make more money in New Zealand - but you also need more money. In New Zealand, like in the rest of the western world, we've made life curiously complicated and expensive and on many levels.

In my view if we are to have a great reset, in the positive meaning of the term, it will come from the most basic political question that too few ask, which is: "Where should the private and local economies begin, and where should the national economy end?"

One of the most powerful things centralised governments have done, to the end of dictating our complex lives, has been to make child-rearing costly and difficult by forcing institutional schooling (which is completely unnecessary, especially today). Of course, our lives are also heavily regulated on many levels beyond that, and we are now taxed at nearly 40%. 

You can't walk away from it - because central government is now the government. 

Most big government is not necessary. Government as we know it should not have the role of extraordinary dominance. We should not be so concerned with what Jacinda or Judith have to say and plan to do. National governments should not be as relevant to our lives as they are today, and we should not have to worry so much about what nightmare a couple of million voters might give us in the next election, etc. 

The solution, I believe, is to erect the private village as a critical option - and cultural foundation. 

Let the private village build itself in its own image, bottom up, and operate to its own philosophy. Let people make their own laws to live by, though within the boundaries of respecting property rights and human rights. That which is good will be duplicated - that which is poor will be abandoned. Experimental evolution can take care of the details. 

Never have we seen a better opportunity to do this, to find a new optimisation, than today. We are fast creating the live-anywhere economy as 50% (and growing) of the world can now work exclusively online, which may in turn make prosperous decentralised villages particularly easy to build and market. 

The online workforce removes the issue of the village, or locality, earning "foreign" exchange. Say half can work online - half can work local. No problem. It can be totally efficient.

Radical decentralisation could give us 'the great reset' we might want - if we choose it.

Note: I need to stress that I'm talking about simple living - not primitive living. I'm not suggesting we go back to grass skirts. I'm simply talking about adapting the operational character of our lives, so as to get rid of the incredible amount of over-complication we have thus far evolved in meeting our essential needs. A "reset" in the ideal meaning, means a total-system review towards a true modern optimisation. 

-Andrew Atkin