December 05, 2016   |   1 comments

Shaun Chamberlin discusses Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy, a recently-published companion piece to Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, the life’s work of British Economist David Fleming.

(Stream / download audio at bottom of page)

When Fleming died unexpectedly in 2010, he left behind his great unpublished work, a masterpiece more than thirty years in the making. In it, he examined the consequences of an economy that destroys the very foundations – ecological, economic, and cultural – upon which it is built. Knowing that collapse is the only possible outcome he asked, and envisioned, ”’What will follow?’

Compiled by Fleming’s close friend and collaborator Shaun Chamberlin, Surviving the Future presents Fleming’s insights in a more easily digestible form. Fleming foresaw the schisms and convulsions now shaking the economies of Europe, and was among the first in the world to reveal the ongoing pressure on oil supply and predict the subsequent growth in unconventional oil and gas, with all its consequences. Fleming acknowledges, with honesty, the challenges we face. But rather than inducing despair, Lean Logic and Surviving the Future inspire optimism in the creativity and intelligence of humans to nurse our ecology back to health, and to rediscover the importance of resilience, community, and culture.

The shocks converging on our world will leave nothing in our lives unchanged. We cannot now avoid it, but it can be managed, mitigated, made survivable, and recognised as our species’ toughest, but greatest, opportunity.

www.darkoptimism.org

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’
Stanislav Shevchenko ‘Conscientia’