The Sputnik Moment

President Obama's "Sputnik Moment" has catalyzed debate around America and it's future. The idea is that new industries and programs around renewable energy and clean production, combined with an increased focus on science and technology education, will propel the economy forward into the 21st century.

Part of that focus is also an enhanced space program centered around manned space flight to Mars that might seem frivolous. However, our last Sputnik moment and the 50 years of space exploration since have yielded a new age of technology including the semi-conductor revolution and the personal computer in which America has played the lead part.  And, the "manned" element is an important part of the kinds of learning and technology we need to develop.

But, this debate is moot. Sophisticated economics and analysis are no longer needed to understand why creating and exploring new industries and technologies is crucial. The world recession with it's high unemployment rates will continue unless new areas of jobs are opened. The current pool of first world jobs is under tremendous pressure including:

• Longer effective working lives of people in first world countries because of better health and public policy like later retirements
• Relentless advances in automation affecting nearly all work sectors
• Vast new labor pools opening as India and China race to be the fastest growing economies
• First world political pressure to shrink the public sector to appease financial markets
• Population growth and immigration
• Fundamental limitations on traditional economic growth that would create more demand for goods & services

These factors will result in new higher rates of unemployment throughout the modern world. There is no way to prevent this and that's obvious to most observers at this point. Notions like the Jobless Recovery are merely symptoms of the underlying structural problem: there are not enough jobs available for the pool of workers today.

First, we need to fundamentally rethink the idea of work towards maintaining employment (job sharing, flexible work, continuous retraining, etc. are just a beginning). Second, we need to focus on developing vast new areas of technology for industry to flourish -- we can argue about the degree, but new technologies are, at least in part, important engines of capitalism (i.e. technocapitalism).

The sad truth about the strength of far right politics in today's America is that neither of these efforts are likely to receive enough attention or support. Ironically, if one agrees with the structural forces around work and the economy described in this post, then "Tea Party" politics are a more credible threat to our way of life than any external force today.