The Oil Drum

Alan,

Speaking of the 'teen decade, the vision you have created bears much similiarity to the work and predictions of Professor Jack Lessinger. In his books he predicts a dramatic shift in our priorities (in our new shared American Dream actually) coming to a head in the 2020's following a very rough period during the decades of the 2000's and the 2010's.

His very persuasive premise is that our shared vision of "the American Dream" has changed - quite drastically - every few generations throughout American history. In his book he tracks the past changes and the upcoming one.

The old American dream we have grown up hearing about is nicknamed "The Little King" in recognition of its focus on getting the little suburban 1/4 acre kingdom. The Little King dream is also very consumeristic, individualistic, and focuses primarily on the short-term. BUT it was a useful dream in it's day - you'll have to read the books to see what long past problem the Little King dream fixed.

But now the excesses of the Little King have broken a different facet of our society and a new American dream is rapidly growing in strength and awareness to disperse the Little King and repair the damage. Lessinger has nicknamed this new American dream "The Responsible Villager". This new dream is strongly anti-suburb, anti-consumerism, focused on the long-term and on strengthening the community. (Sound familiar?) Pretty much an opposite of today's Little King.

His original book on this was called "Schizomania" where schizo = split and mania = American Dream (we are currently in a period of two battling manias - the entrenched faltering Little Kings vs the inexperienced but strengthening Responsible Villagers.

He now has a new book updating his theory of American social change called "CHANGE: Fall of the Consumer Economy, Rise of the Responsible Capitalist"

You can read some brief intros to his work at:
http://www.jacklessinger.com/change.html
http://jacklessinger.blogspot.com/
http://www.predicting2020.com/
- but the books do it much better justice...

Your above future scenario meshes very well with Lessinger's predictions of our transformation into Responsible Villagers. Do an inter-library loan request and give "Schizomania" a read, it's very persuasive.

Greg in MO