Much of today’s sustainability discourse is framed as a moral project. People are encouraged to do the right thing: to consume less, recycle more, feel uneasy about flights, meat, heating and the rest. The underlying assumption is that modern life is broadly acceptable, but ethically sloppy. If individuals could be persuaded to behave better, ecological collapse might be avoided.
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Month: January 2026
Why This Does Not Stabilise
In the previous essay, I argued that several apparently unrelated developments form a single pattern: the quiet erosion of professional value, the absence of visible productivity gains, rising political volatility and a growing dependence on housing wealth to maintain living standards. Together, these point to a slow but profound shift in where value now sits in the economy.
Why Everything Actually Adds Up
A number of things are currently deteriorating in ways that do not seem connected. Many professionals are quietly losing income without being laid off. The AI revolution is supposedly transformative, yet productivity barely moves. House prices in big cities keep rising even as people feel poorer. Voters drift towards authoritarian and anti-system parties.
Looked at separately, each of these developments has a tidy explanation. Looked at together, they tell a single story.
Continue reading “Why Everything Actually Adds Up”