The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades

A little while ago there was a programme on the BBC called What Makes Britain Rich? by Peter and Dan Snow, which compared the UK economy now with how it was in the 1950s. It was a bit light in places, but it was still very good – Peter Snow could relate to the world of the 1950s, Dan Snow is a child of the modern world, and much of the programme was about how the two worlds were so different.

The major difference was the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the Knowledge Economy. We used to see ourselves as the workshop of the world; you had a job for life – school + job = conveyor belt from birth to retirement. But it went pear-shaped in the 70s and 80s: There were lots of clips of Peter Snow reading the news from the 80s, which formed a very depressing list of “company X is closing its factory in city Y with the loss of Z jobs”, and some equally depressing interviews with people from towns where the pit and/or factory had shut and nothing opened up in its place.

The new world was a big contrast to the old. No job for life – you have to hop from job to job like stepping stones across a river. The people interviewed said they didn’t mind having a large student debt, didn’t stress too much over not having a pension sorted, but didn’t expect the state to take care of them. There was an excellent bit were a mother and daughter were interviewed by the Snows and quite quickly the four divided up with Mum + Peter Snow putting their head in their hands in concern over the attitudes of their offspring to money, career and so on.

I’m a member of the Knowledge Economy myself, and the future apparently looks rosy for people like me. The Knowledge Economy makes up a bigger slice of the UK economy than of any other country in the world. While I was watching the programme, particularly the bit I with the mother and daughter, I couldn’t help thinking that the UK manufacturers used to think that their future was rosy too. The new and young usually see themselves as the end-product of history, the result of learning from all those mistakes in the past – we’ve got it right now. They don’t see that the same history that rolled up to them will continue to roll and they’ll be old and out-of-date soon. (How new is the New Forest any more?)

Admittedly there are some changes that happened during the 80s restructuring that probably won’t need to be done again. The change away from a job for life, the need to look after your own career and so on. But I can’t see how the Knowledge Economy will stay perfect and shiny forever, and today’s bright young things with the world at their feet will turn into tomorrow’s dinosaurs with poor prospects.

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In case you never knew or have forgotten, the title of this post isn’t using my own words.