By Matthew Leger / Herald Forum
The world is at an inflection point: Artificial intelligence is redefining white-collar work and education; drones and new battery technology have changed modern military theory; inflation has increased prices and the labor market shows signs of weakness; nearly every recent election has seen party realignment; and Donald Trump’s isolationist tariff theory is destroying the global economic order established following World War II.
Mexican poet Homero Aridjis said in a quote often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, telling of its weight, “There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen.” Such a sentiment seems to be reflected in the hours we find ourselves today. For the United States particularly, we seem to be being thrown into a potential recession handcrafted by the executive and are at major risk of losing our spot as a global superpower.
However, that is not to say there is no hope, because while the social and economic downturns of recession are undeniable, they also act as recalibrations that can purge inefficient markets, balance overzealous speculators, and catalyze innovation.
So with that, instead of looking at the unending gloom the newsfeed is sending us, it’s important to see the good that’s to come.
Recessions have a unique ability to cleanse the economic landscape. Like wildfires clearing out the dead and dying underbrush, recessions act in the same way. As painful and fiery as it can be, downturns force a reckoning: bloated companies that rely on cheap capital and unprofitable,“growth-focused” models become exposed, while employers who rest on the coattails of their past success are unable to remain complacent and forced to innovate or fall behind. The inefficiencies of society finally fall back and metamorphosize into something better.
The flip-phone becomes the iPhone, yellow cabs become self-driving Ubers, and DVD delivery transforms into streamlined streaming. Recessions allow well-placed entrepreneurs to jump on the stumbling behemoths and inventions are reinvented.
Finally, recessions call forth leadership; true leadership. In the same way Franklin Delano Roosevelt rose during the Great Depression and allowed him to build a coalition strong enough to spark a golden age of capitalism, and Abraham Lincoln followed James Buchanan, leaders rise up when they’re needed.
While leadership may be lacking today, the whole “hard times make strong men” moniker rings true. History teaches us that new figures emerge from precisely this kind of turmoil, people who can galvanize a divided public and point toward a more coherent, more hopeful, more vibrant future.
Thus, while it may be hard to look out and embrace the fire, ashy soil is ripe for rebirth.
Matthew Leger graduated this month from Kamiak High School in Mukilteo.
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