The Prosperous Way Down  

Let's start with the premise that resource scarcity and rising costs cause the global economy to contract. Let's not be concerned here with the timing, but consider what can be expected and what our adapting strategies should be to conditions that force descent.

There are many new words being used for this future scenario, such as decession, the opposite of succession.The expectation of general systems concepts of self organization for any system is a rhythmic alternation between slow production, growth and succession followed by a pulse of consumption, descent and decession. Pulsing on each scale is an accumulating build up of products converged to centers, followed by descent with sharp, short diverging dispersal.

Many assume that the only way down is to crash and restart. But many systems program orderly descent and decession that is followed later by growth and succession again. For example, in the past, ecosystems and human cultures in northern latitudes expanded and contracted seasonally. They decreased populations, stored information, and reduced function with such mechanisms as spore and seed formation, hibernation, migration, and staging inactivity and rest.

The following are changes that accompany descent. Either we adapt with deliberate process or have these changes forced on us with damaging repercussions. Although we can't predict how societies will react, we can use quantitative resource evaluations to characterize what is possible. For each of these changes, some suggestions are made that could make descent less traumatic and more prosperous. Many of the changes are in progress.