Our Civilization Has a Problem. It’s Called “The Economy”

What Do a Summer of Strikes and Climate Change Have in Common? A Lot More Than You Think

Image Credit: Marta Guerriero, Asian Development Bank Institute

It’s not just an Extinction Summer — it’s also becoming a Hot Strike Summer. Around the world, discontent is growing — and strikes are rising. And these two things are related. Let’s discuss it — because all these strikes are a reflection of an economy going badly wrong, which, in turn, is doing far too little to address climate change.

We have a civilizational problem, and it’s called “the economy.”

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Hollywood actors recently joined writers and producers in going on strike. Why? “The median weekly pay for writer-producers declined 23% over the last decade when adjusting for inflation, according to a WGA survey.” So what are they asking for? “The union said its proposals would have gained the writers $429 million a year.”

Now let’s jump to a completely different country, and a completely different field. In Britain, doctors are on strike. “Junior” doctors, in Britain’s strange parlance, which essentially just means everyone below the most senior rank. Why? “The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents around 45,000 junior doctors in England, argue that their pay has fallen by 26 per cent in real terms over the last 14 years.”

Do you see how strikingly similar those numbers are? Hollywood writers and creators say their pay’s fallen by 23% — meanwhile, doctors in Britain say theirs has fallen by 26%. Eerie, no? But that’s not a coincidence — it’s a relationship.

What do Britain’s doctors want? It’d cost about a billion pounds to restore their pay to what it should be. Sounds like a lot? It’s 0.03% percent of GDP. Pennies. What do Hollywood’s creatives want? $429 million. That’s such a tiny fraction of American GDP it’s barely worth even bothering calculating, but for reference’s sake, it’s 0.001%.

Meanwhile, Hollywood’s top bosses took home twice that amount last year alone. And in Britain? A scandal over unusable protective equipment for doctors cost $4 billion alone — which is four times what doctors are asking for. Go ahead and join me in deranged laughter.

So what is all this a symptom of? Why is it that Hollywood creative and doctors in Britain both say they’re underpaid by about 25%? That number’s not some kind of coincidence. It’s a very, very important one. It’s true at the small scale because it’s true at the biggest scale: this is basically our civilization’s investment gap.