Economic Outlook

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Unfortunately, noted Webb (and remember . . . this was 30 years ago), that "debacle" may well be only the beginning of the end for what we've come to consider as our natural way of life. "The years ahead," he said, "will be far different from anything we've known. Even if science makes some sort of dramatic breakthrough"—which Webb doubted was possible—"the boom which will result will not be the kind of boom we've had for 450 years. At best, a great number of our most cherished institutions, myths, and ways of doing business will have to be discarded. At best, we must prepare for cataclysmic changes in the way we live. At best, our future will be one of upheaval."

And at worst?

Walter Prescott Webb was too gentle a man to go into the gory details of the bleak future that his predictions imply . . . but he did sketch out a loose forecast of what a boomless tomorrow might hold in store. Society—Webb said—will go through a process of "devolution and retrogression rather than evolution and progress". Rural life will become more important and cities will become less pleasant places in which to live. Population will stabilize—too late, of course, and for the wrong reasons—and society will take on some of the steadystate characteristics of the medieval age.

The democracy of the frontier will give way to socialism and fascism. Governments will become stronger and individuals less important. Capitalism will decline and prosperity will slip from the grasp of England, Europe, and—finally—the Americas.

As population expands toward its final balance with the land . . . food and clothing and other basics of life will become relatively more and more costly. As a result, we'll soon give up our efforts-in name, as well as fact-to feed the planet's hungry, defend the "free" world, and prop up the economy of every nation that sides with us.

Eventually, if we're lucky enough to reach a standoff which offers enough stability for reflection, Webb feels that the historians and philosophers of the future will "view the Age of the Frontier as an aberration, a temporary departure from the normal, a strange historical detour in which men developed all sorts of quaint ideas about property for all, freedom for all, and continuous progress". The institutions that we now take for granted, Webb thinks, will appear "to have been so highly specialized that they could not survive the return of society to a normal state where there was a balance between land and the men who lived on it".

It is, indeed, unfortunate for us all that few—if any!—of the politicians and economists now "leading" the Western world have read Walter Prescott Webb's book, The Great Frontier. If they had read the book, of course, they would understand that the 450-year-long prosperity which our society has enjoyed and which began to draw to a close around 1950 was entirely due to the windfall riches of North America, South America, etc. that we've been plundering for the past four and a half centuries. They would also know—as they now do not—that the same prosperity has in no way been created by the manipulation of interest rates, the establishment of social security systems and welfare programs, or any other shuffling of economic theories, political platforms, or social schemes.

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