Where to now, Homo Developus?

Everybody knows that a few years ago we had a big economic breakdown. There were many reasons to explain what happened in 2008.
Let’s step back in time a little and consider what has taken place on our Industrialized Earth.
During the 1800’s and 1900’s our developed nations undertook a vast, worldwide surge of industrial development, which was accompanied by a universal expansion of business and corporate prosperity. This hyper-expansive phase of human development required very large-scale extractions of natural resources, which were then transformed into mega-stocks of consumer goods.
An abundance of consumer goods brought forth an abundance of consumers.
Consuming.
Consuming the goods, consuming the planet.
The end of the 20th century brought a vast slowdown. It happened in the fall of 2008, and regardless of what the bullish analysts and stimulus-chasers declare, we are still mired in that big slowdown of ’08.
And will continue to be. This is going to morph into a vast leveling out. The industrial age is over. Our planet will not tolerate another 200-year extraction expansion.
Now we have entered into the Age of Sustainable Technology and Appropriate Industry.
And herein a question arises.
Who will run the world?
Is there a cartel of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Edison and JPMorgan-types out there who will forge a new system to transform the old Industrial Infrastructure into the new Sustainable Society?
As the next surge—the post-industrial phase— is being initiated by a new breed of Industrialist . . . the Gates, the Jobs, the Bezos and Buffets . . . the industrialized Civilization stumbles into a new Electronified Zone.
A digitized twilight zone, as it were.
In the wake of the great ’08 Slowdown, we encounter a host of questions that define the logistical problem of where to go from here.
During the Investment Segment’s breakdown of ’08, a lot of very complicated financial engineering became unwound.
One financial analyst, John M. Mason, recently offered an explanation that includes this analysis of what happened in the financial world during the decline of our industrializing phase:

But, in the developed world, the presence of lots and lots of liquidity means very little in the way of corporate capital investment. The environment of credit inflation, built up over the last fifty years of so, has created a culture of financial engineering in the business community and, consequently, corporations act differently now than they did when most of the current economic models were constructed. Government stimulus gets built into greater risk taking, greater financial leverage, and financial investment, like stock buybacks.

(https://seekingalpha.com/article/4233178-supply-side-world-europe-well-united-states?ifp=0&app=1.)
So it seems to me that the financial guys—the wallstreet wheelers and dealers, etc—having running out of real new industrial infrastructure to invest in, turned to MBS schemes and CDO games in order to keep their game going. Instead of their oversized financial whirligig running on old Industrial Growth stimulants, they rigged it to run on the fumes thereof.
Now in a post-industrial age, we find ourselves as a species, Homo Developus, scratching our heads and wondering where do we go from here?
It just so happens that, in the wake of the Great Industrial Expansion of Planet Earth, there emerges a vast bureaucracy of Smart People—number crunchers, economic theorizers, technocrats, academics, programmers, bureaucrats, not to mention the mysterious ghosts of AI —who propose to reconstruct the detritus of the industrial age into a systemic quasi-social Union that will make sure everybody is taken care of.
And so I’m wondering, what’s the best way to administrate such a civilization?
What’s the best system for governing a federation of post-industrial nations?
What’s the the most effective strategy for managing a cushy, highly-developed Society?
What’s the most humane political structure to assure income and health for all citizens?
Should Europeans, for instance, appoint multiple layers of bureaucracy to enforce labor laws so that every person has a guaranteed income?
Should the State take control of business so that everybody gets a minimal piece of the pie?
And these philosophical, or sociological questions arise:
What motivation compels some individuals to seek opportunity and then develop that opportunity into abundance and prosperity?
What drives the go-getters to excel in economic pursuits? What motivates them to acquire work, money, property, resources, and then manipulate those assets into an overflow of wealth?
What incentive impels them to take care of themselves and their families?
On the other hand, what compels some other people to, instead, take charge of bureaucratic agencies in order to administrate a Society that assures everyone a minimum of economic assistance?
What drives some analytical people to write laws and devise policies for systematically managing governmental bureaus to assure that everyone is taken care of?
Who is in charge here?
Who is going to run the world?
Will it be the go-getters, the pioneers, movers and shakers, developers, entrepreneurs, rule-breakers, industrialists, business mavens?
Or will it be the wonks who manage the world—the academics, the specialists, bureaucrats, rule-makers, policy-crafters, the tweakers of governmental largesse?


Consider Esther Lynch’s observations:

The ETUC has watched the rise in precarious working conditions in Europe—platform working, zero-hours contracts, bogus self-employment and so on—with deep concern. Research in the UK found that young people on zero-hours contracts, for example, were far more likely to report mental and physical health problems than their counterparts in stable jobs. A study by the University of Limerick in Ireland warned that people on non-guaranteed hours could become ‘trapped in a cycle of poverty which strengthens employers’ control’, generating a fear of being penalised if they raised grievances about working conditions. In response, the Irish government has taken steps to prohibit the use of zero-hours contracts, unless the employer can show a genuine business need. Guaranteeing transparent and predictable working conditions would have wide-ranging benefits, in terms of workers’ health, work-life balance and employee retention.

  (https://www.socialeurope.eu/tackling-insecure-work-in-europe)
What does the peaceful development of Civilization require? Management by one, or the other, of these two types? Or Both/and?
Is Civilization founded upon a principle of every man/woman for hmrself?
Or will it settle into BigBrotherSister administering a vast Guarantee for All?
Or something in between.
Keep your eyes open to watch what develops.
Smoke