The Power of Lying Fallow

Everything needs time to regenerate if it is to thrive, from nature to business to people. It is also very inefficient according to short term metrics. We have a problem of our own making and for which the resolution, with resolve, is in our own hands.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, "The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary." Addictions are profitable for the pushers, and each of these addictions has pushers - for heroin is it crime syndicates, for carbohydrates the corporate / advertising complex. For monthly salaries, it is debt. 

In my lifetime, household debt in the UK, as a percentage of GDP, has tripled to 90%. Behind that is a complex mix of privatising the commons of education, healthcare and a raft of other services that used to be free, financed by second incomes and debt. If that's not pushing, I'm not sure what is. It makes the drugs cartels look like amateurs.

Over the same period, we have done the same to the way we grow our food as we …