Can a financial system survive longer than a human lifetime?
In short: Most modern financial structures are designed for the immediate, leaving a massive gap for the next generation. If a 20-year-old cannot rely on a retirement structure today, the system is fundamentally broken. We need to move beyond 'time is money' to a finance that actually respects the passage of time.
The Long Finance initiative, launched in 2007 following the global credit crunch, seeks to address a systemic failure in how we perceive time in economics. While the common adage is that 'time is money,' this movement argues that a sustainable system requires embedding a long-term perspective into the very fabric of finance and society. The core problem identified is a system that fails to provide reliable financial structures for the youth, specifically questioning how we can fund long-term goals like forests or multi-generational retirement. Inspired by the 'Long Now' project—a multi-million dollar American initiative to build a clock designed to chime once every hundred years—Long Finance asks impertinent questions about durability. Under reasonable actuarial expectations, a financial structure for a 20-year-old's retirement should last between 75 and 100 years. The goal is to transition from superficial reactions to current crises toward a holistic rethink of sustainability versus robustness. This involves exploring whether finance can look forward just one lifetime, rather than just the next fiscal quarter. This shift is supported by research into 'The Eternal Coin' and publications on mortgages and resilience. It challenges the 'religion of regulation' by suggesting that simply spreading existing rules across jurisdictions is insufficient. Instead, the movement advocates for a structural change that promotes robust, equitable, and environmentally sustainable growth, ensuring that the financial systems of today do not collapse before the next generation reaches maturity.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Sustainability: The Problem of Time - Professor Avinash Persaud - Gresham College
- Also: Sustainability - The Problem of Time
- Also: independent.academia.edu — Avinash Persaud - Profile on Academia.edu
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