If you are investing, looking for a job, making (or not making) a purchase, and generally behaving with the belief that a recovery from this crisis is somewhere over the horizon, you may have the wrong premise.  I have believed for a while that if “recovery” means a return to the way things were, then we’re probably not going to see a recovery.  This belief is based on my thinking that the current global economic crisis in not simply economic in cause or nature, but cultural in both.  As such it will have cultural consequences, and I think they will be wide, deep and long-lasting.

I become more convinced of this when I see how our culture and political philosophy is changing.  I came upon another example of that, courtesy of Michael J. Panzner, who is a frequent contributor to Seeking Alpha.  He also writes for his own blog, Financial Armageddon, where he sometimes posts articles that are in sync with his basic belief that the world has been due for a “financial unraveling.”  His Post of April 7, 2009, “A New Kind of Crowd,” refers to a story from The Financial Times entitled  “Assistance Soars in US.”

As Panzner notes in his introduction, “The current crisis has changed the way that people think about a great many things.”  The story focuses on Woodstock, Illinois, a town of about 20,000 people some 60 miles northwest of Chicago, and considered a suburb of Chicago.  The people there are hurting.  The community service director at the county housing authority is notably concerned about how this economic crisis is impacting the middle class, who never before thought about going on the food stamp or any other assistance program.  “A decade ago, most homeless people around here were single, mostly male, and many with drug and alcohol problems. Now the majority are intact families – couples with children,” she said.

This is a well-done to-the-point article worth reading.  It drives home the reality that this crisis we are experiencing is not simply an economic and capital markets crisis, and was not due to the capital markets meltdown, or AIG or the housing bubble or some particular type of debt instrument or any other single thing or organization we wish to blame for this mess.  I believe it arose from the entirety of our culture.  Consistent with that, I also believe that we are going to experience cultural changes as we live through this and when we come out of this.  Just read the article cited above to get a glimpse into how people are already starting to change.

Can we really believe that once we get to the other side of this crisis the people of the middle class, who are getting a right to the jaw they never imagined possible, will re-adopt their old standards and values and preferred ways to spend money?  Is it possible that when (and if) they get off of food stamps that they are going to incur debt for a new flat screen TV (or car or lavish vacation) as they did in the past?  Will they want to emulate the rich upper class, as they did in the past, or will they empathize with the working class below them, who have experienced for years the type of troubles the middle class is experiencing now? Will they be willing to buy a Reagan-like economic philosophy that if the rich prosper everyone else will prosper? Or will they be more inclined to support the Obama philosophy of limiting volatility and downside risk for the middle/working class even if it means minimizing upside opportunities for the executive/investing upper class?

One difficulty in answering those types of questions is that, at this point, we cannot know what “the other side” looks like because we do not know how our world will change.  We already have seen massive changes in political philosophy.  We’re likely to see more political changes, probably globally, plus all sorts of other changes (some of which probably aren’t anticipated currently) over the next few years.

Those changes will be deep.  Our economy will change, as it already has.  Our capital markets will change, as they are doing.  Our political philosophy is changing rapidly in a new direction.  What sort of world will we live in?  The quasi-capitalism philosophy that is now emerging, may yet prove to be awful, good, or great.  We simply do not know yet.  But certainly, our culture will change as well.  What drives us will change.  Our buying habits will change, as will our view of debt and savings.

The degree of change ahead of us could be dramatic.  Assuming that happens, we will not return to what existed pre-economic recession, pre-capital markets meltdown, and pre-Obama political philosophy.  That leads me to conclude that if a ”recovery” from this crisis means a return to what was, then we shouldn’t expect a recovery.