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Sunday, August 10, 2014

Stop trying to fix capitalism

Capitalism is at war with the Earth and its eco-system. We can't change the laws of nature, but we can change our economic system.

The economic system cannot be fixed. It is not broken, not at all. Capitalism is performing as it should, benefiting the few at the cost of the the many. We will only survive as a species if we can substitute maximum sustainability for maximising profit.

Environmental destruction and climate change is not simply just another problem capitalism has bestowed upon us but is a threat to the actual existence of life itself on our planet. Climate change is only ONE symptom of overshoot, among others ( ocean acidification, habitat destruction, deforestation, and pollution, ) that are also existential threats to life on earth. The solutions offered by green capitalists and  governments are delusional. You cannot re-make the capitalist system to fit in with the welfare of the Earth. Capitalism has the same effect on the planet as cancer has on the body. It depends on constant growth, with no other consideration than profit, regardless of the consequences. It eventually will kill its host if we don't end it first. So far, the prognosis not looking too promising for us or the planet.

We are all part of the eco system - we are not apart from the natural world around us. We are one with the planet. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves and our children. We are ruining our air, our water, our soil and our oceans. Time to wake up. Time to stop worshiping almighty god, Mammon. Time to renew our connection with the natural world. Time to be true conservatives and conserve the planet.

 Decades ago Erich Fromm wrote "To Have or To Be". and to quote from the concluding chapter:
“The first requirement in the possible creation of the new society is to be aware of the almost insurmountable difficulties that such an attempt must face. The dim awareness of this difficulty is probably one of the main reasons that so little effort is made to make the necessary changes. Many think: "Why strive for the impossible? Let us rather act as if the course we are steering will lead us to the place of safety and happiness that our maps indicate." Those who unconsciously despair yet put on the mask of optimism are not necessarily wise. But those who have not given up hope can succeed only if they are hardheaded realists, shed all illusions, and fully appreciate the difficulties. This sobriety marks the distinction between awake and dreaming "utopians."
To mention only a few of the difficulties the construction of the new society has to solve:
• It would have to solve the problem of how to continue the industrial mode of production without total centralization, i.e., without ending up in fascism of the old-fashioned type or, more likely, technological "fascism with a smiling face."
• It would have to combine overall planning with a high degree of decentralization, giving up the "free-market economy," that has become  largely a fiction.
• It would have to give up the goal of unlimited growth for selective growth, without running the risk of economic disaster ......”

Too bad many of his suggestions weren't adopted 40 years ago. Any organized mass of people has the ability to rationally make plans to solve problems. Also, as you know, science in and of itself does not best solve all the problems of human existence.  Indeed, any organized movement built to solve the serious problems we confront as a global society must reject steep, top-down, hierarchical management structures, which can provide a template for future societal organization on a mass scale. This is not at all impossible for humans to adopt. The millions of us are going to have to transform the dream to a reality through robust grassroots/bottom-up politics.

Adapted from here

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