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How Unchecked Capitalism Has Brought the World to the Brink of Apocalypse -- and What We Must Do Now
http://www.alternet.org/visions/how-unchecked-capitalism-has-brought-world-brink-apocalypse-and-what-we-must-do-now
July 9, 2013 |
The following is an excerpt from We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out , in print at Amazon.com and on Kindle (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013):
The first step in dealing with a difficult situation is to muster the courage to face it honestly, to assess the actual depth and severity of a problem and identify the systems from which the problem emerges. The existing social, economic, and political systems produce a distribution of wealth and well-being that is inconsistent with moral principles, as the ecological capital of the planet is drawn down faster than it can regenerate. The systems that structure almost all human societies produce profoundly unjust and fundamentally unsustainable results. We have both a moral obligation and practical reasons to work for justice and sustainability.
We need first to imagine, and then begin to create, alternative systems that will reduce inequality and slow, and we hope eventually reverse, the human assault on the ecosphere. To work toward those goals, individuals can (and should) make changes in their personal lives to consume less; corporations can (and should) be subject to greater regulation; and the most corrupt political leaders can (and should) be turned out of office. But those limited efforts, while noble and important in the short term, are inadequate to address the problems if no systemic and structural changes are made.
That sounds difficult because it will be, and glib slogans can’t change that fact. A longstanding cliché of progressive politics -- organizers’ task is to “make it easy for people to do the right thing” -- is inadequate in these circumstances. Given the depth of the dysfunction, it will not be easy to do the right thing. It will, in fact, be very hard, and there’s no sense pretending otherwise. At this point in history, anything that is easy and can be achieved quickly is almost certainly insufficient and likely irrelevant in the long run. Attempting to persuade people that large-scale social change will come easily is not only insulting to their intelligence but is guaranteed to fail. If organizers can persuade people to join a movement based on promises of victories that won’t disrupt privileged lives -- victories that cannot be achieved -- the backlash is likely worse than the status quo.
There’s one simple reason that serious change cannot be easy: We are the first species in the history of the planet that is going to have to will itself to practice restraint across the board, especially in our use of energy. Like other carbon-based creatures, we evolved to pursue energy-rich carbon, not constrain ourselves. Going against that basic fact of nature will not be easy.
112 replies
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it is just that simple. 
Do tell! 
be the more PC term. You may have permanently damage my self esteem 
depersonalized ownership, and limited liability are a problem. This scheme of things will naturally create a predator class of managers and investors that control capital with the sole aim of enriching themselves--often by screwing everybody else and the environment.
It's kind of hard to believe that governments ever allowed this undemocratic and socially unjust scheme to develop in the first place. They apparently lacked the vision to see the predation it would surely promote.
How to fix it? For one thing, I suppose you'd have to close down the stock markets, which would seem to remove the raison d'etre for the corporate model, but that seems unlikely to happen at this late stage. I think Occupy Wall Street had the right idea but was up against overwhelming odds.
This is probably the biggest issue in the entire world right now. Huge multinational corporations and banks, oil companies and enormous organizations controlling massive reserves of money and moving them through channels that never even affect anyone below, but still make them immense, practically unimaginable profits.
It's too bad that LIBOR was too complex to get much traction on the news, because it was a huge scandal. Banks moving around hundreds of millions of dollars in order to make hundreds of millions of dollars more in profit. Unimaginably wealthy individuals that control immense reserves of cash in offshore accounts or investments that earn them interest and dividends that exceed the wages of hundreds of "regular people" put together.
And then, in the enormous shadow of that tiny percentage of humans are the masses who range from utter poverty to living comfortably. The average is somewhere around living paycheque to paycheque, praying that nothing goes wrong. No robberies, no illnesses, no layoffs, just surviving on the edge. The wealthy elite can't even picture this life. To them, if you're on the outs, just start your own business. Can't afford it? Just redeem some of your investments? No investments? Just borrow from your parents.
Something's going to give, and sadly, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
