| To:
Guardian CiF Re: Global economics has same growth curve as culture of microorganisms Date: Friday 20 July 07 |
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| In
response to Guardian leader, "Old worries, new problems", on the
current economic situation Link to article and thread at The Guardian. 3rd
Post
I like your idea about banning advertising, on which currently approaching half a trillion dollars annual are spent, I believe, most of it encouraging people who already have enough, to want even more. It is complete insanity, but a central pillar of the economy on which we all depend - which presents something of a dilemma, a short of double bind. The problem is that you cannot make any radical changes to the existing order without evoking massive resistance from those who are disadvantaged by them. In the existing socio-economic order, we are all blindly competing with each other (as animals do); it is what our economy, free-market capitalism, developed specifically to facilitate. The only solution I can envisage is for us to create an "alternative" socio-economic order, within but distinct from the existing one. A socio-economic order based on very different values, attitudes, aspirations and priorities to those the current one, which means that it will need to have a quasi "religious" foundation (don't be put off by the current meaning of the word "religious", I'm giving it a new and more useful meaning - see below). As it grows and develops we (those of us who wish, i.e. are enlightened enough, to participate) can transfer our activates, dependencies and vested interests to it, not under coercion, but when we are ready and at our own pace. What I envisage is the development of not just one, but a multitude of "religious societies", created through the identification and self-organization of individuals, grass-roots democratically, which will themselves self-organize into this alternative socio-economic order I speak of. "Religion" derives from Latin, religare, meaning "to bind together". That is central. Humans evolved to live and cooperate in groups of a manageable size. That will also facilitate the selection of our wisest and most enlightened (rather than the most power-hungry) members to lead and guide us through the difficult times ahead. |
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How does it feel to be economics editor of the Guardian newspaper and spokesperson for such a dumb animal, "Homo stupidus economicus"?
We are Earth's "Greatest Ape", and what do we do? We use our super-large "prime-ape" brain and prodigious intelligence to rationalize and justify our short-sighted, dumb-animal behaviour and generally delude ourselves into believing that this totally misplaced, Darwinian, struggle for survival and advantage in the artificial socio-economic environment of the global economy can continue indefinitely, instead of leading us, as it must, to global catastrophe.
Collectively we are behaving like a population of yeast or bacteria in a laboratory culture flask: currently we are still in the exponential phase of growth and development, now rapidly approaching its peak, which will be followed, inevitably, by precipitous decline.
We have the largest and most sophisticated brain on the entire planet - yet collectively we behave like bacteria, which have no brain at all.
That great microbiologist in the sky, if he or she has any compassion for humanity, must be looking down on us and weeping bitterly.