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III.FOREIGN POLICY, WALL ST, & THEM
BS ‘n’ About…
The Exponentialities of Capitalism
“Capitalism is an exponential force in a finite world.”
The groundwork for capitalism was laid down by Adam Smith at an all or nothing time when it took three years for an investment to sail around the world and back. It provided the framework upon which we built the Industrial and Information Ages. It is by far the most dynamic economic system yet devised by mankind. Therein lies the problem.
Capitalism has provided exponential growth and progress for two hundred years. But we don’t live in an exponential world. If our Best & Brightest continue to devote their all to generating increasing returns for non-vested stockholders, there can be only one result: a burger joint and a gas station every mile from here to Timbuktu, frequented by a propagandized populace, and an Earth stripped of its every resource.
The corporations that capitalism spawned are now the big dogs on the block. They outlive us. They’re protected by special rules. They’re bigger than governments. They control our news and our jobs, our entertainments and our lifestyles, our health and our safety. A good case can be made, (and probably will be later!), that they control much of our political process and foreign policy. And they grow exponentially more powerful every day.
Yet corporations have no incentive to have a conscience. They sell SUV’s between gas crises. They chop down rain forests. They cheat on their taxes. They Chapter 13 their debts. They renege on pension plans. They ‘downsize’ peoples’ lives. But worst of all, they’re changing who and what we are as beings.
Capitalism quit being a good thing when it met the Information Age. Corporations have sown themselves into the fabric of our lives in ways subtle, yet significant. They’ve taken over. They control everything. They’ve changed what we are, and already we can’t remember being any other way.
But it has only been about forty years… Back then we didn’t feel the need to have some guy’s name splashed all over our underwear. Our kids didn’t need $200 worth of sweatshop swooshes to fit in at school. We knew the families who owned our favorite restaurants and weren’t afraid of everything we ate. We frequented businesses that had our neighbors’ names above the door and entertainment was something we did with other people. We didn’t have all that much STUFF.
But none of that is in capitalism’s best interests. It wants each of us an island, spending our money on its products and services to fill a perceived need it has ‘propogandized’ into us in the first place. It wants each of us in our own room, hooked into the ‘media input device’ of our choice, eating our favorite pre-packaged or take-out food. It wants us to feel fat, ugly, and stupid enough to try and buy our way out of it. It wants us afraid. It wants us alone.
It doesn’t want us playing unorganized ball. It doesn’t want us eating home-cooked family dinners. It doesn’t want us going to church socials. It doesn’t want us sitting on the back porch with the neighbors. It wants us unfulfilled. It wants us envious. It wants us afraid. It wants us greedy. It will never be in capitalism’s best interest for us to ever feel any contentment, harmony, or Peace. Not as individuals. Not as a species.
It wasn’t all that long ago we encouraged our children to confront their fears. Now we encase them in armor to ride their bicycles. Are we really better off for eliminating everything that tastes good from our diets, having global tracking systems in our cars, or being in a constant state of war with enemies real, perceived, or fabricated?
Capitalism worked when it rode on horseback. But in light of the exponentialities of the Information Age, it is far too voracious and unaccountable an economic system. It will continue to seek new markets until it succeeds in paving every jungle, desert, and tundra on Earth. It will never take the bigger picture into account, never seeing beyond its own bottom line. What is best for us as individuals, nations, and a species will never be a part of the equation.
Capitalism was an incredible system when there was room for unrestrained growth. This rapid expansion has left us with political, social, cultural, and logistic growing pains we need to address before we expand further. Capitalism is hurtling us toward an abyss. Capitalism and the greed it spawns is seeing to it that Stone Age disputes are being fought with Information Age weaponry. Capitalism knows there aren’t enough resources, nor oxygen for that matter, to sell every human a car. But it’s gonna try anyway.
Capitalism has no brakes and is constantly accelerating at a time when we need to be choosing our path carefully. Mankind is at the dawn of incredible change. If we can see the prices coming maybe we won’t have to pay them. It is probably already too late, the way things used to be too distant a memory, the way things are now already too ingrained, the Abyss too near to apply the brakes in time. Capitalism is no longer our friend. We have created a monster and it is devouring us.
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