≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASKS:WHAT IS IT ABOUT US THAT MAKES US WHOLLY INCAPABLE OF RESPONDING? TO CLIMATE CHANGE- IS IT GREED OR ARE WE JUST PLAIN STUPID.
The Olympics are in full swing with its opening message long forgotten by those how win a medal.
The world since the first farmer grew two carrots has had its winners, losers, wars, famines, rich, and poor, you name it the World has weathered all.
You could be a faitheist and say “What happens happens” but as Lone Man ( Isna la wica) ( late 19th century Teton Sioux said ” I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself.”
I have written on Climate Change before the Paris Agreement and after.
Since then every day of the week there is some new evidence that the climate is changing.
The global meltdown has begun.
Long predicted and long denied, the effects of climate change are arriving faster than even the gloomiest prophets expected.
The earth is dying, yet those who spread this message are treated as dangerous and mad.
This week we learnt that the Arctic ecosystem is collapsing.
Three weeks ago, marine biologists reported that almost all the world’s coral reefs could be dead by the end of the coming century.
One month ago, the Red Cross reported that natural disasters uprooted more people in 1998 than all the wars and conflicts on earth combined.
The demographer Dr Norman Myers calculates that 25m people have already been displaced by environmental change, and this will rise to 200m within 50 years.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reports that nine of the 10 most dangerous diseases carried by insects and other vectors are likely to spread as a result of global warming.
You would think that with our combined World Intelligent we would be by now well beyond the point of discussing the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Not on your Nelly.
And yet, far from addressing this coming catastrophe, we curse or mock anyone who draws attention to it.
What is it about this pattern of living that demands that those who challenge it must be treated as if they were dangerous or mad?
Is it just plain stupidity or that we have found the key to undying happiness, the transactable elixir of life?
What is it about this crisis, what is it about us, that makes us wholly incapable of responding?
Is it the drive to make more money than you could possibly need, to buy more goods than you could possibly enjoy, is a species of mental illness. Success in this system brings not happiness, but, at best, an alleviation of the pain required to sustain it. Even its beneficiaries are also its victims.
Climate change is perhaps the gravest calamity our species has ever encountered. Its impact dwarfs that of any war, any plague, any famine we have confronted so far. It makes genocide and ethnic cleansing look like sideshows at the circus of human suffering.
To date we have not reached the necessary number of countries to represent 55% of global emissions to sign up to the agreement to implement the Paris Agreement. (Which I advocate will have little effect as the agreement has no means of enforcing anything agreed.)
Negotiations and meetings have been marred by special interest groups trying to prevent effective action to combat climate change. In addition, there has been a lack of political will to take effective steps and measures.
Many large corporations, have opposed climate change treaties seemingly afraid of profit impacts if they have to make substantial changes to how they do business.
All countries are affected by, and contribute to, the buildup of greenhouse gases, and should be willing to join in the effort to stop it. However, it is far from easy to agree what to do, and how to do it….
Because : Poor countries face the brunt of the problems caused by global warming, and point out that most of the current global warming are the results of the rich countries’ pollution.
Current consumption patterns also see far more greenhouse emissions per person in the rich countries than the poorer ones.
As evidence of climate change mounts the impacts will be worse for more vulnerable people around the world, and could destabilize the world economy.
However, some are ( Donald Trump) still trying to undermine climate change action through deception.
The EU is in crisis, and the USA will be soon.
Brazil’s “interim” government, led by Michel Temer, signed an emergency loan to the State of Rio de Janeiro to help finance infrastructure for the 2016 Olympics. The bailout was conditional to selling off the State’s public water supply and sanitation company, the Companhia Estadual de Águas e Esgotos (Cedae).
What will it take to persuade us to stop using the world as our punchbag?
Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet.
All the words, pledges, agreements mean nothing without the political will, and financial backing.
There is only one way to make any difference worthwhile happening world-wide and that is to tap into World Greed.
Profit for Profit sake.
By placing a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Financial Transactions, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over $20,000, on all Lottery wins over $100000, on all gambling.
This would create a perpetual Fund of trillions to tackle Climate Change.
Will it happen.
Not without all of us demanding it of the United Nations.
The Earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it.
IN THE FIRST PART ON THIS BLOG I ATTEMPTED TO SHOW THAT TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING THE WAY WE VIEW DEMOCRACY AND AS A CONSEQUENCE POLITICAL PARTIES WILL OR ARE BECOMING OBSOLETE.
For those of us who still think that because we support a particular party AND that it will deliver on its pre-election promises I can only say we are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Governance use to be understood as ‘a system of values, policies and institutions by which a society manages its economic, political and social affairs through interaction within and among the State, civil society and the private sector.
This for now holds true for the most part but it is changing as we enter the Technology Revolution.
Why?
BECAUSE MOST SOCIETIES ARE NOW A MIX OF SEVERAL CULTURES DRIVEN BY A WORLD MEDIA THAT HAS TURNED EVERY FORM OF GREED AND VIOLENCE INTO AN ENTERTAINMENT.
POLITICIANS ARE NO LONGER CAPABLE OF REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE WHO VOTE FOR THEM.
THERE IS NO LONGER ANY LONG TERM PLANNING ONLY KNEE JERK REACTIONS.
INDEED WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO THE BEAR TRUTH- THEY ARE ALL DRIVEN BY DATA ON THE ECONOMY, AND MANIPULATED BY BIG MONEY OR THE LACK THEREOF.
Where does this leave us.
Just look at the current USA presidential election. Two candidate that are viewed as a threat to world peace.
There is an urgent need not just in the United States to invest in cultural diversity and dialogue.
Culture is increasingly recognized as a cross-cutting dimension of the three economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability.
We must strengthen social cohesion and provide sources of inspiration for renewing forms of democratic governance if we are to put a break on governance for the sake of money rather than for the values we all cherish.
We must places more emphasis on ‘unity in diversity.’
Indigenous knowledge can direct us towards more sustainable modes of living.
Similarly, ignoring the increasingly multicultural makeup of societies would amount to negating the existence of large sections of the population, which compartmentalizes society and damages the social fabric by creating competition between the different communities over access to resources (for education, health, social services) rather than promoting a sense of solidarity.
The expansion of digital networks, for example, has sometimes helped to revitalize endangered or even extinct languages; and the development of new technologies has greatly increased the possibilities of communicating and exchanging cultural content in time and space. Moreover, in certain cultural contexts, global cities in particular, the varied cultural flows and sometimes unexpected encounters produced by globalization are reflected in a growing range of consumer habits and trends.
You might ask why more emphasis on ‘unity in diversity.
Because Cultural diversity, characterized as it is by space-time compression linked to the speed of new communication and transportation technologies, and by the growing complexity of social interactions and the increasing overlap of individual and collective identities — cultural diversity has become a key concern, amid accelerating globalization processes, as a resource to be preserved and as a lever for sustainable development.
Intercultural dialogue must be seen as a complex and ongoing process that is never completed.
Unfortunately Globalization is NOT ACHIEVING THIS but is leading inevitably to cultural homogenization. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In etc.
While it is true that globalization induces forms of homogenization and standardization, it cannot be regarded as inimical to human creativity, which continues to engender new forms of diversity, constituting a perennial challenge to featureless uniformity.
Digital technology has drastically changed the modes of producing and disseminating cultural products, and cultural industries that previously were kept separate by analogue systems of production (film, television, photography and printing) have now converged.
We can’t hold a computer program like Google hostage to our demands.
We must move away from elite level deal making by allowing diverse interests to influence and design our own debating and decision-making rules.
Take for instance the eradication of world poverty, which is an intolerable violation of human rights in terms of both the hardships and the loss of dignity it causes – must be approached in terms of each specific social and cultural setting.
No amount of money is going to make any long-term worthwhile difference.
This can only be done with massive investment in Education.
Without education we are blowing in the wind, because rights and freedoms are exercised in very varied cultural environments and all have a cultural dimension that needs to be acknowledged so as to ensure their effective integration in different cultural contexts.
Education is a fundamental human right to which all children and adults should have access, contributing as it does to individual freedom and empowerment, and to human development.
We must escape National dialogues and engage in collective world mandates, that have legal status, and are independence from the government.
We must re- invent the United Nations changing it from a gossip shop on world problems to an Organisation that is fully funded with total transparency.
Irrivalent of the changes in technology quit hoc resolutions diplomacy is not enough.
Human beings relate to one another through society, and express that relationship through culture.
New technologies have not yet rendered the older technologies obsolete.
If we are to respond to the challenges inherent in a culturally diverse world, we must develop new approaches to intercultural dialogue, approaches that go beyond the limitations of the ‘dialogue among civilizations’ paradigm. Too often, dialogue events have stressed collective identities (national, ethnic, religious) rather than identities of individuals or social groups.
We must ensure a level playing field for cultural encounters and guaranteeing equality of status and dignity between all participants in initiatives to promote intercultural dialogue involve recognizing the ethnocentric ways in which certain cultures have hitherto proceeded.
The founding Vetoes in the United Nations must be scraped by give all nations an equal voice.
While virtually all human activities are shaped by and in turn help to shape cultural diversity, the prospects for the continued vitality of diversity are crucially bound up with the future of languages, education, the communication of cultural content, and the complex interface between creativity and the marketplace.
Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented enmeshment of national economies and cultural expressions, giving rise to new challenges and opportunities.
The emergence of genuine ‘knowledge societies’ implies a diversity of forms of knowledge and of its sources of production, We are creating Internet technological Sahara Deserts that are and will drive millions to seek a better life or wars.
Communication networks have shrunk or abolished distance, to the benefit of some and the exclusion of others.
To address the problems that derive from the grotesque inequalities and structural poverty of our world which is at the foundations of 90% of the mess we now find ourselves in. We must recognise that successful intercultural dialogue lies in the acknowledgement of the equal dignity of the participants… based on the premise that all cultures are in continual evolution and are the result of multiple influences throughout history.
All rights and freedoms have a cultural dimension that contributes to their effective exercise. It is precisely this dimension that forms the link between the individual, the community and the group, which grounds universal values within a particular society.
All communities do not experience and respond to phenomena such as globalization in the same way.
As migration flows have intensified with globalization, they have significantly modified the ethno-linguistic makeup of a number of countries and have created new linguistic and translation needs, especially in administrative, legal and medical circuits worldwide.
Characterized as it is by space-time compression linked to the speed of new communication and transportation technologies, and by the growing complexity of social interactions and the increasing overlap of individual and collective identities — cultural diversity has become a key concern, amid accelerating globalization processes, as a resource to be preserved and as a lever for sustainable development.
Finally, forms of democratic governance can be renewed by deriving lessons from the different models adopted by diverse cultures.
We the people of the world must make our collective voices heard which is becoming almost impossible due to all of the above.
If we don’t want to rule by
AI has officially made its way into Google’s search algorithm.
(The artificial intelligence of RankBrain comes in the form of mathematical entities called vectors that can be understood by computers. When presented with an unfamiliar word, RankBrain will help formulate a guess at what the query was about and filter accordingly.)
There are many possibilities as to how Rank Brain could work into being a signal to direct your choice to making any decision.
Central to the many problems arising in this context is the Western ideology of knowledge transparency, which cannot do justice to systems of thought recognizing both ‘exoteric’ and ‘esoteric’ knowledge and embodying initiatory processes for crossing the boundaries between them.
Diversity of traditions and cultures has for centuries been one of Europe’s riches and that the principle of tolerance is the guarantee of the maintenance in Europe of an open society.
Take England’s recent referendum on the EU.
So far the English referendum has resulted in transitional period now represented by an unelected interim governments whose authority to press the out button and start negotiations to leave may lack legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
Political transitions are tumultuous processes that celebrate advances and suffer setbacks several times before they can conclude with a new, widely accepted constitutional order.
There is a whole new class of millionaires as the new generation takes control of banks, government, and other institutions. The stage is set for another depression and the collapse of the welfare state.
How this can be achieved I leave to you to suggest.
But I am convinced that with the smart phone we should create a new political platform where the voice of people would hold weight in decision taken by our political masters.
If every eligible voting age citizen had a phone, any project that cost over x billions could be electronically sent for approval or disapproval.
As how to finance the United Nations ( see previous post : A World Aid Commission)
Can any of what I am writing about be achieved. Yes it Can.
I AM SURE LIKE ME YOU CAN RATTLE OFF HUNDREDS OF REASONS.
But the world is that what humans have made out of it.
Five centuries of European colonialism and global culture-trashing, and the remaking of the world in the economic interests of competing empires, cannot be undone by a single institution and a cluster of lofty ideals.
The world, as it now exists, was largely shaped by the colonial powers, which divided the world among themselves, carving out states without any consideration for existing ethnic, religious or cultural realities.
And after the colonial era collapsed, these carved-out political entities, defining swatches of territory without any history of national identity, suddenly became the Third World and floundered in disarray.
It was inevitable that to keep these artificial countries alive, and avoid their disintegration, strongmen would be needed to cover the void left by the colonial powers. The rules of democracy were used only to reach power, with very few exceptions.
Values and ideas which were considered universal, such as cooperation, mutual aid, international social justice and peace as an encompassing paradigm are also becoming irrelevant.
Whatever noble attempts at eliminating war the powers that be made in the wake of World War II — Europe’s near self-annihilation — didn’t cut nearly deep enough.
These attempts didn’t set about undoing five centuries of colonial conquest and genocide. They didn’t cut deeper than national interest. If something grows too big, then it destroys itself from the inside.
The existing problem with the EU as shown by the recent English Referendum. Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests.
But why is it like this? Why are humans using their capacity of higher intelligence so negatively?
Perhaps it is because the human race in its state of development and as a whole, is still nearer to the animal behavior than to advanced capabilities.
Just look at the choice of the next President of the USA governed by Money.
The problem with the United Nations is that it’s a unity of entities defined by their hatred of one another and committed to the perpetuation of “the scourge of war.
Is it because Capitalism has not taken care of our fellow human beings?
We have become consumer and have lost the instinct to take care of our fellow human beings?
There is one part of the population who have overweight and are sick because of too much food and an other part who are starving to death, often living one beside the other.
Just look at the current refugee crises.
Instead of setting up properly manned entry points we allow people smugglers to pray on the vulnerable, close borders, and watch people drowning. A sure recipe for terrorism.
How can we find a way out of the mess?
Obviously religious and spiritual rules made up by humans doesn’t protect humanity from being distinguished.
Our ” way of life” our behavior, our goals and values are making is blind, are confusing us and driving us more and more into disease and depression.
There are people calling for a solution.
They are expecting help from their authorities, they expect to be healed by doctors or they ask for help and solutions from their government. What an illusion!
As long as they are dependent and not capable to look through the game of this world, they will not be able to make decisions for themselves. They will stay in dependency, manipulated from the more clever…
There’s always money to wage war and build weapons.
The recent Vote by 300 odd English MP to renew Trident.
The contractors are adept at playing the game. Jobs link arms with fear and patriotism and the next war is always inevitable. And it’s always necessary, because we’ve created a world of perpetual — and well-armed — instability.
While on the other hand we have out of date world organisations that beg for funds.
We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism and the single, unacknowledged agreement binding nation-states to each other: the inevitability of war.
We are left with the two greatest international enemies – the environment and the global economy – unfortunately we are so selfish – so naive – we do not want to face the reality of what we have done to the planet and each other in the name of progress. We are in denial. We are addicted to antisocial behavior – propelled by fear.
All our problems are as a result of our moral and ethical collapse and only finding and using a simple international moral and social code of love and cooperation will enable us to survive and save us from ourselves. We are not talking about religion here. Morality and ethics existed before religion and it is that version of them that we want and need.
We can accept that one can be proud of one’s country and support its activities and ideals without feeling the need to bomb or subvert the country next door. The only people who would seriously disagree are psychotics and psychopaths or their minions. For example, governments.
To allude to globalisation is idiotic without capping Greed and reversing Inequality.
We now live in a world of technologically based society. Information is power and money. This is why we are all being Googlefied, Twittered to feed the Internet of Everything.
We only can expect that help will show up, when we start to help ourselves!
As the human race keeps on making steps in technology & science, the Smart Phone is the Pandora box of the future. Re shaping the World.
Science has made huge steps, society has not.
Society is crucial to the well-being of all of us.We need to open the doors to new exciting boundaries.
To achieve any of the above needs funding by placing a world aid commission of 0.05% on all activities that are for profit sake only.
On all High frequency trading, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over 20,000 dollars, on all Sovereign wealth funds acquisitions. on all Lotto wins over a 1 million.
This would create a perpetual fund from Capitalism greed to address the world’s inequality.
Money talks a powerful language. It is a factor in many things that happen and don’t happen. Wealth greases the gears of power and influence.
The standard most worshipped by Western society today is financial success, and many people spend their lives pursuing it. Our idiotic species–immediately respects and gives greater credence to anyone who looks rich.
Money can bring power, and power can bring money.
Which one comes first?
Modern day technology is exposing the Capitalist system for what it is worth and as a result we are beginning to see if you focus on the world that you are presented with directly the only collective wisdom we’ve come up with is money can’t buy you love.
1% of the population earns 96% of the wealth in the world, and thus explains why we have such a troubled world.
It’s a struggle between the haves vs the have-nots.
The real reason people want to be rich isn’t so they can buy stuff. It’s so they can have power over others. People want influence and respect and they see that people with money have influence and respect, so they seek money.
There’s only one problem: money does not result in influence and respect – instead, influence and respect often lead to money.
Human greed seems to have no bound.
It is said that money is a good servant an a bad master too…
In today life for people money is everything. When in fact it is only an IOU.
Money can buy material happiness for limited time.
Can it buy true happiness? No.
They don’t know that there are many things bigger than money…Our morals values these are bigger than money..
The paradox of money is that although earning more of it tends to enhance our well-being, we become happier by giving it away than by spending it on ourselves.
What matters a lot more than a big income is how people spend it.
What moves the needle in terms of happiness is not so much the amount you give, but the perceived impact of your donation. If you can see your money-making a difference in other people’s lives, it will make you happy even if the amount you gave was quite small.
Life experiences give us more lasting pleasure than material things, and yet people still often deny themselves experiences and prioritize buying material goods.
People think material purchases offer better value for the money because experiences are fleeting, and material goods last longer. They think that experiences are only going to provide temporary happiness, but they actually provide both more happiness and more lasting value.
And yet we still keep on buying material things, because they’re tangible and we think we can keep on using them.
Experiences, on the other hand, tend to meet more of our underlying psychological needs. They’re often shared with other people, giving us a greater sense of connection, and they form a bigger part of our sense of identity.
We also get more pleasure out of anticipating experiences than anticipating the acquisition of material things.
Feelings of gratitude and appreciation can be very difficult to sustain.
The first measure of happiness is “evaluative.” A sense that your life is good—you’re satisfied with your life, you’re progressing towards your life goals.”
Power is money and money is power.
There are many more examples of this now than anytime in the past.
If a man who earned a standard salary wanted to run for president, he would have almost no chance at all unless he was backed by people with money.
The more money a candidate has, the farther he can get. Although the richest competitor doesn’t always win, the president is usually a very wealthy man.
I want money because to me it represents security and independence.
Real power and influence are when you can make a substantial and lasting mark on the world.
To come to the point of this post.
Capitalism has created Inequality along with the very technologies that have led us down the road to Climate Change, not to mention the present wars and the reemergence of the Barbaric nature of humanity.
However we have power to change systems?
At present we have money starved World Organisations in need of reform.
A world media that turns, nature, wars and violence into entertainment.
There is so much information that we can only Google, Twitter, and take selfless selfies.
Long term planning is impossible or political suicide.
THE WORLD MANTRA SEEMS TO BE: i’M ALRIGHT JACK.
We are all on hedonic treadmill WHILE OUR WORLD IS FRAGMENTING.
THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION.
THAT IS TO PLACE A WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE ONLY IN EXISTENCE FOR PROFIT SAKE. ( SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)
We all live our own lives but we are all subject to consequences of our own and each other’s ‘ignorance’.
The problem is that we are literally ‘born in ignorance’ and raised in a world of people likewise born and raised which means then, that there is a very nearly overwhelming amount of misinformation, opinion, predisposition et cetera regarding what we ‘know’ about ourselves and how we ‘should’ deal with each other or there wouldn’t be the mass of troubles there is in the world today.
The human condition in this especially negative sense is a measure of our ignorance with respect to what we know about ourselves as ‘a life-form in its configuration space’ -biology, anthropology, the resource/environment, government/economy and ‘the nature and course of human evolution and progression’, as the idea of that whole and its parts varies throughout the world.
This has led us to a point that the idea of wealth and ownership beyond ‘base-domain human requirements’ is fundamentally antithetical to best well-being and viability in the nature and course of the life-form’.
Not only is there something of ‘a human condition’ endemic (the individuals) of people’s and nations, but one compounded by typically profound differences between their ‘autonomous’ governments and economics due to natural resources, geography, climate et cetera.
Up to now our attempts to understand nature and generally to know about things not produced by man, have turn us instead exclusively to things that owed their existence to man.
As I have said we are evolved out of ignorance and continue to be born in ignorance, and that means that even as we discover and amass knowledge – the ‘if this, then that-ness’ of matter and existence, ‘new situations’ and ‘new ignorances’ will always present something of a problem to someone as long as we exist.
Unfortunately, the new Technological age is adding to this and contrary to what is currently assumed about the proverbial ivory tower independence of thinkers, no other human capacity is so vulnerable, and it is in fact far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.
We have entered the age of Igorance-Smart phone.
The action of the scientists, since it acts into nature from the standpoint of the universe and not into the web of human relationships, lacks the revelatory character of action as well as the ability to produce stories and become historical, which together form the very source from which meaningfulness springs into and illuminates human existence.
If like me you ponder on why it is that we seem incapable of grasping that human activities in the last two centuries have effected the Earth’s climate.
We have taken all the carbon from hundreds of million of years which had been locked up in fossil fuels and stuck it into the atmosphere in a time of two hundred years.
We don’t need to wait for the Paris Climate agreement ( Which is just a joke) there is a Methane nuclear boom under the Arctic that we could see our temperatures go up by 6c in the next 30 years.
We have buggered around with the atmosphere beyond a joke or promises.
We need some Big decisions to stop the march of climate change.
Surely we are not going to wipe ourselves out through ignorance when they are so many choices but if we do at least most of us will still be ignorant.
To address the problems that derive from the grotesque Inequalities and structural poverty of our world. Quite as hoc diplomacy is not enough. Some thing more structured is needed. Like an World Aid Commission of 0.005%. (See previous posts)
Click the Ignorant like button or make an intelligent comment.
Because they no longer guarantee life and the pursuit of happiness.
I am not talking about you can’t please all the people all of the time.
I am talking about when they come together in the United Nations an out of date organisation with no secure means of funding other than begging. Only when signatory nations are prepared to follow suit with firm domestic policies is a UN aspiration somewhat effective. This never happens on global issues as they are afraid of paying the political price.
On something as fundamental as changing the source of energy which is going to cost trillions. Only governments coming together will there be any effect. They are supposed to be a trustee of the natural resources that citizens depend on for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In modern society, of course, much of the complexity in our lives is placed there by governments, supposedly acting to “help” us avoid failure or to “protect” us from failure.
Instead they are eroding our liberties by collecting reams of information from your digital footprint. Our societies where you’re free to be whatever you want, feels less and less so each year.
They are selling climate dispensations, flogging off natural resources and revenue earning industries to sovereign wealth funds for short gain profits.
Some failures were obviously. They are failing to adequately address global warming. It seems to me that Politicians seem to think that the Marketplace will take care of it.
More visible recently were the bailing out of high-profile banking institutions which are still considered by the government to be too big to fail without threatening the long-term well-being of consumers and the broader economy.
They have created confusing missions that are not be communicated and embraced, and are were easily undermined by rank corruption and unethical conduct, or are beyond careful monitoring through performance measurement and management. They don’t ‘know’ enough to enable them to make effective decisions about the best way to allocate scarce resources with the top appointees unqualified to lead.
The days are gone when many economists believe in the efficient market hypothesis, which assumes that the market will always contain more information than any individual or government.
The implication is that market prices and market movements should be free from interference because markets cannot be improved upon by individuals or governments. However we all know that the invisible hand of the market place will not bring about the changes necessary.
Which brings us back to the United nations. An organisation so infiltrated by lobbying groups that it is danger onto itself.
The world is in a mess due to greed, and democracy as we know it is under attack from unbridled consumerism and Social Media. We have to accept the reality that markets are not motivated by the priority of care. Nor is it the United nations.
Why don’t we the voters demand better representation?
We must demand that the United Nations pass binding people resolution placing a World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions , on all Foreign exchange transaction over $20,000 on all other form of Capitalist Activities that function for profit for profit’s sake.( see previous posts)
This is the only way we can take care of our world make Greed pay for it.
( A one minute obligatory read if you are interested in the planet you live on) .
It is not amazing that the contemporary world is marked by a growing number of problems that are genuinely Global in scope.
Yet instead of addressing them we spend our time discussing ISIS, North Korea, Mr Putin, Worthless Trump, Air Brain Palin, The price of Oil, Stem cells, New Planets billion of light years away, the list is endless rubbish.
In the mean time we have the spread of Zika virus, a blizzard to beat all blizzards, thousands of Refugees, billions being spend of Presidential Campaigns while Inequality spreads like a cancer.
So forgive me for thinking we must be one of the most selfish, stupid, technology driven like button idiots that ever existed on this planet.
Based on the Best current science we are looking down the barrel of a gun with the bullet fired.
There could be no more extreme than current weather patterns, melting glaciers, sea level rising, megadroughts, desertification, deforestation, food supply disruption, famines, infectious disease, mass migration, social upheaval, economic distress, political instability.
All conflict multipliers that will turn Earth into an unlivable cauldron of I am alright Jack.
It seems that few realise how dire this situation has become or is becoming.
All down to human activity that continues to prune the evolutionary tree of life with gay adabondament.
And if that is not enough evidence that we are heading full speed to oblivion. The last Global Biodiversity Report presented some hard facts that the population of vertebrates that include mammals, birds, reptiles, sharks, rays, and amphibians – living within the tropics declined by 59% from 1970- 2006.
Just in case that has not sunk in what they are saying is that more than half of the vertebrate population between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer has disappeared in the last 36 years.
They also found that birds in Europe declined by 50% since 1980. Birds in North America declined by 40%.
Just one more hard fact that it is time to open our eyes. All plants species the foundation of the food chain upon which we depend – are currently ” threatened with extinction.
Yet humans around the world are either unaware of the situation or have their heads buried in the sand, when we should be taking immediate action.
Our consumerist economy that promotes the endless acquisition of products over the conservation of nature would need 1.5 Earths to meet the demands we currently make on Nature.
You might not still appreciate just how bad things are. By 2048 there will be virtually no more wild caught seafood. Our oceans are dying from Lake Erie to the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Mexico the coastal water of Australia New Zealand, dead zones are growing. The Baltic is already Dead. 60% of all coral reef have being turned in to white ghost towns.
I have being lucky in my life to have traveled both by sea and land extensively.
Experiencing nature first hand let me tell you that there is a critical threshold that once crossed will result in a sudden and irreversible change. A tipping point that will arrive overnight. There is no technology that can restore it to its original state.
I might sound overblowing and alarmist but look around you. We have little real knowledge of how the ecosystem works but just because we can’t see the catastrophe doesn’t mean it not real.
After all 99.9% OF MATTER is empty space, yet no amount of squinting will reveal this fact to the naked eye.
What does matter is that our fears accurately track the totality of the evidence presented.
This is why solving the problem ought to be on the top of the list of all superpowers in the world.
The likelihood of this happening is the same as asking is the Pope a Catholic.
Even if it does happen, nobody, no Government, no World Organisation, no Country, no Economy, no joe soap has the will or money to rectify a world that is bent on self-destruction.
This is why we must create a World Aid Fund. ( see previous posts)
It is the only solution that is non Political, spreading the cost across all beliefs all colours evenly.
Go on press the like button if you are one of the Googlefied that think you are living on the Planet. If on the other hand you are truly alive get involved and leave your thoughts.
( A two-minute read. A thousands years of consequences)
Industrial society is out of control. Run by Scientific, Technological, Industrial, Business and Financial education.
Billions of, you name it, has being destroyed in the name of progress.
What we now have is unsustainable growth, with almost everything being turned into a commodity for the sake of profit.
It could be said that Industry has turning Urban dwellers into blood suckers of the planet by creating unnecessary, meaningless, futile and destructive jobs and professions to keep them occupied.
To such an extent that they City dwellers are fooling the world with terminologies … Progress, Growth, Development, GDP.
Industrial Society has destroyed most of the biodiversity and ecosystems in just 250 years for the sake of consumer goods, greed and profit.
It seems ridiculous that we complain of overpopulation when it is Industrialisation that is the cause of overpopulation.
So we have now arrived at point in the world where we can’t live with it or without it and are looking at Technological Machines to save us and the planet.
We are confronted with unsolvable problems, spending billion on Space Exploration while our water, air ,rivers, lakes and oceans are being polluted. With billions of acres of agricultural land been poisoned by million of tons of Pesticides, insecticides and fertilizer.
Neither Capitalism, Socialism or Communism matter.
There is little point debating over Capitalism, Socialism and Communism as they are all equally harmful.
Monsanto is not going to become less harmful or is any other Industry whether they are operating under any of the three.
There is little hope of mind set change even if climate change forces mass migration and a Industrial Conscious. Our countries and political leaders are more concerned with what happens to the economic climate rather than what really counts.
Our world media promotes triviality while ignoring the larger picture.
Who cares if it is Mathematically impossible for the USA to pay off 16 trillion dollars of debt. With 5% of the world population it has consumed 20-40% of the world resources with borrowed money.
The earth climate will not be saved by discussion like the Paris Climate Conference.
All political parties in the world are promoting Growth Rate, Economy Rate, GDP which require more and more nuclear plants.
Even if the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS, were to join forces they will not be able to create Mega Disasters as big as Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Claiming that nuclear power is not harmful is like claiming that the sun is not hot.
It is insanity to the power of infinity.
Why bury nuclear waste when it will remain radioactive for thousands of years poising the soil, water, humans, animals and the plant.
The bigger the Industry the bigger the Industrial accident.
There is no fourth place for the billion of tonnes of Metal waste, Plastic waste, gaseous waste, chemical waste, e waste, nuclear waste other than space which is already polluted.
The production of Plastic uses about 20% of the worlds oil produced.
We cannot save the environment after it has been killed by Industrial Activity.
We have one group trying to save the Forests, another group trying to save the Oceans, another the fresh water, another Air, another whales , another donkeys.
What is the point of saving a few dogs, whales, tigers, elephants when we seem unable to save ourselves.
Earth’s Oceans will contain more discarded plastic than fish when measured by weight by 2050.
Big data, the internet of things and the cloud are all about one thing only cutting costs. They create wealth for only a tiny minority.
What is the point of storing every contact, twitter notification, photo, and documents in a cloud that has a veracious appetite for electricity. The only reason we do it is because it s free.
Millions in the world die for trivial reasons. Million kill for trivial reasons. Billions live on a few dollars a day.
Perhaps we should award the Nobel Prize for Lunacy for the pretending that the environment is getting saved to ourselves.
We have people who pretend to be deeply concerned about Inequality between man and man. But they are totally unconcerned about Inequality between millions of other species.
Equality does not come from Theories, Philosophies, and Terminologies. Nor does it come from Capitalism, Socialism, Communism.
We spend billions on Get Rich quick Lotto’s, pension funds (that in turn invest in Hedge Funds that exploit capitalism) in education, in health, in weapons, in gratification of pleasure, in energy, in Technology ( that cannot create a Forests, a mountains, a rivers, an ocean, it takes million of years.)
Industrialization all ends up on the world Stock Exchange Markets where trillions are made in nanoseconds by Algorithms in High Frequency Transactions, Foreign exchange transactions. These trillions are used to set up Sovereign Wealth Funds the true terrorists of the world which are privatizing the very essence of life.
So are we all so dumb that we think it can go on for ever and ever without exploding.
It is too late for either religions or political systems to create a new world moral code.
Its time we stopped all the gossip in our out of date world organisations and put in place A World Aid Commission of 0.05% of all High Frequency trading transactions, on all Foreign Exchange transactions ( over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all new drilling licences.
This will create a perpetual fund spreading the cost of rectifying the world problems evenly amongst the world Industries that caused them in the first place.
How can this be achieved.
The same way that most thing are going to change with the pressure of Social Media and the Smart Phone.
All it needs is a Crickhowell movement. ( Which by the way is led by the local coffee shop, the local book shop, the optician, the bakery, the towns salmon smokery.) A small town in Wales whose independent traders got fed up of being ripped off by the UK Governments taxes. ( Look it up. Were all not stupid.)
What to stop us doing the same, by placing a Worlds people resolution in the United nations.
We live in a world where yesterday news is old news. Where self interest governs to the detriment of a common goal to remove inequality by bestow the riches of our world in opportunities to all.
Our politics have become so polarized and increasingly volatile; and our politicalinstitutions have lost the public trust.
There is (Almost) No Such Thing as the “Common Good”
We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where group selfishly protect their own benefits. Our most fundamental social problems grow out of a widespread pursuit of individual interests and greed.
Recommitting ourselves to the general welfare could solve the deepest problems the world now face.
The very idea of a common good is inconsistent with a pluralistic society like ours.
Different people have different ideas about what is worthwhile or what constitutes “the good life for human beings”, differences that have increased during the last few decades as the voices of more and more previously silenced groups, such as women and minorities, have been heard.
Given these differences, some people urge, it will be impossible for us to agree on what particular kind of social systems, institutions, and environments we will all pitch in to support.
It might seem that since all citizens benefit from the common good, we would all willingly respond to urgings that we each cooperate to establish and maintain the common good.
Examples of particular common goods or parts of the common good include an accessible and affordable public health care system, and effective system of public safety and security, peace among the nations of the world, a just legal and political system, and unpolluted natural environment, and a flourishing economic system.
Because such systems, institutions, and environments have such a powerful impact on the well-being of members of a society, it is no surprise that virtually every social problem in one way or another is linked to how well these systems and institutions are functioning.
So why is it that we are unable to act for the Common Good of humanity and the Planet?
Our culture views society as comprised of separate independent individuals who are free to pursue their own individual goals and interests without interference from others.
In this individualistic culture it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to convince people that they should sacrifice some of their freedom, some of their personal goals, and some of their self-interest, for the sake of the “common good”.
This combined with the fact that we have turned everything into a commodity to be bought or make profit on has blurred our values of the common good.
These days one might describe the common good as “certain general conditions that are…equally to everyone’s advantage”.
Even if we agreed upon what we all valued, we would certainly disagree about the relative values things have for us.
Such disagreements are bound to undercut our ability to evoke a sustained and widespread commitment to the common good.
In the face of such pluralism, efforts to bring about the common good can only lead to adopting or promoting the views of some, while excluding others, violating the principle of treating people equally.
Moreover, such efforts would force everyone to support some specific notion of the common good, violating the freedom of those who do not share in that goal, and inevitably leading to paternalism (imposing one group’s preference on others), tyranny, and oppression.
We left with cultural traditions, that in fact, reinforce the individual who thinks that she should not have to contribute to the community’s common good, but should be left free to pursue her own personal ends.
WHERE DOES ANY OF THIS LEAVE US?
A good questions but complicated because complete societies all with different laws, rules, and beliefs,(which we can call ‘polities,’ or ‘countries’) take many forms in different times and places but they always include some kind of rule ordering them to the common good.
This may well be so but the overriding self interest Resulting in a planet of Inequalities, rampant climate change, conflicts, wars, pollution on a massive scale, corruption, and profit at any cost.
Not all people live under a state, but every [complete] human community by definition is a polity.» Polities enable families, local communities (‘villages’), and associations to flourish by realizing many common goods, but polities also allow for the achievement of greater common goods.
The good news is with modern-day technology we are on the threshold of discovering a new way.
It is possible for acts of individual humans armed with powerful technologies to make decisions that may affect the future survival of the whole human race.
We can imagine the possibility of extinction (whether by our own efforts or due to some external cause), and we can agree to work together to prevent such an eventuality.
Of course, even while we work on a common goal of preserving the species, we will still all be competing to maintain a larger share of descendants within the future population, and this may still result in technological developments that threaten the extinction of everyone.
Whether one goal (survival of the species) can win out against the other goal (relative reproductive success of the individual) is not a fore-gone conclusion.
For me it consists primarily of having the social systems, institutions, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people.
The internet revolution is transforming the way knowledge is disseminated and how people unite over causes. ( see post: The Beady Eye asks: Are we condemned to reaction politics for the foreseeable future)
This means that our out of date world organisations need to come up to speed.
Establishing a pro active chamber of Governance with non political expert representatives, immune from lobbing, that would be concerned with the long-term view to avoid potential threats or to capitalize on potential opportunities.
This Chamber actions subject to Social Media network electronic voting by the tax paying citizens.
Placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% ALL HIGH FREQUENCY STOCK EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS. ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS OVER $20,000. ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACQUISITIONS . ON ALL NEW DRILL LICENCES.
THIS WOULD CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND FROM PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE AND ALL OTHER WORLD PROBLEMS OF INEQUALITY.
WHY SUCH A FUND? Because appeals to the common good are confronted by the problem of an unequal sharing of burdens.
Our desire or desires are personal incapable of being satisfied because of our internal sense of imagination.
If good is the cause of desire, how can it be that people do not want what is good?
Indeed, all sense pleasures seem to be intended by nature to be connected to actions that lead toward the lower and more basic of the honorable goods such as the preservation and reproduction of life.
This is lost in large complex societies.
Is this the reason we are unable to act for the common good.
To define the good as ‘what all want’ is therefore a definition not of an effect by its cause, but just the opposite: a definition of a cause by its effect. The good is a cause. It is the final cause, the end or purpose.
If you get what I mean.
Hunger is the desire for food, but food is not good because there is hunger. Rather, there is hunger because food is good and necessary for the preservation of one’s substance.
The good is desirable as known, and therefore as long as it is unknown it is powerless to cause desire.
Many economists claim that in any free exchange each party must think that they are getting something better out of the deal.
But people are not such fools.
Whoever wins, others must lose.
Therefore, for humanity, there is no “Common Good”.
Other than the continued survival of the human race as a species.
Unless, perhaps, we can avoid the finiteness by expanding into outer space.
Historically, our darkest hours on Earth have given birth to some of our most brilliant moments—our brightest ideas and most illuminating conversations.
The challenges we’re facing can spur us towards brilliance—and prompt a course correction. We must be both far-sighted and courageous in our thinking.
Our house is on fire. What will we save?
Not the redistribution of wealth by governments Tax to create greater equality.
Especially insofar as they are only concern with interior acts power rather than the outward behavior which directly affects other people.
We must also support thinkers and leaders who can help expand our collective understanding of what’s valuable beyond the narrow one-dimensionality of a profit margin.
We may never find a truly satisfying and conclusive answer.
Maybe its the wrong question altogether. You will never really know what it is to be me and I will never really what it is to be like you. And this very unknowability of other humans beings is what is the common good.
The human common good—now understanding that phrase without restriction to the state’s or political community’s good is impossible.
It’s only right that I follow the last series of posts on what is Wrong with a post that asks the above question.
BECAUSE ITS MONEY THAT IS AT THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM.
I guess the answer to the question “What is wrong with capitalism today?” is dependent on who you ask.
Capitalism works for capitalists.
The Problem is 90 percent of us are not capitalists, we are employees.
Without us noticing, we are entering the post capitalist era.
We need to reexamine the models that have gotten us to this point.
Complete change will not happen overnight. Nor will it be built on the back of one investor or one innovative entrepreneur.
It will be something that business owners, investors, political leaders, consumers and entrepreneurs must all work together toward.
Currently, our planet is on track to fly past the 2 degrees Celsius warming that scientist have repeatedly warned marks the safe range for humans on this planet, but at the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy.
The old ways will take a long while to disappear but millions of people are beginning to realise they have been sold a dream at odds with what reality can deliver.
The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago.
Why should we not form a picture of the ideal life, built out of abundant information, non-hierarchical work and the dissociation of work from wages?
So are we witnessing the first stage of an economy beyond capitalism?
Is technology creating a new route out or is it consolidating power into the hands of a few like Google, Microsoft and Apple?
Will its future be shaped by the emergence of a new kind of human being, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviours?
Will Capitalism as we know it be abolished by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through because of what Information technology has brought about in the past 25 years.
It is blurring the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages?
Or is the current wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.
These are all questions to be answered before we see what I call post capitalism.
The Questions are numerous, and there have been hundreds of books, papers, and talks on the subject few however with any positive suggestions.
Before I put the only suggestion that is viable lets start with what is wrong with the present state of Capitalism.
Here is way I see what is wrong;
Today capitalism isn’t about real markets and commodities with the price mechanism being fixed by competing supply and demand, now today it is about casino economics. You throw the dice and when you loose … all that global connectivity means you lose globally. We are all in this together – that is why we call it a global economy – oh apart from the 0.1% – they are the ones throwing the dice. We are just the ones picking up the tab when the bets don’t come off.
Although economics likes to think of itself as a science in reality it ignores the fundamental laws that govern science – the first two laws of thermodynamics. This isn’t a smart thing to do. There actually are limits to growth.
They told us wealth creation was a trickle down theory but in reality it is a trickle up theory. The rich really do get richer and richer and it is not down to merit. The question is what is going to stop them: war or politics?
The big problem is humans are human, both doing bad things and good things. Capitalism only works if enough of us do the right thing.
The price mechanism is faulty unless it includes the environmental cost now and in the future of our consumption. This it doesn’t done at present and we are free-loading off nature.
Often we think it is the only way to do things. It is not the only way to even do capitalism! Alternatives exist, other brands are available. There are even other ways of thinking about economics that we don’t even call capitalism; they may be a bit racy for us right now so lets start with re-imagining what a good effective form of capitalism could be like if humanity fully realized its role and impact upon the planet that sustains it.
Modern capitalism is so big and complex that who can say that really understand it.
I don’t.
But I do understand by building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, Google and such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.
Never has humanity been better fed, lived longer, used more energy and had more stuff than today so what is wrong.
One of the fundamental faults of capitalism is the basic axiom that if everybody tries to accumulate as much property as possible the general interest of the people will be served.
All this seems to do is create exploitation.
The problem with capitalism is that it isn’t very good as what it says it is good at, spreading wealth, enabling good technological progress and helping us become more human, more free.
Adam Smith – you know him graces the back of the £20 note – founding father of modern capitalism back in the 18th century – hero of Margaret Thatcher. When he famously asserted:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
What Smith was talking about was the idea that self-interest – the rational underpinning of economic man – was not only good for you but for everybody else – society.
Unfortunately the line between self-interest and greed is always fine – and we are human man not economic man and we find it very easy to cross that line – or certainly some of us do – lets call them the 0.1% – the 700,000 of us who have a lot – somewhere north of $5 million each.
The consequence of this trend as it unwinds over time is that wealth progressively becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
The rich get richer – that’s that 0.1% again. Or to put it another way wealth stays with those that are born to it and the idea that merit – how good you are at something – determining your economical price in the market place, or wages as most of would say, becomes far less important than we thought.
In fact there are plenty of things wrong with capitalism.
Those that shout this apparent self-evident reality the loudest own the media, the means of communication, they own your stability through the derivative bets they hold and they are telling you don’t blink – this is the natural way of things , capitalism the way we see it, the way the 0.1% see it.
So the more we have of everything, food, power, stuff, the more energy we must use (even if we get more energy-efficient in doing things).
The nitty-gritty of it is we have fucked up the world with Capitalism idealism.
I don’t approve of Communism or Socialism either, the truth is that every system is flawed.
I think a system which is based on an assumption that man is basically piggish and therefore only fit to look after his own needs; such system impedes rather than promotes the good within each person.
Geographers have away of describing this situation it is called the IPAT equation.
Impact = population x affluence x technology. You note there is no Money in the equation.
The impact.
Physicists would call it entropy, biologists pollution and economists externalities – is of an order defined by how many of us are using how much however efficiently.
If you want impact in a nutshell it is climate change, it is salinization of soil, it is depleting geological resources , it is reducing biodiversity.
There really are limits to growth.
Capitalism is a perpetual motion machine, striving for more and more growth makes us in the long run weaker not stronger. Well, if only we were all-knowing, rational and optimal in our behavior maybe it would be so. But we are not.
In the past the trend towards greater and growing inequality has been neutered by war – nothing equalizes society more effectively than war – we do tend to be all in it together at such moments.
Today in our global economy is held together with a digital architecture that enables the reduction of wealth to so much digital code life has become one big transaction.
The most spectacular aspect of this transactional world is the derivatives markets.
(A derivative is a bet on a price changing within a market – say interest rates, or currency exchange values or a commodity price such as that for coffee. The value of all derivatives worldwide in 2013 is thought to be about $1.2 quadrillion although nobody knows exactly as, a like a lot ordinary betting the betters don’t want necessarily want to admit to it.)
So that is $1,200,000 billion laid out in bets about what may or may not happen.
Billions of transactions.
Let’s quickly remind ourselves. The global economy – the real economy – is worth about $85 trillion – that is about 7% of the notional sum bet on what that economy will do.
Now, take a deep breath and think about it.
If you don’t now believe that we could have another global economic crash in the style of 2008 – a massive bursting asset bubble – you need to think again and cast your eyes to Asia – you might be wondering where much of that quantitative easing – free money that the US and the UK created ended up. Try property speculation in Asia.
We are quickly reaching the tipping point where growth in GDP in any particular country comes at the expense of growth in GDP of another.
We do not have global organizations capable of managing these tension points nor are societies willing to curb growth and consumerism.
Capitalism as currently practiced is simply not sustainable.
Modern market capitalism has shifted recently with the emerging supremacy of money markets and the financial system over the actual trade of goods. Under this, you’ll make more money trading in derivatives than actually physically trading in commodities.
Capitalism, or the recent move into financial market dominated capitalism.
The “new capitalism” is based on mathematics rather than trade; credit default swaps over goods and services; when odds are stacked in the favor of big banks because of hedging, derivatives and CDS’s; when there is little to no penalty for market manipulation by investment banks, power brokers, Ponzi schemers … these inefficiencies in the market cause redistribution of wealth to the people in power who design the system.
The mass media is becoming more and more an opiate, an aid for living the unexamined life. replace it (capitalism)?”
Through the millions spent in lobbing reasonable controls upon business have been removed. The desire for economic success and the influence of the powerful elite have ruined the mass media.
Our political problems have deepened with the demise of unions as an effective political force, the continued growth in the belief in the desirability of pyramid economics and class structure (which has been sold by a media controlled by those at the top of the pyramid), and the dependence of our two-party system upon those at the top of the pyramid for funds to cover their election expenses.
Around the world the gains of increased productivity are wasted by this pyramid structure.
For over 40 years I have watched the gradual drift in the minds of the average person from an understanding of our political economic reality and the need for corrective actions.
Those who dominate the means for the production of ideas have served their class well.
This endless cycle of production and consumption for profit is suicide and profit is pretty pointless when we run out of things to burn and things to eat.
I would suggest a world government dedicated to seeing that: (a) everybody was properly fed, clothed, and housed; (b) everyone worked and received a fair return for their work with none receiving too much; (c) intellectual development for all to be encouraged; (d) businesses are the servant to man; (e) the production of war materials end; (f) the ending of all exploitation, including one region by another or one class by another; (g) and the ending of a press which is controlled by those who make up the ruling class.
We is needed is a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet.
Capitalism is not and has never been designed to work in an environment dominated by market controls, regulations, artificial barriers to entry, monetary manipulation and a myriad of other government interventions.
It is Profit at any cost and having taxpayers bail it out when it goes wrong simply means the risk has shifted from corporation to state, or you and me.
Many would say that means a broken model.
Has a new model started. It all depends on what kind of capitalism we are talking about and what force will be applied either at the ballot box or on the barricades or by the Smart Phone or the Gun.
Another question raised about the proposed strategy is whether it actually adds up to the defeat of capitalism.
Do the numerous tactics described above, most of which focus on what not to do, really do the job? How will capitalism actually be defeated? It’s true that many of these recommendations are about what not to do.
this strategy calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image, then, is one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth, power, and meaning from them until there is nothing left but shells.
To think that we could create a whole new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called revolution or the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy.
Our new social world must grow within the old, and in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations.
Such a revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinable, because of the inexorable materialist laws of history.
It will happen, and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re doing and how we want to live, what obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs.
To achieve change we need unlimited finance. Where can we find this? We don’t have to look far.
If a new socialist democratic system is to emerge:
We must place an World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $ 20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This will created a perpetual funded Fund to address the damage Greed and Profit for profit sake has done. ( See Previous Posts)
Who do we achieve this.
Our lives have been shaped by developments which most of us couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.
In effect, they are nine distinct psychological orientations toward the world that structure our perceptions, expectations, and demands whenever and wherever other human beings may be involved. These instincts represent our most basic assumptions about how the social world works, and that includes how the political world works.
With the power of our Smart phones the new political weapon of the future.
In the next decade upwards of 100 billion objects from smartphones to street lamps and our cars will be connected together via a vast ‘internet of everything’. This will impact every aspect of our lives.
The interfaces to all our devices from phones to computers, cars and home appliances will be highly intelligent and adaptive – learning from our behaviours and choices and anticipating our needs.
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