The Historiography of the first World War bear witness to destruction and death made possible by the Industrial revolution.

The present day turmoil that we see in the world has its roots created by man during this period.

So has the Industrial Revolution improved life or not? Is the world a better place? A safer place? Do most people have more material wealth than they did two centuries ago? Are we healthier? Are we happier? Is the world more socially and economically just? Is the world headed in the right direction?

It’s not possible to answer all these questions without an in-depth examination of the Industrial Revolution and its effects. There is no definitive answer, other than in short, we cannot hope to understand the modern world without understanding the Industrial Revolution as it resulted in the most profound, far-reaching changes in the history of humanity.

Perhaps it is adequate to say that its influence continues to sweep through our lives today. Just look at the last 250 years of industrialization.

It has altered our lives more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years: in where we live, how we work, what we wear, what we eat, what we do for fun, how we are educated, how long we live and how many children we have.

It greatest failure is that it has not spread wealth evenly across the globe, and the consequences have often been unjust.

For example, to-day in developing countries, where 85% of people in the world live, 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every five seconds.

It did provided the countries that first adopted it with the technological and economic advantages necessary to eventually rule most of the world. In short, the Industrial Revolution is the “game changer” of modern world history. More than anything else, it’s what makes the modern world, well, “modern.”

But how has it come about that 10% of the world’s wealthiest people controlled 85% of the world’s wealth? Mostly because they were born into wealth that was made during the Industrial revolution.

So what exactly is the Industrial Revolution?

An Industrial Revolution at its core occurs when a society shifts from using tools to make products to using new sources of energy, such as coal, to power machines in factories, oil, electricity. nuclear power.

It began at the end of the 18th century, but it has yet to end.

It has transformed into much more complex global phenomena recently. Multi-national corporations design, build, and assemble products using resources and labor from around the world.

Proponents of the benefits of industrialization point to amazing inventions, technological advances, and increased global wealth. Global GDP per capita—the most common measurement of national wealth—has increased 800% over the past 200 years.

I would say to them that it also developed into a global economic system that seems exploitative and unsustainable, fueling unbridled capitalism that has led to exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable on a global scale.

Giving Birth to multinational corporations that owe their loyalty not to any nation but to the profit motive.

So what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints.

The record of the last five thousand years of history clearly suggests that every single preceding civilization has perished, no matter where or how long it has been able to flourish, as a result of its sustained assault on the environment, usually ending in soil loss, flooding, and starvation, and a successive distension of all social strata, usually ending in rebellion, warfare, and dissolution.

They all seem unable to appreciate scale or limits, and in their growth and turgidity were unable maintain balance within or without.

Our Industrial civilization is no different only in that it is now much larger and more powerful than any known before, by geometric differences in all dimensions, and its collapse will be far more extensive and thorough going, far more calamitous.

We are now in the technology age and you might say that The Industrial age is water under the bridge.

No matter how you look at it we are staring down the barrel of a gun with many different bullets. Climate change,  Killer virus, World conflicts due to unadulterated Greed/ Rampant Inequality, Technology deserts and disfunctional non resourced World Organisations.

While demand for depleting resources are skyrocketing ,water, clear air and energy. By any biological gauge we moving beyond sustainability.

So is it time to abandon the concept of sustainability? altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure it.  If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?

The most important resources that drive current industrialization are finite. If billions of people replicate the same level of consumption, they will hasten? ecological and economical disaster.

So who or what will keep us from creating pollution or exploiting weak, desperate countries?

Who will stop global resource depletion?

Is there any point to the Technology Revolution, other than brain work instead of muscle work, if history is only going to repeating itself.

Now you don’t have to be a raw prawn to know that most of our all-powerful politicians and world organisations live in what I call a reactivate state.

By the time they have called a conference and blabbered on for days it’s too late. Now many times have you witnessed the pathetic sight of the UN and its world Organisations pleading for funds, equipment. Just look at the current Ebola outbreak. Growing the economy at all costs and keeping Wall Street happy seems to be their solution to all or woes.

Here are a few things that could be done.

Restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool.

Share knowledge, share capital, and investments around the world.

Remove the Veto in the United nations and give all nations an equal standing.

Remove Carbon Credits. Set trading admission penalties for pollution.

And Make Greed contribute by,

Place a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over £20,000, and Foreign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This would create a perpetual fund removing the need to beg for funds every time there is a disaster. The funds could replace the World bank, the IMF, Save the Children, fund Conservation, and make enormous inroads into Inequality the scourge of our Technology Age.

For me there has be a greater willingness by our politicians to question conventional measures of economic growth in favor of more sustainable models with a greater emphasis on well-being.

Before you bombard me with all the good things the have come out of the Industrial Revolution I refer you to the title of this post.

Yes we would not have the Internet, Landed on the moon, developed drugs, and invented this and that, but there is no point in relying on all the answers coming from Google than experiencing it in reality.

IF WE DON’T WANT THE LEGACY of the Industrial Revolution to be a divided world due to Inequality we must conquer Greed by harnessing it to contribute to all or there will be nothing left to be greedy about.

 

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