Capitalism or Life

 by Lionel Anet

The global socioeconomic system of capitalism, is forcing us to work harder to surpass previous consumption and population numbers until we have devoured everything that maintains life, ending up with a polluted, lifeless, and a scorched planet. Civilisation’s present and ultimate mode, capitalism is the system that can only lead us to our annihilation. This isn’t any individual’s, or any group of people’s fault, it’s the economic system that took form first with the energy of slaves to produce the raw materials that were then manufactured with the energy of fossil fuels. The economic success of that was dishonestly attributed to the capitalist system but it came from the benefit of using slave, which was overwhelm by non-renewable fossil fuels that are burned as renewables. The work force was then educated to use fossil fuels in its entire myriad of uses and also to integrated workers in a system of contradicting values by using competition as the regulator in a social setting that must also be cooperative to be social.

To maintain a general satisfaction in a social system that’s driven and motivate with competition, endless growth is needed, but in a finite system it must end when resources are exhausted. However, we also have a double whammy, that of pollution that impairs life and the carbon that’s heating the biosphere and acidifying the oceans, they would end life if the system is maintained to its exhaustion. It’s like been inside a spinning treadmill, the faster a few people run the faster each individual needs to run to stay in position. The only ones that can slow and stop that nonsense are the wealthy people, who have successfully blocked any attempts to head off that stampede, so the wealthiest are riding that wave of people and getting the benefits with little effort. To keep up with that momentum, society must take what it can, leaving nothing. Our options within the capitalist system is limited because competition entices and pressures us to keep doing more of everything or suffer the consequences of losing the little power we still have.

The power that controls the economy is with the 1% they have the power to stop and change that exploitive, chaotic violent world economy. The 1%, power comes from finance which’s depended on economic growth, and that can’t be jeopardised just to save a few millions poor people around the planet who are already suffering, which’s the present worry for concerned people. Sadly the 1% dominates and controls the information services; it’s the only power that is able to disseminate the needed information to change our self-destructive way of life to an inclusive positive one. If we can show the 1% that they’re facing a dire situation in a overpopulate world that’s depleted of vital resources, in an unliveable hot and violent climate. They are likely to avoid continuing on that path as wealth can’t have any value in that unendurable social chaotic violence, when the economy goes from sour to putrid and as well the 1% may be an early victim of vengefulness.

Without affordable oil we can’t produce the quantity of coal, gas, and pump the vital water that’s also needed to grow our food, it will curtail transporting all that stuff around the world. The difficulty will also be magnified by global warming which will need much more energy to counteract its effects. Global warming alone can kill us all. One must understand that burning that vast store of carbon that nature managed to accumulate in the ground has never happen before, it will also release the carbon from the permafrost and methane hydrates that will produce a colossal positive feedbacks. To sustain life in those extreme conditions would require more energy but there will be less to share, especially with more people. There’s no certainty of how much time we have to turn the world economy from an exploitative one, to one that functions within nature, as a part of nature before it becomes irretrievable.

We desperately need to show the 1% how closes they and we are in producing an unliveable world due to the outcome of capitalist economy. The 1% life is at stake like everyone, they must not only cooperate to live within nature’s ability, but promote it on a world scale. They are the only ones with the power to do so, and it may be the only way to survive. All living things have to have a survival instinct to be alive; it will save us all if we use it. However, that instinct will only kick in when those multi billionaires realise that their life is at stake and they can only be saved if they do their best to save everyone. That would mean an unreserved sharing with all people and a qualified one with nature, the sooner we can accomplish that, the easier and satisfying life will be, for the more cooperative our life is the more satisfying and secure it must be. In a cooperative based society there would be no advantage to be deceitful; people will then revert to honest relationships. That correlation in societies and also as a part of nature infers that people would see exploiting nature as destructive for us.

The reason we are destroying our habitat thus ourselves is due to the competitiveness of civilisation and its intensification under capitalism, that competition is capitalism lifeblood and now it’s our foe. The more social one is the more cooperative one must be, the less conflict we have, and as well it’s the most efficient way to live, it’s our nature. That means having to share the efforts and the benefits, even of its unfamiliarity for the 1%.

Although the yearning for peace is deep-seated, it has never been achieved during civilisation due to its competitive nature. If we keep capitalism, the ultimate in competitiveness, it will finish us. Peace can’t be attained with military force; one can’t fight for peace or for cooperation, as they’re an outcome of mutual agreements to benefit everyone. Peace is now possible because we have to have it to survive. People have the intellectual and the emotional ability to work out the multitude of changes to enable us to be fully social and survive, if it’s our goal.

Lionel Anet is a member of Sydney U3A University of the Third Age, of 20 years standing and now a life member