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We want a life filled with comfort, security, luxury, convenience, wondrous experience and material excess; in a word, affluence. Many of us are satisfied with the level we are already accustomed to (though would always welcome more); others actively pursue an ever-greater portion. Many more seek merely to secure their basic needs.
We are (hopefully) all aware that affluence requires the extraction of natural resources, and that some of these resources are renewable – they can be replenished, through either natural or artificial processes – and some are non-renewable; only a finite amount is available for our species' entire tenure on this planet. Somewhat counter-intuitively, a similar natural restraint applies to renewable resources: over-extraction of the resource, and/or permanent damage to the system that produces it, also renders it ultimately non-renewable; exhaustible. It therefore makes perfect sense to manage all of these resources in a way (and at a rate) that maximises their longevity and availability – while still obtaining the greatest benefits of their exploitation - and minimises the risk of major depletion and pollution.
We as a species, and as a global society, have categorically failed to abide this basic law of collective survival.
Petroleum is the material basis of our modern economy; from land, sea, and air transport (passenger and freight) to food production, ubiquitous plastics to cyber technology, we have oil-based painted ourselves into a tight corner, by becoming utterly dependant on a finite – and now heavily depleted – resource; one that we regardless, still find infinite ways of squandering, on the most trivial of novelties.
Coal has been the basis of our energy supply since the Industrial Revolution; it remains relatively abundant in the Earth's crust, but we have polluted the atmosphere to such an extent that we cannot extract and burn any more of it, without facing dire consequences (as if acid rain, respiratory disease and mercury-riddled fish weren't dire enough). This, of course, also applies to the burning of petroleum, and wood.
Fresh water, arable land, fisheries, phosphorous, hardwoods, wondrous species and their native habitats; all are in grave states of depletion, and are accelerating towards – and in far too many instances, have already reached – complete collapse. On the flipside of the coin, our subsequent ejections of waste and pollution exacerbate this problem, while introducing their own forms of crisis.
We are all aware that this is happening; at least, we are when we are reminded of it. And when we are reminded, we are emotionally affected; we recognise the tragedy, we mourn the loss, we fear for the future. And when we inevitably see no way out, despair (or denial, or resignation) starts creeping in. So we welcome the multitude of unrelated distractions constantly jostling for our attention: movies made solely for the purpose of product placement and toy merchandising; magazines telling us image is everything; Facebook feeds suggesting it's all about advancing the individual; rampant advertising capitalising on these sentiments.
Supermarkets, restaurants, cooking shows and magazine recipes encourage us to consume endangered species of fish, as if their stocks are still thriving; or to eat beef by the kilogram, as if rich, irreplaceable ecosystems (such as the Amazon) aren't being cleared to make way for cattle ranches and short-lived soy plantations (which feed the cattle, which in turn feed far fewer people than the crops alone could have done).
Renovation shows, hardware chains and an entrepreneurial (but bored) culture inspire us to knock down perfectly functional infrastructure – with a resultant mountain of unusable, hazardous waste – for the sole purpose of increasing its value upon sale or rent (and usually without any increase in its energy efficiency). Significant volumes of raw resources are allocated to such enterprise – much of which is occurring in areas certain to be rendered uninhabitable by rising sea levels in the coming decades – while many hidden thousands of suffering people remain homeless, or in overcrowded and/or squalid conditions.
We treat regular long-haul air travel and private recreational transport (not to mention motorsport) as god-given rights, as if experiencing the wonders of the world counteracts the inordinate damage that petroleum extraction – and its subsequent combustion – inflicts upon this world (and our future prospects). We use the idea of “loving the planet to death” to confuse our morality; and as if Mother Earth can decide not to take it personally.
We obsess over technological gadgetry, dedicating all of our efforts towards acquiring the latest model, without a thought (or reminder) towards where its components originate, and under what circumstances; nor where our older, “redundant” model may (or should) end up. We almost always prioritise wholesale replacement of broken products over repair; manufacturers even stoop to the depravity of planting a virtual time bomb in their products – an abomination known as planned obsolescence – to ensure regularity of new purchases. Indeed, whenever we inevitably accumulate far more consumer products than we can accommodate, we are often more willing to dump the surplus in landfill – even if it still retains all of its original utility – than make the slightest attempt to rehouse or recycle it. Unless it involves attaching another room to the house.
Our entire lifestyle is seemingly based around the pretence that insatiable (and largely unjustifiable) consumption of our finite resources is the only life worth living – an all-or-nothing mentality – or that these resources must actually be infinite (or at least excessively plentiful); which does nothing to explain why poverty exists. Not that we notice the poverty.
As if all this wasn't troubling enough, we also face an unprecedented catastrophe in the form of global warming, which promises to limit our remaining resources (including food and habitable land) much further; yet we treat the entire subject as taboo, allowing only denialist rhetoric where it goes unchallenged, and provides (unfounded) reassurance.
This isn't human nature. We don't avert our eyes from the car crash; we stare at it. And we want to help, somehow. But blocking our view is a big billboard, with a picture of an ambulance – and a pair of models (half) dressed as paramedics – which we find confusingly reassuring (albeit arousingly suspicious), so we continue on our way. The brain is fallible, and easily fooled (plus we'd rather not make an effort if we can avoid it). But it is not our inherent foolishness that has brought this predicament; it is the result of social engineering, a narrow-sighted ideology implemented by the wealthiest, for the wealthiest. This is deliberate sabotage.
Money is power; the power to commission desirable human activity. The more money one possesses, the more activity one can fund. Extraction of resources, manufacture of products, provision of media; such cooperative endeavours require massive funding, but provide stupendous profits (hence their desirability). And the beneficiaries of those profits want to keep it that way; they too, do not like the idea of enjoying less affluence than they are accustomed to. And they are accustomed to obscene amounts.
The rich do not live in isolation, deep inside their cavernous mansions, deliriously immersed in their treasure; nor do they frequent their local bars, buying drinks all round, seeking to ingratiate themselves with “the people”. They associate amongst themselves; their own kind. They are an immensely powerful network of billionaires. Their only concerns are their own profits; but they are certainly smart enough to realise that by protecting each others' interests, they all profit. And they all have a common interest in maintaining the consumer culture; the means by which their fortunes were made, and the only context in which they can imagine them continuing. They have no tolerance for social, humanitarian and environmental progress; these things reduce their power in direct, inverse proportions. They desire only the type of world that is easiest to exploit. This desire is not difficult to gratify; even without their help, capitalism ensures our lives are plagued by all-pervasive advertising, which renders the consumerist mentality inevitable. However, to maximise exploitation is to steer public thought away from overly (and overtly) questioning the validity of consumerism the rest of the time (like when we're trying to hide from the ads), and so demands a more conspiratorial form of mind control: manipulation of public discussion. This requires control of the media, and of the political establishment.
The phenomenon of corrupt politicians is not a new one; it has pretty much been the rule rather than the exception throughout history. We generally typify corrupt behaviour as someone flouting the rules and responsibilities of a position of power, for personal (and associate) gain; but we seldom consider the idea of a corrupt ideology, one that systematically dismantles established rules, in order to monopolise and maximise power – in a manner indistinguishable from corruption – but without technically breaking any rules (as they no longer apply). This is a political ideology that, in (flawed) theory, purports to enrich the whole society – through mythological “trickle down” economics – but in practice, serves only to further enrich the wealthiest, and impoverish everyone else. And regardless of how many times – and how blatantly – the theory's virtues are disproved, the myth keeps getting pedalled out as fact; and its repercussions continue to undermine and dismantle everything our ancestors worked for, and everything we hope for our descendants. That ideology is called neoliberalism; and since its political inception with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, now informs the policies of practically every major government on the planet. One would assume this ubiquity is testament to its merit, but no; it is testament to the scale of power wielded by the oligarchy, the corporate network of filthy rich, mostly old white men – and their protégés – for whom it exclusively serves. It is a genuine conspiracy to systemically consolidate their wealth and power. They have hijacked the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – organisations already fundamentally biased towards American interests – in order to inflict their ideology on “developing” nations; thereby stalling any genuine development, while sustaining the age-old custom of bleeding them dry. In the rich world, their hold over practically all major political parties (particularly those that identify as right-wing/conservative, but also increasingly, the formerly left-wing traditional “opposition”) is such that they need not bribe a newly-elected leader to convert to the dark side; the incumbent is seldom reluctant, and usually already a card-carrying (albeit junior) member of their cause. The victor's election campaign will have been largely funded by the corporations; and so too the loser's. Anything resembling democracy at this level is a charade. Regardless of which party wins, their main priority is not, for example, the upholding of human rights; but the protection and expansion of corporate rights, so that the party may again find favour at the next election. Even if a determined rogue with half a conscience somehow makes it through the neoliberal gauntlet of the party hierarchy, they will be beaten down by parliament, congress, or whatever other corrupt “democratising” institution exists locally; such as the corporate media, which is of course, also owned – albeit much more “legitimately” (or openly) – by oligarchs. This is where the vast majority of public discussion, debate, opinion and information is formed (or ignored), ridiculed, reframed, misrepresented, sustained and/or buried; whether in a news and current affairs format (often featuring “experts” from “independent” think-tanks, commissioned to add credibility to a fabrication), or simply through its choice of light entertainment (i.e. anything that perpetuates the myth of infinite consumption – provided it gets good ratings – and nothing that seriously challenges it). This is also where the obligatory scapegoats – protesters, immigrants, welfare recipients, drug addicts – are trundled out for public stoning.
Of course, the corporations don't control all of the discussion – as much as they'd like to – but under capitalism, they don't need to. Self-censorship is a basic rule for anyone hoping to ingratiate themselves with potential sources of money. Not all private media providers are neoliberal oligarchs; but almost all rely on funding from advertisers. To publicly question capitalism and consumerism in any depth, is to inevitably question the entire concept of advertising (with good reason too: its deplorable incessant consumption of “disposable” resources alone, renders its existence inexcusable). Few companies want their ads to run alongside a hard critique of advertising and consumerism (which is their bread and butter); and for the media provider to even run advertising alongside such a discussion looks hypocritical, therefore harming the message's credibility, as well as their own.
Practically every meaningful effort to introduce ethics into capitalist society is thwarted and undermined by inherent systemic factors. It is not simply a matter of personal attitudes; it is a matter of financial viability. Very often – especially in one's working life – we are given no option but to engage in irresponsible practices, knowingly (and reluctantly) or otherwise; it would simply cost the business (or ourselves) too much not to. And often the support structures that would need to exist elsewhere in society, to enable such practices, simply do not; they cannot. Because as a general rule, the more ethical an organisation, the less economically viable it is; hence its probable need for a largely-volunteer workforce and government funding in order to keep functioning. This is not the fault of applied ethics in the workplace, but of a fundamentally flawed economic system; which fails to place any meaningful value on ethical practice, while handsomely rewarding the grossly unethical.
A different no-win situation confronts the CEOs of publicly traded companies; they are legally – enforcably – obliged to maximise profits for their shareholders, yet practically free to engage in irresponsible environmental and humanitarian practices in order to achieve it. This obligation towards profit (sorry, the shareholders) is certainly not an inherent feature of capitalism; it is an entirely artificial, government-upheld supplementary rule, which presumably pre-dates the rise of neoliberalism. Yet its persistence stands in direct contrast to the associated, glaring absence of regulations – the legal measures and accountabilities that enforce environmental and societal protections – that truly defines the neoliberal agenda. Deregulation – as opposed to the now-archaic, regulation – is the modern, allocated role of complicit governments; their approach to governance is essentially, not to govern. Environmental protection, human services, public assets and infrastructure; all that formerly defined government responsibility (which previous generations bled to implement) is viewed – and sold off (to their friends) – as an inefficient liability (but more importantly, as the antithesis of the holy doctrine). Military spending (and warmongering), on the other hand, goes through the roof. It propagates an “us against them” mentality, patriotism for the sake of maintaining the status quo; because now is the time for us to be celebrating our way of life, not questioning it. So while we're busy defying the terrorists – whom our arrogant foreign policies have spent decades provoking – our governments are busy using our money to directly subsidise the corporate agenda. That is their true role; to open the doors to extreme capitalism, while ensuring their friends have an unassailable head start. Because it's a jungle out there.
No, they are actually doing it all for us, of course; they're emancipating us. Pulling the “red tape” out of our hair, releasing us from the shackles of the “nanny state”... and handing us straight over to the corporations, who will exercise their newfound freedom – snatched directly from our back pockets – to exploit us ruthlessly (albeit covertly). To them, we are virtually indistinguishable from the poor. They will dole out the tastes of affluence for only as long as it suits them – after all, there's only so much to go around – then we're next for the scrapheap. They have no incentive to protect us from the consequences of the dying world they have compelled us to create; they've ensured we'll continue voting for them.
Regardless of whether we join the poor in the horror scenario that is poverty, or somehow enable them to rise up and eat the oligarchy (who'd taste awful, but the irony would be delicious); there is simply not enough planetary capacity to maintain the overprivileged and irresponsible lifestyles we (let alone the obscenely rich) are accustomed to. The “good life”, as we conceive it, is a false paradise. Overpopulation of this planet is not the problem; we still retain the capacity to feed everyone (without resorting to cannibalism). Allowing masses of innocent people to starve to death will solve nothing. We live far beyond our means; they do not. Allowing ourselves to be spoilt rotten by an unjust, grossly inefficient system, controlled by psychopaths, is the problem.
That system is capitalism. Its traditional alternative – socialism – carries its own set of major issues, due to its over-reliance on competent political leadership. The technical solution to both of these problems is Conscientism.
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