The
stock market makes corrections which never really get rid of its
mistakes, and always performs to enrich a few at the expense of many.
It operates as a subsidiary of a larger system which works in exactly
the same way. From Wall Street to Main Street in the USA , and from
the more developed nations to the less developed states of the world,
this system has never been as threatening to the future of the race as
it is at present.
The climate change debate between 90
percent of the science community which views it as at least partly a
creation of human activity, and the 10% who blame everything on god or
other invisible scapegoats, fails to name a cause other than “us”.
Even in that overwhelming majority, while there is mention of over
production, greed, selfishness, rapacious use of resources and other
euphemisms for capitalism, seldom is heard that identifying word. But
whether we use the label or not, it is becoming clear that the
pressures on nature, in all its forms, are pressing upon what nature,
through humanity, creates as organizing principles that are the
foundation of the global economy. These are placing all elements of
survival under dangerously heavier burdens.
The stress factor in human life may be approaching that of the
Honeybee, which seems to be vanishing at alarming rates and for some
of the same reasons that people feel pressured. An economic crime
against nature is creating massive strains on all environments, and on
all creatures great and small which depend on those environments.
Commonly dubbed a globalization that is spreading wealth and democracy
wherever it goes, the blight on natural and social environments is
nothing but old fashioned capitalism.
The Honeybees are placed under perverse burdens by the economics
of agriculture, which have been breeding them in special forms so as
to assist in creating larger crops of food products to sell at
markets. Under the domain of capital, the word product is far more
important than the modifier, food. Whether it is food, clothing,
shelter, medical care, consumer conceits or manipulated fancies, under
the rules of capital accumulation it is the product and its sale that
looms largest. That is the antihuman nature of a system that effects
private profits by causing social loss.
Market capitalism demands subjects trained to think of their
individual responsibility for survival, and to see social groups
isolated in ethnic, racial or religious categories. Balkanized groups
adhering to the special identity they are socialized to accept are
fine, as long as they are in competition for what are deemed scarce
resources. But they must never see themselves as part of a social
organism that might function best for them if they cooperated, in
politically and economically democratic ways. Rather, the isolated
shopper is deemed the operative mechanism, in order to buy all the
things necessary to make it a successful individual, even though that
designation is denied most members of an alienated, anti-social planet
of consumers.
Isolating people guarantees that even if a level of material comfort
is achieved, the individual will remain anxiously stressed enough to
warrant the marketing of therapies and drugs to substitute for the
peace of mind that might be available in a less alienating
environment. We thus have millions with physical security who still
seek a psychological commodity labeled personal self esteem. They have
to purchase lessons, therapies, exercises and other psycho-religious
products to feel genuine, primarily because they are denied membership
in a social union of citizens that might create a less stressful and
more balanced reality.
Material security esteem looms much larger than psycho-self esteem. In
the real world, but billions fail to achieve the first, so that
millions can fail to enjoy the second. Global research done by the
U.N. reveals the same results as national research done by the USA:
The gap between the richest and poorest human beings is wider than
ever, and the number of people reduced to poverty is increasing.
Worldwide, billions live below the poverty line, while in the richest
nation in the world, millions are consigned to physical destitution in
a society that spends billions of dollars on its pets. This is not the
result of a demon power ruling a nation, a corporation or an NGO. It
is due to the proper functioning of a system which works best when it
enriches some people, at the expense of most people.
Propaganda has made it seem that producing products for sale in a
market in order to accrue private profit is the most natural way to
organize an economic system. And it is as natural as a mother charging
her infant five dollars a meal for breast feeding. Making such
perverse anti-socialism seem natural was easier to get away with in
the past, but evidence is mounting that the world is under enormous
pressure and facing dangerous survival problems for humanity. Not an
individual, identity group, national, religious or ethnic subdivision
is threatened, but the race itself. The Honeybee may be helpless under
the domain of capital economics, but if the people remain so they may
well go the way of the Honeybee.
It would be simplistic to claim that all of our problems are caused by
capitalist economics. The truth is that only most of our problems are
caused by capitalism. The sooner we stop looking for demons, angels,
heroes and villains as the reasons for war, hunger and depression, or
peace, a full belly and happiness, the sooner we may enlarge our focus
to the organizing principles of our political economics. As long as we
entrust the production of food, clothing and health care, or toys,
stereos and skis, to simply creating a full bank account for one
stockholder, the sooner we will end the hideous reality of empty
stomachs for thousands of human beings. In a world where some overeat
until they are forced to diet, while others starve until they are
forced to die, it isn't because of the universe, nor is it any
individual leader. It is the minority created, majority sustained
system of capitalism that must be changed, in order for humanity to
have a hopeful future. That majority needs to act in its own
interests, which calls for far more change than some individual at the
top. It is revolution from the bottom, where most of us really live,
that is necessary. Now, more than ever.
Frank Scott writes political
commentary which appears in the
Coastal Post,
a monthly publication from Marin County, California, on numerous web
sites, and on his shared blog at:
http://legalienate.blogspot.com. He can be reached at:
frank@marin.cc.ca.us.