Children’s Future Is Dependent On A Common Interest
By Lionel Anet
11 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Competition for all sectors of society has increased dramatically in the last half century and with that the disparity between the richest and the average income earner has and is increasing unabated. The attack on the waged people is relentless. Although earnings may have increased for many workers there’s the anxiety of unemployment and social abandonment in an increasingly uncertain economy. In addition, one requires more money especially for housing, schooling, transport, and health care; most of it due to increasing privatisation. The escalations of storms, bush fires, flooding etc. are an extra burden that is due to the emissions of carbon to power the growth of the economy. That carbon we emit today will still be raising the seas levels up to the next century and felt for thousands of years. The IPCC has given us dire warning on the consequence of carbon emissions however, pass predictions by IPCC has always under estimated the severity of carbon emissions. Many scientists involved studying our environmental changes are extremely worried that our children may not servive.
Capitalism’s motivation is competition, but that’s also its demise, but worst still is it will be the end for us, unless we can have a different motivation that can take us on a survival course. Competition is the overt act of greed, which has directed and constraint society, it involves our education, military, work and business to inheritance and banking. That has formulated our motivation, our thinking, and our attitudes over riding much of our social genetic needs depending on the experience we have had.
That capitalist demise is socially unrecognised due to many factors. One diversion is schools’ function to turn out student that have a competitive advantage in the socioeconomic cut-throat system. Students have to focus too narrowly and can’t afford to look at our interactions and interdependence with nature. Then we have the news and information from the mass media’s highly diluted with trivia and competitive activities of sport, business, politics, and warfare, thereby heightening the competition and the distractions. The outcome diverts people’s attention from the unfairness and the destruction of our life supports, possibly permanently.
In addition, the media is increasing its dependence on the advertisers to balance its books, thus losing its independence and filling itself with disguised ads-news or ads-stories. This deceitful propaganda is propagated by highly educated journalist and skill psychologist. They also mislead people to maximise their income and spend more than they earn to keep up with the successful ones. The privatised education increases the cost for individuals thereby children’s competitiveness relates largely to the parents affluence. The media has an interest to support and publicizing the above as if it benefits people to have economic growth.
Specialisation is vital to be competitive in capitalist socioeconomic system, which places the individual’s desires as more important than societies and nature. This has distorted our view of nature and ourselves, it doesn’t only affect our view of nature, but is destroying it. The effect on nature, looking at it through each section is of some concerns but looking at it with its interdependence and interactions, we see our likely extinction. Because people have an advantage to narrowly concentrate their effort, they then see nature as disconnected and competitive. That also hinders our effectiveness to question the direction the system is taking us.
When we boiled it down, the obvious problem we have is the ethos of competition, the motivator of capitalism. Furthermore, the more intense the competition is, the less control we have over our lives. That loss of control, by everyone, is socially disastrous as it allows the economic activity to consume capitalism’s lifeblood – fossil fuels - specifically oil. It’s the unique resource that facilitates the extractive industries, transport, food production, and warfare. It’s the energy that gives us the elution of low-cost affluent life, but the reality is it’s likely to deliver the disaster we are about to face, a human disaster of extremes caused by our affluence. The result of pursuing that state will last thousands of years or maybe the complete extinction of all life. We are carrying an experiment on nature to resolve the question, if we are to keep on using fossil fuels, will life be able to cope? The answer will be reveal later this or next century.
The pursuit of justice has absorbed most people who are concerns for our welfare. Nevertheless, that struggle is a competitive activity and as stated competition is unfair, it also sacrifices honesty, it’s therefore impossible to fight for justice that is fair and honest. That ensures a never ending struggle that satisfies mainly the law profession and the dominant ones. There’s no such thing as equals in life thus with competition there’s always an advantage, which is an unfair way to allocate resources.
The fairer the social life is the more harmonious it will be, in addition, the more harmony there is the better the cooperation will be. The more cooperative people are the more social, honest, and compassionate they will be, on the other hand the more competitive people are the more they will use: people, social assets, and the environment to succeed regardless of the damage they may cause.
What we need to do for today’s children
We have multiple frets that must be faced and dealt with within a few decades. There’s global warming caused by depleting all vital resources to produce economic. The tasks of dealing with those issues appear too challenging in a competitive milieu, but would be easy, if we had a common interest. The media can mobilise the world’s people if it is tamed quickly and decidedly by the 1% the wealthy-powerful, it follows that those extremely wealthy ones are the people we need to forewarn of their dire prospect as they are a smaller target and have more at stake. Those billionaires are totally dependent on the workers at the bottom and like everyone also with a multitude of living things, as without them, the wealth is valueless. Wealth as express in money has only an agreed worth, which is also dictated by nature, it mean that money and asset’s values are depended on circumstances that are changing at an increasing rate. At this stage of the degradation and depletion of our planet’s biosphere and resources there’s no chance of survival for anyone particularly the billionaires.
The only reliable asset we can and must have for our survival is the security of a very cooperative world of individual societies living as a part of nature. That notion might be too much out of those powerful people’s realm, but a small and slow start can be quicken and widen at an exponential scale. Then the 1% can let that critical survival information to flow down through the media to the whole world. But they will have to do more than the 1% of the Americans and British did to rally the masses to win the 2nd world war. (That was the first time everyone in Britain had adequate food, a time of the greatest shortages.)
We have the double problem of unemployment and global warming both are due to burning fossil fuels, which partly replaced labour. Therefore, we must revers that status using less fossil fuel and use more labour, that conversion, alone will gradually change the character of society and attitude of its individuals. That will happen without the need of coercion and with simple easy to understand changes that will make life simpler, more satisfying, and more honest.
There’re a few essential changes that we must make, the earlier the easier and better. The aim is to eliminate any measure that increases the GDP or to be specific unnecessary output and consumption. We could start with communities and governments creating our money for the benefit of society instead of being incidental part of the profit for banks. Tax allocation is important as it focuses where the money is spent. By gradually reducing taxes and charges on labour employers will use more labour and by increasing taxes and charges on fossil fuels we will stop burning them.
Those two changes and reallocating charges in the same manner we will have far reaching repercussions; they will cheapen all services reducing government expenditures on health, education, and public transport as the cost of employing could be reduced by a half in Australia. The changes in the commercial sector could be staggering as well, small shops would be viable and more convenient for the public, we’d have personal services, and phone inquiries could be dealt by people instead of a machine etc.
The abandonment GDP growth may be difficult, but a pleasure for even for bankers compared to the alternative. That means that everyone benefits from those changes, which will give us a common interest.
We must choose between the frustration, fears, insecurity, and devastation of competition, in contrast to the pleasure, satisfaction, and the security of fulfilling the social needs by cooperating. To deal with global warming will not be a sacrifice, on the contrary it will give the young something to work for and hope.
Lionel Anet is a member of Sydney U3A University of the Third Age, of 20 years standing and now a life member
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