A Communalised or A Privatised Planet
By Lionel Anet
18 November, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Before the end of the ice age people lived in a communalised state of coexistence with a multitude of living things. Each played a part that maintains the ecosystem by just surviving; no species had overwhelming power, therefore it was self-regulating. It was sustainable, able to withstand the results of a wide ranch of climate and natural celestial or extreme volcanic activities.
At the end of the ice age circumstance changed, forcing some people around the world to eventually be dependent on farming, and this gradually introduced the concept of private property. It, in turn gave the impetus for violent robberies, which has become a major part of civilisation, a highly glorified activity. The violence is an essential civilised part of solving unresolvable disagreement about who should have access to particular resources; our greatest heroes were and are the outcome of those carnages.
Nevertheless, that system, based on private property, which included people, was only regionally unsustainable while the rest of the planet was unaffected. In contrast, under capitalism, democratic or not, the use of fossil fuels has eliminated many restraints and it’s that, which has allowed a potential fatal runaway growth in the exploitation of the planet. That power with a competitive economy has negated our need to exercise our innate social responsibilities.
On the other hand, by using that fuel to power our economy we amassed an incredible amount of knowledge. Sadly, both are largely used by cooperation in a negative way and worst still to maximise dominance over everything. Capitalism is not only in the process of destroying much of nature, but is damaging people’s mental health.
The changes to the chemical composition of the biosphere are acidifying the oceans and will heat up the atmosphere to unbearable temperature. This will release more global warming gases, all of it causing a multitude of unresolvable difficulties from the hotter climate.
Our greatest need today is that of survival not for the grandparents, but definitely for our grandchildren. They will endure our stubbornness to acknowledge the destructiveness of the present competitive-political-economic culture.
We need to pursue the things that give us all satisfaction and happiness and strive for it, also know what creates stress, despair, and sadness for any of us, and avoid it. It’s simple but we are confused by the deliberate mystification and complexity of civilised life, controlled by its competitiveness.
Simplicity enables honest interactions
Simplicity prevents duplicity while complexity facilitates dishonesty. Openness is nature’s social requirement for fairness. I.e. Fairness in societies is proportional to its openness. In any social setting and even on the world scene, fairness is relative to honesty. On the other hand justice is a competitive activity and as such can’t be fully open because it’s about wining within rules and laws, which override the need for honesty, the natural social interaction. Justice can therefore be grossly unfair; what’s more justice doesn’t have to be just, while fairness is always just. Furthermore, we create foes by looking for them; conversely, if we all see people as potential friend, we will make friends.
With global capitalism, international binding laws are drafted to facilitate the economic system to functions at maximum efficiency, i.e. an economy that competitively waste the least amount of its wealth on the labour to achieve the highest GDP and/or financial reward for investors.
A gross domestic product measurement has no relevance for the quality of life or how well society functions. It’s one of many ways neoliberals in particular distorts the appraisal of society’s economy. To evaluate the economy one must first question whose economy we are assessing, is it the neoliberals’ economy of financial gain for the wealthiest. Or is it the working families with its reliance on nature to produce everything we need and process our waste. Our wealth is only what nature can provide but it’s estimated that we need 1.5 earths to keep the renewables in a stable condition at the present rate of use, but an unlimited numbers of earths would be required to maintain the store of non-renewable.
For competitive economic systems to function adequately, its economy per capita must grow. To sustain that economic growth, the planet resources would also need to have the same growth as the economy to maintain the store of renewables and non-renewable resources.
However, the planet is not growing on the contrary there’re fewer resources now than when I was a child and we are depleting them faster now than then. Also we are increasing our population on a planet that nature has not been able to maintain its liveable status.
Since Neo liberalism has taken over western people thinking of socio-economic issues, we have elevated economic growth above nature’s ability to supply. That thinking decreased personal and national financial security and maintains an unemployed pool, which intensifies competition. Those financial measures has increased our anxiety and reduced our hope of a better future. In spite of vast technical advances the number of people living below the poverty line is going up in Australia. The Australian Council of social service: “On Sunday 12 October 2014 ACOSS released a new report revealing that poverty is growing in Australia with an estimated 2.5 million people or 13.9% of all people living below the internationally accepted poverty line.” But the economy is still growing, which is what counts to the neoliberals and their masters and they regard that as success because Australia is amongst wealthiest.
The potential amount of labour involved in producing products determents its cost. To reduce that cost to be competitive, the system must get more per wage unit payed. There’re many ways of achieving that, the pre capitalist way, and still used today, is to pay workers less. Today it’s also achieved by enticing or forcing workers to compete for jobs, by lowering wage demands. But more significant is the increasing dependence on fossil fuel particularly oil, the primary source of energy and produce. This is aggravating the twin predicament of unemployment and global warming.
To stay on that tract will require more work and hardship, which will sacrifice today’s children. To save those children we need to produce less, spend more time on leisure activities that uses little energy, but what’s vital, we can’t afford military equipment or their use.
To survive we must gradually but quickly change from a growth economy of capitalism to an economy that can manage shrinkage until we reach a sustainable life. This can only be achieved by progressing from the unfairness of a competitive economy to the fairness of a cooperative one. The side effect would be a better physical and mental health.
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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