Part Four. The Wisdom of Protectionism. The Madness of Free Trade.
The heavy hand of U.S. power faces growing challenges arising from the very global breakdowns for which – almost uniquely – the U.S. is responsible.
At the end of the Second World War, the U.S. determined it would have dominant power over global trade and commerce. It manoeuvred to get power in The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, The World Trade Organization, and even the United Nations when possible. (That last has held out, often, as a democratic forum, and so the U.S. has undermined it repeatedly.)
The U.S. was the rising imperial power at the end of the Second World War and not the single Superpower it became after the fall of the USSR in 1991. Nonetheless, the U.S. was the healthiest and wealthiest power in the 1940s because the devastating six-year war did not touch its shores.
In 1944 and 1945 (and in stages after) the U.S. and Britain (chiefly) held the famous Bretton Woods meetings to arrange world trade so that, ostensibly, it would be stable, avoid major Depression, engage all nations eventually, and – of necessity if “global’ – be a roughly fair and equitable system.
To that end the British representative, John Maynard Keynes, advocated democratic (national) membership. He proposed a working World Bank with a currency of its own to which all trading nations would relate. He put forward the idea of a balancing mechanism to prevent single-nation over-production with resulting huge trade surpluses or deficits.
He envisioned guarded use of tariffs to assure growth of small economies, and he suggested ways to respect employment rights globally.
None of his proposals was accepted. That is because the U.S. intended to dominate, and, to this day appoints every head of the International Monetary Fund, controls the policies of the World Bank through its undemocratic “share” position, and is the bully of the World Trade Organization.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of U.S. power in those organizations has been the use they have been put to as instruments of (a) Free Trade, and (b) its role in the maintenance and spread of U.S. imperialism.
They have served as bludgeons to make Third World countries destitute Banana Republics forced into unending subservience to the U.S. and, especially, to its now-crumbling corrupt banking system.
All over the world, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, countries have been collapsing, falling into bankruptcy, into gigantic inflation, into major civil strife, and into forms of hateful oppression under military governments (frequently set up or supported by the U.S.A.) When the U.S. has not been overtly and obviously involved, the instruments of its policy have been The World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and other U.S.-controlled “international” development institutions.
Hard to believe. Those organizations – propagandized as forces to provide equality and justice in international trade and economics, have, in fact, actively caused or assisted in collapse, impoverishment, destitution, and often extreme violence in countries provided “aid”: Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Phillipines, many African countries…and more.
Take just one example, for instance. Take the story of the famous rise of, then the coup-overthrow of (for a few days), and then the return of Hugo Chavez and the development of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. (Chavez now pursues what he calls 21st century Socialism.)
How did Hugo Chavez arise and take (democratic) power in Venezuela?
On February 2, 1989 a seemingly progressive president Carlos Andres Perez returned to power in Venezuela. He had denounced a needed help package from the IMF as an “atom bomb that kills only people and leaves buildings standing”. He called IMF economists “genocide workers in the pay of economic totalitarianism”.
He became convinced, however, that the only way Venezuela could lift out of the debt previous mismanagement had created was to submit to the IMF and The World Bank. They demanded of Venezuela what they demand of all nations falling into their debt trap. What they demand is appropriately named “The Washington Consensus”.
That means “reducing the government’s role in the economy, slashing state spending and subsidies, lifting price controls, reducing government bureaucracy, privatizing state-owned enterprises, opening economies to foreign investment, floating currency exchange rates in the free market, reducing trade tariffs, and deregulating the economy.” (p.114, HUGO!, Bart Jones, Steerforth Press, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2007.)
All of that, in Venezuela’s case was to get a loan of $4.3 billion over three years.
Not many weeks passed before the results hit all Venezuelans with open attacks upon their personal economic survival. Protests broke out in nineteen cities. Then on February 27 the protests became full-scale riots that went on in Caracas and elsewhere in the country for a week.
From the wreckage of “The Washington Consensus” Hugo Chavez began, seriously, to emerge – with his Bolivarian Revolution, gaining power by democratic election in 1998. How many people know those facts about Venezuela or the facts about many other countries brought to their knees by those “international” institutions set up to provide fairness and balance in world trade?
Every move taken to follow “The Washington Consensus” opens the door to U.S. ownership and control and to endless indebtedness of the country in question to, mostly, U.S. banks. That is why to say those so-called “international” organizations are instruments of U.S. imperialism is a perfectly correct statement.
What is not so clear is how that process of ravaging nations-in-trouble spread to the economy of the U.S.A. itself.
Things changed with the fall of the U.S.S.R. (1989-1991) and the removal of a political philosophy that could (still) offer an alternative to (especially) unrestrained Free Market activity. The extreme Free Marketers had a planet to play with after the fall of the U.S.S.R.
In the U.S.A. the Milton Friedmanites and their deregulating schools were in the driver’s seat – and firmly settled in the White House. “The Washington Consensus” was, in fact, set to work in Washington and the rest of the U.S.A. – with a few more ‘insider’ dirty tricks.
From the time of the infamous Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan team onwards, both the U.S. and Britain set to work to liberate Capitalism from any regulation, oversight of standards, or public responsibility. Much of “The Washington Consensus” was applied to the economy of the U.S.A.
At the same time, in the pursuit of profit and in an extreme of Free Trade, U.S. manufacturers were permitted to close factories in the U.S. and open them in slave economies. The U.S. faced self-imposed de-industrialization. Instead of protecting its manufacturing power and the relatively good jobs involved, U.S. capitalists (and those in less powerful capitalist countries of the West) were permitted to cast workers adrift, close factories, open them in slave economies, and enrich themselves from the enlarged profits made abroad.
At the same time, credit not only became more necessary for many in the population to maintain a (globally speaking) luxurious standard of living. But it also became increasingly profitable (especially in the U.S.) for normal banks, non-bank financial house lenders, those issuing mortgage-backed bonds, and all those using “structured investment vehicles” (?) of any kind to operate.
A huge program was undertaken (a) to push U.S. people (and others) to enter increasing levels of debt. At the same time (b) regulation and supervision of credit, of masked lending, of the sale of “investment vehicles” (toxic bonds) became increasingly reckless, more and more driven by blind greed.
In the Third and Fourth Worlds the effects of the deregulated industrial/investment process and the strangulation of regulation and oversight created economic crisis, general destitution, and increasing violence.
In the First and Second Worlds the effects were delayed. Boom seemed endless. Loans to pay off loans to pay off other loans in the form of second and third mortgages proliferated. Real Estate SEEMED to climb and climb in value. Loans in the form of “bonds” and “securities” at high interest – which were in fact fake securities – to secure loans on assets with junk value were pumped out without even a shred of oversight or regulation – in order to make obscene amounts of money for the manipulating few.
Since the basic assets couldn’t support the immense structure of debt built upon them, when the process stalled and those who loaned (the creditors) began to call for payment of the loans as well as the interest on them, the House of Cards tumbled – and is still tumbling.
Two things now are essential. The first is that regulation must be completely rebuilt so that present “crimes without laws” face powerful and effective laws. That process is being fought against by all those who are still fabulously rich as a result of the deregulation process and the resulting fraudulent activity.
The second essential is that the world must get off the religion of Capitalist madness – the belief that economies must grow and grow and grow. They can’t.
Growth – the mantra of almost all Western economic gurus is a code name for increased profit-making. The driving engine of so-called Free Trade, of “open economies” is not a will to use planetary resources well and to improve human lives. Rather, it is the opposite.
Gigantic environmental, political, and social problems have been created by the mad Capitalist religion of growth. Its advocates falsely claim that “growth” of economies brings fairness and justice to the larger population. It does not. No serious action is undertaken by the Free Market operators to use resources carefully, to place their development in indigenous hands, and to harmonize development with social needs and a balanced economy.
The fraudulent argument for “growth” is balanced by the fraudulent way most Western economists presently define “Protectionism”. That subject – Protectionism – will be dealt with in Part Five of this series.
Stumble It!
The second essential is that the world must get off the religion of Capitalist madness and the belief that economies must grow and grow and grow. They can't.
The third essential that needs to be done, such as will seriously set the stage for further advances in an ongoing socio-economic revolution against capitalist autocracy and control over the economy and the state, in my long held view, with which Noam Chomsky in the US has coincidentally taken the same essential position in a recent interview on RealNews, is that a new drive needs to be encouraged, provided with a legal framework of protection and encouragement, and launched to complete the unionization of the "entire" working class. This, indeed more than anything or any other measures will do more to check the power of capital, at least for an important period of time as needs to be bought, turning around the fortunes of the various working class strata, and stimulating the economy in a real way, with improved wages/ purchasing power to create new demand for products, and consumers with the money to actually pay for them, instead of just building up more family destroying debt.
The best a new regulatory and pro-labour laws regime will secure, however, for the working class, society and the economy is, to get us back to where we were before the recent conservative/fascist dominated period destroyed the old regulatory regime of the post war state-capitalism system. To move beyond that into an entirely new and more secure socio-economic order however, that cannot be undone at some future date AGAIN, by the power of capitalism to undermine the very regulations put in place to control it, it will be necessary to use this NEW unionization drive period as was actually originally intended by its early socialist/communist/anarchist founders-, to actually lay down the prerequisite framework for an organized working class that can actually assume the function of assuming ownership, directing and managing the economy themselves-, broadening this democratized structural "directorship/managerial" base by including in it various community based representations, including consumer and environmental oversight interests, for example.
It is not enough to simply go back to the old regulatory regime that was postwar "state capitalism", to simply be undone again at another time, with what that represents for working class lives and the broader society strata. This back to the past "regulatory regime" over the economy only has value and validity if it as well leads to the further democratization of the ownership and management direction of the economy itself. Which coincidentally with it, lays down as well, a new opportunity period to change the power foundations which underpin the political institutions of society as well, with all the further opportunities that would open up in the areas of the harmonization of the economy with the natural environment, the resolution of the most serious issues there, and the issues of sustainable population levels in city and countryside, for further example.
A bolder vision needs serious development for ourselves, than just that of going back to the past to relive some assumed "more idyllic" time. It was never that "idyllic". Only relatively so, compared to the present. And certainly it was not, nor will be again, anymore stable, so long as the same old, same old corrupt capitalist class remains in control over the real levers of power within the economy. We already know what they will do, if given the opportunity to do so AGAIN. Bring us or our kin back to here at some later date, on a new wave of capitalist greed.
Coyote
What we see now is not a recession that will go away in a year, but the collapse of this totally fraudulent, criminal system, still being taught in our universities as "economics", and bailed out by governments to last another day.
But, as I keep on repeating, where are the students and young people to stand up and knock over this, their own, colonization and enslavement? At least there now are demonstrations in Europe against the G20, pushing the same crap, but here in Canada they can get away with murder and the pimp politicians who are forcing it on us, keep on being reelected, with the opposition just standing by bleeting a few platitudes.
If wages had kept even with the over 1000% inflation of living costs in the past 35-40 years, the minimum wage in Canada should be at least $50. plus per hour, when I think back on what buying powers we had in the 50s and 60s.
Ed Deak.
An observation beginning to resonate with more and more people, and soon to come to a street near you.
Amen to that.
Coyote
Cheers, Ed.
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TRANSFORMING THE WORLD IN CRISIS
PRAGUE NGO DECLARATION
1 April 2009
We, participants of the conference The World In Crisis: Economies and Policies for Global
Transformation have discussed for three days in Prague the root causes, impacts and responses to
the financial crises, economic meltdown, climate change, mismanagement of natural resource use,
increasing inequity and volatile food and oil prices from the systemic perspective of the world's
poor and vulnerable.
While we have not tried to reach consensus on every aspect of these crises, we are turning jointly to
the G20 summit in London and the informal meeting of EU economic and finance ministers
(Ecofin) in Prague with the following messages:
The current economic, financial crisis is a deep, systemic crisis of the economic and political
model dominating the world for the past three decades. The crash is the failure of an
economic paradigm which prioritised the self-regulation of markets. This paradigm was based
on the belief that finance-dominated growth built on speculation would create common
wealth, that unqualified liberalisation and deregulation would benefit all and that the
subordination of public goods to private profit-making would provide better services to the
people. Working people, the poor and the vulnerable have no responsibility for the various
crises, but suffer most from their impacts. Apart from speedy action to reverse the crises, the
world needs a reform of global policies, transformation towards social justice and ecological
sustainability, as well as space for alternative economic and political systems based on
political, economic, social and cultural human rights.
The fall of the Iron Curtain helped to free millions of women and men from the oppression of
authoritarian governments. Emancipation and liberation from the constraints and deficiencies of the
centrally planned economy contributed to improved living standards, but the pendulum of
liberalisation swung too far.
A number of countries in the former Soviet bloc, such as Hungary, Latvia and Ukraine, are now
confronted with state bankruptcy because their growth model, mainly based on borrowing in
foreign currencies, has proved to be unsustainable. Others, which followed a different path,
maintaining to some extent basic public services and retaining some political control over their
economies, are showing more resilience. They are, however, all hit by the spillover of the financial
crisis to the real economy. The fruits of the labour of millions of women and men risk being negated
by the crisis.
Even before the crisis, the cost of global economic and financial liberalisation was already too high.
While some enjoyed increased political and economic freedom, market fundamentalism and the
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dominance of finance over the real economy led to unjust inequality and prevented people from
exercising democratic control over the basics of their lives: land, water, forests, food, energy
sources and money.
The drive for economic growth often ignored environmental costs such as climate change, water
scarcity, soil erosion, and loss of species. Financial markets without rules made the crucial price of
oil extremely volatile, speculated on food and land, and built up enormous debts, collective risks
and global imbalances. Unfair (re)distribution of resources deepened poverty, spread hunger and
polarized societies. Without effective public control, vulnerability and inequality have been on the
rise. The current economic model, in addition to discarding vital common interests, has proved to be
damagingly unstable.
Economic policies in some countries have prevented the worst impacts of global policies, while
some governments have made things even worse. There is much that needs to be done, including by
civil society, to improve sustainability, equality, resilience and democratic accountability at the
national level. The core problems of various crises today, however, are clearly of a global nature
and call for immediate international steps towards systemic change.
Such global transformation will be a complex and costly endeavour ? it cannot happen overnight.
Long, hard struggles by progressive movements have brought the world to a point where a change
of paradigm and reform of key institutions appear closer than ever. Business as usual cannot be the
answer. The time is right for bold reforms. The global economy must be transformed as well as
stimulated.
We call on global leaders and the economic and finance ministers to:
. reassert effective market regulation in favour of the poor, the planet and public interests,
including control of risk, establishment of an international currency regime, and improved
transparency and governance of all markets
. put economies (economic production, growth, trade and finance) at the service of social,
environmental and other vital interests of women, men, girls and boys, in particular to start
greening our economies and to increase local economic resilience
. break the dominance of finance over the real economy and eliminate the current potential
of the financial sector and particular financial firms to blackmail governments
. ensure that the resolution of the financial and economic crises does not sidetrack attention
from crucial climate negotiations. We need a new ambitious and equitable climate treaty
agreed in Copenhagen, including deep emission cuts and new and additional funding for
climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Rich countries must reduce their
energy consumption. All countries need to increase energy efficiency and invest in
renewable energy
. rethink external finance for development, in particular to help stimulate domestic
financing, resource mobilisation and strong local and regional economies in poor countries.
This is vital for ensuring sustainable development, ending aid dependency and preventing
future macro-economic shocks. The Millennium Development Goals must be achieved and
Official Development Assistance commitments must be respected
. fairly share resource consumption at the global level, to reverse the flow of resources from
South to North, from labour to capital and from public to private pockets, and to stop illicit
capital flight. This would also allow the balancing of the per capita ecological footprint and
the reduction of CO2 emissions and land, water and natural resource use globally
. ensure tax justice, including environmental taxes and by the rebalancing of capital,
corporate and personal income taxes through progressive taxation, i.e. every individual and
every company has to pay taxes according to their economic strength
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. establish international taxation, in particular on currency transactions and CO2 emissions.
The revenues from international taxes must be used to finance global public goods, such as
environment and sustainable development
. make all international and regional financial institutions more transparent, representative
and accountable. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) must be put under the auspices of a reformed UN and
transformed substantially. They need a change in paradigm. This includes ensuring that
economic policy is geared towards the greater benefit of women and men, girls and boys,
enhancing the disclosure of information, substantially increasing the representation and
influence of poorer and smaller developing countries ? not just big emerging markets ? and
strengthening democratic multilateral cooperation; monitoring of these institutions'
financing must be immediately and significantly increased and improved in the light of their
past failures and the pressure to fast-track new funds
. support developing countries in realising their national development goals and stop
pressurising them to open their economies to trans-national corporations through
instruments such as the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) agreement on
Financial Services, Economic Partnership Agreements, other Free Trade Agreements and
Bilateral Investment Treaties, which have to be replaced by sustainable development
policies
. ensure that any rescue packages promote equitable green economy.
To the European Union, we say in addition:
The EU needs a re-orientation of its economic paradigm. The Lisbon strategy is excessively
inspired by failed neo-liberal thinking. The further process of integration must be centred around
the concept of a Social Europe. Social development and environmental sustainability should be
harmonised to the highest standards and made legally binding, including in associated institutions
such as the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development. Strict regulation and supervision of the entire finance sector are needed. The mandate
of the European Central Bank has to be enlarged to include sustainable growth and employment. All
practices of tax dumping and regulatory arbitrage have to be stopped.
The conference was organised by Prague Global Policy Institute - Glopolis with the support of Action Aid, Bretton Woods Project
(UK), CEE Bankwatch Network, Christian Aid, EURODAD, European Alternative Economic Memorandum, Hnut? Duha ? Friends
of the Earth Czech Republic, Greenpeace Czech Republic, Heinrich B?ll Foundation Prague, International Forum on Globalization
(USA), New Economics Foundation (UK), Social Watch (Uruguay), Tax Justice Network, Third Work Network (Malaysia),
Vedegylet ? Protect the Future (Hungary), WEED - World Economy, Ecology & Development Assoc. (Germany).
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poor and vulnerable.
Pretty impressive. One wonders what they could have solved given FOUR days.
and call for immediate international steps towards systemic change.
Such global transformation will be a complex and costly endeavour ? it cannot happen overnight.
Long, hard struggles by progressive movements have brought the world to a point where a change
of paradigm and reform of key institutions appear closer than ever. Business as usual cannot be the
answer. The time is right for bold reforms. The global economy must be transformed as well as
stimulated.
Indeed impressive.
The new thinking that is occurring suddenly, across many strata of society, and finding refelction in such bold action as is today happening in London at the G20 Meltdown, and here in this conference Faitlux has brought attention to, is encouraging. This country's citizenry is still lagging, of course, and in US America, but I am convinced that reality is about to catch up with ourselves too. And as the somnambulism is forcibly washed from our eyes and this global reality intrudes into what has been our collective illusions since the late 70s, we too will be brought into the broad stream of anti-capitalism realization, which the failures of "the system" itself have revealed. Our citizenry, North American continent wide, no less than Europe, are about to be galvanized into action.
And none too soon.
The Fight Back is Already Underway. The Crisis IS The Continuing Existence of Capitalism. Real and Serious Democracy Is The Battle Cry.
Coyote
.....goes hand in glove with equally real and serious independence for the individuals we collectively call 'citizens'. But cramming citizens into the cities the way we do it now, is (whether deliberate or merely propitious) acting in the opposite direction.
The protests at the current G20 might bring a whiff of the fresh air we called 'democracy', but as with virtually all examples in the past, this movement can too easily be hijacked or subverted, unless the citizenry has options.
And yet, the ones decrying Capitalism are sill happily enjoying it's benefits. Like shoes. And cell phones. And crayons they can use to scrawl their mixed message on walls.
"The Government Lies, the Banks Steal, the Rich laughs" . . . and voter turnout is still at record lows. When asked "if Capitalism is the problem, what is the replacement?" Real and Serious blank stares result.
That has little to do with capitalism, Dr. Cel phones can be made in socialist (Finland) countries as well............
Socialism is not the opposite of Capitalism. You still can buy things somewhere in a socialist country.
Communism is the opposite of Capitalism. The cellular telephone was not developed in a communist country, and probably never could have been. Communism and Capitalism also have the common trait that neither have been truly attempted.
No doubt, to some small and largely propagandist measure, you are correct, Caleb. Though even the State Capitalism of the old USSR, that still passes for socialism/communism in many folks minds, itself not entirely unlike our own postwar State Capitalism, with its own particular deformed notion of "democratic centralism" sans the multiplicity of "parties", virtually nearly all the same, at least in their agreement on "Capitalism", the old USSR was still the first onto the moon. So inventiveness, even if one examines the historical record of, in many cases, startling "technological" achievements of ancient tribal and slave societies, building upon the achievements and previous "labour" of others is not unique to your fancied capitalism. (The cellphone afterall, is only a relatively minor sophistication development onto the old wall, ringy-dingy telephone. And may be destroying young brains at that.
And nothing... no social, economic or political form certainly, is ever entirely "pure" to our minds concept of a thing, but is ever in a process of evolving from or out of something, from one state of being into something else. The same holds true for capitalism as much as it did feudalism, earlier slave systems (which did provide means of slaves freeing themselves, even in Rome) and the imagined "pure" democracy, in the minds of some New Agers, of ancient "tribal systems" ( which themselves often harnessed their enemies as slaves" and laid the foundations for the development of the various "slave systems" of the later ancient world.)
The point being that no "socio-economic" system per se can "of itself" entirely claim the technological achievements of humankind. Only the labour of humankind, intellectual and physical, limited by what was possible in its particular time and place, can claim the successive layers of that achievement, built upon each other, or standing upon each others shoulders to see further. Socio-economic systems only more or less successfully harnessed that labour, gave it form, and to a greater or lesser degree, again limited by the circumstances of time and place, facilitated or hindered that development. (These achievements more often than not being claimed by the ruling class wealthy, who really but merely "financed" it into being and onto the market for profit to themselves.)
It is simply, here and now, that we are in a place where late "Capitalism", especially in its current "corporatist" model, has become a danger to the life sustaining systems of the planet and the lives of ordinary citizenry. This as a consequence of the endless growth and development needs, in consumers/cheap labour supply, in a word "population" growth, and endless production/consumption, in order to create profit for its private owners, rather than to "primarily" serve the "needs" of the citizenry and AND their planet requirements. And as a consequence, is in need of being undone/dismantled/reconfigured in order to open up other more democratic, environmental protection and support for the broad masses of the human population possibilities. No less than to serve the space and environment needs of other life forms that we value for themselves, and are our "canaries" that serve to warn us when we are going too far.
And right now, what is driving all this toward a fever pitch in our time, in my opinion destined to move those "Real and Serious blank stares" of which you speak, and which I agree are out there, is the fact that "the system", which is capitalism, however "impure", even if it wants now to go back to "regulated state capitalism", is not working. It is not meeting the blank staring peoples needs again, primary or otherwise, and is in a state of self-initiated "collapse". (Such as it cyclically has done, to greater and lesser degrees, across its entire "greed and fear driven" history, from the time of the Industrial Revolution.)
Will it survive this latest self-created greed collapse, at least for a further period of time until the next fear and greed driven collapse? Thee do not entirely know the answer to that, nor do I. (I merely advocate for the taking advantage of this moment in the history of capitalism, to transform society beyond it, out of the privately owned and undemocratically run socio-economic system of capitalism.) We shall both just have to see how political, social and economic events evolve here however, and how the various class and other "fault line" forces line up in the circumstances.
Meanwhile, you are here, obviously, to support the status quo and cast your cynicism and doubts on any other possibilities. Which is okay, of course. (I'll concede to you that there are certainly grounds for plenty of cynicism about society, and humans in general.) Others of us are here to counterpoise your cynicism however, and point out that the Eternal Life claims of the status quo ain't necessarily so, anymore than the Eternal Life claims of religion, and to declare that there are other possibilities for organizing the economy and society, call one it, as I say from time to time, "socialism", "anarchy" or "breakfast". I care not a twaddle.
Coyote
Communism and Capitalism also have the common trait that neither have been truly attempted.
So we DO have some common reference points..........the aggregate human race is not communist by nature, and it certainly isn't capitalist right down to its' genes. So why do we keep attempting to foist one or the other on ourselves?
Other than more than a tad brutal mixed with some examples of incredible selflessness in all causes, often at one and the same time, I'm not sure that we are anything by nature, or down to our genes, save perhaps rough "survivalists". At time of this writing anyway.
Poor, long suffering humanity (in its broad stream) and incredibly resilient Nature. (If we turn out not to be workable, or viable in the end, it will simply allow us to disappear of our own internal contradictions, and try something else.)
Coyote
In our society the fraudulent definition of economic efficiency, as the biggest profits for the least monetary inputs, has been and is causing the destruction of our environment and the self destruction of the human race.
I've spent 45 years of my life fighting communist oppression and will spend the remainder fighting its idiot twin, capitalism, both having elevated a certain criminal element to unlimited power over everything and everybody.
It may seem funny and contradictory, but human freedoms must be protected by strong laws. Economies should operate the same way as road systems, where everybody, big or small, is entitled to go anywhere, provided they abide by the laws that protect the safety of the persons and properties of all users.
We had a reasonably acceptable system in the 50s and 60s, but it has been completely destroyed by the introduction of the fraudulent theory of neoclassical market economics, letting lose the worst criminal element and crime wave against the environment and humanity in history.
As long as this crap is being taught in our universities without any questioning and debate, the road will lead downhill to the biggest catastrophe.
I just can't understand how in hell can they get away with this fraud, with all the evidence pointing against it? And even calling it a "science" !!!!!!!!
Ed Deak.