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The end of the world as we know it
Feb. 5th, 2012 08:04 pmSomebody on dailykos.com asked whether a sustainable human presence on Earth is possible under capitalism. I remarked that capital is like yeast; it wants to keep gobbling up resources until it drowns in its own waste, and in the age of "globalization" no government in the world is strong enough to stop it. The world economy must surely keep expanding until it runs headlong into a natural check, such as the depletion of a critical resource, or a catastrophe such as a war or epidemic.
And then what? Will the world of tomorrow be something like that of a thousand years ago, a predominantly agrarian society supporting a tiny fraction of today's global population? Will the modern age be remembered as an aberration, a frightful example of what happens when the rightful order of the world is overthrown? Will we go back to the rule of kings and prelates?
One of the things I've come to realize is that nothing, no matter how well or long established, can last forever. The Soviet Union was a great power in 1985, an unassailable fact to be reckoned with since time immemorial, yet all the Party's tanks, ships, and nuclear weapons couldn't hold it together, and it would be gone in six short years.
Twenty years earlier, America enjoyed an age of boundless prosperity, the age of Fred Flintstone when everyone in the world bought American and people built lifelong careers at great corporations like General Motors or IBM. That too is gone, and more than a few of those giants, such as RCA, have vanished.
Marx believed capitalism would meet its end when the downtrodden working class rose against its oppressors and built a new socialism based on economic democracy, the control of the means of production by the producers themselves. That didn't happen; instead, capital sat down to bargain with labor and agreed to carve the ever increasing pie in a way that satisfied all sides.
But now the pie is no longer expanding as it once did, and capital has got greedy. It no longer feels the need to bargain; there is always someone on the far side of the world it can hire for less. Things are going to get ugly, and with the world's natural resources known to be finite, they may get very ugly indeed.
But do not stay tuned, for you will only be deceived and distracted. Look! it's President Kennedy's ex-mistress!
And then what? Will the world of tomorrow be something like that of a thousand years ago, a predominantly agrarian society supporting a tiny fraction of today's global population? Will the modern age be remembered as an aberration, a frightful example of what happens when the rightful order of the world is overthrown? Will we go back to the rule of kings and prelates?
One of the things I've come to realize is that nothing, no matter how well or long established, can last forever. The Soviet Union was a great power in 1985, an unassailable fact to be reckoned with since time immemorial, yet all the Party's tanks, ships, and nuclear weapons couldn't hold it together, and it would be gone in six short years.
Twenty years earlier, America enjoyed an age of boundless prosperity, the age of Fred Flintstone when everyone in the world bought American and people built lifelong careers at great corporations like General Motors or IBM. That too is gone, and more than a few of those giants, such as RCA, have vanished.
Marx believed capitalism would meet its end when the downtrodden working class rose against its oppressors and built a new socialism based on economic democracy, the control of the means of production by the producers themselves. That didn't happen; instead, capital sat down to bargain with labor and agreed to carve the ever increasing pie in a way that satisfied all sides.
But now the pie is no longer expanding as it once did, and capital has got greedy. It no longer feels the need to bargain; there is always someone on the far side of the world it can hire for less. Things are going to get ugly, and with the world's natural resources known to be finite, they may get very ugly indeed.
But do not stay tuned, for you will only be deceived and distracted. Look! it's President Kennedy's ex-mistress!
