Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Dear Candidate - What Will You Do if Growth Is Over...?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Dear Candidate - What Will You Do if Growth Is Over...?

from The Oil Drum.

This excellent website is inhabited by many people who have been highly trained in the technical sciences. The institutions of higher learning have done, for the most part, an excellent job of training people in these sciences. But one must also be aware that along with these skills, such institutions, particularly in the US, impart a great deal of indoctrination that favors the system which supports the ruling class of capitalists. Such indoctrination supplies both misinformation and obfuscation of the facts of social-political realities. One example is the belief in unending economic growth which the capitalist system requires and that science can solve all problems that get in the way of growth.

Another example is the belief that our society is governed by a democratic process. This view, which is a conventional one supported by all the propagandists of the system's ruling class, conveys the usual mistaken belief that influence and power function in a somewhat democratic fashion simply because of the outward trappings of democracy in the form of elections and the fact that they, the propagandists (school, media, and political authorities), say so.

If you accept this argument and the fact that economic growth is coming up against environmental limits, then the following statement from the article becomes understandable:

Given the stakes, it is quite worrying that in all the institutionalized economic projections of late, decline or zero growth aren't even mentioned as a possibility. One can speculate why this is the case, but I think there is significant evidence that only limited efforts- if any - are being allocated to understanding the possible consequences and required mitigation strategies of such a trajectory. I'm not so sanguine about the fact that so few people seem to be ready to think the not-so-unthinkable.

My argument also suggests that trying to work through the established system is a waste of time. Working as best we can to create new viable, sustainable ways of living is the way to go. The existing system is doomed, but we must not blindly follow its dictates because we too will be doomed. Therefore we must do what we can to hasten its demise while constructing new societies.