Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Faustian Bargain that Modern Economists Never Mention

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, January 15, 2012

The Faustian Bargain that Modern Economists Never Mention

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from her blog, Our Finite World.

What about the Faustian bargain? It remains deeply hidden from view because its exposure by the high priests of modern economics would force us to rethink how we live and why we live this way, as well as what we’re planning to leave for future generations. The Faustian bargain goes something like this: Thanks to the discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels, humans (really just a small minority of them) are able to live richer lives today than even the queens and kings of yore could have dreamed of.
[The downside of the bargain:] ...in the future, one that creeps ever closer, this economic system, fed by energy and other resources at ever increasing rates at one end and spewing out waste products at rates that cannot be absorbed by Earth’s ecosystems at the other, is unsustainable.

But who or what has made this bargain, keeps it a secret, and continues acting in accordance with the bargain? One of the major theses of this blog is that it is fundamentally a system, one that largely serves "a small minority" currently known as the "One Percent". In my view the system is really based on faith. Hence, it can be regarded as a religion. The priests of this religion called capitalism insist on keeping this Faustian bargain a secret much like an alcoholic who denies his addiction and keeps his addiction carefully hidden.