Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Nature’s Capital is the Limiting Resource

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

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Nature’s Capital is the Limiting Resource

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch.

Heilein's fantasy, which is about humans migrating to other planets after destroying this one, is just that--pure fantasy. Capitalist ideologists like to think of everything as disposable, but they are deluding themselves if they think they can just drop the Earth into a garbage can and move on.

Roberts writes:

... unregulated capitalism is one of the greatest forces of destruction of peoples, animal and plant life, and the Earth’s ecology. The book shows that for short-term profit, capitalists are willing to destroy irreplaceable resources. Future profitability is not important to them.

This also implies another delusion--that capitalism can be regulated for the interest of all and the survival of all. It's like asking a drunken alcoholic to behave himself/herself. Capitalism delivers the drugs and power to a few who are so addicted that they are uncontrollable. Unfortunately, they are also very powerful! It is only by the elimination of the source of their drugs that humanity can survive.