Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.This report by Ahmed accurately reflects the tone and substance of the report (which I read) issued by the UN appointed scientists from Finland. Ahmed also provides other sources to corroborate the findings of the Finish scientists--notice especially one source who is a famous capitalist.
Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments. Contrary to the way policymakers usually think about these problems, the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all.
Rather, these crises are part of the same fundamental transition to a new era characterized by inefficient fossil fuel production and the escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict, or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age, the paper says.
I noticed that both Ahmed's and the scientists' report were careful to avoid any suggestion that a new social-economic system might be a totally different system from capitalism. Ahmed's statements provides some examples: "Capitalism as we know it is over" and "Whether or not the system that emerges still comprises a form of capitalism is ultimately a semantic question. It depends on how you define capitalism." (As if it were difficult to define capitalism.) Nowhere is the word "socialism" used--simply because it is verboten by capitalist authorities. And there seems to be no known alternative system as claimed by the Finnish scientist who remarked "It can be safely said that no widely applicable economic models have been developed specifically for the upcoming era." Need I argue that no "widely applicable economic models" have been permitted by our capitalist masters?
It will be up to the "wretched of the earth" to decide if capitalism will be destroyed and what system will be substituted for it. We simply cannot rely on the existing capitalist ruling classes, who are thoroughly addicted to the power and wealth that capitalism delivers to them. They are hopeless junkies who are unable to ever solve this dilemma. This will only be possible if the wretched of the Earth become aware that their very existence and survival will depend on this change.
Given the fact that the capitalist ruling classes have all the means at their command to insure this consciousness does not happen, I don't think it is realistic to imagine that such an awareness will ever arise, or if it does, it will be too late for any chance of human survival. There is a certain justice to this given that humans have caused the extinction of so many other species.
