Why am I
hopeful? the Status Quo is devolving, and a better way of living lies just
beyond the corrupt, wasteful, ruinous consumerist debt/financial tyranny we now
inhabit.
Readers
often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom
gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the
destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions
doesn't leave much to be happy about.
The
most hopeful thing in my mind is that the Status Quo is devolving from its
internal contradictions and excesses. It is a perverse, intensely destructive
system with horrific incentives for predation, exploitation, fraud and
complicity and few disincentives.
A
more human world lies just beyond the edge of the Status Quo.
I
know many smart, well-informed people expect the worst once the Status Quo (the
Savior State and its corporatocracy partners) devolves, and there is abundant
evidence of the ugliness of human nature under duress.
But
we should temper this Id ugliness with the stronger impulses of community and
compassion. If greed and rapaciousness were the dominant forces within human
nature, then the species would have either died out at its own hand or been
limited to small savage populations kept in check by the predation of
neighboring groups, none of which could expand much because inner conflict
would limit their ability to grow.
The
remarkable success of humanity as a species is not simply the result of a big
brain, opposable thumbs, year-round sex, innovation or even language; it is
also the result of social and cultural associations that act as a
"network" for storing knowledge and good will--what we call technical
and social capital.
I
have devoted significant portions of my books to an explanation of how
community and self-reliance have atrophied under the relentless expansion of
the dominant Savior State.
The
social capital and "return on investment" earned from investing time
and energy in community and other social networks has been replaced by a check
from the Savior State--a transfer payment that surely beats the troublesome
work of investing in community in terms of risk and return.
The
net result of the Savior State dominating society and the economy is the rise
of a pathological mindset of entitlement and resentment--the two are simply two
sides of the same coin. You cannot separate them.
Once
self-reliance has been lost, so too has self-confidence been lost, and the
Savior State dependent--individual and corporation alike--soon distrusts their
ability to function in an open market.
This
is a truly sad, self-destructive state of affairs, and deeply, tragically
ironic. The calls for "help" quickly lead to dependence on the Savior
State, and that dependence quickly breeds complicity and silence in the face of
repression and predation by the State and its corporate partners.
In a
very real sense, citizens relinquish their citizenship along with their
self-reliance and self-worth once they accept dependence on the State.
I
often mention that the U.S. has much to learn from so-called Third World
countries that are poorer in resources and credit. In many of these countries,
the government is the police, the school and the infrastructure of roadways and
energy. Many of these countries are systemically corrupt, and the State is the
engine of enforcing that corruption.
Rather
than something to be embraced and lobbied, involvement with the State is
something to be avoided as a risk. In everyday life, people rarely encounter
the government except in law enforcement or schooling.
As a
result, people depend on their social capital and community for sustenance,
support, work and connections.
This
is not altruism, it is mutually beneficial.
Once
a community dissolves into atomized individuals who each get a payment from the
Central State, then they no longer need each other. Rather, other dependents on
the State are viewed as competitors for the State's resources.
These
atomized, isolated individuals have a perverse relationship with the State and
what remains of the community around them: lacking the self-worth earned from
work or engagement/investment in a community, then their only outlet for
self-identity is consumption: what they wear, eat, drink, etc. as consumers.
This
dependence on the State also serves the State's goal, which is a passive,
compliant populace of dependents, and distracted, passive workers who pay their
taxes. Thus dependence on the State and a hollow consumerism are ontologically
bound: one feeds the other.
The
era of debt-based consumption as the engine of "growth" and
"prosperity" is coming to an end. Adding debt via credit no longer
creates growth; it actually takes away from the economy by expanding debt
service (interest payments).
The
vast majority of developed-world people have had the basics of life since the
late 1960s -- transport, food, shelter and utilities. The "growth"
since then depended on cheap, abundant oil and a consumerist mentality in which
one constantly re-defines and renews one's identity not from social investments
in others or the shared community but from consumption.
Not
coincidentally, this dominance of consumption as the only metric for
"growth" (as opposed to, say, productive activity) has been
paralleled by the dominance of the Central State.
The
end of credit-based consumption will be a very positive development, as will
the devolution of the Savior State. The Savior State is like oil--both are at
their peaks and are starting their inevitable slide down the S-curve. The world
they created was not as positive for human fulfillment and happiness as we have
been told.
Indeed,
study after study has found that people with the basics for life, a higher
purpose that requires sacrifice and a tight-knit community are far and away
happier than isolated, atomized, insecure consumers, regardless of their wealth
and consumption.
This
potential to re-humanize our economy is why I am hopeful.
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both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of
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Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print). For more, please
visit the OTM essentials website.