Perry Arnett writes:
A most cogent and timely post! And, as you ask in the end, there ARE those around who are ready, willing and able – but for lack of finance – and some working around governmental restrictions … great start; let’s talk more.
Lise Maring writes:
I believe we’ve become too comfortable. A life threatening situation today is not having health insurance…or being out of beer right before the ‘big game’. And, we’ve been raised to believe the status quo will go on forever and ever, amen, thank you very much.
In other words, we’ve lost our edge. We have no incentive (as yet) to tinker or to go ‘where no one has gone before´. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? And all our creative drive, all our ingenuity over the years since WWII, except for our brief excursion into space, has been re-channelled into keeping the capitalist machine running using behavior modification and marketing. All that ingenuity is too busy creating new ‘wants’ and turning them into ‘needs’ in order to keep the machine cranking away and making a profit. Creativity has been subjugated by corporate interests. Being a good citizen, after all, now means being a good consumer. Artists and writers make the best money working for advertising firms. Technologists make the best money working for major corporations. Even social scientists do better financially working for ‘big business’ and selling their souls…and everyone else’s. Ever hear of psychographics? Even many scientists and environmentalists have ‘sold out’ for the bigger bucks. So, if all our ingenuity is being exercised within the boundaries set by business, how can anything we come up with possibly solve the problems we have created?
As far as I´m concerned, the kind of ingenuity that made it possible to go to the moon began to falter when that milestone was met. We appear to be a goal-driven species and there were no other goals to focus our attention in the same way President Kennedy’s mandate had. Our so-called ‘Yankee ingenuity’ was then laid to rest permanently with the death of Challenger and her crew. There have been no major technological advances since those times, nor are there likely to be ever again in this civilization. Everything since then has been a variation on a theme, or a ‘refinement’.
By the time the ‘bewildered herd’ realizes what is happening, it will be too late to muster the talents we need to set our civilization on a new, more positive, life-enhancing course, assuming there are any true ‘talents’ left to muster.
L. W. Nicholson responds: Hi Lise, Among other interesting things you say. “By the time the ‘bewildered herd’ realizes what is happening, it will be too late to muster the talents we need to set our civilization on a new, more positive, life-enhancing course, assuming there are any true ‘talents’ left to muster.”
That has been one of my “worries” for more than 50 years. I am certainly afraid you are correct in this assessment of present conditions. However, if everyone who knows there is a problem gives up there most certainly will be no solution, perhaps there are none anyway, and perhaps those of us who keep trying are wasting our time. But what else are we to do? We may as well waste our time trying as to waste it giving up, if there is any chance at all, it can’t become available to those who do nothing. I can’t believe you have given up entirely, you did “waste” your time answering my little article about The Death of Debt. That indicates that you are still pitching with at least a slow ball.
This brings up the thought about just how many people may know we are in trouble but have made no attempt to organize a response to the problem? I know from personal experience that there are at least a few hundred such people, some are organized and are trying to do something about it, some are not organized, but are at least willing to write about their ideas to such web sites as the Energyresource list. Most of these people are quite interested in expressing their opinions about energy problems, but as yet don’t seem to realize that the fundamental problem is far more complex and will require a solution to much more than energy problems alone.
Anyway, I can’t say give up as long as there may be some chance for a continuation of our species, and I think you are in the same boat. Happy Landings !!
Perry Arnett also responds:
Lise wrote: There have been no major technological advances since those times, nor are there likely to be ever again in this civilization. Everything since then has been a variation on a theme, or a ‘refinement’.
Whoa! Gal
Because the world may not recognize the creativity of ALL creators, does not mean none are being creative! (some may just not be as visible as others… and in these times, it may be the most prudent course for them to take…
Lise continues: By the time the ‘bewildered herd’ realizes what is happening, it will be too late to muster the talents we need to set our civilization on a new, more positive, life-enhancing course, assuming there are any true ‘talents’ left to muster.
I recognize your consternation, but the ‘talents’ exist; and some have, in fact, already answered the call to muster (long before the Net was created some choose, however, to follow the “Galt’s Gulch” ideal; realizing that small independant groups of like-minded individuals who have founded their own rural ‘monestaries’ may be able to ‘go through’ the ‘bottleneck’ better than under other courses of action.
Ted Swarts writes:
L.W., Nice rant. You hit several peeves close to my heart. Nothing irks me more than deficit financing, especially when it’s by those we trust to protect us.
And when you said, ‘We are in process of the greatest social change that humans have ever experienced in all the recorded history of our species,’ and ‘The financial system which has existed since the “barter System” was devised is now in process of disintegration,’ three things leapt into my mind.
The first are the lyrics of a Beetles song that goes something like ‘Those are words of wisdom, let it be, let it be’. The second are the other worldly words of John Luke Pecard of the USS Enterprise, to wit, ‘Make it so.’ And the third are the complementary expressions ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Praise the Lord’.
Then a fourth thing jumped from the recesses of my psyche, ‘Boy am I ever glad I’m Canadian.’ But my jubilance was short-lived as I recalled that Canadian public sector debt is close to $800 billion which, for a population of 30 or so million, yields a per capita debt of about $26 thousand, which is higher than that of our friends to the south.
‘Nothing is bleeping fair’, I swore. ‘The American’s are raping us silly [our resources] and in return we get more debt than they.’ Now I know how the Saudi’s feel.
Of course, deep down, I really appreciate our national debt, as should you. It’s a big number that nicely reflects a burden we will be leaving our children, which nicely parallels the destruction we’ve done to our fragile biosphere along with the depletion of its most precious jewels.
Yes, we, the masters of the twentieth century, have much to be proud of: big buildings, big building collapses, big waste piles, big pollution, big destruction, big resource depletion, big movie stars, many with big boobs, and big debt.
And then, of course, there are the obverse, small minds. Now to be fair, not all our minds are small. Take for instance the huge minds of George W. Bush jr. and Bjorn Lomborg and those who believe them. These saviors of freedom and critical thought, respectively, may be the best thing for keeping us all on our current track.
Cynicism aside, debt on any level, from personal to national, is a tool of coercion. The lenders or users, as the holy bible describes them, are masters and the borrowers are their indentured servants. When debt is tied to property as collateral, as in the form of mortgages, the masters are given a power to manipulate their servants in ways that make the Egyptians dominance over the Jews, during the time of Moses, appear as angelic. Entire governments are brought to their knees on the power of national debts. Governments, such as Canada’s, find their policies not just compromised but totally ruined by such debts, as with Canada giving unfettered access to its resources under the veiled threat of national shame and bankruptcy.
What’s wrong with our economic system? To many, it’s the liberty of its markets, or the concept of its monetary system, but the truth is anything but. Markets are simply a consequence of human behavior. They exist within all systems, regardless of ideology. Monetary systems are but mediums of exchange and although they come at the cost of abuse, they provide convenience of a greater value. The source of the problems is within the body of law that defines our markets, and in particular, the subset of laws that define our financial markets.
So when you say, ‘An entirely new method of control must be found and installed, human survival depends on it,’ I disagree. Even though our existing capitalistic system is flawed, I believe it may be rebuilt around a fairer and more equitable body of law. This is not an easy thing to accomplish, and within existing political systems it may be impossible. How for instance do you change the heart of the problem, which is reflected in the judicial interpretations of property as defined within the British and French common-law? Too many people, all of power, benefit too greatly from these laws. Changing them will only empower the people they now stand over.
Economic collapse followed by rebellion may be the only way to invoke economic and societal change of any consequence. Hopefully, any new world will be built around the concepts of freedom and fairness and equity, much like it is now but with some fundamental changes that will remove the shackles that enslave most of us, and that drive many of us to ends we’d prefer not to go.
Lastly, your call to arms, as in your suggestion for a socioeconomic equivalent to the Manhattan project, is one that I fear more than the status quo. Such a project breeds militaristic and linear thought, which are the refuge of the strong but stupid. It will yield a system of control and centralization that will fail as surely as Lenin’s Russia. The notion of creating an organized system from a clean slate is futile and its implementation is beyond comprehension. Consensus within such a project would be flimsy at best and would be torn apart by self serving coalitions that will give rise to a never-ending cycle of tyranny, oppression, and revolt.
Michael Dewolf writes:
Let’s face it, the policies and actions of our elected officials really do reflect the will and short-sightedness of the people.
“Of course, deep down, I really appreciate our national debt, as should you.”
We’ve gotten years of services without paying for it. Even ‘us kids’ (children of babyboomers) have gotten superior health care and education because of our parents loose spending ways.
L.W. Nicholson responds: Hi Mike, You like the debt? buys you and us heap big bag of trinkets and some a few extra meals. Ya, ain’t the debt grand? And we will never pay it back so we are all ahead of the game? Trouble is, we are having to pay interest on the damn thing. $360 billion (the highest federal government expenditure last year) and heaven knows how much interest we pay on the balance of the U.S. debt. (more than $30 trillion). We are working to pay taxes (for gov. expenses alone ) almost one half of our working hours.
Corporations pay no taxes except those that they add to the price of the products they sell us. Consumers must pay all expenses, that is people who produce something useful, for no one else produces anything to pay with. Fundamentally, money pays nothing for it is simply a superinstitution which exists only in the human “mind” which we try to make real by making certain marks on paper or little round metal disks usually made of pot metal. We simply kid ourselves, or allow someone else to brainwash us into believing, in the “value” of money.
As almost everyone knows the financial system has many flaws, many of which we try to excuse in one way or another rather than allowing ourselves to realize that it is the financial system (the Price System) itself which causes the flaws. We go out into the physical world and attempt to act as if this nonsense were all a part of the natural scheme of things. This financial system doesn’t exist in the physical world, it is only a man-made method which we try to use as a control mechanism for our physical activities. It, therefore, determines our behavior, lawful or lawless. As humans, given the method, we react according to its limitations. Given a more intelligent method, one designed to operate in synchronization with our modern high energy technological society, the behavior patterns will (because they must) change to match the new conditions.
The fundamental laws of nature are the laws of thermodynamics, which are concerned with the flow of energy on this earth, and elsewhere. The financial “laws” were designed (if their haphazard growth can be called a design) several thousands of years ago and grew into this huge conglomeration, this tyrannical, highly complex “method” that we use to determine who gets how much of what.
There are more than a million laws in the U.S. today, even lawyers can’t keep up with them all, and yet according to law, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Further, one must work in order to eat, either work or arrange to have someone else do the work for us, and at the same time we eliminate work by the use of technology powered chiefly by fossil fuels. An intelligent method would be far more simple, would work far more efficiently, and automatically eliminate a high percentage of crime. It would reduce working hours to match our ability to produce without reducing incomes. It would be the “Death of Debt” because debt wouldn’t be a part of its design.
This financial system is a Price System, it effects the distribution of the goods and services we produce by a system of trade and commerce based on commodity valuation. It has become so riddled with debt that we can hardly make the interest payments without seriously reducing the ability of the consumers to buy what is produced. Our only choice is to continue our attempts to keep this childish nonsense going until we have wasted the resources by which we live and force a drastic reduction in population, or to eliminate the damn thing and install a non-price system. ( Either a Price System or a non-Price System. That is our only choice, there is no other.