Random Thoughts
Booms, busts, population growth, overconsumption, adverse consequences and sustainability
Marx and probably others had long ago noted that capitalist economies tend to go through cycles that include booms and busts. The busts can cause great suffering and even the booms can cause many problems.
None of us are probably capable of figuring out and then bringing about economic systems that would be sustainable and could work better in many ways for a human population that has been greatly increasing in numbers and also in consumption.
While many still have to struggle very hard to obtain even the basics, others have been led to over-consume in highly wasteful ways that feed the economic engines but have many adverse effects--on human societies, human individuals and of course on other species and the environment.
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Mass extinction, waste, pollution, alterations to equilibria
It seems that a species with any sort of wisdom would not also kill off so many other species at rates that seem to be approaching those of the great planetary extinctions in the geologic record. Those appear to have been caused by strikes by speeding asteroids or comets and/or massive volcanic events. This mass extinction is being caused by human activities, greatly magnified by technologies.
Nor would a species with prudence and collective sanity produce so much waste and so horribly pollute the air, water and soil. Nor would it dare to alter the physical balances on the planetary scale that we have been doing.
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Dependence and entrapment
More and more of us are dependent on income from employment for basic sustenance and survival of self and family. And more and more of us are led into the maws of a machine that has become a global juggernaut. The speed of production and so also of working and other human activities keeps increasing. There are also many distractions, competitions and breakdowns of trust that interfere with quiet relaxation, observation, caring and intimacy.
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Seeking ways out of the trap--and the difficulties and dangers involved
It seems to me and surely many others that we are caught in some sort of mass hysteria that has become globalized. In the middle of a mass stampede, whoever tries to suddenly stop or even slow down is likely to be trampled to death.
So also, anyone who calls on others to stop or slow is seen to be advocating for increased suffering and death.
A sudden slowdown in consumption and production is likely to result in recessions and depressions, with greatly increased unemployment, shortages of essentials, political turmoil, violent conflicts, deaths, displacements, and much misery and suffering.
What some have long hoped for is that awareness will spread so that there will be a gradual slowdown in consumption and so also of production, with a more equitable distribution of resources--including income and wealth--and so also of power at all levels.
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Balance and correction
Concentrations of power, including in the hands of wealthy individuals, corporations or governments, (and more generally gross imbalances of power between individuals, groups, countries, etc.) tend to lead to all sorts of injustices and unnecessary suffering.
No individual, corporation or government, however well-meaning, can know everything or predict everything. So one also needs in place input- and feedback-mechanisms that guide decisions and also correct mistakes in a timely fashion.
Authoritarian systems are typically bad at that. So are overbureaucratized democracies or democracies captured by narrow interests.
Elections and market forces can be part of the input, feedback and correction process. However, as we can see, people have figured out how to manipulate others, divide them and make them work against their own longterm collective interests.
2023 March 14, Tue.
Berkeley, California
