Tragic Distractions

In the news almost daily is some incident of horrific carnage, usually a suicide bombing somewhere far away. We are spared the gruesome footage of the strewn about body parts but we always get the body count. Or here in the US some fanatic is doing something illegal regarding an abortion clinic (like shooting a doctor) or more recently some guys in cowboy hats are engaged in some kind of armed insurrection for some ill-defined cause. (Then there are the nutcases going berserk with semi-automatic weapons - but that's another matter.)

The question is to what degree is there a connection between this rise in zealotry and our perpetually dysfunction economic order – global capitalism? Capitalism as our means of production is predicated on class dominance. From the offset capitalism was identified as a root cause of much human misery (see Charles Dickens). While it has been an engine of profound transformation much of it positive (if you discount global environmental ecocide), at its heart is anti-democratic domination. It originally emerged by enclosing formally commonly shared land into large scale private estates. The former subsistence farming population was no longer needed and ended piled up into to grim dirty cities working in factories for subsistence wages. The peasantry became the original working class. Two distinct classes thus emerged: owners and workers.

This dichotomy although now stratified and blurred still exists. As industrialization proceeded over the years through hard fought wrangling and bloody struggles the workers managed to claw back some of the value of their labor mainly by joining together in trade unions. As the workers could share in their increasing productivity, their living standards rose.

All through 19^th and well into the 20^th century until trade unions were legalized there were violent confrontations and class driven political turmoil. The underlying antagonism still persists albeit in a muted form. Since the 1930s in the US and after the end of WWII in Europe a sort of informal truce developed. But since the 1980s especially in the US, class warfare has again erupted as one-side attacks by the ownership class on the working class. Its objective is to dislodge the working class from any political power and economic leverage that it had acquired. In the US the worker class's closest political party, the Democrats, having become ever more reliant on the ownership class's money, provided little resistance and in fact joined in. Many workers abandoned hope that the Democratic Party was their political ally and turned away from politics altogether. Others fell for the lie by the Republican Party that it was not the owners who were their adversaries but the government. It was high taxes not low wages that were the problem. Some workers even became militantly hostile becoming armed anti-government zealots. All the while the system became ever more rigged so that any and all gains from ever increasing worker productivity went to the owners especially the very richest of the owners (currently referred to as 'the plutocracy').

Beyond exploitation another serious problem with capitalism is its tendency to periodically seize up like an internal combustion engine run without oil. Sometimes it is 'merely' a recession, a normal phase of the so-called 'business cycle' resulting in painful but temporary layoffs. However sometimes the whole thing comes crashing down and nearly everyone suffers even the ownership class in full scale Depression. Yet means for mitigating these so-called 'market downturns' was devised in 1930s known as Keynesian counter-cyclical policies (named after famed British economist John Maynard Keynes). Being a sensible means to save capitalism from itself it, was embraced by political parties across the spectrum.

But since the 1980s these policies have gone out of fashion. Keynesian counter-cyclical policy confronts the endemic problem in capitalism of periodic phases of inadequate aggregate demand by having the government step in and borrow money and then spend it on things that everyone needs. But it must be repaid when the economy returns to normal. However both parties misused this government spending which was intended by Keynesians to go to socially oriented projects. With especially the Americans government spending is directed mostly toward military spending (see the Cold War and the rise of the Military Industrial State). With previous rounds of Keynesian “pump priming” not repaid, debt overhang became an issue by the 1970s. Inflation had been a tradeoff for growth but the relationship started to breakdown and along with other issues (the OPEC oil cartel) unsatisfactory levels of inflation emerged. This was when Keynesian counter-cyclical spending started to come under serious attack from the ownership class and their allies in academia accusing it of fostering a 'welfare state' when instead in the US anyway it had created a 'warfare state'.

Functionally the only alternative to counter-cyclical spending by governments to counter market downturns the economy is to become ever more reliant on unplanned waves of speculation induced financial bubbles. These artificial up turns or booms that are not based in producing anything of real value (no new factories or infrastructure) are like using amphetamines - there has to be an inevitable crash. When these speculative bubbles eventually burst sometimes it drives the entire economy into a full fledged depression (see 1929, 1873)

In the late 1960s the ownership class offered under the leadership of the University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman an alternative too Keynesian counter-cyclical policy. They argued simply by varying the money supply, also known as monetary policy, government taxing and spending could be avoided. This by the 1980s mutated into something now called neoliberalism or 'aka market fundamentalism'. These ideas were wholehearted embraced by the ownership class, and still are.

With neoliberalism all lessons from past recessions and depressions were thrown out the window. These 'new liberals' (liberals in European sense, unabashedly pro-capitalist) argue simplistically that a nation's economy is just like a family in hard times. The government instead of stepping in to prod a de/recessionary economy off dead center, it would instead cut back and 'starve the fever'. This presumably would reduce the 'investment stifling' debt overhang. Any fool should have seen this will only aggravate things. If there is inadequate consumer demand, how can less demand due to less government spending do anything but make it worse? Yet somehow the argument has gained credibility. Along with this quackery the neoliberals also argue that all the hard won (but profit reducing) environmental, safety and consumer protections are too constraining and are causing 'market weakness'. So the twin mantras – shrink government spending and deregulate business have become articles of faith and up until recently embraced by both major parties in the US. It still is held as the 'one true faith' of the US GOP and UK Tories.

But finally and quintessentially the most serious problem with capitalism is that either it grows (boom) or it shrinks (bust). But now we find we cannot grow our economies indefinitely. With the need to perpetually encourage expansionary economic growth, there is a terrible downside. The resources of the planet are finite. But even worse are that all of the costs of production are never accounted for especially the costs of producing energy specifically from burning carbon based fossil fuels. The cost of this invisible pollution created by burning fossil fuels is now known to be astronomical. Yet it is a fact of life that producers of goods under capitalism always try to evade external costs (like dumping waste) if they possibly can. Their concern is only short term and specific. Unfortunately under capitalism government's primary concern is to foster economic growth. So they tend unless prodded otherwise to look the other way with regard waste disposal. It now turns out the cost of dumping CO2 waste into the atmosphere for the last 200 years of industrial growth under capitalism is very high indeed. It is changing the planet's very climate  – and very much for the worse. So we find with capitalism were damned if we do and damned if don't. If our global capitalist stops growing (recessions/depressions) and if it grows, we use up all of the finite resources – fresh water, top soil, fisheries, forest ground cover, etc. and in the process overheat the entire planet.

Yet we find religious and economic fundamentalism at the heart all attempts to hold back progress in confronting this crisis. We are disparately in need of something like an evolutionary leap of our species. Yet we are bogged down in 19^th and 20^th Century reactionary paradigms such as 'market fundamentalism' which is about perpetuating the existing perverse undemocratic power to to allocate the worlds wealth. Whereas religious fundamentalism is about perpetuating outmoded cultural practices entangled in the most primitive literal interpretation of a given religion and engendering horrific terrorist incidents and wars. While each exists on a different planes of reality, material as opposed to metaphysical, both are retrograde and reactionary. Both are dysfunctional responses to the critical problems of our time. While religion fulfills a necessary function in society in addressing (some say falsely) the existential unknowns of mortality and eternity, religion must evolve to coincide with science.

Both forms of fundamentalism rely on ignorance. Un-evolved monotheistic ideology relies on philosophical and scientific ignorance, while the free market ideology relies on the power of political ignorance conveyed by media indoctrination. Our political institutions on the surface are democratic but operationally have been co-oped by the ownership class. Electronic multi media forms re-enforce this domination. This ever improving technology presents a dazzling allure of instant gratification and encourages self indulgence while swamping us with sentimentalism, cultural mythology and unrealistic schmaltz. Entire industries run on it. Advertising whether for commodities or for political candidates relies on psychologically manipulation and artistically alluring agitprop, and is a major factor in public misunderstanding and apathy. Art has been hijacked to imprison and deceive. This deception is routine and total.

To make matters worse particularly alienated or ill-adjusted individuals sometimes stray from this mainstream blitz of happy talk and good vibes imagery and discovers the ugly truth of the consumer society propaganda machine. Tragically some end up embracing what appears as a refreshingly moral polar opposite and they yield to the siren call of religious fundamentalism. Others of a more agnostic inclination fall prey to the political demagoguery of right wing cable news and talk radio both which smuggles in 'free market fundamentalism' as they ride the wave of whatever so-called so-called 'conservative cause' that is currently in the headlines. In Europe this is manifested by joining neo-fascist organizations and political parties.

To further complicate matters, class identify has been losing ground since the late 1970's. Class struggle was once well acknowledged as a major causation of historical process. Class identity still exists but in a much mutated form. The leveling effect of the emergence of the great American middle class undercut working class identity. While membership in good standing in the middle class was emblematic of membership in what was once known as the 'affluent society', the downside was that it hid ones true role in the economy. Working class identity lost importance. This helped the de-unionization of the US work force (now down to 14% ) begun in the 1980s under the Reagan Administration. Instead of a classless society we thought we had a one-class society – the amorphous middle class with variations on the upper and lower ends. Except of of course it was all a myth. We were all in the 99% and the 1% were calling the shots.

Now instead of working class identity and a push for expansion of union membership to regain lost ground, there is widespread concern over falling out of the middle class, but to where? People choose sides based on exaggerated angers evils and dark illogical conspiracies. Of course scapegoating is popular with immigrants being the target. Underpinning all of this is a stubborn residual racism. In post Reagan America many of the now beleaguered caucasian working class see “Big Government” as their foe, not their real enemy, the ownership class. In fact even left politicians like Bernie Sanders talk of the greed of oligarchs and the pernicious behavior of Wall Street not of a dominating ruling class. To become President Obama by default joined the ruling class. That is why so many of his positions on key issues have been such a disappointment.

We are now well into the of the 21^st Century with awesome technological capabilities unimaginable even fifty years ago, yet billions still rely for their life's meaning on superannuated theological dogma thousands of years old. Even worse these beliefs often drag along with them brutal and sexist cultural norms and practices. That the world's great religions can evolve and can absorb modernity is well known. Yet pockets of fundamentalist reaction have an disproportionate influence in some of the great religions which moderating internal forces cannot restrain. The interface with the ever-resurfacing inherent contradictions of late monopoly capitalism that keeps millions in abject poverty and illiteracy, causes these same millions through illiteracy and ignorance to allow 'conservative' religious leaders to define their metaphysical reality in the most reactionary and dangerous way.

We are at the very cusp of an an environmental catastrophic of world historical proportions. Yet the balance of international attention is fixed on responding to an irrationality. The Mideast is being torn apart by oil states funding proxy wars over which retrograde versions of the Muslim religion will prevail – Iranian Shiite or Saudi Arabian Sunni and which oil dictatorship, theocracy or monarchy will have geopolitical dominance in the region. Underlying this at least in the minds of the jihadist inspired foot soldiers and loosely affiliated networks of potential terrorists some kind of mad impossible dream of recreating a 10^th Century Caliphate in the 21^st Century.

Most importantly all of this hinders the US in engaging in necessary, forceful and effective leadership and restructuring our own economy to deal with this real crisis. It is not violent jihadism or the increasingly unstable nature of global capitalist economy but the ever worsening buildup of CO2 that will do us in. We are permanently damaging our entire biosphere in still yet to be undiscovered ways. The already documented ecological damage is bad enough: sea rise, fresh water depletion, ocean acidification, loss of top soil, loss of biological diversity, intensification of weather events, etc, yet scientists expect further bad news as feedback loops kick in.

This entanglement in ideas from our atavistic blood drenched past is perpetuating violent struggles fostering untold human misery. That they no doubt underpinned by deeper geopolitical and ruling class-driven economic forces. But all of it amounts to tragic distraction. All of our wars and class struggles are merely are merely petty internecine squabbles when compared to the cold hard fact of climate change. We are now destroying the very life support systems of our planet. Rome is burning and we are fiddling, playing a stupid 'Games of Thrones'. And we are running out of time!