More Rants

Today, I want to write about how the capitalist notion of globalization diminishes all of us as full, well-developed human beings. First, I want to clear up any objections anyone has about my being anti-capitalist. I am not anti-capitalist. I am, however, anti-“one philosophy meets every human need and aspiration.” Life and its demands are far too complex to be “answered” by a single ideological concept. In human history nearly as many different ways to approach life and succeed have existed as humans. A successful human life is successful because the consciousness aware of that life has met and experienced a joyful outcome to an existential challenge. When the followers of a one-size-fits-all “ism” or “ity” become so powerful that the rest of humanity must accommodate those beliefs in order to simply survive a serious imbalance is in evidence and should be resisted in as many ways as possible. Corporate Capitalism is an economic practice that has become a political ideology after the set back western socialism experienced with the fall of the Russian Soviet socialist dictatorship. That Soviet socialism offered beneficial survival strategies for those living under its influence is evidenced in the rapid political and economic recovery of Russia after the economic collapse of the Soviet empire. For those of us living within the influence of 21st century Corporate Capitalism the time required to recover from such a collapse as that experienced by the citizens of the late Soviet Republic would be far greater, if we could recover at all.

Although hardcore capitalists will deny the following truth, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels clearly nailed the relationship between the organization of the means of economic production and the resulting human social order. How we manage the resources, both human and non-human, needed to produce and distribute the goods we all need to live both is shaped by the society in which those goods are produced and distributed and eventually reshapes it. The US and the UK are the two oldest practitioners of capitalism as a national economic policy. Over the years capitalism has taken many different forms but the single distinguishing characteristic of the private possession of excess monetary resources for capital investment remains constant in all the forms of capitalism practiced by the US and the UK. I think a strong argument can be made for the connection between the practice of capitalism in these cultures and the development of competitive individualistic societies. Capitalists embrace competition among participants as a central feature of capitalism. However, capitalism has little to do with competition. Capitalism does, however, thrive amongst competitive Alpha humans who actively seek to acquire and hold the excess monetary resources necessary for capitalism to work. Money is a satisfactory substitute for ears, horns, and other body parts once displayed by Alpha males in earlier societies as signs of their physical, and therefore, social superiority over other males. Thus, capitalism blends easily with the symbols and practices of a political and social elite that claims superiority by the right of divine trial. Those of us not in possession of excess resources become lost in the daily struggle to simply survive. We are forced to exchange our labor for survival goods.

Humans have long since developed a civic infrastructure that negates the necessity of the biological survival drive for species preservation that underscores competitive behavior. In fact, competitive behavior could very easily provide the force needed to fuel the lemming-like tendency of self destruction that seems to be the hallmark of contemporary empire building. Capitalism by its very nature is ultra conservative in its practices. Capitalism encourages ultraconservative behavior as a safeguard against the loss of the excess economic resources that make capitalism possible. Tried and proven strategies are the preferred strategies of capitalistic investors. Prior to the environmentally destructive practices of late twentieth century industrialism, the only real fall out of this consequence of capitalist economies was confined to creating human misery. The American reform movements of the early twentieth century were direct responses to the abuses of unbridled market capitalism in the late nineteenth century that bred such monsters as Diamond Jim Brady, John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Today, the consequences are far greater. Contemporary industrial practices are literally depopulating and defoliating the Earth. As China becomes an economic giant its water, earth and air are becoming less and less supportive of any life, let alone human life. The inherent ultraconservative behavior of capitalism is magnified in capitalism’s latest manifestation, Corporate Capitalism. Until a sure fire profit is seen in green conservation practices, global corporate capitalists, whether clothed as private industry executives or single party national dictatorships, the deforestation of our continents, the depopulation of wildlife and the oceans, and the gradual poisoning of our atmosphere and water in the pursuit of private profit will continue.

As a species, our biological success is the result of our natural ability for rational thought. We have survived through the development of abstract systems of thought, not physical prowess like, say, the alligator. However, those systems of thought have collided head on with the biological drives that were once necessary for species survival in an indifferent environment where the competition for survival among all life forms was dependent upon either sheer, overwhelming numbers of individuals or superior predatory power. The adaptive, survival behavior of humans of developing abstract systems of thought to dominate a given threat to survival has placed the very source of our survival in danger. As a species, we now dominate the very source of all that is necessary for our physical lives. As is our want, we have fetishized our desires and transmogrified a system of thought into a first premise truth of human life. The actual truth Corporate Capitalism is finally bringing to life is that as a species we all must work together to survive or we shall all die together.