Re: SC41

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5754

We can't go on living like this

.........................These lines of argument show we must face up to enormous reductions in rich world resource use, perhaps by 90 per cent, if we’re to solve the big global problems. This is not possible in a society that’s committed to the affluent lifestyles that require high energy and resource use.

Now all that only makes clear that the present situation is grossly unsustainable. But this society is fundamentally and fiercely obsessed with raising levels of production and consumption all the time, as fast as possible, and without any limit. In other words our supreme, sacred, never-questioned goal is economic growth. We’re already at impossible levels of production and consumption but our top priority is to go on increasing them all the time.

If we in Australia average 3 per cent growth to 2070 and by then the 9 billion people expected on earth have all risen to the living standards we would then have, total world economic output each year would be 60 times as great as it is now. Yet the present level is grossly unsustainable.

The foregoing comment has only been about ecological and resource sustainability and our society is also built on a second deeply flawed foundation. We have an extremely unjust global economy. It’s a market economy and that means scarce things go to those who can pay most for them, which means, to the rich and not to the poor. So the few in rich countries gobble up most of the world’s resource production.

Even more important, in a market economy what’s developed is what’s most profitable not what most needed. So the development that takes place in the Third World is development of what will maximise the profits of corporations. Look at any Third World country and you see a lot of development but most of it is putting their resources into producing to stock our rich world supermarkets, and little or none goes into the industries that will produce the basic necessities the majority of poor people need. Conventional development is therefore well described as a PROCESS OF PLUNDER.

Rich countries go to a lot of trouble to maintain a global economy that works in their interests, including using aid, Structural Adjustment Packages, arms sales, support for friendly dictators, and outright invasion. Our living standard in countries like Australia and the US could not be anywhere near as high as it is if these processes did not occur and we had to get by on our fair share of the world’s resources.

What then is the answer? If the question is: how can we run a sustainable and just consumer-capitalist society? the point is that there isn’t any answer. That cannot be done.

We cannot achieve a sustainable and just society unless we face up to huge and radical transition to what some identify as The Simpler Way: that is to a society based on non-affluent but adequate living standards; high levels of self-sufficiency; small scale localised economies with little trade and no growth; co-operative and participatory communities; an economy that’s not driven by market forces and profit; and most difficult of all, a society that’s not motivated by competition, individualism and acquisitiveness.

Many have argued that this general vision is the only way out of the mess we’re in.

The biggest problem of all is our failure, our refusal to even recognise that the pursuit of affluence and growth is a terrible mistake. Despite our vast educational systems, information technologies and media networks, despite having hoardes of academics and experts, there is almost no official or public recognition that the quest for affluence and growth might be the basic cause of our alarming global predicament. There is no recognition of any need to move to The Simpler Way. These themes are almost never even mentioned in the media, educational curricula, or government pronouncements.

We are dealing here with a fascinating and powerful ideological phenomenon, a failure, indeed a refusal to even think about the possibility that we are sitting on the railway tracks and there is a train fast approaching. It would be difficult to imagine a more profound case of WILFUL MASS DENIAL AND DELUSION.

Toynbee analysed the fate of civilisations in terms of their capacity to respond to challenges. What then are our prospects, given that we cannot even recognise that we are committed to fatally mistaken goals?

............I believe we are now entering a time of rapidly intensifying problems which will impact heavily on the comfort and complacency of consumer society. The coming peak of petroleum supply might concentrate minds wonderfully, but I think we are in for a catastrophic century. Some of the people at www.dieoff.com believe around three billion will perish................