Why capitalism cannot stop destroying the Earth

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#1

As I mentioned in the Introductions thread, I am working on a book on traditional Amazonian permaculture, but at the same time I am outlining and beginning to draft a book on tribalism. This is something I wrote up as part of that draft. Taken by itself, it is sort of tangential to the subject of tribalism because it is meant to contrast with indigenous tribalism. It belongs more in the Collapse section.

Why Economic Growth?

Back in the day, the day when internet forums were mainly on Usenet instead of bulletin boards like this one, and mostly unmoderated, the following piece of spam showed up constantly. It was a chain letter, usually posted under a title like “MAKE MONEY FAST,” that promised that one could receive tens of thousands of dollars for an investment of $6 and six postage stamps. In recent years it seems to have become extinct, because of the strict spam control on bulletin board forums today. I actually had to search pretty hard to find the text of the letter. Which I have done because, one day, I had an epiphany: this letter was the perfect, microcosmic illustration of the economic system, and why it must continue to grow, even if it is committing suicide in the process. I saw that this letter was the lie that was being sold to “developing” countries in the process of globalization.

Chain letters asking for money are considered fraud and are illegal. Even if they work exactly as described and no one cheats, chain letters are frauds

Yet, while most people seemed to recognize this spam as a scam whenever it showed up in a Usenet forum, very few people seemed to be able to explain exactly why it was a scam, or why chain letters are frauds. .

But if you understand just why chain letters are frauds, then that is a key to understanding why the promise that globalization will make poor countries rich is a fraud, why corporations are compelled to expand to every corner of the globe, and why the system is compelled to rip the Earth apart for every possible resource, and is unable to stop until it collapses, and why it is doomed to collapse.

So it is worth studying this letter and comprehending the flaw.

Here is the text of the spam, edited, with explanatory comments added in italics.

[b] Make over $42,000 by spending $6.00. No joke!!!

 READING THIS WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

I found this on a bulletin board and decided to try it. A little while back, I was browsing through newsgroups, just like you are now, and came across an article similar to this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00! So I thought, “Yeah right, this must be a scam”, but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 6 names and address stated in the article. You then place your own name and address in the bottom of the list at #6, and post the article in at least 300 newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. So after thinking it over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about trying it. I figured: “What have I got to lose except 6 stamps and $6.00, right?” Then I invested the measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!.. within 7 days, I started getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I figured it would end soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about $25.00. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $1,000.00! In the third week I had over $10,000.00 and it’s still growing. This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42,000.00 and it’s still coming in rapidly. It’s certainly worth $6.00, and 6 stamps, I have spent more than that on the lottery!! Let me tell you how this works and most importantly, why it works. I promise you that if you follow the directions exactly, that you will start making more money than you thought possible by doing something so easy!

 Here are the 4 easy steps to success:

STEP 1: Get 6 pieces of paper and write your name and address on them. Get 6 US $1.00 bills and place ONE inside each piece of paper (to prevent thievery). Place one paper in each of the 6 envelopes and seal them. You should now have 6 sealed envelopes, each with a piece of paper with your name and address and a $1.00 bill. Mail the 6 envelopes to the following addresses:[/b]

[i][The list of addresses, of course, would be different in every spam. Let’s use the following list:

#1)  Alice A. Affable, Box 1, Appletree, Alabama
 #2) Betty B. Boop, Box 2, Buffalo, Benin
 #3) Carlos C. Casteneda, Box 3, Caterpillar, California
 #4)  Daffy D. Duck, Box 4, Doodlebug, Denmark
 #5)  Emily E. Everclear. Box 5, Essence, Ecuador 
 #6)  Francis F. Frankenstein, Box 6, Foofoo, France

Following the instructions, you send $1.00 to each person on the list.][/i]

STEP 2: Now take the #1 name off the list that you see above, move the other names up (6 becomes 5, 5 becomes 4, etc…) and add YOUR Name as number 6 on the list. 

 [i][Your name is Gus G. Gopher, and when you following the instructions  the list now reads:

 #1)  Betty B. Boop, Box 2, Buffalo, Benin
 #2)  Carlos C. Casteneda, Box 3, Caterpillar, California
 #3)  Daffy D. Duck, Box 4, Doodlebug, Denmark
 #4)  Emily E. Everclear. Box 5, Essence, Ecuador 
 #5)  Francis F. Frankenstein, Box 6, Foofoo, France  
 #6)  Gus G. Gopher, Box 7, Goopy, Greece.] [/i]

[b] STEP 3: Copy this article into your computer, but substitute the altered list of names.

STEP 4: Now, post this article to at least 300 newsgroups. (I think there are close to 25,000 groups). All you need is 300, but remember, the more you post, the more money you make![/b]

[i][It was stuff like this that killed Usenet, as MAKE MONEY FAST along with other spam came to choke those forums.][/i]

[b] STEP 5: Wait for the money to start coming in! 

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Let us say that when I post this message with my name in position #6, only 5 persons reply (a very low example). So then I make $5.00. Now, each of those 5 persons sends this message with my name in position #5 and say that only 5 persons respond to each of those 5, that is 5x5 or 25 persons responding, and another $25.00 for me. Now those 25 people sends this message with my name in position #4 and say there are only 5 replies each – that is 25x5 people or 125 people, an additional $125.00 for me! Now, each of those 125 persons turns around and send this message with my name at position #3, and if they only receive 5 replies each, that is 125x5 or 625 people responding, I will make an additional $625.00! OK, now here is the fun part, each of those 625 persons send this message with my name at position #2 and they each only receive 5 replies, that is 625x5 or 3,125 people each sending me $1, that just made me $3,125.00!!! Then those 3,125 persons send this message to 300 newsgroups with my name at #1 and if still only 5 persons respond to each of those 3,125 persons and send $1, that is 3,125 x 5 or $15,625,00 for me! With an original investment of only $6.00! AMAZING!

 When your name is no longer on the list, you just start all over again -- find the latest version with the latest version of the list of names, and send out another $6.00 to names on the list, putting your name at number 6 again, and start posting again. 

 It's easy. It's legal. And, your investment is only $6.00 (Plus postage)  Follow these directions EXACTLY, and $50,000 or more can be yours in 20 to 60 days. [/b]

The chain letter is also the model for multi-level marketing, like Amway. Multi-level marketing is not illegal because actual products are being sold, but they recruit through the same fraudulent claim: these folks here (look at their pictures!) have now retired with steady incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars (true enough) and (here is the lie) if you join us you can do that too.

Although most companies are not multi-level marketers, the global capitalist system as a wholeoperates like a multi-level marketing scheme or a chain letter.

The pyramid scheme, as this is known, is a funnel designed to get money from the many and concentrate it in the hands of the few.

And, just as the chain letter must keep expanding or collapse, so must the global capitalist system keep expanding or collapse.

The continued income of the people higher up in the chain depends on continually expanding the base. After all, you only sent the people $1.00 once. But, through you, others are recruited to send their dollars, and they in turn recruit others.

Why is the chain doomed to collapse? Why is it fraud?

Because you are being recruited under the false promise that you can make as much money as the people on the top of the list. And even if you make some money (by getting in near the top) the people you recruit in turn will not, and with each generation of recruitment it becomes more impossible.

Although likely all six names in the first level are the same person, because Alice A. Affable would not have sent it out with only her one name, let us pretend that all six people on the list are different people.

Let us also pretend that everyone recruits exactly 5 people, all different people, no duplicate recruitments.

So Alice sends the letter to five people whose names start with B, asking them each to send her $1, and to each recruit five people whose names start C with who will send them both $1, who will each recruit five people whose names start with D who will each send $1 to C, B, and A, etc., until there are six levels on the list. Whereupon you, Gus Gopher, receive it.

This is what has happened:

A (1 person on level 1)

BBBBB (5 people on level 2)

CCCCC CCCCC CCCCC CCCCC CCCCC (25 [5x5] people on level 3)

DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD DDDDD (125 people [25x5] on level 4)

EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE (625 [125x5] people on level 5)

FFFFF etc (3,125 [625x5] people on level 6)

You, Gus Gopher, are of one 15,625 (3,125 x 5) lucky recipients of a letter from one of the 3,125 Level Fs. When you and your 15,624 fellow Gs send your dollar, that, along with the dollars sent by the Fs, Es, Ds, Cs, and Bs adds to a total of $19,530 for Alice Affable, who sits at the top of the pyramid. (As I said, the pyramid is a funnel that funnels money upward.)

After sending your dollar to each of the six people on the list, you change the list by taking Alice off the list and moving Betty B. Boop into position 1, and then send the letter on to try to recruit more people. When the people you recruit join and send their dollars, it is Betty B. Boop’s turn to receive $19,530. In each level, another name moves to the top of the list and has its turn to receive $19,530.

(In real life, of course, those at the top continue at the top, as the pyramid base keeps expanding. But the chain letter has to be kept simple.)

You eagerly await your turn to move to the top of the list and receive your $19,530. You, along with the other 15,624 Gs, have each recruited five more people (15,625 x 5 = 78,125 people in the level below you), who each dutifully recruit five more, and in only six more levels of recruitment (since there are six positions on the list) you finally move to the top of the list!

But look at what has happened in six levels:

Level G: 15,625
Level H: 78,125
Level I: 390,625
Level J: 1,953,125
Level K: 9,765,625
Level L: 48,828,125

Of course, Level L was recruited under the same fraud as the other, and the 48,828,125 Ls keep on recruiting – if they do not, the pyramid will collapse. So the growth continues. The next six levels:

Level M: 244,140,625
Level N: 1,220,703,125
Level O: 6,103,515,625
Level P: 30,517,578,125
Level Q: 152,587,988,275
Level R: 762,939,941,375

(If you never got anything else out of math class, understanding exponential math is essential to understanding what is happening with our world at a lot of levels.)

Now, you may have noticed that the entire human population of Earth has been exceeded over a hundred times over by this point, including babies and the portion of our species for whom the $6 investment would represent many days’ income. Since it is impossible for the chain letter to fulfill its promises for the vast majority of participants, this is why chain letters are fraudulent and illegal.

But in the real world, the pyramid scheme that is the capitalist system has gone beyond the human base, and into the Earth herself. The Earth, fossil fuels, the energy that runs the system – this is the base of the pyramid now. The human species has, on the average, moved up a rung or two on the “standard of living” ladder (in the conventional sense of standard of living, know what I mean) because fossil fuels and the Earth’s resources as a whole are serving as the base of the pyramid, from which wealth is funneled upward. I have heard it said that the average person in the wealthy countries of the “developed” world has the equivalent of 300 human slaves, thanks to technology and energy. That is why the system is frantically, compulsively consuming the Earth (aka “developing resources” and “creating wealth”). If the pyramid stops growing, it collapses.

Basically, a profit system requires this. Because profit means that you expect to receive more than you gave. In fact, you try to maximize profits – you try to maximize the differential between what you gave and what you receive. You try to maximize imbalance.

As long as the use of resources is seen as an investment, which must return more than what was invested, the pyramid must keep on expanding its base, some people must be lower on the pyramid in order to funnel wealth to those higher, and the pyramid must keep frantically digging into the Earth as it tries to expand.

This is one way in which indigenous economics and modern capitalism are built on fundamentally different premises. (“Indigenous” I use to mean: following the leadership of the land.) Indigenous economic and social systems are built on the fundamental notion of reciprocity. Not tit for tat, I’ll give you something worth exactly the same as what you gave me, but a generalized reciprocity and balance, a network of reciprocity in the community. Rather than feeling like a winner if you have received more value than you have given, you would feel uncomfortable. Everyone wants to be more on the “giving” than the “receiving” side of the equation – not because they are somehow specially “virtuous,” but because generosity and sharing is rewarded with prestige and respect. People do not intrinsically want “stuff”; we are constantly told that wanting more and more “stuff” is just human nature, but even a cursory examination of anthropological data demonstrates this is a lie. What people do want is prestige, respect, and acceptance by their peers. Whatever behavior is rewarded with prestige and respect, that is the behavior that people will follow. And indigenous tribal systems give prestige and respect to certain kinds of behavior that prove to be both socially and ecologically sustainable, and that is why they have succeeded for thousands of years.

#2

Great post! and dearly appreciated.

Just wanted to let you know that !
I have to read it some more and think on it…

#3

it’s one of those things that breaks my mind to think about

#4

Thanks. Here is some more.

(This is actually part of my notes for a draft of a book on tribalism, and the discussion of how the present system works will be only a small part of the book, but nevertheless vital to show the difference between societies based on profit and societies based on reciprocation – only the latter successfully survives in the long term, and only the latter manages to provide for all its members.)



It turns out that I am far from the first to have had this epiphany -- googling capitalism + "pyramid scheme" had 22,000 hits -- but that's not a huge number, either.  But then, it is surprising how few people, when you ask, seem to understand exactly [i]why[/i] the chain letter is a scam, either.  

Yet understanding the chain letter gives a clear understanding about the fraudulent promises of capitalism that it can make everyone rich.  Like, there is an implicit promise that all of us, if we had the smarts, could become the head of a wealthy corporation and become billionaires.  It is only due to our personal lack of ambition and ability that you and I are not billionaires, each running a corporation with thousands of employees. Or at least be millionaires running corporations with hundreds of employees.

Of course, for everyone on Earth to become a millionaire with hundreds of employees... there would have to be an endless source of employees somewhere.  Where would we find the employees if everyone is a millionaire with their own corporation?  Aha!  Machines and technology run by fossil fuels take the place of much of the labor, making it possible for substantial numbers of people to move up a rung, off the very bottom. Capitalism has "lifted people out of poverty."  Wow, look, Taiwan jumped on, and look at their "economic miracle."  They have lots of rich people now.  (Lots of poor factory workers too -- way more of them than rich people -- and they will [i]never[/i] share in the riches, no matter what the promises.)

The very premise of profit is that you get more than you put in.  If you manufacture a product, then you must sell it for more than it cost you to manufacture it. And that cost includes labor.  Therefore, you [i]must[/i] sell the product for more than your employees can afford to pay.  Or else, at least, the employees make a lot more of the product than they can buy; make 40 cars, buy one.  The other 39 cars have to be sold to people other than the workers.  

But let's say you are on a desert island, with a population of 100, all of whom work for your factory and that is their sole income.  You can't export anything from your island, it is a closed system.  It costs you
$1,000 to make a car, of which $500 is labor costs, and you sell the car for $2,000.  You make 100 cars, with the idea that all your employees can buy one.  But how can they afford to buy the cars since they have been paid only 1/4 of the price of the car?  Your employees decide to pool their money, so they can afford cars.  Four employees each buying one car results in only 25 cars sold, and you go bankrupt.

The only solution is to export the cars.  You have to find people off your island to sell to, or you will go bankrupt.

But in this system, there [i]has[/i] to be a large class of people who will andwork for you at a wage that only a fraction of the price you are charging.  In other words,  there [i]has[/i] to be a large portion of the population that cannot afford to buy your cars.  

And as corporations take over the necessities of life -- food, shelter, even water -- and make it necessary to have money to buy those things, giving them control over people's lives -- there [i]have[/i] to be people who cannot afford those things.  This is built in to the corporate system, and as they destroy the independence of people who live outside the money economy, primarily by destroying their landbases, and make people dependent on money for the necessities of life, they ensure that there will always be a supply of people willing (or forced) to work for them, no matter how much they may hate their jobs.  There may be people who like their jobs, but the hatable jobs will be filled as well.  

Countries with many people living at subsistence level are said to be "poor."  Subsistence means you produce for your own needs, neither for the market nor dependent on buying things.  Like independent tribal peoples, subsistence farmers live outside the money economy, and independence from money cannot be tolerated.  Such countries must be "developed," by corporate investors who come in for the natural resources -- cutting down forests on which people depend for life, forcing people off their small self-sufficient farms to create monocrop plantations for export crops, or otherwise destroying the base of people's independence, which forces them to work for money.   

By making people's very lives dependent on money, the population is controlled in the "land of the free."  This is why homeless people are treated as outlaws and their lives made hell -- because that is the [i]threat[/i] if you try to live in freedom from the money system.  You will be made to live in hell.  

And note that those aforementioned monocrop plantations, in the "developing" countries, are for [i]export[/i].  The workers on the plantations can not afford the products for the same reason that the workers in the island car company could not afford the cars.  But if you don't work for the plantation, you will starve -- you know that, there are plenty of starving, or at least, malnourished people all around you.

Every country in the world in which there is starvation or hunger is producing export crops for the rich countries.  There is no country with an actual shortage of food production, with the exception of places like wealthy Singapore, that can afford to depend on imports.   Money determines who eats and who does not; whoever can bid the highest price gets the product.  Corporations get the profit, and the people who were once self-sufficient are reduced to poverty.  Poverty is [i]built in[/i] to the system.  

But fossil fuels have taken the place of much of the human labor, and the pyramid needs an ever-expanding base of consumers to buy their products, as well as laborers.  So that is why corporations are marketing so aggressively around the world, trying to turn people into consumers of their products. 

So the a continual process of turning resources into consumable products is built in to the profit system.  There are now movements toward "natural capitalism," with a more intelligent and frugal use of natural resources, and that could slow down the destruction and sustain the pyramid longer.  But capitalism means investment for profit, and that means that the base of the pyramid must continue to grow in some way.  The growth cannot stop or the system collapses.  

This is intrinsically different in principle from systems that are based on balance and reciprocation and a steady-state form of life.
#5

I thought that this deserved to be bumped up as it is directly relevant to the big financial crisis – that seemed to have taken everyone by surprise? It is the inevitable collapse of the pyramid, which the emergency $700 billion transfusion may postpone a few minutes, but cannot stop.

I watched some video clips of Bush’s speech on this emergency transfusion and of other experts, and what impressed me was the genuine stress and barely concealed panic in Bush’s voice and in all their voices, even while they try to reassure people that this is a temporary and reparable setback. They have to keep saying this because the sooner that people lose trust in the illusion, the sooner the pyramid of capitalism will collapse

What is very important for us to understand is that capitalism has built-in self-destruct mechanisms that mean that the collapse of capitalism is not dependent on the total collapse of the Earth’s ecosystems for it to end, and the collapse of capitalism is happening faster than ecosystem collapse, and the quicker that capitalism collapses, the more of the ecosystem can be salvaged.

#6

How do you figure?

#7

I think Sharon Astyk hit it really well with this.

Classic pyramid scheme…

#8
How do you figure?

You mean, that capitalist civilization has its own built-in self-destruct mechanisms that mean that it can (and probably will) collapse before a total collapse of the ecosystem?

I tried to explain it in the first post, that it will collapse for the same reason that a chain letter collapses.

It could collapse tomorrow, and probably would collapse almost literally tomorrow (literally, within a few months). Those big financial people and stock market folks have sped up the process tremendously. And this big financial crisis that is all over the news is literally the economic system (and therefore globalized civilization) at the brink.

When they say this is an emergency, they are not kidding. This is not just a staged scam to find an excuse to rip off $700 billion. Without that transfusion, it could happen as early as next year. I mean, literally within a year, discussions like “Transitional Tech” would no longer be theoretical, and we would be finding out just how good our rewilding skills are.

Not that it would be a situation where overnight there is no more food at the store, gas at the pump, and electricity in the wires. It would have the appearance of a recession that grows into a depression, combining more and more unemployment with higher and higher prices, and less and less funding for infrastructure, public schools, social services, etc., and people having to look to something other than money to survive.

There are actually many different self-destruct mechanisms operating within the capitalist system, the present globalist civilization. One of them, of course, is the destruction of the ecosystem. If it did not destroy itself some other way sooner, then of course it would eventually destroy itself by destroying the physical foundations of life for our species and many others (probably all other large species). But there are other self-destruct mechanisms that are working much faster. Peak oil, for example. Others that would be more involved to explain.

We talk about “civilization” as though all civilizations were alike and even part of one thing. This is useful in some ways, because all civilizations do have certain things in common.

But doing that also obscures the fact that in certain respects the present civilization is unique in the history of civilizations. It is capitalist civilization, and that gives it a special historical trajectory.

I talked above about capitalism as a “pyramid scheme,” but this term needs to be clarified. All civilizations have been pyramidal societies, with a tiny ruling elite at the top, a larger privileged class below them, and masses of exploited people at the bottom, with the masses at the bottom supporting the wealth of those above them.

But precapitalist civilizations were stable pyramids. Whatever class you were born into, you died in. Contrary to what has been stated in some primitivist writings, civilization per se does not have to be expansionist. While the rulers may have tried to expand if it was possible, which would of course increase their wealth and power, if they could not expand (due to natural frontiers like oceans and mountains, or due to powerful neighbors, or due to inability to administer too large an area, or other reasons) they could continue to function at the size that they were.

In the long run, they would usually exploit their local resources and peoples more and more, and at a certain point they would reach the point of overexploitation and either finish as a civilization or else try to prolong their lifespan by conquering other territories for their resources and labor power. But until they reached that point, precapitalist civilizations did not have to expand. It could function at status-quo size for a long long time.

These precapitalist civilizations, we could call stable pyramids. Capitalist civilization, on the other hand, is an expanding pyramid. It has to expand. If its expansion is interrupted, it will die. (Notice how they always talk about “economic growth,” and how bad it is if “growth” is slow – for “growth” to stop altogether is unthinkable! “Growth” means expansion. Without expansion, aka “growth,” it collapses.

Capitalist civilization was unleashed with the European discovery of the Americas, whose wealth made possible the Industrial Revolution and European colonization of most of the rest of the world. Suddenly, it was possible for anyone to get rich, and the concept of social mobility was born as Europe encouraged its colonists to get out there and start converting land into money and funneling the wealth upwards. The base of the pyramid vastly expanded, and it became possible for former peasants and their children to get rich because there were levels of the pyramid below them – they could build a factory or open a mine and get rich off workers who labored fourteen hour days for starvation wages.

Profit (the opposite of the principle of indigenous economies) is by definition an imbalance. Let’s say we have just three people trading among ourselves. If we all want things to be fair for all of us, then eventually we should be able to come to some mutually fair agreement. If, however, each of us is determined to come away with a profit – that is, more than we put in – then someone has to wind up with less than they put in. The only way that we can all three end up with more than we put in is to get some input from outside our little circle. That is exactly what holds up the economy of the wealthy countries (where, theoretically, everyone is supposed to end up with a profit on their investments – and that is for not doing anything at all, just buying something that exists only as numbers in a computer) – there has to be “growth.” Growth means expansion – both globalization (economic colonialism) and the continual growth of consumerism in the wealthy countries. When that “growth” stops, profit stops, and the system collapses.

It is very fragile. And we can thank the Republicans for their deregulation policies, which have sped up the collapse process greatly.

#9

Great posts Sacha! Your way of putting it - likening capitalism to a pyramid scam, really clarifies things. The conclusion is what Karl Marx said in Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto - that capitalism has a fundamental internal contradiction that will inevitably lead to its collapse, called the crisis of overproduction. I like how you describe it, and contrast it with indigenous economic principles (something Marx obviously doesn’t do!) It makes me look forward to your book! :smiley:

Jessica

#10

I agree totally. Oil, money, technology, and more are all growing exponentially; and all have a build in self-destruct feature because they depend on growth.

There’s a series of 3-10 min. slide-shows called the “Economics Crash Course” that would be great for anyone that wants to learn more. It’s very useful for “crash newbies” and people with their head in the sand. Our worldwide economic system (money, inflation, exponential growth, debt, bubbles) is all explained; slowly and systematically removing the scales from the eyes of those who believe in capitalist consumerism. By the end, it will have become reasonable to think of collapse as “inevitable and soon” rather than “unlikely and far away.”

This series is GREAT for introducing friends and family to the idea of collapse. I think now more than ever, people are willing to listen.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crash-course

.

#11
...that would be great for anyone that wants to learn more. It's very useful for "crash newbies" and people with their head in the sand.

I see the key phrase here as “wants to learn”. If someone truly has their head in the sand, no amount of explanations or logic will sway them. A while ago Jason posted a video about exponential growth and population on Anthropik. I showed it to my husband and he refused to believe it. He couldn’t think of a way to refute the information presented, he just couldn’t believe it. My husband is an intelligent person, but he has some serious blind spots when it comes to civilization.

#12

Starfish ~

I think some of the mid-series videos about “inflation”, “baby-boomer retirement” are great for the teachably ignorant, but your right; if someone’s really putting their head in the sand on purpose, nothing can help it.

If I think someone might be teachable, I usually just show a video that’s directly related to their interests. Like with my roommate… I haven’t even talked about peak oil; I just showed her the inflation video when she talked about how expensive groceries and gas are getting. After the video, she understood that the government was actually hiding the true amount of inflation, while at the same time relying on inflation as a “hidden tax” to pay for debt. Obviously, this is a long way off from understanding collapse, but it has at least established one VERY important thing in her mind: you cannot trust what the government tells you about our economic system.

At the same time, there’s SOME willfully ignorant folks I’m so frustrated with! However, I know that this system of belief is a CHOICE on their part because of two enlightening conversations I had. An uncle told me that he knew that at some future point our current culture is unsustainable, but that he’s just too old to make it in a new world. Because of this, all he can do is cling to hope that the change is far off; the only alternative (in his mind) is certain death.

Another conversation with my mother-in-law revealed the same thing: she knew it was all coming down at some point, which is why she had to believe in Jesus coming back to start a new earth over again… the alternative seemed too unspeakable.

They KNOW that they’re just making it worse for everyone down the line, but they deeply believe there’s nothing they can do about it. Therefore, the secular answer is “I hope I spend all my money and die before it happens” and the religious answer is “God will eventually make it all better.”

How utterly cynical.

I feel sorry for them, but the only thing I could do to give them comfort and hope is to join them in their suicidal rush to the end… and I sure as hell ain’t gonna do that!

#13

One thing I have observed in the broad primitivist/anti-civ movement (what you might want to call it – and Willem doesn’t want it called a “movement,” but that’s another discussion)… let’s say in this broad current, is that civilization is civilization, it’s all one big thing, what do the details matter? And that means that differences in forms of civilization seem to be looked at as unimportant or irrelevant.

But some of the distinctions between different forms of civilization are very relevant and important to understand, imho. And one of the most important distinctions of all is between precapitalist and capitalist civilization. It is important to study capitalism specifically, not only civilization as a broad pattern, in order to understand what is going on.

The basic difference between precapitalist and capitalist forms of civilizationght is – well, they could both be described as pyramids, with the largest number of people in the lowest class, and smaller and smaller numbers in successively higher classes until you got to the top, which could be as small as one single individual (a king) or a very tiny group (the economic ruling class). And like the capitalist chain letter, it funneled the wealth upward. The upper classes grew wealthy from the labors of those below.

But the difference between these two pyramids is that the precapitalist pyramid was fixed. Whatever class you were born into, you died in. Whether you were born a peasant or a merchant or royalty, that was the class you remained in that class for your entire life. If you were poor, you could no more hope to change that than you could change your species, age, or eye color.

This kind of pyramid was fixed and stable. It did not have to expand. True, most rulers would expand if they could, because expansion could make them even more rich and powerful, but a lot of things could block expansion. There could be physical, geographical boundaries like oceans or mountain ranges or deserts. There could be powerful neighboring civilizations, and the most that could be managed would be to hold them off. There could be limits in the civilization’s military or administrative powers – it might not have the resources to conquer or control distant terrritory, especially if the terrain made it difficult. And there could be other things.

But precapitalist civilizations could exist at a fixed size. Gradually they might exhaust their resources, and then either collapse or attempt to seize a neighbor’s resources, or they attract the attentions of neighbors who take advantage of their weakness to conquer them, or become unstable because their people are becoming hungry – for whatever reason, civilizations have lifespans, just as people do, and eventually perish for one reason or another. (The Mesoamericans recognize the cyclic lifespans of civilization and consider it a natural process for civilizations to grow, bloom, and die, and they know that they, the people, outlive their civilizations.)

By the late Middle Ages, European civilization was in severe decline, exhausting its resources, and most of its people lived in misery. Then something happened that changed European civilization and all civilization forever.

That was the European discovery of what they termed the “New World.”

Suddenly, the European world changed because you didn’t have to stay starving poor all your life just because you were born in the bottom classes. You could be born poor and become rich! The “New World” provided limitless opportunity for EVERYONE! Everyone could get rich if they worked hard enough and were ruthless enough.

The kings of the European powers encouraged their subjects to go to the colonies and try to get rich, because the kings received a share of the riches. Of course, they didn’t get all of the riches, but by this was the only way they could get any of the riches, by having colonists settle, as well as having investors invest and bankroll the colonies or create enterprises. “I am the King. There is a rich colony I own, just sitting there waiting for its resources to be dug up or chopped down – ie., developed. If you invest in this colony (either investing your money or your life) you can get rich! You and I will split the profits.”

With the wealth sent to Europe from the American (North and South) colonies, Europe was able to colonize Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific, and with the wealth generated from all of these colonies, Europe was able to start the Industrial Revolution.

Rather, the English-speaking world (Britain and the US) were able to do it. Colonialism was applied a little differently in the English colonies than in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which resulted in Spain and Portugal lagging far behind in industrialism and in “development” of their colonies. The Spaniards sought to replicate little medieval kingdoms complete with Indian serfs, and a caste system based on color. In the Spanish colonies, there was very little social mobility, no promise that those at the bottom could move up the ladder to wealth, and therefore no “chain letter.”

But the English, and their heirs the US Americans, developed the idea of universal opportunity, that anyone and everyone can move up the ladder to unlimited wealth. Of course, this is not true – please note that I said that they developed the IDEA that everyone can do it, and they continue to wave the IDEA like a flag, like advertisements for the state lottery that invite you to think of how YOU TOO could be living in lottery-winner luxury.

The connection between capitalism and freedom is a valid connection. Capitalist civilization is far more free in many ways that precapitalist civilization.

And hierarchies are much more fluid than in precapitalist civilization. In precapitalist civilization, you were an aristocrat if you were born an aristocrat. It didn’t matter if you were smart or stupid, active or a couch potato (and, secure in their positions, many aristocrats were couch potatoes). In capitalism, on the other hand positions in the hierarchies are earned, and select for individuals who have certain values and are very good at doing certain things. You cannot become a CEO unless your values are that of a CEO and you are very good at doing what a CEO does.

Capitalism was extremely brutal to the working class when it started. Yet it needed labor, and the USA could attract immigrants to supply labor to the factories by offering them the promise of opportunity to move up the economic ladder. North America / western Europe / Australia / New Zealand – the “First World” or “developed world” – is at the top of the chain letter pyramid scheme, and most of the workers today in the “developed world” live in comparative luxury and privilege. This is because they are higher in the pyramid. Below them are the poor masses of the Third World, and below them is the Earth itself.

But this global capitalist system is a funnel designed to suck wealth from below (the Third World and the very planet on whom our life is based) up the pyramid.

Life for most people in capitalist civilization is more free and materially abundant than life for most people in precapitalist civilization

But capitalism is also vastly more destructive than precapitalist civilizations. Partly because capitalism is better at exploiting the Earth’s resources, which is why there is a connection between the greater abundance for humans and the destructiveness.

But capitalism is destructive in many other ways and levels than just ecologically destructive. It is socially destructive – destructive of social bonds among people. It is emotionally and spiritually destructive.

If we are going to understand the destructiveness of modern civilization, it is necessary to study capitalism specifically, not just civilization as a whole.

I am going to tie this in with the Quinnian population dynamics thread when it gets to this point.