THE ECONOMIC MOMENT
Nationalism is the ox-drawn wooden plow, and conservatism that will not conserve irreplaceable Real Capital is too liberal squandering of the prospect of humankind.
There is one supposition of capitalism central to the moral justification
of the continuing existence of the pyramid: it is individual right to the
unlimited disproportionality of material wealth. One perspective is to consider
only the national actuality, as if the remainder of the world did not exist;
another is to consider the globe in its entirety, the impoverished amidst
the sated; a third is to superficially compare one nation to others, from
a perspective of inseminated nationalism, the prevailing viewpoint because
it is the most comforting of the three. The eyes of the Many, the reflections
of the momentariness of the myriadly ensouled Spirit, are not looked into,
and if they are not, the One cannot be known, and that is the Ignorance.
That is a lack, a poverty, which is sought to be replaced by the herding
about the flag, the collective ego of nationalism, the adamant preoccupation
with money orientated self-interest — mitigated in the popular consciousness
of the model nation through foreign aid that mainly serves the interests
of the pyramid, through achievement of mitigation if no more.
The manner of the Evolution is to concentrate human efforts when that alone will achieve the desired. Thus has been the nature of the endeavor of capitalism. Similar concentration of material accumulation is not a remote possibility for the entirety of the world, because so many resources do not exist, and because the populations possessing it have not generated that accumulation, but transferred from those nations with weaker currency as they participate in the base of the pyramid. Within the logic of capitalism this wealth has been rightfully gained, simply because it has been gained.
There is no comprehensive management of the exhaustion of petroleum in accordance with utility, in potential for human labor displacement, whether it might be a thousand hours of laboring per gallon of diesel fuel in the harvesting and threshing of cereals, or the replacement of metal by plastic: it is exhaustible simply as money does compel, each individual or entity responding in isolation to cost. The disparity between the exchange value of different currencies, the main mechanism of wealth transfer, is most expressively manifested in a consideration of the effort-exchange-cost of petroleum, that is, how much human effort must be expended in one nation compared to another, to be exchanged for the equivalent amount of petroleum product, and it now ranges from less than a fourth of an hour at the minimum wage in the United States to a week of the average individual's earnings in the poorest nations, for a single gallon. The advantage would seem to be to that nation which must forfeit the least amount of social endeavor per quantity of petroleum. This is true in the accelerating phase of exhaustion, as petroleum easily enhances laboring and social mobility, creating luxuriant opportunity for the development of technology through the general flourish of apparent wealth. Petroleum is used as the feedstock for an uncountable number of industrial products, and to amplify human effort, to replace the sheer toil of so much physical labor, to accelerate the mobility of the individuals. The technology that has fully harnessed it has unprecedentedly generated a momentary actualization of great human productivity. A major source of the capitalist material wealth has been derived from this high per capita productivity, and is in the model nation utterly dependant upon the ongoing and cumulative quantity of petroleum consumed, the largest share of all the nations, and utterly dependant upon the effort-exchange-cost of that petroleum, the most favored of all. The consequences of economic events of global magnitude can be very slow to manifest in their entirety, as now we are reaping that of more than ten years ago. The momentum of the capitalist system is immense and changes as equally slow. The logical direction of the world economy is toward the equilibration of the effort-exchange-cost, and it is a struggle that shall slowly but irrevocably, become realized.
The pursuit of money within the myriad endeavors of marketplace individualism is inherently the prevalence of short-term consideration, emphatically less than the lifespan of the individual, because the method of incentive is the incrementation of possessed power of actualization, which has meaning primarily to the moment in which it is acquired. Distortions that such a focus creates are rife and manifoldly accumulating. The investment of money for profit is concerned foremost with its larger return, and thus fundamentally not with the comprehensive merits of the creations wrought. The evolved size of the aggregations of appropriable capital, and the relationship between the establishment and the pyramid, particularly in the military-industrial complex, have resulted in effectual monopolies that largely direct what will be produced and what will be consumed, askew of the proclaimed concept of product determination through the collectivity of individual preferences. Remunerative productions are pushed onto the populace with the rationalization of fulfilling a demand, even when that demand has been induced by solicitation to the susceptible propensities of the ego, even when the product is blatantly injurious to the health and addicting. Design of manufactured goods is influenced by the greater profit yielded through a quicker replacement than through enduring longevity: thus the glut of theoretically improved models and the dearth of intelligent, lasting, repair opportunity. Land is butchered and built upon with neither ecological nor social harmony. Pollution is rampant, and being discovered to be ever more serious. The mounting maze of laws and regulations are belated adjustments to the inherent iniquity of the system that necessitates a bloating government, haphazardly enforcing upon the people that for which they lack the social coherence to achieve for themselves. While tolerable and contingently productive of the beneficial in the earlier stages of development, this short-term consideration becomes with maturation of capitalism an increasingly inimical vision.
Continuing growth is what capitalism must produce if it is to morally justify its existence, if it is to promise to the world an ultimate redemption for suffering endured, if it is to counter any internal dissatisfaction. If the gross national product is increasing then there is more wealth to be shared, and if it increases enough, then everyone will get a share of that increase which they will tangibly be able to appreciate. This has come to mean the very measure of human progress. It is the means by which the less developed nations are to eventually attain a nearer equity of life potential, reason why the richer nations need not consider their final responsibility toward the starving, and reason the wealthy have not had to entertain the prospect of a redistribution of that wealth. The pyramid towers and would swell and grow, always reminding those who are the supporting base that their lot might be worse, and always depending for its existence upon the continued dimension of and sustenance from, that base.
So very much of this growth has been founded upon the utilization of non-renewable natural resource, the annihilation of the "blood of the dinosaurs". Without this utilization the world would not have attained to this level of technological feasibility, but when confronted with the necessity for a declining rate of utilization, by force it must be a significantly different world if it is not to be one of broad chaos and crippled capacity. When the presumed incentive system for laboring fails to demonstrate results, the members of society turn more directly against one another in competition for scarce goods, and the smooth momentums that encouraged progress as it was known vanish with the proliferation of every rank manner and means of acquiring money. Without growth, the long tunnel that shines with a light at its far end for all who enter with faith and vigor, darkens, and leaves hopelessness, a groping about in the obscurity.
The forte of capitalism has been the advancement of technology, ever rising in complexity, and no future is envisioned other than endless augmentation thereof. That the summit of the importance of technology can have been reached, as it is evolvable within this economic structure, seems contrary to the very notion of progress. But Evolution has a domain of its own rules and can turn from one primary direction to another. Progress now becomes in our relation to one another and to the Earth.
--Morningthunder