The gap between rich and poor, has never been greater. Today’s Billionaires, soon to be Trillionaires possess unspendable fortunes while ordinary worker’s wages have been stagnant for decades, and the poorest are living in tents on America’s streets.
There is a point at which the lack of fairness combined with the countries enormous social problems will result in societal violence. The idea that anyone can enjoy wealth and realize their dreams has proven itself to be a lie. Homelessness has become a national crisis in every major American city.
Last month, Musk lost $50 billion dollars when Tesla stock fell, and he is still worth more than $200 Billion dollars. It would take the average American worker 4 million years to earn that much money. Meanwhile in California Forbes counts 189 billionaires live in a state where 40 million live at the poverty line. Unconscionably, most billionaires pay nothing in taxes.
What does it matter if a nation has the highest GDP in the world if the majority of the nation are within $200 a month of default on their loans and mortgage? The fact is that GDP is a poor measure of progress-it increases as we destroy the natural capital of the planet. It is not possible for us to live sustainably, let alone happily, whilst we are wedded to GDP growth.
Pooran Desai in The World Economic Forum wrote an article entitled, “GDP is destroying the planet. Here’s an alternative.” May, 2018. In it he suggests that the concept is fatally flawed. A cycle of consumption and debt drives growth at all costs. He states;
“Money is lent to people and growth is needed to repay the debt created. Consumerism has emerged as the way to promote growth. The advertising industry has grown as it both promotes and benefited from consumerism-with advertising subliminally affecting our brains and stimulating the parts of our brains which make us unhappy by telling us that we, or our lives, are not good enough. We try to relieve the pain of being told we’re not good enough through retail therapy-by buying things or experiences. We borrow money to pay for our retail therapy and increase indebtedness. Back to where we started. And to cap it all, political systems are geared towards driving GDP growth and are increasingly dependent on money for our survival.”
Wealth accumulates in the hands of the few. This paradigm, which continues to grow, regardless of the environmental or social cost-most notably impacts climate change and growing wealth inequality.
What is required is a paradigm shift. To create a market where social and environmental externalities are completely internalized, right down to the level of the transaction. He suggests what is needed is a Quality Adjusted GDP in order to correct those market failures through government regulation, taxes and incentives.
By tracking every transaction in our economy on the basis of the good it is doing (ie, how much it contributes to social and environmental good), as well as the value it brings to the two parties in the transaction. Digital technology has developed so quickly that it is indeed possible to imagine a system that rewards for being good in direct proportion to the good being accomplished.
The problem is that the existing system will do everything in its power to maintain the status quo. The media and its manipulation by the powerful and the 1% will not willingly change. Which brings us to conundrum of sorts.
If we must change in order to survive, but refuse to, is societal collapse inevitable?
George Monbiot in the Guardian, March, 2019 wrote an article entitled, “Capitalism is destroying the Earth. We need a new human right for future generations.”
He suggests that arguments defending our economic system are flimsy and preposterous. Peel them away, and you see that the whole structure is founded on looting: looting from other people, looting from other nations, looting from other species, and looting from the future.
He further states; “Yet, on the grounds of these absurdities, the rich arrogate to themselves the right to buy the natural wealth on which others depend. Locke cautioned that this justification works only if “there is enough, and as good, left in common for others”. Today, whether you are talking about land, the atmosphere, living systems, rich mineral lodes or most other forms of natural wealth, it is clear that there is not “enough, and as good” left in common. Everything the rich take for themselves they take from someone else.
Every generation shall have an equal right to the enjoyment of natural wealth. No renewable resource should be used beyond its rate of replenishment. No non-renewable resource should be used that cannot be recycled and reused. This leads inexorably towards two major shifts: a circular economy from which materials are never lost; and the end of fossil fuel combustion.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The statement is essentially meaningless because one generation can steal from another. In addition, the few, the very few, can steal from the overwhelming majority. What is required is for Capitalism, as we know it, to end.
Right of Access and Right of Use needs to occur where taxes are paid into a sovereign land fund. It would alter and restrict the concept of ownership, and ensure that economies tended towards distribution, rather than concentration and aggregation of wealth.
In addition taxes should be such that once an individual reaches a level of conspicuous wealth, (whatever that amount is deemed to fairly be) that every dollar beyond that amount is taxed at an increasing level. Greed would then negate increasing wealth to the detriment of the most greedy.
However time, and rationality, is not on our side. We are consuming resources at a rate that exceeds four times the rate at which the earth can sustain its depletion. In addition, those with nothing but a seething anger towards the rich, who refuse to share, is growing exponentially.
Scarcity of resources leads to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to violence and ultimately to warfare.
We are on the cusp of that event right now…
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