KaiserJeep wrote:
In other words, whatever "ism" you favor, we are still apes, acting as do apes.
One thing to keep in mind is that civilization came along just 9000 years ago or so and in our species time line this is like about a second ago. In other words, civilization is a novel arrangement for our species and still being honed and tested. It is no surprise that civilizations have been so tumultuous because they represent this punctuated inflection point as a novel social arrangement departing from our tribal hunter gatherer past. Natural selection of our species basically occurred during a long stable period of equilibrium when our social arrangement was HG tribal culture. Civilization is something still very new and it is hard to tell in these short 9000 years to what degree it has acted as a force of natural selection. Probably insignificant.
I make this point because capitalism as an economic and social system does not represent an end point. It is an economic system that is part of this still novel arrangement of civilization, still part of this punctuated tumultuous inflection point in our species history. Part of a novel continuum that is still very much volatile. If you want an example of that volatility then just consider 7.5 billion humans on the planet.
Most likely capitalism as we know it will morph into something totally different as an economic system in the future especially when we consider the obvious external consequences coming our way. We are in severe human overshoot. We have only witnessed capitalism relatively unbridled and unregulated when resources were unlimited and when the environment was integrated and healthy.
The consequences of human overshoot with a tightening resource base and increasingly unstable environment represents an external wedge into growth based capitalism. It will change and adapt just like cultural values will as well. I think stability and security will increase as cultural values and individual consumption as status will decrease. Increased regulation would seem unavoidable but this may be embraced more willingly from a population valuing stability and security in an increasingly unstable environment. Capitalism will enter a phase certainly of increased regulation. Collectivism will rise as a result of increased regulation. How can this not happen?
This should give pause to many out there who yearn for going back to the good old days when government was less obtrusive. I think we can also pretty much forget about wealth and opulence remaining options for a broad based middle class. Our economic system will adapt to constraints and the fat will be trimmed and the low hanging fruit where this can be easiest achieved should be obvious. The middle class is not part of the power structure but this demographic in aggregate is like the fat underbelly of a salmon. It will be trimmed way back. This is more ecological than ideological.
But we can only identify with a broad brush the forces that will act as the agents of change to our economic system. We really don't have much of a clue.
I have always found that those most rigid and adamant about a certain outcome usually are those trying to drag unsustainable ideologies along with them into an uncertain future. This applies to the entitlement you see from the political left that we can somehow preserve justice and egalitarian outcomes for all 7.5 billion kudzu apes just as much as it apples to the entitlement we see from the political right that we can get through the bottle neck of human overshoot without government regulation of capitalism and without constricting the freedom of the individual. Less justice for all and less unregulated freedoms. Our politics are polarized because both sides are hopelessly entitled.
Not to single any one out but if you take two of our posters like Cid and Cog and watch them fighting it out on these boards you can see how these two positions are both hopelessly unprepared for the external forces that will drive change moving forward.
Personally I look forward to external consequences stamping out mediocrity.
I never saw a mediocre cheetah or a mediocre gazelle.
I do see however billions of mediocre Kudzu Apes currently living shallow indolent lives ripe for culling.... by natural forces of course.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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