FAITHFULLY SITTING IN THE PEW OF ALL-CONSUMPTION

Anarcho-environmental novelist/essayist Edward Abbey (in One Life at a Time, Please [1988]): "We can see that the religion of endless growth--like any religion based on blind faith--is a kind of mania, a form of lunacy, indeed a disease."

He continues, "The one disease to which the growth mania bears an exact analogical resemblance is cancer. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

So, neoclassical economics a metastasizing neoplasm (cancer)? Seems so.

But, easy for us to say some academic domain or other is "cancerous," and a "religion," because we can relegate it to the Ivory Tower and look the other way (toward mass-distraction entertainment, no doubt). But, if so, then we, living under this economic-political regime--let's be honest--are the cancer cells, consuming the planetary body, spreading the destruction, and, what's more, doing it with what could be labeled religious fervor.

From the pews in the Church of All-Consumption, this all seems righteous as instructed by our faith in this historical process. The True Faith in this process--the really "true" faith--is that we do it all for God and religion, that "God" has ordained this religio-economic regime.

This, this takes lots of "faith." Glad I don't have so much of the kind (though, I'm sitting in the pew with the rest of you). And, the "collection plate" as it is passed is really a consumption platter from which we partake: put in a few dollars, and take out the manna of planetary destruction.

PASSING TIME OF THE DISEMBEDDED LONE WOLF

Intrapsychic dynamics relate to the social organization of production, of course, although it receives, as best I can determine, not nearly enough attention. But the radical (hyper-) modernism which disembodies and disembeds life today brings us to this question: How did we ever come to perceive body and mind as separate, nature as dead resource, and place as inconsequential?

That the modern identity is peculiarly and severely individuated should be no surprise when global consumer capitalism as the social organization of production creates Homo economicus as raison d'etre of existence. The highly individuated individual has as primary task (other than to be a consumate consumer) to create a do-it-yourself universe, or so each believes. The illusion of a do-it-yourself universe survives and depends on the exigencies of consumerism.

It is also illusion that this kind of social organization of production can endure. A new individual, new ideology, new society, and new social organization of production--and a new, salubrious intimate relation to Earth, body, and place--will have to be (re)created anew over the decades of the 21st century. The self-organizing powers of the Universe are manifesting, if we but look--and look at ourselves.

Which brings up this Hopi wisdom prophecy about the passed time of the Lone Wolf:

"To my fellow swimmers, there is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore, they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our heads above water. And I say, see who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for."

And I say the ones we have been waiting for are our future selves that the self-organizng powers of the Universe are creating now as we push off into the middle of the stream of the Always-Being-Created.

THE PROBLEM IS WHO CONTROLS THE SHIP

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was as much a protest by Boston merchants against the trade monopoly of a global corporation--the East India Company--as it was against the continuing controversy of the influence of the British Parliament in the local affairs of the American colonies. By the 18th century there was already a global economic system (in an earlier spasm of globalization) interconnecting Europe with its far-flung, worldaround colonies. The long economic recession period of the 1760s and the great loss of revenue by the East India Company in Bengal induced the Company to look for new markets. The American colonies were an obvious choice for the monopolistic strategy of the Company, much to the economic detriment of Boston merchants. 


Unlike the Boston Tea Party merchants and other patriots, I wonder whether today's Tea Baggers are ready to protest the GEs and Exxons of the global capitalist system who pay no taxes, or the corporations who despoil the Planet. To be fair, there seems to be no mass movement in the U.S. that appears ready to resist the "business-run democracy" we have now. We are living in the bowels of an East India Company system that has moved on-shore (and off-shore!), benefiting from "free" trade (and "free market" capitalism) and neutralizing political opposition and resistance by promoting its religion of consumerism--and logic of growth--and blindness to the causes of the converging economic and ecological crises. 


There were 19 recessions and 15 major stock-market crashes in the century after 1907 (which followed the "panics" of 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907). Joseph Stiglitz says there were 124 systemic banking crises in developing countries between 1970 and 2007. It should be clear that capitalism engenders a perpetual, cyclical crisis regime and always will--it is the way it is set up. Currently it is fomenting the next bubble while it delivers an obscene amount of wealth upwards to a tiny segment of society. 


Today's East India Company system is happy that we are arguing over the merits and shortcomings of the Democratic and Republican parties. As our attention is diverted, the system can continue its destruction of life on the Planet, and continue creating the greatest inequality in U.S. history. 


The tea is not the problem; the problem is who controls the ship.  

STEADY-STATE CAPITALISM?

Every recession or depression--none excluded--over the last 221 years was preceded by a government surplus (but not national debt; as I said earlier, its elimination occurred only once in all of American history--1835-37). The Clinton budget surplus of 1998-2000, itself, ended with today's recession, only delayed by the massive consumer debt amassing then and during 2000-2006. In any case, the need for tax cuts and large budget surpluses, instead of reduced spending and higher taxes, is what the U.S. economy must have in the short-run. Surely we can look to the Hoover budget to understand the potential dire aftermath. I understand some people's concern that the spending spree and run-away consumption (which is historical for our capitalist economy, whether government, corporate, or private) is the reason we are living in a civilization that seriously looks doomed--as it takes consumption (and environmental destruction) as its birthright.

The much bigger question is how government, corporate, and private spending articulate with what, if we are paying attention to what scientists are saying about the question of human survival. From many quarters the scientific message is that civilization is headed for disaster. The regressive political crowd denies it all. The average person has no clue.

What is even more interesting is the macroeconomic model many (including Bill McKibben) are assuming is the way to go. It is the model for which Herman Daley, in the 1970-80s, was the foremost proponent, sometimes called "steady-state capitalism."

It should be obvious that the capitalist system is SYSTEMICALLY based on growth; a "no-growth" capitalist system is a contradiction, an impossibility. For many reasons--actually, for every reason--at all levels of the system growth is organically constituted: from the CEO who does not own the firm and must grow the firm for shareholders, to the consumer who must have growth for jobs, so must consume in a big (wasteful) way to promote jobs. We have an economic system that is as efficient as can be (for productive forces!), one that is efficiently liquidating planetary resources--from mountaintop removal to strip-mining of the oceans. From Adam Smith to Karl Marx this was understood. In fact, for Marx, the market-propelled internal motor of growth was what so sharply distinguished the capitalist mode of production from all previous. It must constantly expand markets, constantly expand consumption. It is an iron law of capitalist development.

Where dos this leave us?