The madness of perpetual growth on a finite planet

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

It is amazing how many, apparently same, people believe that you can have infinite perpetual economic growth on a finite Planet such as ours.

Perpetual economic growth and its cousin, limitless technological expansion, are notions and beliefs so deeply and firmly held by so many in this culture that they often go entirely unquestioned.

Even more disturbing is the fact that these beliefs are somehow seen as the ultimate definition of what it is and means to be human: perpetual economic growth and limitless technological expansion are what we do.

We cannot have perpetual economic growth and limitless technological expansion on a Planet that itself cannot grow; no planet can grow above its size. It is also impossible to have those two, each on its own or combined, with the limit of non-renewable, many of which are, almost, exhausted, as we speak, so to say.

Perpetual growth is a capitalist idea to keep profits flowing into the coffers of shareholders and CEOs to the detriment of the Planet and the poor that live on it. The entire idea of capitalism is based on this exploitation of the Planet and of the poor. Instead of the Earth's resources benefiting all creatures on this Planet, including humans, they are being exploited for the benefit of some rich elite, including water.

We have to change the system, the world over, in order to save the Planet, so to speak, and all of us. Tinkering around at the edges is not going to work and neither is reforming the system. The system is not broken, it was designed that way. Thus a new system is needed. A system when everything on the Planet counts, and not just profits for the few.

© 2018

Trickle down economics

How we are told it works and how it actually works

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We are often told that the trickle-down economy works like a pyramid of glasses and when the top one is filled and overflows the others below are filled up and when they overflow the ones lower down. The reality, however, is a rather different one, as shown in the graphic.

Mysteriously, rather than the top glass overflowing it seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger still without anything even reaching the second tier let alone the bottom one.

The entire story of trickle-down economy is a lie designed to keep the masses quiet and in the belief that, sooner or later, as long as those at the top get the tax reliefs and all that, the good things will trickle down to those at the lower tiers. Fact is, however, that simply is not going to happen.

There is really only one way that those at the bottom of said pyramid ever get the benefit of their labor they, those that do the work, will have to take control of the means of production. There is no other way.

More and more people, including and especially economists, are beginning to come to the conclusion that capitalism is coming to an end and that Marx was right after all. However, while Marx initially said that the means of production must be in the hands of the people somewhere along the line this line has been changed, in later editions of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, to read “the means of production must be in the hand of the state”. The latter makes a total mockery of worker control as they change but one slave master for another, and the latter being worse than the former.

Only when those that actually produce the goods actually also reap the fruits of their labor in that they own the means of production, the workers the workshops and factories, the farmers the fields and the farms, and the woodsmen the woods and forests, will the exploitation of man by man ever come to an end.

© 2015