Nov 4th 2020
Election USA
If it were not frightening it would be hilarious, watching the polis' and even scientists, bless 'em, scrambling to keep the lid on COVID-19: impossible but inadmissible. My metaphor is holding water in a colander with bare hands—doesn't work. To me, one major reason is clear: peoplekind is using an 18th century tool for a 21st century job. The tool is nationalism, the job is a planetary job. I guess we might wait around for the vaccine that may appear—that could take a while. Or hang until only the resistant survive, like with chickenpox in Hawaii. Short of that, a national strategy won't hack it, outbreaks will go on no matter what the national measures to contain them. But nationalism is engrained, standing in the way of us ever trusting each other with confidence. Only the most profound shock could force us to abandon nationalism, that shock may be well on its way, but we can't imagine it or we'd have taken global measures decades ago. So much for countering COVID-19 let alone the melting icecaps.
During the same 18th century, modern capitalism took shape. It has deformed democracy in the way communism (as practiced) has deformed socialism. The collapse of communism from internal stresses was, in hindsight, inevitable. The failure of capitalism still looks very unlikely, but is just as inevitable because it is predicated upon endless growth, and because The Market—the world's stock exchanges—does not function for society but only investors. The stock exchanges malfunction because of the irresistible temptation for corporations, banks and shady officials to make a killing; the myth that wealth trickles down is just that: a myth. It stays up, where it mainly does harm. Instead of being ploughed back into decent wages and infrastructure, be it roads, public buildings, healthcare and education for all, etc., it's poured into ridiculous mega-structures for parking spare cash, high-speed trains, fracking, abusive land use, the armaments industry....all sucking out revenue for those least needing it. The solution then for large-scale enterprise? Dump the stock exchanges and institute universal crowd-funding—what?..oh, I hear you, but is our present solution any more of a solution? One certain thing: this little probbi is screaming out for bold creative thinking followed by bold action. And quickly.