Most humans attempt to get along with other humans as best they can. Things get fraught when vital resources are scarce or become totally unavailable.
People need an income in modern societies. Without an income how do they pay rent or a mortgage, how do they feed themselves or their families?
In tribal societies the entire community worked together to ensure all members had shelter, food and whatever health care was available. Some few still exist here and there in the world but they are becoming fewer with each passing year. The modern, industrialized world is inexorably approaching their habitats. Human greed is far outstripping the human need for the world’s resources and ultimately it appears we will all be losers as pandemics and climate change inflict their wounds upon us.
Where do we go from here?
To ever more individualism where ever-increasing materialism and rabid competition between manufacturers of luxury goods entice us ever more seductively to our common suicide? In this scenario the elites of our planet become ever more elitist and those just below them in wealth and status spend increasing amounts of their income on the last million good lives to be had before the end. The vast majority of us will see our incomes and the resources available to us reduce year by year. Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics are going to decimate employment just as the race to grasp those million last good lives intensifies.
What kind of a world will that be?
What chance of balance in our lives will there be?
What horrors will emerge from competing for those last million good lives?
The kind of rabid, red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism exemplified by that seen in the USA will drive all wealth up to the 1% elite who own 99% of everything below them. The rest of us will be work slaves even if we find some employment in their online, artificial intelligence empires.
Is this the world our parents hoped for?
Is this the world we want?
We have been enticed by hopes of enough income to provide us with stability, enough to have a family and a family home without risk of it all being taken away from us at a moment’s notice. But the Covid-19 pandemic is going to shatter those hopes, take away our source of income in many cases and make it much more likely we will lose our homes and perhaps even the cohesion of our family.
Rough times are ahead.
Business owners are going to look for ways to ensure they can carry on if disease threatens their income by decimating staff. You needn’t look far for the solution they will find, no degree in rocket science is required and there will be plenty of technicians happy to earn a buck giving them what they want.
We are looking at a future online world.
Online food delivery. Perhaps by drone.
Online electronics (already up and running).
Online everything that can go online: healthcare, education, banking, media, you name it... much is already in existence or in nascent form.
What are people going to do for a living? Simply maintain the system for their masters?
Meanwhile, as the environment begins to crumble around those with less and gated-communities isolate themselves what world will this be?
A world of armed guards and vigilantes?
A world of exclusivity for the few and misery for the many?
Is that a world to look forward to?
Is there a route to change that future and bring balance and benefit to all?
To all of the above we must add the growing competition between nations. The divide between West and East is growing and approaching ever-greater economic warfare inevitably leading to the risk of a global hot war.
The world is unbalanced in so many ways.
The elites fight for themselves, to retain their wealth and power... while we suffer the consequences.
The vectors of imbalance are many and growing. There will come a time of resource psychosis when the end is in sight and those last million good lives are seen beckoning at the finish line. Don’t think the elites won’t push, shove, manipulate, rob, attack and oppress all others to get them.
There needs to be fundamental change.
Rabid capitalism and the elites it has produced are killing us.
A rising tide of protest is needed. Mass non-violent civil disobedience to demand things change.
The most powerful change possible within the shortest time is the implementation of a universal basic income planet-wide. It would not be at the same rate everywhere of course, each nation would be designated its monthly rate from a centrally-trusted source. There would need to be a world income pool to distribute this income fairly, predictably and honestly.
There is no alternative to planning our common future in a way common to us all. Nothing less will do.
We have suffered the extremes of capitalist anarchy and see that to go further will create a global hell.
Socialism in its kindest and most responsible and democratic form is needed now. We need to build trust between us and the soul-to-soul solidarity which builds unity of purpose and the hope for a new world built on sharing this beautiful world, not carving it up into regions of 1% haves and 99% have-nots.
Only in this way can balance be achieved.
Balance, where being not having, is the road ahead to better lives for all.
Low maintenance lifestyles where income is guaranteed, where a solid foundation is under every foot, a default condition of healthcare and education supplied, a life where we can all feel secure, not under threat.
A life where our natural instincts to get along with our neighbors are not negatively affected by any risk of collapse in our income or ability to feed, shelter and protect ourselves and our families.
Then, at that point, the question of whether we can achieve global balance will have finally been answered, and permanently solved.
No comments:
Post a Comment