Chris Hedges: Growth Is the Problem
from truthdig:
Growth Is the Problem
Posted on Sep 10, 2012
By Chris Hedges
The ceaseless expansion of economic exploitation, the engine of global capitalism, has come to an end. The futile and myopic effort to resurrect this expansiona fallacy embraced by most economistsmeans that we respond to illusion rather than reality. We invest our efforts into bringing back what is gone forever. This strange twilight moment, in which our experts and systems managers squander resources in attempting to re-create an expanding economic system that is moribund, will inevitably lead to systems collapse. The steady depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, along with the accelerated pace of climate change, will combine with crippling levels of personal and national debt to thrust us into a global depression that will dwarf any in the history of capitalism. And very few of us are prepared.
Our solution is our problem, Richard Heinberg, the author of The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, told me when I reached him by phone in California. Its name is growth. But growth has become uneconomic. We are worse off because of growth. To achieve growth now means mounting debt, more pollution, an accelerated loss of biodiversity and the continued destabilization of the climate. But we are addicted to growth. If there is no growth there are insufficient tax revenues and jobs. If there is no growth existing debt levels become unsustainable. The elites see the current economic crisis as a temporary impediment. They are desperately trying to fix it. But this crisis signals an irreversible change for civilization itself. We cannot prevent it. We can only decide whether we will adapt to it or not.
Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, argues that we cannot grasp the real state of the global economy by the usual metricsGDP, unemployment, housing, durable goods, national deficits, personal income and consumer spendingalthough even these measures point to severe and chronic problems. Rather, he says, we have to examine the structural flaws that sit like time bombs embedded within the economic edifice. U.S. household debt enabled the expansion of consumer spending during the boom years, he says, but consumer debt cannot continue to grow as house prices decline to realistic levels. Toxic assets litter the portfolios of the major banks, presaging another global financial meltdown. The Earths natural resources are being exhausted. And climate change, with its extreme weather conditions, is beginning to exact a heavy economic toll on countries, including the United States, through the destruction brought about by droughts, floods, wildfires and loss of crop yields.
Heinberg also highlights what he calls the highly dysfunctional U.S. political system, which is paralyzed and hostage to corporate power. It is unable to respond rationally to the crisis or solve even the most trivial of problems. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/growth_is_the_problem_20120910/
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Even some people who might consider themselves friends of the earth.
Squawking about saving the animals while they continually support the expansion of suffering with donations to the effort out of every paycheck.
When even the supposed allies are ignorant, the realization of the futility of the cause becomes clear.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I have one set of neighbors who are totally disabled -- husband, wife and daughter -- and 100% dependent on social security and the safety net. I have one set of neighbors who are thugs and thieves, but at least they seem to have traded in Rush for rock music. I have one set of neighbors who tried to run my dogs down in my own driveway (but when their dogs, cows and bulls have been through my pasture it was not a big deal). I have one set of retired elderly neighbors. I have one set of neighbors I know nothing about. Didn't even realize their predecessors had left. I have one set of neighbors that changes yearly or so from their rental trailer. Some years its a decent quiet person or family. Other years, thieves.
Most everybody I've met around here has tried to rob me one way or another in this red, teabagger armpit of the midcoast region.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)It's not pretty, but I think what he's saying is pretty much true.
And we're all mostly in denial, to one extent or another, so much so,
it is striking and more than a little scary.
I live in Portland Oregon, which is heaven on earth compared to
many other locations in the US; but still I live downtown in a
high rise of 55+ seniors, not in a self-sufficient commune.