With all of the latest articles about how climate change is likely worse
than we thought, and how our fragile biosphere that we all depend on is
in increasingly grave danger, it is becoming increasingly clear how
unsustainable our current system really is. We are bumping up against
the limits to growth, and only a fool or an economist (same difference)
could believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible. And
make no mistake, capitalism cannot exist without growth, so capitalism
must die--or the whole planet dies including us. So which choice will
we make? The TSAP has already outlined several means of solving the
world's vast and interconnected problems in our party platform as well
as in our annual State of the Planet Address. Most notably, we need to
phase out the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible before we
irreversibly burn up planet, and we need to end our addiction to growth
for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually
kills its host. But the prospects are looking increasingly bleak that
our recommendations will actually be put into practice given the current
leadership in Washington who continue to blithely fiddle while the
Earth burns. In fact, with climate-denier Donald Trump becoming POTUS, and thus the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil effectively ruling the world, it is even worse than we thought. So what can be done instead?
Enter this seemingly crazy idea.
While it may seem like a sop to the fossil fool industry at first
glance, it will actually be giving them the rope for them to hang
themselves with. And not only will it kill Big Oil and Dirty Coal, but
it will also humanely euthanize capitalism
in general via the one thing that capitalism simply cannot
survive--ABUNDANCE. That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to
function, and it has done a marvelous job of creating artificial scarcity
for the past 500 years or so. But uncontrolled abundance, whether of
resources, energy, or capital, is basically a fatal overdose for the
system of capitalism. And thanks to the current exponential growth of
renewable energy and related technologies, such abundance is very
possible in the near future. And it will be decentralized, so the
system can't readily control or stop it once it gets going. All of this
dovetails rather nicely with Buckminster Fuller's vision of a pragmatic utopian future.
If we go that route, it actually would be possible to simultaneously
implement the carbon tax-and-dividend idea in Steve Stoft's Carbonomics,
provided that 100% of the revenue is refunded to We the People, and
that the tax rate starts out low so as not to front-load it too
quickly. The timing is very important. But any other type of carbon
tax scheme would be out of the question, as would most other future
restrictions on fossil fuels (especially oil) until the cost solar and
wind energy drops below that of such fossil fuels. Not like the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil would allow that anyway.
Another idea that the TSAP had once laughed at can also be given a chance as well: the Capital Homestead Act.
While it may seem like a pro-capitalist sop to Big Business on the
surface, it will actually kill capitalism in the long run as well due to
an overabundance of capital and the fact that the workers and owners
would essentially become one and the same. Combine it with the
Universal Exchange Tax and a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, and the
overall impact will be maximized and accelerated.
Of course, capitalism is not the only problem. The 7000 year old War on
Women, often known by its euphemistic name "patriarchy", is every bit
as much a cause of our world's problems, and the two are basically
joined at the hip. While patriarchy can exist without capitalism,
capitalism cannot exist without patriarchy. And both evil systems are killing this planet
and need to end, yesterday. Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas
who will save the world, that's for sure. Fortunately, women have been
making huge strides (while men are becoming increasingly redundant), and
if current trends continue it seems likely that women will become the
new leaders of the free world in the not-too-distant future, as
Buckminster Fuller himself once predicted. In fact, that is one of the few things that the futurists are virtually unanimous about.
At least we hope that will be the case. But timing is everything, and
we have a very narrow window of opportunity. So what are we waiting
for?
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