Redefining Our Economy and Wealth
by tjrifai, Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 06:43:50 AM EDT
For a long time now, I have been in agreement with the idea that Global Warming is by far Humanity's greatest problem and challenge of the 21st century. In truth, however, it is not. Global Warming is the greatest problem caused by the mother of the vast majority of our problems: Growth Capitalism. Indeed, we will not solve global warming without first solving its mother.
In a growth capitalist society, we must define economy as the way in which a society distributes limited goods and services to satisfy limitless wants and needs. Our society must teach us and train us to believe that we have limitless wants and needs in order for growth capitalism to work: the great idea that "You can never have too much money". In fact, we do not, naturally, have limitless material wants and needs. For example, I have fairly elite tastes. I want to eat delicious, high quality, healthy foods. I want a super fast computer. I want a brand new Prius, fully loaded. But I don't want to eat too much, I don't want more than one PC or more than one car. I want a beautiful, well built, environmentally friendly home, but not a mansion. People who think they want 5 Ferraris, a mansion and 3 vacation homes, etc. have, essentially, been brainwashed. It is happiness and health that they want and they have been taught that these things equal happiness and health but, in fact, we know for certain they do not. I will admit that it is, perhaps, impossible to satisfy everyone's limited wants and needs but I know that they are still limited and that we are wealthy enough to completely satisfy many people's and most of others.
We measure the health and wealth of our economy in growth capitalism by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita. This is supposedly a measurement of the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a given country. The problems with this measurement are many. When we produce products that do not improve our health and happiness and are even detrimental to them, we still increase the GDP. When I purchase more food than I need and let it rot in my refrigerator before I throw it out, I increase the GDP. When people are more unhealthy and need more health care, we increase the GDP. When we go to war, we increase the GDP. And, perhaps most importantly, when we work 40-70 hour weeks rather than 20 hour weeks, we increase the GDP. Therefore, this is a horrible measurement of the wealth of an economy.
In a growth capitalist society, we must define economy as the way in which a society distributes limited goods and services to satisfy limitless wants and needs. Our society must teach us and train us to believe that we have limitless wants and needs in order for growth capitalism to work: the great idea that "You can never have too much money". In fact, we do not, naturally, have limitless material wants and needs. For example, I have fairly elite tastes. I want to eat delicious, high quality, healthy foods. I want a super fast computer. I want a brand new Prius, fully loaded. But I don't want to eat too much, I don't want more than one PC or more than one car. I want a beautiful, well built, environmentally friendly home, but not a mansion. People who think they want 5 Ferraris, a mansion and 3 vacation homes, etc. have, essentially, been brainwashed. It is happiness and health that they want and they have been taught that these things equal happiness and health but, in fact, we know for certain they do not. I will admit that it is, perhaps, impossible to satisfy everyone's limited wants and needs but I know that they are still limited and that we are wealthy enough to completely satisfy many people's and most of others.
We measure the health and wealth of our economy in growth capitalism by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita. This is supposedly a measurement of the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a given country. The problems with this measurement are many. When we produce products that do not improve our health and happiness and are even detrimental to them, we still increase the GDP. When I purchase more food than I need and let it rot in my refrigerator before I throw it out, I increase the GDP. When people are more unhealthy and need more health care, we increase the GDP. When we go to war, we increase the GDP. And, perhaps most importantly, when we work 40-70 hour weeks rather than 20 hour weeks, we increase the GDP. Therefore, this is a horrible measurement of the wealth of an economy.
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