Ostentation is killing the planet

Ever since Thomas Malthus published his best-selling “Essay on the Principle of Population” in 1798, overpopulation has been a recurrent preoccupation. And, considering the rate at which the planet’s resources are being used up, its rapidly increasing numbers of inhabitants does seem problematic. However, focussing on how many people there are tends to obscure the question of allotment, of how the resources are shared out. It also neglects the example given by some of exuberant consumption, and their role as models that all should aspire to emulate. And it conveniently forgets that, for a few to have much, many must make do with little. How many millions have toiled countless hours to allow Mr Bezos, Mr Buffet and Mr Gates to accumulate their $billions, and how many more for the others listed by Forbes? But, if all should aspire to have servile masses labouring for their profit, it just does not figure out. The rich cannot be inspirational examples without promoting mass exploitation. But this factual evidence is cleverly conjured away, and merit is advanced as a substitute. The wealthy and powerful have earned their positions, and working hard leads from rags to riches. But no amount of productive work is able to amass $millions let alone $billions. It is only the value extracted from the labour of thousands or millions of people that allows those huge accumulations.

Everyone is supposed to want to be a billionaire. That is the apex of success. But it can only be achieved at the expense of many slaving away and barely surviving. The accumulation of wealth needs large numbers of workers who produce more than they earn, and it is insatiable. It must have an ever increasing number of people producing and consuming, and filling the gap with credit. Capitalism feeds on infinite expansion. If that nourishment stops or even weakens, the whole process is in trouble. The last major capitalist expansion following the end of the USSR concerned Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They and some other minor actors allowed the world to double its production. But they are now facing the same difficulties as the old industrial nations: the unsolvable contradiction of financing consumption with credit. Consuming today with tomorrow’s incomes must automatically reduce future spending. And spiralling debts never have happy endings.

The planet’s 7.7 billion inhabitants have collectively contributed to the emergence of 2,754 US-dollar billionaires and a considerably larger number of multi-millionaires. Buying and selling at a profit adds nothing to the commonwealth, but it does accumulate private wealth. Selling and buying are unavoidable, as self-sufficient communities have all but disappeared. Most people only have their labour to sell, which means they must find a buyer who will use that labour, either for comfort or profit. The very rich pay the upkeep of servants, courtiers and professional specialists. But their relation with the rest of humanity is to collect rent, interest and dividends. The vast human mass is perceived as a source of profit, merely by getting more than is given. The sort of parasite that is not beneficial for its host.

At the present rate, humans will have finished destroying their habitat in the next few decades. Even now the world’s ice is melting away and plastics are ubiquitous, as are herbicides and insecticides. The atmosphere’s composition has been modified, and the Earth’s surface is littered with synthetic compounds. Planetary poisoning began with lead and mercury in Antiquity. This was followed more recently by the use of coal as fuel and for chemistry. Then, after WW2, petroleum products, radioactivity and chemical toxins greatly accelerated the process. The mass murder of humans by an arduous industrial system or by nuclear fireballs had been demonstrated. When the killing of people abated, the same methods were applied to other life-forms (1), and so it has been ever since, spreading from the developed nations to the rest of the globe. This generalised destruction of living matter is culminating in species extinctions. Humanity’s toxic wastes are everywhere, from Pole to Pole, in the air, on land and in the sea. They are exterminating life at an accelerating pace.

After being threatened with nuclear annihilation for decades, the planet is facing the more insidious prospect of extinction by toxins. Neither of those terminations is linked to the number of inhabitants. Both are the products of concentrated wealth and power, and of private profit at the expense of the community, the hubris of governments and the greed of corporations. Power and profit are their fundamental objectives, and the ending of lives is just collateral damage. And those obsessions have short-term perspectives. Holding power and making profits are day-to-day struggles against competition. Thrones can topple at any moment. Instead of means for achieving an objective, they become ends in themselves. Power for power’s sake, profit for profit’s sake. This induces a total disregard for the community and the world at large. Anything that does not confirm power is repressed. Anything that is not profitable is ignored. The incapacity of those who govern to see beyond the next election, and of corporate executives to see beyond the next quarterly earnings, has led to a situation where predictable catastrophes are ignored until they actually occur. Today’s pending upheavals are debt, pollution driven climatic disorders and species extinction, and escalating nationalistic confrontations. Power, profits and people’s credulousness, not their numbers, will be to blame.

1. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” describes this post-war period.

Also this piece on plastic pollution, with some instructive (scary?) numbers.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/plastic-is-just-as-destructive-to-the-climate-as-oil-and-gas/