Post date: Jul 04, 2020 9:3:50 PM
This pandemic is exposing the illness and violence of our current monetary based economy. Just as the coronavirus is killing thousands of vulnerable humans, it is exposing the current broken, sick, harmful, inefficient, inequitable, unsustainable, racist, classist, sexist economic system where thousands of businesses are failing and employees are losing their jobs while the billionaires are amassing billions. According to Robert Reich, "American billionaires grew their wealth by $282,000,000,000 in just 23 days during the lock down.... Meanwhile, millions of Americans are out of work and struggling to pay the bills. Billionaire Monty Benett secured $96,000,000 in federal bailouts for his hotel empire, despite laying off 95% of his employees. The same month, Bennett made a $50,000 donation to Trump's reelection committee. Talk about a big return on investment. This is a tale of two pandemics."
Our current profit driven monetary economy only serves the interests of the corporations and the billionaires by implementing profit driven strategies based on exploitation, unsustainable practices, planned obsolescence and planned scarcity to keep it going. This is an obscene, inhumane, exploitive, damaging practice that hurts the workers, the unemployed, the poor, many species and the planet itself.
If technology were used to maximally develop the resources of the planet in a sustainable, ecological way, to create abundance and durable products, rather than planning obsolescence and scarcity to maximize profits, we could in time create such abundance that the price of things would decrease, eventually to zero. This is not a utopia. This is a real possibility long developed and described by Jaques Fresco and The Venus Project, and also covered by Peter Joseph and his Zeitgeist films.
As our current monetary economic system collapses we have a rare and wonderful opportunity to head in a direction of a healthy, equitable, ecological, sustainable, resource based economy. We have the models, we have the guidelines. Do we have the will? Let's fuel the will by following the call of Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion, The Water Protectors and countless other committed groups and individuals fighting for social, economic, and environmental equity. If not now when? This is our chance!
This is the time and opportunity to replace profits as the fundamental economic value with the fundamental value that all living entities on our beautiful planet have equal rights to its vast resources, which, when developed sustainably and intelligently with the use of our vast technology can eventually create such abundance as to make all resources available at not cost. As The Venus Project says, "One fundamental premise is that we work towards having all of Earth's resources as the common heritage of all the world's people. Anything less will simply result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems inherent in the present system".
We can do this if we can find and fuel the will.
If not now when? This is the time!
It is not time to "go back to normal" as normal was a catastrophic crisis of climate change, social inequity, and obscene amassment of wealth in the hands of the few. That the three wealthiest men in the US own 50% of the wealth is disgusting, damaging, heart-breaking and unsustainable.
As horrific as the coronavirus is, it may also lead to our chance to stop this obscene monetary economic system, and head in a healthy, equitable, sustainable direction of a resource based economy. On the way we can implement a universal basic income.
This is doable! It's not utopian.
The question is, will we find the will to?
I sure hope so.