The Rules of Capitalism

by Allister J. Marran

The philosophical theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, ‘The fundamental virtues in the ethics of a capitalist society are economic efficiency, developed to the utmost degree of ruthless activity.’

The rules of capitalism put profit over everything else. Everything else. Nothing is sacred or taboo.

It is a complex man-made set of rules, it does not exist in nature, and requires its servants to ignore common sense and its obvious dangers and pitfalls.

It is a giant pyramid scheme of investors and producers at the top, and consumers down below, that requires the base to constantly grow, which is why we now have eight billion plus people on a planet that has very limited resources. It demands infinite growth cycles when raw materials are in short and finite supply.

To ensure its ongoing sustainability, we have constantly to create hype about new products that nobody wanted or asked for in order to make another sale, with built in obsolescence so that we can sell a new model again tomorrow.

Marketing costs for products and services often far exceed R&D and cost-of-production budgets, in order to convince you to fill your house to a large degree with, call it ‘trinkets’, ‘junk’.

The over-mining, over-fishing, over-production, and mass pollution is not sustainable. That's simply a fact.

While every scientist on earth is predicting doom and gloom for future generations, the economist disagrees, and tells us to put out heads in the sand, and ignore the signs. Keep calm and keep spending.

There is another thing. In its appetite to compete, capitalist economics has now become the science of scarcity.  In order to compete, we need to optimize—and optimize everything we possibly can. We strive for less wastage, smaller margins of error, faster turnover.

This means that we sail ever closer to the wind. Let one thing go wrong—a computer hack, a bacterial contamination, a military invasion in a faraway place—and millions of people’s livelihoods and even lives may be imperilled.

As capitalism multiplies the dangers, so it multiplies our vulnerability.

This generation, our generation, the ones who were told by the scientists and experts to just look around and heed the obvious warnings, will be known as the idiots who could have stopped it but chose greed over life, profit over common sense.

We have no water where I live, because the rains haven't come for nearly 10 years. The world is cooling where it's hot, and heating up where it's cold. Smog sits over the cities, and poison infects our water sources. Landfills are full, and growing fuller every day. Our oceans are being fished to extinction, and good farming land is being paved over and cleared for urban development and new roads and highways.

Having stuff, and being able to read and write, and exploit a man-made system, does not make a person smart. If people can't see beyond their basic, immediate, satiating needs and zoom out to see the bigger picture of an exhausted ecosystem with resources heading to zero, and the only world we will ever have struggling to cope, then perhaps we were never that smart or evolved in the first place.

We do not have a divine right to rule this planet. We are just the next animal to over-evolve and get to the top of the food chain. It's an awesome responsibility which sees us on a perilous perch which can be toppled if we do not proceed with caution and humility.

Just ask the previous mantle holders, those fearsome and magnificent dinosaurs, how tenuous that grip on the top dog spot is.

We can’t ask them, of course. They are extinct.

Toute Médaille a Son Revers

by Allister John Marran

The way we form our ideas, and with that, take our place in the human family, is through critical debate—which is, to consider arguments both for and against our own point of view. 

The French have a saying, ‘Toute médaille a son revers.’ Every medal has its reverse. Yet all too often, the reverse side is blank. Like the medal, there are many intellectual and educational pursuits in life which, in fact, merely give us the illusion of critical debate.

It is not a form of critical debate to watch a YouTube content creator or network news show host talk about a topic, be it political or social or philosophical. It's a style of performative art which plays to a predefined audience to increase viewership or likes. Counter-intuitively, even university classes have served such purpose.

In the vacuum of a sterile single point studio there is no counter point, there is no objectivity. It's simply designed to tell an audience that already believes something that they are right. It serves as an echo chamber to bolster one’s preconceptions.

If one relies on this alone to form a holistic world view, to inform one’s opinions and to guide one’s sensibilities, one will be left far short as a person. One wouldn’t think of walking into a bank expecting to be told about the strengths of another bank. One wouldn't attend a Catholic Church wanting to find out about the teachings of the Buddha.

We are never sold the product we need. We are sold the product that the seller has in stock, or else they lose the sale. It is Business 101.

Why then do people tune in to biased news networks or YouTube shows, even enroll for classes, expecting to get factual and unbiased information? In reality, information itself has no bias. It's the slant of the deliverer, or the recipient, who through accent or omission or misrepresentation allows it to carry a biased weight and a crooked message.

Rankism on Social Media

by Allister John Marran

Charles Colton once said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Yet what happens when the imitator does not get the acknowledgement or admiration they so dearly crave from the originator, when the genesis and creator does not give a pat on the back or even realise their shadow exists?

Many things start off as innocent and unassuming. Experience success in a sport, in a relationship, in life or business or any other public sphere, and settle in to reap the rewards of a job well done. 

Privately you can be proud of your accomplishments, and you may need to tip a hat to any plaudits that come your way, but generally you keep to yourself, sharing your victories with close friends and family and getting on with life.

A photo here and there may leak onto the social media landscape, which acts as a megaphone, amplifying your successes (and failures), spreading faster than a virus at spring break. 

People take notice. Beware, says the OECD*, in a recent report on ‘personhood’: ‘Disclosure of identity information in an improper context ... can cause harm’. Ethnicity, say, or sexual orientation. One could add ageism, classism, homophobia, and a whole lot more. In fact, anything under the sun, depending on the context -- and rankism. 

Many people look at you and believe that they can emulate your work, your skills, your talent, and abilities. They believe they have the knowledge and the skills and fortitude to replicate your path through life. But your journey took hard work, sacrifice and savvy, and those wishing to be you are not willing to walk the same path to success. Shortcuts and cheap knockoffs are hardly a means to greatness.

Not everyone who follows you is friendly, most Twitter profiles and Facebook privacy settings are completely open for all to see -- and some become fixated. Some people watching from afar may be insecure, others jealous, and others still may be truly hostile and narcissistic. 

Public people deal with this on a daily basis. YouTubers with millions of subs get constant hate mail. Movie stars and musicians have to hire bodyguards. The more their successes grow, the more they attract detractors.

Jealousy is a powerful emotion. When your fans want praise for aspiring to become a 'mini-me' and you don't know they exist, it can lead to anger, frustration, and eventually hostility. The rapper, Eminem, wrote a hugely popular song, which was certified gold and platinum many times over. It is about a young man called Stan, an obsessive fan who could not let go. Not receiving the attention he wanted from the singer, this led ultimately to his own destruction, and the destruction of the one he loved.

There is a lesson and warning to everyone who reads this post, as by simply reading this you prove that you have a public profile and online persona. Be careful who you accept as a friend, and don't publish your successes for all to see. You never know who is watching, or where rankism will break out. 

Insecurity and jealousy can easily lead to hatred and aggression. You can alienate someone you have never met, that you don't even know exists. So set all your posts to private. Allow only your closest of allies to celebrate your life with you. It only takes one ‘crazy’ to become infatuated, get triggered, and then decide to make you acknowledge them when they don't deserve it. It happens all the time.

In the age of instant messaging and influencers, Charles Colton would never have said what I started this piece by quoting. Instead, he might have said something like this: ‘Be careful of your imitators, they just might be a Stan -- the attention-seeking fan, above.’ 

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* OECD. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: At a Crossroads: 'Personhood' and Digital Identity in the Information Society (a DOC download).

Trading Lives Without Anger

Heinrich Hoerle, 1930, Monument to the Unknown Prosthesis

 Posted by Allister Marran

The COVID-19 crisis has brought into sharp focus modern man’s ideological belief that he has mastered science and medicine, and has so defeated—or at least delayed—the intrusions of the Grim Reaper.  Our misplaced belief that medical science can cure any ailment means we want to try to save everyone—and when we cannot, there is dismay and fury.

Centuries of loud, proud pronouncements from researchers, scientists, and the medical community, of sound progress being made in the battle against age-old enemies like cancer, malaria, tuberculosis, and innumerous mortal ailments has lulled us into a false sense of security—a perception of invulnerability and ultimately immortality.

What happens, then, when death becomes an inevitable choice?  What if the choices set before us are choices which must choose death in any event?

Whilst the achievements of medical science cannot be overstated, and are undoubtedly impressive, our somewhat conceited overestimation of our ability to stave off death indefinitely has led us to a crossroads today which opens up the social, spiritual, and philosophical question of where to draw the line, who to try to save, and at what cost—if death is indeed inevitable.

At logical extremes, there are two distinct, divergent—apparently incompatible—viewpoints that could be held and debated. In the context of the coronavirus, or COVID-19:

• Firstly, that we should lockdown indefinitely, or until a treatment or vaccine is found, saving every life we can at any cost.

• Alternatively, when the cost becomes too high, to start trading the lives of the old and the sick for that of the starving young and poor.

There have of course been many pandemics, and COVID-19 is just be the latest contagion in a long line of similar illnesses that have ripped through the human population over the last hundred or so years—starting with the Spanish Flu in 1918, and continuously assaulting us before retreating and coming back again in different forms and kinds.

There is a difference this time, however.  The connected world and social media has allowed the world to track the progress of the disease and monitor its devastation, and the real-time outrage has been swift, palpable, and highly publicised.

A minister who has presided over countless funerals told me recently that there has been a perceptible change in the emotions expressed when family and friends come together to bury loved ones.  The old markers of grief and the grieving process are replaced with anger and fury today. 

But our fury has no object; it is just the way things work.  There must be a middle road—to save who you can, but allow those whose time has come to leave.  A realisation and philosophical embracing that our time on earth is finite, which in turn adds value to the little time we do have.  To say goodbye without anger or pain or fury, because after all, shouldn’t your last memory of a departed one be tinged with memories and feelings of love, not hate?