Discuss: Jurassic Park of the Free Market

Corporations are made of people. Their responsibility is to the employee and shareholder, and they are motivated by the so-called American dream of…(ZOMG) being allowed to make a profit!

Americans are always going to want to buy oil, as long as it’s necessary for their mode of transportation. We are not slaves to our cars, we are slaves to convenience and comfort. Yes, you’re right, I’m a slave to getting somewhere fast and not having to hunt for my food. I carry this burden knowing that some day we can all return to spending our days fishing with a stick and our nights bored or scared.

It’s an interesting take on things, but take a hop off the ivory tower. The comfort we enjoy has always come at the expense of others, this is nothing new. See Hawaii, Cuba, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. If not us…Russia, China, EU? Can you remember a time in history when everyone was equal, no one was exploited? These countries are on the rise, and living conditions around the world are better than they have ever been.

Please respond I may be completely wrong, but that’s my view.

The almost 100 years of toxic sludge washing out into S.F. Bay, on a daily basis, from mud-only lined pits between Chevron’s chemical and oil refineries in Richmond, have gone a long way towards killing the Bay.  And little kids continue to fish there, next to the third treatment pond, where the tidal weir opens up and lets nature suck out all the poisons into our food supply.  Go figure?  Corporate personhood?  Corporate responsibility?  That’s a sick joke.  And it’s happening all over the planet.  Good luck and godspeed to everyone if you don’t know for certain where your food comes from.  Even that’s a crap shoot, however.  Clean drinking water, breathable air, non-toxic food? Those aren’t even basic human rights any more. Maybe in a hundred years, if this century finally becomes one of restoration to undo the previous century of corporate destruction. Maybe.  Has anyone checked out Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” lately to see how far off course we have steered?

Benton (#9) says “return to spending our days fishing with a stick and our nights bored or scared.” A common sort of response to those calling for changing the corporate capitalist economy based on the religion of consumption and greed, in my opinion. However, those relying on that sort of response seem to think that participating in community-based, frugal and efficient and nature-cognizant lifestyles automatically requires that we become stupid or voluntarily forget everything that we have learned in the past two millenia. Comfort doesn’t HAVE to come at the expense of others, and doesn’t have to include inappropriate luxury or wasteful and selfish use of resources. Of course, that’s the rub: we’d have to act like responsible people who actually CARE about others! And just because that situation has never existed before does not mean that it never can. That’s where evolution comes into consideration, and we are supposed to be becoming MORE civilized and MORE just and possibly even more enlightened! Elsewise, what is the point? We might as well still be crouching in a cave somewhere, ready to club our dinner or another cavedweller who might club our dinner before we can. “Living conditions around the world are better than they have ever been.” Well, in some ways, but not so much, if you take into account that we’ve accomplished this by destroying the natural systems that created conditions in which we could live and find everything that we need to support our lives, as well as by destroying the chance for many people to even get by with a subsistence lifestyle. The current high standard of living is all based on credit. It hasn’t been paid for yet, and the bill is coming due. So far, the people of the lesser developed nations have been paying the interest and the minimal payment due amounts, but with such a large global population, that will be undergoing a drastic change, actually underway now. We’re supposed to LEARN from history, not repeat it. If we don’t, that stick-fishing thing might start to sound pretty good.

Hi Nori,
To me it seems unrealistic to expect such a moral evolution, through which everyone is suddenly motivated completely by the common good instead of self interest…at least in the next few centuries. It sounds like Che Geuvera’s “Nuevo Hombre”...an evolved being who is re-programmed to (for example) voluntarily spend a few extra hours at work at the end of the day for the good of the state. It just doesn’t happen, people are too motivated by self interest, and that’s not a bad thing if we combine it with a reasonable interest in the less fortunate.

I don’t know enough about environmental science to comment on your second point, but you may be interested in this lecture and I’d like to hear your comments:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

This is not Rebecca’s finest writing. It’s more of a rant than a report, and a little too hysterical for me. It’s also polarizing. It may rile up the already convinced, but it will not win any converts. Shouldn’t that be what good expository writing is all about?