The Insanity of Economics

Humanity have had centuries of scientific and technological progress that it ought to be easy to make give ourselves a reasonable and comfortable life. Instead, humanity is in the grip of capitalism which impels us to tear our world apart, turning our own human productive powers against ourselves, transforming them into forces of self-destruction. Set against one another, we are reduced to a state of powerlessness. Today’s society is devoted a huge part of our energy and ingenuity to lying and cheating, to hurting or killing each other. 

Scientific and industrial activity has been devoted to fabricating the means to kill, torture and maim human beings. In every part of the world, there has been a drive to expand industry and to apply ttechnological discoveries to agriculture. The consequences, however, have never been what was intended. They include the destruction, not only of natural ecological systems, but also of older forms of social and community life. Society is increasingly divided. Those at the bottom are deprived of decent housing, education and health care. In turn, this condemns them to a life of unemployment or of the most degrading work. The market, of course, is what links the whole world together. Money really makes the world go round, determining every aspect of the life of society as a whole as well as the lives of individuals. From politics to football, from music to newspapers, every activity is driven by the thirst for money, which does its own thing, almost as an independent force.

 Human beings, equipped with the means to control the natural world, are bereft of the power to control their own lives. At the same time, they are in the grip of forms of thinking which make the resulting inhuman ways of living appear perfectly ‘natural’. Since they lead increasingly fragmented lives, how can they possibly grasp the true nature of the situation as a whole? The failure of all previous attempts to liberate ourselves is taken as proof that there is no such way to a successful revolution. Ideas which were developed as part of the struggle for the freedom of mankind from exploitation and oppression were debased and used by cynical capitalists and politicians to promote their power and to hide their privileges. More and more, people are dominated by the thought that there is no way out. We can collectively alter our way of life. We can make this possible.