Capitalism is proudly touted by its adherents as the most ideal economic system the world has ever seen. But can that actually be true when it is the very system that is ushering us into the possibility of our own extinction?

The beginnings of capitalism emerged around 500 years ago within the highly patriarchal, alpha-male-dominated and stratified culture of Europe. It naturally reflected the assumptions of that culture, including the inevitability of a hierarchy from highest to lowest, from richest to poorest, with violence by the more powerful towards the less powerful as an accepted means of preserving the status quo.

In these ways it was also an expression of the animal soul, which is by its nature completely focused on its own survival to the exclusion of all other considerations. This is a definition of psychopathy.

A psychopath is someone who has no access to empathy, compassion or heart, and no care for the hurt or damage their actions may cause others. Everything and everyone is simply a pawn to be moved around on the chessboard of their own survival. They have no conscience and no moral compass, and freely lie, manipulate, gaslight, threaten and bully when it is to their advantage. They look to take advantage of the circumstances of the moment, rather than focusing on long-term planning. They often have an appearance of normality, but all apparent emotions and care for others are an act, a carefully constructed veneer that deliberately blinds others to their true motivations.

This veneer is often very successful in hiding psychopaths in plain sight, mostly because the majority of humans, who do have access to conscience and heart, cannot imagine that another human could actually be completely lacking in these qualities.

Similarly, it is hard for us to truly see that all corporations, by law and nature, are psychopathic entities, and that our capitalist system assumes and demands that all persons and businesses focus solely on individual survival. It rewards those who are the most ruthless in this quest, the most willing to compete for and win the greatest share of material goods. Success is measured by a wealth of money, not a wealth of compassion.

The goal of all corporations is the bottom line. Period. The riches of the Earth and the labor of its employees are purely resources to be mined for the greatest financial advantage. Damage to the Earth and to humans is mostly treated as an externality. Corporations freely and heartlessly use our legal system to bully, intimidate and punish people and entities who threaten their bottom line

Corporations hide their ruthlessness behind a veneer of respectability through advertising and (especially in these times) greenwashing. When it is to their advantage, they obfuscate the truth, as we have seen in both the tobacco and fossil fuel industries.

However, it is not the corporations themselves, not even the fossil fuel companies, that are to blame for the catastrophic state the planet is in today. It is rather the capitalist system that has created the rules of the economic game for corporations and persons alike. We are all embedded in this game, and in order to survive, we have almost no choice except to play by its rules. And those rules are that we are each individual economic units, we are solely responsible for our own survival, we need to compete with each other for scarce resources, and do not deserve help if we are the losers of the game.

In fact, the vast majority of humanity are the losers, because capitalism creates incomprehensible inequality. In 2015, 50% of the planet’s wealth was owned by the richest 1%. If we were to divide all the wealth on the planet into two equal piles, then one person would be feeding on one pile, and 99 feeding on the other.

Capitalism only cares about those 99 people if they can be useful workers and employees, that is, if their work creates more wealth than they are paid, so that the employer can skim off profits from their efforts. As soon as this is not the case, employees are automatically dismissed. And if any of those 99 people are actually impeding the creation of wealth, such as indigenous tribes defending their own lands, capitalism may not exactly kill them off, but may well act in ways that imperil their survival. It is by nature indifferent to the life of anyone who is surplus to profit-making.

Capitalism depends on an infinite resource base, ever-increasing growth, and easy credit. Borrowing against assumed future growth is a key feature, strategy and necessity of the system. Without access to credit, capitalism would collapse. Similarly, as we come up against the finiteness of Earth’s resources, the foundations of capitalism will start to shake.

The discovery and use of fossil fuels has put capitalism on steroids. These energy sources have vastly increased the natural resources available to the system, have made it seem as though the Earth’s resources are for all intents and purposes infinite, and have created ever-increasing economic growth. At this point fossil fuels are deeply and irretrievably embedded in our capitalist system.

It is true that alternative energy makes up a larger and larger share of our energy supply, but the burning of fossil fuels continues to pour CO₂ into the air in ever-increasing amounts. In its mandate for ever-increasing growth, capitalism is using our alternative energy production, not as a replacement, but as a welcome addition to existing energy sources. It is busy making more and more stuff for more and more people to earn more and more money for the owners of production, because that is what capitalism does. It is now addicted to fossil fuels, and the fossil fuel companies are the dealers.

Capitalism cannot save us from the climate catastrophe that it has created. The only thing that would have any possibility of averting disastrous heating and mass extinction would be if we stopped burning fossil fuels today. That is clearly not going to happen. In fact, capitalism sees the climate disasters we are currently experiencing as opportunities for profit-making. Profit will always trump the good of the Earth. And this will continue to happen until climate forcing, or some other event, creates a world-wide collapse of the financial system.

At this point you may be thinking that I have painted capitalism as much more brutal than it actually is. In fact, what I have attempted to do is simply lay unmistakably bare the essence of capitalism. We need a clear-eyed view of its foundational principles. We need to understand exactly what these principles are, as capitalism will always attempt to stay as close as possible to them.

The actual practice of capitalism is modified somewhat by laws that prevent its worst excesses. Such laws mandate things like limited degrees of environmental protection, taxes on income, and some form of safety net for those who are useless to the capitalist machine. But it is important to see that such laws only dampen the worst effects of capitalism but do not affect its fundamental modus operandi.

Clearly, in order to have even the slimmest chance of surviving planetary climate chaos, we need to transition immediately into an economic system that is not only very different from capitalism, but does not depend on fossil fuels for its lifeblood.

Could we create vast changes to capitalism, or create another system entirely, through changes to the law? This is extremely unlikely because those who benefit most from capitalism, the richest 1%, have disproportionate influence over our politicians, and would simply not allow legislation to significantly alter that which keeps them very rich indeed.

Likewise, the collapse of capitalism due to world-wide collapse of the financial system, which is likely inevitable at some point, is unlikely to occur in time to head off catastrophic heating.

It seems that an intervention of another kind entirely is needed. But what?

It seems to me that the cure lies in the wholesale transition of humanity to a level of consciousness higher than the animal soul, a level where others and the Earth are honored and respected, cherished and supported, a level where all are equally valued, and service and sharing are guiding principles. Just as capitalism arose within the animal level of consciousness, so a new system for meeting survival needs without harm to the Earth would arise naturally as an expression of the higher level of consciousness.

This too may sound impossible. It is only the prophecies for upcoming times that give us hope that such a leap in consciousness might happen. And it seems to me, that as impossible as this may seem, it is our only hope.

Source

Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene. Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System