ISSUE #108: Capitalism is a war on two P's: Peace and Planet.
We are at a point in the history of humanity where we know more about war and less about peace, more about planet destruction and less about planet protection, more about the ways to end humanity and less about the ways to flourish humanity, and more about how to be a billionaire and less about how to fill a billion empty stomachs.
And the credit goes to capitalism.
The love story of capitalism and war is such that it makes the love story of Romeo and Juliet look like a joke. But the former love story is unlike all the other prominent love stories because no other love story ever became a source for the people at a global scale, let alone the planet.
“Capitalism works best. It is the best we can ever do.”
Yes, capitalism works best because no other system is this much better at creating and maintaining wealth inequality, because no other system is this much better at keep billions poor and deprived of the basic necessities to live a life, because no other system is this much better at raping the planet. Yes, it is the best we can do, if our goal is to exploit the labor of the working class, if our goal is to be ruled by the capitalist class, if our goal is to have the illusion of freedom.
The world can never experience peace and the planet can never begin to heal as long as unrest, conflict, chaos, war, and ecocide is profitable. They will remain profitable as long as the system that rewards those things remain in place. Under capitalism, the human behavior is driven by profit and profit alone, and the only way to survive in a capitalist society is either you find a way to turn profit or work for the guy who knows how to turn a profit. And we are not talking about turning profit in a moralistic or fair way, but profit AT ALL COSTS, be it human, environmental, or social.
It’s profitable to cut down a tree than to keep it planted.
Advocating for peace and capitalism can’t go hand-in-hand.
Advocating for planet and capitalism can’t go hand-in-hand.
You either want capitalism or you want healthy humanity and planet. If global peace is something you keep in your prayers, then capitalism is not the answer, and if the dying planet is something you worry about, then capitalism, again, is not the answer. Still, pro-capitalism narrative rules the world because those who control the routes through which a narrative is propagated are the billionaires who benefit tremendously from capitalism.
The war on peace is presented as the war on terror or communism and the war on planet is presented as the GDP growth and billions of dollars of profit for mega corporations. We are trained to celebrate the continuous GDP growth, while we ignore the fact that infinite growth on a finite planet is not only impossible but destructive.
Under capitalism, there are more chances of “War on Terror 2.0” than there are of “War on environmental breakdown 1.0” because the former brings the profits upon which the whole premise of capitalism is based and the latter brings anything but profit. So, if you want to protect humanity, you have to first protect the ecosystem it depends upon for survival, which can never be protected as long as it’s unprofitable under a system that prioritizes profit. This, in an of itself, is the strongest argument against capitalism.
“What can we do now?”
This is the question people often get asked when they highlight the exploitive nature of capitalism. Everybody’s preferred model is based on what they think is best for the world and there is nothing wrong about subscribing to a particular political or revolutionary thought and telling people about it, but I think that everyone’s “perfect” model is based on what their experiences and the mental models they designed as a result. Our imaginations are not 100% perfect at imagining a world which is 100% perfect, it would still have some conscious or unconscious biases.
It would still have a tiny bit of authoritarianism. “I think this is best for the world and planet.”
The best we can do is raise awareness about the exploitative nature of capitalism, because every great change in the human civilization has been brought about by the public getting aware of the exploitative nature of something, be it slavery or anything we abandoned in the past. And after the humanity wakes up from the matrix designed by capitalist propaganda, let it work organically to converge to a system which works for everybody; you, me, the person you love, the person you hate, the animals, the nature, the planet. EVERYBODY.
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