We Are Here To Create, Not Merely Survive

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Life is not just some duality with death, about mere biological drives of reproduction, living, dying, consuming, generating waste... No, human society is about thriving and evolving, it's about seeing how far we can progress, how much flourishing we can create, how many mysteries and frontiers of reality we can discover. Even if "surviving” was our highest aspiration as a society, our current systems aren't even meeting that very basic goal; but rather are negligent and complicit in widespread deprivations.

Economists just say, "there's scarcity", "we have to compete to survive”, "selfishness is actually a virtue which serves the common good", "we have infinite wants", and declare these laws of nature, laws of man, and thereby laws of economics.

These are ideals and views reflective of earlier periods and different technical and sociological circumstances entirely. They reflect the people of that time's own unique response to evolve out of systems of centralized rule in the form of Feudalism, which preceded them. Private ownership and a self governance of individual actors trading openly in the market WAS their form of liberation and radical change, to create a more free and interconnected world, and to expand a more robust and enlightened civilization.

Today's goals are entirely different. Rather than expanding society we must work to reduce our footprint. Centralized power and control have since manifested through the free market; through the avenue of Capitalists privatizing and owning. But again, the Free Market Methodology was the most progressive and revolutionary system at the time. Today, given this system's glaringly destructive and dysfunction flaws, "economists" have no excuse to still champion it.

Defenders of Capitalism always qualify their arguments with massive caveats, assumptions, and oversimplification, to piece together a defensible model. They stretch justification for vast accumulation of capital/profit that allows a minority to control the entire planet. They pretend like their system doesn't have to account for unsustainable or harmful human effects, speciously labelling it "externalities".

We need to reorder civilization from our technological capabilities and scientifiic understandings, from proper priorities of sustainability and human well being, and from the premise of flourishing, not simply surviving.

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