Capitalist success requires a correlated immoral progression. The richer one becomes, the more they have to defend inequality. Charity and philanthropy are not replacements for created wealth. When a person earns over ten times the national average and chooses to then support the poorer population, they are essentially promoting inequality. If the wealthy person was truly fighting for equality, they would first equate their own wealth. If a portion of their vast wealth is purposed to helping the poor, then the original act of making this money must have helped create the poorer population, as these people were not an equal part of the equation when it came to distributing profits. Why then would we accept the competitive capitalist pursuit of wealth, only to counter this with a lesser force of compassion in giving back some of the excess?
Instead, the wealthy individual can purpose their methodology for success to a social cooperative or collective that ensures more people receive equal benefit shares. Instead of a CEO earning more than half of the labor force of a factory combined, only to turn around and gift a certain amount of their income to the poorest members working at the factory, it would make more sense to reduce the CEO’s earnings and increase the income of the lowest earning groups. Only then would a sustainable economy prevail.
A sustainable economy is not one in which the overall numbers point to a successful growth in GDP. Instead, it is one that minimizes suffering. When the labor force suffers and poverty spreads through the majority, the economy will deteriorate. A nation cannot be harmonious when its appeal to reduce suffering rests on the gratuitous kindness of its richest members. Social harmony should be a national priority, not a philanthropic hobby.
Social harmony requires a sustainable societal structure. Sustainability is not an economic reference relative to the management of the nation’s financial sector. The financial sector’s success relies on industrial and social trends. If a nation is detrimentally affected by climate change, it will be incapable of achieving sustainability. A drought, tsunami, or epidemic caused by climate change can severely destabilize a nation’s economy and lead to further societal disequilibrium. If a government cannot raise the budget to manage its resources and assets sustainably, meaning it cannot provide services such as universal healthcare, the nation will begin to deteriorate societally. This will lead to production inefficiency. In a capitalist world, efficiency along with minimized cost are key components of the goal of maximized profit. Neither social harmony or capitalist efficiency can be achieved with a disease-stricken population. Even as and if the economy grows, this will be oppressively unfair. This was witnessed in the latest pandemic, when the wealthiest one percent of the global population collectively increased their wealth by a third. Two-thirds of the approximately 45 trillion dollars that were generated during the pandemic era went directly to the richest global one percent. Some of the richest men in the world doubled their wealth during the pandemic. Meanwhile, according to statistics from the World Bank, average incomes for the poorest 40 percent of the global population dropped almost 7 percent, and those in the next bracket higher saw a decrease of about 3 percent. As wealth increased, the detrimental impact decreased. In the category of the richest one percent, there were no losses but multiplied profits! When the richest doubled their wealth, some turned around and donated portions of an ever-reproducing wealth.
As the poorest find it harder and harder to live joyfully, societal disharmony gains traction. There are sufficient cases of societal deterioration due to climate change. The lesson we can take from them is that environmental sustainability is a prerequisite to social harmony. Climate migration, economic instability, social conflict, poverty, crime, famine, disease, and death are, in various ways, all linked to inefficient industrialization caused by a capitalist mindset.
Being that capitalism is a religiously unwavering way of life for the controlling one percent of the world, support mechanisms have been put in place to promote this lifestyle and ensure submissive following. The media promotes climate change as a credible threat to sustainability, in this case posing an existential threat. An unsustainable condition is one that offers an endpoint. If we can calculate the trajectory of social progress to an endpoint through unsustainable inefficiency, we will have clear knowledge of an approximate decade during which we will face existential demise. Almost every article concerning climate change is aimed at forming an anxious accountability toward a doomsday event. Due to the data-derived influence of the richest one percent of the global population on accelerating climate change, we attack the richest one percent or find flaw with ultra-wealthy industry players while recycling and regurgitating old information to paint a picture of the frantic doomsday.
The grand majority in the free world asked for capitalism, but now, arrogantly, none confess to its failures. It also helps that we understand the driving forces behind the continued and unashamed championing of capitalism. Many leaders in this newly formed response industry to climate change are financed by the same one percent richest, if they are not already members. They are wearing ethically sourced gala gowns instead of Chanel, and arriving in Teslas instead of Rolls Royces! To follow this theater is to read another ancient Greek tragedy.
The hypocrisy around climate change initiatives is based in the pursuit purpose model. We want to profit as we perform. We want to achieve notoriety. We want to share our successful model with the world as thought leaders and pioneers in a competitive space. We trademark, copyright, and patent possible solutions to challenge and compare the verity of other models. We aim to win. We forget that we cannot win at climate change individually. Yet we head into our offices believing in the work that we do as we develop sales models and return-on-investment ledgers to sell our remedy. We propose to heal social disharmony with more inequality as we hope to transition into a new capitalist elite: that which holds the ridiculously wealthy heroes who shall save us from extinction.
To achieve sustainable efficiency we must consider a simple approach of comparing resource usage rate, replenishment rate, and consumption rate. Whenever resources are used at a depleting rate, where usage is higher than replenishment, we eventually will run out of resources, thus leading to an unsustainable future. If we consume at a rate faster than replenishment or eternal abundance, we will also reach unsustainability. Fortunately, we have some facts we can use as guiding elements. This planet has limited resources. We have a natural universal force dictating very precise boundaries of how far we can abuse the planetary natural resources without repercussion. These facts collectively imply that the likelihood of finding a miracle cure to our existential crisis is negligible. We have no science to dramatically replenish resources at a higher rate than usage or to reduce usage of natural resources below the natural replenishment rate. For example, we may have developed solar power to run our homes or exchanged for electric vehicles. However, the electric vehicle, apart from an electric motor, is made of nearly identical components to the vehicle powered by fossil fuels. The advantage of electric over fossil fuel usage alone is insufficient to reduce the stress we impose on the planet to a point of sustainable efficiency. By driving electric cars, we are still advancing climate change.
Another issue is the implementation of scientific progress to the extent of making a difference without having to make any lifestyle changes. We may think that carbon offsetting is an actual scientific approach that truly balances out the effects of our carbon footprint. But planting a tree or even a forest does not negate the carbon emission from a commercial flight. Trees require time to mature, while planes pollute during flight. We can therefore determine that no matter how we move aspects within our equation, we can never satisfy a world value by which we can maintain unaltered lifestyles. The only parameter that will allow us to reach a sustainable equilibrium is our consumption rate. In this world model, we will achieve sustainable equilibrium only by reducing consumption.
The hypocrisy of the sustainability industry begins here. In this capitalist world model, we cannot reduce consumption if we expect our economy to grow. The more we produce, the more we sell, and the more we sell, the more we profit. But we need consumers to buy more if we are going to function this way! Telling consumers to buy only necessary goods and to look for goods that provide a lifetime warranty is the worst financial advice for a capitalist economy purposed to profit maximization. To function in a capitalist-purposed economy, the sustainability industry must also function by the same rules outlined for the rest. Without economic growth and profit, sustainability as a consideration cannot continue. The sustainability industry relies on how unsustainably profitable it can be for investors. These investors are largely indifferent to the qualitative benefits surrounding ventures insofar as profit remains the priority. As such, if a fossil fuel venture offers above average returns and a sustainable alternative can, at best, only provide a financial loss minimization model, most investors would naturally (naturally is read ‘opportunistically’) select the fossil fuel project.
The concept of conscious consumption and mindful decision-making are not truly endorsed by the sustainability industry. The majority in this industry are not promoting minimalism. The competitors in this newly developed industry are still bound to the same capitalist rules as all others. The hypocrisy remains in the juggling act of pretending to care about a sustainable and harmonious future to appease consumers, while finding novel ways to maximize profit by increasing sales. We as consumers are none better when we entertain such hypocrisy.
