For almost the entire course of history, humans have invented new ways to create, accumulate and trade wealth. These activities have been made possible by the confluence of successive waves of craving-inspired invention - consistently focused on the optimization of economic production - coupled with an unquenchable craving on the part of society for 'more' and 'new' of everything. The result is an addiction to an escalating cycle of desire and consumption which seems impossible to halt.
So ingrained is this compulsion that in centuries past, on various pretenses, entire nation states set out to achieve prosperity by invading, colonizing and ultimately plundering resources owned by other people. This became such a successful strategy that it continues to this day, embodied in the attitude of Western nations to oil deposits in the Middle East, for example.
Later, the development of machines, together with advances in methods and standardization, allowed corporations to maximize the quantity and quality of goods. More recently, digital media, new communications technologies, and the rapid evolution of artificial general intelligence, have delivered a vast and vibrant web of individuals, corporations and states, scrambling over each other in the unseemly hankering for greater affluence and influence.
The pursuit of wealth and physical possessions (equated with happiness) has become the most obsessive of all human activities. We spend the majority of our lives creating and consuming it. We dream about becoming more well-off and constantly watch its consequences play out in business and politics. We use it to entertain and educate ourselves and squander it buying stuff we don't really need.
Wealth has become the secular rationale for our existence. But while this mission has created gratification and comfort for some, it has locked us into an unfortunate and unsustainable system that's generating untold misery for many.
The main reasons are not difficult to define. Two principles have been consciously omitted from capitalism as practiced. First, that wealth must be shared more or less equitably to ensure the viability of global markets. Second, that production should not damage the natural world upon which we depend for our survival. A third principle (or, more correctly, impulse) has become part of the dominant mantra: competition and growth are universally endorsed by the capitalist faithful as vital for the functioning of markets. All three are false notions we must rectify if human civilization is to endure in a way that is morally acceptable and physically feasible.
The key ideas underpinning capitalism - that individuals pursuing their own interests in a market society end up making each other richer; and that increasing efficiency, typically through scale or flows, is the key to increasing wealth - have indisputably worked. Indeed they have produced far more than the architects of capitalism like Adam Smith could possibly have imagined. They have manufactured unprecedented prosperity that characterizes the lives of those people most likely to be reading these words. It's no surprise then, and certainly no accident, that capitalist ideals still dominate our politics, our worldview and our behaviours. It's as though they are as nature ordained.
But that is not the case! Inherent in this erroneous belief is a disturbing drawback. It's evident that continued devotion to economic growth and development is, on balance, making our lives worse not better - collectively and individually. Unending growth can no longer be guaranteed to make people happier or wealthier. Instead, it's generating inequality, insecurity, and injustice.
Growth is bumping up against physical boundaries so profound - like global heating and the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves - that trying to continuously expand the economy may be not just impossible but also profoundly stupid. Given our current doctrine of 'industrial economism' that's as bizarre an idea as proposing that gravity pushes objects skyward. But then, even Newtonian physics eventually shifted to acknowledge Einstein's more radically complex quantum world.
A distinctive feature of our era is now dawning. It's ushering in a future that's very different from futures past. No longer can we afford old 'smokestack' systems that produce excessive waste and knowingly damage the natural environment. Especially when these also exclude most of the world’s population from their benefits. We must opt for a new ontological framework and alternative pathways. Paths that offer hope to all. Paths that restore our spiritual connection with the earth. And paths that promote collaborative practices over false gods like competition, self-interest and greed.
We need to accept realities we cannot change and institute a global sufficiency economy for the common good. All of which is simple to put into words but so exceedingly difficult to enact. There are, however, few alternatives this time. The future of humanity depends upon wise decisions, a regenerative philosophy, and aligned actions.