Globalization & The Death of Democracy

An Extended Reflection - Part 2 of 2

What About Mother Earth?

by Rod Amis

What about Mother Earth?

In this century the population of the planet has tripled. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson talked about 2.5 billion people on the planet when I was sixteen years old. Today there are approximately 6 billion people here.

The population of Earth has more than doubled in my lifetime!

The rainforests, which supply our oxygen and protect our ozone are diminishing at such a dramatic rate that I don't know of any institution that can keep up with depletion any longer.

And that is the "higher immorality" which dominates today.

"The 'higher immorality' for [C. Wright] Mills was a 'structural immorality' built into the institutions of power in our society --- in particular the treadmill of production. 'In a civilization so business-penetrated as America,' he wrote, money becomes 'the one unambiguous marker of success... the sovereign American value.' Such a society, dominated by the corporate rich with the support of the political power elite, is a society of 'organized irresponsibility' where moral virtue is divorced from success, and knowledge from power. Public communication, rather than constituting the basis for the exchange of ideas necessary for the conduct of democracy, is largely given over to 'an astounding volume of propaganda for commodities... addressed more often to the belly or the groin than to the head or the heart.' The corrupting influence that all of this has on the general public is visible in the loss of a capacity for moral indignation, the growth of cynicism, a drop in political participation, and the emergence of a passive, commercially centered existence..." --- John Bellamy Foster

Admittedly disconnected from the concerns of "meat space" as I am, I look at the Monicagate/White House scandal, and the fratricide in the American political system with a jaundiced eye.

Do I have to care? No.

Nothing that happens in American politics will have a direct affect on my life or my livelihood.

Does General Motors have to care? NO.

Nothing that happens in American politics will have a direct affect on GM's life or its livelihood

A number of Leftists, including Yours Unruly, have focused on the issues of consumption and consumerism. That is very easy to understand, since you, Adult American, watch 21,000 televisions commercials a year asking you to buy, supported by about 100 corporations. But the real ecological issue is NOT consumption, it's production.

Production requires the usage of the planet's raw materials: minerals, alloys, water, air, soil. These are irreplaceable.

Repeat: These are irreplaceable.

Or, let's put it another way: Who is planting the new rain forests?

Most major corporations are growing at 20% per annum. (Microsoft is growing at 40% per annum at this writing.) How long can this planet sustain that type of growth paradigm?

ANSWER: NOT LONG.

So...

Are we rapidly moving toward the ecological Point Of No Return? You tell me.

What would a responsible society do?

You are probably going to be sorry you asked that question.

ANSWER: Frankly, a responsible society is based on accountability --- and accountability is localized.

Instead of "down-sizing" workers, a responsible society down-sizes the reach and influence of its corporate citizens. It makes them more locally accountable. It prioritizes the needs of the community stakeholders over the absentee shareholders.

A responsible society accepts that the resources of a planet are limited, and so limits the exploitation of those resources. In other words, it ends the disconnect between production, consumption, and where the consumed materials originate.

A responsible society also accepts that the "Information Age" disconnect which This Writer thrives on cannot be part of the global economic system.

There it is. I said it.

Much as I enjoy my ability to telecommute, to have writers at this magazine from every continent in the world (except Antartica,) I also know that it diminishes the value of those writers' intellectual property. Like GM or Coke, I can compel them to compete with people desperate for exposure from around the globe.

That means that I can ask them to work for exposure instead of money. They can hope that, like me, they will become paid columnists on the Internet by means of association. They can hope that they will be a "brand name" one day.

And that is "the higher immorality."

The immoral treadmill of the capitalist impulse reduces everyone to competitors, and every concern to production, without giving back some sort of compensatory social and civil enrichment. That is the higher immorality.

And that is the threat to our ideal of democracy. There is nothing, there is nothing to promote the democratic ideal in the corporate ideology which obtains today. The Information Age promises nothing except more classism and separation from geographic communities.

I should know. I'm one of its vanguard foot-soldiers. And I have no concern about your local community.

Rod Amis has published G21: The World's Magazine on the web since March, 1996. He is a freelance writer and editor who resides in New York City. Mr. Amis' work has also been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and Suite 101. He is the daily editorial writer for IT Manager's Journal, and writes a weekly column on working the web for Andover News Network.

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