bads

"we still call it economic growth, or simply 'growth' in the confused belief that growth must always be economic. i contend that we have reached the economic limit to growth but we don't know it, and desperately hide the fact by faulty national accounting, because growth is our idol and to stop worshiping it is an anathema...i must confess surprise that denial has endured for forty years." herman e. daly. professor emeritus in the school of public policy, university of maryland.___________________________________________________________________ so why the denial about limits? and why the politically expedient cooked books? and why is growth an idol? it's not my idol...i believe in limits...social....cultural...economic...it's the hegemonic culture that is "hiding the fact by faulty national accounting"...i'm doing my best to decode the data and place it in context of an economy firmly embedded in the bioshpere and all the natural limits that entails, human ingenuity non withstanding...the hegemonic culture needs "growth" because it has developed a methodology of privatizing the benefits of that growth while socializing the costs...that is the basis of their position of wealth and privilege and the platform from which they inform us of their worldview and from which they propagandize us into thinking that it is our worldview and that it will benefit us all...that poverty can disappear through growth without sharing...they are, of course, lying through their teeth and laughing all the way to the bank while the "losers" keep on chasing the carrot...i am weary of the apologists for capitalism and "market mechanisms", techno-optimists and the rabid, greedy scum that people the stock exchange and investment banks...we all need material things to survive...goods if you will...but the system that produces those "goods" doesn't account for the "bads" it produces along with them...those are "externalities" and not subject to the scrutiny of public accountancy...enough...basta ya! it's time to ferret out the truth of our situation...build supportive communities...produce as much as we can on our own and utilize the consumerist utopia for what we need, not what someone else wants us to believe we need...in short a culture not an economy...that is a manifestly non-violent way to reduce the ruling oligarchy ( plutocracy? hamiltonian scam artists? pharaohs? brahmins? whatever you care to call them ) to irrelevance...to remove ourselves as far as possible from their worldview...take what you need from it and leave what aggrandizes them at our expense...it all starts in your neighborhood...not in theirs.