Analyst of the human illusions about our place in the Earth System. Soon to be published: Holding It Together: Social Control in a New Era of Great Transformation. My eBook, HOPEFUL REALISM: A Climate Manifesto, is available on Amazon; free download via Kindle Unlimited. https://smile.amazon.com/Hopeful-Realism-Robert-MacNeil-Christie-ebook/dp/B0B52F18CX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2LWKLZZGP6BB3&keywords=hopeful+realism:+a+climate+manifesto&qid=1656946028&s=books&sprefix=,stripbooks,428&sr=1-1
Granted, the media frenzy over “The Donald,” as if he were some sort of political “outsider” riding in on a white horse to save the American people from all those “politicians” running for president, is rather astounding. Crass is in with the mass media. It is hard to find any genuine political process in all … More Political Pathology Trumps Political Democracy, or not?
The idea that the financial markets are the essential force that drives economic growth and progress, has dominated political thinking for too long. The financial markets and their agents have dominated politics and the Congress over recent decades more than ever before. After all, it took several decades for the financial elite to accomplish the … More The Upside-Down Economy
The imminent conversion from fossil-fueled energy production in the U.S. to renewable sources of electricity is quite uneven. In New Mexico, it might be described as bizarre. It is not at all clear what the motivating forces driving the biggest electric utility, Public Services Company of New Mexico (PNM) or the governmental regulatory agency, New … More Public or Private: It’s Time to Decide
With the fall of the Soviet Union and various other communist states, the victory of capitalism seemed assured. Ronald Reagan took on a God-like aura, anointed by Margaret Thatcher. The “Iron Lady” affirmed that there was no such thing as “society,” and there was no alternative to unfettered growth of neo-liberal capitalism. All was well … More The Ideology of Predatory Capital: Social Illusions and Planetary Reality
The continuing surge of news stories about highly questionable police killings of unarmed civilians, is shocking enough on its own account. The victims are mostly young black or brown men but also women and even children. It is important to keep in mind that this pattern of police violence did not start with the advent … More Good Cop, Bad Cop: You Can’t Train a Psychopath to be Compassionate, But You Can Destroy a Good Man’s Compassion
That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far-reaching ruin. ~ John Ruskin [1]p.187 Everybody seems to know that the concentration of income and wealth among “the one percent” has accelerated in recent years. Actually, the most extreme concentration is in the top one percent of the top … More Accelerating Concentration of Income and Wealth: Another Positive Feedback Loop
The “homeless” person is part of what is perceived by the power elite as an unneeded collection of persons of no value to the system – a “surplus population.” I first ran across the concept of “surplus population” in a sociology journal article many years ago. The point was simple: a certain number of “positions” … More Homelessness, Plutocrats, Over-population, and the Climate Crisis
Borrowing money is a tricky thing to talk about, even trickier than talking about money itself. We all seem to have a love-hate relationship with the stuff. Well, maybe ‘stuff’ is not the right word. People disagree about what money actually is. Some, who I’ll call “money realists,” believe that the essence of money is … More Borrowing Nothing from Nowhere: Phantom Money and Phantom Debt
The Industrial Era has provided prosperity for many in the nations that industrialized first. In many ways it has also involved the plunder and pollution of both Body and Planet for over 200 years. After beginning to improve material existence for industrialized nations, especially through the 1950s and 1960s, the broadening participation in prosperity began … More The Big Climate Blunder and Its Antidote: Risking Everything for What?
Money is a funny phenomenon, funny-peculiar that is. Money has a lot of odd characteristics, most having something to do with social definitions and the assumptions that shape perception. It exists, for example, only because we have willed it so – it is a social construction. Money has value only because we value it – … More Funny Money: Social Illusions about Value, Reward, Cost, and Risk
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 