We have been converted from citizens to consumers. That conversion has been helped along by the dumbing down of education in the waning decades of the industrial era. The once lofty goal of building a viable democratic society by assuring that citizens were adequately educated in all things human, including art, science, music, culture, and … More In Defense of Education
So called “modern man” has basked in the illusion that something like “American Ingenuity” can find a solution to any problem by inventing a new technology that will do what needs to be done, whether to replace a no-longer viable technology – such as developing a new fuel that is somehow carbon-neutral – or to … More Techno-Fix: Triumph or Tragedy?
This past Christmas morning, as I watched children opening presents to the point of their exhaustion, I had the urge to write something about the surfeit of “stuff” in our lives – to use George Carlin’s term for the myriad of personal possessions in modern life. I held off. Now looking back as Spring begins, … More So Much Stuff, So Little Time!
The pervasive acceptance of conventional economic theory as a “natural science” that gives us guidance for dealing with our economic lives is one of the biggest obstacles to understanding and making rational choices about the converging crises of our time. Simply put, the fundamental flaw in conventional economics is that the economic system it promotes … More The Great Jobs Myth and the Transformation of the Growth Economy, Part II
The economics profession provides the ideology, the corporations fund the politicians and their lobbyists write the legislation, the congress formalizes the legal cover and the stacked courts confirm it, the Federal Reserve provides the “fractional reserve” lending authority, and the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” direct capital to drive the endless-growth economy that is … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part III
The reality we face in the coming decades involves three integrated crises: 1) the consolidation of the corporate state driven by the debt-based endless corporate-growth economy, which increasingly damages populations by isolating them from economic resources and destroys the environment we all need, in service to short-term profit and political power; 2) accelerating resource depletion … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part II
For most of us the world we see around us is “normal.” We see little difference between the natural, social, and economic worlds – they are mostly one experience. We are born into cities, suburbs, small towns, and (rarely anymore) farms. We see history through the limited scope of textbooks once read as required and … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part I
Why Our Culture Keeps Us from the Pursuit of Happiness Individualism may be the most entrenched and pervasive icon of American civilization. After all, personal liberty was one of the founding principles of the republic formed in rebellion against the oppressive rule of the British monarchy and its economic elite. Rarely mentioned, however, is the … More Individualism and Its Discontents
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 