We have been there before. October 30th, 1929…October 20th, 1987…September 30th, 2008. On these days we had as much food on the shelves of our stores as we did the day before. We had as many suitable homes capable of sheltering us from harsh weather. We still had jobs and meaningful work to do. What changed?
The financial markets were desperately short of money. The availability and quality of resources that made our lives worth living had been unaffected. But the severe shortage of cash led over time to the devastating waste of enormous resources, destroyed by neglect. Crops shriveled in the fields; the assembly line stopped producing products; homes were abandoned; jobs were lost; savings were lost; marriages were destroyed; broad access to higher education was eliminated; All because money was in too few hands. Consider for a moment that we destroyed billions of dollars worth of homes in America in the residential real estate collapse of 2007-2009…all due to abandonment caused by a shortage of money.
Money has become a surrogate for resources. If you have money, you can access resources. And if you lose your money, your access to resources are taken away. The thing is…money is not resources. Money is a totally arbitrary way to determine access to resources. Would any of us have the money and therefore the access to resources we have if we were born to the lowest caste in India? Or to a single impoverished mother in rural Appalachia? Yet we compound the randomness of birth with the use of money as a surrogate for resources to determine who is able to reach their full potential.
Given this reality, who amongst the fortunate can honestly claim they earned the privilege they enjoy at the expense of the less fortunate? In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, we are all the rich man. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 12% of the world’s population living in North America and Western Europe accounts for 60% of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2%. Our disproportionate consumption of global resources creates the conditions for mass deprivation of billions of people, few of which have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
The system of global economics that produce these inhumane conditions is not sustainable. We are experiencing resource depletion, destabilization of political institutions, a global refugee crisis involving mass migration to more fortunate countries, radicalized populations fueling global terrorism, and the exploding addictions to drugs and alcohol as more and more people self-medicate to cope with the inadequacy of available choices to improve their lives.
Our choice is clear: change to a full access, sustainable, resource management based, global economy, or degrade into a modern dystopia where fewer resources are available to sustain fewer people.