Economics
Economics
Every civilization has myths. As others have pointed out, this is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact in certain regards healthy myths are essential. In general, myths of any civilization help provide a social cohesion and a foundation upon which to build the structure of political economy and culture. For millennia, myths were upheld and propagated by priesthoods, sanctified in temples and cathedrals, or by emperors and kings in palaces and castles. Today, American myths are upheld by PhDs in universities, media barons in corporate towers, and politicians enthroned under faux Imperial Roman domes. Myth making is a perpetual human activity. Healthy myths created in good faith are responsible acts for any civilization. They reach beyond contemporary knowledge and extend the known into the speculative, attempting to create a more encompassing narrative. In many cases myth and reality become entwined to such an extent they are difficult to disassociate. A civilization faces crisis when reality begins to surpass or shatter its myths. Which brings us to our present dilemma, It has become increasingly clear, even to the most casual observer that Western politics has withered.
A new reality encroaches on many of the myths of Western political economy. At a time when the political class has grown ever more self-congratulatory about the invincibility of its myths, they seem increasingly empty. Myths developed over the last several centuries to help define modern Western life, especially in the area of political economy, are failing. Amongst others, the doctrines of the nation state, the efficiency of representative political systems, and the industrial capital economic model of economy all seem to be running headlong into a new reality. Upon these pillars of modern Western myths are built real institutions integral to modern life, and yet the realities of the 21st century violently batter their foundations. The economic forces of corporate globalization are ripping through national economies with an amazing energy, and without a national economy, there is little need for the nation state. Cheap labor, the siren call of our modern captains of industry, has made China manufacturer for the world, resulting in a gradual corrosion of the living standards of a growing number of the industrialized West. In the US, the former possibility of fluidity across economic strata has hit a standstill. Industrial economic benefits such as health care and pensions are denied to an ever-increasing number.
In the United States, the reality and myth of empire reach heights of entangled paradox. The American empire provided the first great myths of a burgeoning global society: mega-corporate economics have become both myth and reality of the economy; American corporations provide much of a maturing global culture; the Pax Americana espouses security, though it is increasingly unstable. Freedom, democracy, and individual rights are perjured to justify the stationing of American troops in over a hundred countries across the planet and as a cover for an imperial resource grab. While across the American nation state, the realities of empire, such as massive military over spending and ever increasing government secrecy, make a mockery of any realistic future.
The myths and reality of American empire are entangled with the myths and realities of industrial economics. The American public is dangerously ignorant of how many of the natural resources are being used. The amount of global resources militarily secured to maintain the industrial American lifestyle is rarely raised in the political discourse. For example, it is the empire that allows the US to “inexpensively” import 60% of its oil using a quarter of the worlds petroleum with only 5% of the worlds population. Many of the current myths of industrial capitalism would take a severe hit in the United States if we were forced to live using just the resources available in the fifty states, thus leading to the biggest myth and reality of industrialism – that the hyper-consumptive American lifestyle is not only sustainable, it’s exportable. The rest of the world can’t live like us.
The United States and the world need to think outside our established economic myths. The economic questions for the 21st century begin with not how to keep valuing the gross production of more stuff, but how do we get the greatest value out of information, with an understanding that the true economic value of information is gained through design. Paying lip service to the idea of information economies, we have deluded ourselves in the US by