Step Two

["Jay Hanson" <j@qmail.com>]

[ Question:  I assume those on this list are computer types.  Can we
send html to this list? ]

I believe it is safe to assume that we systems analysts have concluded
that the global economy makes no sense -- that the economic arguments
supporting the global economy, are in a word, crap.

But before we proceed to step three, instigating change, we have to
deal with step two.  What should the present system be replaced the
with?

Step two is much more difficult than simply discovering than
prevailing economic theories are crap.  Why are we even confronted by
such colossal stupidity?  What brings us to this place in history?

This question has eluded me for several years, and recently I think
have found the answer: politics.  The global economy was conceived as
a "political" concept -- as a way to keep people from killing each
other. What's more, it seems to function quite well in that capacity.
(I discuss this in much greater detail in
http://dieoff.com/page168.htm )

Although most of us in the First World have benefited nicely from the
global economy, it can not survive the exhaustion of fossil fuels
(global oil production is expected to "peak" in about five years).
Thus, it is in our personal interests to invent a new social system
that can at least mitigate the environmental catastrophe and at the
same time, avoid wars -- civil and otherwise.

The design of a new social system to replace the economist's "shop
till you drop" theory of salvation must be the highest priority of
systems thinkers everwhere.

Nature's way -- dieoff -- is no solution.  The easy way out for those
in power would simply to depopulate most of the world with a designer
bioweapon.  Unless dedicated systems thinkers can come up with a
workable solution soon, combinations of these alternatives or others
-- unimaginable horrors all -- will be thrust upon us.

Comments?

Jay