TIME IS THE TRUE OPPONENT OF CAPITALISM

I want to talk a little bit about economics. I am not an economist, but I did spend several nights at a Holiday Inn Express, if that counts as a substitute. More precisely, I would like to talk about the economic system of capitalism and many of the misconceptions I hear being bantered around by people who like to think that they know enough about economics to talk intelligently about it.

One of the common misconceptions is that a critique of capitalism is, by implication, an advocacy for socialism, communism or Marxism, take your pick or chose all of the above. The nearly ubiquitous response to defenders of the capitalistic system is to point out the empirical evidence of failure of socialism, Marxism and or communism. However, the failure of the practice or implementation of these other systems is not proof of theoretical failure of the model, but possible failure of management. Businesses fail under capitalism all the time due to poor management…but few interpret the failures to be failure of the theoretical model of capitalism. That having been said, I am not advocating these other systems over capitalism

The ubiquitous juxtaposition of Capitalism in rivalry with other forms of economic systems is an intentional or unintentional obfuscation. People talk about Capitalism as if the primary opponent of the system is other systems in existence. It’s talked about like a sporting event. The Capitalist vs the Socialist or Communist and whoever is left standing at a particular point in time is deemed the victor. Thus, the fact that so many Communist or Socialist nations have failed leaves the impression that Capitalism is the clear victor as it is the last man standing strong. There in lies the biggest fallacy of them all, for the failures of others do not imply your success, unless the others are your true opponent or impediment to success, which is not the case in economics.

At the risk of sounding philosophical, the primary opponent of entities in existence is not other entities in existence contemporaneously, but time. Time is the ultimate opponent of all systems, including economic systems, due to entropy and the law of thermodynamics. Therefore, noting the failures of controlled economies deemed socialist or communist, while capitalism is still standing strong, does not therefore mean that capitalism will not also eventually implode from its merits. Thus, the ultimate measure of superiority, giving that time is the primary opponent in life, is not where something ranks at a point in time, but its ability to sustain itself over time. Capitalism, by its nature is expansive and hyper consumptive, which is unsustainable given that it is dependent upon finite resources.

Think of it like this. Take the lives of two different individuals. One has lived to be of old age, acquired considerable wealth and led an economically productive life, but did not reproduce any children. The other lived a short life hard life, was not economically that productive, but fathered seven children. Who was more successful? By the standards of nature, the latter individual was by far more successful because his actions will propagate his DNA to the future generations, thus ensuring the survival of his bloodline. The former individual, despite all his economic success and wealth is a failure by nature standards because his actions cannot transcend his existence over time, through DNA. That is why the primary objective of all forms of life is reproduction because reproduction allows species to sustain its existence over time and defy entropy.

Now, back to the economic system of capitalism, no matter how much wealth and gluttony it produces, if it cannot stand the test of time it’s doomed to be a failed system, just as the others. The long known secret and key to life is moderation. Capitalism, however, fuels itself from greed, gluttony and unrestraint. It is the opportunity to get egregiously rich which fuels the behavioral motivation component of the system, as economics is more of a behavioral science than it is an exact science. Consequently, the only way to achieve moderation in capitalism is through government regulation or interference in the free market. The free market will not regulate resources via price constraints until they become scarce and near exhaustion and by that time it’s too late when you are talking resources like Finite fossil fuels. Future generations will not have them to exploit to create the type of consumption and production that created the success and wealth in of the system.

The concept of moderation is the key to sustainability over time. If one wants to be able to run a long time, one will have to practice self restraint and pace onesself so that so as to not burnout too quickly, notwithstanding the fact that one can go much faster. In order to achieve this pace of moderation, regulation of your muscles by conscious thought (the government of your body) must take place. Capitalism cannot do this because regulation and conservation impedes the free market and the more you regulate and conserve by government mandate the less you are practicing free market capitalism.

In conclusion, capitalism needs to be analyzed, and criticized when warranted, with respect to the test of time and not measured against the failures of other systems. Capitalism cannot sustain itself. If it is true that the standard of living of the Global West is based upon the practice of capitalism, then the ubiquitous spread of the model throughout the world should replicate the massive production and consumption levels across the planet. I doubt very seriously that the finite energy resources that fuel modernity can sustain this hyper consumption levels across the globe. Before long, resource wars would result in the destruction of nations as economy's and lively hoods would be dependent upon diminishing reserves of energy resources, increasing tension and conflicts. Capitalism’s dependency on cheap oil to fuel it will not be seamlessly reinvented out of either, without a radical global depression brought about via resource depletion and wars.

Capitalism ulitimate savior will be moderation by government mandates....which will mean that its savior will be its behaving more socialist or communist like in regulating and controling markets. In other words, the salvation of people living under capitalism, when the system implodes, will be manifesting less capitalism.