by James Wallace Harris, 10/20/23
This month, several of my friends have separately expressed doubt about the future. I don’t hold much hope either. Our current world civilization seems to be falling apart. Capitalism is consuming the planet, but capitalism is the only economic system that creates enough jobs to end poverty. The only alternative to free market capitalism I can imagine is if we adapt capitalism to an ethical system. So, I’ve been keeping my eye open for signs of emerging ethical capitalism.
Here’s one: “The Workers Behind AI Rarely See Its Rewards. This Indian Startup Wants to Fix That” from Time Magazine (8/14/23). The article describes how AI startups need vast amounts of sample data from other languages for their large language models. In India, many data companies are exploiting poor people for their unique language data and keeping the profit, but one company, Karya, is giving the poor people they employ a larger share of the profits. This helps lift them out of poverty.
Capitalism has two dangerous side effects. It destroys the environment and creates inequality. For capitalism to become ethical it will need to be environmentally friendly, or at least neutral, and it will need to be more equitable. If we want to have hope for the future, we need to see more signs of that happening.
Right now, profits drive capitalism. Profits are used to expand a corporation’s ability to grow profits, and to make management and investors rich. Labor and environmental controls are seen as expenses that reduce profits. For a corporation to be ethical it will have to have a neutral or positive impact on the environment, and it will need to share more of its profits with labor.
Since the pandemic hourly wages have been going up, and so has inflation. If capitalism becomes more ethical, costs for environmentalism and labor will go up, thus ethical capitalism will be inflationary. Some people have gotten extraordinarily rich by making things cheap, but it’s also shifted labor and environmental costs away from corporations onto the government and the public. The price at the store does not reflect the actual cost of making what you buy. You pay the difference in taxes.
For ethical capitalism to come about things will need to be sold for what they cost to make. That will involve getting rid of governmental and corporate corruption. It will involve political change. And it will be inflationary until the new system stabilizes.
My guess is ethical capitalism will never come about. If I were writing a science fiction novel that envisioned life in the 2060s it would be very bleak. Life in America will be like what we see in failed states today. Back in the 1960s we often heard of the domino theory regarding communism. Failed states are falling like dominoes now. Environmental catastrophes, political unrest, dwindling natural resources, and viral inequality will homogenize our current world civilization. Either we work together to make it something good, or we’ll all just tear everything apart.
Civilization is something we should all shape by conscious design and not a byproduct of capitalistic greed.
We have all the knowledge we need to fix our problems, but we lack the self-control to apply it. I have some friends who think I’m a dope for even holding out a smidgen of hope. Maybe my belief that we could theoretically solve our problems is Pollyannish.
I have two theories that support that sliver of hope. One theory says humans have always been the same psychological for two hundred thousand years. In other words, our habits and passions don’t change. The other theory says we create cultures, languages, technologies, systems that can organize us into diverse kinds of social systems that control our behavior.
We could choose better systems to manage ourselves. However, we always vote by greed and self-interest. We need to vote for preserving all.
In other words, we don’t change on the inside, but we do change how we live on the outside. My sliver of hope is we’ll make laws and invent technology that will create a society based on ethical capitalism and we’ll adapt our personalities to it.
I know that’s a long shot, but it’s the only one I have.
I’m working to develop a new habit of reading one substantial article a day and breaking my bad habit of consuming dozens of useless tidbits of data that catch my eye as clickbait. In other words, one healthy meal of wisdom versus snacking all day on junk ideas. Wisdom doesn’t come packaged like cookies or chips.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
My sad little flicker of hope:
–Society continues along the path it’s on, split into factions I’m calling A and B.
–Faction A tries to help, but still adds to the damage, enmeshed in whichever part of society they occupy.
–B carries on, willfully ignoring &/or denying the damage, so long as they continue to enjoy their lives.
–The various damages continue to worsen, affecting more and more people on a personal level.
–This goes on for generations.
–Once it hits them where it hurts, Faction B starts waking up and one by one they join Faction A.
–Eventually Faction A far outweighs Faction B – it becomes the majority, sounding the alarm.
–Mad rush to repair all the damage & save the planet/society.
Who knows if it will be too late.
Outcome A: The dawn of a truly enlightened new day! Huzzah!
Outcome B: Sad trombone.
recalling a passage from kurt vonnegut fifty -some years back in SLAUGHTERHOUSE -FIVE to the effect that it is no disgrace to be poor in america but it might as well be. thank you, howard campbell. the challenge would be to dramatize the forthcoming ecological collapse and bring home the tragedy and waste of it all. the great american sucker: make em cry, and you can sell em anything. as for myself, i’m not a cynic so much as a skeptic. when i see my sisters grandkids this thanksgiving (lord willing and the creek don’t rise) i expect i’ll apologize for leaving the place in the state it’s in. anybody else recall our first earth day, spring of 1970?
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Thank you for your writings. A while ago I was wanting to educate my young (lol 30’s) nephew, an aspiring writer, on the books that shaped my life. That was mostly science fiction and fantasy from the 1950’s on. I am 74 and my memory falters some, so I was delighted to find your lists and also to find that sometimes, reading a book title, I would have a flash of what the book looked like in my mind back then. Today I came back for a deeper dive because I am depressed about the condition of the world and also I get nostalgic about those days when from childhood thru teens I was obsessed with two things, science fiction and horses. Well, and later music and boys. I enjoyed reading your comments and explanations about the origins of the lists. Then I ventured on to some of your other posts, and this one struck me deeply. Sadly enough, some days I am glad that statistically I will not be around much longer, because I believe that the world that supports the human race is about to implode. In the last 7-8 years I have become aware of the various movements and efforts centering around trying to save our insect population and therefore our own existence, and I have created beds of native plants to do a small part for those efforts. Climate change is not helping those efforts and between climate change and political chicanery, the rise of authoritarianism, and wars and wars and wars and all the rest of today’s news, I am finding it hard to keep going, I am also isolated, having moved to Georgia (of all the places for a gay old ex-hippy!) to take care of my brother who has passed on. I am pretty isolated here, and it is some comfort to me to run across intelligent converse or writing. Thanks.
We certainly are doing a number on the Earth, but I think it will be resilient once human civilization collapses. Have you read any of the books or watched any of the documentaries about what life on Earth would be like without people? Nature will take back what we have changed very quickly. I find great comfort in that.
I’m sorry you’re stuck in Georgia. I had a bad experience hitch-hiking through Georgia back in the early 1970s. So, I’ve loved a song by the Blues Magoos called “Never Goin’ Back to Georgia.” I’d like to think Georgia has improved in the last fifty years. You can hear it here:
Write again, we have a lot in common. Do you have a blog?
Listening to that great jam as I write, thanks for the link. Now “Heartbreak Hotel” has come on… interesting cover. I do not have a blog; to tell you the truth I am not totally sure what a blog entails. I do hang out on FB a bit and a couple of people who belong to native plant groups have blogs that I have visited occasionally for gardening tips. Most of my time on FB is spent looking at wildlife photographers, naturalist groups, and rescues. I spend too much time watching reels of dancers, musicians, house remodelers, furniture flippers, animal rescuers, and political commentary (from the “left” side); it is addictive. I follow a newsletter by Heather Cox Richardson, political commentary with historical insights, and get Dan Rather’s posts on Steady in my email. My personal posting is mostly re-posting what I consider to be the more positive anti-MAGA memes, local Dog or Cat Lost/Found/For Adoption posts, and the occasional ecological rant. I think you are probably much more intellectually gifted, and certainly more productive, than I.
Oh, looking at your lists of “best of the year” brought Sherri S Tepper back to mind. Have you read The Family Tree? All of her books affected me deeply, but bits of that one have stuck in my mind through the years. And it sounds melodramatic, but Zenna Henderson’s People books literally helped me through some bad times as a teenager. And somehow I ferreted out (late 60’s no computers) that she lived in Arkansas (where I grew up in a small town); amazingly enough got her number, she answered the phone!, and I was able to thank her for her books. It was a short conversation but meant a lot to me. OK, I am rambling now. I plan to follow your blog and enjoy the intellectual stimulation. Best Wishes!
Thanks for your thoughts. I was looking for an about me on you because I’m always curious how peoples life experiences shape their worldview. Like you I’m an atheist, despondently/naively holding onto the shred of Maybe We’ll (collectively) Figure Something Out in a world where the number in your bank account is the only one that matters. It is refreshing to see Another sci fi fan out there constantly waffling between “we’re fucked 😦 “ and “we’re fucked! Live it up” If you’re on Twitter- the same feeling is distilled as “It is so over/We are so back.” We’re counting on you for a 10 year-article retrospective in just over 700ish days from now! Jk