The reason I suspect has to do with how it rules our lives in
ways that do not reveal the underlying causes of how the greed of a few
powerful men determine the lives of the many, perhaps in part because
we think we’d like to be where they are (isn’t this the heart of the
fantasy that we’ve been sold)?
‘[H]is melodies became the elixir
for the avarice that surrounded him.’ — From sleeve notes by Bob Belden
to the Grant Green album ‘Live at the Club Mozambique’ recorded in
Detroit in 1971 but not released until 2006. The album by the way,
rocks.
The most obvious expression is the fetish of consumption
which at first sight seems to be based on the power of advertising and
marketing but there are much deeper desires at work here than meet the
eye, desires that advertising exploits but does not create.
The
problem is that we are literally immersed in a world of commodities
almost to the exclusion of everything else, yet judging by the
yearnings expressed for the natural world and for a past obliterated by
the avalanche of a ficticious future that the possession of commodities
promises, the illusion is wearing thin.
Now nobody denies that
we need things above and beyond the basics of food, clothes and
shelter. We also need books, music, trips to the country, indeed all
kinds of things are necessary to living a full life but the question
arises as to whether we need them for the sake of possessing them or
because they make our lives richer and more fullfilling?
It’s
also clear that the possession of things doesn’t necessarily make us
‘happier’ or more fulfilled as human beings, indeed it can be argued
that the desire to possess is an addiction that has nothing to do with
the intrinsic value of the objects possessed but to do with the
expectation that their possession promises to the possessor, a promise
that can never be fulfilled except by continued accumulation of yet
more things, and judging by the amount of junk that fills people’s
homes (most of which never gets used), it’s a treadmill that is awfully
difficult to get off once on.
The underlying motivation for the
production of things resides elsewhere, in the nature of the economic
system itself, where the direction and nature of production is
determined by forces which are the result of the inexorable ‘logic’ of
capitalism, much of it powered by war or preparing for one.
Thus
following WWI, the automotive industry ‘took off’ because an enormous
capacity had been built to supply engines for the war but once ended
the capacity had to be utilised in some other way — enter the age of
the automobile. The same thing happened following the end of WWII only
this time it was the aircraft industry which had to find new markets
for its war products in the civilian sector (which were initially based
on military aircraft designs). Enter the age of global tourism and
global war of course.[1]
The computer and the global telephone
network are also spinoffs from the military-industrial complex, and in
all the examples, it was the state which financed the initial
investment either directly or indirectly through subsidies, tax breaks
and the of funding umiversity research programmes.
The point is,
what we take for granted, mass air travel for example, is the result of
serendipitous actions on the part of capital to create new markets and
nothing more. That millions travel the world as a result and with it
the creation of tourism is neither here nor there , nor is the damage
both physical and cultural to national cultures (and now the climate)
that mass tourism inflicts of any concern to those with capital.
The
problem that confronts us is that once created, undoing it is virtually
impossible; who could deny working people the ‘right’ to a cheap
holiday in Ibiza or Buenes Aires or the ‘right’ to own a car regardless
of the damage it does to our environment (or impinge on the ‘rights’ of
those who do not own a car).
And herein lies the rub as they
say, we’re all along for the ride whether we want to be or not and
regardless of the consequences, but the reality is that if it were not
for the control of resources and markets that the capitalist world has,
none of these ‘rights’ would exist in the first place.
But given
that time seems to be running out for us, do we have any choice but to
confront our demons and if so, how? This is the dilemma that confronts
socialists and it goes to the very heart of what a socialist economy is
all about and one made more urgent by the need to reestablish our
relationship with Nature instead of riding roughshod over it.
But
the choices confronting us due to the impact that climate change is
having on our world are making it abundantly clear to ever greater
numbers of people that we can’t have both; either we change the way we
live or we perish.
With great swathes of central England under
water (and some 300,000 without clean water or electricity) it should
also be obvious by now that the ruling elites have neither the desire
or the ability to transform our economy so that it once more exists in
harmony with Nature, but this is what it’s going to take, it’s
unavoidable.
It also seems obvious to me that real socialism is
intrinsically ‘green’, thus the terms ‘ecosocialism’ or ‘green
socialism’ are redundant descriptions (but perhaps a necessary step to
reestablish our credentials as the only alternative to capitalism?).
Viewed
in this light the task though by no means a simple one, is obvious: we
have to reorder our priorities, namely a more modest ‘lifestyle’, the
reestablishment of the ‘collective commons’ by bringing the major
sectors of the economy back under real democratic public control, but
now on a global scale. In reality we own nothing, all that we have
belongs to Nature (of which we are a part) and once we’ve finished
mucking it up, it will, one way or the other, be returned to Nature
with or without us.
Writings 
‘The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theater, go dancing, go drinking, think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will become that treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume — your capital. 
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