there was a time when private capital was the fastest way forward at the scale of nations (though one can point to some very fast, if brutal, forward leaps made in the early twentieth century by communism) but at the moment the effects of capitalism on societies at large represent a retarding force for progress. the system was never meant to produce equality — it is founded on the principle of inequality, which is the gravity in the system that makes things move — and the most pressing need now all around the world is a more egalitarian order, one that gives equal access and equal justice to all its members and produces less useless stuff and less movement of same.
for that, a whole new system of governance, production and distribution will have to be cobbled together from the remains of a shredded world order that has produced or at least not abated endless divisions, rivalries and hatred, and failed utterly in what should be the prime goal and duty of every nation and all nations collectively — égalité.
the costs of division are unmeasurably high; the costs of nations fighting nations both in trade and war, corporations fighting corporations, religions fighting religions, ethnicities fighting ethnicities, are killing the future.
we have an opportunity to free mankind from most tedious work, to free us from most disease, ignorance, prejudice, to free us from the past that clings to us so destructively, the past that retards the natural evolution to new and better paradigms and leaves us stuck on a path to destruction.
the old order is dying. we can try just endlessly fixing it but i am skeptical. the people in positions to do so are the very same people who have profited from the old system and few are willing to give up even a small modicum of privilege that all should have a better and more sustainable life, even if it means wiping out all of mankind in the bargain, themselves included. and you cannot reason with people who do not decide what to do based on objective reason or what is best for the planet.
a new order may emerge before the final calamity makes it all inutile. we can hope. it beats despair.
