Greed

In the domain of science there exists only 100%. The maximum. The peak. The amount of resources is constant. There is no “more”. Only the degree of efficiency can increase – up to 100%. There is no growth. Hence it seems that in economic “science” there are some miraculous ways.

Back in school, we were told how free market economy works and I thought that something is missing. To gain wealth the idea is to earn more then you spend. Everyone wants to become wealthier, so everyone has to earn more. Due to wealth is aggregating in goods and not intellectual resources; the amount of possible wealth is constant. For ages the mankind produced more prosperity by mining fossil resources like gold, coal, oil and water. Treasures generated in millennia - exploited in decades. This is one way to suggest an increasing wealth. The T-Shirt I am wearing right now is produced in China, India or Bangladesh. We keep the people there poor, to mine their resources of labour. The cotton it´s made from was maybe grown in Russia or the U.S. using fertilizer, pesticides, maybe fossil water (like in China). This intensive agriculture devastates gigantic areas. After a short term of exploitation there is only a polluted desert left. So, to wear a clean, new shirt I (through middlemen) have to exploit people in Asia, soil in Africa and shop-assistants in Lipsia (Leipzig). The bottom line is: there is no more wealth, it is just shared unfair. Nothing new.

Now the dark science of economics created a model to increase prosperity – unrelated to any physical goods. Mining of fossil resources means exploitation of ancient goods. Stocks and loans are exploitations of future (!) goods that maybe never will exist. It´s a bet. “Heureka! We discovered a new resource!” Gold is limited. Oil is limited. The labour of some poor Indian weaver is limited. But future is not. We reached peak-oil, peak-water and maybe peak-exploitation-of-poor-people. But here seems to be no peak-future, no final maximum. Only the believe in future is limited. What a wealth, what a fortune not related to any real existing thing. Millions of millions of (insert any currency) aggregated by nothing except belief (sounds like religion). Today the worth of loans worldwide exceeds the world´s social product by a multiple. In other words there is wealth, that is not real, that doesn´t exist. So, when I´ve read that the fortune of the British declined by 17% it doesn´t mean that there are suddenly 17% less cars, houses, plasma-TVs and so on. It´s only 17% less of something that never existed. In the end the world economic crisis means not an elimination of real fortune, it is only the disappearance of some fantastic and miraculous figures on some papers or screens. Just a lack of faith in the god of future exploitation. Don´t mind.

Thing is: in our economic system you need someone to belief in your future projects, someone who pays for the future realization.


By the way, this is post No. 100 in exact 365 days.