The looming death of capitalism and the population explosion?

During my extreme left wing era (which probably lasted about two years until I realised they were exactly the same as the extreme right wing, but with a different colour) I used to hold the opinion that people should be marching for the right NOT to work. Work, in my emerging mind, was a form of slavery in which we were beholden to the slave masters; the capitalists.
Strangely enough, that idea of mine, (or did I read it somewhere in one of the plethora of left wing books and journals that I read, or even in the realm of science fiction, of which I was and still am, a huge fan? I'm not too sure.) has evolved into an idea that, at sometime in the future, we won't need to work as the mechanisation of the workplace will be doing the work for us.
There are now tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people who will never be in continuous employment during their lifetime, because of mechanisation. Millions of people have been thrown out of work because of computers. Many of the younger people reading this will not have experience of the armies of clerks that were needed to get the paperwork done. They have mostly all gone. They will not remember the huge swathes of the population who used to work in factories; robots have taken over their monotonous jobs. Times have changed. We, as a global society, do not need all these workers.
So what do we do with all of those people who are excess to requirements? In the past that question didn't arise because we lost so many people through disease, famine and wars that we needed the 'working and middle classes' to keep producing children to fill the gaps left by their premature deaths. The advance in medicine, new surgical techniques, better food production and treaties put paid to this sort of levelling. The advances in technology have put paid to the jobs which have only exasperated the situation. Do we then hold back medical care for sections of the population with the hope that more people will die off? Do we increase global tensions to the extent that massive wars take place again? Maybe we have a combination of both? We cannot un-invent technology so something will have to be done, mostly in first and second world countries, to address this situation. Or do we really need to?
The global society we live in now makes this a problem solely because we live in a global society of capitalisation and finance. Capitalism is not the cure; it is the problem. As a species we can feed, house, educate and give medical care to all the peoples of this small planet while still supporting the advancement of technology. So what is stopping us from doing that? The answer, sadly, is money. Take money out of the equation and there is no 'problem'. Let us remember that 'money' is just the authority to get something done. Money is the lubricant to enable the society to function. Take away the 'society' and we don't need the money. Ironically, the late Margaret Thatcher was right (I paraphrase) when she said that: 'There is no such things as society' but not in the terms that she envisioned. 'There are only people'.
Yet, if we do not feed, house, educate and give medical care to those people who will, increasingly, be unemployable then we will have a breakdown of order. We will have riots and disorder breaking out all over the world. That is not capitalism, which the leaders of this planet espouse, it is, instead, a form of communism. Remember that this is not just affecting the great unwashed of the 'working classes' but, increasingly, the aspirational 'middle classes'. How many university graduates are unemployed, in their chosen profession, looking for work with little prospect of gaining employment in their chosen field? That figure will only increase as technology takes large bites out of their prospective employment as it has already done with the 'working classes'?
There are troubled times ahead and, until we accept the unthinkable, the potential for disorder will only increase. Capitalism will have to go. It has no future within a peaceful society. Capitalism, in the near future, will not save us, it will destroy us.

The rise of independence in Europe

The Motherland

by

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1883)

Is it just the Scots who want independence ? The simple answer to this is no. There are many states, regions, and areas within the EU borders and outwith, in greater Europe, that are struggling for their independence or want to retain their culture and language from the old colonial super states within Europe. Let's take a brief look at some of them:

Scotland...We know about this so there is no need to go any further.

Wales...Plaid Cymru which has been in existence since 1925 and won its first seat in the Houses of Parliament in 1966. It attained an assembly at the same time as Scotland re-instituted its parliament in 1999.

Ireland...Attained its independence from the UK in 1922 after a bloody War of Independence by the IRA. However, six counties in the north are still in the UK.

Cornwall...Mebyon Kernow (Sons of Cornwall) was formed in 1951 and the Cornish Nationalist Party which was formed in 1975.

Catalonia...An autonomous state in Spain. Catalan Nationalism has been going since, at least, 1892.

Basque...An autonomous country in Spain but claims certain areas within France.

Brittany...A Region of France.

there are many more but you get the point.

There is also a huge list of European countries that have gained there independence post WWI. What is happening in Scotland just now is just a change of mood that have been rushing through Europe for the last 100 years. Will this clamouring for independence continue in Europe? Yes, I believe it will as it will in other continents around the globe. The days of the super states are over but the coming together, in a democratic way, of individual nations will continue.

Is keeping pets similar to slavery?

I do not own a pet because I think of it as slavery. Ah, do I hear you say, where would these animals be without us? I suppose most of them wouldn't exist because evolution would never have produced them in the first place. Then, you would talk about how good we are to them.

 

Really? They said the same about slaves in the 19th century and before.

I am not talking about the kind of animals that humans have needed as beast of burden until we reached the technological stage where we were able to produce machines to replace those types on animals. I also accept that there are still places in the world where, for whatever reason, it is still imperative to use animals. I am only talking about those animals we use as pets. "But", you may say. "What about the old and infirm whose only comfort is the keeping of pets?"

Well, that is more down to an uncaring society than the need to enslave animals.
The sooner we substitute the term 'pets' for 'slave-animals' the better we will be in seeing it for what it really is.

New World Order: Is this really a threat?

The internet is full of blogs raging against the looming prospect of a 'New World Order' and the implications that may result to our freedoms. Many conspiracists see this as a 'take over' of the world by those at the top of the tree and will finally see the end of democracy as we know it. They may be correct in their protestations but, on the other hand, they may not have thought this one through to its logical conclusion. I have made no secret in the past about my dreams of having a world government where we are all equal citizens under the eye of the law. Of course, in any human society there will always be those who are more equal than others, but that is to be expected from human nature. So, is the concept of a world government such a bad idea? Many of you would say yes as you fear the loss of your imagined rights but you would have to balance this with the prospect of world peace.
If there were no nations then countries would not go to war, for whatever reasons they decided to go to war with each other in the past. Think of the massive military industries centred around the world which are geared up to destroying our fellow man. If you take the individual nation states out of the equation then one has no need for those huge industries to exist. The resources that those industries take up are phenomenal and those same resources could be used to futher the benefit of man as opposed to destroying us.
There is also the rampant bribery that is evident wherever one looks in the world. There are countries, the world over, whose leaders are feathering their own nests at the expense of their own citizens. Greed is everywhere and it is the fuel that stokes the fires of poverty and ignorance. There is the greed of the political leaders, the greed of multinational conglomerates and right down to the local thief who breaks into your house because you have something he wants. Our civilisation is flawed because we have built our society on the foundations of avarice and power. Might is right. God helps those who help themselves. We have all heard of those sayings but the truth of the matter is that is how this world functions and millions of people have to die needlessly in order for those two sayings to be seen to be correct. The removal of nations would relegate those leaders, who take bribes and those who give them, to oblivion. We waste so much of the Earth's natural resources to top up the pockets of men who are already rich and powerful.
Then there is the potential problem of total power for those who assume control in a world government; do we trust them? My honest answer would have to be, absolutely not! However, that sentiment would apply to any political system practising now. It is a healthy attitude to take, not to trust the people who govern us. There should be checks and balances to curtail the normal political activity of gaining more power because we all know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
At the end of the day we are not going to sort out the problems that we, as a species, have burdened this small planet with until we have a world government with enough power to counteract the self serving nation states and regional blocs that dominate the political structures of this world of ours. Is there going to massive upheavals while this process happens? Most certainly. Is there going to be wars and innocent people who will die during this process? I can see no other way to avoid this from happening. Are there going to be severe curtailments of what little rights we have? I hope that this will be a temporary measure and that democracy will eventually raise its head. But, most importantly, can we afford to allow the world to continue on the way that it is going? Most certainly not.
Therefore, I would have to conclude that a 'New World Order' just might be the only way for mankind to go.