Hi! I’m Peter Joseph and welcome to: “3 Questions - What do you propose?”
This thought exercise is intended as both
an address to the average person concerned about global problems
along with those who are confused about
or even in opposition to The Zeitgeist Movement.
I'm going to pose three basic questions here.
If you disagree with the answers I provide
or perhaps even the premise of the questions themselves
I encourage you to respond with an alternative solution or a counterargument.
If you choose to do this, just make sure that you have reviewed
the sources listed and keep focus.
Again this is about the three questions, only.
Now, before I begin, the term 'market economy'
will be used here throughout.
And since people are quick to get lost semantically about what
'capitalism' or a free market supposedly is or isn’t,
I am going to define my context now, bypassing any semantic confusion.
When I use the term 'market economy', I am simply referring
to the core attributes shared by every major market system variation
in the world today.
And only three basic characteristics are needed here.
The 1st is labor for income.
Obviously the whole global economy is based on employment;
this is how people gain money to survive
and spend back into the system, keeping it going.
The 2nd is that all resources, goods and services retain property value
transferred by means of monetary exchange.
Obvious enough.
Everything is bought and sold through the use of money
mediated by the market itself.
And 3rd, the overall incentive strategy is based upon competition for demand
whether person-to-person or institution-to-institution
all oriented around the interest to
(a) save money on production and
(b) maximize profits upon final sales.
Again, this is the most basic gaming logic present in the market.
That’s it: very simple and again these characteristics are universal
to all economies functioning in the world today.
So on to Question 1:
"Given the market economy requires consumption in order to maintain
demand for human employment and further economic growth as needed,
is there a structural incentive to reduce resource use,
biodiversity loss, the global pollution footprint,
and hence assist the ever-increasing need for
improved ecological sustainability in the world today?"
The most basic mechanism of the market is the movement of money.
And like the gas pedal on a car
if monetary circulation slows, it means demand and turnover slows,
and the average effect is a loss of jobs,
loss of income and a loss of economic growth.
Therefore, consumption is the fuel of the market system
and the more we consume, the better the 'health' of the overall economy.
Yet this necessity for constant, cyclical consumption
is in complete contradiction to what is needed for basic,
long-term species survival.
Wouldn’t it seem responsible to conclude that
the goal of any viable economy
is not only to meet the needs of the population, but to do so
in the most strategic, efficient and conservative manner possible?
Yet the market incentivizes the exact opposite behavior
due to this need for constant turnover.
In fact, the entire basis of the market can be summarized in one paradox:
“The market justifies its existence by the recognition of scarcity
but due to its structural mechanics
actually promotes and rewards infinite consumption."
If this confuses you, it might be because
this contradiction remained rather hidden in the past.
Two hundred years ago, our technical means were primitive
and the idea of being able to produce as rapidly as we do now,
accessing major resources virtually at will, was a pipe dream.
We simply didn’t have the technological efficiency back then.
For example 300 years ago a shoemaker could produce maybe
a few pairs of high quality shoes a day.
Today a common automated shoe factory can produce
a pair every 30 seconds or about 4,000 a day.
So, the level of production efficiency has increased so dramatically
that we are no longer having a problem overcoming any 'scarcity of means'.
The problem now is keeping people consuming.
By the way, if you are wondering why, in the wake of this great productivity,
there are still billions of people who lack the most basic goods
that is the result of a different market mechanism
which will touched upon in question 3:
the inevitability of market generated poverty and inequity.
Anyway, back on point:
The modern economy is no longer scarcity-based on this level,
it is consumption-based
as it needs high levels of turnover to keep people employed and growth going.
And obviously the side effect of all of this is
ever-accelerating resource depletion,
biodiversity loss and destabilizing pollution.
Now, there are now countless corroborating studies that confirm
how the world is increasing in its deficiency to meet the
needs of the future population.
Some estimates find that humanity will need 27 more Earths
by 2050 to meet demand, for example.
The rampant, severe biodiversity loss
is not only disrupting basic biosphere functions
it is now a fact that virtually all life support systems are in decline
with 50% of all wildlife having been destroyed in the past 40 years alone.
As far as pollution, these issues are nothing but accelerating
– both water and atmospheric -
creating tremendous destabilization and ongoing environmental damage
and negative public health outcomes. And keep in mind,
as explained at length in The Zeitgeist Movement's materials,
these problems are not immutable.
They can be fixed, if an economic and industrial reorientation
away from market economics was achieved.
However, those specifics are not the subject of this essay.
For more information on that please read the free online book:
'The Zeitgeist Movement Defined.'
Now, as a final point of evidence, a cursory review of
all recent historical attempts to stop overconsumption,
slow biodiversity loss and reduce pollution, have been met
with virtually a stonewalling mentality by the business community.
Of course, there is no mystery to this tendency
because the fact is: acting in a conservative,
truly efficient and sustainable manner is literally the opposite
of what the market requires to function in the long term
keeping this profit machine going.
For example: America’s Environmental Protection Agency
has constantly been attacked by interests worried about
a loss of income and growth.
Just last month the Wall Street Journal ran the headline
'The EPA's Latest Threat to Economic Growth.'
attacking the EPA for its interest to improve air quality standards.
And they are right! If the EPA does push forward
many jobs and billions of dollars will be lost.
That is simply what happens when waste reduction and technical efficiency
and conservation is applied to this system.
If you need a more visceral example
look at what the developing nations are doing
as they struggle to gain economic growth and raise their standard of living.
It's all being done at the expense of the environment.
China’s push for massive industrialization and growth has been enabled
by keeping low environmental standards
and now it has 16 of the world’s most polluted cities.
Again if you look carefully, all developing nations are doing the same thing.
They simply can’t afford more 'green' industrial methods at this point.
As far as resource overshoot and biodiversity loss,
perhaps the most clear description of this clash was made
in the 2010 Convention of Biological Diversity report.
In 2002, 192 countries got together and agreed to slow biodiversity loss
only to come back eight years later completely defeated, stating:
“None of the twenty-one sub-targets accompanying the overall target
of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010
can be said definitively to have been achieved globally.
Actions to promote biodiversity
receive a tiny fraction of 'funding' compared to
infrastructure and industrial developments...
Moreover, biodiversity considerations are often ignored
when such developments are designed...
Most future scenarios project high levels of extinctions
and loss of habitats throughout this century.”
And of course, why would we expect anything else?
Our economy literally has no structural incentive to adjust;
there is no direct market reward to preserve resources,
habitats or reduce consumption in general.
All it knows is that people need to keep buying stuff
and the more they buy, the better everything is supposed to be.
So back to the question, I ask again:
"Given the market economy requires consumption in order to maintain
demand for human employment and further economic growth as needed,
is there a structural incentive to reduce resource use,
biodiversity loss, the global pollution footprint,
and hence assist the ever-increasing need for
improved ecological sustainability in the world today?"
The answer is 'No'.
There is only the external incentive
– meaning the frustrated outcry of concerned citizens,
demanding this or that change –
which, in truth, simply won't do anything in the long run.
Why? Because it goes against the most basic premise
of the market's functionality itself.
The only true solution is to overcome the structural flaw,
not by fighting it with legislation, but by changing the system.
To do that, we must replace the current economic model
with one that structurally incentivizes and rewards conservation,
true technical efficiency and overall sustainability.
And on a final note, right now it is safe to project
that due to this habitat destruction, biodiversity loss,
resource overshoot and CO2 pollution,
we very well could be entering a period of what's called
the '6th Great Extinction' on Earth.
And unless thing change rapidly the next generation
will be one of great suffering and disorder.
Question 2:
"In an economic system where companies seek to limit their production costs
in order to maximize profits and remain competitive against other producers,
what structural incentive exists to keep human beings employed,
in the wake of an emerging technological condition where the majority of jobs
can now be done more cheaply and effectively by machine automation?"
The long standing defense of those who claim there is no problem
with machines replacing human jobs
is that overall technological innovation will simply balance everything out
by eventually creating new human occupations,
absorbing anyone who is displaced prior.
And while this perspective may have seemed viable
given early periods of slow technological change,
the ever-exponential advancement of automation potential
is now far outpacing the creation of new, human-exclusive labor roles.
And as the trends show
it is simply a matter of time before it becomes most cost effective,
reliable and productive, in all major economic fields to automate.
First, let’s consider the potential. Today there are numerous
corroborating studies showing the capacity of automation
including the conclusion that right now
over half of the world’s jobs can be mechanized.
Second, we need to consider
(A) the trends of employment shifts by industry
(B) the staggering rise in productivity related
and (C) how automation costs are undercutting human labor costs.
I’ll be using the United States as a statistical base, a proxy if you will.
For if it applies to the US, given its advanced technological state,
then it applies to the rest of the world
in the context of trends and potential.
Sector Shifts
There are three core economic sectors:
Agriculture, Industrial and Service.
In 1870, about 75% of Americans worked in agriculture
while today it's about 2%. Why?
Well, there certainly hasn’t been a loss of agricultural demand, right?
And while food imports in the US have grown to about 17%
that obviously doesn’t balance the near 98% drop
in its related employment sector since 1870.
And neither do increases in textile fabric imports and the like.
This drop is almost entirely a result of machine automation.
Where did the jobs go? The Industrial sector and the Service sector.
US Industrial labor reached its peak around 1950
dropping from almost 40% to about 20%.
Why? Well, the common assumption is that globalization
and labor outsourcing in manufacturing is the cause.
And while there may be short term and regional relevance to this
on the global scale, in the long term, it is completely irrelevant
as virtually all nations, especially the developed nations,
are experiencing the exact same trends.
The reason hence is the same, as with agriculture:
technological application displacing human labor.
Now we come to the Service sector.
Today over 80% of jobs exist here. It has been the safe zone
given this kind of work is less physical
and more about mental focus and thought.
It is more versatile and difficult.
And up until the late 20th century the idea of 'thinking machines'
and advanced machines that could replace these variant labor roles
was pretty much deemed science fiction.
Yet, this sector is now quickly being threatened due to
the exponential advancement in programmable intelligence and robotics.
Bank machines, automated phone systems,
point-of-sale kiosks, processing programs for general software,
restaurant automation, automated transport of course-...
If you can think of it, someone is working to automate it.
And just like agriculture and the industrial sector
the use of automation is also ensuring: (a) higher productivity
and (b) lower costs for the businesses.
Trend statistics prove this without a doubt.
(a) Productivity: Human employment is now actually inverse
to productivity in most cases
meaning that in all instances of automation
it not only removes jobs, it actually increases output efficiency.
Here is a classic chart example from manufacturing.
The blue line is the increase in production and the red line
is human employment. It's a staggering diversion.
(b) As far as cost reduction, what needs to be understood
is that all technological innovation
is now becoming what’s called 'information-based'.
Whether it is literally the digital programming,
such as the program running a machine,
or the very process of creation of the physical machine itself.
And what is the developmental trend of information-based technology
in the 21st century? Exponential.
And this is not only relating to the advancement of the technology itself
making things smaller, stronger and more powerful,
it also reduces resource needs
and the cost of emerging technology invariably becomes cheaper.
As a classic example
this is why the chip in a common cell phone is thousands of times
more powerful and less expensive than the supercomputer of the 1970s.
Hence it is simply a matter of time
before a great many of currently out-of-reach automation tools,
such as thinking cybernated robotics,
can perform virtually any basic human role
and become so affordable, that not to automate becomes
a detrimental business decision.
And by the way, if you are one of those techno-capitalist apologists
that says this price decrease in cost will simply make consumer goods
that much cheaper as well, and therefore compensate
for the loss of income generated by the use of automation,
you are overlooking one critical function of the market system:
The market needs scarcity to function.
Abundance has no role in market mechanics.
And the profit structure itself does not view reducing costs
as a means to simply increase affordability
of the end product in and of itself.
It does it, first and foremost, to increase profits!
The only reason you see the price reduction
is because of the competition occurring in industry,
as each company works to one-up each other’s cost efficiency basis
via similar methods.
The point being, regardless of how cheap things become
at some point the consumption deficiency resulting
by the number of people unemployed by automation
will override whatever degree of affordability is being generated
by the lower cost products created. It is inevitable.
And keep in mind - and this is really critical - all it takes is 20-30%
of human unemployment to destabilized society into disorder and outrage.
That’s it. So the question isn’t "will we automate everything?"
The real question is: At what point will the cost efficiency of applied
automation produce 'just enough’ unemployment
to cause social destabilization and a debilitating loss of economic growth?
So I ask again:
"In an economic system where companies seek to limit their production costs
in order to both maximize profits
and remain competitive against other producers,
what structural incentive exists to keep human beings employed,
in the wake of an emerging technological condition
where the majority of jobs can now be done more cheaply
and effectively by machine automation?"
The answer is that there isn't such an incentive,
at least not structurally. Some kind of general incentive may exist
given the common sense awareness that people do need jobs
for the market economy to function.
But that recognition implies that employers would bypass such cost savings
and efficiency and safety-increasing technology just to give people jobs.
The reality is that if a business has the choice between a human and a machine
and the machine is more productive and affordable
they will choose machine, as per market logic, every time.
If they didn’t they would lose a competitive edge
as one of their more ruthless competitors certainly will make that move.
Therefore, the only true, logical and responsible solution in this scenario
is to remove the labor-for-income system itself
hence removing the market
and evolving to a new kind of economic interaction.
Question 3:
"In an economic system which inherently generates
class stratification and overall inequity
how can the effects of 'Structural Violence'
- a phenomenon noted by public health researchers to kill
well over 18 million a year,
generating a vast range of systemic detriments such as behavioral,
emotional and physical disorders -
be minimized or even removed as an effect?"
Many today talk about the horror of unnecessary death and suffering
from dramatic accidents to psychopathic behavioral violence
to historical genocides, wars and other atrocities.
In this, we might notice a kind of moral relativism
in what society prioritizes as most condemnable
most often highlighting visceral, human vs. human behavioral violence
rather than taking a more objective view.
Statistically, if we really wish to be comprehensive
in locating the most prominent, ubiquitous, and unnecessary causes of death
and suffering in the world, we would discover one main catalyst:
class inequality and low socioeconomic status.
Class inequality and low socioeconomic status
trump every other form of violence and public threat, hands down.
The leading cause of death on the planet Earth
is relative and absolute poverty. Period!
Every single year, the near equivalent of two holocausts
- nearly 20 million people - are killed
by the inefficiency inherent to the market economy
and its mathematical inevitability to create large class divisions
and resulting human deprivation.
In this, there are two types of deprivation to note:
Absolute and Relative.
Absolute deprivation is what the billion people currently
not getting their basic nutritional needs are experiencing.
This kind of deprivation is about basic physical needs not being met
and hence the manifestation of sickness and premature mortality
due to a lack of resources and options.
Relative deprivation has to do with the mental, emotional
and physical disorders that result from the stress of simply existing
in the lower tiers of a wealth imbalanced society.
For example: Numerous studies
that compare public health outcomes from one country to another,
based on the level of inequality in that country,
have found that those with the least amount of behavioral violence,
the least amount of general crime, infant deaths,
drug addictions, heart disease, many cancers, obesity,
high blood pressure, low-life expectancy, depression,
general mental illness and other reduced problems,
also have lower wealth inequality by comparison.
Put together, these two forms of deprivation, Absolute and Relative,
constitute what is called 'Structural Violence'
which is a systemic form of violence,
that is typically not what many think of when we consider
the idea of violence in general.
I’ll put it this way: If I put a gun to your head and kill you
we would all agree it is a direct act of mortality producing violence.
If I run a company that decides to save money by covertly
dumping toxic waste into your town’s water supply
and then three years later a group of you in town get cancer
and die from that pollution, I think we would all agree
that it is also an act of mortality producing violence
but more indirect and less obvious in intent. Likewise,
it is now well established that people with low socioeconomic status
are much more likely to die of heart disease than those in upper classes.
It is a known fact that the toxic condition of simply being poor
both in absolute and relative terms,
manifests this disease, amongst many others.
And yet, when people do die as such,
rarely does someone bring up the idea of indirect violence
or more accurately: Structural Violence. Why?
Because the outcome can only be measured by statistics across a population
and not deduced from any singular case.
So it is counterintuitive to our education.
But yet, there is no principled difference
between being killed by a gun shot to the head
being poisoned by a company's pollution
or dying of heart disease because of the causal chain reaction
set in motion by the economic system:
a system that artificially generates economic inequality and poverty
invariably forcing some people to exist
in the toxic condition of low socioeconomic status.
Now you will notice... I said the word 'artificial'
because this poverty is not inevitable
or some immutable natural law of human society
just as shooting you with a gun is not inevitable
and just as polluting your water supply is not inevitable.
The class system we endure today is a product of the market system
and it can be removed
along with the two holocausts occurring every year because of it.
This may not have been the case in the past
but it is definitely true today
given modern technological capacity to create a global abundance.
The fact is, low socioeconomic status
is the leading cause of death on the planet Earth.
And what does that mean by extension?
If economic inequality and inevitable poverty is technically unnecessary
and merely a structural outcome of the market economy itself
then it means the market is the leading cause of death on the planet today.
So back to the question:
"In an economic system which inherently generates class stratification
and overall inequity, how can the effects of 'Structural Violence'
- a phenomenon noted by public health researchers
to kill well over 18 million a year,
generating a vast range of systemic detriments such as
behavioral, emotional and physical disorders,
be minimized or even removed as an effect?"
The answer, of course, is it can't be removed.
It’s built-in system effect, and the longer we have the market
the more holocausts will occur.
And we will see three and four holocausts a year as time goes forward
given the extreme rise in economic inequity
and this statistic shows no sign of slowing.
As far as being minimized,
yes, I guess some kind of wealth reallocation could emerge
but the effect would be minimal as it still does little to address
the true structural source of the problem.
It would be just a patch.
Not to mention, the odds of that occurring at all is deeply improbable
as any such direct action would inherently be a violation
of the very nature of free market theory, right?
which assumes market action itself is self-regulating
and any type of state imposition is wrong.
And by the way, if you are one of those people who says
that we don’t have a free market today
and we have state coercion or crony capitalism
please watch my lecture
“Origins and Adaptations Part II” from the University of Toronto in 2014
along with my Berlin lecture "Economic Calculation in a NLRBE" in 2013
where I counter this nonsense specifically.
We have only a pure free market in the exact sense of those terms
meaning the freedom to compete
and restrict the freedom of others in that process.
Now I'm going to stop here.
These three questions are my challenge to you.
Each question poses a challenge to the very basis of the market system itself
and if any of you out there can answer these questions
and explain long-term resolutions,
without the removal of the market economy, I certainly want to hear it!
Simply make a video response, post it, and send it to the link below.
And please everyone, share this video.
These are the questions that every news show and
every socially conscious media outlet or activist personality
should be addressing.
Again, if you support The Zeitgeist Movement
take the time to post this via social networks,
forums, blogs, email lists, whatever.
I especially would like to hear from the anti-zeitgeist movement
community as well. What do you propose?
One way or another
until these questions are answered and the problems resolved
the world is on pace to increasing disorder and breakdown.
I appreciate your time. Thank you.
See full transcript link with sources in text below.