I know a lot of people really like politics. There’s something about the fighting and intrigue and drama. People love to hate their opposition too. It’s kind of like sports. With higher stakes. So I get why people find politics so captivating. It’s high drama.
But legit reasons for paying attention to politics exist as well. In democracies, we manage resource distribution through lawmaking. Lawmaking largely happens through voting. America’s “founding fathers” created a representative democracy. Largely because they feared the majority having more power than landed, white, slave-owning elites. That’s why, instead of us each voting on laws governing resource distribution directly, we vote on representatives. Representatives who vote for us by proxy.
That arrangement adds to the drama. That’s because a lot of the people in Congress really have no business being there. Oh, they have legal standing for being there. Our laws legitimize the process by which they get there. But no laws prevent serious conflicts of interest existing among many federal legislators. It doesn’t keep clueless people from getting in there either.
Drama and intrigue, that is American politics, switched into high gear in recent weeks. Congress and the executive branch went head-to-head over the federal debt ceiling. As usual, both sides blinked in the end. That lead to limits on spending, but very little actual cuts. The agreement came with so many concessions on both sides neither could claim total victory. Even though the GOP and Democrats both did. In reality, it was a pretty fair compromise.
WTF….Really
Why we go through this so often isn’t a mystery. Like any entity in a debt-based economy, the US must make a budget. Then it must try to stick to it. Most of its operations are set forth in the constitution. The debt ceiling isn’t. It’s a law passed in 1917. That law allowed the US to issue bonds. Bonds it used to finance its involvement in World War I. Since then, that law has been causing anxiety.
Generally, the government sticks to its budget these days through collecting taxes and by borrowing. To “borrow”, the US issues bonds. The public buys them and, voila, the government has money to spend.
A lot of companies and people do business with the US. Even more companies and more people do business with people doing business with the US. Because the government’s credit rating is high, pretty much all those people trust the US will pay its debts.
So if the government didn’t, all hell would break loose. The whole capitalist system, literally the global network of trade and commerce, rests largely on a few very large players. The US is by far the biggest when it comes to keeping the system going.
But nothing says it must remain this way. It really is crazy we go through this debt ceiling stuff so often. It’s an actual WTF moment. Why do we?
Mostly, it’s because no one is willing to fundamentally change the global economics we have. It’s too financially scary. And, up to now, we haven’t had a good alternative.
But we must do something
Basically we have a nation with multiple competing interests in how it spends money. Those interests also compete ideologically over whether progress or expansion is better than conservatism or living within the nation’s means. Those two interests underlie all this budgetary hullabaloo.
But money running everything lies underneath these two interests. Pretty much everything in human civilization runs on money. And even though it gets created all the time, there never seems to be enough of it. Part of that is debt’s fault. Because whenever money gets created, debt gets created too.
We gotta get out of this situation because in addition to ever-mounting debt tying nations, governments, peoples and households together, the drive for more money in all these entities wreaks havoc on virtually everything we hold dear.
Meanwhile, things we know deep down we can’t live without get short shrift because it costs too much to take care of them. Our planet, our relationships with each other and between nations, our relationships with ourselves all take back seats to making money.
Money isn’t bad. But when we make it the center of our attention it becomes problematic. Every social problem fundamentally comes down to money.
So if we really want to solve our social problems we must move away from money as our prime economic driver. Not just for national progress, but global progress too.
International progress: grim
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals act as a good measure for how we’re doing globally. As of this writing, the UN report on those goals says “many of the SDGs are moderately to severely off track….the SDGs are in deep trouble.”
That report suggests the main reasons behind lackluster results is “A fundamental shift…needed – in commitment, solidarity, financing and action”. The report also points to international shortsightedness, a financial system pitting undeveloped countries against developed ones for environmental equity, and empty commitments of rich nations as main problems.
These problems aren’t new. They’re national-versions of the same symptoms plaguing households. Developed nations can’t afford sticking to all their commitments. They don’t have enough money. Or their economic priorities don’t align with helping other countries. Even if their living standards created devastating problems developing countries face.
And too much inertia exists in conditions needing solving. It’s too easy for wealthy nations to turn a blind eye to global problems. Especially ones far beyond their borders. Solving such problems requires political will. More will than most wealthy nations can muster.
And that leaves us in trouble. Or does it?
Like a phoenix
Out of all these problems springs hope. Solutions exist alongside every problem. That’s why every problem today moves us closer to Copiosis. We’re waiting for the perfect time. The perfect time to put ourselves in the public eye. When we do, the world will be ready. It’s getting ready right now.
Last week we talked about AI’s potential for ending humanity. In some ways, we’re closer to the end of humanity than ever. Almost any scientist will tell you that. But we’re also closer to breakthroughs built into these problems. Decoupling power from money is one breakthrough. Another is decoupling greed from power.
The New World Order does both. At the same time, it eliminates the silly, time-consuming process of bickering over not enough money to do what we know we must. To do what we must to create a better America. To do what we must to create that better, more equitable and just world.
America is kind of a bellwether for that just, equitable world. It’s not perfect. And yet, many, many nations around the world look to it as what’s possible. We Americans must rekindle hope other nations have for us. Then act from that hope.
Copiosis is that hope. It’s the 21st Century version of the Moon Shot. Trying to get to Mars is no feat. We don’t need to go to Mars. We don’t need to raise or lower debt ceilings. What we need is to create a world where going to Mars and debt ceilings aren’t necessary. A world where sustainable development goals aren’t necessary either. That world is the New World Order.
In that world, our everyday way of life is prosperous, joyful, peaceful and sustainable. And those living in it are truly free. That’s what Copiosis promises.
