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Economies move, economies evolve and economies migrate. Economies are designed to make our lives easier and provide a more liquid access to the goods and services that enrich our lives. As our lives evolve, so too should our economy adapt to accommodate our changing social desires and tastes. The economy is the product of mankind, not the other way around. A people that allow themselves to be molded, shaped and defined by their economy is a clear malfunction of ecology. The social desires and tastes of the population should be served by the economy, not dictated by it.
Technological advancements tore down the serf-based economy and composed the most recent chapter in our history. Like the economy that proceeded it, capitalism has become the preeminent arbiter of taste and desire throughout the world. Perhaps it is the nature of economies that they grow in reach and power until they sufficiently corrode the values they are designed to promote – Freedom Of Choice being the particular banner waved by capitalism. Like the pile, capitalism is a system. Capitalism is one of the many manifestations of the tool of economy. Capitalism is, in fact, the dominant system of resource allocation in the contemporary world. So dominant is capitalism's entrenchment on our globe that it is hard to conceptualize an alternative model of resource allocation. Capitalism has proved to be the most effective process for generating movement of goods as yet devised by our species. This fact is easy to understand when one properly understands the illusion of efficiency, to say nothing of the more obvious illusion of scarcity. |
Efficiency makes no claims to quality. Efficiency is a result, not a process. Efficiency aims to reduce unnecessary complexity, seeking ends that require the simplest means possible. Efficiency is reached through short-term economic forecasting or modeling and relentless repetition. The assembly line is remarkably efficient in its repeatability. Efficiency equals repetition until exhaustion. This inescapable trait of efficiency makes our single-minded quest to achieve it extremely restrictive, not to mention dangerous. Options and process-oriented thinking are discarded in favor of the fastest and cheapest engine of the day.
Capitalism has constructed around itself an impenetrable logic of hyper-efficiency. Regardless of the fact that the excessive bureaucracy and energy that are required to maintain the capitalist system make it far from efficient, proponents of capitalism have co-opted 'efficiency' as their tagline. Parties that struggle with the fairness or sustainability of capitalism are derided as insufficiently capable of efficiently producing value. Capitalism's advocates liken the system to the evolutionary model of natural selection in defending their system of choice. To paraphrase this capitalist argument, “The promotion of competition ensures that the most efficient and environmentally fit corporation survives.” This argument is baldly untrue, as dysfunctional Eastern Europe economies adopting to recent privatization may attest. However, let us assume this statement were true, the invoking of natural selection in describing capitalism discards the cherished notion of free will. In leaving the process of resource allocation in the hands of a blind, indifferent process, capitalist advocates present a foreboding argument.
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