Although democracy in its modern incarnation does go hand in hand with capitalist economics it seems strange to me that a system of governance which relies on the dissemination of power throughout the people would be so linked with an economic structure that tends to concentrate monetary power in an elite few.
I don’t want this post to come off like some sort of rhetoric calling for the end of capitalism and market economics in general. I just want to bring up the strange juxtaposition between these two so clearly linked economic and governmental systems.
With Global Warming having long moved from the realms of scientific theory and now starting to impact our lives in a very real way it’s time to revaluate if consumerism and market capitalism is in our best interests. If we don’t make attempts to decouple capitalism and democracy, or at least tone down the dangerous aspects of rampant consumerism we could be laying the foundations for democracies ultimate destruction. We live in a world of finite resources, resources that are rapidly being depleted. It may be in 5 years, it maybe in 20 or 100, but eventually our planets resources will run out. It is my view that democracy cannot survive this looming catastrophe. In a world of risen sea levels, climate extremes, a scarcity of resources the values and institutions of democracy will not be able to survive. We’ve already seen a swing towards the extremist, often decidedly undemocratic, side of politics in much of Europe that was caused by the fallout from the global financial crisis.
This swing to extremism will be repeated and to a whole new level if something isn’t done to avert this coming crisis.
