Collapse

The notion of work in a society which does not manufacture anything has changed. The U.S. consumer society has blurred the concept of labor and consumption for many of its citizens. Consuming products is not labor. It does not add value to a society. The capitalist myth that consumption can be the foundation of a society is simply a bourgeois gimmick. It is a form of denial. Denial of overpopulation and environmental degradation of the planet.

 

Cartoon from Life on Earth

The hands-on power of billions of human beings, if properly educated and motivated, to turn the state of the planet around could be equal to the task at hand. However, turning billions of human beings into consumers of manufactured goods with little or no practical value is a recipe for collapse of the human species. Governments are to blame here. The embrace of unscrupulous capitalism after the fall of Soviet Communism has infected the mindset of most governments.

 

Education, public health and personal development have taken a back seat to hedonism and greed in the sermons of government officials to their constituents. "Balanced budget" is code for "corporate welfare over human welfare". Media brainwash populations into being relentless consumers of goods with dubious social or personal value. Automobile, donut and insurance ads dominate broadcast television in the U.S., for example.

 

The work of becoming a practitioner of humanist values runs directly in the face of this worldwide religion of capitalism. Unlike radical Islam or fundamentalist Christianity/Judaism, humanism stems from science and individual development through constant open education. Capitalism dictates that there be haves and have-nots. The have-nots must labor to provide the haves with cheap goods and services. Humanism is a mindset of equality, both social and economic.

 

Overpopulation by the human species may already preclude the general application of humanist values in societies, overwhelmed by it and the environmental degradation it inevitably produces. Any species which overpopulates its ecology is doomed to eventual collapse from what we know of natural history. If the human species survives such a collapse, perhaps the way back to a humanist view of the planet and society will be clearer to the survivors.