Under construction Dec 3
Disaster Capitalism - A Case To Be Made To De-monitize
This writing pulls together Naomi Klein's disaster capitalism, the IMF and World Bank's structural adjustments and the social engineering of the consumer culture. In short, the large scale practice of structurally adjusting a poor country's economic system for the benefit of big business has a counterpart to how the lives of individuals are structurally adjusted to fit the consumer society for the benefit of big business. The goal of this writing is to show how the love of money [not limited to capitalism] can have enormous consequences at different scales - a country, an individual's own life. This writing suggests that paradigm shift includes a very important aspect of transformation, the act to "demonetize" our lives. To understand these dynamics can help create incentives for one [or several, or a Movement] to downsize and reduce eco footprints.
Disaster Capitalism
We start with a short description of disaster capitalism a la Naomi Klein. Then disaster capitalism's relationship to structural adjustments, then the remarkable parallels how social engineering/the consumer culture, does a structural adjustment on the lives of just about everyone at great cost to people and planet. We are so well adjusted to disaster capitalism we can hardly imabine anything else. To understand our own participation in the scam could be unsettling but we can choose to make good use of discomfort to create a positive alternative - paradigm shift.
Disaster capitalism is a term usually credited to author Naomi Klein and her book Shock Doctrine published in 2007. Her use of the term refers to how the turmoil and disruption caused by a disaster, human or "natural"# creates a political and economic opening that can favor neo liberal changes to a nation's economic policy and process beneficial to privatization and development that might not have been possible in normal times. According to Klein, big business, local or multi national is there to cash in on the aftermath of many disasters, often at the expense of local political, social and economic well being and self determination.
Klein suggests a number of examples of the "shock doctrine or disaster capitalism" such as the invasion or Iraq, the CIA coup in Chile to evict Salvador Allende, Russia becoming an oligarchy after the fall of communism, the tsunami in 2004 that flooded coastal Sri Lanka and Hurricane Katrina that flooded New Orleans. These disasters resulted in countries or New Orleans, to submitting to economic interests that were/are, more interested in making money than the well being of a country's own culture and potentials.
For example, in Chile and Iraq, changes in economic policy were forced on those countries opening them up to foreign investment and ownership. Russia has its own unique disaster story. The protagonists and winners from the chaos of Russia's transition from communism to free market were well connected and crafty/corrupt individuals and cliques who amassed their own riches and political connections at the expense of the Russian people. In all these disaster stories, due process, the public, national self determination in a responsible way and the environment suffer. More on this effect to follow.
Note, Klein's Shock Doctrine, like many books about politics and economics, had its celebrants and detractors. Also, # from above, note, the author does not believe in natural disasters. He agrees, certainly there can be severe disruption and damage when humans are in the way of nature like building a city below sea level or building along an ocean shoreline, or the steepening effects of climate change, but these disasters are human cause. Humans are in the way of what nature does.
Structural Adjustments
Klein likens the act of disaster capitalism to a similar practice, in various guises over the past 40 or so years, known as structural adjustments. Structural adjustments were a common practice of the Wold Bank and International Monetary Fund. First, what is the IMF and World Bank? They have enormous power in the realm of global finance, economics and development. Their respective turf and operations overlap, they both assist global market based economic development, but they have distinct roles. The IMF's primary task is to stabilize the world's monetary systems while the World Bank is focused on reducing poverty in the world's less "developed" countries. With string attached. Both are based in Washington DC and both are products WW II to facilitate post war reconstruction.
Particularly during the 1970's and 80's, the Bank was known for its structural adjustments. Leading up the 70's and 80's loans were made to countries to boost development in a variety of sectors such as agriculture, health, energy, mining and transportation. Few would disagree that the so called developing countries could benefit by strategic investment. Of course, many of the projects at that time were big ticket, no coincidence, development projects were based on the model of the affluent countries and the contractors to implement and manage these projects tended to come from the same countries. After all, money to be made.
The projects also were designed so the loans could be paid off in hard currency. That meant the development set the recipient countries on a track to become vassals of the the global economy. Projects often meant a country adjusting itself to export production and more integration to the global economy which was subject to economic forces totally out of the reach of the small developing countries. The adjustments typically required privatization of local production assets, deregulation to the advantage of foreign corporation, openings to foreign investment which meant foreign influence if not control. Development for export could conflict with development based more on the particular nation's needs.
As it turned out, many of these development projects patterned after the affluent countries and designed for an export based economy did not work out. Global market volatility and the capricious nature of history did not care much about the new junior members of the globalization club. The Latin American financial crisis of the 1970's and 80's illustrates how development based on the demands of first world financial institutions and their neo liberal agenda can lead to big problems for those on the receiving end. In particular in the 1980's, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil rang up huge debts they simply could not pay. Living standards fell. Social tensions, resentment towards the wealthy nations, unemployment increased so millions of people became desperate to make a living any way they could including drugs and prostitution. New loans required even more adjustments. Social programs were sacrificed to pay back loans to wealthy foreign lenders. Many other countries have their own stories of development misadventures.
Important to add, World Bank programs and projects have also had positive effects as well. There is a care for public health, the environment, climate change and social progress. Some lessons have been learned over the past 50 years. Foreign assistance can be useful when those on the receiving end have a part to play in creating the plan. Even better, when the vision for development considers external costs along with values and principles such as permaculture and the wisdom of the ancients mentioned earlier in the Primer. That may be a bit much to ask.
Social Engineering and Structural Adjustments
I am a fan of Naomi Klein but I would love to see her go further into the realm of paradigm shift. The Primer expands the use of the term Disaster Capitalism in a way not mentioned in her book that does relate to paradigm shift.
While reflecting on the the issue of structural adjustments, the nature of economic development, the hegemony of those with power and money to impose it on others and the limited thinking of humans in general, I grokked an intriguing parallel between developing countries of the world and the average American consumer.
My reflection goes like this, both the elites of the developing countries and the masses in the affluent countries have been seduced, bullied, resigned and/or spellbound into compliance by the global economic elite and their neo liberal/globalization agenda. Just about the whole world has been absorbed into the belief that more stuff is good, even if you already have plenty.
SIDE BAR The well off and over consuming class is consuming more stuff than they need and spending more money than they need. Instead of excess, that surplus could be used to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. Not to suggest the entire world can or should live like the average American. That is nonsense for many reasons, but people deserve clean water, secure and comfortable shelter, access to medical care and a way to make a decent living to pay for a healthy way of life that does not wreck the planet. As explained elsewhere in the Primer, the author has, according to the footprint calculator, an eco logical footprint that the planet could sustain for everyone. Even 25% of what I have would be joyously welcomed by billions of people.
I explain earlier in the Primer how that belief was pumped up by social engineering. We can credit the social/economic vision and social engineering as advocated by Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann. If the reader has not read about the vision of Bernays and Lippmann, please do > HERE. This writing will be much easier to understand. But briefly, 100 years ago, Bernays and Lippmann called for an elite class who would be a capable/chosen managers to look after a nation's economic system to make sure the masses are taken care of but the price of being taken care of would be they are prevented from participating with the elites managing their society and economic system. Social engineering is the act to distract the masses,,, aka, the Consumer Culture. The masses are kept entertained and distracted from participating in how society is managed and what is the goal.
The comments expanding to include Naomi Klein and Disaster Capitalism are intended to explain that the social engineering described by Bernays, Lippmann [and others] earlier in this chapter has a lengthy and mixed record at the global level.The loans to developing countries have been largely to fund development projects that fits them into the global scheme in a way that best benefits the interests, typically from the wealthy countries, that run the global economy.
The elites of developing countries have largely been pulled into the scenario and so they pull in their countries and people to this global system.
Notwithstanding the various global debt crises, this task had been successful by way of structural adjustments and how global development has unfolded over the past 50 or so years. The rise of China is important, not because it offers an alternative to capitalism but because it offers the same goal - lots of stuff for lots of people but in a way even more restrictive to social and political participation. At least in the US and other top tier countries, elections have the potential for results that might benefit the world order. The high hopes of the Primer is to bring about deep social, political and economic transformation and popular elections that truly assisted the move towards sustainability have a prayer for actually taking place. That's what the Primer is all about.
So the developing countries are, essentially, on the receiving end of the same treatment delivered to the masses in the already affluent countries, particularly the US. Play your limited part and don't make problems for those in control. The World Bank and IMF can be regarded as global tools used by those global elites, lead by the US.
Both targets of the elite
the financial institution that represent the interests of the globalized economic system, which is the wealthy countries and the US as the first of non equals.
Meanwhile the less well off in the affluent countries are also seduced and bullied by the same economic interests and pulled into the world of excess consumption, world controlled by national elites. In a sense, the poor countries have been the victims of social engineering on a global scale, very similar to the social engineering here at home at the personal scale.
Just as the American under class struggles and aspires to keep up with Jones's and work their way up the social and economic ladder, the elite of the poor countries, by submitting to the demands of the World Bank and its colleagues, put their own countries at the mercy of the capable, the talented and the chosen at the World Bank and the IMF. global financial insinto a shock by over borrowing and then having the entire country suffer, trying to attain a form of development that has certainly delivered the excess of the consumer culture to millions of people but, as we read in the Primer and other sources, that affluence comes at great expense.
the money making imperative of economics as we know it, the shortage capacity of both society's leaders and those who follow to imagine an alternative world with the ideals and values of paradigm shift.
that economic vision other beware and even caution when those interests are focused on making money.
While Klein sees disaster capitalism as a scheme that makes use of human caused or natural disruption affecting thousands, perhaps millions of people, the Primer sees another kind of disaster capitalism. This type of disaster takes place at home, we see it on the media constantly, we are surrounded and immersed in it - the consumer culture.
perhaps watching TV, perhaps sitting at the 50 yard line of a top ten college football team. Its personal and impersonal at the same time because the scheme is adept at the art of social engineering.
The consumer culture is not only advertising and selling, it is social engineering with the intention of grooming a society of consumers rather than as citizens. A society that equates excess buying and consuming with being one of the most important functions of life and function that defines who we are both to ourselves and to others. This scheme purposefully dis-empowers people so they lose the capacity to look after their own best interests. This social engineering is re in-forced when others who are also victims of the same scheme making the condition widespread and to seem normal.
The chart below is a quick look at damage caused by each value of interest. There could be more values both cause and effect.
The term disaster is appropriate because the damage caused to these values can mean lost homes, lost health and well being, lots human potential, damage to the environment and lost potential to have used time and money in a more productive way. Given the condition of our society and the environment, use of the word disaster is totally justified. We are talking about broken lives, climate change and species extinctions.
Disaster Capitalism - A Case To Be Made To De-monitize
This writing pulls together Naomi Klein's disaster capitalism, the IMF and World Bank's structural adjustments and the social engineering of the consumer culture. In short, the large scale practice of structurally adjusting a poor country's economic system for the benefit of big business has a counterpart to how the lives of individuals are structurally adjusted to fit the consumer society for the benefit of big business. The goal of this writing is to show how the love of money [not limited to capitalism] can have enormous consequences at different scales - a country, an individual's own life. This writing suggests that paradigm shift includes a very important aspect of transformation, the act to "demonetize" our lives. To understand these dynamics can help create incentives for one [or several, or a Movement] to downsize and reduce eco footprints.
Disaster Capitalism
We start with a short description of disaster capitalism a la Naomi Klein. Then disaster capitalism's relationship to structural adjustments, then the remarkable parallels how social engineering/the consumer culture, does a structural adjustment on the lives of just about everyone at great cost to people and planet. We are so well adjusted to disaster capitalism we can hardly imabine anything else. To understand our own participation in the scam could be unsettling but we can choose to make good use of discomfort to create a positive alternative - paradigm shift.
Disaster capitalism is a term usually credited to author Naomi Klein and her book Shock Doctrine published in 2007. Her use of the term refers to how the turmoil and disruption caused by a disaster, human or "natural"# creates a political and economic opening that can favor neo liberal changes to a nation's economic policy and process beneficial to privatization and development that might not have been possible in normal times. According to Klein, big business, local or multi national is there to cash in on the aftermath of many disasters, often at the expense of local political, social and economic well being and self determination.
Klein suggests a number of examples of the "shock doctrine or disaster capitalism" such as the invasion or Iraq, the CIA coup in Chile to evict Salvador Allende, Russia becoming an oligarchy after the fall of communism, the tsunami in 2004 that flooded coastal Sri Lanka and Hurricane Katrina that flooded New Orleans. These disasters resulted in countries or New Orleans, to submitting to economic interests that were/are, more interested in making money than the well being of a country's own culture and potentials.
For example, in Chile and Iraq, changes in economic policy were forced on those countries opening them up to foreign investment and ownership. Russia has its own unique disaster story. The protagonists and winners from the chaos of Russia's transition from communism to free market were well connected and crafty/corrupt individuals and cliques who amassed their own riches and political connections at the expense of the Russian people. In all these disaster stories, due process, the public, national self determination in a responsible way and the environment suffer. More on this effect to follow.
Note, Klein's Shock Doctrine, like many books about politics and economics, had its celebrants and detractors. Also, # from above, note, the author does not believe in natural disasters. He agrees, certainly there can be severe disruption and damage when humans are in the way of nature like building a city below sea level or building along an ocean shoreline, or the steepening effects of climate change, but these disasters are human cause. Humans are in the way of what nature does.
Structural Adjustments
Klein likens the act of disaster capitalism to a similar practice, in various guises over the past 40 or so years, known as structural adjustments. Structural adjustments were a common practice of the Wold Bank and International Monetary Fund. First, what is the IMF and World Bank? They have enormous power in the realm of global finance, economics and development. Their respective turf and operations overlap, they both assist global market based economic development, but they have distinct roles. The IMF's primary task is to stabilize the world's monetary systems while the World Bank is focused on reducing poverty in the world's less "developed" countries. With string attached. Both are based in Washington DC and both are products WW II to facilitate post war reconstruction.
Particularly during the 1970's and 80's, the Bank was known for its structural adjustments. Leading up the 70's and 80's loans were made to countries to boost development in a variety of sectors such as agriculture, health, energy, mining and transportation. Few would disagree that the so called developing countries could benefit by strategic investment. Of course, many of the projects at that time were big ticket, no coincidence, development projects were based on the model of the affluent countries and the contractors to implement and manage these projects tended to come from the same countries. After all, money to be made.
The projects also were designed so the loans could be paid off in hard currency. That meant the development set the recipient countries on a track to become vassals of the the global economy. Projects often meant a country adjusting itself to export production and more integration to the global economy which was subject to economic forces totally out of the reach of the small developing countries. The adjustments typically required privatization of local production assets, deregulation to the advantage of foreign corporation, openings to foreign investment which meant foreign influence if not control. Development for export could conflict with development based more on the particular nation's needs.
As it turned out, many of these development projects patterned after the affluent countries and designed for an export based economy did not work out. Global market volatility and the capricious nature of history did not care much about the new junior members of the globalization club. The Latin American financial crisis of the 1970's and 80's illustrates how development based on the demands of first world financial institutions and their neo liberal agenda can lead to big problems for those on the receiving end. In particular in the 1980's, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil rang up huge debts they simply could not pay. Living standards fell. Social tensions, resentment towards the wealthy nations, unemployment increased so millions of people became desperate to make a living any way they could including drugs and prostitution. New loans required even more adjustments. Social programs were sacrificed to pay back loans to wealthy foreign lenders. Many other countries have their own stories of development misadventures.
Important to add, World Bank programs and projects have also had positive effects as well. There is a care for public health, the environment, climate change and social progress. Some lessons have been learned over the past 50 years. Foreign assistance can be useful when those on the receiving end have a part to play in creating the plan. Even better, when the vision for development considers external costs along with values and principles such as permaculture and the wisdom of the ancients mentioned earlier in the Primer. That may be a bit much to ask.
Social Engineering and Structural Adjustments
I am a fan of Naomi Klein but I would love to see her go further into the realm of paradigm shift. The Primer expands the use of the term Disaster Capitalism in a way not mentioned in her book that does relate to paradigm shift.
While reflecting on the the issue of structural adjustments, the nature of economic development, the hegemony of those with power and money to impose it on others and the limited thinking of humans in general, I grokked an intriguing parallel between developing countries of the world and the average American consumer.
My reflection goes like this, both the elites of the developing countries and the masses in the affluent countries have been seduced, bullied, resigned and/or spellbound into compliance by the global economic elite and their neo liberal/globalization agenda. Just about the whole world has been absorbed into the belief that more stuff is good, even if you already have plenty.
SIDE BAR The well off and over consuming class is consuming more stuff than they need and spending more money than they need. Instead of excess, that surplus could be used to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. Not to suggest the entire world can or should live like the average American. That is nonsense for many reasons, but people deserve clean water, secure and comfortable shelter, access to medical care and a way to make a decent living to pay for a healthy way of life that does not wreck the planet. As explained elsewhere in the Primer, the author has, according to the footprint calculator, an eco logical footprint that the planet could sustain for everyone. Even 25% of what I have would be joyously welcomed by billions of people.
I explain earlier in the Primer how that belief was pumped up by social engineering. We can credit the social/economic vision and social engineering as advocated by Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann. If the reader has not read about the vision of Bernays and Lippmann, please do > HERE. This writing will be much easier to understand. But briefly, 100 years ago, Bernays and Lippmann called for an elite class who would be a capable/chosen managers to look after a nation's economic system to make sure the masses are taken care of but the price of being taken care of would be they are prevented from participating with the elites managing their society and economic system. Social engineering is the act to distract the masses,,, aka, the Consumer Culture. The masses are kept entertained and distracted from participating in how society is managed and what is the goal.
The comments expanding to include Naomi Klein and Disaster Capitalism are intended to explain that the social engineering described by Bernays, Lippmann [and others] earlier in this chapter has a lengthy and mixed record at the global level.The loans to developing countries have been largely to fund development projects that fits them into the global scheme in a way that best benefits the interests, typically from the wealthy countries, that run the global economy.
The elites of developing countries have largely been pulled into the scenario and so they pull in their countries and people to this global system.
Notwithstanding the various global debt crises, this task had been successful by way of structural adjustments and how global development has unfolded over the past 50 or so years. The rise of China is important, not because it offers an alternative to capitalism but because it offers the same goal - lots of stuff for lots of people but in a way even more restrictive to social and political participation. At least in the US and other top tier countries, elections have the potential for results that might benefit the world order. The high hopes of the Primer is to bring about deep social, political and economic transformation and popular elections that truly assisted the move towards sustainability have a prayer for actually taking place. That's what the Primer is all about.
So the developing countries are, essentially, on the receiving end of the same treatment delivered to the masses in the already affluent countries, particularly the US. Play your limited part and don't make problems for those in control. The World Bank and IMF can be regarded as global tools used by those global elites, lead by the US.
Both targets of the elite
the financial institution that represent the interests of the globalized economic system, which is the wealthy countries and the US as the first of non equals.
Meanwhile the less well off in the affluent countries are also seduced and bullied by the same economic interests and pulled into the world of excess consumption, world controlled by national elites. In a sense, the poor countries have been the victims of social engineering on a global scale, very similar to the social engineering here at home at the personal scale.
Just as the American under class struggles and aspires to keep up with Jones's and work their way up the social and economic ladder, the elite of the poor countries, by submitting to the demands of the World Bank and its colleagues, put their own countries at the mercy of the capable, the talented and the chosen at the World Bank and the IMF. global financial insinto a shock by over borrowing and then having the entire country suffer, trying to attain a form of development that has certainly delivered the excess of the consumer culture to millions of people but, as we read in the Primer and other sources, that affluence comes at great expense.
the money making imperative of economics as we know it, the shortage capacity of both society's leaders and those who follow to imagine an alternative world with the ideals and values of paradigm shift.
that economic vision other beware and even caution when those interests are focused on making money.
While Klein sees disaster capitalism as a scheme that makes use of human caused or natural disruption affecting thousands, perhaps millions of people, the Primer sees another kind of disaster capitalism. This type of disaster takes place at home, we see it on the media constantly, we are surrounded and immersed in it - the consumer culture.
perhaps watching TV, perhaps sitting at the 50 yard line of a top ten college football team. Its personal and impersonal at the same time because the scheme is adept at the art of social engineering.
The consumer culture is not only advertising and selling, it is social engineering with the intention of grooming a society of consumers rather than as citizens. A society that equates excess buying and consuming with being one of the most important functions of life and function that defines who we are both to ourselves and to others. This scheme purposefully dis-empowers people so they lose the capacity to look after their own best interests. This social engineering is re in-forced when others who are also victims of the same scheme making the condition widespread and to seem normal.
The chart below is a quick look at damage caused by each value of interest. There could be more values both cause and effect.
The term disaster is appropriate because the damage caused to these values can mean lost homes, lost health and well being, lots human potential, damage to the environment and lost potential to have used time and money in a more productive way. Given the condition of our society and the environment, use of the word disaster is totally justified. We are talking about broken lives, climate change and species extinctions.
External Cost > Product Below |
Lost Human Potential |
Lost Financial Potential |
Damage To The Environment |
Damage Public Health |
Wasted Resources |
Structural Adjustments |
Credit Servitude |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Cars, Highways, Suburbia, Oil |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Junk Food and Meat |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Military Spending |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Advertising |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Celebrity/Pop Culture |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Technology |
Admittedly, my take on disaster is a good deal subjective but identifies people who are homeless, with drug problems legal or illegal, students couch surfing with no stable home, veterans in shelters, single moms living in cars, people in need of ongoing social and/or food assistance, working minimum wage jobs, a paycheck away for not making rent, having to choose between feeding their car or feeding themselves of kids. I would consider these people to be living, in varying degrees, disaster lifestyles, the unsurprising product of a disaster economic system.
That opinion is not necessarily a judgement of the person although people need to be responsible. Many people in these conditions are casualties of the System. The consumer culture and those who profit from it and promote it can claim a big assist for people who make poor choices in their own lives. Ultimately, for whatever reasons and to different degrees, the System has failed them as if the System felt responsible for millions of struggling people in the first place. Paradigm shift offers positive directions for many millions of people.
A disaster description can also apply to millions of people not in any obvious duress but millions who appear to be comfortable and even well off financially. Middle class lifestyles cause immense damage to the natural world while many of those lifestyles contain their own social and personal damages. Many millions of middle class people get by with mood altering drugs legal and illegal, alcohol, tobacco, vaping etc. If abundance of stuff translated into happy and positive people, products of excess would hardly exist.
There is another realm of disaster. I consider people with extravagant, you could say "red carpet" lifestyles of high consumption with large eco footprints to have disaster lifestyles as well. Consider the many types of entertainment awards with the glitterati and the extravagant costumes and the hundreds of cameras to record it all. Disaster in the sense that these celebrities are presented in the media as examples of success and worthy of adoration for their wanton self indulgence and the media with nothing better to do than to put the images and reports out to the wider world. To promote these lifestyles and images as positive and desirable contributes to more social and environmental disaster and dysfunction.
In "classic" disaster capitalism, the preyed upon country or perhaps city, is compelled to accept predatory conditions imposed on them to receive the IMF or World Bank loan. The target country might be required to liberalize its policies to force it to open to foreign investment or ownership, be required to sell national assets such as infrastructure or "natural" resources, be required to reduce social spending and perhaps other "adjustments" to its own self determination.
In a similar way, an individual who is lured into the belief system of the consumer culture, or even more, celebrity and pop culture, is manipulated into their own structural adjustments, falling prey to advertising and social engineering. The effect is to accept the incoming messages at the expense of one's own "healthy" self determination. We can see two basic realms of structural adjustments at the personal level. One is people struggling to achieve even a modest middle class lifestyle. The second, drawn into a "bling level" lifestyle of over consumption. And perhaps an even less desirable lifestyle of celebrity status based on excess wealth and display that is promoted by the media to the wider world as desirable and worthy of imitating.
Not having experienced any of those conditions, I can only describe what I see but I can see the consequences, the external costs, not only to the environment but to the people who allow themselves to be adjusted.
Credit Servitude
There are few people who buy only what they can pay for in that moment, especially larger ite
I will make brief comments on each of the damaging products in the chart above. Every product or act of capitalism has an X for each external cost. The ubiquity of external costs is why capitalism is thoroughly dishonest and discredited.
The trillions of dollars of external costs over the years is an incalculable, inescapable subsidy to the American Way Of Life and a totally adequate reason for a Truth And Reconciliation process for capitalism. This process could be used in that T and R process. This exersize here can also serve to as an initial judgement on products and actions of the System that don't make the cut to sustainability.
A few words about External costs - Earlier in this chapter on economics, I described the significance of external costs. Again, external costs are the damages imposed by the user of a product on people or the environment that had no part in using that product. Further, the price paid for that product or "agent
2] Cars, highways, suburbia
3] Junk food, meat
4] Military spending
5] Credit servitude, buy now pay later
6] Social engineering - Lost money and human capacity
I will link other parts of the Primer related to this writing about disaster capitalism.
Disaster Capitalism
Confusion and disinformation - the consumer culture and its commercial and cultural messaging - distracts and disempowers people from looking after their own best interests.
Capitalism imposes its materialistic values and demands on all
of us by way of incessant advertising and messaging. People and
planet are severely damaged by the consumer culture. This is
disaster capitalism and it is very profitable and what this economic
system is based upon.
This disaster capitalism imposed content at the personal level
is purposeful and is a tool by the economic system to impose social engineering - to push on us a set of conditions much
like the world bank and IMF have done to “third
world” countries - to take advantage of the disarray, often caused
but extreme debt - in the form of structural adjustments. To impose
de regulation, privatize and create opportunity for the multi nationals to sell their products and services, often to the disadvantage of the country on the receiving end.
The consumer culture is social engineering that accomplishes a
similar outcome at the personal level with its message that consuming is the meaning of life.
Namoi Klein popularized and explained the term Disaster Capitalism in her book The Shock Doctrine
Damage to people, countries and planet is good for business