End of the Binge

American Conservative ^ | September 12, 2005 Issue | James Howard Kunstler

[RATkiller]

Among the strange delusions and hallucinations gripping the body politic these days is the idea that the so-called global economy is a permanent fixture of the human condition. The seemingly unanimous embrace of this idea in the power circles of America is a marvelous illustration of the madness of crowds, for nothing could be farther from the truth.

The global economy is, in fact, nothing more than a transient set of trade and financial relations based on a particular set of transient, special sociopolitical conditions, namely a few decades of relative world peace between the great powers along with substantial, reliable supplies of predictably cheap fossil fuels. The result, as far as America is concerned, has been an extended fiesta based on suburban comfort, easy motoring, fried food in abundance, universal air conditioning, and bargain-priced imported merchandise acquired on promises to pay later—a way of life described by Vice President Cheney as “non-negotiable.”

Of particular concern ought to be the 12,000-mile-long merchandise supply lines from Asia that American retailers such as Wal-Mart depend on and from which American “consumers” (as opposed to citizens, i.e., people with duties, obligations, and responsibilities) get most of their household goods these days. Wal-Mart now gets 70 percent of its products from China.

[elmer fudd]

Trying getting to work to make your contribution to the GDP without oil.

I've done it in the past, either by bicycle or electric train. Sure we depend on oil, but you could make the same point about electricity. If anything we need it even more, yet nobody would claim we have an electricity based economy. Heck, we wouldn't last for long without our farmers either. There are dozens of things we depend on everyday, but that doesn't mean they're the basis of our economy.

[B-Chan]

Finally, someone with guts enough to tell the truth.

[lucysmom]

The problem with all the doomists is that they always fail to account for human ingenuity. They assume that humans when standing in a ditch as the water approaches will not move. The fact is the history of human civilization is recovering from disasters and/or adapting to new situations. I guess some people just love to be chicken littles.

If you mean by "humans" the entire human race, I agree with you. That does not hold true, however, for individual humans, individual companies, or individual countries.

Several years ago California announced stricter emission standards for cars; Detroit whined, "we can't, its too hard" (Chicken Little response?) and asked Washington to intervene. Japan was already working on it. Which country do you think is more likely to lead the way, adapting to a changing world and developing new technology?