Modernity has disguised the fact that we are 'the' invasive species

Modernity has blurred the line between what is and is not an invasive species.

"Leviathon"
 by Thomas
 Hobbes.

Of course reference to history will quickly clarify any doubt, but what was once, foreign, rare or not naturally occurring is frequently so common and accepted that it is thought by many to be “native”.

Australia, New Zealand and smaller south Pacific nations were once wonderful examples of how their isolation had resulted in what had been hitherto unseen and unknown species.

However, just one species, Homo sapiens (wise man or modern humans), that’s you and me, has followed in the footsteps of its ancestors colonizing almost all available space on the planet.

Expansive intellectual prowess has launched modern man to the top of the food chain, pushing many other species, from massive to microscopic to extinction or the margins and now, it seems those smarts are going to be the seeds of our undoing.

Not many centuries ago there was certain, and necessary equilibrium about the earth with birth and death in both animate and inanimate “things” being timely, equating with what was needed to ensure environmental balance.

Modernity, driven by the wants of the “wise man” as opposed to his/her actual needs, changed all that leaving us balancing precariously above a chasm.

Troubles bigger than you and I block our escape and there appears to be an absence of endeavour from both international and national institutions to actively pursue societal changes that would avoid the fall.

Seeking to attribute the blame to someone or something, many turn their gaze to the uncensored and unfettered rush of capitalism that has plundered earth’s finite resources in its pursuit if infinite growth and profit.

Modern life, despite its critics and those who pine for what was, is unquestionable better than what existed and described by Thomas Hobbes inn 1651 book, “Leviathan”, as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

Homo sapiens have become earth’s true invasive species, threatening not just all other species, but even its own future, and even, maybe, its own extinction.

However, let us not be too despondent for just recently the British-based Philosopher’s Mail noted in a story about “Welcome to the Dawn of Capitalism”, in which the criticism of the hunger for growth and profit was acknowledged, it said: “But perhaps the good future depends not on minimising Capitalism but on radically extending it”.

“If we could just address our deeper needs more directly, our materialism would be refined and restrained, our work would be more meaningful and our profits would be more honourable. That’s the ideal future of Capitalism,” it said.

Maybe we are “the” invasive species and maybe it is time we engaged our naturally endowed intellectual prowess to become more refined and restrained to live more meaningful and honourable lives?

Corporations decry socialism, but use it when it suits

Corporations decry socialism, but turn to it immediately the rigours of capitalism fail to boost bank balances and collapse threatens.
Examples of this apparent guilt-free switching of allegiances proliferate seemingly excavating the true meaning of the free market – profit in any way you can, for as long as you can and when it goes sour, turn to an enrich yourself from the public purse using nebulous arguments. Although iniquitous, those arguments have a powerful emotional pull in that they appeal to human values that are rooted, mistakenly, in the belief that the broad well-being of society is inextricably linked to the success of the at-risk corporation.


Henry Ford

Interestingly, that very corporation that has championed capitalistic behaviour and subsequently become rich beyond imagination sees its saviour in socialism and shows no embarrassment as it reaches out it hand asking for money.
The corporation’s hand does not shake, nor does it show any sign of discomfit or the slightest humiliation as it asks for government aid, conveniently forgetting that it stood among critics of government interference, frequently damning it for humane policies designed to protect its prime resource, its people. 

The world-wide car industry, and of direct concern, that of Australia, has long stood at the front of the queue seeking government handouts, endlessly arguing that health of the country’s economy is inherently related to that of the motor industry.

The industry has repeatedly returned to the public trough over the last decade it has gobbled down some $12 billion and now it is back for more. That payout, notably, is bigger than that of any other individual industry.

The world-wide car industry, and of direct concern, that of Australia, has long stood at the front of the queue seeking government handouts, endlessly arguing that health of the country’s economy is inherently related to that of the motor industry.

The industry has repeatedly returned to the public trough over the last decade gobbling down some $12 billion and now it is back for more. That payout, notably, is bigger than that of any other individual industry.

Running a business becomes easy once you understand, and can implement the idea that you first must privatise the profits and socialize the costs, just as our motor industry has been doing for years, and then create a felicitous and imaginary situation in which you are too big and too important to fail.

Rather than investing endlessly in a fundamentally fragile industry that does nothing but deplete the world’s finite resources and fill up earth’s natural sinks with its wastes, we should be using that cash and those finite resources to build a way of living in which the emphasis is on the permanency of people rather than the fleeting pleasure of machines.

It was in 1945 that Henry Ford finally wilted under the pressure of marketeers and stopped building cars with few refinements and as cheap as he could to follow Chevrolet as it introduced fashion and frivolous fineries through a new model every year.

Car makers apparently abhor socialism, but after successfully socialising the costs, it is now attempting to protect those privatised profits with a “world car”, a homogenised product that has that sense of communism about it.