The Cure: Part II

As one observer has put it, "If the whole world wants to live like the United States, the planet is doomed." The fact is that having even one nation like our own, with a mere 5% of the global population, consume as much of the world's resources and, in the process, create so much waste and pollution is dangerous enough. The prospect of China's (at least until now) growing middle classes all acquiring automobiles is a frightening one. In just the last five years or so, Beijing's roads, once crowded with bicycles, have begun to be clogged with traffic. Less exercise and a fatter diet have produced a new generation of Chinese children plagued by childhood obesity. Needless to say, air pollution in Beijing has worsened. Progress?

Just as Einstein's scientific discoveries led to nuclear weapons, the introduction of methods to create relatively cheap, internal combustion-driven, privately owned vehicles has led to wholesale devastation. The automobile creates pollution in myriad ways. It has allowed urban and suburban sprawl to eat up more and more of our landscape; it uses up very high percentages of the world's natural resources both in its operation and in its manufacture. Not content with making such an innovation merely a means of transportation that could be privately owned by individual citizens, the industry here in the United States put forth the automobile as a status symbol. Even if an argument could be made that having individuals owning and driving their own vehicles, willy-nilly, as their impulses led them, a rational approach would have dictated a simple machine that was safe, got good mileage and lasted indefinitely--basically a Volkswagen with brains. Opposition to this approach, (which, frankly, I cannot recall any real voices for), came from the obvious sources--the automobile companies and, of course probably most significantly, the oil companies. For the average American, the right to own and operate an automobile is God-given. It is not merely a symbol of freedom, it is an enabler of freedom--freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom to be frivolous if one wishes with one's own hard-earned cash. As a status symbol, the automobile has no parallel. A small luxury apartment on wheels--leather upholstery, climate control, sterophonic sound, DVD players, GPS instruments. It is probably safe to assume that, for many Americans, the interior of their automobiles is far better appointed than the interiors of their homes or apartments. Thus, the automobile is the ultimate escape. It does on a far broader scale what fashion and cosmetic ads do for women--create an alternate universe that is uncluttered, clean-lined and unrelated to the grungier, sweatier aspects of being a living organism.

The Obvious--and Unspeakable--Cure for the Economy

Think monorails, bullet trains and trolley cars. Think the abolition of the privately owned automobile. Then think clean air, freedom from petrofuels and economic rebirth. Go ahead, city-dweller, look outside your apartment window and find that there are no vehicles parked on the street any longer. Suburban and rural America, look a bit farther and see that where once there were highways clogged with automobiles, the former roads have become the paths of monorails and bullet trains. The air is clean, and it is quiet now. Peace and reason have been restored.

I have watched them all, all the talking heads on C-Span, CNN, Charlie Rose; I have watched Paulson, Bernake, Greenspan, Krugman, even the two Greenbergs, "Ace" and "Hank". All of them talk of a credit crisis, of investing in banks which will in turn give loans to "small businesses" and "individuals." On the one hand, we are told that a depression has been averted. On the other hand, there are tough times ahead, a recession that can last--depending on which head is speaking--anywhere from eighteen months to five or more years. It should come as no surprise to any U.S. citizen that thirty or forty percent of our GDP has come from "finance" over the last few decades. While the scam lasted, those astute enough to have ties to the financial world were accustomed to getting 35% returns on their investments. Unlike the robber barons of old, however, the creators of the vast fortunes that were accumulated left no monuments akin to the libraries, museums and other public venues that we associate with the older barons. Instead, what we became used to was disinvestment in the social good, an almost infinite imagination for waste of the nation's treasure through the purchase of cheap goods, so-called McMansions and gas-guzzling SUVs.

Ultimately, there will be only one remedy for the crisis--government investment in infrastructure. It is a notion that is often pooh-poohed since "it will take too long to matter." The obvious objection to government investment in infrastructure is that it smacks of socialism. Those old enough to remember or educated enough to have learned about the Great Depression can recall the WPA, Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, which put thousands of Americans to work and helped to build infrastructure which the nation still utilizes today. The WPA, of course, was described by conservatives as socialistic (if not communistic) in nature. Although one can currently get away with talking about "nationalizing" banks and other institutions, this term, until lately used mostly in sentences that also contained the words Venezuela and Chavez, became acceptable since it was the richest elements in the country that were the beneficiaries. Of course on the spectrum of acceptability, nationalism is more acceptable than socialism in the United States--for now. Note, however, how little time it took for the former term to work its way into the public consciousness when no alternative seemed available. I would predict that a similar fate awaits the notion of socialism. The counter-revolution led by the Reaganites, the Thatcherites and the Friedmanites will prove, fortunately for the fate of the nation--and the planet--to have been short-lived. And for the same reasons; the planet can not survive the planned obsolescence and other capitalist schemes driven by greed at the expense of public health and safety.

To be continued...