The Failure of Capitalism?

Another radio interview, this time I didn't catch the interviewee's name.  He was talking about the failure of capitalism.

Obviously, the current economic crisis is on most people's minds.  The stench of financial incompetence and corporate greed is inescapable. 

A few years back, I remember the Bush administration announced some sort of tax rebate to the American public, a thousand bucks or so.  And his PR minions were out there wailing away about how people should run out and buy a new fridge or the like - to keep the economy moving, they shouted.  And I wondered, can that be true?  Is our economic system so frail, completely reliant on relentless consumerism?  And I thought - how irresponsible, when so many people are struggling with too much personal debt, to advocate more spending without a moment's pause.  The government is living beyond its means, and many people are too, and they're enabling each other's bad fiscal habits like a couple of alcoholics on a non-ending bender. 

Well, it has to end sometime.

A couple of weeks ago, Bush made a speech at some world leaders' conference.  Don't give up on the global economy, he exhorted, free trade is what makes the world economy grow.  And it needs to grow, and keep growing, our financial system is built upon that bedrock assumption.

And I wondered, how is it possible for the economy to grow infinitely?  Aren't we going to consume everything at some point, all the resources, the planet itself?

Back to the radio interviewee: The genius of capitalism, he said, is its incentive for invention.  Entrepreneurs see a way to fulfill consumer need, and are able to make a profit doing it.  Unfortunately, he added, the system stopped working somewhere around the 1950's.  All the basic needs of the average Western consumer had been met.  So the system system began to invent new needs (and products to fill them) and sell these to the consumer.  This treadmill of consumerism is still running, and most of us are stuck firmly in place.

There is, of course, real need out there.  But our capitalist system always wants to make a fast buck, the easiest buck.

What the worlds needs is capitalism with an ethical conscience, a system that is able to renew and fill real needs.  

There are examples out there.  Collectivities of people sharing their expertise and energy to create useful, needed things.  The free software movement, Wikipedia, the $200 laptop program, and countless renewable energy movements.  

It's impossible to change the direction of the world economy overnight.  Or even in a generation.  But a person can alter his own lifestyle a little bit, one decision at a time, one action at a time.