Let me explain in extremely simple terms:

The United States made a choice for rapid economic and industrial growth. This choice turned out irreversible. The choice made was made somewhere before or after World War two, and was largely a corporate choice, and it largely only benefits corporations.

The choice made were a one way choice. They were made by an elite top benefit themselves and their values. These values were white, protestant and captalism-centered. The people who made these choices assumes they made choices that were “good for the world” and in doing so they transcribed these choices into the fabric of the current geopolitical status quo. The effect of these choices have been ambiguous – never before has humanity seen so much collective as well as individual prosperity. But the effects have also been arguably very bad, in terms of irreversible resource depletion, personal and interpersonal stress, wealth disparity, environmental degradation, climate damage, overconsumption, overpopulation, militarization, short term thinking – and many other problems. The paradigm created in the early 20th century has become global and is literally damaging life on this planet – and while there should be feedback mechanisms to correct for faulty policies, or current systems do not entertain feedback mechanism at all.

However you care call our current system – corporate, neo-liberal, free, democratic, capitalist, globalist, whatever, it doesn’t work. It did some good and it did a lot of wrong. The worst problem is that it is not self-correcting. The main broken feature of our current geopolitical (US-centered) order is that nobody in charge will consent to change and that there are no mechanisms in place to correct its major flaws.

That is what also caused the collapsed of USSR “fascist communism” – unaccountable elites and no system repairs or feedback mechanisms. As in USSR style communism there is only talk on how to deny the existence of systemic problems. And as surely as the USSR collapsed into a smoldering heap, as surely will all countries most dedicated to the current grotesquerie which is our current geopolitical status quo collapse.

The biggest question is – will the collapse occur soon enough leave us with sufficient resources – and will the collapse itself be so violent as to constrain what resources we have left afterwards.

We can have a very nice world, but we won’t, since we do not globally agree on what might constitute a nice world. So we are stuck with a compromiser system. Something like ‘democracy’ where we debate, and give all constituents a voice, so they at least can vote for giving themselves a share of the collective gains. However all this means maximalization of individual benefit and utility and thats precisely where the shoe wrings.

Who cares about the disenfranchised, those with no votes, illegal immigrants, criminals, the marginal, animals, women, the unemployed, old people, the insane? Too few care, since this system punished the natural tendency of humans towards solidarity. We disenfranchise and exclude because we are in a collective global feeding frenzy.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLTPXsdgLU&w=640&h=390]

I do not care what the solution is, as long
– it gives all of humanity a substantially safer and more secure longterm future (sustainability)
– it makes more people better off than they are now (affluence and more equality)
– it provides more people with significantly more hope for betterment (progress)
– It does not in any way lead us to an authoritarian society (freedom, democratization, pluralism)
– It doesn’t foment the generation of elites or systemic parasites (transparency)
– It acknowledges errors and corrects them in a good way, even if people resist improvements (accountability)
– It makes substantially people more happy and satisfied and productive
– We can move to this new state without misery and bloodshed “that is not worth it”.

But I guarantee you, we need a solution very soon.