How can we build an equitable society that lasts longer than the New Deal did?

[rrneck]

9. As a species

we aren't designed to manage abundance. Our bodies were designed to manage scarcity. I can't think of a culture that has successfully done it before it brutalized other cultures around it or devoured itself. We just don't know how to equitably create artificial scarcity. It seems that the only way we can create a just society is if there is little to distribute.

Technology runs on oil. The ultimate use of that technology has been primarily to secure the convenience of the three thousand mile Caesar salad. While real time global communication is wonderful, its primary use is the movement of electronic money. We may be on the cusp of another Axial Age. After seven thousand years or so of increasing abundance we now have seven billion people on the planet. With the demise of the energy resource that has been used to feed them, redesigning a localized method of social organization when so many powerful empires are so physically close together and dependent on the same dwindling resource will be an interesting task.

While the OWS movement is a wonderful thing and long overdue remember that it, right along with the Tea Party, is a movement populated by some of the most privileged people the world has ever seen. They are in dire economic straits in the wealthiest and most powerful empire on the face of the planet. I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. Our standard of living has been way too high for way too long. We are spoiled children who aren't getting what we want, and we are armed to the teeth.