http://www.countercurrents.org/eriqat130306.htm

The End Of Civilization

By Dave Eriqat

13 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org

I had a mild epiphany the other day: it's not President Bush who's
living in a fantasy world, it's most of his critics who are. I'm no
apologist for Bush - I neither like nor dislike him. He's no more
significant to me than a fly buzzing around outside my window. So
permit me to explain my reasoning.

People look at Bush's invasion of Iraq and see a miserable failure.
But a failure to do what? Democratize Iraq? Eliminate Iraq's WMD
arsenal? Reduce global terrorism? If those were, in fact, the reasons
for invading Iraq, then the invasion would have to be classified as a
failure. But what if the real reason was to secure Iraq's oil
supplies, perhaps not for immediate use, and perhaps not even for use
by the United States? Then the invasion of Iraq would have to be
judged a success, a "mission accomplished," so to speak.

Or take Bush's seemingly irresponsible handling of the domestic
economy. How can any sane person fail to understand that cutting
revenue while increasing spending will produce deficits, and that
those deficits cannot increase in perpetuity? Sooner or later that
accumulated debt has got to have consequences. Bush appears to be
acting as if there were no tomorrow. But what if there really were no
tomorrow, financially speaking? In that case, the reckless economic
policies of today would not only be irrelevant, but might actually be
shrewd. I mean, if one knows that he is not going to have to pay back
his debts tomorrow, then why not borrow money like crazy today? In
fact, if civilization is coming to an end, then why not use all that
borrowed money to stock up on guns and vital resources, such as oil?

Now, I'm just one person. And I've been closely studying economic,
environmental, and energy issues for only a few years. And I'm no
expert. Yet I've come to the conclusion - and I don't want to be a
"Chicken Little" here - that civilization as we have known it for the
last century is doomed. Our wasteful manner of living - heck, the
sheer size of our human population - is unsustainable. Everywhere you
look you can see signs of strain on the Earth, from spreading
pollution of the air, water, and land, to disappearance of life in the
seas, to depletion of natural resources. Something's got to give.
Things simply cannot continue as they have.

If I can see this, I would guess the United States Government, what
with its thousands of full time experts, probably can too. Now, if you
are the government (and I don't mean Tom "I am the federal government"
DeLay), and your experts tell you that civilization as we know it is
doomed, what do you do? Well, for starters, you do not tell your
population of sheeple. That would precipitate panic and result in
premature doom, which would consume the government along with
everything else. Above all, government seeks to survive, so you would
maintain the facade of normalcy for the benefit of your population
while you use what time you have left to prepare, as quietly as
possible, for the inescapable future.

What will matter in this future? Commodities, principally energy,
food, and water. Everything else is secondary. Money is far down the
list in importance.

So how would you, the government, prepare for a future world in which
commodities are king? By securing today as many of those commodities
as possible. Hence, the U.S. government's binge of military base
building throughout the commodity-rich regions of the world. What
would you not worry about? Money. The only concern you might have for
money is to prevent its premature demise. Hence, the smoke and mirrors
used to paint a pretty but false portrait of the economy. Some will
argue that the government needs more than just energy, food, and water
to survive. True, but by controlling the bulk of the world's key
commodities, everything else can be procured, including human labor
and loyalty.

In preparing for the future demise of civilization you would also seek
to increase the government's power as much and as rapidly as possible.
Why? To maintain control over those increasingly precious resources,
and equally important, to control people - especially your own people
- by force, if necessary. Viewed in this light, the government's
aggressive pursuit of power during the last five years makes perfect
sense. Ironically, President Bush got it right when he reportedly
referred to the now totally eviscerated United States Constitution as
a "god damned piece of paper." That's really all it is anymore.

So what fantasy world are Bush's critics living in? The fantasy world
in which civilization can continue as it has in the past. That we can
continue to improve the standard of living of everyone in the world if
we just return to a more sharing and egalitarian way of life, like
that which we enjoyed between World War II and the mid 1970s. This is
a fantasy. The Earth has finite limits. We are finally starting to
grasp that fact with respect to oil. But oil depletion is merely the
first in a series of coming crises ensuing from the finite confines of
our planet. The fundamental problem - and I'm not a Malthusian - is
that there are simply too many people for the Earth to sustain. This
is why fish are disappearing from the oceans, why the supply of oil is
unable to keep up with demand, why the globe is being deforested, why
animal and plant species are going extinct, why water wars are in the
offing. Perhaps if people were wiser and more willing to share, and
implicitly, less greedy, we could sustain the more than six billion
people on Earth, but, alas, such idealism does not describe human
beings.

The one thing that has enabled the human population to grow to the
immense dimensions we see today is oil, the resource facing the
greatest challenge from depletion. As the oil supply diminishes, in
the absence of herculean efforts to use oil more efficiently and
fairly, large numbers of human beings will die off. Before then,
soaring prices for oil will probably destroy the economies of the
countries most dependent on the stuff, if not the entire intricately
linked world economy. This is what I mean by the end of civilization.
Of course life will go on. But it won't be anything like what we've
been accustomed to. Life will be more like that of the Middle Ages, in
which a few wealthy lords controlled all the resources and possessed
all the power, and the rest of the people - the lucky ones, anyway -
were veritable slaves under these lords. In many ways that state of
affairs exists today, but it's unseen by all but the most observant
individuals. The future I'm talking about, though, is considerably
more spartan than what the worker bees enjoy today.

I believe that what we're witnessing today is the inception of a
titanic and protracted competition for survival: between countries,
between civilizations, between governments and their people. Moreover,
I believe the Bush administration is the first to recognize this
competitive future, which explains its fundamentally different -
seemingly feckless - behavior compared to past administrations. Bush's
favored courtiers, which include corporations, are profiting today and
will become the new nobility in the coming New Middle Ages.


Truth and Distractions

The governments of the world, and the U.S. Government in particular,
don't want their people to know the truth. Governments usually end up
seeing themselves as entities distinct from their people, and usually
end up competing against them. That is true of almost every government
on Earth today, and is especially true of the U.S. Government. Keeping
the truth from people helps a government achieve its goals, for if the
people knew the truth they might demand that the government start
actually serving them.

One way to keep the truth from people, aside from today's favored
approach of simply suppressing it, is to feed them a steady diet of
compelling distractions.

Elections are one such distraction. Elections arouse peoples' passions
and keep them entertained for weeks or months. Elections even give
people the illusion of participation, when, in fact, elections mean
absolutely nothing in a country like the United States, which is run
by money. Of course, elections are run by, and legitimized by
governments.

Sex is another good distraction, both sex scandals and sex-related
social issues. Look at how much mileage the media got out of the
Catholic Church sex abuse scandals. By comparison, sexual abuses by
the government's own schoolteachers outnumber those by the church, but
we hear nary a word about them because they reflect negatively on the
government, and the media cooperates in keeping this quiet. Sex
between consenting adults, which ought to be nobody's business except
the participants', also consumes our attention. Look at how much
attention people pay to homosexuality. Why is that anybody else's
business? It's not, obviously, but it's a great distraction from
important things, such as the government's reverse-Robin Hood economic
policies. The same with abortion. Abortion is a personal matter for
the people involved. It's none of society's business. But government
stokes the flames of debate about abortion and it consumes peoples'
attention. Sexually transmitted diseases - diseases in general - are
also good distractions and have the added benefit of instilling fear
in the population.

Crime is a perennial distraction. Even when the crime rate is falling,
the government seems to hype the crime statistics, making it seem as
if you're putting your life at risk by merely setting foot outside
your front door. Of course, "crime" breeds prisons, and prisons
empower the government. Given the benefits of crime to the government,
it comes as no surprise that the government creates crime by
criminalizing harmless behavior such as using drugs or hiring a
prostitute.

Religion is also a distraction. Domestically, the fashionable debate
today revolves around the separation of church and state. There really
ought not be any debate. The United States Constitution is
unequivocal: the United States Government shall not recognize any
particular religion. End of story. It does not say how states may
address religion, but it does say that all powers not prohibited to
the states belong to the states. In my opinion, then, if a state wants
to recognize a religion, it may do so.

The "clash of civilizations" is perhaps the newest distraction, and a
completely contrived one at that. The Muslim-Christian antipathy that
exists today is both a religious and a cultural distraction. Decades
ago, when we were affluent, we were taught to celebrate cultural
diversity on our planet. Today that same diversity is touted as the
explanation for the "clash of civilizations." Granted, different
cultures are, well, different. But that doesn't mean that conflict
must ensue, and for decades there was no conflict. Clearly, the flames
of cultural conflict are being stoked. By whom? The governments of the
world and the media. For example, just look at how European media
companies and European governments colluded recently to provoke
Muslims with those silly cartoons. Cultural conflict not only
distracts the masses, but it provides governments with a credible
justification to increase their power, for instance, to regulate
headgear worn in schools and restrict immigration. Of course,
"terrorism" is ancillary to this clash of civilizations and serves to
intensify anxiety in the population. How many acts of terrorism are
actually perpetrated by governments? It's impossible to say, but it's
definitely more than zero, a lot more. So why does a government
perpetrate an act of terrorism? To create a distraction, to increase
its power, or both.

One thing all of these distractions have in common is collusion -
intentional or incidental - between the government and the media. The
government seems to be involved in all of these distractions to
varying degrees, ranging from merely exaggerating the importance of
some distractions to actively orchestrating others. And none of these
distractions could successfully distract the public without the
zealous participation of, and amplification by, the media. One might
argue that the media is naturally drawn to report sensational news, as
a moth is drawn to light, and most of these distractions qualify as
sensational. But I don't think it's purely coincidental that the media
relishes these stories when there is so much overlap between the
agendas of the government and the corporations that comprise the
"media."

Both entities seek to dominate, exploit, and control the "little
people." And the little people, being xenophobic, uneducated, and
fearful, are easily manipulated in a formulaic manner to help
undermine their own welfare. Simply look at their support for Bush, a
leader who has systematically attacked their standard of living, not
to mention their liberties. All Bush had to do was push a few buttons
labeled "religion," "sex," and "culture" to get them to react like
Pavlovian dogs. And all this button pushing was, of course, happily
assisted by the media.


Resource Competition

We humans like to think of ourselves as so much more sophisticated
than "lower" animals. In affluent times and places we can afford to
worry about silly things like what movies will win Oscar awards,
whether our body looks good at the gym, or where we will take our next
family vacation.

But our existence still depends on this fundamental equation: survival
= food + water + shelter.

In leaner times, like those we're heading into, the above equation
becomes sharply apparent.

Food production today is highly dependent on oil. Oil powers our farm
implements, oil and natural gas are ingredients in commercial
pesticides and fertilizers, and oil transports food to market. Today
food travels as far as 10,000 miles from where it's produced to where
it's consumed, which would be impossible without oil. Oil vastly
increases agricultural productivity. So it's because of our largess of
oil that the human population has been able to grow as large as it
has. One might say that humans eat oil. We can, of course, produce
food without oil - barring such evil manifestations as crops that are
genetically engineered to require the use of petroleum-based
pesticides - but without oil food production will be much lower.

Water is a resource we take for granted. We act as though there is no
limit to the supplies of water, and that there are no repercussions to
our profligate consumption of it. We're building cities in places
without adequate water supplies - Phoenix and Las Vegas come to mind -
and we're using up vast reservoirs of non-replenishable "fossil"
water, such as the Ogallala Aquifer in the American Midwest. Just as
we're failing to plan for economic "rainy days," we're failing to
regulate our water usage to prepare for a literal lack of rainy days.
We seem to think that the replenishable water supply patterns will
remain unchanged, an especially optimistic expectation if the Earth's
climate is truly in the midst of major change. But the water situation
is even worse in some other places than in America. Water delivery is
partly dependent on energy, just as food production is. It takes
energy to pump water from the ground, to transport it to where it's
consumed, and even to treat it. Of course, food production is vitally
dependent on water.

I hardly need mention the importance of oil except to say that for the
first time in history, the demand curve is passing the supply curve.
Moreover, the supply curve will soon be heading downward and we'll
find ourselves perpetually chasing this ever dwindling supply
downhill. When demand merely exceeds supply the price of oil will
increase. But when demand exceeds supply and the supply starts to
diminish, then prices will really go up, enough to destroy economies
or render impractical the transportation of food and water to some
places. But the gap between supply and demand means more than just
higher prices. It also means shortages. Those who can afford to buy
oil will usually have their needs satisfied, albeit at higher cost.
But those who cannot pay the price will do without. Occasionally, even
those who can afford to buy oil will be forced to do without because
from time to time there simply won't be any oil to buy on the global
market, at any price. Imagine going to your local gas station and
seeing a sign out front reading "Sorry, no gas." Imagine going to your
local grocery store and seeing empty shelves because the trucks that
deliver goods to the store had no diesel fuel. Imagine having to
bundle up in two layers of sweaters inside your house because you have
to make half your normal allotment of home heating oil last the entire
winter. These hypothetical scenarios will become reality and will
occur with increasing frequency as time goes on.

What's going to happen when people have to vigorously compete for
food, water, and energy in order to survive? I think it's going to get
vicious. My opinion of humanity holds that in the face of such
adversity, it will be every man for himself. Countries will compete
against countries. States will compete against states. Cities will
compete against cities. Governments will even compete against their
citizens. Civilization, in the sense of the word "civility," will be
no more. Perhaps genetically engineered terminator seeds, depleted
uranium, and exotic diseases are secretly intended to reduce the human
population to alleviate resource competition.

Clearly, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is one of the opening salvos in the
coming resource wars. And the U.S.'s belligerence toward Iran is
undoubtedly due to Iran's possession of vast oil and natural gas
resources. Bear in mind that a country need not seek control of vital
resources with the intention of consuming them. The country that
controls resources can use those resources either as a lever to compel
other countries to behave a certain way, or to buy other resources or
finished goods, such as weapons and integrated circuit chips.


The End of Money

The 1970s was the apotheosis of the "American Dream." Wedged between
the preceding decade of civil unrest and the subsequent decade of
recessions, rapidly rising homelessness, and mass layoffs, the 1970s
was a comparatively idyllic decade. It certainly had its problems -
stagflation, for instance - but even while living during that time I
felt it was a special decade. Life was good; people were happy,
friendly, and mellow; TV shows and movies were cheerful; civil
liberties were at their peak; government power was at its lowest ebb;
the country was affluent and at its peak of industrial prowess. It's
not a coincidence that the tallest buildings in America were built
during the 1970s. Those buildings were icons of American industry and
power. Although the Vietnam War raged during the first half of the
1970s, it was in the process of winding down and came to an end by the
middle of that decade. The cessation of the Vietnam War was as much a
reflection of the peoples' desire to "live and let live" as it was a
military defeat. Military conscription also ended in that decade, and
even the cold war cooled off because of détente.

Unfortunately, what we didn't realize at the time was that we would
never again have it so good. The 1970s represented a "tipping point,"
to use the popular vernacular, for the American Dream. That was when
globalization really started to take off and when the serious decline
of American industry began, the steel and auto industries being among
the first casualties. Interestingly, the 1970s was also the decade of
peak oil production in the United States, after which point we became
increasingly reliant on imported oil, which greased our downward
slide. What I didn't realize until writing this was how crucial a role
President Nixon played in creating this tipping point. Nixon opened
the door to trade with China, a major player in today's globalized
economy. Nixon disassociated the U.S. dollar from gold, facilitating
the destruction of wealth through unrelenting devaluation of the
dollar. Nixon launched the war on drugs, a precursor to today's war on
terror (or is it the war of terror, I can't tell?). Both the drug war
and war on/of terror consume wealth in order to serve the imperial
ambitions of the U.S. Government, but contribute nothing to the
country's production of wealth.

The 1980s was a decade in which previously accumulated wealth was
systematically extracted, mainly through the mechanism of "Merger
Mania." The 1980s was a decade of marked industrial and economic
decline, which was masked to a large extent by releasing into the
economy some of the wealth squeezed out of these mergers, as well as
by the massive accumulation of debt. The transformations of the 1980s
also introduced a new component: the injection of foreign wealth into
the country. Many of the assets sold in the 1980s were purchased by
foreigners, especially the Japanese, a trend which accelerated toward
the latter half of the decade, highlighting America's economic
decline. The 1980s also marked the inception of the mythical "service
economy" theory to justify the profitable exporting of American jobs.
The economy is like a pyramid. Forming the foundation of this pyramid
is the one true source of wealth: natural resources - the free wealth
given to us by the Earth and the Sun. Mining for minerals and energy,
agriculture, fishing, and forestry are the source of all other wealth.
Above this foundation are industries that utilize its products. These
second level industries consist primarily of manufacturers that take
raw materials and produce something of greater value. Above the
manufacturers are companies that serve them, including law firms,
advertising agencies, shipping companies, airlines, hotels,
restaurants, and even entertainment. As wealth moves up this pyramid a
little wealth, constituting salaries and savings, is retained by each
level in the pyramid. The myth of the service economy, the darling
theory of the 1980s, is that a country could retain the top of the
pyramid and outsource the base of it. During the last three decades we
have transfered much of the base of this economic pyramid to countries
such as China and India and indeed, initially, the money kept flowing
to the top of the pyramid which remained in the United States. But
after a while, a new top of the pyramid began to form in those
countries where we had shipped the base of the pyramid. Witness today
not only the exodus of high tech jobs to China and India, but that in
those countries pure service companies, such as advertising agencies,
are also starting to flourish.

The 1990s was a period of greatly accelerating globalization and
economic decline for the United States, aided and abetted by such
treaties as NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. Again, this massive decline was
masked by the illusion of wealth that persisted during the huge stock
market bubble of the latter half of the 1990s. Like merger mania
before it, the stock market bubble attracted a lot of foreign wealth.
A bit more previously accumulated wealth was extracted from rising
human productivity here in the United States during the 1990s.

Finally, the 2000s so far represent an era massively dependent on
inflows of foreign wealth. With our previously accumulated wealth now
exhausted and little means left for fundamental wealth production,
about the only thing keeping the U.S. economy afloat these days is
consumer spending and deficit spending by the government, both of
which are financed by growing mountains of debt, which is owed to
foreigners. The United States has largely been reduced to a nation of
people that sell each other hamburgers, with foreigners paying the
checks. Asset sales to foreigners continue as well, the failed Chinese
bid for Unocal and the not-so-failed Dubai bid to run some of our
seaports being prominent recent examples.

During the last thirty years in America two persistent trends are
clear: the steady depletion of existing wealth and decline in the
means to produce new wealth; and the steady rise of an imperial U.S.
Government.

Today, the economic imbalances in the United States economy are so
vast that I cannot see how they can be corrected gracefully. Even more
astonishing to me is that people keep buying financial instruments
like U.S. Treasury bills. Do these investors really believe they're
ever going to get their money back? The national debt is so large that
paying it down is nearly impossible, especially since there is no
political will to either increase taxes or reduce spending. Obviously,
the U.S. Government knows it cannot pay down the national debt, which
is why it covertly relies on dollar devaluation to reduce the value of
the national debt.

It's only a matter of time before the majority of investors in
dollar-denominated financial instruments open their eyes and stop
buying those assets. When that happens the dollar is doomed. The
government's only recourse when it cannot borrow money will be to
print dollars, which will only accelerate the dollar's demise,
possibly even inducing hyperinflation along the way.

If oil prices skyrocket because of the global supply and demand
relationship and harm the U.S. economy, that could accelerate the
dollar's demise as well. I personally don't see how the dollar can
avoid substantial devaluation, either slowly or rapidly. I hope the
decline is gradual.

All of the world's government-issued currencies are in similar
straits. None are firmly backed by finite, physical resources, such as
gold. Consequently, all currencies have the potential to suffer from
devaluation, even more so since the economies of the world's countries
are so intricately linked together. If one currency abruptly
collapses, especially an important one like the dollar, they could all
come crashing down.

Additionally, faith in the world's currencies depends in part on
globalization. The willingness of an investor in Japan to buy American
dollars depends in part on the investor's expectation of a continuing
economic relationship between Japan and America. But in an era where
global trade is increasingly challenged by oil shortages, faith in
other countries' currencies will diminish too. Countries will
increasingly prefer to conduct international trade using universal
mediums like gold instead of currency.

If currencies such as the dollar become worthless, even local trade
may be conducted using gold or other precious metals. Such trade may,
in fact, have to be conducted in black markets, since financially
distressed governments will probably seek to confiscate all gold and
precious metals from their citizens.

The bottom line is that government-issued currency will be a thing of
the past. So how will the government continue to exist?


Acquisition of Resources

Without money or credit, government can only continue to exist through
force. The United States government is particularly well endowed in
this regard and has demonstrated its willingness to use force to
acquire resources, and not as a last resort either.

Iraq's oil is the first such resource to be acquired by military
force. Iran's oil and natural gas may well be the next. In the long
run, the energy-rich regions of central Asia will also attract the
hungry gaze of the U.S. Empire. Of course, other powerful, populous,
and hungry countries, such as China and India, will also have designs
on these energy-rich regions, which will probably result in
significant wars. Oil from the Middle East will probably become so
valuable that countries will have to provide a military escort for
every tanker carrying oil across the ocean.

Domestically, energy will be controlled by the government. It will
satisfy its needs first, corporations will have their needs satisfied
second, and the populace will be forced to ration whatever is left.

Food is also critical to the government, comprised, as it is, of
people. So it's logical to assume that the government will at some
point take control of food production. As with energy, the government
will satisfy its own food requirements first, and the populace will be
left to ration whatever is left.

If water becomes a scarce or unreliable resource, then we can assume
that the government will take control of that as well.

In a future where money has no value, the only way a government can
retain people is by providing them with food, water, and shelter. In
fact, in a future world where resource competition is the order of the
day, people will probably covet a government job - as a bureaucrat, a
laborer, or a soldier - simply because it will mean three square meals
a day and a roof over their head.

Of course, government needs more than just food, water, and shelter.
Government needs weapons, vehicles, computers, communications gear,
and myriad other manufactured items. Some of these things are
manufactured wholly in other countries, or depend in part on
components from other countries. Without money the government cannot
buy these things. But it can trade precious resources, such as oil,
water, and food, for them. Some critical factories, such as domestic
weapons plants, may be taken over wholesale by the government for
security reasons.


Slave Labor

Government cannot operate on resources and material alone. It also
needs labor. Some of that labor can be "purchased" in exchange for
resources. But in order for the government to operate "profitably" it
will have to employ slave labor, that is, labor it doesn't have to pay
so richly for.

We already have such a precedent. Many of the two million people
already incarcerated in this country are veritable slave laborers.
They "earn" anywhere from twenty-five cents to one dollar per hour,
often working for major American corporations. But in some cases these
poor prisoners are then charged room and board for being in prison,
thus wiping out their minuscule income. In effect, since they are
being forced to work without making any net income, they are slaves.
It does not challenge the imagination to envision future slave
laborers working in factories manufacturing everything from machine
guns to computers, or working on farms to produce food, returning each
night to sleep in their prison cells.

The United States military is currently exploring ways to utilize
civilian prisoners to satisfy the military's labor needs. It's only a
matter of time before they come up with a justification for doing so.

Once the framework for utilizing slave laborers - all nice and legal,
of course - is established, it's quite easy to increase the pool of
potential laborers, if necessary. The government merely has to
criminalize more behaviors. Caught driving your car on the "wrong"
day? Three months in prison loading ammunition cartridges. Caught
possessing gold coins? Six months in prison assembling computers.
Caught saying "subversive" things over the telephone to your aunt?
Five years on a prison farm - for the both of you - tending crops. Of
course, prison sentences will likely be accompanied by asset
forfeiture, that is, if you have anything the government wants. There
is already a precedent today for asset forfeiture too, even for minor
offenses such as hiring a prostitute or having a marijuana cigarette
in your car. Heck, simply walking through an airport today with "too
much" cash on your person might result in it being confiscated.


Conclusion

Although this essay has mainly been a description of the United States
and its future, much of it is applicable to the world as a whole. Some
other countries may well face worse times ahead because they lack the
natural resources and/or military might that the United States
possesses.

The goal of this essay is not to propose solutions to the many
problems facing us, although there are solutions, but to explain the
seemingly irrational behavior we see around the world. Viewing the
world today in light of the foregoing essay, Bush's actions are
understandable, even though I don't endorse them: the competitive
pursuit of resources, the rolling back of civil liberties, the
carefree handling of the economy.


Copyright 2006 by Dave Eriqat