Earth Island : Easter Island

The economy of the "World's Last Superpower™" swirls down the toilet bowl of history, trailing Free Trade and Globalism like so much sodden tissue. It's time we grasped the concept of catastrophe.

The American auto industry collapsed. No one could have foreseen... except they could have... industry sages fought like rabid weasels against the slightest whiff of innovation. Any increase in fuel efficiency or safety was unimaginable. Having improved nothing in 40 years except cupholders and stereos, they are now shocked to discover they are no longer competitive. American consumers wrapped in their fuzzy exceptionalism did not squawk. As we paved over the vast spaces formerly known as nature to build 6000 SF mansionettes, we needed ever more opulent rolling stock to take us there. An American industry that once ruled the world will now disappear. 

Our economy evolved from the tedious production of goods and services to a FIRE-based economy that can borrow and lend it's way to prosperity. This required the creation of a new species of financial institution. While nominally they are banks, they possess the less glamorous attributes of clip joints, carnival midways and rigged casinos. These financial Allosauruses were so successful that they grew and grew until they were too big to fail... until they failed.

There are practical reasons that humans are reluctant to recognize impending disaster. Preoccupation with potential negatives is neurotic. Civilization and its contents were built by a sort of Asperger's syndrome, immune to concern for consequence. The American Dream is an amoral drive to the next frontier that pauses not for aboriginals slaughtered, slaves exploited, rivers poisoned, forests felled or species lost. Sufficient resources dedicated to any agenda will succeed. Success is ours, now we are accountable for the consequences.

I don't lament all this. We had a pretty good run: The Gold Rush; World's Fair; Rock Music; Moon Landing; The Irwin Allen Oeuvre; the Trans Am, and the 64 oz. bucket of Mountain Dew. It is unfortunate what we did to the Native Americans, Africans, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Phillipinos, Cubans, Guatemalans, Iranians, Vietnamese and Iraqis along the way. But the Israelites did it to the Canaanites, the Romans to the Gauls, the Crusaders to the Infidels and so on. Like Nick Cave says, "People ain't no good."

The myriad accomplishments of The Industrial Revolution, and all the subsequent revolutions, are no longer sustainable. It is only possible with sufficient inputs of energy. It is the most basic axioms of physics. Work is mass moving over time. Energy is the ability to do work. Without the energy, work stops.

The current economic collapse is but a feint. There is no credit crisis, this is not a failure of liquidity. We are insolvent. Real wealth are those commodities that permit us to feed ourselves, build shelter, heat our homes, clothe, heal, educate and entertain ourselves. The resources (primarily fossil fuels, but other commodities as well) that keep the whole circus afloat are finite and diminishing rapidly. Further, global warming, environmental and species destruction are eliminating resources that might help us to survive the inevitable.

The American Dream, like capitalism itself, is all about excess. While outwardly we wouldn't deny wealth to anyone else, we insist on getting more of it than the next guy. There is a small mathematical obstacle to everyone having more than everybody else. Like the beginning of the baseball game when everyone grabs the next higher spot on the grip of the bat. We have reached the end of the bat. There is no more bat to grab.

Jared Diamond's Collapse lays out a very plausible scenario of how the culture living on Easter Island (and others) exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment and were reduced to the most primitive subsistence, with just a bunch of megalith statues to remind them of their former opulence. As the anthroposphere has grown to occupy the entire globe it is not too difficult to imagine be left scratching the surface of our Earth Island with no more inputs to exploit and no way off the island.

Perhaps it is time to wake up from the American Dream. This is not a unique or even particularly useful insight. We are a slack-jawed audience for such artificial dramas as athletes consuming drugs or a Congressional cage match to prove which hack more faithfully serves his corporate paymasters. Perhaps we should start contemplating a real catastrophe.