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Confused Even About What We Are Confused About.
What is success now? Is it better to have more economic trade, or less? The argument that we have to make and sell more stuff to afford to tend to ecology is a paradox.
What I see is environmental policy that limits exploitation and extraction upends existing “standards of living.”
The actual costs of goods without slavery, or ecological destructive industrial practice make simple things like clothing, tech and food prohibitively expensive. But — ecological destruction, and human exploitation will also upend existing standards of living.
Of course the rich keep cozy while the burden of austerity lands on the middle and lower classes, rendering most of the world’s population desperate. Getting out of this tangle is going to be very messy culturally. The current production and consumption patterns are unworkable, but personal success and relevance is socially established through material wealth… not to mention basic survival.
The right/left lines are all mixed up in the middle of this, and so far the division between the two just adds confusion to the confusion. A new level of discourse is needed. Right now survival ecologically is a threat to survival economically.