Axioms for Modern Living

This morning's news is that Pres. Obama is calling for world unity in working for growth of economies. Bernanke thinks we should be shooting for 2% per year, which means a doubling in 36 years. We now know that population rises as growth does, not precisely in tandem but in the same direction. So Obama is calling for the ultimate insanity: more people in the world. As if the world were managing the present six or seven billion in a rational way. What will happen when there are 12 or 14 billion?

It occurs to me to set forth in plain language a couple of incontrovertible axioms for thinking today. I don't know what the world figures are for abortion, but they are already grisly. A call for more population is a call for busier than ever people abattoirs.

Axiom #1: Economic growth at the national level is a no-no. At the very least pols should be laughed at when they propose it, à la O today. Babies will be born and must grow and should be fed. Will they be? That depends. I think we can safely conclude that one's birthright cannot include a 4,000 lb. motorcar for everyone, or even for very many. Them days is gone for ever.

The world's resources are finite, and we are pressing on the limits. The late Dr. Kit Pedler thought (40 years ago) that industrial civilization was racing toward entropic heat death. More lately we understand that in terms of Peak Oil. The cheap fossil fuel is running out. Industrial civilization will prove to have been about a 200-year blip—1830-2030 or so. Capitalism really took off with the spinning jenny and will end with space travel. Then it'll be back to simpler living.

Axiom #2: If life is a good thing, then death is a good thing—natural death not abattoir death—as the mystics have all said. It's a little hard to take aboard, but it's my thought for the day.