12. As democracies have been hollowed out, many people have given up on established parties, and the far right is loving it. Fascism is resurgent. Multilateralism and international law are going down like dominoes.
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13. Is this what the capitalist utopia looks like? For billionaires, perhaps (though even they cannot indefinitely escape the environmental crisis). For the rest of us it looks like a path to hell.
What intrigues me is that the billionaires don't seem very happy, Musk is hardly the epitome of contentment. Capitalist utopia doesn't even work for them....(I'm off to look up panglossian)
14. I dearly wish we had been wrong. It's horrifying to witness the trends we spotted way back progressing so fast and so far. But I also wonder why our warnings were so widely ignored. And why it was so hard for otherwise-intelligent people to see these things coming.
Seeing these things coming and being powerless to stop them paralyses most people. Rabbits in the headlights syndrome. We close our eyes, deny what is only too clear and obvious. Orwell was right. The party’s final and most essential command to reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears
Thatcher and Reagan set all this up. We have never reset from that. I'm beginning to think that only the climate crisis will make a difference. Although of course it will be the poorest that suffer first and most. And of that, women and children first....
I think intelligent people did see things coming. Many of us also have shared about it...however unless you've got the platform where people listen or are engaged, then guess what!? Nobody really listens. There are many of us now sorting things out ourselves.
I'm not sure of the etiquette of tagging Aaronovitch in (or otherwise)? tbh he's seldom on here - possibly still on X?
I'd also point to the instance of declining female life expectancy in the north-east 5-10 years ago. Where those linking it to austerity etc. were dismissed as 'stupid Corbynistas'
By "otherwise-intelligent people" I assume you mean the sort who said "Woo-woo Rain-stick!" whenever I said that money was both the measure of inequality and the fuel that drove its engine, and if we wanted more time for participatory democracy we should at least THINK about abolishing it.
People is not as intelligent as we use to think. I include myself. All of us think we are smarter than we really are and we also think people acts rationally, but this is not true. People is quite irrational and they lean to the less difficult path possible which usually is inaction.
Some of us did what we could - voted, recycled, installed solar panels, bought organic etc but it was a drop in the ocean.
Its not too late for Labour to legalise recreational cannabis so the VAT from it can help UK balance of payments.
People I don't like to a) take personal responsibility b) educate themselves c) challenge authority d) work / fight to force constructive change.
1% of people have wealth and financial security
1% of people have seen this train wreck unfold for years
98% of the people lack desire & awareness
😔
You seem to have missed out the role of Christian Dominionism in this... which I and others have spent some 30 years trying to warn folk about.
We were all ignored because others didn't see the pattern until it was too late or had biases blocking it.
Not capitalist at all, pure feudalism; End of nation state in 🇺🇦, gov & democracy replaced by oligarchic loyalists in🇺🇸, redistribution of wealth.Musk/Vances political interference in EU/UK (feudal lord syndrome),Oligarchs- all a- feather- sticking together -Putin/Trump alliance? Got the message yet?
A brutal mix of the totalitarianism of Orwell’s 1984 and the violent chaos of Mad Max is coming to a town near you folks. Courtesy of Murdoch Musk Trump et al.
It’s remarkable what people can refuse to understand when preserving their lifestyle depends on not understanding it. I forget the economist who said the world could sustain *every single human* at the level of 70s W Germany (car, holiday, central heating) but NOT at the level of 90s California
Every single human being…but those who’ve got greater material wealth might not want that. But the relief of liberation from guilt, the peace of knowing that you are not a parasite, the freedom from the pain of seeing excruciating pain. I wish we could sell this dream
Wow! So many people blame governments in this comment section. We’ve all known it. We’ve all known where this was headed for a long time. It was never going to be a government that stopped it.
It had to be us, rejecting the plunder of the commons by the few and instead we collected our farthings.
In 2015 my friends started debating when the ‘Yee Haa’ moment would arrive; the point at which reality would puncture complacency. In 2025, we think it may never happen or will involve war or revolution.
The irony of you being accused of declinism @georgemonbiot.bsky.social is Elon Musk posts that civilisation on Earth is doomed and humanity will only survive if he builds a base on Mars.
Trump has killed net zero, backed Mars and given Musk control of the federal budget.
AKA - Presumably the people on Easter Island never thought it was reasonable to assume that things could change so much. To think that existence itself is threatened would surely be too extreme to be plausible. And any intelligent thinking would only ever be skeptical of this. Nek minute..
It gets labeled 'alarmist'- Hence intelligent people who care more about appearing rational than being based in fact superficially dismiss such warnings as hyperbolic. When the realities we face defy any concept of normality people think the rational position must b to assume such things are untrue.
Wow, can't express my thoughts or frustrations better.
The only observation I want to add without diminishing your point of view, is that all of our politics and geopolitics have changed, immensely, since your last year mentioned (2012).
Thanks again, Mr Monbiot - another winner of a thread. I haven't read all comments, but I suspect that - like for me - you've hit raw nerves of exasperation experienced by many here over many years. Decades even.
Interesting thread, mentioning one name amongst many risks personalisnig discussion and we know how that ends. It's worth noting how we all wind some up just by the way and frequency with which we express opinions. Many of us react by arguing provoked by that while not inwardly disputing the ideas
Excellent as usual. But I expect it will have to get worse before it gets even worse. Just a race to see whether the billionaire kleptocrats can steal everything before they burn the plant. #realenemiesoftgepeople
If it wasn't for ordinary people saving a few £hundred a year, there'd be no investors, dodgy bankers and fewer m/ billionaires.
Most are only paper rich.
Money stops being shuffled, they jump out of windows.
What I cannot understand is why the architects of this chaotic disruption, having made fortunes from post-war societal structures, want to tear it all down. You would have thought they would realise they were doing very nicely for themselves and keep a good thing going.
We’re in hock to the banks, markets and the RW dominated media. It never ends well and you can see crime rocketing because people will say ‘ I don’t care anymore, there’s nothing for me’
The warnings have largely been ignored because the bulk of the media platforms that would have been needed to truthfully report on these matters are owned by the same people who are waging these attacks upon us.
Exactly so. Also the 'end of history' in the early 90s and 'no more boom and bust' narratives of the late 90s meant that no one wanted to listen. Even the dotcom bubble of the early 00s was dismissed as stock market exuberance. By the GFC of 08, neoliberals had enough grip to avoid punishment
But that can’t be all of it. Is it as other nations cheered from the sidelines that the excesses of capitalism for a majority have made us fat lazy and inert? Too comfortable George. I hope not.
14. Why were warnings widely waived? Partly pointed to in 13 previous points, plus 'leadership' is founded on wealth accumulation. Anything or anyone in the way is steamrollered. A combination of generational doctrine plus those who seek similar. Those of us who see otherwise must be crushed.
Ignored due to the rampant individualism that comes with out of control capitalism, the "I'm alright Jack" way of thinking. With collective institutions like the unions almost effectively destroyed, it has become very difficult to get people to come together for the common good.
The foundations for that in the UK were laid by Margaret Thatcher and by Ronald Reagan in the US. The 80s were the decade of 'greed is good', Loadsamoney and 'no such thing as society'
Great thread. Capitalism is about making money right now and to hell with the consequences. Primary due to successive Governments happily cleaning up with taxpayers money after the shit hits the fan, or chalk streams in the case of our privatised water companies.
It's a special form of capitalism though, where companies (and rich people) can structure liabilities and responsibilities to make them effectively optional.
This dodging of responsibility isn't inherent to capitalism; for example, Thatcher lifted stockbroking regulations.
It absolutely IS inherent to capitalism, because the bottom line always takes precedence over considerations like the environment, poverty etc. Capitalism ALWAYS needs to be reined in by social responsibility, but the latter is not inherent in the former.
Before UK stock market deregulation, the people doing it were well off and getting richer. Even if one person wanted to take a big risk, the system favoured stability.
Today, one person can risk economic chaos for their gain. They might end up rich – or in prison. The system itself isn't resilient.
This was written 70 years ago, and exactly explained why we were going to end up here from the perspective of the educational field. (There’s also tons of historical world trade data pointing this way too.)
#13. Epic failures in the way Economics was/is taught - certainly in the UK. Much is skipped over or missed out completely. This leads to 'laser-focused' financial 'nowism' in 'the real world' which is itself fantasy on many levels. It's lazy thinking but, worse, it is harmful. We see that harm now.
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We all thought (think) we’d get a little more.
I'd also point to the instance of declining female life expectancy in the north-east 5-10 years ago. Where those linking it to austerity etc. were dismissed as 'stupid Corbynistas'
Its not too late for Labour to legalise recreational cannabis so the VAT from it can help UK balance of payments.
1% of people have wealth and financial security
1% of people have seen this train wreck unfold for years
98% of the people lack desire & awareness
😔
We were all ignored because others didn't see the pattern until it was too late or had biases blocking it.
Spend it, or keep it under a mattress.
It had to be us, rejecting the plunder of the commons by the few and instead we collected our farthings.
Trump has killed net zero, backed Mars and given Musk control of the federal budget.
Time to look at this?
The only observation I want to add without diminishing your point of view, is that all of our politics and geopolitics have changed, immensely, since your last year mentioned (2012).
Something that bothers me is that so many of us around the globe are unwilling to recognize the movement in each other's countries????
I'm sorry, I don't have the words to finish this thought in a meaningful wa
Most are only paper rich.
Money stops being shuffled, they jump out of windows.
This dodging of responsibility isn't inherent to capitalism; for example, Thatcher lifted stockbroking regulations.
Result: instability.
Today, one person can risk economic chaos for their gain. They might end up rich – or in prison. The system itself isn't resilient.
All of it seems to get ignored.