Death of Self-Interest: The Moment of Doubt

I keep starting a post on the death of ideological self-interest, but I'm in a patch where I'm being exposed to a lot of stimulating ideas on the subject, a subject which is embedded in our social fabric. There are so many ways of coming at it that my writing keeps branching off into new fields, the boundaries of which are heretofore unseen.

So, unable to spiel on about it (probably unreadably) I shall tackle the topic in bite-sized morsels, see where they lead, beginning with the moment of doubt.

Dr Wayne Cartwright is an economist. As in schooled and trained in the 70s, and deeply invested in the "science" of capitalist economics that has dominated the world for the very same period. It was his life's work, what he taught and studied every day. Until, in the late nineties, he encountered a moment of doubt.

He framed this moment as being a catholic priest who no longer believed his own dogma. The comparison is one I have used many times myself, and it is stunningly apt. The Catholic Church emplaced a social order that allowed their monarchs and vassals - who were essentially brutal, robber barons - to rule by the divine right of kings.
The same is the case today. The "science" of our economists is also used to establish a social order, where the divine right of global capital holds the same, undemocratic and ruthless sway over the world that the swords of England's monarchs held over their subjects.

These moments of doubt are crucial. Everyone has them, and they deal with them in different ways. It is often a small thing, that finally ticks over, the last straw. Dr Cartwright's moment was realising in 1997 how grotesquely unsustainable NZ dairying had become in such a short time, and how desperate the industry was to grow further, all because of the precepts laid down by his economics.
Not an especially dramatic insight, you'd think, but in these moments you're on a precipice. You can either dig in, bury your head further - Dr Cartwright had every reason to, he'd committed 40 years to this ideology, it was his livelihood, and there is a massive framework of influence and wealth, of media, ready to support this outlook; or you can face facts, and search for another way.

The well-respected economist, Dr Wayne Cartwright, became a realist. He realised that the science he had been trained in no longer existed. He realised this because he is a scientist. And his economics had been proven wrong.

Economics ceased being a science when it started ignoring results. It became a dogma. It refused to accept consequences, externalising the environment, therefore securing the integrity of its own abstract, fantastical fairytale. And the wealth this ideology garnered for the world's elite and corporate citizens totally eliminated the idea of "consequences" from our vocabulary.

Terrorism? Inexplicable aggression. Climate Change? Cyclical. Disgust with the rich? Envy.

In 1961 we used 30% of the world's sustainable capacity; In 1999, we were using 120%. But there are no problems, only opportunities. No consequences, only challenges.

Except for the poor and out-of-work and dispossessed in society, the marginalised, the growing numbers struggling to meet the rising cost of living. That's just the consequence of their actions.

The current set-up benefits the wealthiest 10% in the world, in our country, very nicely. They don't want us examining the fundamentals underpinning the structures of power. They want us to crawl over each other, chain our intellect, sacrifice our integrity just to be one of them. And many people do.

But there's never enough room at the top. The fairytale will never be real for 80% of the population. And more and more people are facing that moment of doubt, exponentially so as the obvious becomes blindingly obvious. And if an economist can choose the right side - the realist's side - that's reason to hope.

(Dr Cartwright is one of many published in the paper Strong Sustainability for New Zealand)