More on the Secular "Religion" of Unlimited Growth and Overconsumption - A Bit of History & Philosophy

Preface

As social beings, we humans recognize the importance of structure, organization, and institutions in everyday life.  That's true all across the political spectrum.  The amount of those pillars desired may vary from ideological group to group, but no one who is sane wants "Mad Max".  So, we are reassured when we believe that politicians, religious leaders, economists, and others are keeping things in society humming along to the benefit of all.  We feel secure to varying degrees, and life makes some sense.

The movers & shakers within those pillars know full well that it's crucial to maintain our faith in their abilities.  Many/most of them have spent their professional lives working within and promoting a particular ideology or viewpoint.  That's true whether the field is politics, or religion, or economics, or anything else.  They truly believe in what they're doing and, for the betterment of society, would like to see it continue.  [I'm excluding fraudsters and greedy sociopaths from the previous sentence.]  Also, it's how they make their living.

The-Powers-That-Be and their apprentices learned this long ago:  logic usually is not the best way to get people to adhere to your beliefs.  Appeal to emotion is much more effective.  Once emotion is generated, it's not especially difficult to transition to the final step:  make belief in your viewpoint faith-based.  Once there, any challenge to the system/belief/ideology is viewed as sacrilegious, and is not tolerated.  Rather than engaging the "rebel" in productive and critical discourse, the heretic usually is attacked, denigrated, and dismissed.
..................................
The Secular Religion of Mainstream Economics

Once the philosophical underpinnings were laid in the 1930's at the U. of Chicago (and elsewhere), Professor Frank Knight and others began to spread the "gospel" of neoclassical/neoliberal economics.  In 1947, the neoliberal think tank, the Mont Pelerin Society, was co-founded by Knight, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and several others.  Noted members have included many business moguls, and famous journalists such as the liberal, Pulitzer Prize winner, Walter Lippmann, and the former radical Max Eastman.  Some of them rejected the term, "neoliberalism", but not the economic philosophy.  They preferred the term, "neoclassical".  They truly believed their new economics was going to spread freedom and lift the developing (or underdeveloped) parts of the world out of poverty.  The main themes were:  free market economics, free trade, and minimal (if any) government oversight.  The market would regulate itself.  [Note:  years ago, I believed in all that.  Over time, I came to realize that such policies were resulting in egregious corporatism, inequality, and ecological destruction.]

It was quite an uphill battle for them.  At the time, Keynesian economics reigned supreme.  The neoliberals kept building their base.  Meanwhile, the World Trade Organization was being formed... which took years.  After the socialist, Salvador Allende, was elected in Chile in 1970, Kissinger convinced Nixon that Chile was a cancer that would spread throughout the region.  When the elected Allende was overthrown by a military coup (aided by our CIA) in Chile on 9-11-73, Pinochet was installed as the new leader of the country.  Neoliberals convinced him to adopt their economic policies.  Later, they considered the Chile "experiment" a success (relative to neoclassical/neoliberal economics).

In the economic disruptions of the 1970's, a few flaws in Keynesian economics became glaringly obvious.  No time to detail them here.  Then, with Reagan and Thatcher, came the Washington Consensus... neoliberalism through & through.  The neoliberals had made their first big breakthrough.  Chile was small potatoes compared to Reaganomics.  [I left out the Carter Administration, which was prior to Reagan.  They did a bit of deregulation, and were a bit corporatist/globalist (mostly due to Brzezinski) but, like Chile with Pinochet, the Carter Crew were nothing in terms of neoliberalism compared to Reagan].

From then to present day, neoliberal/neoclassical/mainstream economics has been, and continues to be, sacrosanct.  That's true even though covid-19 has seriously wounded it.  For any economist (or really, anyone) challenging it, you essentially are guaranteed to be professionally suppressed and dismissed.  There's no need for mainstreamers to defend their ideology because to them it's simply a given.  They largely shift the blame for any problems--- inequality, ecological damage, increasing numbers of monopolies, etc.--- off their ideology and onto anything & everything else.  Perhaps those problems are due to a combination of factors; nevertheless, it should be plain by now that neoliberalism is responsible for at least a large portion of them.

The following flaws are ignored by mainstream economists---

1. Neoliberal economists seem to have little to no grasp of complexity theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLXIJF5ytpM  [The clip is only 6.5 minutes long, and gives an excellent overview of the concept.]  Never mind (for a moment) their unrealistic belief that economics and economies are separate from, and larger than, Nature... which is bad enough.  Perhaps worse is their view that the individual parts of any natural system are separate from each other.  Thus, in their ignorant thinking, one part can be removed, damaged, or destroyed without any serious effects on other parts or the whole.

I can imagine certain economists saying to central planners:  so what if we clearcut tropical forests?  They're only trees.  We need the lumber, and farmers/ranchers need the pasture or crop fields, or developers need the space for housing projects.

That kind of thinking allows the true believers in unlimited growth and overconsumption on a finite planet to pursue their shortsighted objectives.  Any problems are considered negative "externalities", and not their concern.

2.  In the same vein, they appear to fail to understand the creation of a "whole" that is greater than the sum of its parts--- synergy.  The phenomenon is common in both natural and artificial systems.  Ecosystems are without a doubt, synergistic, and they are our life support.  For that reason, we must treat them with due consideration and care.

Decades ago and in a somewhat broader context, the esteemed macrohistorian, Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown U., gave the following assessment.

"Professor [Lynn] White's thesis is that when the Judeo-Christian faith established the view that there is no spirit in nature other than the human, the world was reduced to a created object to be exploited [conquered] by humans, and the way was thus opened to the destruction of nature and to the total pollution of the world -- a consequence that may have become inevitable with the rejection, in the latter thirteenth century, of the message of St. Francis to treat all nature as sacred.

The cognitive techniques derived from our underlying outlook have included ( a) using analysis rather than synthesis in seeking answers to problems; (b) isolating problems and studying them in a vacuum instead of using an ecological approach; ( c) using techniques based on quantification rather than on qualification study done in a contextual situation; (d) proceeding on the assumption of single-factor causation rather than pluralistic, ecological causation; and (e) basing decisions and actions on needs of the individual rather than needs of the group."

Quigley, Carroll, "Needed: A Revolution in Thinking", National Education Association Journal, Volume 57, May 1968, pp. 8-10.

Point being:  warnings were given long ago.  To this day, however, too many people seem to be ignoring them.  While the revolution in thinking has progressed since the above article, we need to pick up the pace.  Immediately.

3.  Mainstream economists and oligarchs have promulgated the following, and have indoctrinated Main Street to the hilt in this false narrative.

• Material wealth is always meritorious and indicative of success and happiness in life.
• Poverty is almost always the result of individual failing.

4.  Whether it intended to or not, neoliberalism has installed massive central planning in the economic sphere... planning not by governments, but rather by central banks (which are privately owned), other mega banks, and other mega corporations.  Governments largely go along with the whole scenario because politicians get campaign funds mostly from those private institutions.  Don't bite the hand that finances you.

I don't believe I need to explain why that setup is a really big flaw in the secular religion of perpetual growth & overconsumption, or why it's damaging to Main Street.  That should be obvious.

Years ago, in a PBS News Hour interview during his time as Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan stated:  "We are completely independent.  No one has control over us.".  Given some of their testimony during congressional hearings after the 2008 Crash, mega bank CEOs apparently feel pretty much the same way.
.................................
Conclusion

If we are to thrive on Spaceship Earth, it seems obvious to me that we must address all the above in an ecological (holistic) manner.  Except for a relatively few individuals and groups/institutions, we have been doing little more than tinkering around the edges of massive problems for decades.  A major change is past due.  Though they are relatively few, those who have been working for decades on solutions to our many, interrelated, and various dilemmas deserve our esteem, support, and thanks.  Ironically, those people are too numerous to list.  Plus, many are essentially unknown in the broader sense.  Kudos to all.

The priests of the Unlimited Growth paradigm usually wind up extolling it via a reference to the glory of capitalism.  But which capitalism are they talking about?  Is it crony capitalism, or casino capitalism, or disaster capitalism, or the one in which a central bank uses central planning to totally eliminate a "free market" when it comes to currency/interest rates/other monetary issues?  One thing is certain--- it's NOT the capitalism of Adam Smith.  Not even close.  Plus, why do those high priests ignore the fact that the USA and other democratic countries have had a Mixed Economy for decades & decades?  That was true even during the Golden Age of American Capitalism (from the end of WW II to 1971).

It's time to make some noise... time to seriously consider Aldo Leopold's  "Land Ethic"... time to stop being lemmings going over the cliff... time to get some ethical backbone... time to stop drinking the Edward Bernays style Propaganda Kool Aid... time to push for cooperation rather than division... for tolerance rather than hate... for sanity in politics rather than psychological gaslighting... and finally, it's time to promote with vigor the idea that this precious planet on which we live has limits which must be respected.
................................
Not only my opinion.  Happy Trails