Corporations Rule the World. But there is a Usurper to the Throne (& it’s not A.I.)
This ‘party crasher’ is climate collapse and it is quickly ramping up to be an unstoppable catastrophic force that it will switch the world’s priorities utterly and alter everything that we take for granted as ‘normal’.
When this is sufficiently comprehended it gives rise to the realization that the forces universally believed to be shaping the future are rapidly being hollowed out. Until we accept and embrace the reality of climate collapse, any predictions regarding the future are delusional.
But it is still not too late to mitigate rising temperatures, and if not stop collapse, at least attempt to avoid the worst case scenario. Corporations will play a major role in this transformation, but they need to be tamed first.
The ‘corporation’ can be viewed as a ‘force’ which is embodied in a feedback loop, fueling exponential growth with continued expansion as its end game. Lacking a core of humanistic values, the corporate ethos, since its inception, has shaped an agenda which is inextricably creative and destructive. In the guise of a benefactor, it has taken on monstrous dimensions and it is currently consuming its host.
The only force capable of stopping this is environmental collapse, which is expanding relentlessly on many levels and diversified fronts simultaneously, inextricably interconnected within its own feedback loop. This burgeoning colossus is in the process of wresting away control of the world from the corporate ‘beast’ and very soon it will be calling all the shots, as we collectively struggle to confront it and fight for our survival as a species.
I find it to be a common misconception that the fossil fuel industry and most other multinational businesses have such a deeply imbedded and unassailable strangle hold on our lives, that we are helpless in the face of it. This feeling of ‘helplessness’ is two-sided; for, while being the result of our struggle against this force, it also acts to shield us from our own complicity, as our relationship with ‘evil’ corporations is symbiotic. It feeds through the roots of our inability to see beyond the trees of our collective mindset.
Currently, perhaps the best example of corporate omnipresence is provided by some of the various oil giants, which despite evidence proving they knew from their own scientific studies that their business model would result in environmental destruction of the level we are witnessing, have yet to pay any consequences. While it is clear they are largely responsible for the greatest crime in the history of our species, they remain free to continue their destructive agenda, which is nothing less than the deliberate annihilation of our world in the pursuit of profit.
Worse yet, they are left unfettered to shape legislative policies facilitating the spread of their lethal tentacles, while at the same time blunting regulatory restrictions. Moreover, despite their naked criminality, nothing stops their ongoing efforts to spread blatant disinformation. Their interference extends all the way up to international efforts to address climate change including U.N. COP climate conferences. Power and influence on this scale has rarely been achieved in the history of mankind.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/8/2174113/-Never-Forget-They-Knew?utm_campaign=trending
Nevertheless, the general acceptance of their omnipotence, as immutable and unassailable, is short sighted, as it does not take into account Climate Collapse and the collective cognitive shift it has already set in motion. This shift from denial to awareness will grow rapidly as it struggles to keep in step with the frequency and veracity of climate disasters. The death grip of these industries and suppliers will soon be ripped away and their power vaporized.
We got a taste of this recently.
The Pandemic taught us many useful lessons, aside from learning that controlling a global epidemic was possible. When the news spread that China was shutting down huge portions of their economic engine and sharply curtailing the activities (‘freedoms’) of their population, this information was received with surprise and misgivings by the West. For a brief moment, by still intact pre-Pandemic western standards, it appeared draconian and unnecessary. The business sector, which immediately viewed it as a threat to their hegemony, responded reactively and aggressively to push back against closures. Their ascendancy in the politics of the time, made their power appear unassailable. In America, Trump and his minions did what they could to obstruct and obfuscate a response shaped to assure public safety.
It was economic health vs public health and this clash of interests persisted during the course of the first year of the Pandemic, easing only after reopening. However, despite a concerted campaign mounted as it became certain that the virus was spreading globally, the business community was nevertheless unable to override health concerns and countries shut down despite these efforts. Initially, in the face of this threat the enormity of corporate power and control came to naught.
That we reopened prematurely, was due as much to ‘shutdown fatigue’, as economic pressure. The Pandemic had become an unendurable inconvenience once fear eroded.
For me, the fact that the ‘puppeteers’ were so quickly sidelined by fear generated public pressure is one of the two great lessons of the Pandemic. (The other is the model it has provided for rapid CO2 reduction, as a safe and workable path out of our current climate predicament.)
The take-away from this is that corporate dominance has an ‘Achilles’ heal’ and is not unlimited. Like all sociologically generated power, with a suitable shift in circumstances, it can be dispelled, as it relies on a collective subconscious consensus to provide the illusion of permanence. Things only gain value when we collectively agree they warrant it and that valuation is always subject to the whims of fate.
All that it takes to undermine such ‘indestructible’ constructs is a ‘flip’ of the Zeitgeist. This can occur when a wholly different set of priorities takes the place of what was previously generally accepted as ‘carved in stone’. The imposition of contradictory outside forces, act to tear down societal structures and beliefs that are no longer valuable, having become beggared by a radical shift in circumstances. In this case that ‘outside’ force is climate collapse, which is methodically incinerating our current and longstanding ‘consumer’ mindset and the power structure that facilitates and feeds off it.
For the most part, corporate dominance has taken hold incrementally and insidiously, hand-in-hand with consumption, as ‘need’ grew from necessity, to conspicuous, to obsessive. Climate Collapse, on the other hand, has passed its incremental stage and, if left unchecked, will continue to move with increasing speed and brutality.
It does not take well to being ignored and will exact a heavy price for our continuing to do so.
This ‘bull in the china shop’ of our precious desires, promises to reshape public conceptions and discourse, governmental action and legislation, societal priorities and character, economic structures and wealth distribution, along with everything else that constitutes the construct of ‘civilization’.
But with a great deal of luck, it may lead to an evolutionary stage in species maturation. Due to the enormity of the stresses imposed by it and the extreme necessity for fundamentally selfless solutions and sacrifice on a global scale, we may just grow up sufficiently to at least avoid going right back down the same rabbit hole if we are lucky enough to climb out of it. Or, depending on the strength of our resolve or lack thereof, climate collapse may just proceed to rip us apart.
This can be seen as a cosmic test of our mettle as a species. On a smaller scale we have proven our tenacity before, but pass-fail here is not so much subject to the current configuration of our strengths and weaknesses, but rather what this crisis pulls out of us and whether we can adapt accordingly for our survival. History amply validates this possiblility.
It is in the nature of any test that the answer lies on the other side. We cannot predict success, but surety of failure does become guaranteed if we don’t try. Surrender is not an option, as we’ve all ‘bought’ into this crisis, with our profligate behavior, compounded by ignoring ‘payments’ so that we can no longer ‘return’ it. That option ran out about a billion babies ago.
If things go well, corporations will thrive in this battle, as they do in all wars. But in order for us to succeed they will have to reshape their profit oriented agendas with priorities that put morality first. For the demands of combating climate collapse to be accommodated corporate rapaciousness must be reigned in. Our current path forward is unsustainable on every level and corporations have paved us a 6-lane super expressway to hell. Avoiding selfish independent agendas undermining the collective goal of survival will be one of the greatest challenges, as will rallying the population so that it does not collapse from shock into despair and hopelessness. Due to the failure of a largely compromised press, as well as the proliferation of misinformation, intentional or not, the vast majority of the worlds population is woefully unprepared for what is coming and the resulting panic will be a very dangerous obstacle to productive action. Panic is not conducive to clarity, which is where strong leadership will be essential, provided it’s out there.
It has taken me decades to wrap my mind around environmental collapse, which I compare to the mental equivalent of grasping a ‘red hot poker’ with your bare hand. And I continue to struggle daily with the mind boggling enormity, complexity and unfathomable horror of it, not the least of which is the totally unnecessary loss of our wonderful world. Wrestling with denial is ongoing, especially as this collapse progresses. Like everyone else, ‘I just want my life back’.
But there is no escape hatch.
There are no guarantees in this life and successful prediction has more to do with chance than skill or knowledge, but by predetermining the futility of an action, based on an assumed assessment colored by our collective PTSD pessimism, success becomes reduced to the avoidance of action and commitment.
Climate collapse is changing our world. We are in the cosmic-coin-flip stage and depending on our response, we will either ‘rebuild better’ or our world will be shredded.