The System Doesn't Make Sense - It Doesn't Have To

Mister Cap I. Talism.
Image by myconius.

If you think that the world we live in today doesn't make any sense at all, you would be right. That is because our system doesn't have to make sense - it only has to make money.

If this system were a person it would be imprisoned, or committed to an asylum. 

Void of any moral compass, you would cross the street to avoid having to rub shoulders with such an destructive and unstable character, if it were actually a character.

If it were a person, ecocidal capitalism might be manifested as something like The Mad Hatter, from Alice in Wonderland.

"I am under no obligation to make sense to you." 

- Mad Hatter

Or perhaps as the hookah smoking Cheshire Cat, since the system is obviously under the influence of some very bad drugs. In fact, it is on one of the most destructive drugs known to humanity - money.

“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here.” 

- Cheshire Cat

They want us to believe there is no other way to conduct human affairs other than through fouling our own nest, and allowing the many to die from highly preventable causes, while the few gain obscene amounts of wealth. 

None of that makes any logical sense what-so-ever. But still, Margaret Thatcher famously told us, "There is no alternative", and many agreed with her.

Not sociologist John Bellamy Foster, who is thinking rationally when he says, 

“We have to go against the logic of the system even while living within it.” 

I agree, but what exactly is the logic of a system that is already looking for a new planet to exploit when this one is completely destroyed? 


If there is no possible alternative, then let's ponder impossible alternatives. 

Now is when we could use a healthy dose of creativity and imagination. Our capacity to dream of a better world can surely yield something better than the total insanity that has brought us to edge of destruction. 

Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll modelled the kind of thinking we need now. He said,

"Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

I consider the impossible all the time, before, during, and after breakfast. I have to, because I need to inject a bit of sense in a world where there doesn't seem to be any at all.

So I ask myself, "How about an impossible world where social relationships are not governed primarily by economics, however participatory, but by solidarity? How about an impossible world where ecocide is not an integral part of what we do?" 

I envision a system where billionaire outlaws are outlawed (not such a crazy idea after all).

"Sure we destroyed the Earth", the billionaires will say, "but we destroyed it for profit."

We have to start thinking of impossible ideas, systems, and methods. Why not dream impossible dreams?

At one time any human would have told you that flying through the air in thin metal tubes for great distances was impossible. Or visiting the moon. Or polluting limitless oceans and the atmosphere, or cutting down expansive, seemingly endless old growth forests.

And yet, all of those fall under the purview of the possible today. Who knows what "impossible" things we will achieve tomorrow? 

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, a person who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost their mind.” 

- C.S. Lewis