Dante's Inferno In Real Time

OK, experiencing a chilli-induced endorphin overload here, so all good on the personal mood front: curry and red wine most definitely combine in the most favourable fashion. Been a loosely-structured day here, today, with a pretty much random assortment of stuff happening: some furniture restoration, noise-making and a bit of minor shopping. Making plans for the living-room floor, and the stove installation, and also researching solar power as an option to supplement or replace our grid consumption of energy; but as I said yesterday, even given the considerable drop in investment costs, it still is beyond the pockets of most people to participate and benefit from the tech. I hope we can stretch our resources to at least make small inroads into our energy consumption and do our bit for society as a whole in attempting to mitigate the effects of climate change.

And there is the thing: society. Not the atomized, individualistic and frankly, selfish and egocentric world of the neoliberal cabal and its unthinking and rather stupid acolytes, but a co-operative, consensual and caring, collective, approach to life: we are, after all, a social species: our achievements have always been achieved collectively: oft-times under duress of slavery or economic servitude, but always collectively. Individual entrepreneurs, rogue geniuses and maverick engineers always need the skills and labour of others to solidify their dreams and concepts; never, ever forget that. Stephenson, Telford, Brunel, Jobs, Musk, et al., would not have got their ideas and otherwise, to be honest, just fantasies, realized without the considerable efforts of others.

That's the thing. Capitalism has largely existed as a top-down entity, pretty much always fuelled by inherited wealth and/or privilege, ensuring that the history of capitalism has been distorted away from any real notion of free-enterprise and genuine entrepreneurialism, favouring that segment of society that either is power, or that can pull the strings of power. Great ideas don't just float to the surface and generate wealth: believe me, I've been there. As I mentioned in my last post, I believe in, some sort of - I think my own, self-penned neologism - Social Capitalism, where enterprise is encouraged, unfair advantage is legislated against, and social needs are met by a state that encompasses all of our needs and aspirations, and takes care of those unable or unwilling, for whatever reason, to create their own entrepreneurial space.

Some people want to create, innovate and build businesses; others don't or can't, and want simply to earn an honest living at a fair and realistic rate of pay by working for those that have businesses. Both aspirations are OK. What is not OK is a society that favours one over the other and allows the exploitation of one over the other, and that's where the social component comes in. We currently live - exist, more like, for most of us - in a seriously skewed and horribly bent version of society, where the values of decency, consideration and fellow-being have been ground into dust by the forces of neoliberalism, whose values run contrary to those of general society: this has to stop; we are teetering on a knife-edge between civilization and oblivion. I think most people are aware of this. The pity is that the wielders of power, influence and ultimately and most importantly, money; seem utterly deaf, dumb and blind to exactly where they are leading the rest of humanity, and ultimately, themselves.

Bob Dylan wrote, well over half a century ago, 'The Times They Are A-Changin', a countercultural howl of optimistic, youthful hope and aspiration; and which, like so many more since, seems to have been crushed, as the proverbial butterfly on a wheel: I'll leave you to research the rather deep irony in that reference. Clue: ReSmog...