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Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform

An Of Two Minds Essentialsm is a sharply focused discussion of one of the core issues of our era. While each is a stand-alone book (Kindle ebook and print), the Essentialssm shed light on the new socio-economic era we are entering. The Essentials are compact (less than 30,000 words) and affordable (less than $5 for ebooks and less than $10 for print editions).

Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform
($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages)     ($5.95 audiobook)

Our status quo — the pyramid of wealth and power dominated by the few at the top — has failed and is beyond reform.

This failure is not rooted in superficial issues such as politics or governmental regulations; the failure is structural.

The very foundation of the status quo has rotted away, and brushing on another coat of reformist paint will not save our societal house from collapse. Yet those who benefit from our status quo naturally deny it has failed, for the reason that it has yet to fail them personally—either pretending to not understand all unsustainable systems eventually collapse, or hoping to postpone it.

The writing is on the wall for us to read:

  • We are doing more of what has failed spectacularly.
  • We are implementing emergency measures as permanent policies.
  • We receive diminishing returns on status quo solutions.
  • We suffer declining social mobility.
  • We have a loss of social cohesion/shared purpose.
  • Our status quo is not only failing to solve humanity’s six core problems—it has become the problem.

    Since this failure is now inevitable, something is coming to replace it. It is urgent that each of us understand why our status quo has failed, and why the usual menu of reforms can’t stop this failure, so we can prepare ourselves for the radical transformations ahead.



    Table of Contents:

    CHAPTER ONE
    Humanity’s Six Integrated Problems
    Entrenched Poverty
    An Economic Model of Expanding Consumption in a World of Finite Resources
    An Economic Model that Uses Wages to Distribute the Output of the Economy
    A Political-Economic Model of Central States Dominated by Elites
    An Economic Model that Depends on Credit (Borrowing from the Future) to
    Fund Today’s Consumption
    A Crisis of Purpose and Meaning
    Is the Status Quo Solving These Problems, Or Is It the Problem?

    CHAPTER TWO
    How Money Is Created and Distributed
    The Way We Create Money Creates Inequality/Poverty
    The Illusory Promise of the Gold Standard
    The Limits of Blockchain Crypto-Currencies
    The Moral Foundation of Money

    CHAPTER THREE
    The Eight Types of Capital
    The Scarcest Capital Is the Most Valuable Capital
    We Optimize What We Measure

    CHAPTER FOUR
    The Limitations of the Market and the State
    Limitations of the State and Universal Basic Income
    Limitations of the Market
    The Market, State and Labor
    The Limits of Profit as a Determinant of Value
    The Unsustainability of State Social Welfare Spending
    The Neoliberal/State Fantasy of Taxable Profits and Wages
    The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization
    Ownership Capital and Shared Capital
    The Tyranny of Price
    The Fundamental Failure of the Market and State

    CHAPTER FIVE
    The Failure of Economic Orthodoxy
    The Failure of the Either/Or Orthodoxies of Capitalism or Marxism
    The Pathologies of the Market
    Derealization and the Destruction of Authenticity
    The Institutionalization and Internalization of Perverse Incentives
    Institutionalized Powerlessness and the Crisis of the Individual
    The Consumerist Destruction of the Authentic Self
    The Structure of Collapse
    Why the Status Quo Is Beyond Reform
    The Way Forward

    Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform
    ($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages)

     


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    Copyright 2015 Charles Hugh Smith all rights reserved in all media. No reproduction in any media in any format (text, audio, video/film, web) without written permission of the author.
     
                                                                             
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