Of Money, Biophysics and Government
2016
Jane Mayer’s new
book, Dark Money, sets forth with
frightening clarity and compelling detail how sinister the problem of money in politics has become[i].
The issue has been amplified in various tracts \ , none more simply stated and powerful
than Bill Moyers’ widely circulated essay deploring the concentration of wealth
in the hands of one percent of the populace while the majority is systematically
impoverished[ii] . Mayer deplores the conspiracy of the Koch brothers and allies in advancing that
transition and supporting the patently false proposition that the free
enterprise capitalistic system assures the welfare of all without governmental
interference or regulation. She shows how corporate interests have used
tax-free "public interest" institutions to advance the 1980 Reagan
mantra of "getting government off
the backs of the people". Their
efforts have produced the neo-conservative
congressional leaders who refuse to perform the duties of their elected
offices. These same seditious officials have also frustrated efforts to correct
corporate exploitation of environment for profit including in particular all efforts
to control the climatic disruption now wreaking havoc globally. .
Neither author considers the biophysical limits of the earth
as now limiting, if not defining, core political and economic objectives. Growth of the human enterprise alone generates
a soaring need for rules to protect not only public health and welfare but also
corporate safety and welfare. Here I am
guilty of blatant self-promotion for I have written about these limits recently
[iii]. I join in showing that it is now essential to invert the Reagan mantra and to restore the
integrity of governmental function. The objective becomes building a government
that works in assuring the full functional integrity of the global environment to
accommodate growth in all aspects of the human endeavor. We who thrive on growth travel a one-way
street into a compelling need for regulation of human affairs in the interests
of protecting welfare, including civil rights, as human numbers swell,
corporate aspirations expand and the human undertaking intensifies. There is no turning back to simpler times on this
road into life in an ever tightening world whose core functions demand a
delicately defined set of circumstances to support all life.
These developments are products of biophysical reality, ineluctable products of growth, not to be set
aside by what amount to bribes from corporate interests aimed at turning
governmental purpose to corporate advantage.
Roots of the changes required to correct these trends lie in the
realities of the physical, chemical and biotic integrity the earth, whose
continued function is ever more important to human welfare and challenged as
never previously. Answers lie not only
in a new economy and a restoration of
responsibility and reason in government but also in using scientific insights
into the elementary biophysics of
crowding a planet with 7-10 billion humans.
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