The Myth of Population causing ecological crisis: how and why to enjoy poverty

Capitalism is about growth. Easy to find resources are cheap and more likely to have technology created around them to create profit and provide investment for capitalists. Essentially a version of Parkinson's Law exists for Capitalism. Rather than "work expands so as to fill the available time" the whole success of capitalism rests on "exploitation expands so as to fill the available resources." As a result regardless the human population size capitalism will use up the world's resources.

Growth is usually regarded positively and called "development." But this is a spin on a deeply dangerous and damaging philosophy designed to support a global oligarchy of investors who are able to derive a free income from "returns on investment" relieving them from having to work.

Capitalist/Development spin notes the "benefits" that people in developed countries enjoy like increased life expectancy, health and technology. But it never looks more deeply at what makes "life" itself.

As argued at length in this blog, a simple relativistic argument illustrates the problem with the Development way of thinking. Development is only good when we compare with the Past. But our children will enjoy a better life that us, which means it makes our life worse compared with the Future. If we can live a whole life in worse conditions than the Future then how important really was development? While arbitrary for humans, development has very real costs for the environment that can't be ignored. 

Some "facts" on the population myth using global biocapacity data from Global Footprint Network. This data probably doesn't mean much, but it will indicate the idea here that development and capitalism is the problem not population.

Currently the world uses 141% of the available bioproductivity of the planet.

If we all lived like UK then that would rise to 400% (so economic development is a very bad idea because it is not sustainable).

If we all lived like Eritreans then that number would fall to 25% of global productivity. The current human population would only use 1/4 of the planets renewable resources. Alternatively we could increase the population 4x if we were prepared to live like Eritreans. Ironically I am both prepared to live like an Eritrean and not have children so I'm doubly "wealthy."

While in relative human terms Capitalism has improved things, it has filled the global space incredibly efficiently. In a matter of a century it has grown to use all the annual biocapacity and a further 41% from fossil resources.

But in absolute terms this strength is its weakness: creating a population of humans whose needs are as large and damaging as possible. It was the very worse system that humans could have developed, but it is the one which supports the aristocratic divide best enabling a small population of people to exploit the mass better than ever before.

By contrast pre-capitalist societies like Eritrea enable their population to live on a 1/16 the resources of the UK. Critics will say that Eritreans live in poverty and are not happy, but this is obviously nonsense. Eritreans live like they have done for thousands of years, and more like humans have lived for millions of years. If humans have always been unhappy then its a failure of evolution if nothing else that we didn't adapt to our environment better. What is much more likely is that modern ways of thinking have changed us and started the need for a struggle to adapt our environment toward our new ways of thinking. This is the real nature of Modernity.

In retrospect its a massive shame the Eritreans didn't start evangelising their wise way of life 500 years ago and invade and colonise the very backward West. And its a very sad shame than many brainwashed Eritreans today feasting on media images think that they are poor and backward in global terms rather than the people who actually hold the keys to the future. It is them who should be teaching us how to live our life happily with less, rather than us teaching them how to live their lives with more.

There is a Chinese saying that it is harder for a rich man to live in a poor man's house than for a poor man to live in a rich man's house. This simple statement explains why development is only ever one way, and also illustrates perfectly the power and wisdom of the poor man. The poor man can live happily in both rich and poor houses, while the rich man has trapped himself in luxury finding it hard to step outside. The rich may think they are powerful, but as irony is always very ironic it is the rich in fact who have the least freedom and the greatest dependency on wealth. The world needs above all other things to learn the joy of poverty and the freedom that grants. This is the message of all the religions, told thousand of the years ago and long before the West's continual ignoring of wisdom began to cause irreparable damage and make this lesson ever more pertinent.

How to enjoy poverty in fact should be the name of this blog!