In recognition of the importance of readers' contributions to the letters page, the newspaper each week selects a Letter of the Week, with a book prize courtesy of Penguin Random House. This week's winner is Greg Simpson, of Northeast Valley. Greg receives a copy of Hag-Seed, by Margaret Atwood.
Wealth-seeking drives species' extinction
Thank you you Anthony Harris for your Nature File article (ODT, 10.10.16), describing the effect of our capitalist economic model on the diminishing species with which we share this planet.
It should come as no surprise that if we continue to believe infinite growth is possible in a finite space it can only be sustained for as long as we can consume and displace other species to make way for our expansion. Perhaps it may be able to be sustained for even longer if we can only but take this economic model out there to the universe by finding another planet to consume once we have used up this one and before Earth becomes just another Mars.
Obviously the loss of 100 species a day, described as ``The Sixth Great Extinction'', doesn't seem to be bothering the majority of us on this planet or we wouldn't be allowing it to happen. Perhaps ``The Seventh Great Extinction'' will eventually produce more concern. This extinction has the same root cause as the sixth, a capitalist model that is driven by the need to produce monetary wealth before all other forms. This causes the loss of a multitude of jobs each day in the quest to squeeze out more ``wealth'' through ``efficiencies'' gained though centralisation, automation and the suppression of the cost of labour.
Reducing the amount of human input in the production of goods and services is also a very good way to increase profits. Eliminating human input altogether in the production of monetary wealth is the capitalist gold standard to strive for. So no surprise that many of today's jobs are predicted to disappear and go extinct in the very near future.
We all pay the social and environmental costs of this behaviour, but alas the economic benefits seem to only accrue to those who already have more wealth than
they can consume in any one lifetime. The poor and those whose jobs become extinct become unnecessary, unwanted and will be seen as a burden to those who have power.
Just how much longer can we continue deluding ourselves that there is nothing wrong?
