Is the end of the world dawning? Let’s hope so!

While newspapers increasingly report cases of hysteria about the supposed end of the world on December 22 this year, they seem to be less aware of the crises that indicate what might be the real end of the world. What might lead to a total collapse of our world is not an age-old Mayan calendar and will not come with a lot of natural disasters and apocalyptic scenes. On the contrary, the spectacular End of the world rather should be understood as a collapse of a widespread social-economic and political system which is inherently self-destructive. The collapse of this system implies the end of the world as we know it and marks the need for the development of a new world system. Interpreted as such, the end of the world is not something we should be falling into collective hysteria for, but something we should hope for and even should actively strive for. Instead of letting panic prevail and starting to neurotically invent ways to save our individual existence, we should become active citizens that raise their voice against the atrocities and injustice of the current system and that together try to reclaim their collective human and civil rights. For those who do not know what I am talking about, let me give some examples. Europe’s economic system is on a brink of death. In the countries that are most affected by the financial crisis, like for example Portugal and Spain, in the last couple of years people saw a sudden and massive decrease in living standards. The middle-class people with a decent job lost their jobs and now are dependent on food banks and charity institutions to assure themselves with the most basic goods. The human cost of austerity measures in southern European countries is immense and highly ignored by the political leaders of the respective countries. On behalf of the austerity experiment that was invented to desperately try to solve the country’s debts problems, the living standards in some European countries reached the lowest point since many years. The dogma of austerity blinds leaders for its inherent contradiction. In order to solve debt problems, reducing expenses on the level of for example social security will obviously not bring a country stability, but recession. What happens when money is taken from the “common man” and pumped into the rich that are assumed to be able to increase investment and thus growth? As long as profit never flows back to where it should flow back to, the answer is: the common man gets poorer, the rich man becomes richer and the biggest loser is the country itself. In other words, the main problem is, to quote Will Huntington, that gains were increasingly privatized whereas losses were increasingly socialized. How could a wealthy and prosper Western world come to such an instability and get into such a fragile and unhealthy condition? The answer is that the ideology and beliefs that are at the basis of Europe’s economic system weren’t questioned enough on their effectiveness. What causes the financial crisis is ideological and thus structural. The free market and privatization were believed to lead to an ever increasing and continuous growth of wealth. You do not need to be a very clever mind to see, that a paradigm of eternal growth is not in line with the “laws” of nature. In this world, nothing grows endlessly. An economic system based on an ideology of endless growth, is doomed to collapse. Especially when this growth is not perceived in the light of the common good, but aims at the profit of banks and investors. What we have now, is a ruling 1 percent against a 99 percent that is facing an era of unemployment, decreasing living standards, increasing social injustice and disparity, and a lack of chances. What we have now is money which is up to 97 percent virtually non-existent (since it is debt-based money). What we have now is a crisis that will remain unsolved when leaders are not willing to take off their ideological blinds and keep on reciting the truth of their dogmas. The alternatives are out there; let this crisis be an opportunity to reinvent our world. But there is more to be worried about. Not only the financial system is shaking to its foundation, also our natural environment is showing the impact of irresponsible human behavior. This impact is mainly a result of the processes of industrialization, which is driven by – what a surprise – economic interests! Even if scientist are screaming out loud that we are running out of time in order to save our planet earth from a unchangeable environmental disaster, the most influencing leaders are still paying people to deny global warming and are refusing to sign any climate accord because a cut in carbon emission would mean a massive cut in national income. So while the earth is warming, any appeal for a change makes some leaders run because the place is getting too hot. It must be clear that who benefits highly from oil industry does not want to promote the use of sustainable energy but instead wants to increase the use of fossile fuels, even though it might be accompanied with high human and environmental costs. Though it doesn’t need much calculation or prophesying to foresee that in the end, we will all become losers in this game. But yet again, profit prevails over people and short-term gains prevail over long-term losses…. A third and last example is the apparent malfunctioning of our political system. Yes of course we live in a democracy. But wasn’t democracy designed to represent people’s interests and people’s opinions? Yes? Than why does many people are increasingly unsatisfied with the government? Exactly, because they feel that the democratic elected government doesn't represents their interests. How come? Because economic interests prevail over peoples interests and the well-being of a country is measured by the financial condition of the country. Our democracy has a deficit. This deficit comes into existence because traditional parties keep on occupying the political landscape. What we see happening now, is that in times of crisis those parties are more or less all converging to the center (conservative) right. There is no real alternative offered to this, therefore people are forced to vote for parties that “they don’t really like” (quote Chomsky). Although people feel like the democratic system is not working for the common man anymore and is no longer promoting the common good, they feel helplessly subjected to this political play. Although people feel that political parties are more concerned about their own interests or about the interest of a small minority, the democratic system is no longer a possible way of expressing this concern because there is no space for this kind of “dissident” beliefs in the traditional political landscape. This lack of creative space is what constitutes the real deficit of our democracy. This being said, it appears to me that there are multiple indications for the world as we know to have reached a stage of stagnation and heading in the direction of collapse. I argue that exactly this development should not make us passive spectators that see the world around us imploding on behalf of its self-made trap. Instead of spectators, we should become actors and take the opportunity to set an end to this world and to reinvent it as a world with a system that cares about the common good, that promotes social and economic justice and that has a political system which is capable of translating people’s needs into effective deeds. We are no longer a silent majority if we collectively speak out. The future of our world lies in our hands and not in those of a prophecy of some ancient civilization...