Extractivism: The Western Way

Extractivism is the manipulation of entities and resources for the benefit of a single party. The roots are power and the will to freedom at any price. This is rooted in empire and expansionism throughout history from kings to prime ministers rooted in the search for glory via the human tribal urges for cults of personality. On our interpersonal level violence against women is also part of the politics of extractivism. Socially the denigration of minorities and foreigners as whipping boys and scapegoats is the same vein. Ecologically it is the exploitation of all that is natural and pushing natural systems to the brink of collapse. We stay with this sytem, linked to the worship of money, capital, and military power above all else as the fundamental basis for the political economy. Science and arts and human considerations are recognized with lip service but kept in peripheral silos.

In this process of extractivism everything is brought eventually into privitization and the politics of scarcity. The public goods are shattered; the lack of the commons, the common ground, the shared resources. The ideal visions of diverse society; of a collective society, of a society with its own seperate identities is abandoned. To often the melting pot becomes a mess, it is delicate, and fragile because the roots of exploitation, racism, misogyny and much more are never fully addressed and accepted. The society uses slogans to profess shallow creeds but rocks on the waves of oligarchy and private control.

In the end there is not the authority and integrity of all. We don’t have acceptance and respect the integrity of others. We create a narrow world with toxic precepts that constrict viability, opportunity, and justice. Only if we reverse and create a vibrant and renewing system, one that truly respects the entrepreneurs, respects nature, and respect cultural autonomy… that is the solution.

https://truthout.org/articles/us-capitalism-was-born-in-the-destruction-of-the-commons/

As things stand currently our health outcomes erode, our educational systems are bifurcated and commodified, of housing less are able to access, natural systems are under relentless attack,, and the societies worldwide spiral further into ghettoization between those in gated communities and those behind barbed wire. Until we fully address the hierarchical systems of privilege and unequal rights we've inherited from our kings,
emperors, dictators, and senators we will continue in the dark cycles of exploitation and scarcity.

@clumsysilverdad