By Shawgi Tell
Not only have the policies of the rich at home and abroad not stopped economic and social decline, the rich are actually taking social irresponsibility to new levels and making things worse worldwide. They are unable and unwilling to solve serious problems plaguing humanity. Opening the path of progress to society is not on their agenda.
Connecting just a few dots in an intelligible way produces a clear picture of the destruction unfolding worldwide. It is no accident that more people are writing about a miserable dystopian future where people will have to develop new creative ways of defending the rights of all. The information below is especially timely given the cheap euphoria displayed recently by the short-sighted rich and their political and media representatives about the “solid” 850,000 jobs the U.S. economy “added” in June 2021.
Inflation is increasing rapidly at home and abroad and the dollar’s purchasing power is still falling.
Globally, supply chains affecting many sectors are not operating smoothly; many are worried about contrived and non-contrived disruptions lasting for months, even years.
Ransomware incidents and major cyberattacks are not diminishing.
Millions of U.S. workers are misclassified as contractors, which means that they do not have (generally weak) protections.
Thousands of companies at home and abroad are “zombie companies”—i.e., they don’t make a profit after paying down their debts, they just live a dead life.
Student debt in the U.S. keeps soaring.
College tuition in the U.S. and elsewhere keeps climbing.
Marriage rates in the U.S. are at an all-time low.
Birthrates are declining globally.
The U.S. experiences a higher infant mortality rate and a higher prevalence of obesity compared with most OECD member countries.
The number of Americans who have moved back in with family or friends over the past 18 months is extremely high.
Homelessness is high nationwide and increasing significantly in some major U.S. cities; crime is also up.
Various “reforms” in countless sectors in many countries are superficial, phony, and non-substantive.
Anxiety and depression remain widespread worldwide.
Anti-depressant use remains high.
Mass murders and killings have increased in recent years in the U.S.; so have social and civil unrest.
Everyone everywhere is skeptical of the mainstream media and struggling not to be confused, ambushed, and humiliated every hour.
Around the world hundreds of millions have joined the ranks of the poor over the past 18 months.
Globally, well over ten million business have disappeared permanently and thousands more will disappear in the next five years.
Leading economic experts and officials have no real solutions for anything and people continually have low levels of trust in “experts” and government; the rich continue to operate with impunity.
There is more polarization, division, and anger in society.
Poverty and inequality keep growing worldwide; wealth concentration is staggering and unprecedented.
Digital addiction and attendant problems won’t stop increasing.
More U.S. college and university administrators, trustees, and leaders are abandoning the intellectual mission of colleges, restricting faculty voice, and turning college into Disney and fun.
Getting simple things done is taking longer and becoming more convoluted and frustrating, especially when dealing with retailers, companies, and various agencies.
Surveillance and police-state arrangements are multiplying rapidly and becoming more diverse and sophisticated at home and abroad.
The media blackout on thousands who continue to experience serious side effects from vaccines continues.
Newly-elected “progressive” politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere are proving to be as ineffective as the “old guard.”
Privatization and deregulation keep increasing and wreaking havoc worldwide.
Anglo-American imperialism thinks that constantly treating China and Russia as bogeymen will keep fooling the gullible and divert attention from deep problems in the Anglo-American world.
The unionization rate of American workers is at a historic low, which is bad for all workers in all sectors.
More than 130 million working Americans can live off their savings for six months or less before going broke.
Mergers and acquisitions continue apace in 2021, concentrating even more wealth in even fewer hands.
Central banks around the world keep printing phantom money while stock market bubbles grow larger.
The U.S labor force participation rate remains low.
The number of long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more) in the U.S. is still increasing.
Millions of Americans have started to lose their jobless benefits.
More than 40% of Black families and Latino families in the U.S. have no access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
Black and Latino Americans are experiencing the biggest decline in life expectancy in decades.
In recent years, overall job quality for Americans has deteriorated significantly.
At least thirty million Americans lack access to high-speed internet.
The U.S. opioid overdose crisis, which pharmaceutical companies were recently found guilty of sponsoring, persists.
In Africa, nearly 40% of employed youth are considered poor.
Around the world, nearly one out of ten people experience hunger and the number of undernourished people has grown by millions in recent years.
The official unemployment rate exceeds 10% in at least 12 countries in (Western and Eastern) Europe. Fourteen countries fall into this category for North and South America. The real numbers are higher.
More than 27% of youth in Central Asia and Southern Asia are not in employment, training, or education.
In the past five years more countries have experienced violent conflict, while violent crime across the world has also increased.
Despite endless happy economic news in the mainstream media, economies around the world are far from recovering; many never recovered from the Great Recession of 2008 and mass vaccinations will not solve deep structural economic problems.
The list goes on and on. This is the tip of the iceberg. Numerous problems persist on all continents. The facts above do not paint a picture of a bright and promising future for humanity. Widespread destruction prevails in the obsolete neoliberal world.
But there are also openings and contradictions that people from all walks of life are being compelled to harness in order to advance the public interest and restrict the illegitimate control and authority of major owners of capital. The desire for real progress is palpable and growing; it emerges from the concrete conditions as they present themselves today. The international financial oligarchy cannot provide any solutions to the problems plaguing humanity today, they just have more catastrophes in store for everyone and are blocking the empowerment of the people. None of these serious problems can be solved, however, so long as the people remain marginalized and disempowered. A new direction, orientation, and public authority are urgently needed.
Humanity is entering a new and deeper crisis with qualitatively different and more dangerous features. Crisis is a turning point that contains both peril and opportunity. Crisis is not always just a negative thing; it means things cannot continue in the old way and something significant is going to have to eventually give. It usually takes a serious crisis or trauma to catalyze and propel much-needed change. In this way, crisis overcomes stagnation and complacency and sets the stage for something new. The negation of the negation operates with a greater vengeance in such defining moments, giving rise to a new synthesis, a new equilibrium, which gives rise to yet another dynamic which must assert itself sooner or later. The dialectic lives and cannot be extinguished. What comes next in the complicated here and now is unfolding consciously and spontaneously.
The pace and rate of change today is exhilarating and people’s desire to protect the social and natural environment is growing. The trial of strength between capital-centered forces and human-centered forces is bound to increase because conditions are demanding a new authority that affirms the rights of all. An alternative is necessary and possible. What this will look like is in the hands of the people themselves. Only they can be relied on to usher in a bright future for humanity free of privileged private interests wrecking the social and natural environment.
Shawgi Tell, PhD, is author of the book “Charter School Report Card.” His main research interests include charter schools, neoliberal education policy, privatization and political economy. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu.
