Decline of the Empire

Your Next Stop, The Twilight Zone

Originally published on September 2, 2013. There was a follow-up a few weeks later called Confusion In The Twilight Zone (September 17, 2013). Nothing which has occurred subsequently contradicts the conclusions of these two essays. Nor will anything which happens in the future — Dave

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You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Twilight Zone.
   — Rod Serling, introduction to the TV show The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

 

Introduction

As I have written many times before, for humans, the economy is everything. All other considerations, including our Earthly habitat, which includes all non-human parts of the biosphere, take a backseat. If people were confused on this point prior to the global financial meltdown of 2008-2009, their confusion should be entirely dispelled in 2013. The human preoccupation with restoring economic health in the developed (OECD) world, and encouraging growth in "emerging" markets like China, Brazil and India, has dominated environmental concerns with a completeness which erases all doubt about what truly matters. Climate change and other environmental issues have all but disappeared from popular media and political discussions.

Moral Failure In Liberalized Market States

This essay was originally published in February, 2014. This post is part III of my series of essays on morality, social groups and economics. Previously I had published—

• Homo sapiens — The Rationalizing Animal
• Econonics As A Moral Science?

This essay presupposes you have read the first two, though I will review those essays briefly in the introduction to this one. There is also a shorter follow-up to this essay called Constructing A Decent Society? — Dave

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I take it as uncontroversial that the United States is a moral failure, where failure is defined by the criteria 1) satisfactory levels of socio-economic fairness and reciprocity; and 2) reduction of harm and suffering among our society's most vulnerable members.

It may seem outrageous to you that I've simply assumed this essay's title in its first sentence, but this inquiry seeks to understand why the United States is a moral failure, or for that matter, why it seems that any large, complex, liberalized ("free") market state must inevitably lead to moral failure as defined briefly above. I will use the United States as my example throughout, but my remarks (mutatis mutandis) could apply to the European Union (EU) or other OECD nations.

But first let us make no mistake about our initial assumption. I also want to review some things I explained in the first two essays before moving on.