charles hugh smith-Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform

An Of Two Minds Essential^sm is a sharply focused discussion of one of the core issues of our era. While each is a stand-alone book (Kindle ebook and print), the Essentials^sm shed light on the new socio-economic era we are entering. The Essentials are compact (less than 30,000 words) and affordable (less than $5 for ebooks and less than $10 for print editions).

Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform
($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages) ($5.95 audiobook)

Our status quo — the pyramid of wealth and power dominated by the few at the top — has failed and is beyond reform.

This failure is not rooted in superficial issues such as politics or governmental regulations; the failure is structural.

The very foundation of the status quo has rotted away, and brushing on another coat of reformist paint will not save our societal house from collapse. Yet those who benefit from our status quo naturally deny it has failed, for the reason that it has yet to fail them personally—either pretending to not understand all unsustainable systems eventually collapse, or hoping to postpone it.

The writing is on the wall for us to read:

We are doing more of what has failed spectacularly.

We are implementing emergency measures as permanent policies.

We receive diminishing returns on status quo solutions.

We suffer declining social mobility.

We have a loss of social cohesion/shared purpose.

Our status quo is not only failing to solve humanity’s six core problems—it has become the problem.

Since this failure is now inevitable, something is coming to replace it. It is urgent that each of us understand why our status quo has failed, and why the usual menu of reforms can’t stop this failure, so we can prepare ourselves for the radical transformations ahead.

Table of Contents:

CHAPTER ONE
Humanity’s Six Integrated Problems
Entrenched Poverty
An Economic Model of Expanding Consumption in a World of Finite Resources
An Economic Model that Uses Wages to Distribute the Output of the Economy
A Political-Economic Model of Central States Dominated by Elites
An Economic Model that Depends on Credit (Borrowing from the Future) to
Fund Today’s Consumption
A Crisis of Purpose and Meaning
Is the Status Quo Solving These Problems, Or Is It the Problem?

CHAPTER TWO
How Money Is Created and Distributed
The Way We Create Money Creates Inequality/Poverty
The Illusory Promise of the Gold Standard
The Limits of Blockchain Crypto-Currencies
The Moral Foundation of Money

CHAPTER THREE
The Eight Types of Capital
The Scarcest Capital Is the Most Valuable Capital
We Optimize What We Measure

CHAPTER FOUR
The Limitations of the Market and the State
Limitations of the State and Universal Basic Income
Limitations of the Market
The Market, State and Labor
The Limits of Profit as a Determinant of Value
The Unsustainability of State Social Welfare Spending
The Neoliberal/State Fantasy of Taxable Profits and Wages
The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization
Ownership Capital and Shared Capital
The Tyranny of Price
The Fundamental Failure of the Market and State

CHAPTER FIVE
The Failure of Economic Orthodoxy
The Failure of the Either/Or Orthodoxies of Capitalism or Marxism
The Pathologies of the Market
Derealization and the Destruction of Authenticity
The Institutionalization and Internalization of Perverse Incentives
Institutionalized Powerlessness and the Crisis of the Individual
The Consumerist Destruction of the Authentic Self
The Structure of Collapse
Why the Status Quo Is Beyond Reform
The Way Forward

Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform
($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages)

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