The Age of Enlightenment was born sometime around the beginning of the eighteenth century. A mere three-quarters of a century later, industrialization ushered in the Age
of Endarkenment, and human life has grown more and more perilous ever
since. The Golden Age of capitalism cannot be recreated merely by
applying the right mixture of spending, subsidies, re-regulation, and
international agreements. Because the economic advantages of
industrialization rely on overproduction and profit, balanced trade is
impossible if the advantage is to be preserved; it entails no economic
profit. Industrialism is a Hegelian synthesis which embodies the forces
for its own destruction. The greatest threat to the Western Way of Life
is the Western Way of Life itself.

That human beings seem unable to solve their most pressing problems is too obvious and well known to deserve much mention; that most of the
problems that human beings seem unable to solve are caused by human
beings themselves deserves mention but rarely is.

Human beings act as though having to deal with problems whose causes are beyond human control is not enough. Cyclones, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, floods are apparently not
serious enough to command human attention. These problems, apparently,
have to be supplemented by self-made catastrophes to keep our minds
engaged. But most manmade problems could be avoided by careful and
complete analysis of the ideas that, when implemented, have dire
results.

Time-tested and effective ways of analyzing problems have been known for centuries. Rene Descartes published his Rules for the Direction of the Mind around 1627 and the Discourse on Method
in 1637. John Stuart Mill published his Methods in his System of
Logic in 1843. The mathematical method known as reductio ad
absurdum has been employed throughout the history of mathematics and
philosophy from classical antiquity onwards, as has the method known as
counterexample. And root cause analysis is a highly developed method
often used in information science and other places. Oddly enough,
however, even most well educated Americans seem to be unaware of any of
these analytical techniques, and when attempts are made to analyze
ideas, these attempts are rarely carried out logically or all the way to
their ultimate ends. Americans rarely "follow the argument wherever it
leads;" even those good at analysis often stop when they come across
something that looks appealing.

John B. Judis recently published a piece in the New Republic in which he summarized some claims made by Robert Brenner, a UCLA economic historian. Judis writes:

"Brenner’s analysis of the current downturn can be boiled down to a fairly simple point: that the underlying cause of the current downturn lies in the “real” economy of
private goods and service production rather than in the financial
sector, and that the current remedies—from government spending and tax
cuts to financial regulation—will not lead to the kind of robust growth
and employment that the United States enjoyed after World War II and
fleetingly in the late 1990s. These remedies won’t succeed because they
won’t get at what has caused the slowdown in the real economy: global
overcapacity in tradeable (sic) goods production. Global overcapacity
means that the world’s industries are capable of producing far more
steel, shoes, cell phones, computer chips, and automobiles (among other
things) than the world’s consumers are able and willing to consume."

Why this is worth mentioning is difficult to fathom. Overproduction has always been associated with economic busts, and such busts have happened with such regularity that
economists have even incorporated them into theory by euphemistically
calling booms and busts the "business cycle." The question that must be
asked is, "What causes overproduction?" And the answer is
industrialization.

The Industrial Revolution began in England around 1780. It transformed England from a manual labour and draft-animal economy into a machine-based one. But this change in the primary mode of economic
activity was not merely economic; it changed the entire culture, not
clearly for the better. Almost every aspect of life was changed in some
way.

Many cite increased per capita GDP as evidence of the revolution's benefits, but GDP is a poor measure of benefits. It merely measures the sum total of economic transactions in terms of the
culture's money, neglecting the effects of economic activity on the
quality of human life.

The Industrial Revolution is largely responsible for the rise of modern cities, as large numbers of people migrated to them in search of jobs. These people were mainly housed in slums where diseases,
especially cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, and smallpox, were spread by
contaminated water and other means. Respiratory diseases contracted by
miners became common. Accidents in factories were regular. In 1788,
two-thirds of the workers in cotton mills were children; they were also
employed in coal mines. Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins argue
that the bulk of the population suffered severe reductions in their
living standards. Although life in pre-industrial England was not easy,
for many it was better than laboring in factories and coal mines.

Other consequences of the revolution are worse—craft workers lost their jobs. The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories, and mines, but industrial
workers could never experience the sense of satisfaction and pride that
craftsmen derived from their creations. Working a craft is a mentally
stimulating and creative activity; operating a machine is not. The best
craftsmen were renowned as artists. Some are still renowned today:
Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite, for example. The integral
strength of Windsor chairs has never been duplicated in a factory.
Handmade textiles, Persian rugs, even handcrafted toys are renowned for
their artistry. Today that pride and satisfaction accrues only to
hobbyists, such as quilters, but never to industrial workers. The
Industrial Revolution degraded human life to the status of coal. People
became fuel for machines. Bought cheap, people are used until unneeded
and then discarded like slag. Individuality, talent, imagination,
originality—the best attributes of human beings—are suppressed to the
point of extinction. The Industrial Revolution sucked the humanity out
of the human race; people became things.

But the revolution gave England a temporary economic advantage as that is measured by economists. Excess production, that is, production not consumed domestically, could be
exported, and England's wealth could be increased by buying (importing)
cheap and selling (exporting) dear. This worked—for a while, but never
smoothly.

The Industrial Revolution quickly spread to Belgium, France, the United States, Japan, the Alpine countries, Italy, and other places. As it spread, the amount of excess
products that needed to be exported grew and grew, and the number
prospective foreign consumers shrank and shrank. Because there is little
economic advantage (as economists measure it) in trading exports for
imports of equal value, the international economy necessarily divides
into net exporting nations who are enriched and net importing countries
who are impoverished and less and less able to afford imports. The
system has to be patched or the machines would grind to a halt. Most of
the work of economists since the middle of the nineteenth century
consists of developing patches for this collapsing system. Comparative
advantage, creative destruction, free trade, Keynesian stimuli, and even
social programs (which would be unnecessary if the economy provided for
the needs of people) are merely attempts to patch the system, to keep
the machines running.

Industrialists soon realized that if they reduced the quality of their products, their life cycles would be shortened which would require people to replace them more often thereby
increasing consumption. Manufacturers have been steadily reducing the
quality of products ever since. An essential part in a device is made of
an inferior material so the device fails far before its time and
becomes junk, batteries in devices are soldered to their circuit boards
so that when the batteries die, the products becomes junk, one fewer
olive in every jar means more jars are sold, and the jars become junk.
Economists like to claim that the system produces the best products at
the lowest cost, but in reality it produces the exact opposite. As more
and more products must be discarded and replaced, the discarded junk is
hauled to landfills or dumped in oceans. But as landfills grow larger
and larger, another patch is required—recycling. But it too is
ineffective. Batteries soldered to circuit boards cannot be recycled,
every half-filled can of paint cannot be taken to a recycling center,
separating useful elements from the useless ones is often a hazardous
task. The system produces junk! Humans originated about 200,000 years
ago. The Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik into space in 1957. In
less than 60 years, less than a mere three tenths of one percent of the
time people have inhabited the Earth, the industrial nations have put so
much junk into near outer space that the junk now endangers the
functionality of operational satellites. Abandoned industrial sites are
often highly toxic which often require cleanup—another patch. Often
complete cleanup is impossible. Toxic residues are a species of junk.
Keeping the machines running necessitates the production of it.

Global industrial capitalism will continue on the gradual downward descent to collapse. The Golden Age of industrial capitalism that lasted from 1945 to 1970 cannot be recreated
merely by applying the right mixture of spending, subsidies,
re-regulation, and international agreements. Because the economic
advantages of industrialization rely on the two ingredients mentioned
above, overproduction and profit, balanced trade is impossible if the
advantage is to be preserved; it entails no economic profit. Ultimately
too many nations will be too poor to be importers, and the machines in
the exporting countries will cease to function. Industrialism is a
Hegelian synthesis which embodies the forces for its own destruction.
The greatest threat to the Western Way of Life is the Western Way of
Life itself. Patches may prolong it, but they cannot remove its
contradictions.

Chandran Nair writes,

The 20th century’s triumph of consumption-based capitalism has created the crisis of the 21st century: looming catastrophic climate change, massive environmental damage and
significant depletion of natural resources. . . . The western economic
model, which defines success as consumption-driven growth, must be
challenged. . . . Advocates of the western model tend to play down its
dramatic effects on natural resources and the environment. They refuse
to acknowledge that their advice runs counter to scientific consensus
about limits and the need for stringent rules on resource management.
Instead, they argue that human ingenuity aided by innovations in the
markets will find solutions. This is rooted in an irrational belief that
we can have everything: ever-growing material wealth and a healthy
natural environment. The stark evidence . . . should be proof enough
that this is not possible.

No, it's not possible, but the impossibility lies in the system's logic, not in its effects. To use the preferred diction of economists, the system is unsustainable. Since the
collapse of the industrial system is inevitable, a fundamental
rethinking of the way the economy works is the only alternative. It has
always been the only alternative. But even that leaves humanity soaking
in the pickle. When the economic advantages of industrialization have
dissipated, humanity will still be stuck in a world filled with
bioundegradable junk, hazardous sites, raped environments, the unending
consequences of the often accidental importation of alien species,
polluted air and water, and numerous other consequences, the costs of
which economists have never taken into consideration. And the progeny of
both the rich and the poor alike will have to live with them. The
pockets full of money that the rich have won't prevent their children
and grandchildren from breathing bad air or drinking bad water or
dealing with environmental degradation. These children and grandchildren
may someday curse the days their fathers and grandfathers were born.
Capitalism, as we know it, is reaching its endgame. The meek who inherit
the earth will find it to be worthless.

The human brain has enabled mankind to discover and create wondrous things; it has also been used to inflict horrendous suffering and destruction. In fact, it would be difficult to
design an economic system more destructive, wasteful, and dehumanizing
than the industrial, and much of the destruction it has wrought may be
irreparable. Industrialization does not efficiently allocate resources;
it squanders them.

So, is mankind smart? Of course, but that is not the question. The ultimate question is, Is mankind smart enough to keep from outsmarting itself? The answer appears to be no!

The Age of Enlightenment was born sometime around the beginning of the eighteenth century. A mere three-quarters of a century later, industrialization ushered in the Age
of Endarkenment, and human life has grown more and more perilous ever
since. Natural disasters can be catastrophic, but their destructiveness
is usually limited, and the really horrendous ones are rare. Manmade
disasters are ubiquitous, very extensive, and difficult, perhaps
impossible, to repair. Had mankind been wise rather than merely smart,
most manmade calamities could have been avoided. Que Sera Sera!
Whatever will be will be will be. The future is plain to see, and it's
not pretty.

John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War,
he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working
as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially,
in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has
written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces
can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that
site's homepage.