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GMOs, Development and the Politics of Unhappiness
Todhunter, Colin
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/16/gmos-development-and-the-politics-of-unhappiness/Date Written: 2016-03-16 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2016 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX19003 Modern state-corporate capitalism is stripping the environment bare through unsustainable levels of consumption. It is legitimised by a deceitful ideology that attempts to justify and sell a system which by its very nature is designed to benefit a minority at the expense of the majority. Abstract: - Excerpt: In the area of food and agriculture, there has been a programmed eradication of indigenous, productive farming across the planet. This dovetails with an urban-centric model of 'development' underpinned by 'free trade' and the appropriation of wealth by a select number of individuals and powerful private corporations, on the one hand, and increasing hardship, austerity and poverty for the rest of the population on the other. These corporations, with the full backing of the state (we are not talking about some notional form of 'free market' capitalism), seek to mould the very essence of existence, from cradle to grave and from patented genetically modified seed to plate. All this is sold to the masses as the part of the ongoing quest to achieve human well-being, measured in terms of endless GDP growth. It's based on an ideology that conveniently associates such growth with corporate profit, boosted by stock buy-backs, financial speculation and bubbles, massive arms deals, colonialism masquerading as philanthropy, manipulated and rigged markets, corrupt and secretive trade deals, outsourced jobs, job automation and a resource-grabbing militarism. That such a parasitical system could ever bring about a 'happy' human condition for the majority is unfathomable. Yet state-corporate capitalism's great con-trick is to fool people that it can. Subject Headings |