As I watch the antics of our democracy and its attendant economic system, capitalism, that we have evolved into, I’m wondering if this is the best system to make the hard decisions needed to face the upcoming issues such as climate change, overpopulation and overconsumption, among others, to produce the results necessary to survive these challenges.
With the advent of misinformation and the decline of truth, we seem to have evolved into a sort of corrupted system of patronage and culture wars where the important issues are often not addressed and our energies are mostly focused on nonsubstantive missives to whip up the base of each of our supporters.
That patronage system is of our political leaders’ allegiance to the powerful moneyed interests that support them. As fat war chests are needed to win elections, the politicos’ fealty to their powerful supporters will only continue if the supporters’ interests are served. Many of those interests are vested in the status quo, some of which will need to change to address these challenges.
For example, it’s likely some of the fossil fuel interests will lose income and value. For that to happen the political interests will have to vote contrary to the fossil interests, which may threaten the support given to the politicos by the moneyed interests. In addition, fueled by misinformation, the culture warriors will just go along with the conservative, status quo interests, whose highest value is just to stick together, no matter how bad it is for the country, making it even more difficult for all of us to address these challenges.
So, do we need a better regulated and informed democracy to point us toward a brighter future?
John Kennington, Cottonwood Heights