Our New Manhattan Project

In 1949 after the colossal failure of human civilization we call “World War 2” Albert Einstein wrote that we must “overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development” in a long-ignored essay on why we must rethink and replace our primitive economic system.

There is an oft repeated saying that most people are so indoctrinated into the cult of so-called “capitalism” by corporate-media they cannot imagine anything else. If they can, they don’t dare say it out loud for fear of becoming a social outcast.

Before Einstein was born, when Max Planck (founder of quantum theory) was just a student, physics was widely considered a dead field.

Max Planck’s college professor encouraged him to pursue playing piano since no more progress could be made in physics.

In the following decades Planck and Einstein would prove the existence of the atom, discover the medium of spacetime, the nature of gravity, quantum mechanics and develop an entirely new understanding of the nature of the universe. 

Around the same time, before NASA ever launched a rocket into outer space, a New York Times editorial on 13 January 1920 confidently mocked scientists about their ridiculous ideas of sending rockets into space.

The NY Times whined that this new breed of rocket scientists were no Einsteins, and that rockets obviously couldn’t work in a vacuum because there was nothing to push against.

Of course they were also dead wrong.

Rockets work by pushing against their own exhaust. The vacuum isn’t a problem. It’s an advantage. 

The Times issued its correction nearly 50 years later on 17 July 1969, writing: “The Times regrets the error.” 

What was once considered impossible is now conventional wisdom.

There will come a time when Einstein’s diagnosis of the fundamental physics problem of our economic model — which requires infinite growth feeding off a finite system – is conventional wisdom.

One easily imagines our descendants awestruck at how we could ignore such overwhelming evidence. How clear it was that the solution to our converging crises was not electing different managers but replacing this broken model with something not destined to self-destruct.

Albert Einstein wrote that  “The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is… the real source of the evil….

Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to [the] crippling of the social consciousness of individuals…

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism.

Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success [greed]…”

Einstein also wrote about the dangers of any planned economy which can result in the “complete enslavement of the individual”.

This is close to what we have now  – a corporate planned economic system where a few private companies dominate all our major markets. And most of the world is locked out of basic access.

Just a few alarming examples:

4 private companies control most of the world’s seed market.

Three companies (BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street) are the largest shareholder in most of America’s biggest companies — complicit in perpetuating all our converging crises.

Half the world owns no assets, no wealth, and has no share in the planet they live on. No natural rights to the earth, its water or soil. 

At the end of his essay Einstein lays out our next steps.

That we must establish an equilibrium between the efficiencies and standards provided by global systems with the autonomy of local communities and individuals.

That is where our social sciences need to get to work.

There must be a global manhattan project devoted to developing, modeling, and proving the advanced economic and political systems that can sustain humanity – the species and the quality of humanitas. Empathy. Self-improvement. Working for the common good. 

This is not a fringe idea.

There are academics all over the world doing this. There are independent media groups promoting that work.

And even within this broken system itself. Over and over groups of CEO’s — in the airline industry, tech, even big oil — have begged governments to rewrite the rules to prevent an endless-competition economic game design from destroying the very markets their companies supposedly exist to serve.

But governments whose managers are selected by an owner-class will not turn against their paymasters. 

As we approach yet another election season, do not sit out. Do not be disouraged. Get informed. Be empowered.

Pressure candidates. They are most often not leaders. They are, in the best case, managers. At the worst, they are representatives of the donor class.

Leverage your support and your vote strategically. Consider running. Get together with your neighbors. Use your voice. Demand the solutions we’ve had for decades.

But be clear-eyed. We find ourselves in extreme circumstances.

The most moderate, conservative possible response is addressing the root cause of the converging crises before-us, which is an archaic economic system whose game design is predatory.

So please find and join the communities and movements that are part of the new Manhattan project. Replacing this collapsing pyramid scheme with something worthy of humankind.

That’s where our attention and energy must be. And that’s the purpose of this SGE project. Thanks for being a part of it. 

Matthew

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