“Half of the world’s wealth is owned by two percent of the population“, and the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider. What more evidence do you want in order for you to accept the inherently selfish nature of every human being? We’re not going to abide by the conspiracy theorists’ thesis which states that these wealthy men are evil conspirators set up to destroy the world, are we? So, how are we going to explain this architecture in the distribution of wealth and power that we see nowdays?

Richard Dawkins’ “Selfish Gene” taught us a great lesson: Every organism on this planet should and will act only in the interest of its selfish replicators, its genes. Although in the ending of the book Dawkins tries to redeem the faux pas with his chapter on memes, its overall message is blunt and clear: Cooperation between individuals is a characteristic that evolves only if the net payoff of that social contract is greater that the net loss of non-cooperation (defection). That means that you spread more of your selfish genes mostly when you cooperate with and help your close kin, and a little bit when you develop social bonds with individuals that you don’t relate with that much but that may provide you access to resources in the exchange of you providing them also at a later time. Resources may represent food, water, land, females, etc. These are the true motives of cooperation.

With the evolution of complex social systems, specialized social organizations started developing. Tribes, countries, governments, unions, churches, political parties, free trade organizations, and of course corporations. You don’t think all of these societal or economic megaliths work together for the benefit of the whole planet do you? Don’t be fooled by the woulda-coulda-shouldas that took too naive sociology classes in their college. These social constructs are interconnected in a complex network in which the cooperation of two entities means the peril and suffering of another. Energy just flows. It’s neither created, nor destroyed. Why shouldn’t giant corporations make massive profits for themselves and their employees (just like the leader of a tribe would profit from other tribes in order to help his closer kin) at the expense of individuals that are not part of that corporation (i.e. not part of the tribe)? The smart thing each and every corporation should do is to try, at first, to annihilate all the competition located on the same societal strata (other corporations), and if that fails try to cooperate with it. And this exactly what you see: Corporations merging with each other while others file bankruptcy, bank cartels that indebt whole nations, teams of nations going to war with each other for resources. Isn’t the picture already clear enough?

The main point i’m trying to make is that there is no inherently biological good for the species, good for the ecosystem mechanism programmed into our behavior. Group Selection Theory, as stated in The Selfish Gene, is a chimera. Countries, Corporations, Bankers, through the individuals within, will fight or cooperate with each other in order to suck the juice out of as much of the other entities as they can. Arms races develop. Groups of individuals get better and better at defending themselves or profiting from other groups, while the weak ones die along with their constitutive elements, the people.

Evidence for what i’m saying? How can you explain that while the world’s resources are getting depleted at a rate unimaginable in the past, the demand keeps blithely increasing? Growth, growth, growth is on every politician’s lips. Yeah, he has no problem to fool its sheep in order to get an easy vote. And why should he care? By the time the whole world is going to suffer from famine, he’s already dead, he’s already had the party of his life. Peak oil is waiting around the corner. Yet, you don’t see and politician, corporation, or country acknowledge that. Why is that? Again, each entity tries to maximize it’s profits in the short term, never bothering with the energy bereft planet that our children, their children, will inherit in the near future.

Is there any chance any of this will change? Maybe. But, until then let us just face reality. You just watch Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders (2006) by James Scurlock, the chronicles of abusive practices in the credit card industry, and you tell me how is this planet going to solve its energy issue when it couldn’t even stop the selfish bank cartels indebt sovereign countries by printing money out of nothing, and lending people’s money to themselves? You may have the answer, i don’t!

Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders (2006) is an independent feature-length documentary film which exposes abusive, selfish practices in the credit card industry. Written and directed by James Scurlock, the film uses interviews with creditors, debtors, academics, and others to illustrate its blunt story. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, USA, in 2006 where it claimed the Special Jury Prize. It went on to several film fests including Bergen, Maui, Seattle, Full Frame Documentary, New Zealand, Milwaukee International, Woodstock, Leeds International, Oxford and IDFA film festivals.

References:
- Richest 2% own ‘half the wealth’ – BBC News
- Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
- Maxed Out Reviews on Amazon.com
- The Selfish Gene
- Ending Hunger: Will the Free Market Ever Really Care?