

Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform An Of Two Minds Essentialsm is a sharply focused discussion of one of the core issues of our era. While each is a stand-alone book (Kindle ebook and print), the Essentialssm shed light on the new socio-economic era we are entering. The Essentials are compact (less than 30,000 words) and affordable (less than $5 for ebooks and less than $10 for print editions).



Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform

($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages) ($5.95 audiobook) Our status quo  the pyramid of wealth and power dominated by the few at the top  has failed and is beyond reform. This failure is not rooted in superficial issues such as politics or governmental regulations; the failure is structural. The very foundation of the status quo has rotted away, and brushing on another coat of reformist paint will not save our societal house from collapse. Yet those who benefit from our status quo naturally deny it has failed, for the reason that it has yet to fail them personallyeither pretending to not understand all unsustainable systems eventually collapse, or hoping to postpone it. The writing is on the wall for us to read: We are doing more of what has failed spectacularly. We are implementing emergency measures as permanent policies. We receive diminishing returns on status quo solutions. We suffer declining social mobility. We have a loss of social cohesion/shared purpose. Our status quo is not only failing to solve humanitys six core problemsit has become the problem. Since this failure is now inevitable, something is coming to replace it. It is urgent that each of us understand why our status quo has failed, and why the usual menu of reforms cant stop this failure, so we can prepare ourselves for the radical transformations ahead.





Table of Contents: CHAPTER ONE

Humanitys Six Integrated Problems

Entrenched Poverty

An Economic Model of Expanding Consumption in a World of Finite Resources

An Economic Model that Uses Wages to Distribute the Output of the Economy

A Political-Economic Model of Central States Dominated by Elites

An Economic Model that Depends on Credit (Borrowing from the Future) to

Fund Todays Consumption

A Crisis of Purpose and Meaning

Is the Status Quo Solving These Problems, Or Is It the Problem? CHAPTER TWO

How Money Is Created and Distributed

The Way We Create Money Creates Inequality/Poverty

The Illusory Promise of the Gold Standard

The Limits of Blockchain Crypto-Currencies

The Moral Foundation of Money CHAPTER THREE

The Eight Types of Capital

The Scarcest Capital Is the Most Valuable Capital

We Optimize What We Measure CHAPTER FOUR

The Limitations of the Market and the State

Limitations of the State and Universal Basic Income

Limitations of the Market

The Market, State and Labor

The Limits of Profit as a Determinant of Value

The Unsustainability of State Social Welfare Spending

The Neoliberal/State Fantasy of Taxable Profits and Wages

The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization

Ownership Capital and Shared Capital

The Tyranny of Price

The Fundamental Failure of the Market and State CHAPTER FIVE

The Failure of Economic Orthodoxy

The Failure of the Either/Or Orthodoxies of Capitalism or Marxism

The Pathologies of the Market

Derealization and the Destruction of Authenticity

The Institutionalization and Internalization of Perverse Incentives

Institutionalized Powerlessness and the Crisis of the Individual

The Consumerist Destruction of the Authentic Self

The Structure of Collapse

Why the Status Quo Is Beyond Reform

The Way Forward Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform

($3.95, Kindle ebook; 27,600 words, 90 pages)