Instinct and Institution vs. Sustainability

The way we relate to money in society has always been problematic. In an ideal society, everyone would have enough money for whatever they desire, but the desire is infinite, and resources are not. Since money directly links to power, they have always had control over the have nots.

However, I would argue that our relationship with money has never been more problematic as a society. This is because of the mind-boggling wealth disparity. Billionaires have more wealth than 60% of the world’s population combined, and a single individual has a net worth higher than the GDPs of over 100 countries. When we think of the ‘olden days,’ we think of monarchies’ lavishness against the peasants’ poverty, but we don’t see this kind of disparity even in pre-revolution France.

Of course, we would expect this ridiculous wealth disparity to have consequences. We see billions of people suffering are from hunger and lack access to primary medical care while the ultra-rich have more wealth than they can spend in generations, but how exactly did we get here? What specifically about our societal structure allows people to build such wealth.

We can trace it back to capitalism, specifically the late-stage capitalism we’re in right now. Before we understand late-stage capitalism, we need to take a step back and look at some of the economic systems that led up to this.

We can start by looking at mercantilism which was almost a proto-capitalist system. The transition from feudalism to mercantilism was one of the markers of the start of the early modern era. We can trace it back to capitalism and glorifying capitalists and telling everyone the myth that hard work leads to success.

But for the last 500 years, the primary economic system across the world has been capitalism in various forms. Although there’s still much debate about capitalism’s exact origins, we can trace its origins through feudalism and mercantilism.

Simplified to its very basic definition, capitalism is about accumulating capital. Today we think of capital in terms of money; although it has had another meaning, agrarian capitalism was about accumulating land and grain. Bullionism was about collecting precious metals.

Capitalism is inherently competitive, and competition has winners and losers.

There has long been a debate between the liberals and the Marxists about the nature of capitalism. Is it just the world’s natural order, the survival of the fittest, or is it a strange relationship between classes that serves a select few individuals rather than society as a whole?

I would argue that it’s a combination of both. Going back to tribal economics, we see a competition between individuals to become the tribal leader, and we see competition between tribes. But despite that, there was never such a disparity between the wealth of individual members. It would be unheard of for tribal leaders to have gold and a life of luxury while other members starved. Of course, this didn’t apply to enslaved people, but I’d like to imagine we agree that slavery is wrong as a society.

We do have this level of disparity nowadays.

But I don’t think we should hold ourselves to the same standard as tribes, empires, and even states of the past. With an overabundance of resources, perhaps we can move past the rat race that capitalism breeds and begin to incorporate a more cooperative economic system.

It goes beyond leveling the playing field for anyone to hustle and make it big. It frees people from viewing the idea of hustling and making it big as the only definition of a successful life. It allows different metrics of defining success, metrics based on personal and public health and happiness.

Growing up and going to high school in the Bay Area is a unique experience. The environment is so overly competitive, with the sole focus on getting into college. I found myself carrying this cutting edge, always looking to get ahead through college. It served me well academically, and I did well in university and got a job I love right out of college.

The work-life balance is quite good. I’m healthily challenged at work but don’t have to bring work home.

That kind of peace of mind gave me counterintuitively gave me anxiety. I realized I’d never given myself time to live my life. Instead of making time to pursue my happiness because I’d relentlessly pursued the goal of making myself more marketable to colleges or employers.

Perhaps that hypercompetitive childhood was a unique experience. Still, I don’t believe this desire to improve to constantly work towards being “marketable constantly” is a happy or healthy way to live. We’re not products, and a system that makes us view ourselves that way cannot be the best solution.

And all for what. Why make it big? Why try to make an absurd amount of money. So is it to own a Beverly Hills mansion, a superyacht, buy a diamond necklace.

That impulse reveals the second major flaw in our current relationship with money. The way we express our wealth through materiality. We live in a consumerist society, so naturally, we spend money on stuff. The more property, the better. It puts us in constant pursuit of newer, bigger, better.

Consumerism is almost inseparable from capitalism because consumerism feeds capitalism, enabling consumerism — a perfect feedback loop.

So how did we become the consumerist society we are today, and how exactly do capitalism and consumerism play off each other.

Humans are, by nature, consumerist beings. We’ve always desired more. This is seen in the days of the hunter-gatherers storing food for winters. Then, accumulation and abundance meant survival. We see this in the great walls built around cities, where materiality meant security.

But even beyond the basic human needs of survival and security, we’ve always seen societies drawn to objects of beauty. For example, the earliest human civilizations went to great lengths to obtain precious metals. Employing labor in pursuit of these jewels could argue that the labor would be much more valuable if put to tasks such as food production or defense.

So it’s no surprise that colonialism funded a system of exploitation at the expense of natives. The endless hunger for more is an innately human impulse aggravated and celebrated by the capitalist system.

While this desire has always led to suffering, never have the stakes been so dire or globally catastrophic. Endless, unethical consumption depletes the world’s resources and irreparably pollutes the air and water. At its very core, consumerism is the driving force for climate change. 
 
Even though it’s never explicitly discussed, I think we all understand and have internalized this connection. That’s why so many sustainability campaigns focus on reducing our consumption, recycling, and reusing what we already have. This is an excellent thought but hard to practice when we’ve been conditioned to consume. That’s where I think the sustainability movement fails.

NOxapture, addresses this problem by feeding consumerism by creating a carbon-negative product to produce and remove carbon and other pollutants from the air, turning them into a harmless by-product. The tiles are made of biochar, which is produced by a process called pyrolysis that takes atmospheric carbon and sequesters it into a stable state. After the biochar is mixed with water and natural products, it can be cast into any form and texture similar to concrete. The tiles are also coated in a chemical compound called titanium dioxide. This compound reacts with chemical pollutants in the air, including carbon dioxide, in a reaction called photocatalysis to produce C2+ and water, both of which are harmless.

Our traditional notion of sustainability faces an uphill battle, going against our instincts to gather and consume, as well as a deeply entrenched economic system that’s been evolving for millennia. Innovative approaches of sustainability such as NOxapture that feed into both instinct and institution might be the solution..