Capitalism as a Metabolic Disease

Since I was a child I was told to be grateful that I was born in the West and into a peaceful country. Here in the West, Capitalism allowed people to be free, to pursue their dreams, ‘to make it’. I dutifully engaged on the well trodden path of gathering stuff to attract a mate and to pass on my genes. So far so predictable; what made the worm turn? Ten years ago I lay seriously ill in hospital. Late one night a supply nurse I had not seen before or since, conducted her checks, read my chart and then asked me - ‘Have you worked out why you were spared?’. Clearly I had not and my life since has been anything but predictable. Richard Rohr talks about life in two halves – the acquisitional phase and the purposeful phase. The purpose of the first is to prepare us for the second, but often a life-changing event must detach us from the former so that we can make the shift. Part of my shift is to appreciate the gift of life more fully. I want to help humanity to thrive rather than just survive and from the time I left my hospital bed I have been asking ‘What would happen in a perfectly healthy body?’ Whether considering personal, societal or corporate health the question is the same. My underlying premise being ‘If every cell in the body is healthy then the body must be healthy’. Which political world view would best support the healthy body of humanity? Judging from the level of conflict in the world humanity has not yet found the answer. What we see is chronic inflammation manifest as political tensions, extreme inequality and conflict. We are in crisis and rapidly approaching change but as Richard Rohr sees it, the transition may be painful. Researcher Thomas Seyfried has dedicated his life to the exploration of cancer as a Metabolic Disease. He has continued the journey begun by Nobel Prizewinner Otto Warburg with his observation of how cancerous cells adopt fermentation as their primary method of energy generation. This is thought to be a primitive survival strategy to which cells revert when their environment has made normal cellular respiration too difficult. One downside is that the inefficient fermentation process requires some 18 times more glucose than normal respiration to create the same amount of energy so that as the cancer grows the rest of the body is starved. Is this what’s happening societally? My school biology lessons listed growth as one of the defining features of life. But it was well understood that in a mature creature growth meant cellular replenishment, not the constant scrabbling to maximise quarterly profits while wantonly wasting the planet’s resources. Seyfried’s research has promoted the Ketogenic Diet as a key element of a strategy for recovery from cancer. Cancer cells are less adaptable than normal cells and cannot burn fat for energy. A diet rich in healthy fats starves and greatly weakens cancer cells. Perhaps we similarly need to reign in our destructive capitalist model by expanding its goals beyond Profit to also include People and Planet in a ‘Triple Bottom Line’ as espoused by Elkington and others? Our destructive aberration of capitalism has no interest in genuine human and societal growth. If we were to place as much emphasis on People and Planet as we do on Profit then the current model, of rampant exploitation for maximum monetary profit, would be starved and weakened and would eventually run aground. We could change the economic environment so that the current paradigm would eventually disappear. Paradoxically, such a system provides the best chance for the survival of humanity.