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3:34

(In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

Through the essential but subtle shift from the Cartesian subject focus to the Newtonian object fixation in Kant’s transcendentalism, individualism is extended into capitalism. And with the march of capitalism across the world, there also followed the markedly superstitious belief in the invisible hand as an eternal guarantor of never-ending growth. Exactly how naive this notion really is has now dawned on thinking people across the world as the crises-ridden nation states, one after another, drift away towards the precipice while impotent politicians and bureaucrats sit in fruitless meetings dreaming of a dramatic increase in growth that never eventuates. The Western welfare state, which is based on precisely such institutionalised wishful thinking about strong and continuous growth, is looking more and more like a cynical pyramid scheme. Future generations are welcomed with gigantic debts and badly eroded benefits. Not to mention the escalating environmental problems that arise as a result of capitalism’s intemperate, ruthless exploitation of the planet.