Apologists for capitalist world revolution, like the Economist magazine, avoid like the plague any audit of the process. In their telling, there are only benefits.  The undeveloped at last gain some measure of wealth and health, what’s not to like? We (we managers and investors in the revolution) gain markets and raw materials and labor and profits, true enough, and god-like reach over the earth, but the great beneficiaries of this catastrophic change (this radical overturning of the cultural and ecological furrow) are, of course, the poor themselves. They are liberated, at last, to, as we say, make something of themselves (to become just like us).

Sure, millions upon millions are killed in the process and cannot be thought to have gained much from its march.  Millions more are maimed by it, physically and/or spiritually. And their languages and cultures and gods must die at a rate that would astonish even board members — if they weren’t too busy to look (even at the passing of their own languages and cultures and gods). And the flora and fauna and whole ecological domains that are destroyed in the process? Well, this cost must be worth it since, otherwise, we might not be the sensitive and fabulously intelligent people that we are.

At any rate, who’s keeping track? Not us, since we don’t audit. And not God, surely. Because if there were any chance that we might have to account for what we have done (even to the least of these), we might not be in such a hurry with our improvements.

Are you busy making the world a better place along with the Economist magazine?

Congratulations!  You are a conservative!