This article is addressed to some economic problems that trouble the world today, and how a new direction may keep stability in our financial systems.
What kind of a future are we, as citizens living in a wealthy nation, looking to? The university told me that our fate is being decided by a representative body of officials, and that social progress rests on their sworn commitment to America and its citizens. But the state of the union speech just felt too casual – I can’t help but think that these people are only keeping the same veil of secrecy over the government that has always let them take their decisions into places we can’t see. I can’t help but think about farmers who are sitting at the table with their family as a predator missile lands in their house, or journalists being gunned down by airships coordinated and funded by my tax dollars earned over landscaping. Those in power seem overzealous to protect our lives with military deployment, yet cannot hold stability in our own country to keep our own citizens above poverty. How are we underneath these people? Why can they make decisions to sacrifice my friends, and ask them to kill in other places for reasons that are televised so aggressively by mass media companies? If our societies cannot maintain their basic freedoms under such a regime, then why can’t we break down their influence entrenched by the years of class separation? Why can’t we adopt a system that speaks true humanitarian values with its actions? Organization is the ability every beautiful mind and the order that speaks for peace, and for one to lay waste against another under the guise of tyranny warrants the responsibility for the population to subvert these controls and rebuild the truth over what is evil.
Caesar ravaged Europe by amassing his legions, and the Catholic Church fused their ideology into the feudal court systems, and cultural apartheid defined in the Constitution let Caucasians enslave Africans for economic ends, and Nike and Hershey and Victoria’s Secret use the WTO to pay monsters to kidnap children and force them to work in cotton fields and sweatshops. This is the hierarchy of oppression that happens when men at the top gather and join forces, and it brings out the worst in these individuals who seem to only seek the experience of dominance over reality. But every time this search for self-aggrandizement with power is mobilized into violent action, social infrastructure is torn apart and livelihoods are broken or erased by the conflict.
This dominance hierarchy has always been married to the political activity of a nation, tied together with economic intentions on behalf of those in power. Today, this structure has been translated into a neoclassical command system, where all major decisions belong to the leaders of government and business. The main responsibility these people have defined in their theories is to collect as much revenue as possible to hold control and influence over affairs, supposedly for the benefit of society as a whole. But the decisions they make can be directly attributed to the illegal treatment of other human beings in lower standards of living, and their motivations are no doubt dangerously open to the mind of greed and corruption.
International trade, organized and imposed by agencies like GATT and WTO, has effectively opened the floodgates for trading between nations to the expansion of a global consumer-market structure. But the model of competitive trade simply is not a realistic burden to place on most of the world’s population. For example, when the banana crops of Caribbean islands were expected to meet market conditions after the WTO dissolved their contracts with European retailers in 1997, their industry opened to the competitive world dominated by Dole plantations in Latin America. The economies of the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Grenada among others could not contend with Dole’s lower production costs and prices, and Dole’s bananas replaced Caribbean exports the European market (despite being of lower quality and genetically modified). The industry has still not recovered, and the nations are forced to depend on tourism to keep their economy afloat.
In my hometown of Shelton, Washington, a Wal-Mart opened its doors in 1994 and has been expanding on its store’s massive size and influence ever since. People buy shoes, clothes, food, and other garbage from its shelves, all while small businesses in town slowly closed their doors to this vain and daunting franchise. The corporation simply outsold other retailers, which makes perfect sense considering Wal-Mart has direct access to the benefits of high industrial communications that smaller mom-and-pop stores could not conceive of. Jobs disappeared in other parts of town and reappeared in Wal-Mart, where clothes made for 35 cents an hour by little girls on the outskirts of Asia and food produced on huge industrial plantations with poverty-cheap labor and pesticides are circulated freely. This is an economy that praises the virtues of competition, yet allows the unseen powers that undermine competitive ability to flourish in the name of growth, jobs, and profit.
These are only two examples from countless others of the neoclassical system not only failing to keep economic balance with its theories, but in fact actively destroying the fabrics of social wellness to the direct benefit of wealthy individuals. Life is difficult enough without such nonsense breaking down the economic stability in the world’s societies with theories and models that only speak for money. The way of life is not one universal competition, and the assumptions of men in pressed suits have little to do with the security of livelihoods that economic policy is ostensibly intended for. This broken structure has also put us in the imminent threat of a collapsing currency thanks to the wealthiest percent stretching our economy across the globe into these places we can no longer afford to import products from. The strength of our dollar has been vested overseas instead of cultivated here, and so we entered a depression which is still effective at this moment.
If we want to break the power that corruption instills in these people to free ourselves and others from their dangerous inhibitions, then something must replace the primitive system of rank and no-sum competition that characterizes this lineage of classical theory. What could this look like? Well, one can only speculate, and I may just be some possibly schizotype punk kid (don’t worry, I can’t hurt you from here), but allow me to amuse you with an idea that might be logically sound enough to have some merit in these new dark ages.
If we, as the citizen majority of the population, could take control of the inputs and outputs that moves our economy, then subsistence for the population could be achieved on our own accord without the need for higher-ups coordinating the market system for us. This goal is not impossible for us to reach if organization is drawn from democratic grounds, holding economic strength low and steady, away from the volatility of concentrated power.
Our economy uses a system of circular flow that relies on households who are employed in a labor market to buy products on a retail market, where both markets are facilitated by the existence of private firms. Government takes and spends money where it chooses to maintain society’s infrastructures, although in the past 12 years many of those dollars have been spent on the nation’s military. But if this circular flow changed – if households were to take the place of private entities, those agents who prefer to outsource the labor market and hoard wealth at the top – then revenues would be tapered from their hands and would flow back into the majority, where the population could hold equilibrium independently on a much larger foundation. The result would be a secure financial system controlled by the citizens who rely on it the most. There is one realm in particular where this independence could greatly improve the stability of our livelihoods should we choose to liberate these neoclassical controls into our hands, and that realm is the agricultural industry.
Most of the food on the retail market has been processed and distributed by a few very wealthy firms in the United States, mainly because it is so easy to grow and raise food. Companies like Monsanto, Cargill, Hormel, Foster Farms, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Kellogg, and DuPont have held an oligopoly over the agricultural industry because of their ability to refine the process of growing food to a mechanical set of operations based around cost efficiency. To be a farmer for one of these firms means to work on a huge plot of land in relative isolation, distributing antibodies or pesticides or modifying the product’s genome to increase yields and lower the production costs. Their methods have also helped create the epidemic of poor health and obesity in this country that sends hundreds of thousands of people to early deaths every year. As it turns out, the human body does not run well on corn fodder and MSG, and the most cost efficient ways to market food rarely put effort into actual, not just labeled, nutritional value, which is really the only defining quality to food our bodies care about.
Altering the circular flow of this industry would not be difficult, but it would require participation by the majority to be sustainable. The public would have to take on the task of making available the means to grow produce to anybody who wishes to participate, on a large enough scale that it could fill a retail market independent from that supplied under the oligopoly. Cost for such a system is not a huge obstacle. A small organic garden could be installed for a relatively low start-up fee (like, $300), and could be operated indoors or outdoors with some pretty basic technology. Raising cattle is not difficult, so long as the education to do so is available. If enough people in a given county were to learn how to grow their food, and if a few regulations were kept to ensure the produce was as good to eat as any quarter pounder or sausage medley, then the agricultural products from households could be brought to a local retail market in abundance, rendering the oligopoly unnecessary for subsistence in that county.
The problem with this approach in wealthier nations right now is that not many people consider working in agriculture to be a viable career opportunity, and higher education does not offer degrees for learning how to become a farmer. But this is because the current education system is designed to prepare students for work in the neoclassical economy which professional institutions are a part of. In less wealthy rural populations, the education is offered in a traditional setting because the people must grow their own food in order to eat. Some sort of education system for different agricultural fields could be established in a wealthy nation without a problem, and that knowledge would be immediately applicable in a market setting upon completion.
These markets could either belong to the body of individuals who own and operate each agricultural outlet or to the community as a whole, but they should be offered to the general public at a completely affordable cost if social sustenance is to be valued over gaining revenue. Production costs, if properly managed, would never have to exceed the range of what workers are capable of doing, and harvests are plentiful enough to feed a population so long as they are done right. A welfare program could be coordinated with any abundance of food left over from harvests, and regions who may have experienced poor harvest could have food shipped to them from other regions where yields were higher. We would not even have to give up processed foods; households could be employed to take raw ingredients from the harvest and turn them into frozen pizzas or potato chips to sell around, and they would still be healthier than factory made products in circulation now.
The goal here would be to create economic stability through a democratic market. This means eliminating strife like hunger and unemployment and poverty, putting the population to work and feeding into itself the energy that holds social bonds in place. Money, as it happens, doesn’t actually do anything – it is the interpretation of those paper rectangles that an economy determines to give them some marginal value. The way to use currency in such a system is to demystify it as a symbol of power, turning instead to the potentials of human cooperation and photosynthesis to draw economic support from. Currency would only serve as a medium for exchange, and aggregating it in huge quantities to gain comparative social dominance over these operations would kinda defeat the purpose. This would only repeat the cycles of hierarchy that dominate and tear the balance of societies today. Moving in this direction would empower every town, city, suburb, and ghetto with the means to go on living without the impending threat of collapse plunging us into desperation. It would also free the population from the trivialization of our dollar, and the need to use some sort of international currency controlled by more of the same wealthy minority in the future.
We still have the means to assimilate resources into a functional agricultural subsistence economy while our dollar and financial system stays afloat, but this idea would have to resonate on a cultural level for such actions to be organized on a large scale. Well, I don’t know much about influencing an entire economy’s cultural values, but I can try to convince you, personally, that this is a good idea. This next part of the article will be a tangential proof involving the nature of our existence, attempting to tie a few universal qualities into this organic economic model.
Fundamentally, everything in this part of the galaxy can probably be categorized into three different words: matter, space, and energy. Our sun, for example, is a preposterous amount of matter held together by a center of highly active gravitational energy way out in space. Gravity churns the sun’s matter with so much terrifying fervor that it vibrates as pure light in every direction. Space is the absolute void, free of any substance or form, and it can resonate to any frequency of sound or pulsation of light or density of material that the universe can imagine. It is in the space between atoms that energy is able to resonate through material, shifting its form in real time, and it is only the quiet discontinuity of nothingness that can distinguish any being from non-being.
Atomic centers are also held together by a gravitational energy just like the sun, complete with little planets called electrons that orbit around the nucleus. All material has electromagnetic value according to how this atomic form is structured, and so energy has the ability to invoke certain properties from matter in qualitative relation to other matter. This creates a spectrum of material possibilities of great diversity, which empowers molecular structures with the wide range of shapes and functions of matter in the larger world. Probably the most intriguing development made after molecules formed was the assimilation of space, matter, and energy into a living body of organic molecules, able to move and feed on its own accord by way of intelligent organization.
This was the beginning of cellular life here on Earth many billions of years ago. Molecules that we’ve given the names of Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine got together and started arranging themselves into funky biochemical double-helix formations, becoming the internal dictionary of instructions that life was able to reference to for survival. This molecular structure is called DNA, and cells communicate to it with proteins that go into the nucleus, scan the readout, assemble a copy strand called RNA, and then bring that info out to the real world for the cell to coordinate changes in experience. So, if the cell is low on energy for example, it can produce the blueprints to make more mitochondria (organelles responsible for generating ATP, the energy transport molecule). If it needs more water, it can make certain phospholipids to put on the cell wall for to let more water into the cell. All of a cell’s functions are included in the DNA sequence, and so the macro-bodied lifeforms that are composed of cells differ greatly with their differences in the genome.
As time passed, life moved through experience and was able to expand its form into all kinds of protozoans and evergreens and zebras and charmanders, making adaptations and adjusting to the conditions of its environment in micro-evolutionary and macro-evolutionary stages. Dwelling and active behind your eyes right now is the pinnacle of known cognitive and biological excellence in the galaxy, manifest by this same process as a center of conscious energy, able to put thoughts and emotions into order and action at your own will. Albert Einstein noticed this relationship to the universe is the forward motion of time, constantly active and according with experience in your body and mine. It is the balance of gravity between the sun and Earth and moon that pulls and flows between our atoms, and our understanding of this thing called life is the way we choose to be here. This beauty is free – water, food, family, animals, and sunlight is free – so how are we going to form ourselves? Our minds, billions of living neurons made of active carbon molecules, cannot be trusted with the Federal Reserve or the WTO to tell us what is right. Our bodies despise the high fructose corn syrup and gasoline and hyperstimulation this culture sells to us, and they make us abandon each other to live in coves of isolation and miscommunication. Time is just a word; but I care about you, and your neighbor’s psychological wellness, and these thrills they pump on the airwaves break down the bonds of human goodness for a thing so tainted like money. This invokes social and psychological questions about the nature of how we should see human experience when it comes to relating with each other, and how we should value the lives of others who share this one and only biosphere.
So what does this have to do with an organic economy? Well, if we are human people in this universe of constantly feeding energy that moves experience forward, and if we are a manifestation of the intelligent balance life has taken over the years, then we should observe the order in the world and take note of how it achieves stability with its form. DNA represents this by compartmentalizing each segment of its code to direct the flows of energy into its own system, without prejudice or ignorance to any part of its being. A cell uses its molecules as tools to take care of itself, and binds to other cells to make organs and organ systems which again feed energy into each other to support a breathing, physical body.
Is this gravity? Or just wanting to be together for a continuous existence? Families in the animal kingdom often care for one another for protection and rapport – families in Pittsburgh or Dublin or Hanoi do the same. The star in the center of our existence does the same, albeit with only matter and energy, but it must want to be there if it is actually there. Would it be so absurd if our economy did not compete and fight itself to be together, but instead fed power into the people, by the people, all for the people? This is the experience of unity that nature strives for, free of destructive compromise and the pains of separation. I’m tired of being unemployed, and I’m tired of my government dropping bombs on people and conspiring the controls of economic power with fat cats who do not see their addictions tear apart society. If human beings came together, worked, grew food for each other, and were content with their lives without consuming the waste siphoned down to us taken by force from other lands, then maybe a new level of understanding about life could move this experience toward unity with ourselves and the Earth, and maybe that just feels better than owing debt and staring into the computer screen. Nobody deserves to take your time from you, and the entropy of warfare and competition is no match for the stability in feeding peace.
American Absurdist 