People ask what I think of the stimulus bill. I don’t really have an opinion, except that I would like to see the economic system fail to the point where intelligent people stop trying to fix it and think about redesigning it from the ground up. We can “invent” money to throw at the problem and build up a multi-trillion-dollar deficit, and all of this seems very real, but ultimately we are just six billion living beings trying to enjoy life, and the global recession has nothing to do with anyone’s ability to work, live, create, or experience – it is a false, human creation that we all collectively believe in and that is therefore capable of hurting lots of people.<\/p>\n
I am not a fan of capitalism, in which human greed and the desires of the rich are hidden beneath a thin veneer of the “land of opportunity.” I am equally not a fan of socialism, at least in the sense that it has existed so far in the world, because with socialism a gigantic entity (the government) determines salaries and exerts undue control in the lives of everyone. My preference might be called egalitarianism, in that all people who contribute to society are guaranteed a comfortable income, but not because the government says so – simply because those who lead at a local level insist and believe that all occupations are equally essential to the functioning of society and equally worthy of pay.<\/p>\n
The ultimate problem with our economy – one that no stimulus bill will ever fix – is that it long ago became divorced from its foundation as a means of compensation for goods and services. Since then it has grown out of control, but with so many stakeholders banking on its continued existence that no one will ever dare to question it unless it completely collapses – which is why I am hoping that such a collapse occurs at some point.<\/p>\n
What would happen in a complete collapse? This is my vision: At some point, people would awaken from the money trance and realize that nothing has changed. We still know how to grow corn, drive trains, build cars, teach classes, offer counseling, fix power lines, and whatever else is our occupation. Someone in a position of authority would then realize that they could insist that the system operate in the absence of money. And for a few magical days, everything in the world would be free, and we would breathe a collective sigh in knowing that we can all contribute to a functional society without credit, debt, savings, IRAs, stock markets, and economists. Of course this would not last forever, and those economists would hold a giant meeting to discuss a way to structure a system of monetary exchange that serves to maintain equal exchange and trade while providing a firm link between necessity and compensation. <\/p>\n
It has always been strange to me that every step in technological progress has proclaimed to make life better and easier, and yet we find ourselves less happy and working more than pre-industrial societies. Too much of this blame lies on a capitalist economy. Take, for example, a trip to the grocery store. We all know that raising livestock can be enjoyable, for some more than others, and we know equally well that most livestock is grown on awful farms manned by immigrant workers and packaged in awful plants manned by immigrant workers. And we know that truck drivers hauled the meat across the country, that ten people scanned the barcode, and that stockboys put it on the shelf. And we know that every one of those people would rather be doing something else – perhaps raising their own cattle or hiking in the mountains, or sitting on the porch knitting sweaters for their children. But they need money, and in order to get it they have to choose from what society makes available. All of this because of money and its utter and complete disconnect from anything human, emotional, sensory, or ultimately important. <\/p>\n
We live in a society in which it is a virtue to “create jobs,” because that will provide an opportunity for people to earn money. Never mind that they will have hardly any time to spend that money. Does that not seem like an utterly unintelligent idea? Perhaps 1\/3 of all work done in the modern world is nonessential from the perspective of meeting basic needs and desires. We file papers that no one ever sees again. We make new clothes and send perfectly good old clothes to the landfill. We hire lawyers to sue other lawyers to try to extract money from somebody else. We build TVs so that people can put one in every room and replace them when they are five years old. And we do this because if people will buy it, it is good. Such is the gospel. <\/p>\n
Step back for a minute to examine the big picture. We are all highly evolved, intelligent animals inhabiting a beautiful planet. We can’t seem to agree on why exactly we are here and whether we persist as individual entities when we leave, but we universally desire to live our lives in a manner consistent with that which we find meaningful. As curious creatures with ample gray matter, we have deduced most of the laws by which the physical world operates, and we have devised plenty of ways in which to improve upon the teepees of yore. We live in houses, we extract natural gas to heat the houses, we use electricity, we drink beer, we sit at computers to connect to rest of the world. Does this fit in with a harmonious existence? Well, plenty of folks enjoy building houses, people enjoy working in the gas fields, linemen take pride in maintaining the electrical grid, brewers love to brew, and computer engineers and programmers generally love what they do. So far, so good. But we do much more. We buy what is cheapest at the grocery store, we constantly find new clothes, we buy insurance, and we eat at fast-food restaurants. And in doing so, we choose to maintain a system of underpaid workers in unpleasant jobs, often in distant places, when the alternatives – buying local food, sewing or reusing clothes, providing free health care to those who cannot pay, and cooking for ourselves – are really not that different. In fact, we could make all of these changes and find that our lives were much the same, while many other lives would be much improved. Why, in all of our intelligence, can we not collectively choose to make two very important changes: 1) construct a financial system such that it is optimized when all needs are met, not when all people work 40 hours a week (this might require only 30 hours or less of work per person), and 2) Attach psychological valuation to money such that it costs far more to pay someone to do an onerous task than to do something they enjoy. Some folks would still choose to work in the sewers for a year or two, because these necessary, onerous jobs would fetch the highest dollar, but most would find themselves working less and doing more meaningful work, and all would find that their quality of life, as measured by their ability to follow their passions while having their needs met, would be improved.<\/p>\n
Life, for me, is not about work. Work is a necessary part of a physical reality – something required to ensure that we have food, shelter, and comfort – and I have never quite been happy about exactly how much work this reality of ours requires. Perhaps that will become less as technology advances, as already much has been achieved. But to require that everyone work 40 hours a week through their most productive years seems anathema to life, especially since so much of this work is unnecessary. We have created religions that claim to reward hard work and diligence in this life with eternal pleasure in heaven. This is utterly asinine, as evidence for the existence of heaven is scant outside of a large, highly overvalued book containing a collection of mostly fabricated tales. I have no desire for “eternal pleasure” in spirit, where I cannot touch the earth, plant the seeds of a new garden, and smell the fresh moss of spring that brings foretellings of fragrant blooms and memories of awakenings, earthly and spiritual, that plant a spring in my step. Life, for me, is about raw, pure experience, and nothing that society calls work – getting paid to carry out a task – has ever provided that sort of experience for me. I will do work, and I have chosen my current line of work because I see promise in the potential to work with plant life to power our needs, so that we might be able to explore our beautiful planet and heat our homes without simultaneously destroying our environment. But even so, it is work, and I have no desire to spend 40 hours a week in a lab, surveying birds, cutting buckthorn, watching marmots, or doing anything I have ever done for pay until I am 65 and can “retire,” assuming I live that long. I might complain about having few friends, or feeling ill, or feeling anxious, or having too much to do, but whenever I step outside and smell the scent of the Earth, I am reminded why I love this life. Life is not some long suffering to be tolerated so that we might rejoice in spirit. I believe that Spirit – the original conscious energy present before the Big Bang – created life so that it might more fully engage with its own creation, so that it might no longer look upon the universe as we might upon a finished work of art, but instead become part of the universe, feeling the heat from its stars, the wind upon its planets, the crash of its thunder and the soft scent of new leaves. And I, as an aspect of that spirit, ask only that I may do such work as is truly of service to society in return for the comforts that society furnishes to me. And I ask that when that work is completed, I am not expected to devote my life to a task, an occupation, or a cause but am instead free to experience the simple joys of existence on this, our chosen home.<\/p>\n
Just my perspective….<\/p>\n
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