RANT about the economy
My understanding is that an economy is a system of trade, with determined values and rules of conduct. Sounds like a dynamic, open-ended kind of thing. Can it not evolve to work better, more efficiently than the cliche boom and bust cycle? It is so frustrating to see so many people put down, pressured, and mad
e desperate by what I understand the economy to be in its current state - something that can barely hold itself up, lacking morality and integrity; weak. The foundations are under collapse - food, water, shelter, security - indicating that the status of the economy (its systems of values and rules) are dysfunctional. I know this argument is overly abstract, and the subject of the economy can be made out into millions of bits of ideas. The point of this rant is not to blindly curse the economy, but to express a frustration for hope of finding some direction.
e desperate by what I understand the economy to be in its current state - something that can barely hold itself up, lacking morality and integrity; weak. The foundations are under collapse - food, water, shelter, security - indicating that the status of the economy (its systems of values and rules) are dysfunctional. I know this argument is overly abstract, and the subject of the economy can be made out into millions of bits of ideas. The point of this rant is not to blindly curse the economy, but to express a frustration for hope of finding some direction. So, at risk of seeming quixotic, I'm going to put the idea of a moral economy out there. Read about moral economy here from wikipedia.
Looking at that Wikipedia entry, I'm intrigued by the criticism of a [small, community-based] moral economy as having no solution to the "free rider problem" -- as if our current [amoral, anonymous] economy does have a solution to the problem of "someone who consumes a resource without paying for it, or pays less than the full cost." Isn't this the whole premise of the American economy? To NOT pay the full cost of things and to reap the benefits? Our contemporary economy only calculates cost based on monetary value, and only calculates monetary value based on simplicity and convenience - no monetary value is assigned to, for example, the work of child-rearing or to the loss of topsoil; these, therefore are worth nothing and absent from any balance sheet. Without a proper accounting (whether by calculation or custom), no economy can solve the "free rider problem."
ReplyDeleteAnyways, there is my rant to go along with yours. And since I am a broken Wendell Berry record, I must direct you to a few articles that you may find interesting (the first of which is a vision of what could be called a "moral economy"):
http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/contact/wendell-berrys-17-rules-for-a-sustainable-economy/
http://www.progressive.org/mag/berry0909.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_1986_Summer/ai_4284345/
That last one on "Home Economy" was written twenty five years ago. Does this mean we have only traveled a little bit down a long-awaited trajectory of economic collapse? Are we anywhere near an official collapse? How long does it take for economic shifts to occur? What needs to be lost before prompting momentous change? Catalysts, for collapse, for shifts? Timing?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that there's an unacknowledged part of our economic system that totally relies on non-monetary values that go beyond price, i.e. trust, health, loyalty, morals, ecology, other obvious things, etc. and that these values just need to be acknowledged, or illuminated just as much, if not more than, those things that are 'officially' valued. The way we make calculated decisions, they need to account for these officially unrecognized values - how, if not with a spreadsheet or formula? Something extremely complex, developed, and dynamic, like culture. So I don't think culture is totally lost, but we could be more aware of it and engaged with creating it. Blahhhhhh.