I think Im finally grasping a significant foundational problem with capitalism, after all this time (thanks to the fine work Im doing on Dreaming Utopia!) Heres what hit me between the eyes this morning: Weve been using the free market system as the means by which we exchange goods and services, and we consider the wisdom of the market to be a satisfactory way to set the prices for all such interpersonal exchanges. This process misses out on a crucial point; one that makes the free market system entirely unworkable over the long haul. That point? We are NOT exchanging inorganic, separate end-product objects with one another. We are exchanging our creative outputs that call upon the living fruits of nature, and of other organic creatures (including human beings), and of highly dynamic inorganic systems, all of which are integrally interconnected and interdependent. Separation thinking—the belief that this object is worth that much and, should no one be willing to pay that price, we can just stop making it—forms the bedrock of capitalism. If we make a TV and the market gets too saturated with TVs, we can simply stop manufacturing them until the price rebounds, or we can make them more cheaply. Well and good...until we peer under the skirts of that seemingly simple philosophy. Consider this: When the product being sold on the open market is human labor, and the market for human labor suddenly goes into decline, how does a human being make fewer man-hours to sell, until the price rebounds and he can place himself back on the market for a wage thats high enough so he can profit? His life goes on regardless of what the market does; his needs, wants, children, mortgage, etc. do not cease to exist. We cant put human beings in deep freeze, or stack them on a dusty shelf somewhere, until such time as the labor market rebounds. The free market process, which is a means of separating and objectifying what is, in truth, a unified reality, encourages us to perceive excess people as inconveniences who should just go away until we need them again. Their needs—their very ALIVENESS, and the fact that theyre engaging with us still—proves the falsehood of the free market system as an intelligent way to exchange the things we create. We MUST become smarter, more compassionate, and more aware of life as a fully integrated PROCESS than our simple, mechanical exchanges of perceived separate objects occurring at local points of exchange imply that we are! Conversely, if a product is in high demand, all the organic elements that go into producing that product in order to generate the desired profits and satisfy that demand get treated disrespectfully, or inhumanely, because the market doesnt care that plants, animals and people have their own lives, reproductive rhythms, processes and purposes, feelings and needs that deserve respect and reverence. We plunder and exploit not only the inorganic systems on our own planet, but all the organic ones as well, by virtue of having objectified ALL of life, and then commoditized it ALL for sale to the highest bidder in the global marketplace. Until we SEE that this practice of pricing, buying and selling LIFE is, at heart, inherently life-negating, well continue to create and expand social suffering and do environmental and ecological damage to our own planet.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 13:59:36 +0000