Some Perceived Realites of Modern Social Living

Everything I'm wearing is from somewhere else.

My shirt is from Hong Kong. My shoes were also made in China, as well as my undershirt and pants. My watch, in a slightly different vain, is from Switzerland and my belt is from Italy. I cannot see where my socks are from, but my boxers, surprisingly, hail from Israel.

Why was I ever okay with this?

It's like I've been waking up out of this very odd dream. Over the past few months, I've come to see our world in a new way. It's not an unfamiliar feeling. We usually see what we're looking for in life; perspectives are something of a collectible for me.

Yet, honestly, I don't want to wear my clothes anymore. I don't want to eat tomatoes picked by overworked illegal immigrants, or use furniture produced by robots that caused the downfall of a mid-western town, or wear clothes sewn by people who are essentially slaves in their own underdeveloped countries.

One of the facts that gnaws at me is this: we have enough resources now. We have, on this planet, a surplus of food, more than enough to feed everyone. I'm not saying that everyone should have an equal amount of food, I'm no longer advocating communism as I did in my heyday of idealism. I'm simply stating it as a fact. Now, in this era of humanity, we have enough food for the entire planet.

And let's just put to rest for a few seconds the conservative knee-jerk reaction to implore "Social/Economic Darwinism" to explain who gets resources. If we really, honestly, believed in that as a species (I'm not saying certain people don't, but just on the whole), we would not have a civilization complete with doctors, musicians, Christians, pro bono lawyers, etc. etc. They would all be dead, starved, or homeless. Oh. Hmm...

What am I getting at? A lot of amorphous things that are obviously easier to attack vaguely than sit down and try to solve. Hey, I'll be honest with you. But, more specificially, I'm attacking the corporate system, the multi-national, free trade (oh no...he's sounding like an ultra hipster socialist left-wing democratic baby eater) system that is endorsed by (and perhaps in control of ) our current form of "democratic" government.

So, what's so wrong with corporations, you ask? Don't corporations and the free market work hand in hand with democracy, like peanut butter and jelly? It was actually my first question, and my own assumption since I was old enough to understand anything about our economic-political system in the US today.

Nevertheless, I'll take the Lorenzo Valla approach (go ahead, take my snooty academic reference and look him up. He's an interesting guy) and mock my interrogators' silly questions.

No! Ha, you knave! How could you ever believe that a democractic/republic government-- which is based on principles of organizing an egalitarian society, where everyone's opinion gets a fair hearing in the forum and the most popular decision is chosen--could functionally operate with an economy based on the corporate model--a hierarchical (some would say, monarchic) system which is given many of the legal rights of a person, but due to its nature of masking the individuals involved, inherently lacks any civic-minded center!

Let's put it another way. Democracy/Republic: focus on society, how to function together in a society. Corporation: How to acquire resources with only a regard to other entities as financial assets or liabilities. The two systems have completely different ends! Democracy aims for community, corporations aim for financial gain. And although a citizen of a democracy may be greedy, the democracy is loathe to condone greed. One person's greed is not something everyone else will be happy about. Yet, that's exactly what a corporation represents to our democracy: a greedy person with only as much ethics and morals as are dictated by our government.

And, you know, if our government was not caught up in the tendrils of modern corporations, and honestly legislated some ethics for corporations (like Teddy Roosevelt did with his anti-trust crusades at the turn of the 20th century), then things might be okay. I mean, we legislate ethics for normal people (murder, theft, and rape are wrong ), so I have no problem with telling companies what not to do. But, right now, it's just not working.

I might say it yet another way. For those who may cling to Adam Smith, I steal this quote from a parphrase of the book When Corporations Rule the World, http://www.pcdf.org/corprule/betrayal.htm

"Corporate libertarians maintain that the market turns unrestrained greed into socially optimal outcomes. Smith would be outraged by those who attribute this idea to him. He was talking about small farmers and artisans trying to get the best price for their products to provide for themselves and their families. That is self-interest, not greed. Greed is a high-paid corporate executive firing 10,000 employees and then rewarding himself with a multimillion-dollar bonus for having saved the company so much money. Greed is what the economic system being constructed by the corporate libertarians encourages and rewards."

Sorry. Adam Smith does not support corporations in their current form. And that reminds me of another assumption worth challenging: a free market does necessarily have to evolve into the mega-corporate climate that exists now. Or, if it does, then THAT'S PRECISELY THE POINT OF HAVING A GOVERNMENT! Besides, corporations are, after all, a legal entity, endorsed by our government. Their rules are not set in stone. So, why can't we change the fundmental goals of corporations that isn't soley based on making profits for shareholders.

Let our government remind the market that a productive marketplace does not have McDonalds and Burger King straddling the corner of every intersection in America. It does not drive down prices of goods to such an extent that companies (which, remember, are inherently amoral, not immoral or evil, but simply without any moral compass) have to employ indiginous people who have no rights to bargain for wage standards or benefits and certainly no democratic system to appeal to!

Unless you're okay with all that. I'm not personally. And, although I'm not just ready to throw away all my clothes and start weaving my own...I honestly want to. I will probably not buy anything first-hand anymore, though. It feels wrong.

I'll just say it: If you, in you're heart, feel like nothing is going wrong right now, that's tantamount to endorsing slavery. Punto.

My next goal will be to find some ethically-made pants and how to brainstorm how this system will fall or evolve into something ethical.

The punchline: Right now, I'm working for a company that aspires to the heights of the Fortune 500 bigshots. E una battesimo del fuoco, certamente.

E, adesso, e possibile che io stia andando per i circoli dell'Inferno. Maybe purgatory is on the other side.