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“First and foremost, ['the economy'] is a story. A story designed to stop politics, to shut down ethics, and to stifle our imaginations. 'The economy' is a way of thinking and experiencing the world in which our power and agency is robbed from us. In this story, the economy is portrayed as a massive, unified system, a thing that we’re inside of that is animated by specific 'laws' and 'logics.' It is for others to deal with, manage, or fix, and we are to simply follow their commands. We’ll vote in the next election for someone to tell us, after consulting with the experts, what we must sacrifice, change, or accept in order for the economy to get growing again. 'Democracy' is the name for all the minor tinkering we’re allowed to do inside the space in which this economy has us locked.”
- Ethan Miller, Occupy Connect Create
A few weeks ago, NAU's Philosophy in the Public Interest held a conversation on Occupy Wall Street. A comment was made--one often published in various forms by various people--that whatever occupiers are protesting against, whatever they are occupying for is something that we have all bought into, all participate in. From my socks and underwear, to my hat or school books, to my truck (for those who don't know, I have a truck) and my bicycles, my television and computer and Hulu and furniture andandand are all elements of my own participation in an economic system. This system is often referred to as "the economy" or The Economy. Everything that you put money into is a vote for something. This position is most apparent in the organic/sustainable/local/just/slow food movement, that you "vote three times a day" or "vote with your dollars."
I disagree.
Not only do I disagree, I heartily disagree.
A profound misunderstanding takes place when someone thinks that where their dollars go is the same as expressing support. My roommate is eating a dinner of Ramen noodles. Tim is an intelligent (and pretty healthy) young man. What he worries about is his wallet, his debt, and his upcoming expenses; he is more concerned with money than his health. Of course, he is not alone in this concern. I've met enough young people who would be happy to trade in all future packets of Ramen noodles for adequate whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, hearty beans and nuts, (for some) rich cheese and yogurt, fresh eggs, and (some others) lean cuts of meat. The problem is not that these are unavailable on supermarket shelves--which is the case for those in "food deserts"--but that they are unaffordable.
Now, many of the recent food documentaries are happy to highlight that on a calorie-per-dollar ratio, Americans get a big bang for our buck. King Corn goes so far to interview the architect of this "abundance," Earl Butz. Unfortunately, these foods are like Ramen noodles in that they are cheap energy packed in with plenty of additives, especially salt and sweeteners, and devoid of nutrients. In short, when we eat this food product (a Michael Pollan term) we aren't getting what we are supposed to from food: vitamins, minerals, and micro-nutrients; community, connection, and gustatory satisfaction generally stay clear as well.
If we want a just and healthy food system, we can't start with a supermarket. Democratic change cannot be bought at Safeway and definitely isn't found on aisle 13 at Super Target. I can find cheaper baking soda at Target, but I won't find a participatory economy or politics in the cereal aisle. And you know what, I still don't care that General Mills has changed the shape of Hamburger Helper noodles and reduced packaging and therefore saved money on shipping to boot. That's greenwashing and worse, I think it is bull shit. These are company and institutions that have no interest in fostering a polis where your vote counts more than their dollars.
And while I'm on a tirade I'm not interested in another "wave of progressive politics." What I want is a serious political discourse that is based on the interests of an informed and invested populace. Yes we disagree and yes there are climate change deniers and yes there are far too many people in this country that think "the end is extremely fucking nigh," or putting a bullet in a doctor is sometimes okay, or think loving someone just might be worth complete and utter condemnation. Yes I am deathly concerned about those people and those positions. I have to hope that those are niches. What I'm really concerned with is that there are people in power who think it is a pretty good idea to drive most of this country head first into an environmental, economic, and political cesspool. I do mean an environmental and an economic and a political cesspool because the degradation of our supporting landscape goes hand in hand with the recreation of the Great Depression as well as the institution of an enriched political elite. And those "elites" aren't teaching in universities, working in publishing, or doing climate and ecological science.
Here's the constructive part: We aren't going to "buy" a new economy just like we aren't going to "buy" a different politics, we're going to dream and build and grow it. We're going to make it up out of the crazy creative power of being miners of the real, at excavating the future in every deliciously hardworking day of our lives. We will uncover more than we thought would ever be possible. We will see people organized in weird new constructive ways, new policies grown from strangely interconnected people that gets things going, we'll identify problems no one now alive has thought about and respond to them en masse. (I say "respond" because solutions and ignorance is for politicians, in the future none of us will be what we mean by politicians and all of us will be what we will mean by politicians).
There's more! We've got new stories to tell but they are all our stories! Our kids will wake up (that is, become enlightened) to this crazy open-ended world, a world where they want to work but no one is telling them "go get a job" because they are going to dream up livelihoods somehow hybridized between their dreams and the stories their elders will tell. Our children and our children's children will do the impossible. Every generation ought to make something made impossible by the previous. They will find rivers in the geologies of the future, burdening their banks with stories and creativity and generosity. And they will bring up earthen cups of it and we will drink and wonder why we stopped digging out the future and left it to our children. We will smile big wide old-people smiles and be glad that our children are beautiful, brilliant, healthy, adventuresome, and healthy people. They will be well and wealthy, wealthy in the world in ways too many have forgotten.
Those who want something new aren't after different politicians or fairer businesses or environmentally sensitive corporations or accurate news media. We don't need and I don't want pleasant versions of the same shit. It'll still be shit. We have been told the politicians and businesses and television personalities make the world. They don't make the world, at least not for much longer. We do. We the People make the World. We. The People. The World. These are capital realities.
The stories the People tell make the world. We are telling new stories and making new worlds out of them. Finally We are making up the worlds we want to live in. It may take some time for the politicians and the merchants and the priests/rabbis/clerics, the teachers, farmers, manufacturers, andandand the rest to catch up, to listen to the World--Our World--and to taste and smell the World, to touch it with our hands and it will touch us on our cheeks, lips, the smalls of our backs, the arches of our feet... We can't invest (either at the market or on Wall Street) in this world, we have to use our generative imaginative human capacities--building, growing, cultivating, fostering, narrating, cooperating, singing, playing, loving...--to make it and, after that, make it happen every day after.
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