An anarchist I once met told me I was a slave. I told him he had to be mistaken, for I lived in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Surely there was no such thing as institutionalized slavery in this day and age in America.
And yet, the longer I live, the more his piercing words echo loudly in my ears. What is the measure of a slave? That one cannot say or do what one pleases? That one is forced to bend over backwards to appease others or face penalties? That one toils away in endless labor, at little or no gain to oneself?
If so, then despite the rhetoric and propaganda suggesting otherwise, I'm forced to admit that such things happen regularly in America, as well as throughout the Western world. Whether it be someone who has accrued so much debt that they must work night and day simply to pay off its interest, or someone who has been incarcerated for the most indirect intimations of criminal intent when no actual crime has been committed. Such things happen every day, to even the most conventional of Americans, and at the hands of those who claim to care about them.
Why then do these things happen? As trite as it may seem, no investigation into their causes can possibly overlook the ubiquitous financial movement that has permeated virtually every facet of Western culture: capitalism.
I have come to believe that capitalism has both succeeded and failed spectacularly in its modern universal application to virtually all aspects of human life. Where it has succeeded is in those aspects where everyone desires something different. A lot of people have too much or too little of something, and therefore either want to rid themselves of it or acquire it. And capitalism has been very successful in initiating, facilitating, and regulating trade amongst and between such people.
But, where I feel capitalism has failed is in those areas where everyone needs the same thing. Food, water, shelter, and medicine: all are basic necessities of human existence. Without them, people perish. And capitalism has done a very poor job of allocating such things amongst the human population. Hundreds of millions of individuals in the mercantile world are now left without, or with the bare minimum necessary to cling to survival, while a very small handful of savvy tradesmen have been able to accumulate more than they will ever need for survival in a million years of life on this Earth.
And in such a world of artificial scarcity, many are forced to trade what little they have to offer, and then go heavily into debt, in exchange for just a few more years of the vital sustenance needed for life. Then, once indebted, there is no real escape, and they face pseudo-indentured servitude for the rest of their lives, until they have nothing left to offer and are allowed to perish. As a famous musician once said: "you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game..."
Is this not even worse than the historical precedent set by slavery in years past? As conservative media outlets are fond of pointing out, many slaves were well-fed by their masters. Basic amenities were taken care of, and they faced harsh punishment only if they attempted to fight for their freedom. If they obsequiously accepted their condition, most of them were allowed the basic dignities of survival.
However, in the modern world, most of the people who accept that there are certain things they are not allowed to do, as well as things that they must do in order to survive, still face emaciating hardships that grind away at their very being. In many respects the Mississippi Delta plantation life -- the harshest of the harsh when it came to chattel slavery -- is now gradually becoming normative.
Again, I must stress that this state of affairs does not arise out of natural scarcity, but rather artificial scarcity. There is plenty of food, water, and living space to go around, and most life-saving medicines are relatively easy to manufacture. But all are being hoarded and rationed by those with power and influence, instead of being fairly allocated.
I can offer no real solutions to this predicament. I can only point out what I have both learned and observed in my several decades of life. And regardless of what many people say, in their hearts they know something is amiss in this world of plenty that is slowly becoming plagued by starvation, homelessness, and poverty on a massive scale. But they simply cannot bring themselves to blame the only real economic force that has been left standing in modernity. In all honesty though, what else is there left to blame?
Add new comment