I grew up poor. Not homeless poor, or in the third world making Nike shoes at a sweatshop poor. But poor none the less. My father worked, usually as a janitor. He often worked a second job to make ends meet.
My mother worked occasionally. But they didn't have money for a babysitter or daycare. The extra money she earned would hardly pay for the babysitter which made it pointless and gave her less time to spend with us, which mattered a lot to her.
My parents never did drugs, my mother didn't drink at all, and my father drank so infrequently that it really had no effect on our lives. My father was a staunch Republican and would never dream of accepting any sort of assistance, whether we needed it or not.
It was extremely important to my mother that my brother and I ate properly. She scoured the grocery stores for meat and vegetables that were on sale so she could cook us a proper meal. She clipped coupons and was very careful with portions to try to make it last.
Sometimes it did not last. I remember one winter that was extremely cold. North Dakota was a deep freeze. The gas bills were way higher than normal and my parents fell behind on their bills. The cut off notice eventually came and my parents had to make one of the most unenviable decisions they could be asked to make...."Do we eat, or do we heat the house."
They begged the gas company to let them make a small payment that month and to not cut them off. I remember my mother pleading with the man on the phone that she had two small children to feed. That was not their problem as far as they were concerned.
After about a week we ran out of food. Part way through the second week, I asked my mother "Why don't we have enough food?" My mother responded "Because we don't have enough money." This made no sense to me. I said "But we don't need money, we need food." She tried to explain to me that the only way to get food was with money. I then said "Can't we go to the person who makes money and ask him for more so we can get food?"
It was a fair enough question and shows just how little our economy makes sense. Even a toddler can see that.
It was when I was a young teenager that I read Douglas Adams books. To this day I think one of the first lines in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy best sums up the ridiculousness of our current system:
"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."
So what do we do about it? People complain constantly about our current system and about individual problems. But we seldom see real solutions. We may get broad generalizations of what needs to happen. Or fixes for small aspects. But in some ways, one small problem can be insurmountable to fix with a system so entrenched in the status quo.
So are there real solutions?
There are different schools of thought where economics is concerned, some more evil than others. But at the end of the day, they are still ways of operating the same imaginary system as we have now.
This is odd that we often hear that the purpose of the economy is to efficiently distribute goods and services within a particular region or around the world. Does that sound to you like what is going on right now?
A better definition of our current system would be: "To distribute goods, services, and wealth to where they are least needed."
But better models do exist. Some are utopianistic with no clear path to conversion. But there are others with real plans forward.
Most models that look promising involve an ecological economy. One that concerns itself with the most efficient use of resources to benefit the largest amount of people and the environment.
The only country in the world who has so far initiated such an economy is the small country of Bhutan, a small country in South Asia. They have linked their economic system to something called the GNH or Gross National Happiness rather than the GDP.
Our system ranks the health of our economy only on GDP. Which just means the number of dollars worth of products made. Absolutely no value is given to the quality of the products, whether they benefit us in any way, whether they harm the ecosystem, etc.
GNH reviews all of those things and government decisions are clearly based on their findings.
Has it fixed everything in Bhutan? No, but there has been drastic improvement in the quality of life, the level of education, and the protection of the environment.
It shows that there is better way that realistically be achieved.
Where do we start here? We live in a country entrenched with power placed in the hands of the wealthy. And they feel no desire to change things.
People on Daily Kos seem to complain often that there is too much talk, but not enough action. I agree that is often an issue. But in this case, talk is the first step. The biggest problem currently is that people just don't know that options exist. Real options we can move towards. There are people that have actual solid ways to move incrementally towards a more ecological based economy.
People can not demand something they don't know exists.
I do not suggest that you forward this diary to everyone. But research the subject yourself. Come up with what you think are the best systems and forward them to people you know.
If you look at the issues that face us today, they are not the actual problem, they are just symptoms of a broken system.
In an ecological economy, people do not go hungry, the tar sands are left right where they are, capital gains are taxed at a far higher rate which gives initiative to invest in the real economy, etc.
We currently attack many of those with wealth for their greed. I don't think that's unfair. But it also motivates them to fight harder to keep things just like they are.
We need everyone, including the wealthy to know there is a better way. A way where everyone's happiness, including theirs is the ultimate goal.
Here are a few places for further reading on the ecological economy:
http://www.davidkorten.org
http://www.isecoeco.org
http://www.ussee.org