A few new thoughts about small ideological steps liberal Americans can take every day to prevent conservative greed from overtaking our communities.
In the face of the upcoming elections, I hear democrats everywhere calling for more and more protests - as though if they were to collect enough protesters and parade through the streets with enough signs and bellowing, they might change things. Do that if it makes you happy - it's definitely fun. The problem is that it doesn't seem to work anymore. It only worked when someone cared. No one is listening much anymore. The traditional media "frame" for protesters has become that they are relatively insignificant or ineffectual at best and unnecessary troublemakers at worst. So, who are we trying to convince?
In the end, winning this ideological war against corporate-conservative fascism is going to require a longer view, and some new strategies.
I've thought about this a lot, and here is my proposal.
If we really want to protest against all-eoncompassing social darwinism, universal capitalism, greed, and the ills that follow... we must take a different approach. In some small way in our individual lives, let us step back from the bottom-line society and make ourselves priceless.
Do you accept the idea that "your time is worth money"? If you do, then you are commodifying your humanity. The time I spend at work is worth money to the extent that I must commodify my humanity in order to provide myself with basic necessities in life. That is simply the basis of our culture at this time, and there's no getting around it right away. But what about the rest of the time? It's one thing to grudgingly accept necessity's dictates, and another to embrace them. Can my time outside of work be "bought" for the right price? How about the time I spend watching TV commercials? Or shopping? How much personal commodification am I willing to accept?
The point of these questions is this - the extent to which we can practice genuine generosity in our personal lives is the extent to which we can remove ourselves from the destructive corporate teat. What we must do is learn to create useful things - build furniture, make clothing, farm, and anything else we can build or grow by hand on a small scale - then give the fruits of our labor away FOR FREE.
I know, I know. It's crazy. But here's my thinking:
We are only commodities because we place a dollar value on our time and what we do with that time. We are only taxable by the government of which we disapprove insofar as we buy, sell, and trade the things we create. We only succumb to greed in our personal lives when we insist on sqeezing every last drop of monetary value from our time, regardless of necessity.
I don't mean to suggest that we give away everything we create. We don't need to quit our jobs, live in poverty, and panhandle for the money to pay for materials to make things we can give away. Rather, I suggest that rather than sitting in front of the TV every night after work, we relax by building something. We make a hobby of creating something practically useful. What we get for the money we pay for materials is the satisfaction of doing something we enjoy in the evenings. Then when a project is finished, we can give it away... to a friend, a stranger, someone with whom we work, or someone who might need it. Not to an organization - but to an actual person.
It's important that the items are functional, rather than just decorative, because every genuinely useful item we give freely to another person allows that person the freedom to not buy that item from a store. By giving something away, we have prevented two commercial transactions and the tax-for-war they would have generated.
Again, barter is a taxable transaction, so I don't recommend it. If you trade two things, you are legally liable for taxes, and it would be wrong and dangerous not to pay them. You pay income tax, and that is fine. You may not approve of what it is used for, and you may elect to send additional money to organizations whose purpose is to fix the problems our government should be working to repair (rather than ignoring). Barter is nothing but trade - a commercial transaction with the money implied rather than exchanged - and thus taxable. Gifts are a different matter.
Yes, hobbies cost money... but so does cable TV (quite a lot of money, really), and if you compare the benefits, it becomes clear that in personal as well as political terms, creating things and giving them away in your spare time is a better investment than sitting on a couch in front of the boob tube. Besides, you control your materials. You can buy them, salvage them from other functions, or repurpose them in a variety of different ways and make far more unique and beautiful items than can be found in stores.
Furthermore, and most importantly - giving freely of your time and energy for the well-being of others, with NO EXPECTATION of a "return on your investment", is an act of generosity that inherently fights our pervasive cultural greed. The key thing is to give without strings. No quid-pro-quo. Give because you like to give. Give because you don't need to hold onto things in order to hold them in your heart. Give because you are worth more than money. Give because every act of generosity matters in the world. After all, we cannot fight them with weapons or anger or hate - they definitely own that stuff, and are far more skilled at using it.
So in the shadow of our national tragedy, let us protest the miserable culture of every-man-for-himself. Let us march in the streets and play drums and wave signs if we like. Let us vote at every opportunity to overthrow the bad guys (both republican and democratic incumbents, where necessary). And let us turn off our televisions at the end of a long day and knit a sweater for a friend who is cold, or build a website for someone who needs a megaphone, or go outside and plant a garden to feed ourselves and our neighbors.
Most of all, let us embrace the feeling of regaining our own priceless humanity. Perhaps during the working-day we are worth dollars and cents, but after work our time is our own, and it is worth more than money. It has no price. It is priceless. Every person who discovers the joy of giving to others with no expectation of return, discovers their humanity. Give to republicans, democrats, rich and poor, as you please. It doesn't matter to whom you give because every act of personal generosity is profoundly revolutionary. It undermines the greed that is gutting our country and strangling our sense of unity as a people.