Our society appears to have limited our choices to communism or capitalism. I feel that is too simplistic and not realistic. If there is any hope of peoples existing in harmony with each other, we are going to have to study and change our current economic system, and the scale at which this should take place is locally.
Consider the words of poet and farmer Wendell Berry: "It is astonishing, and of course discouraging, to see economics elevated to the position of ultimate justifier and explainer of all the affairs of our daily life, and competition enshrined as the sovereign principle and ideal of economics."
To me, Mr. Berry's words help explain the frustration in my work and my existence within my community. Why is economics the "ultimate justifier and explainer of all the affairs of our daily life?"
To be stranded in a system that is dependent on unemployment, the change of interest rates, cheap affordable goods that end up in a landfill and one that leaves the majority of people in debt their entire life, is a cruel act of slavery and an attack on our necessities that keep us alive. Not only are we enslaved by debt, but also we are being forced to compete with each other economically for our very existence, and this, I feel, is an insult to human intelligence.
Why are we competing with each other in this way? Think about it.
When we compete with each other for jobs and money, and if you are fortunate enough to win, then that means that someone else lost. That means that someone is unemployed, that they have to find other work, or they may have to move. And this someone is your neighbor, friend or maybe even a member of your family. The Native peoples of this land have questioned the humanity of this system ever since it was forced upon them, and for good reason.
When we look to the Fred Meyer controversy, the discussion is centered on maintaining the economy and providing affordable goods. And most everyone seems to agree, even those who don't want a large corporate-owned box store in our community, that the only way that we can get affordable goods to our community is to rely on large corporations that are not locally owned or operated.
The fact that these stores can buy larger quantities of goods and sell them cheaper than the smaller, locally owned stores is something that should be questioned not accepted. Even the recent statewide K-Mart store closure didn't seem to affect people's thoughts of the vulnerability we place our community in by becoming dependent on such a store.
We should be questioning why our locally owned businesses couldn't buy the same goods at the same cost per unit as the large corporation. And our discussion should go beyond affordable goods and also include the quality of goods. Our current economic system is dependent on the landfill and poorly made goods (i.e., affordable goods).
Those who make less money buy things that fall apart, and the upper classes buy the higher quality goods. Economic discrimination is never discussed, and the landfills grow in number and size. Why do we accept and make poor quality goods?
There is so much that is wasteful about our current economic system, but that which stands out most is time. This system has us enslaved to 40- to 80-hour work weeks and often doing many things that are not necessary. Why? We cannot live in harmony with the seasons, weather, land, sea or each other.
I see and experience the competition for funds and ideas against each other in the sciences as a hindrance that keeps great minds from working together and produces wasteful redundancy, all because we must compete with each other economically. Surely there is more of an argument for the advancement of technology and efficiency than competitive economics.
I think all the people of the Kachemak Bay region should begin a discussion on developing a truly local economy. That the people of the region decide and inform their state, their country and the world what resources it has to share and how to use and extract them, without harm of its land, air, water, flora, fauna or people.
Some items I see necessary to include in the discussion: equality; employment for everyone; health care for everyone; debt, absenteeism, absentee land ownership, absentee governance and absentee business ownership and/or operation; quality products instead of affordable goods; a transportation infrastructure; energy sources; and energy use, to name a few.
As much as we desire to live and control things in more than one place at one time, the fact remains that we can truly only live in one place. When we put people and place above economics, when we begin exchanging our trust, our love, our knowledge and our skills without the control of supply-and-demand economics, we will begin to live in peace with each other locally and, perhaps, globally.
Joel Cooper is a Homer resident.
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