I was giving myself another double dose of
punishment today at the gym. Keeping
this body healthy sometimes feels like a full-time job because time passes
slowly when I’m wrestling with some free weights. My self-flagellation is compounded by the
inane rhetoric I am subjected to. One
guy’s hot air is used up glorifying the free market. Another guy is inciting fear in his
conversation victim about the work of the devil.
As a “socio-economic sustainability activist,”
I tend to focus my attention on disabusing people of the first guy’s beliefs
since I’m convinced that disillusionment is usually the first step to a
transformation in worldview. Free Market
religion is much more widespread and less contested, in my estimation, so it
needs a counter narrative in the media and person-to-person discourse.
As I was washing away the sweat, I started thinking about these two conversations, and I wondered if these two seemingly disparate belief systems were actually related. The religious person believes the world is a place that needs a controlling and judging force. Humans need religion to control their wild forces because without religion, chaos and evil will dominate life, which will lead to suffering. Since this force is external to humanity, it is believed to be trustworthy. Compare this to the idea that the free market is free of any one individual’s control. Free market believers contrast their belief with—the only alternative—dictatorship. Of course, it is childish to assume that a dictatorship is the only alternative, but I’m not making this up! Free market believers have been indoctrinated into the power of the invisible hand, which will fairly regulate life and minimize suffering. Notice how the invisible hand is viewed as an external force, one which is more trustworthy because of this “independence.”
As I was washing away the sweat, I started thinking about these two conversations, and I wondered if these two seemingly disparate belief systems were actually related. The religious person believes the world is a place that needs a controlling and judging force. Humans need religion to control their wild forces because without religion, chaos and evil will dominate life, which will lead to suffering. Since this force is external to humanity, it is believed to be trustworthy. Compare this to the idea that the free market is free of any one individual’s control. Free market believers contrast their belief with—the only alternative—dictatorship. Of course, it is childish to assume that a dictatorship is the only alternative, but I’m not making this up! Free market believers have been indoctrinated into the power of the invisible hand, which will fairly regulate life and minimize suffering. Notice how the invisible hand is viewed as an external force, one which is more trustworthy because of this “independence.”
The irony is that the bibles, qurans,
bhagavad gitas, and other holy books have been written and passed down by
humans. Children aren’t gifted these texts
by heavenly deities on their 3rd birthdays. (Probably not even Santa bothers to leave
these books under freshly slaughtered trees moved indoors and dressed with
skirts and other regalia.) Many children
don’t even read these books because they are spoon-fed just enough to keep them
in fear. Likewise, children are not
given the freedom to explore different socio-economic designs. They are not even given technical simulations
to measure and evaluate how different designs lead to different outcomes, and which
they prefer. Rather, they are taught
that “this is the way things are” and that they need to adapt. They are also told “this is the best system
there is.” Most of them have minimal
exposure to economics, sociology, psychology, and resource sustainability,
which makes them ill-equipped to assess the validity and worth of our current
socio-economic design. Children of these
two seemingly separate beliefs grow up and become proponents of those
beliefs. They have identified with
them. Those beliefs are part of their
cultural heritage, and while that is true, they have not learned the skills to
de-identify with that cultural heritage so that they can take in a larger view
of life, which is necessary for raising sustainability-minded global citizens.
While the leaders of religions decide which snippets of text are important to promulgate, and exhort their followers to abide by, leaders of large companies decide which products will be produced no matter the damage to the environment and the people that assemble them. Executive editors decide which topics and opinions are newsworthy, with a faith that they will be wise enough to represent people’s interests and needs for information. But, it’s okay, because it was the “invisible hand” that made these decisions, just like the god that works in mysterious ways by letting kids be born into starvation or abuse. We can all rest easy because it’s out of our hands. We are not responsible. The billions of people suffering is just a natural result of
