Okay…so I start what promises
to be an inspired multi-part post, and then disappear for two months. My bad.
And I have no excuses…it’s
not like anything earth-shattering has been going on in my world to keep me
from sitting down at the laptop and pouring out my thoughts. Nope.
It’s more like my thoughts are so multi-faceted (and generally
depressing, given the state of the nation) that I sit down, stare at the
keyboard, shake my head, stand up and go do something else. ANYTHING else.
Be that as it may, I’m
determined to commit SOMETHING to virtual paper today.
My plan of action has been
swirling around in my head for lo these two months. And it’s really very simple. Three little words:
STOP BUYING STUFF.
Specifically, stop buying
stuff you don’t need with money you don’t have.
It’s no secret that
political/economic theories in their pure forms are logical, believable, even
laudable.
Communism promises all
workers equal share in the spoils of their labor.
Democracy promises all
citizens a voice in their government.
Capitalism promises a fair
profit for those who produce, and fair prices for those who purchase.
One of the fundamental tenets
of capitalism is that prices are allowed to rise as high as the market will bear.
Which means that a producer raises the price until people can no
longer afford to purchase their product.
Sales diminish. Price is adjusted. Producer resumes selling, at a slightly lower
profit, and consumers resume purchasing.
It’s all very logical and
equitable sounding. Except, in this day
and age, it’s bullshit.
Because the pure tenets of
capitalism were formulated before the days of easy credit. And before the incredible success
of multimedia marketing bombarding the consuming public every minute of every
hour of every day.
Media pound us with how much
we need/want/have to have…whatever someone has paid them a shitload of money to
slam at us.
Easy credit allows us to make
purchases with almost no physical effort, and virtually no second thoughts. Or even first thoughts, as far as that goes.
Under such circumstances,
capitalism becomes solely a vehicle for the “haves” to exploit the “have nots,”
so they can stash billions of dollars in offshore accounts, and purchase their
own “necessities,” like golden toilets, $20k handbags, and half million dollar
show cars that no one will ever drive.
If we have to juggle two or
three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads, or allow our retirement savings to be invested in a volatile
stock market in order to have any hope of seeing that money grow, or sweat out
the right-wing’s rhetoric about Social Security being an “entitlement’…why are
we buying those $500 theater tickets, or paying $300 to watch a football game,
or planning a “destination wedding” in some exotic location, or paying a
half-million dollars for a crappy 1000 sq foot three-bedroom ranch house?
They keep raising the prices
on everything, and we keep ponying up.
Because the availability of easy credit allow us to. And the jillions of dollars poured into
advertising make us pathologically need to buy…everything.
Prices never correct, because
they never rise “higher than the market will bear.”
I personally have never been
a fan of the US becoming a “consumer economy.”
To me, that smacks of weakness, laziness and over-indulgence. Somehow, the powers that be have conspired to
downplay the obvious negative connotations of the fact that our entire economic
welfare depends upon armchair consumers buying anything and everything that
tickles their fancy. When we have a
recession or the economic outlook is bleak, the government borrows a bunch of
money from China and sends checks out to American consumers, so they can buy
stuff they stopped buying (because they were spooked into realizing they really
couldn’t afford to anymore—a rare occurrence, to be sure, but it does happen
now and then.)
My own little family acquired
a raging Amazon addiction during the COVID lockdown. Being able to go online and call forth any
little thing our hearts desired—needed or not—was a great mood lightener during
an otherwise bleak time. We became so
addicted that by the time Trump won his second election, we were ordering from
Amazon five or six times a week.
And after realizing that our
cherished votes had been completely neutralized by the right wing, and that
they were never again going to hold the power we were convinced they had, if
indeed they EVER had…
I realized that I had to do
SOMETHING. Something that would be a
meaningful representation of my personal resistance to Trump and the oligarchy
and all that our sad nation had devolved into over the past forty years.
And going to marches and
holding up placards wasn’t it. And
certainly trying to scream my frustrations into the ether over social media was
not it either (which is partially the reason why this post has been so long in
coming.)
The thing I could do, the
thing I am doing, the thing I encourage anybody who reads this to do is:
Stop buying things you don’t need with money you don’t
have.
For that matter, stop buying
things you don’t need with money you DO have.
Just…stop buying stuff.
I quit Amazon cold turkey two
months ago. For someone who had
developed the dependency that I had, that was a big ask. And yet, it has been surprisingly easy. If I think I need something, I have to be
willing to get off my butt and go out and look for it locally. And if it’s not available at stores, there
are other online entities available that are not owned by Jeff Bezos—the guy
who invests his extra billions into shooting his girlfriend and a couple of her
besties into space.
Everywhere one turns on
social media, at least in the places the algorithms have shoved in MY face,
there are dire warnings about being complacent in the face of fascism…that if
we don’t get out there and join the demonstrating crowds, we are complicit in
the transformation of our cherished democracy into a fascist oligarchy (don’t
know if it’s correct to link those two terms, but it seems to fit what’s going
on here these days.)
When I kicked that idea
around a bit, I realized that going to rallies and demonstrations was not for
me. It seemed just like a physical
manifestation of the useless spitting into the wind that we do every day on
social media. And the potential for
putting myself in physical danger for an activity that was going to have
extremely limited effectiveness…well, nope.
But when I thought further
about where our country has landed today, I realized we all are ALREADY
complicit in the American march toward…wherever it’s headed.
Because we have allowed
ourselves to be goaded into thinking that we need to buy Buy BUY. To the point where, certainly during the Bush
II administration, we were told that keeping the economy grinding along by
being obedient, healthy consumers was somehow patriotic. If you love America, go out and buy that
TV. Boat. Car.
I saw a meme on Instagram
that said “The COVID lockdown demonstrated that our economy collapses as soon
as it stops selling useless stuff to over-indebted people.”
That is it in a
nutshell. That is why a “consumer economy”
is neither desirable nor sustainable.
When everything becomes about money—having it and spending it—everything
goes to hell.
That is why we need to get up
off our butts and start providing real commodities to the rest of the world,
rather than consuming everything that the rest of the world waves under our
noses. We used to be a hard-working,
innovative people. We have devolved into
a bunch of lazy slackards with way too much time on our hands, who turn to
drink, drugs and media to keep us entertained and surround ourselves with all
the crap that ceaseless advertising forces us to crave. And to keep our leaders entertained (and
rich) we indulge in vicious culture wars that nobody wins.
Enough.
You want to take back the
country? Stop enabling this crap. DON’T buy into it. Don’t buy ANYTHING you can live
without.
I’m convinced that if enough
of us embraced this avenue of protest, it would make an immediate difference.
At least, this is going to be
MY form of “resistance.”
Join me?
