For someone who thinks mainly in religious terms, it may seem that I write about economics too frequently. You may think it's not my domain and so I should stay out; I don't know what I'm talking about, so shut up, you may also think. Having that attitude, though, will of course only perpetuate the status quo. If we never allow anyone to ask the question, "What is the most Christian form of economy possible?" then we may never approach a more compassionate economy and mode of production. At the end of the day, for Christians or persons of any faith, an economy of compassion is and should be our main concern. As long as there are people starving, living in dire conditions, and unable to afford basic necessities through no fault of their own even in the most wealthy countries, our thoughts should turn to how we might improve the well-being of our fellow sisters and brothers.
In a couple of fairly recent posts, I tried detailing what might be a Christian approach to economic questions. There I argued that the concept of socialism/communism, if not also the practice, best fits discipleship of Christ transposed onto economics. For many Westerners and Americans particularly, that argument may feel like a betrayal of inherited values. We are taught, appropriately or not, to hold an aversion to socialism because capitalism works. In a way, certainly, capitalism does work, and so I'd like to expound on my earlier essay, "It's Not the Economy, Stupid," now from the perspective of capitalism.
To do so, I'd like to refer you to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. In a number of short stories and novels, Vonnegut includes dystopian elements of communistic thinking. Taken to an extreme, communistic thinking would result in the strongest people living life carrying around weights; the smartest people having electronic devices implanted on their brains to zap them whenever they have an intelligent thought; the wealthiest people attacked zealously as the scourge of the earth. Such a world obviously sounds miserable and backward. Striving for total equality in all ways would reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator and eliminate the greatness of human creativity and potential. Vonnegut well argues, through irony and sarcasm, for a capitalistic mindset, a mindset that would allow and continue to encourage human ingenuity, art, and progress.
It should be said that Vonnegut had a compassionate worldview. He witnessed the WWII Dresden fire-bombings first-hand and considered most, if not all, war and killing as mindless and senseless. Overall Vonnegut wanted us to love each other, to see each other as fellow human beings meandering through life, and make way for each person to live life to the fullest. His was not a conservative worldview by any means. Vonnegut cannot be faulted for using literature for the same neo-conservative purposes as Ayn Rand. Indeed, in terms of worldview, Vonnegut was decisively liberal and progressive. Yet at the same time, by artistically and truthfully showing us a world dominated by socialist principles, Vonnegut masterfully upheld the goodness of free capitalistic tendencies.
Perhaps nowhere is Vonnegut's pro-capitalist but compassionate worldview at work more than his first novel, Player Piano. In Player Piano, the country and each community are segregated between the engineers and managers, and the laborers. The engineers and managers operate the machines, manage production, and constantly invent new and more effective machines. Automation has become so effective and widespread that labor is hardly necessary any more. We catch glimpses of large construction crews idling for hours beside a single pothole because if they finish the work too quickly, they won't have anything else to do. Everyone receives a basic universal income that provides for all their wants and needs, enough to even supply them with the newest models of laundry machine, dishwasher, and stovetop/microwave that so reduce the need for manual labor that there is nothing left to do at home except sit in front of the TV. Player pianos, even, have become so effective and beautiful that there's no longer any need for musicians. Orchestras are so rare that the new form of card shark is to memorize what song orchestras are playing on TV simply by watching the hand motions and then challenging newcomers to guess what song is playing with no sound. Socialism has run amok. The means of production are effective enough to provide a universal income effective enough that each human life has been reduced to a blob of nothingness. Human dignity, in the form of work and purpose, has been completely erased.
The plot of the novel is a member of the engineer/manager class wanting to return to the land, to re-build human dignity by giving humans work to do. Essentially, the engineer/manager wants to return to a purely capitalist society where a person needs to work hard by the sweat of the brow to earn an income and thus have meaning and purpose in his or her life. He therefore joins a revolution amongst the laborers on the other side of the river against the engineer/manager class. The revolution almost instantly fails for three reasons: the revolution was too aimless in purpose; people had become too much of a blob to care to participate in any revolution; the engineer/manager class had become too powerful and pervasive. The capitalistic, dignified revolution was doomed, and the dystopia of socialist principles was complete. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that it is better to avoid such a miserable future by strengthening capitalism and continuing to demand that each person work for their worth, to prove her or his capital through labor.
On the other hand, if you have read Player Piano, you'll have taken issue with my summary of the novel to this point. The issue in the novel isn't so much with capitalist versus socialist worldviews and principles but with automation. When human life becomes entirely automated, life is no longer human. Again, Vonnegut sees real beauty in humanity and in what we're capable of. Handing over every aspect of life to a machine, including art, destroys the essence of humanity. The society Vonnegut paints in Player Piano doesn't have issues because of a robust universal income but because that universal income is used, to a person, to do nothing--to watch TV, redecorate our homes every few months, and watch machines create art. Sixty years before Wall-E, Vonnegut showed us the insides of an entirely technological society, using Jacques Ellul's definition for 'technological'--a society that has found the best, most effective way of doing absolutely everything such that there's nothing left for a human life to do. And, ironically, this is precisely the nightmare capitalism is gleefully driving toward. If we're not careful, the end result of socialism and capitalism is the same.
Principally, the concept of socialism/communism states that all people should be given the same universal income so that each person can concentrate on pursuing their natural gifts, talents, and pleasures. It is a concept of compassion, not wanting any person to work themselves to death in a field or job in which they find no pleasure. In theory, the concept is attained by increasing the effectiveness of production to such a degree that fewer human laborers and human labor hours are required to provide the basic necessities for every person, thus ensuring that each person can focus on other pursuits. On the other hand, the concept of capitalism states that each person should be given the freedom to find their own work and increase their own capital in whatever means they can. It is a concept of liberty, asking and demanding that each person find their own way and own means of success. In theory, those who have capital will seek to gain even more capital for themselves, and to do so will seek to increase production and the effectiveness of production, which before the age of the machine meant that those with capital would trickle down capital to laborers by creating more jobs to produce more and also increase wagers to encourage greater laborer morale. Before the age of the machine, the trickle down theory at least made sense and was in contrast to the socialist/communist principle.
After the age of the machine and the coming of a truly technological society a reality, the likes of which Vonnegut portrayed for us, in which humans seek the best and most effective means of doing absolutely everything, capitalism is no longer associated with any trickling down. Rather, capitalism is concerned with better machines and technique. The end result of such a capitalistic society is the elimination of human work. We see this already in almost every field. The greatest threat to factory jobs in the future is not government policy but capitalism: a capitalistic focus will increase automation to the point where only a few engineers/managers will be needed to sit in front of machines and blinking lights. Even doctors and nurses are being replaced by automation. It is more 'effective,' apparently, to plug symptoms and data into a machine and then transmit automated advice and treatment to the patient. Remember the Roomba? For some, the automated, hands-free cleaning device was and is nothing more than a silly attempt at robot cleaning. Yet there is no question that we as a society will seek to improve the technique of cleaning, and eventually we will reach the point of complete automation, in which we no longer need to do any cleaning ourselves. On one hand that seems like a good thing, but it also means the loss of many jobs. Almost everything we humans do can be automated and, in capitalism, it is our duty to seek out and implement that automation because it is the most effective and productive and profitable. Capitalism, therefore, by nature seeks to put people out of work. It is not unreasonable, then, to predict a Vonnegut-like world in which the only people who have any meaningful work to do are the engineers/managers, a class that comprises a small percentage of the population. Such is the future of capitalism left unchecked.
And if human work is linked to human purpose, as the principle of capitalism argues, then, again, the natural and extreme result of capitalism is the same as the natural and extreme result of socialism. Both end in the misery of a human life lived without dignity, without meaning, without purpose. Capitalism seeks more capital, which seeks profitability, which seeks effectiveness, which seeks automation, which puts people out of work, which erases meaning. There is no escaping a future of human indignity, it seems.
If a future of human misery and indignity is inevitable, then we may ask what the better of two evils is. I think it is rather clear that the worse of two evils is a future in which not only are we miserable but most of us are also destitute, starving, and dying. The socialist dystopia at least cares for the well-being of the person. Capitalism also, believe it or not, cares of the well-being of the person, but in the age of the machine, the capitalist dystopia naturally cannot care for the well-being of the person.
Of course, asking which dystopia we choose is rather pessimistic and, hopefully, unnecessary. Within Vonnegut's reality may be the hints of an alternative. Again, the issue in the novel is not the universal income but the meaninglessness of life created by such a universal income. That meaninglessness, however, is avoidable.
Combining the effectiveness of capitalism, which sees greater and greater profits through automation, with the compassion, generosity, and purpose of socialism could create a future we'd like to live in. Since the trickle down theory no longer applies in its original form, now being a complete delusion, we can adjust it to fit the reality of automation. We can say that with each job lost or limited by greater automation, thanks to capitalism, we can distribute the profits from that effectiveness throughout society in the form of a universal income. This trickled down universal income would not aim at total equality but instead at an easier life for those most impacted by the negative side of capitalism. Therein lies the generosity, ensuring the necessities of life through capitalism's inherent success and socialism's inherent compassion.
At the same time, we can emphasize that, indeed, work of some kind does provide meaning and purpose to human life. A human life with nothing to do is undignified and miserable. To ensure that our combination of capitalism and socialism works to the good, we then disassociate capitalism from technological progress. What I mean by that is that we seek to use capitalism advantageously to increase production and economic effectiveness but no longer seek the best, most effective means of doing everything. Other than producing life's necessities, society passionately fights for the human in other areas--the 'human' being creative, meaningful, and sometimes ineffective. We do our own doctoring, cleaning, nursing, kid-raising, preaching, painting, acting, beer-making, and on and on, in the way we enjoy to and we find meaningful.
Take something as silly and painful as potty-training. My wife and I are currently discussing potty-training our oldest son. About a year ago now we tried and failed and then decided to give up until our second son were a little older and more manageable. Now, my wife feels that she has learned what the one, best form of potty-training is. How couldn't she, with books upon books building off one another, getting closer and closer to the 'one, best' way? My wife is not alone. Parents everywhere are searching out that one, best way. Nothing against my wife, of course, or any other parent, but I wonder why we should concern ourselves with the one, best way. If we do that, then eventually we might as well hand our kid over to an automated potty-training machine programmed in teaching the one, best way, and we'll have skipped right over Vonnegut's dystopia to Wall-E's dystopia which, if you haven't seen the movie, is truly terrifying but accurate. Our own programming to find the one, best way ignores the joys of living out the vagaries and vicissitudes of life, and we thus find less meaning and purpose in life, even in such a small, mundane, but painful thing like potty-training. The stakes are more clear in terms of art, where reality has caught up to Vonnegut and a machine has now taken up painting portraits. It is instead possible to encourage and develop human creativity, ingenuity, and existential potential, and therein find greater meaning and purpose, but we must be willing to endure ineffective techniques, ineffective living, and constant diversity.
Enduring ineffectiveness--"ew, that painting does nothing for me," or "that doctor doesn't know what he's talking about!"--and diversity--where saying, "why in the world do you put the toilet paper roll on the wrong way!" or, "you know, there's a better way to plant a garden," no longer make sense--will require a significant change in attitude. This change in attitude, however, is the only solution or cure the future we're heading toward. Disassociating capitalist production from acquiring the best technique in all areas of life is our only hope. The means by which we secure such a change in attitude, at least partially is by accepting and ascribing to the generosity and dignity that socialism promotes.
At the end of the day, the socialist universal income that Vonnegut portrays for us is actually quite good. It would promote health, mentally and physically, and give us plenty of time to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. And the only way we can do that is by strengthening capitalist production without the capitalist worldview. It would be a generous trickle down theory guaranteeing universal human dignity.
No comments:
Post a Comment