I have a bit of a reputation among
other Peace Corps volunteers in Paraguay. For those who realize it,
and even for those who don't, I think people tend to know me as the resident
communist among the volunteer community. Sure, I don't help myself
out at all by wearing my red-star emblazoned military cap or by
relishing in the opportunity/ability to grow out my facial hair (a
recently acquired skill that I am keen to exercise while living in
the middle of South America), but for what its worth, for all the
flack that people give me for whatever perceived political ideologies they think I have, very few have ever bothered to have an actual
conversation with me about any of it.
I enjoy reading Karl Marx
(actually, I like to do so when I am having a particularly bad day as
a sort of pick me up), but I also love the works of Amartya Sen,
Hernando de Soto, Muhammad Yunus (and to a lesser extent, Jeffrey
Sachs) and other developmental economists who could hardly be
considered anything but free-market advocates. So my point is that,
like the world itself, the picture is never quite so black-and-white
and does not fit any sort of ideological mold. But for the record,
the hat is awesome and the beard...well, I just personally really
like the beard.
Still, the more I have been thinking
about things lately, the world in general and specifically our
sustainable future as a species, a certain notion has made its way
into the back of my brain and I just can't seem to shake it: maybe
Marx was right after all.
Let me clarify: Marx said a lot of
things—about communism, about capitalism, about the state of
antisemitism in Europe, about the American Civil war, about social
ties in the post-industrial world—lots and lots of things. What I
have been fixated on is Marx's critique of capitalism, which in
itself could fill several volumes (and in fact does fill several
volumes, Das Capital vol. 1, 2, and 3). Anyone who takes a
gander at the situation of modern man in our capitalist, but more
accurately, our globalized free-market society can see a million
manifestations of alienation and exploitation, Marx's two main
criticism of the capitalist model. When he leveled such charges, he
was of course referring specifically to the condition of the worker
under the capitalist/worker relationship. Today, I would be willing
to expand this characterization from not just workers (the
proletariat/bourgeoisie dichotomization of our world hardly seems
appropriate anymore), but to all people, all consumers in a
globalized market place.
But what I believe is most compelling
about Marx's critique of capitalism is his contention that such a
system sows its own seeds of destruction. The idea that capitalism
waxes and wanes, like a perpetual phoenix, forever arising from the
ashes of its latest catastrophic crises, is nothing new and is certainly
not a criticism restricted to Marx. Actually, it is hardly even
universally considered a criticism at all. Such a cycle of expansion
and collapse is part of the well established paradigm of modern
capitalism and for anyone who has lived through the most recent
crises (our 2008 financial meltdown—the biggest and most
comprehensive depression in our entire history), it is almost as if
we have learned to take it in stride, dolling out bail-out money
where needed and externalizing the most egregious costs of epic
failure to the poorest and most vulnerable people in our country and
around the globe. Never-mind that the austerity doctrine never had
any legs to stand on in the first place.
Still, I believe that Marx's criticism
is even more profound than that—and I am not sure whether or not
this is what he really meant or if I am just reading too far into his
ideas with the benefit of a modern perspective. Modern capitalism, at
least according to its current manifestation, its unequivocal
reliance on continual economic growth, is bound by things far greater
than financial cycles, consumer behavior, and inflation. It is
governed, ultimately and inevitably, by physics.
The production model of capitalism
assumes that the value of any commodity can be deduced through the
costs of production, that through the process of conversion from raw
material to finished product, the inherent value will be reflected in
the market price. Note: this is of course a very simple
interpretation, but it serves to illustrate the point. Only very
recently (within the past few decades) has modern economics begun to
realize that the cost of any commodity extends far beyond this
limited chain of production. The inherent value of a raw material
cannot be reflected in the market price because it is so difficult,
and largely beyond the scope of human activity to realize, the value
of creating that raw material in the first place.
Let me give an example: Crude oil
sells for what, lets say 150 USD a barrel—that is the current price
that the market spits our for the entire chain of production that
mines oil from the ground, refines it and transports it to its final
location, i.e. your gas tank. But the true value of crude oil
resides in how it was created in the first place, through the natural
processes involved in ecosystems, photosynthesis and geology.
Much of the fossil fuels we use today
were created during a very unique period in earth's deep history
called the Carboniferous period (so named for its abundant production
of carbon deposits) around 369 million years ago. During this period,
unusually high global temperatures induced hyper-production of
vegetation. When this organic-matter died, it fell to the ground,
which at the time was mostly swampy and marshy (except in the highest altitudes) due to the very high sea levels (caused by a lack
of ice-caps from the very high temperatures). These largely water-logged and anaerobic conditions arrested normal decomposition processes (which require oxygen) and allowed the organic matter to build up into enormous quantities. Over millions of years
these huge layers of carbon-rich organic deposits were processed
geologically and exposed to unimaginable temperatures and pressures
within earth's mantle. The final result is modern day fossil fuels
including crude oil, coal and natural gas.
So, with that brief natural history
lesson in mind, lets go back to the original question: how can any
market possibly and accurately place a price on this commodity that
reflects its true value, the value inherent in the entire chain of
production from the natural processes necessary for its formation to
the costs of delivering it to our local petrol station? The answer:
it probably can't, or at least to do so would mean that gas prices,
food prices, pretty much the price of human life on earth would
skyrocket. Instead of paying three to four dollars per gallon at the
pump, some estimates have us paying anywhere from eight to fifteen
dollars per gallon. These prices would be reflected in any number of other ways as well, but most notably in how much we pay for our food, seeing as the
average bite of food eaten by Americans has traveled 1,500 miles from
its point of production (Bill McKibben, Deep Economy:The Wealth of
Communities and the Durable Future) and requires exorbitant amounts of fossil fuels for its industrialized production in the first place.
The reality is that the modern
capitalist paradigm, especially as population increase and
globalization takes hold, will soon reach the natural thermodynamic
limits of our earth and is more-or-less completely incapable of
accounting for such a limit through market prices. The 'blind-hand'
of the market is just that, blind; it is as inept and flawed as those
very people and that very population that holds its reigns. There is
nothing supernatural about it, it is in the end, as natural as can
be. We rely on its ultimate wisdom at our own peril, but more
importantly, at the peril of future generations.
When Marx said that “capitalism sows
its own seeds of destruction”, he could not have possibly had
modern globalization in mind, he was instead reacting to the social
and economic phenomenon that he saw transforming Europe into
something unrecognizable. But today, it seems that that even apart
from all the ethical and social transgressions committed by global
free-markets (under the doctrine of neo-liberalism), it is perhaps
the most practical criticism that may be the most potent: unlimited,
unchecked economic growth is unsustainable. It is not a question of
morality necessarily, although there is much to be said from this
perspective. It is a question of basic physics.
A sustainable model of free-markets
will one day emerge, whether by conscious choice or by basic
necessity, and this will likely involve reduced personal consumption,
local/seasonal food sourcing, small-scale food and energy production,
a lower though still extremely comfortable standard of living (for
those of us in the consumption-happy US), and a higher standard of
living (for those in the developing world), and a much stronger
community fabric made necessary by the limitations of sourcing locally.
Or maybe this is completely wrong.
Maybe the technocrats are right and we will just find another energy
addiction to take the place of our fossil-fuel drugs. Maybe we will
completely transform our world into something that Marx couldn't have
imagined even in his darkest nightmares.
But I still have hope that maybe our
future will not be defined by what we have lost, what we have
sacrificed for the sake of those petty material commodities we have
gained. Maybe our future will instead be defined by what we have
realized we truly value, beyond what any market will ever inform us
or try to tell us we should. In that sense, maybe our future will
defined by a better sense of appreciation, of understanding, of
community. Not Marx's communism, but a communal-ism for the modern
age.
So maybe everyone in the Peace Corps
community is more or less right—I am not a communist per se, but in
my own way, I am definitely a Marxist. However, if we are throwing
labels around, I would like to point out that I am also a humanist,
an environmentalist, and an optimist, and it is perhaps these last
three that are the most important of all.
From Paraguay,
little hupo
