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RANTSPrimum Non NocereFirst, Do No HarmFebruary 16th, 2005
“Help them to live meaningless lives as slaves to products they don't need and can't purchase with the money they can't make?”
One of the things that's always bothered me about American society has been a sort of subdued but ongoing debate of how the country's foreign policy should be framed with regard to impoverished, third world nations. One one side, there's the sort of corporate globalization that we're already pretty much mired in. On the other side is the more left thinking philosophy of canceling debts and sending aid. Every single one of these arguments talks about how best to bring these poverty stricken nations up to our technologically advanced level. The arguments even make their way into other issues... all of them centered around "how best to help those poor people"... with the additional insights of corporatism and capitalism on the right side of the stage jumping in with "and help ourselves in the process."On one hand, you've got capitalism... or should I say "had" capitalism. Honestly, I don't think capitalism really exists anymore. Capitalism, in the traditional sense, requires two things currently absent in any great quantity in America and most other "first world" nations: First, the means of production and distribution need to be privately owned. Second, development is proportional to reinvestment of profits gained through free markets. Lets take the first requirement... privately owned means of productions and distribution. It seems that since the founding of the nation and the penning of its principles, that "private" at some point came to mean "private or corporate"... and anymore, just "corporate" will suffice. Let's face it, small businesses are crushed, not just by the business acumen of their larger brothers, but by the government their larger brothers bought too. Faceless monsters like WalMart rumble through the night, setting up shop outside the city centers to hammer away at the small businesses that used to make up the suburban and rural landscapes... underselling their local competition just long enough to drive them out of business, all the while accumulating the largest number of lawsuits pending than any other organization in the U.S. save the government itself. In America, only the biggest beasts survive, protected & butressed by laws written with the pens of the politicians they purchase. Second requirement... development proportional to reinvestment of profits gained through free markets. One need only look as far as the major airlines, propped up by taxpayer dollars... though their own "reinvestment of profits" seems to only go as far as their own boardrooms. In a capitalist society, quite a few of the major corporations that exist in America would've collapsed under the weight of their own excesses long ago were it not for the protections provided by the "law"... which anymore seems to far outstrip the protections guaranteed to actual flesh and blood people. But all of this is more of an aside than the point... the reason I mention it is more for the establishment of motive. You see, "help those poor people" quickly becomes rather subjective... Help them to what? Help them to live meaningless lives as slaves to products they don't need and can't purchase with the money they can't make? What a swell help we've become. For all our technological advancement, we are a society without purpose or meaning. And yet we are constantly bewildered at even the thought that any of the other "less than number one" nations on earth could NOT want us sticking our noses in their business. At this point, only the right-wing argument makes sense... no really... because at least SOMEONE gains from that. The typical liberal point of view just turns what we, parody of civilization that we are, commonly refer to as "backward societies" into mindless television drones and McDonalds addicts. The worst part is... these nations get referred to as "poor". Three hundred years ago our own predecessors scourged their way west destroying other "poor" cultures. Thing is, they weren't "poor" until we introduced them to the wonderful concept of distributing their wealth into as few hands as possible. Here's a concept... you want to save the world? Start with saving them from yourself. The entire history of the Americas is riddled with good intentions gone awry... and plenty of just plain terrible intentions executed perfectly as well. Now don't get me wrong... I like my gadgets and toys... but I'm smart enough to recognize that they don't provide my life with meaning. And this is not to say that I don't think modernization does not bring with it certain benefits... education and medicine are tough to argue against and I wouldn't try... but at what cost? "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Therein lies the biggest problem of the American dream spreading its seed... it is no longer a dream of freedom and democracy, but more a mechanism for the creating new mindless consumers in exchange for the mineral rights of the land beneath their feet. Before we brought the wisdom of corn chips and extra whitening toothpaste, many of these so called "lesser" cultures lived in harmony with their surroundings, leading perfectly content and meaningful lives. Some compromise. In the end, I take a rather libertarian and humanist point of view. While I'm all for providing aid in a form that makes sense, I think the American government is the last entity on earth that should even discuss what is in the best interest of others. Anymore, most American "help" comes in the form of 2000 pound bombs delivered in front of the fleet of oil tankers coming to dinner. I'd rather be able to channel my monetary resources into providing the sick with medical assistance, all things being equal. World hunger isn't going to be solved as long as the hungry have to wait for Taco Bell/KFC to pop up in their neighborhood. Raping the African landscape with factories for children to loose their hands in machinery kindly provided by Nike isn't exactly what I had in mind. Is there a workable solution? Probably, but I don't have it. But one thing I do know is it has to start with a lot more humility than American society has ever been capable of. Until we can stop our own endless slide into pointless existence, we should at least take care not to spread it like a disease. OTHER RECENT WORDS
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