Valuing Life
For the second time in less than two decades, the US economy has collapsed. Each time, the government and forces of finance have joined together to craft a “bailout.” This time it is several trillion dollars. This time, it took only a few weeks to reveal the shallow, brittle, and often brutal nature of an economic system based on extraction, high tech controls, violence, and constant, unnecessary consumption. The political leaders who told us we cannot afford universal health care, living wages, and the Green New Deal, all allocated the trillions to shore up this economy. Efforts to protect the lives and well-being of ordinary people were minimal, resisted by the most ardent of neo-liberal republicans. They continue to worry that government support for life will “erode” our will to work.
This moment has not only revealed the weaknesses of finance capital, globalization, and the lack of a productive base. It has also revealed the ugly ideological framework undergirding the economic decision-making that has prioritized making war over building peace, pursuing profits rather than protecting people, and measuring human life in monetary terms. From framing education as valuable only if it leads to jobs, to creating massive systems of profit by holding human beings in cages, to forging economies based on weapons and war, some among us have lost any sense of the value of human life, the joys we take in one another, and the sanctity of places that hold, nurture, and protect us.
For some, if human beings are not able to “produce,” they do not deserve to survive. This philosophy was displayed vividly last week as the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick observed that if he were asked, “As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?” he would say: “If that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” The President has given voice to the same idea, as he threatens to “reopen the economy by Easter,” saying, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” In other words, saving “the “economy” not only costs public money, it costs lives. And that is a legitimate trade off.
So, we are faced the opportunity for a public conversation on what are human beings for? What makes life matter?
Some of us are answering this question with affirmations of connection, care, compassion, and creativity. Mutual aid societies have sprung up everywhere. People are connecting, sharing, and offering support to one other daily. Policies are being enacted to protect life, ensuring human rights to water, shelter, safety, and food. Music is flowing from front porches and over internet symphonies. Artistic visions are shared from images of sidewalk chalk to poetry slams.
This crisis will not be over quickly. We have choices to make about how we will reconstruct our lives. For many years, in cities, towns, and small communities across the country people have been evolving the values and practices of the living, local economies we all need to survive. Emphasizing local production for local needs, cultivating art and care, and forging connections over private profit. These are the places we need to learn from so that we can accelerate the values and practices that support life. We know that an economy built on care, stewardship, and the development and protection of people and the earth that sustains us is the only way we will survive and thrive.