Externalizing Evil Enables Evil

On Friday, May 1, there will be another May Day get together at Union Square in New York City (click here for flyer). Except in the United States, May Day is known as Labor Day and it is a day to celebrate the contributions which workers make to all of our lives. Unfortunately, workers are being more commodified and less celebrated today as the world becomes more enslaved than usual by the love of money. Trade agreements along with sold out democracies have allowed the wealthy to exploit a growing number of workers during the past several years. 

Karl Marx explained how labor becomes a commodity in the Capitalist economic system. As people provide their labor for a set financial compensation only, such as with a wage, their work is being paid for in a similar enough way that raw materials and resources are being purchased. And we know what can happen when the same raw materials can be procured elsewhere at a lower price. Thus, old workers are often discarded and the new ones become employed. That means that workers are always in a tenuous state of employment and are considered to be disposable objects of profit. And as today's globalization expands the labor market, today's workers often lose their jobs to other workers as a way and this maximizes profits for business owners. Here business owners can refer to the people who own their own companies. But business owners can also refer to those who buy stocks for the sole purpose getting the greatest ROI.

So with the new globalization, we often see workers being displaced as new workers take their place. And we also see workers who migrate, are trafficked, are enslaved, work for poverty wages, or work in sweatshop conditions. Here, when it is said we see this, it isn't really us who see it, it those workers who are exploited who do. And one of the horrific and disillusioning failures of the conservative churches in America is that, for the most part, they not only keep silent, they provide spiritual havens for those who are a part of the economic machine that exploits labor. The silence of these churches on this matter shows how they themselves are sold out to the love of money. For they dare not offend members regarding the sins of our economic system.

And so the speeches one will hear at a May Day celebration, such as the one I will be attending in NYC, will often be loud and sound angry. Such speeches will turnoff many in the pampered Middle Class because those in the Middle Class live too comfortably to want to listen to anything that does not sound "nice" and soothing. 

But there is another problem here and it will be shared by all who will be participating. The problem is that those in business and government who profit from and thus support the exploitation in our economic system aren't the only ones who practice injustice; we all do too. We may do that in small ways on an individual basis, but we have all practiced injustice against others. We have all compromised standards for expediency. And thus we must be careful about how we want justice to be served. Do we want justice so that those who are oppressing and exploiting others are swiftly punished, or do we want justice by way of ending the oppression and exploitation? And along with this, do we want to punish those who are oppressing and exploiting others, or do we want our opponents to cross the line and join our side?

The advantage in focusing on the sins of others, such as what will happen during many of the speeches on May Day, is that we can lose sight of our own sins. We've seen this principle conveniently used by those seeking power in revolutionary movements. For all that some had to do during the French and Russian Revolutions was to assert that one's intramural rivals were really counter-revolutionary and it was off with their heads, the rivals' heads that is. And this could be done because of the binary worldview employed by many in the revolutions. To the revolutionaries, they were good and their opponents were evil. Thus, to be a counter-revolutionary was to be guilty and worthy of death. And we should note that many counter-revoluionaries also embraced their own version of a binary worldview. 

During the speeches, the concept, if not the word, amnesty will be promoted and cheered. There is a valid reason for supporting amnesty: no person's existence should be counted as being illegal. And what amnesty would do would be to discount the illegal entering of the country so that the person entering could legally stay. Amnesty here would release a person from the law's demands.

Jesus taught a form of amnesty. One example where He did this was in the Lord's prayer. It is found in the line that speaks of forgiveness (click here and see verse 12):

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Here, Jesus is getting at a universal truth about people: that we all need forgiveness and that how we regard and treat each other should reflect that universal need. It is that universal need that those conservatives, who are adamantly against amnesty for "illegal immigrants," should reconsider their opposition to amnesty. But this universal need for forgiveness also speaks to us who angrily challenge those with wealth and power. Instead of looking to punish them, we should challenge them by granting them an amnesty for past wrongs. And the point of doing so would be that it is preferable to win people over than to have to conquer them. This is especially true when the differences between us are smaller than we would guess. For it is in our attempts to conquer others, especially done for some righteous cause, that we give ourselves permission to practice evil of which we claimed to be incapable. All of that is what we've seen in revolutions past.

Yes, we need to work for social justice. But we need to do so as fellow sinners, not as moral superiors, to those whom we are protesting. Otherwise, we will overlook the sins from our past and excuse our present and future sins. 

The Status Quo Of Self-Destruction

Perhaps the following best describes what we see today:

[it] has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self- interest, than callous “cash payment”

With more and more of life following the business model, the desire to be profitable is moving more of us to be either cold and unforgiving or too lax in holding to necessary standards. Let's use education as an example.

In my teaching career,  I've seen for myself or heard from teachers of other schools acknowledging that unqualified students are admitted to schools in order to reach a certain student population. Some of these unqualified students will eventually dropout because of grades while others will find majors especially designed for them and their tuition dollars. I heard of one teacher who, while teaching basic freshman class, was told by one of her senior students  that that basic class was the toughest class she ever took. 

I and my colleagues from numerous institutions remember the notes received from university presidents which all but said that we were responsible for students who were failing our classes because all students who were admitted to our institutions were qualified to study there. Of course what provided dissonance to these notes for me were the students who couldn't perform basic arithmetic functions because of their dependence on calculators or could not read a textbook because of their dependence on the internet.

What I've seen schools do is to stop marketing a college education and to start selling the "college experience." And a growing part of that experience is found in entertainment and fun. Education, according to the actions and attitudes displayed by some of my past students, was becoming an inconvenience and the admission price to be paid for enjoying life in college. 

So what we see is less money being used to support academics and more money being spent on administration and nonacademic student services. Why? Because in today's businessfied colleges, it isn't reaching of academic milestones by the average student that is the goal, it is keeping enough customers happy so that college's ever increasing overhead can be financed. Students are being less and less looked at as people who need to learn and surpass fixed standards from the past and are more and more seen as objects of revenue.

Of course, our economic system can provide other examples where connections are reduced to the 'what's in it for me' mindset. The business world's mindset of what's legal is what's moral without mentioning that what's legal is for sale disingenuously shows the self-interest mentioned at the beginning of this post. Thus, those companies that can pay lobbyists to write legislation or direct policies that either reduce a company's social responsibilities, such as in paying less or no taxes, and/or garners business from the government, such as is done by those in the military-industrial complex, can, in "good conscience," profit from exploiting the public. Here we should consider those companies that supplement their payroll with government assistance programs as providing examples of acting in 'naked self-interest.'  This is exemplified when legislation aimed at raising the federal minimum wage is constantly defeated. Here, low-wage employees are treated as disposable objects of profit who can be easily replaced.

This 'naked self-interest' has also hit our beloved sports world where players are there to make as much money as possible off of their team's owners so that their first loyalty is to the paycheck. This  leaves fans to root for the uniforms rather than players.

The current battle in Detroit over access to water, underfunded public education, the resistance to increasing access to healthcare, the growing damage to the environment, and our crumbling infrastructure provide examples of the 'naked self-interest' of those who are working hard to avoid meeting their social responsibilities. Meanwhile the housing bubble, the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and the way we fund our healthcare show that all others are exploitable in the search for profits.

But perhaps one of the greatest reminders of the truth of the quote at the beginning of this post is the growing replacement of the shareholder for the stakeholder which is taking place in the business world. A friend of mine told me of a business class he took where they were asked what should be done with a product that was found to be deficient in one's home country. The answer that was booed and rejected was the one that said to not sell the product elsewhere. The answer that was cheered was the one that said to put shareholder interests first by marketing the failed product in other countries.

Some workers tell me of how their interactions with workers from other companies reinforce the idea that shareholder returns is the predominant concern of those other companies. This concern is shown in the number and pay of the employees in those other companies and even in the stock available to order. Outsourcing work to other countries and utilizing sweatshop and trafficked labor, as does lack of concern for damage done to the environment, also reinforces the contention that shareholder returns is the highest and sometimes the only concern of many companies. 

Such would suggest that the '[it]' in the quote at the beginning of this post could be replaced with the word 'shareholder' and in many cases, that would be correct. But legislation supporting the police's ability to profit from seized personal assets, the revolving door between all sorts of government officials and private industry, the buying of our elections, and the corruptibility of many of our public officials shows that the shareholders is not the only group that can be substituted in the opening quote.

As we are both divided and isolated from others while being told that we are solely responsible for obtaining our own 'pot of gold,' we are becoming more, both as individuals and in terms of groups we belong to, vulnerable to being able to replace the '[it]' in the opening quote.

Where does the opening quote come from? It comes from the Communist Manifesto. And though the source might intimidate some of us out of agreeing with the quote, our daily experiences do not. And we should note that one does not have to agree with Marx's solutions to see how legitimate were his concerns. Thus, the '[it]' from the quote could be replaced with today's Capitalism. Sure, those who say that greed is part of the human condition are right. But what we should note is that some systems feed our greed more than others, especially those systems that celebrate greed because they see it as a source of energy.

Such leads us to one more quote. That quote comes from I Timothy 6:10 that tells us of the evil into which the love of money can lead us. This post has been just a small scratching of the surface of the truth of this verse.

What Drives Our Denial

Perhaps the best way to summarize Western Civilization with its multiple imperialisms is to read Bartolomé De La Casas as he described the behavior of many Spaniards on the island of Hispaniola after Columbus discovered the land. He stated that the reason for the murderous behavior of the Christians on the island was to, as quickly as possible, garner for themselves as much of an unmerited amount of wealth as possible.¹

This description is not only a shoe that fits the feet of the Spaniards who took possession of the islands in the Caribbean, and it not only fits the feet of all Europeans who engaged in imperial behavior by conquering land and people for their king or themselves, it fits the behavior of today's Western nations.

For example, think about one of the most often used defenses for American Capitalism. We are told that it has brought about the greatest wealth in the history of the world. And what is implied by such a declaration is that the argument is over and there is no need to consider any other factors. Thus, we are not to ask at whose expense did our riches come. We are not told about the interventions that installed proxy governments nor are we told about the trade agreements that have caused farmers from other countries to go out of business while trying to compete with our subsidized agribusinesses. And though we hear about the sweatshop labor that manufactures many of the trinkets which we find so captivating, we become personally disconnected from their plight. 

Or we could look at how Americans generally regard the Global Warming debate. For if we took the global warming warnings seriously, then we would have to significantly change our lifestyles. We could no longer let profit and consumption reign as king and queen of our economy. Those with wealth, and this would include many from the Middle Class, would have to scale back their lifestyle and, to prevent those who already live in poverty from doing the same, would have to share with others. In fact, our whole country would have to cut back on consumption and even some production in order to give people from poorer countries a chance to improve their lives. 

But such is not the American Dream. For the American Dream consists of accumulating as much wealth for oneself as one can so that one can build their own "fantasy island." On that island, luxuries isolate one from the outside world. For the American Dream is about individual success living for oneself. So accepting the warnings about Global Warming will involve giving up on a significant part of the American Dream. Thus, accepting the Global Warming warnings will result in recognizing the welfare of others and making sacrifices for them rather than living just for ourselves. For it means that we buy less for ourselves and try to ensure that others will have more.

Life is simpler when one only has to worry about oneself. And that same life can seem more inviting when it is about accumulating experiences and riches. So when ugly truths about the exploitation of others and environmental problems start to force their way into our field of vision, we see them as a threat to our own status quo and peace of mind. We view these truths as telling us that the party is over and it is now time to get serious. But the party beckons us to stay. We have many more pleasures to experience, the party tells us. And so what we decide to do comes down whether we are willing to say to ourselves, "enough is enough." We have to choose between getting more and settling for less so others can have more. Thus, this choice of ours determines what we will be willing to believe.


References

1. The Devastation Of The Indies; A Brief Account (1542) by Bartolomé De La Casas, printed in Voices Of A People's History Of The United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, pg 37
   or for an exact quote, click this video link