On Tuesday of last week, I had a student of
mine come to my coffee shop office hours to question me on my belief in capitalism.
I hold four hours of office hours a week, two of which I have in one of the
coffee shops on UBC campus. I encourage students to come to the coffee shop space
to have more informal conversations rather than specific questions on
assignments or course content. The student who came to see me on Tuesday is in
my 4th year seminar on ‘Geographical Narratives of the Middle East’,
but she is a student I taught in her first year at UBC in 2016. In the previous
week’s seminar, the focus of our discussion was on migration and I had focused
on economic migration within the cities of the Gulf States. As I often think
about around my research in the region but also having time living and working
there, I question the model of economic growth and how the migration system is
structured. My position is that it is not capitalism that is to blame, but rather a
hyper-neoliberalism taking place within autocratic systems of governance.
Please excuse me while I get a little ‘nerdy’
here and take you on a short trip to some of the theory I explored in my PhD
research. Essentially, I contend (and of course I did not come up with this
approach) that what we are living through now is the complete disembowelment of
the market from the rest of the body/society. If we think of human existence as
being a living breathing system, which of course it is, what has occurred in
recent history is a prioritization of market exchange over other aspects of
society. I have a deep and unrelenting admiration for a dead man! Karl Polanyi
was an economic historian who was born in Hungry but emigrated to Canada around
the time of the Second World War. Polanyi argued that we cannot separate the
market from society, that exchange is inherent to human interaction and hence must
be understood within the context of culture, as all exchange is grounded in
culture. Economic decisions cannot be viewed as rational as humans make a
living interacting within their social and natural environments; therefore, economics
is simply the way in which society meets material needs. Is Polanyi in direct
contradiction with Adam Smith’s rational self-interest and competition as leading
to economic prosperity. I spent a lot of time trying to formulate arguments that
in fact I think the two men would have had a lot to talk about over dinner.
Smith had a background in philosophy as well as economics. I remember well
reading his works in my first-year economics courses during my undergraduate
degree – my thoughts were always yes this makes so much sense that as humans we
ultimately want to better ourselves in life and we will strive to do so. Consequently,
as human beings we are inherently selfish in our objectives. Am I contradicting
my own thoughts in my blog on ‘Approaching education from an empathetic
foundation’ and ‘My ego and a community in social activism’? Not at all, I
sense I am developing my contemplations further as I continue to work through
it in my mind. I ended my blog, ‘My ego and a community in social activism’ by
declaring my personal goal to transcend my selfish ego to be part of something
bigger than myself – I see this post as following in that vein, but thinking
about it in a broader context than simply my own actions. I put forward to you
my reader, that there is a distinctive difference between selfishness and ego,
and the former does not have to be a negative state if we have the structure in
place to support. Pursuing that line of thinking I see Smith and Polanyi as
having a conversation that is fitting pieces into a whole. Polanyi, is arguing
that we cannot remove the market from the wider society, and Smith grounded in
a philosophical argument is claiming that when making economic exchange
decisions there needs to be a rational component to the interaction. So to the
basics of capitalism: I need to make a living. I have a product I produce or
make. I have my skills (intellectual or physical labour). Where the problem
arises is where a value is put on my body/labour that is removed from the
social framing of the rest of society. If you are really interested in Polanyi
he makes a strong argument for the fictitious nature of labour and land, let’s
talk more or I can recommend some readings 😀. Did
it begin with Chattel Slavery in the 1500s as Africans were taken across the Atlantic
with a monetary value placed on their bodies or was it there before? Colonialists,
merchants, traders allowed their greed (ego) to overtake their sense of
humanity and a pattern developed that has lasted to the present day, where
inequality is closely correlated to a person’s physical body.
I sense I am going to lose you if I do not
move beyond the ‘academic’ and get to why I think so much on this. The past
year has been my own ‘selfish’ journey, and then there are two narratives
recently which have resonated with me and essentially led to this blog. What
has occurred for me over the past eleven months is the birth of an internal
frame of reference, my own foundations on which I then base my actions and interactions
to and with others. I personally found this internal reference through a daily
practice around yoga and meditation called Inner Engineering. This approach has
worked for me, but the journey is different for each of us. For many their religion
may have provided a frame of reference for their lives, I know this was
certainly true for many of the societies I have lived in. But with organized religion
comes fear. You must behave in a certain way otherwise you will go to hell or
be punished for your actions. Nothing good can truly grow if it is based on
fear alone. In the course of history, we then see the rise of the Nation State
in Europe spreading gradually across the world; again, a state of existence
based on fear of what ‘others’ will do to ‘us’. With the coming of capitalism in
the 17th century, directly linked to colonialism and chattel slavery,
we see another form of fear emerging – a fear that I need to have more in order
to ‘have’. The problem is there is no sense of what to ‘have’ is. Is it a pot
of money in the back room? Is it a big house and a fancy car? Is it being
loaded down with diamonds and gold? Once again there is no frame of reference
aside from fear that we won’t have.
What we lack is a structure for empathy and
connection. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to achieve the very
best for ourselves, that is very human, we are selfish beings. What we need to
look at is what is motivating us to achieve. That in my mind can only come from
a frame of reference internally built. I am motivated in my life now by
achieving the best I possibly can, but I will not do this at the expense of others.
My internal frame is driven by wanting the positive energy I feel within to surround
everything I do, and the only way this can happen is if I allow this positive
energy to permeate my daily life. Here you can refer back to the two blogs I
mentioned above – I practice empathy and I remind myself that life is not about
what I want, but about something bigger than me. My selfishness is about having
joy surround me and everything I do.
One of the greatest tools I attribute to
this process of permeation is to listen to others’ stories. I mentioned above
that there were two narratives which inspired this blog. The first was Greta
Thunberg’s visit to Vancouver just over a week ago: the speeches lasted almost two
hours outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and yet Greta spoke only for about a
third of the time. Instead she used her ‘power’ to give the platform to indigenous
and First Nation members to tell their stories on how climate change was
impacting on their lives, and how they have knowledge we all need to pay heed
to. The second narrative which had an impact on me was the article published in
last week’s Economist on Elizabeth Warren. I found myself drawn to her personal
narrative which I will admit I had not been very aware of before. Her approach
to the economy and bringing more equality across the US is based on her own
background of coming from a working-class family, seeing her parents struggle
and then using her position as an academic at Harvard to explore what she saw
as injustices. Both women are using their positions to do something to try to make
a difference to the wider society. They are setting aside their egos to use
their voice and platform to draw attention to others. Are they being selfish, I
can’t possibly know what motivates them within themselves but I would contend that
yes, they are selfish because doing something that requires so much energy without
much monetary gain means to me that there is something else driving them aside
from ego. To me they want to facilitate the bringing of joy to the world around
them.
Back to Karl Polanyi, Adam Smith and me.
Society needs to acknowledge that seeing monetary gain as the ultimate achievement
is empty and hence impossible. We need to acknowledge that we already have all
the tools before us: we have spirituality, we have education, we have
storytelling, we have incredible technology. What we each need to do, and this
is a very selfish/self-focused journey, is find a frame of reference within
ourselves which is not motivated by fear. We can connect with one another by listening,
reassuring and supporting – I offer you my journey and thoughts as evidence
that it can be done. I continue to try to find ways that I can incorporate some
of this listening, reassuring and supporting into my teaching as well as into
my general interactions in the world.
Back to my 4th year seminar: many
of the national people of the Gulf Countries feel dislocated and lost, because their
societies have become the epitome of hyper-neoliberalism; they have no frame of
reference beyond the shopping malls and the shinning skyscrapers. Their
societies embody what we will all become (if the environment doesn’t collapse
first) if we do not act on listening, reassuring and supporting all in our
societies.
Thank you for humoring this rather long
blog post. I would really appreciate any thought you may have whether you share
them as comments below or directly with my via my email.
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