Proxy government

The markets are sly and very well adapted to hiding their tentacles. No rich consumer, producer or misappropriated hungry owner of goods produced on fertile Ethiopian soil ever knows the magical interaction underlying their ethically problematic exchanges. Not even the distributors or government agents pushing these policies have to realize the full scope of what they enact. Everyone has pieces of papers to hide behind, and beautiful policies of development.

It is therefore quite ironic, to see the markets turn against some of its most enthusiastic supporters of the last half century. Western governments, be they socialist, liberal or 'independent' are running the rat race, pushed to the brink by the turmoil in the aftermath of the financial crisis. And though the 'greatest common denominator' farce of American politics has long settled down in Europe, too, we can see how grand old political 'identities' melt away under the pressure.

No matter who gets elected, regardless of their identity and promises. It is official now: it is the market that rules us. It decides when we get up and when we go to sleep. What we eat, how long we eat it for. What we study, what is deemed 'valuable' (and isn't it beautiful that this word is such a double-edged sword, has gradually eloped its original meaning and has now turned on us) as a skill or as knowledge.

Whereas economy used to mean: oiko-nomia: the laws (or management) of the house. A 'rational' way to manage our household and patrimony as individuals, it has slowly encompassed ever greater wholes. It has now become a very efficient means for the mobilization of labour, though the goals are no longer subservient to our needs. Our needs have become subservient to its goals, which are ill-defined and quite irrational. There is the vain promise of progress, but what is progress but a very human goal? Who or what defines progress? Is it nowadays about nothing but novelty? About making more money in ever shorter spurts? Doesn't that go at the expense of the long-term efficiency of economic production itself?

It seems the only thing we can compare the current economic system with, is a virus. It spreads, multiplies, reproduces itself in ever more advanced models, to attain more control over its environment. But it is so wildly successful that it is choking its hosts: humanity and the planet. Ebola was a very dramatic disease, but because it was such a swift killer, it never lasted long beyond its initial outbreaks. It was not a smart disease. HIV is enormously more successful, as it takes its time to spread, then kill.

Will the economy prove to be a slow or a swift killer? Or will its hosts prove resilient enough to develop with it, as it becomes endemic, while the two learn to define and develop one another, as is the case in so many symbiotic relationships? I am most curious to find out.