Perhaps the most striking paradox of modern economics is the existence of near-record levels of involuntary unemployment.
Consider: there are millions of people who have bills and obligations to pay, for things that they want to keep (but are in danger of losing to their creditors). Among these millions (and their creditors, perhaps), to dig up an antiquated term, you’d think there would be some double-coincidence of wants. That is, couldn’t they help themselves by helping each other?
In Michigan, something like 14% of the work-force is currently unemployed. These people are losing their homes, their cars, their families — their lives. Nationally, I believe the figure is currently around 9% which is a 25-year high. But few, if any of these people want to be unemployed. They didn’t quit their jobs. They didn’t stop paying their obligations because they are deadbeats, scofflaws, or criminals. They were essentially forced out of work, into their current condition, by a grossly perverted economic system.
Couldn’t they help themselves? Yes. And no.
I’ve been pondering this paradox for a while now:
As long as needs and wants remain unsatisfied, it doesn’t make sense that people are losing jobs left and right.
Yes, we could help ourselves by helping each other. But no, unfortunately, there are decades and decades of interference contributing to unsustainable growth, unsustainable structures of production, and unsustainable levels of debt, which all need to be undone. Undoing it will be painful. The political choice is to slap a band-aid on it, grant everyone a reprieve of uncertain duration, and attempt to restore faith in the zombieconomy, which as John Robb succinctly states,
When authorities resort to
propagandaconfidence building instead of substantive action in response to an actual crisis, you know you are in real trouble
This band-aid, “confidence building” course of action may appear to “fix” the economy. Until the next crisis, crises of course being endemic to the system. In reality, restoring faith in a system which deserves none, only serves to perpetuate a system which will only continue to suck the life out of humanity until it is slain, or until it takes us all down with it.
What we need is a sustainable economy, and the degree to which we can wrest ourselves free of the crushing and now insatiable debt burdens, foist upon us by the zombieconomy is extremely limited. The zombieconomy is unsustainable, because it thrives on the perpetuation of debt, which itself thrives upon mere faith. I submit that no viable system can survive on faith alone. I sustainable economy must (in accordance with Say’s Law) be erected upon a foundation of production and free exchange.
All that needs to be done is nothing! Let people produce wealth unimpeded, let them be free in order that they may propser.
The zombieconomy needs to be broken. Some good old-fashioned, well-timed revolts won’t hurt. Revolts against the status quo. Revolts against a broken monetary system which is the foundation of our shell-game, rat-race economy.
Agorism is the weapon of choice.
Agorism is the non-violent, free-market-based means by which individuals, acting in their own best interests (in order to satisfy the interests of other individuals), may achieve lasting prosperity. When the white market refuses to employ you (and one-in-seven of your neighbors) for wage or salary, you and your neighbors need to ask yourselves, “What can we do for one another, which previously required our dependence upon the zombieconomy that utterly failed to provide for us? What can we do to reduce our reliance on this system?”
Here we are, one-in-ten or one-in-seven unemployed but with needs yet unmet. Isn’t there a way for us to meet one another’s needs?
Answer those questions, and break the chains that bind.
