Recently Ann Marie was talking with me about the concept of a job vs. a career, and that so much attention is paid to faceless numbers like 'job creation' as opposed to individuals' actualization and fulfillment.

It got me thinking--what is the real goal of our national and world economy? We hear so much lip service being paid to capitalism as the greatest system on earth, that free markets are the foundation of our free country, blah blah. But at the end of the day, what is it for?

From the way it has developed in modern history, it seems a fair conclusion to say that the economy exists for its own sake, and that its only true purpose is growth. The question of individual human worth and meaning is not even brought up, and the reality that there is no such thing as unchecked growth in the natural world is nervously brushed aside.

And this strikes me as strange. Even with our natural human selfishness, even with our tendency to horde and conquer and want, when I take a step back it seems so odd to me that the gargantuan engines and structures of our modern economy have been built in support of what amounts to an abstraction, an economic theory.

You'll hear economists talk about wealth creation, about a country's standard of living, etc, but really, there's no broad measure of human happiness and health that our economy can be said to be a real success at, and if you look at what drives the market, general affluence is not much more than a byproduct. Can our greatness as a community be measured in the number of plasma TVs or iPods we manage to buy? (Because increasingly, our country only buys now, doesn't produce.)

Have we come to a point in our history where we can no longer ask fundamental questions about our very societal structures and foundations, or is it still possible to ask: what are we striving for? Why are we working ourselves into the grave for this abstraction instead of a shared goal of, say, no one starving or living in poverty? Is it impossible to conceive of a society in which true welfare and health of all its citizens is a mandate which must be met before any other goal--such as massive hoarding of wealth and luxury by a small number of individuals--can even be considered? Is it possible for us to measure our success in a shared way, as opposed to the "scrambling to get mine" mindset which plagues us?

I'm not even talking about socialism, really. I'm just wondering about an economic system which every year seems to grow more amoral and abstract, and toward which all our social structures, from schools onward, seem to be directed. At the end of the day, does the economy serve us, or do we exist only to support the economy?

Labels: Culture