The Matrix Economy
Do you remember the movie The Matrix? That's a rhetorical question: I know you remember The Matrix. It was way cool - 'bullet time,' Mr. Smith, Neo, the red pill. What's not to like.
It occurs to me that the future dystopia depicted in the film is a lot like the way our economy operates. I was reading a bit about the Depression. No, not the 2008 Bush-Obama free-fall, but the Great Depression of the 1930's.
At that time, unregulated big money interests placed huge bets which they could not cover. At the same time, unforeseen effects (crashing farm prices caused massive loan and mortgage defaults, etc.) depressed the economy and made many assets worthless. Holders of the debt had to call it in at a time when the assets used as collateral were worth roughly what the chewing gum stuck under your desk is worth (don't look- you know it's there).
Hmm. Maybe I am talking about 2008.
The Republican response by President Hoover was to bail out the Banksters. At a time when broke and starving war veterans were setting up a shanty town in DC to demand federal help, the only aid Hoover sent was in the form of active-duty soldiers with fixed bayonets to chase them out of town (and later brag about it).
Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) bailed out his friends in the big banks (but not the little ones which were folding and wiping out their depositor's life savings). Fast forward to 2008, when the response to the burst housing bubble which led to millions of underwater mortgages and thousands of foreclosures was met by a Wall Street & AIG bailout. Again, Banksters were bailed out and the little guy lost homes and life savings.
The 1930's produced Franklin D. Roosevelt, the greatest friend the little guy ever had. FDR fixed the banking system, the farms, and even added Social Security. He paid for enormous public works projects to keep people employed. He gave Americans back their dignity.
We haven't been so lucky since 2008. President Obama talked FDR but has run the place as Reagan. Even 'Obamacare' is a right-wing Heritage Foundation idea from the 1980's. The American Right has moved so far right that moderate-right Obama seems like he's on the left. If only he had the guts to be FDR (or Lyndon Johnson, but that's a story for another day).
In The Matrix, the world is run by massive machines which harvest humans for the energy their bodies produce, because the sun's rays are blocked and that's the only source of energy (quite a stretch, I know). To keep the humans quiet in their pods, they are connected The Matrix, a 24/7 virtual reality based on 1999 civilization.
Isn't that what the economy is all about? Millions of us working and spending for an elite of unknowable super rich and global corporations? None of us are individually important to the 1%, but together we are indispensable. We are fed dreams of wealth and happiness by corporate media constantly. Every bit of news and entertainment is funneled to support the worldview of our corporate masters.
Look at Wal-Mart. The Walton family are some of the wealthiest people on the planet. Their wealth derives entirely from people who shop at Wal-Mart. No one of their shoppers matters to them, but without the mass of shoppers they're doomed. Target failed in Canada - they didn't deliver enough Matrix goodies to their pod people.
Look: the "elites" expect us to stay happily hooked up to the machines that draw value from our efforts. They take it for granted - our labour is their birthright. But they're not really giant robots and they have no right to our sweat equity. We know that when things go wrong, they and the government that works solely for their interest will save their worthless, venal, over-privileged hides long before (instead of) ours.
The only way to fight the machines is to get together and refuse to donate our energy. We have to pull out of our pods - take the red pill.
It occurs to me that the future dystopia depicted in the film is a lot like the way our economy operates. I was reading a bit about the Depression. No, not the 2008 Bush-Obama free-fall, but the Great Depression of the 1930's.
At that time, unregulated big money interests placed huge bets which they could not cover. At the same time, unforeseen effects (crashing farm prices caused massive loan and mortgage defaults, etc.) depressed the economy and made many assets worthless. Holders of the debt had to call it in at a time when the assets used as collateral were worth roughly what the chewing gum stuck under your desk is worth (don't look- you know it's there).
Hmm. Maybe I am talking about 2008.
The Republican response by President Hoover was to bail out the Banksters. At a time when broke and starving war veterans were setting up a shanty town in DC to demand federal help, the only aid Hoover sent was in the form of active-duty soldiers with fixed bayonets to chase them out of town (and later brag about it).
Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) bailed out his friends in the big banks (but not the little ones which were folding and wiping out their depositor's life savings). Fast forward to 2008, when the response to the burst housing bubble which led to millions of underwater mortgages and thousands of foreclosures was met by a Wall Street & AIG bailout. Again, Banksters were bailed out and the little guy lost homes and life savings.
The 1930's produced Franklin D. Roosevelt, the greatest friend the little guy ever had. FDR fixed the banking system, the farms, and even added Social Security. He paid for enormous public works projects to keep people employed. He gave Americans back their dignity.
We haven't been so lucky since 2008. President Obama talked FDR but has run the place as Reagan. Even 'Obamacare' is a right-wing Heritage Foundation idea from the 1980's. The American Right has moved so far right that moderate-right Obama seems like he's on the left. If only he had the guts to be FDR (or Lyndon Johnson, but that's a story for another day).
In The Matrix, the world is run by massive machines which harvest humans for the energy their bodies produce, because the sun's rays are blocked and that's the only source of energy (quite a stretch, I know). To keep the humans quiet in their pods, they are connected The Matrix, a 24/7 virtual reality based on 1999 civilization.
Isn't that what the economy is all about? Millions of us working and spending for an elite of unknowable super rich and global corporations? None of us are individually important to the 1%, but together we are indispensable. We are fed dreams of wealth and happiness by corporate media constantly. Every bit of news and entertainment is funneled to support the worldview of our corporate masters.
Look at Wal-Mart. The Walton family are some of the wealthiest people on the planet. Their wealth derives entirely from people who shop at Wal-Mart. No one of their shoppers matters to them, but without the mass of shoppers they're doomed. Target failed in Canada - they didn't deliver enough Matrix goodies to their pod people.
Look: the "elites" expect us to stay happily hooked up to the machines that draw value from our efforts. They take it for granted - our labour is their birthright. But they're not really giant robots and they have no right to our sweat equity. We know that when things go wrong, they and the government that works solely for their interest will save their worthless, venal, over-privileged hides long before (instead of) ours.
The only way to fight the machines is to get together and refuse to donate our energy. We have to pull out of our pods - take the red pill.
posted by fiduciary at 11:07 AM
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