The economy as a moral framework

One thing the novel coronavirus loves about us is our built-in penchant for interaction. Now there is an ever-increasing probability that whoever we’re talking to is spraying little droplets of hopeful coronavirus

This has properly focused our attention on just how frequently we interact with each other. And hopefully also on the nature of those interactions.

I drove through Montagu Gardens, past the commercial buildings looking down at heel and drab despite being bedecked in a proliferation of red and blue To Let signs and through the informal settlement where the most vivid colour in the late Cape Town winter was the corporate yellow of the MTN satellite dishes on the shacks.

The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor

Leonard Cohen

The economy is on everyone’s minds and lips and the keyboards of journalists too. How much of our interaction is described in the language of commerce?

The pandemic has illuminated how deeply embedded most of our interactions are in commerce. Childhood development, education, health, food, shelter every aspect of our lives appears not to be able to stand separate from the massive system we broadly refer to as “the economy”.

Economic activity is the organising principle of our society.

Of course, we have to trade with each other, and we’ve been doing that for millenia. In this century, however, the language and logic of economics provides the most prevalent logic through which to interpret the world and guide our actions.

Is this a good thing? How else may we organise our society so that there is food, shelter, well cared for and trained children and a meaningful life for us? Is “the economy” the only way to provide these things?

The general reaction to the ban on the sale and distribution of alcohol prompted some of this line of thinking. Much has been made of the economic loss that this ban has created. Something called the “alcohol industry” has decided not to invest 6 billion rand in upgrades to their manufacturing plants. The government is said to have lost hundreds of millions in tax revenue from the sale of alcohol. Livelihoods are being lost and terrible suffering inflicted on the families of people who grow the plants, supervise their fermentation, manufacture the bottles and their caps, engineer the devices that pump all of that ferment into bottles, truck drivers who long haul it, packers who pack it and cashiers who bag it.

The children of many of those people have their supply of nourishment, teaching and shelter interrupted. It’s a tragedy.

By all that is holy we must get back to manufacturing and drinking alcohol as soon as possible.

“It’s madness not to”, says the industry.

“Foolish government to forego all of that revenue which could do so much good”, say the economists.

“We want to eat!”, say the waiters who are no longer allowed to bring glass after glass of ethanol to the people they serve so that their children might eat.

We have to start fermenting sugar to make this drug in massive quantities post haste. We had better all start drinking it again like thirsty camels. In a very real way, lives depend on it.

How can it be that so many people have their connection to the basics of life supported by the manufacture and large-scale consumption of an addictive and psychoactive chemical?

What is it about our world or our brains that make the consumption of so much of this drug so attractive to us? Is it a good thing that we do this?

To devotees of the economy this is a no brainer. “Of course, it’s a good thing. Look how much money it circulates. Look how many people are working so that their children can eat.”

From the point of view of “the economy” anything that has us interacting and circulating money is a good thing. How many jobs does it create? How much revenue does it provide government? How many fund managers can invest the money of pensioners and millionaires and ensure that the money grows and so keep their children warm and well fed?

I wonder if we can imagine a right and good and true path outside of this moral framework? Is it possible?

Is it necessary?