Tuesday, April 26, 2005
We're so damn fixated on the end that we forget to just look around.
I was talking to my girlfriend the other day. We were reading some article in the local paper that was discussing new spiritualist movements in the city. One was Buddhist and of course the Buddhists want to be enlightened.
The article referred to enlightenment as though it were a thing. Some sort of destination and you were either there or you weren't. As I read the article I could almost imagine the landscape of enlightenment, as though it were some sort of place in the clouds, but instead of everyone wearing white robes and having wings they wore yellow robes and had really long ear lobes.
I think it misses the point.
We're all about destinations in this society. We're all about getting a job and getting married and getting the kids grown and getting retired. Process is just a means to us, something to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible. We can't even conceive that it could be the goal.
So given that, I guess its natural that we're all about getting enlightened.
I have a feeling that if the Buddha were alive today he'd shake his head and laugh, and then probably come up with a new word to describe his process.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Sinking Globalism
John Ralston Saul has a new book that’s coming out called the end of Globalism. I haven’t read the book, all I've read is a little blurb about it that didn't really say much. However, when I heard the title I began to think about it in the context of what I’ve been reading lately.
I don't know if Globalism is dead yet, but it looks sick, and I think the pressures on it are only going to get worse.
To accept Globalism means to accept that market forces will determine the direction of society unimpeded. This is a fine proposition when you're winning. But when you're losing then it doesn't seem so wonderful.
Let’s examine some evidence.
The US congress is lobbying for a 27.5% tax on Chinese goods unless China goes and revalues their currency peg against the dollar. The tax is the outcome of politicians looking to appease dissatisfied Americans who feel that American jobs are being undermined by cheap Chinese labour. For example, the average Chinese auto-worker makes about $2/hour. And that's a heck of a good wage there.
People in the US are dissatisfied because job growth in the US sucks. We're well into an economic recovery and job growth isn't even keeping up with the birth and immigration rates.
Job growth in the US sucks because the average Chinese worker makes about $2/day.
In France there is a May 29th European Union constitutional vote that looks like it could go either way. A no vote would be a blow to the EU. Its true that part of the discontent in France is with the reigning Chirac government, but part is based on skepticism about whether the constitution will usher in a plethora of low wage competition for French workers.
Other established EU nations are nervous about the cheap labour competition that they are facing from fellow lessor developed EU nations like Hungary, Slovakia, Poland. Germany, for one, is looking at legislation to limit the wages of Hungarian immigrants coming to Germany, as the influx has weighed on the standard of living Germans. In Hungary, wages are about 1/10th that of Germany.
I could go on, but this is a blog, not a scientific paper, so I don't have to prove my point ad nauseum.
There is a massive disequibilrium in wages. Our Globalist formula depends on letting markets choose their labour. Until that disequilibrium disappears, markets will almost always choose the cheapest labour.
Any disequilibrium in the market, or anywhere in nature for that matter, will tend towards equilibrium. The disequilibrium in wages won't be any different.
We, in the west, will lose.
Tell me how we are going to maintain our current Western wage standards in the face of extremely low wage competition? Yes, the wages in the poorer nations will rise, but I find it impossible to believe that this will be done in a vaccuum, without a corresponding fall in wages for the richer nations.
Meanwhile, on another stormy front, oil is at what today? $55/bbl or something close to that. Saudi Arabia keeps making promises of putting more oil on-stream, but nobody believes them. Even if they do, its going to be heavy oil, its going to need more refining, and its not going to be cheap. Oil, in the longer term, is only going to become more scarce, and this is only going to strain relations between countries further.
When you look at the supply/demand dynamics of oil over the next 5 years, you quickly realise that its going to get ugly. There just isn't the supply coming on-stream to keep up with solid economic growth. Much of the potential supply is in areas that aren't politically stable.
What does this mean? It means that countries are going to be under increasing competition for dwindling oil reserves. The obvious question is - how far will a country go to secure oil supplies? Well we have a first example with Iraq.
I just don't see how globalism is going to survive all this hostility. We're already seeing the buds of such hostility in the above mentioned events. People will fall back on their governments to protect their standards of living. Businesses will fall back on governments to protect their energy supplies. And the globalism ship, with its open market rudder, will sink.
And then we can come up with a grand new theory to pad the pockets of business.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Hypocrisy
I went out walking. I was looking for one good capitalist.
I went to the tallest of the steel towers that lit up the horizon. I traveled to the very top floor.
Inside there were men seated around a solid oak table, leaning back in their chairs and looking very satisfied. Each of these men wore an expensive suit and had mostly perfect silver hair. I sat down with them and asked them if they were capitalists. They scoffed that I should even ask. So Itook them at their word and asked themto speak about their ideology; they replied with certainty, with unwavering conviction, and would have no part of any rebuttal. They spoke of the need to grow, and I listened at first with interest, but soon it was clear that their growth was aimed at a piece of paper and a price attached to it. Their interest was in that price and not in the production.
And I knew that these fellows were not capitalists.
I went down a floor and stepped into a large office where a man wearing a plain white shirt and tie worked diligently at his desk. I asked him if he was a capitalist and he replied 'damn right he was'. He told me that he ran this company and I asked him if he owned it. He said no. But he ran it. So I asked him what would happen to him if things went sour. He told me the fellows upstairs would fire him. I asked him whether that would leave him with nothing and he told me that no, he had taken care of that, and had negotiated a severance into his contract for such a case.
It occurred to me that this man had nothing at risk in this company he ran. He was an employee. One with responsibility, but still an employee.
And I knew this fellow was not a capitalist.
So then I walked to the old, clay buildings, where there are mostly old men with wide toothy grins and hearty handshakes.
I went looking for a particular man I had heard give a speech on the radio. He had espoused the virtues of a free market and spoke of the glory that its invisible hand would lead us to.
I found him in an office lush with expensive decoration. I sat down on his leather chair and asked him if he was a capitalist. I am indeed he replied, and he gave me a perfect smile. I asked him about his ideology. He gave me the same speech that I had heard on the radio, he said it verbatim. He told me it was all inevitable, that the market was an unstoppable force and that we were best served yielding to its dictum. It was all out of our hands he said, out of our hands.
I looked around his office, at its luxurious interior, full of art far too expensive for his pay. I asked him what he did before he ran for office. He told me he was a lawyer. I tried to ask him more, but he told me he had to go, he was being taken out for lunch.
I knew this fellow was no capitalist either.
I had given up my search. I took the bus home. After about two stops a scruffy man in a rumpled suit got on. He looked deep in thought and somewhat distressed.
I asked him what troubled him. He told me that he had just lost business to a competitor. He told me his mistakes and how he had misunderstood his market. I said yes that would bring any man troubles. But he looked at me and shook his head. No, he said, I'm not troubled. I've learned a lot. And I will not make the same mistake next time. I'm just trying to figure out what I should do next.
He had a relentless look in his eye, and I knew he understood the torture of success. His appearance was pocked with a thousand battles, many of them lost, but he carried with him a confidence. But it was a different confidence then I had seen earlier that day, it was not built upon the certainty of any invisible theory, it was built upon the only thing he could be certain of; that if he was beaten down again he would get right back up.
This, I thought, was a capitalist. The others only sullied the name.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
I know I'm harping a bit here, but I REALLY recommend this fellow's website. He has a great post today on jobs and housing and the unsustainability of it all.
I promise you'll learn something.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
I have an addiction. It holds me back and bottles my freedom.
So I gotta bring it under control.
There's this line I like, and it goes something like 'insight erupts not from the thinking mind, but from learning how to restrain your thinking mind.'
My most worthwhile thoughts, those that are colored with imagination and a smattering of truth, come from a barren desert and an empty sky.
They do not come from confusion, from anger, or from greed. And they definitely don't come from the mind of a million scattered thoughts.
This addiction I have, it creates all these minds. It hijacks my awareness and takes me away through a wormhole. Away from this world. It makes me want things to be different.
I need to try to let it go.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Outsourcing our soul
This is an excellent post, and an excellent website for that matter.
The internet is an amazing place. I have learned more by reading the articles on this fellow's blog then I would in 1000 hours of watching CNN, CNBC, or CBC newsworld.
My conclusion. It only strengthens my conviction that a hard rains coming.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Quiet Desperation
I'm always beating around the bush. And that can be fine, even preferable, but by doing so its all too easy to lose the message in the leaves.
So maybe I'll be blunt for once and just ask the question…
Are we leading lives of quiet desperation?
Its a rhythm I keep hearing in conversation. Again and again, different words, different language, but the same expression, beating like a drum.
Not satisfied, unsure of what do, all the possibilities seem bleak, no point to any of it, unappreciated, can't get up in the morning, what alternatives are there, what choices do i have, feeling trapped, feeling hopeless.
Could it just be a coincidence of sample size?
I don't think so. I don't think that this is just me carelessly extrapolating the words of a few malcontents. I think its something much more pervasive.
I think there is a serious structural flaw in the way that we live.
The interesting thing about a structural flaw is that it pervades through all of us and everything, and therefore is mostly unconscious to us. As an underlying premise upon which our lives are based, we don't even know that its there.
The consequence of this is what I hear. Somethings wrong, I don't know what, I'm confused, but the world goes on as it always has so everybody else must be ok and I guess that means there must be something wrong with me.
So I'll shut up and pretend I'm ok too.
Quiet Desperation.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Masks
Last night I dreamt of the devil. I've never done that before. I've dreamt about ghosts and skeletons and frightening beasts, but never the devil himself.
Until last night. Last night I dreamt I made masks for the devil.
I made them among grey leaves under an old, autumn tree; it was grey and knurled itself. Every so often the devil would come and take those masks that he desired. I don't remember much of him, except, strangely, I remember his teeth. I remember his teeth because as he approached he gave me a smile that showed them quite clearly. It should have been scary but wasn't. They were boney white, way too white, and they were larger then any I have ever seen. And for some reason they reminded me of eternity and made me think desperately of escape.
But it was not because I was afraid of him. I wasn't. I felt that I knew my place, that he knew it too, and that I did good work so I had nothing to fear.
Still, there was a feel of eternity in his teeth and it made me want to leave.
So when the devil had left with his masks I decided to attempt my escape. For cover I put on one of the masks he had left. I knew that the mask wouldn't fool the devil, but that it would fool most everyone else, all those who strangely were absent, but who I knew lurked about.
Though the details of my escape are no longer clear, they have been lost in the fog of my consciousness, I managed to get away. I hid at first in a neighbors house, in the room with my best friends sister, and then later, having been forced to flee as my friend became the devil, I lay hidden in a field of tall, ripe barley.
Until that time I kept thinking that I must continue to run. This gripped me with fear. But among the barley my fear was replaced and for a moment I felt a profound sense of freedom. I realized that I was no longer a slave to my labor of making masks for the devil. I felt strong and in control.
But it didn't last. It was replaced by a much more insidious thought.
A terrible thought! Much worse then fear! I was free from my labor, yes, but I was gripped by a new slavery, one subsumed under a different name. I would always be on the run from the devil, yes, but worse, I had only the world around me, I was limited by it, and my freedom was contained to what it could offer.
I began to wake up, and in that half-conscious swirl of dreams and bed covers it occurred to me that all my freedom could be struck down by simple perspective. That I would always be running in this finite world, of which everything was terribly grey. It would never be absolute. And that the devil would always be able to see through my mask.
I woke up like that. I went to the bathroom to look at my pallid skin and sunken eyes. And I thought to myself quite lucidly now that there is no freedom out there at all, it is only an illusion, and thus all freedom must exist inside.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
