So I’m working with Culture Push’s ArtCraftTech think tank on trying to find different ways to think about money and healthcare. We’ll be having a couple of public events in December. It was a great chance for me to start thinking about the problem of money and why, despite its brilliant efficiency, it encourages overconsumption on the one hand and neglect of the finer human strivings on the other. To that end, I wrote this problem statement for the group to utilize in developing a new model of thought around such issues:
The Mortaliteconomy: A Problem Statement about Money and a Potential Solution
Money. It is a problem, this we know. Everybody you’ve ever met uses it as the primary means for transacting goods and services. It is a brilliant system, building on the earlier barter system by adding the capacity for trades to be made for value instead of specific goods. Because of Money, a bus driver need not give rides to rice farmers in order to get the rice he needs. Brilliant. But, at the same time, an enormous amount of the world’s suffering is a result of the strange behavior of Money. People who have a great deal of Money tend to get more. People who have very little have a hard time gaining more. Consumerism runs rampant. Poetry is forgotten and poets give up and become lawyers. Healthcare becomes unavailable to a great number of people, even though the people who provide that care wish it to be available. A woman walks into a building filled with the drugs and the equipment necessary to save her life, and staffed by people whose only goal is to save lives, and, because of the Money problem, she cannot access any of it. Why are you behaving so oddly, Money?
My friends, consider the following:
- The monetary system is remarkably efficient. Goods are able to travel thousands of miles to satisfy distant needs. The faster they travel and the cheaper they are, the happier Money is.
- This efficiency applies most immediately to basic needs: food, drink, clothing, shelter, transportation, entertainment
- and, primarily, Money itself.
- This efficiency is limited primarily and most consistently to these basic needs, though it has been known to stray.
- As systems of transportation and accounting become more efficient, and governments become less interested in interfering with Money’s evolution, Money becomes better at what it does best, and concurrently worse and what it does worst.
- Which is to attend to long-term needs and finer, more unquantifiable needs. This includes, for instance: Health; what is the value of health? How much does a life cost? Also, for instance: Poetry. Also, for instance: The Love of Family. Money tries to figure these out, admirably applying its supply-and-demand reasoning to these things, but, mostly, Money is non-plussed by these, and pecks away at the goods and services related to these, then returns to what it understands best.
- Given its indisposition to meet these finer, unquantifiable needs, once Money has transcended its capacity to satisfy the basic needs, it returns to those same needs again and again in more and more dangerous ways.
- Having already fulfilled the need for bread and water, Money turns its efficiency eye upon them again and produces Big Macs and Pepsi Cola; having fulfilled the need for clothing, Money turns to it again and produces Air Jordans and Gucci handbags; having fulfilled the need for shelter, Money returns to it again and makes it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, manically expending the majority of its energy on the goods and services it knows how to move most efficiently.
- In its mania it tries to satisfy the most immediate elements of the unquantifiables – the sense that they have been fulfilled in the short run. To this end, Money begets Advertising to associate these unquantifiable needs with their coarser cousins. A loving family is associated with the Family Pack and the Family Calling Plan. Commercials refer to cars as poetry. Yogurt and sugar cereals are the key to healthy living. As this happens, Money encourages the neglect of Poetry and Family and Health because Money cannot efficiently deal with these. Citizens become consumers. Hurricanes are measured in economic impact. The unquantifiables become loci of shame and are forced into the flickering fluorescent light of government patronage.
Continue reading ‘The Mortaliteconomy and the Solution to the Healthcare Crisis’
Filed under: Ideas, Money | 1 Comment
Tags: abraham burickson, art, economics, healthcare, Money, overconsumption, poetry, theory
In October of 2009 I was thinking about cities. What makes a city a city? Is it the density? The commerce? The cultural institutions? We all know a city when we come to one – what is that?
Perhaps it has something to do with desire. So one Sunday morning a few friends and I set out walking. We decided we would walk someplace new and take turns leading. The only guide was our desire. We ended up in private gardens and a flea market, a hippie commune, an antiques mall, a couple of art galleries, and a hilltop homeless enclave, among other places. Afterwards I wrote this essay – Cities of Desire (with apologies to Italo Calvino) – about what makes a city a city.
What you see here are the images from our walk along with field recordings of the sounds from the city. Overlaid on all this is the essay. The walkers were: Alejandra Orozco, Robert Hudon, Cynthia Rothschild, and me (Abraham Burickson). Enjoy.
Filed under: Ideas, architecture, design | Leave a Comment
Tags: abraham burickson, Architecture, brazil, city, poetry, san francisco, urbanism
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