Act one of this crisis was purely financial. As act two has progressed it has become political. Soon now, if we want to keep our sanity and our dignity as ordinary, but free people, it must become personal. This crisis must become a crisis of our deepest beliefs and values – our sense of who we are and what we really value in ourselves and in others.
For the latter half of the twentieth century there has been a single ascendant view of who we are – homo economicus. The face of this creature has been held before us at every turn: in politics, on television, in books, in advertising, at school and at university. Every discussion takes him for granted as the starting and ending point. Of course not everyone agreed with this view but it has had a hegemonic power to frame and limit every discussion almost every thought.
I think it is time we seriously asked if that is really who we are? Are we people who do our jobs for money only? Or do we also do what we do out of pride in doing it, in helping others, in contributing to a larger good?
There are people, the bankers who insist that unless they get bonuses they will leave. Is that a good person? Is that you? Or are we ready to say that sort of person, that way of thinking is unacceptable and morally degenerate? Does that sound too harsh? Why? Is it not good to have social and moral values?
I wonder if homo economicus – the person we have been told we are by nature, has had his day. I wonder if we are ready to throw off that oppressive untruth, just as we threw off the lie that God had ordained a social system in which servants were created to serve their masters.
I disagree with you here Golem. I (and many people I know), would love to undertake a job that contributes to the larger good but unfortunately there aren't many of those jobs around and we have to do any job which allows us to survive.
Then again, the kind of bankers we are talking about are so rich that they do have a choice but the majority of us, while having social and moral values, have to work purely for money to pay the bills.
thesleeperawakes,
thanks for replying and thanks also for the information on the BoE.
I found myself agreeing with everything you wrote. So I'm not sure we disagree. Maybe I just didn't write what I thought very clearly. I think in reality, as you say, people do want to contribute to a larger good and don't JUST want to work for the money only. But the society we have built often gives people no choice.
We are not all happy with a state of affairs where our values are at odds with the economic choices we are forced to accept.
Interesting subject. I've always thought it revealing that the neoliberal economic experiment was kicked off by the first generation of politicians who hadn't fought together in the second world war or experienced the national bonding and thus must have had a pretty different value system from the previous generation.
Moreover the historian Mark Mazower has suggested it's no coincidence that Britain was far more eager to partake in it than those mainland European countries which experienced occupation and had learnt the painful way just how precious social cohesion and how tricky it is to repair after it's been damaged.
Also while I'm here, have you seen this article by Adam 'Always worth reading' Curtis?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/02/the_economists_new_clothes.html