Thembi Mutch
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Thembi Mutch
September 22, 2008
Am I supposed to feel sad for a load of over paid (probably overweight) men and women who get bonuses in excess of $100,000 annually, who have been sacked because they haven’t done their job well?
Am I supposed to feel sorry for people who, had they stuffed less of their wages up their noses, thought about whether they needed such absurd salaries, shopped less in corporate malls, and spread their wealth a little more equitably, may have actually supported local businesses and created a better world?
Feel sad for them? No chance.
I am being besieged, inundated with news of the global credit crunch, the disaster of falling stocks. I am, I imagine, supposed to feel awed, humbled, that ‘ancient’ Wall Street financial institutions are collapsing.
It’s not making sense. Here’s why: In the last years of British Prime Minister, Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, there were a series of strikes. In the media this was reported as we were being ‘crippled by strikes’ and the strikers (from many industries, the main ones being ship building and mining) were vilified as society wreckers, destroyers of all that we hold dear. As privatisation continued apace here in Britain (and still does) we were sold the con of the liberal free market. The only ‘baddies’ were unions who were price fixing by asking for a liveable minimum wage.
So, now, when the liberal free market has so dramatically, pusillanimously failed, we are, strangely, not encouraged to vilify the city brokers responsible. No, in fact, very far from it. We are encouraged to believe that the only things at fault are vague concepts like an ‘overheated economy’ – not greedy people who made way, way too much money gambling on things that didn’t happen.
We are not encouraged to question why the wage differential between those in industries like call centres or insurance, and those who run them, are the largest they have ever been. There are woefully few real industries here in Britain anyway, as Tony Blair effectively and efficiently turned Britain PLC into a place essential for all global trading. In place of skills like plumbing and cabinet making, people have the dubious and ignominious glory of listing ‘answering the phone’ on the their résumés.
Let’s be honest, Britain has become very good at making more money out of money, and that’s about the sum of it. Loads of people employed to shift money from one place to another, take their cut, and then, hopefully, buy it all back at a better price. Naked short selling they call it. My mum used to call that sort of thing ‘make-work.’ Precisely.
In my first anthropology lesson we learnt about reciprocity, about how some people exchange yams for land, or in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, use cowry shells for money. It was a novel idea, that money wasn’t real. It was symbolic. It bought time, or land, or brides, or the Papua New Guinean equivalent of a four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser (probably the latest zazzy canoe.)
This was way before the various schemes existed in the West where you put your skills on a notice board and ‘swapped them’ with other people, circumventing the need for money and ‘the man’ altogether. (Mine would be gardening, playing scrabble and improving wayward horses/teenagers: I’m in big demand). The idea that money is not really necessary changes everything, especially when it comes to gifts for younger relatives. They want the latest PlayStation. Instead, I offer to sit with them for four hours contemplating the vacuity of existence. Works every time. What a result!
Last night I sat with three of my neighbours around my kitchen table. We discussed whether or not our mortgages were ‘protected’ during the current credit crisis. We have all technically ‘borrowed’ money from banks or building societies, which we are now repaying back. None of us own our properties outright. That money in some cases went into individual’s banks accounts, when we bought our houses. In most cases, it went to pay back the existing loan when the vendor sold, and reinvested back into a new property, and in turn the money became virtual again. And so we contributed to a cycle in which some of our ‘actual money’- that which we earned, was used as collateral for further money, that remains virtual. And then, behind the scenes, much of this money is lent, borrowed, gambled with against currencies, and invested in stocks and shares, which in turn fund derivatives and hedge funds, which in turn become numerous other forms of capital.
Despite having an economics degree from a good university, I still struggle to view the current financial crisis as anything other than a rather glorified cowry shell exchange. Meanwhile, I remember living in Zanzibar last year- where I’ll be returning soon to do my PhD fieldwork- when the Kenyan election crises erupted. Over 900 people were shot. It was a train smash, and for a week literally everything shut down; banks, civil service, the airport, all freight ships leaving Mombassa with fuel. As a consequence, we in Zanzibar – which depends heavily on Kenya for imports from all over the world – had no electricity for several days. All transport on the island ground to a halt – there was literally no petrol on the island. The price of rice doubled overnight. Middle class friends of mine were suddenly eating only one meal a day.
Now THAT was a collapsed economy. Did it make non-stop international news? Did it hell.
The Hunger Site
October 1, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Dear Thembi,
my buddies hear at Denný’s (and we have discussed) think that you are alluding to the concept of false consciousness. False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society (relative to the secular development of human society in general). Is that right.? Basically, we’re all in denial and putting our time into silly stuff, Palin’s posture, Ellen and Krispy Kreams.Oh and don’t forget scrabble as another mechanism of bourgeois proletarian social control.
Anyway, I have to get a new exhaust for the pick-up and I’m runnning out of beers. Keep the faith
AJ
October 1, 2008 at 7:18 am
Dear Aj,
I hope you don’t mind me being informal. One never knows these days.
Following yours, and Dorothy Parker’s example, I too have cracked open a beer. Live wildly I say, afterall tomorrow we may all be pushing up daisies. Or staring at the empty bank vaults as we porn our family relics.
I have to admit to being mildly bewildered by your comment on eating the wildlife, but as neo-tolerant ricidivist situationist, and follower of the teachings of Gramsci (keep up at the back) I endorse your desire to get closer to nature, even if it does mean eating it.
I am stumped by Obama: it seems ever since JFK the America ‘pipple’ can’t get beyond viewing their presidents as popstars. With that in mind maybe you can pass the word onto Ricky Martin? I hear you have contacts.
Sadly, the recent economic ‘problems’ (mere ripples compared with what goes on everyday in most of the world) seem to have induced a sort of mass pyschosis, so people have forgotten that there equitable distribution of wealth, access to culture, intellectual property has always got to be the priority.
Don’t get me wrong: I hate the fact people are losing their houses, their savings, it’s awful… but Americans haven’t got the monopoly on suffering, and shouldn’t just be providing an excuse for the British politicians to gloat and take the moral high ground. (Which they are, incidentally, in spades). Having a big house or a fancy driveway isn’t really going to be the answer in the long run. Or if it does, you weren’t asking the right question.
How are you at scrabble? I realise I am old fashioned (i still write long hand letters and make tea using loose leaves, but i think scrabble may be the solution we’re all searching for.)
Best wishes, and oh yes, the WWF IS fake.
October 1, 2008 at 12:48 am
Dear Thembi, in-between beers, I’ve been doing some thinking and a bit of political analyzing. . If you take the name Obama and add a “d†another “m†and an “n†you get the disturbing words Ob-mad man.. Do you think that the American people are aware of this…?
aj
Ps. Did you see the WWF saturday, it’s gotta be a fake right..?
September 25, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Green ec-movement, I love nature, specially wildlife, it’s delicious. Give me deer and elk, with a mountin of mashed potatoe and a glistening lake of gravy. Hey T, “What do you think will happen if Obama don’t win ?’. Word on the street is that Watts, Harlem, Nairobi gonna be busy..? What’s your take?
aj
September 25, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Alt Johnny, I am so sorry I mistook stock broker for farmer, my eyesight gives me lots of trouble these days. Those darn mice, they nibble the post.
I recomend sticking some post-it notes (Do you have them in Des Moines, they’re small gummed bits of paper, handy for writing notes to yourself) all over your forehead, and mirror, with ‘affirmations’. I know that sounds a little eccentric, but I know Ellen would approve. And try joining your local green eco-movement, that will give you some direction, and you can harness the wind.
Kind Regards, Thembi
September 25, 2008 at 2:35 am
We have thunderstorms and floods, ice-cold northerlies, desert summers and American Idol. I’m not a farmer Thembi, I’m a three times married, retired stock broker living north of in Des Moines. God did I break a lot of stock (and wind) last week.Anyway, I used to get up in the morning, scratch my brazils, look in the bathroom mirror and with an accusatory finger say “you’z a fat SOB.” Well I’m older and wiser now, I just hang out with the boys, drink Miller, watch that blond woman Ellen. Well I better get before they find out I’m a closet pinko. Keep it HP Sauce Thembi.
alternative Johnny
September 25, 2008 at 12:15 am
Hello Alt Johnny, I hope life on the homestead in Iowa with your seven sisters, aging granny, collection of Ford Pontiacs, and forty two pigs (thank you for the personal postcard) is treating you well. I appreciate having such a loyal fan.
I imagine Autumn is a busy time for you in Iowa, and I hope you are out there with your combine and tractors working the soil. Try and keep your spirits up: what you’re doing is important, and as we both know, there’s more to life than skunk and nut roast, though I must agree to differ on the fruit shakes issue, as I think they provide valuable nutritional content.
Keep the faith Fonzie
September 24, 2008 at 2:34 am
Howdie Thembi again. Excuse me but I really love your British honesty and apple pie style. Your submissions are a treat. Shame that all the SF fakers aren’t as politically intelligent, witty and inciteful as you are. Guess that’s what too much skunk, fruit shakes and nut roast does to your brain. Anyway autumn is in the air here in Iowa and I’m not looking foward to it. Keep ém coming, they cheer me up !
alternative johnny