Revolution Time

I'm tempted to shave my mohawk to look like one of the soldiers in Viet-Nam who refused to fight, or to grow out a revolutionary war era pony tail- either way, a style that was popular during an epoc of this country's history in which I can actually maintain some pride.

Where's Ethan Allen when you need him to wittily say whatever it was he said when he captured Ticonderoga without firing a single shot? This time however, Allen would mumble some brilliance while wielding his saber on Wall Street. Me and the other Green Mountain Boys, would cluck to each other like turkeys from the rooftops and phone booths, glaring around with muskets glinting dully in the hazy New York street lights.

When the offices are deftly seized and the CEO's hog tied, and hoisted into trees in central park, we'd read them the following letter:


Dispell your spiderweb of tyranny over the third world, and over the livelihoods thereon depending. We the people find the current economic system to be guilty of the atrocities of: lack of transparency, criminal exploitation of people and land to externalize costs, excessive production of disposable, unsustainable, useless, or otherwise despicable consumer goods, promoting the erosion of the American character, and the organization of a united front to keep people dissatisfied with their lives through the use of advertisement and manipulation. We the people hold this system culpable for these evils and as such we find it unconstitutional.

To a point, the lives of the people may be improved by the additional consumption of resources such as food, shelter, clothing, education, and entertainment. We recognize, however, that the benefits of continuously increased rates of consumption are rendered asymptotically toward zero when evaluated at the current scale. A decline in happiness since the mid 20th century coincides with the beginning of the current consumer explosion. We hold this decline to be evident of a flawed and exploitative consumer cycle that harms all involved, including those responsible for its intentional and conspiratory perpetuation.

The current system is a linear material path from resource extraction to production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. A Firm is an entity whose sole purpose is the maximization of profit. Firms exist at the producer end of the linear material path, and consumers exist on the other. Since consumers contrast from firms in that consumers as a whole have no unified objectives. This leads to a definitive action driven by the firms, to which consumers can only react on the other end of the linear material path like holding onto a cracking whip. This paradigm must be changed, both ends of the path must have a purpose. A firm will from here on be defined as an entity whose purpose is to produce goods and services with equity, for the benefit of all. Consumers will be defined as unified participants in an economic system who trade consciensciously to meet the needs for which their own production does not suffice.

The purpose of any economic system should be to allocate resources in a way benefitting all the people dependent on it or affected by it. In this moral requirement, our economy has miserably failed. Communities should produce what they can for themselves and trade for the rest. The ideal system is one in which a partnership of producers and consumers works to meet the material needs of the people while observing high standards of equity, sustainability and thrift.

This system will be called a Subsistence Economy, built on increased equity, sustainability, and emphasis on deconstruction of the differences between producers and consumers in recognition of interdependence. Whereas our current system is controlled primarily by the producers, a subsistence economy will also include additional control points of equal power: (1) an organised and deliberate consumer force to make informed decisions about what will benefit them the best, (2) a representative force from the sector of people who live upon the land whereon resource extraction takes place, and (3) a representative group of workers from each stage of production (4) experts in natural science, (5) all others who care to speak. These people will meet in a regulated method wherein each person has equal sway.

Adam McCullough