DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

One particular point that I feel is compelling was how Marilyn so eloquently highlighted the absurdity of our economic system—more precisely the values of modern economics. It is a system that divides the world up into profits and losses, productivity and consumption. It is a woefully narrow and limited view, and as Marilyn pointed out, anything that can’t be contained within the parameters of this economic worldview essentially doesn’t exist or is simply without value. The tremendous contributions of women around the globe in particular are an example of the limitations of what modern day economics considers valuable.

 

If a woman stays at home to tend to children and housekeeping (and myriad other responsibilities) her contributions have no value because her time is not being spent in an economically quantifiable way—i.e. she’s not earning a paycheck and contributing to industry. This is made ever more infuriating by the breakdown of daily time usage between stay-at-home mothers and working men. On average it appeared that women were actually spending far more of their time working than employed males, but this effort and contribution is entirely overlooked because a dollar sign can’t be placed on it, because economics doesn’t include this contribution in its limited scope of value.

 

This eventually has the impact of creating something of a social stigmatism on women, a view that because women are not contributing to society they essentially become freeloaders, drawing benefits from a system they supposedly put nothing into. In reality however, these contributions are invaluable, for the whole system screeches to a halt without them.

 

More and more I feel I am beginning to see the ideology embedded in our economic system as the underpinnings of so much of what ails the planet. War, as was poignantly captured in the film, is an industry, a lucrative, economically valuable one at that. With so much money to be made in the business of killing is it any wonder that there always seems to be a new war? If we place a dollar sign on every facet of the natural world, if we view it all as stuff, is it any wonder that we hack and slash, pollute and contaminate, burn and raze the earth? If people aren’t really people, but potential or not potential consumers, is it any wonder that we trample over the rights and livelihoods of so many?

 

I have to wonder what a radically new economic model might look like… one which can drastically expand its understanding and definition of value to include things tangible and intangible. How could it be a system built on love and abundance rather than fear and scarcity? How could it be a system that sees profit not in what you take, but in what you give? I think these are the kinds of questions we really need to start asking ourselves, for the system we operate within presently looks less like economics and far more like a rampaging behemoth, completely out of control, destroying all that is good and beautiful in the world—soon to destroy us in the process.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.