Inspired thoughts
A couple of weeks ago, I finally finished Lewis Mumford’s book, A City in History. Like I said before, this was a book that I started a long time ago, and, over many lunch breaks and bus rides, I managed to eventually finish.
I’m starting to assemble my thoughts on the book, and put it in context with what’s going on in the world today. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of stuff in the book that remains valid today.
As I understood it, one of Mumford’s main points in the book was the ill effects that capitalism eventually laid upon the city. Specialization reduced the citizen to the part of a small cog in a big machine, and the form of the city that resulted from this type of mindset left the individual out of the equation. Mass production and mass consumerism led to a society that was (and still is!) destroying itself by trying to keep alive a culture that values continuous growth over all else. Wal-Mart’s and McDonalds’ of the world, take note. Mumford writes:
“…even in cultures far less committed to quantitative growth than our own, there comes a point where the tumorous organ will destroy the organ at whose expense it has reached such swollen dimensions.”
We’re getting ever closer to that point. Employers, ever conscious of their bottom line, continue to pay less for more work. Financially-strapped workers flock to the big-box retailers, drawn to the impossibly low prices that can only come from the massive economies of scale that can be leveraged by the retail giants. This massive buying power is imposed upon manufacturers, who search high and low to find ways to deliver their product at a cheaper price than the next guy. Jobs are exported to third-world countries and are run as slave labor operations. What stays here usually does so at the cost of livable wages, health insurance, and quality of life. And so the cycle continues.
What is wrong with setting limits? Does this culture of laissez-faire capitalism preclude all social responsibility? In an ideal society, a decent way of life for everyone should trump the almighty dollar. Can’t we step back, draw a line in the sand, and hold ourselves to it?
Or will we continue to consume ourselves, simply because it’s all we know how to do?
