Money Over People

America's unifying philosophy ain't pretty

The Prosperity Gospel

In the history of the United States, prosperity has always come first. Sure, people came to America to escape religious persecution. Sure, the ridiculously wide moats of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans made the security of America a much easier promise to make than most countries in the world. America, with its boundless resources, became the land of opportunity.

These factors set up America quite nicely for prosperity. Think about it. With the security and the resources the United States enjoys, it would have been very hard to screw up the prosperity that followed. Oh, and a little thing called slavery allowed our economy to explode because labor, a key part of the profit equation, was free in the American South for hundreds of years.

This eventually led to a free market democracy. Other things traditionally hold a country together, but in America, those have faded away (I’ll get to those in a bit). What we have left is our free market democracy that we all participate in. We celebrate the symbols of our democracy, and our culture is tied up in and delivered through our markets – the companies in our markets. We Americans export that consumer culture around the world. The companies that dominate the world, by and large, come from America, and we think of them as part of America as much as we do our favorite sports, foods, and traditions. You can go to Boston, New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, and hundreds of other places in America, and those people speak differently and have different local customs and traditions, but they share a culture wrapped around free market democracy.

It is now part of our identity.

This system, call it free market democracy, capitalism, whatever you want – is tied up in our identities because it is the system we all know. When capitalism is challenged, some people take that personally, because they feel that their way of life is being impugned.

Many people feel protective of capitalism because it is the system they live in and has done a pretty good job of satisfying their material needs. But to adequately address the ecological challenges already present and the near future, we need to change our culture, and change our habits.

How do we go about doing that?

Habit expert James Clear argues that there are three layers of behavior change.

At the very outside, there are outcomes. These are things people want – or think they want – to achieve. Such as investing in green companies, or consuming less.

Below this, there are processes or routines/habits. Like always checking the “green profile” of our investments,  or only buying the things they really need.

At the very center is one’s identity. These are deeply held beliefs about ourselves. This can lead to a problem. According to Clear, if this identity clashes with the outcomes or routines people try to establish for themselves, they won’t succeed. They won’t change behaviors (eating less beef, voting for people who support a post-growth economy) because such behaviors will clash with their identity.

What holds a country together?

I remember seeing an interview a few years ago with German-American political scientist Yaschua Mounk, about the connective tissue that holds countries together. I think it was for his book, The People vs. Democracy, but please correct me if I’m wrong. Mounk mentioned that nations unify around a common story. That story is usually based one of three things; common blood (nationality), a common religion, or a common enemy. America is in a unique position now because we are slowly but surely moving away from common blood, as by 2045 America will become a majority, minority nation. Fifty years ago, America was 90% white, but by 2045, it will be less than 50% white. For those under 30, this is already the case. This is already causing tension in America.

How about a common religion? The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago has conducted a General Social Survey (GSS) since 1972 to provide information on the perceptions and changes in American society. One of the questions they ask each year is whether a person claims to “know God really exists” and has “no doubt about it.”

In 1993, about 2/3 of Americans answered “yes” to the question of whether they know God really exists and they have no doubt about it. By 2008, this number had dropped to under 60 percent. By 2021, the number dropped below 50% for the first time.

How about a common enemy? For much of the time following World War II, Americans could organize around a common enemy the Soviet Union. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall over 30 years ago, there has been no common enemy. You can argue that we have turned inward and that the need for an enemy has caused us to consume each other, but that is an essay for another day.

With no common blood, common religion, or common enemy to organize around, what is left for Americans to define themselves? Our common culture, our identity is very much tied up in our free market democracy. I’m not about to say that is all of our identity, but I think it is safe to say it makes up a good deal of it.

We are the story we tell ourselves.

We define ourselves as we have learned to define ourselves as consumers, as capitalists. Money and our relationship to it defines us. We accept a money over people ethic because that is part of what it means to be an American.

Healthcare is about making money. If we help people that is fine, but care here is more expensive than anywhere else and less effective than anywhere else. Why do we accept this? Because in America that is just the way it is. It is ultimately harmful to us and kills some of us, but we defer to money being the deciding factor in our healthcare, not need, because we put money over people.  

Education is more expensive here than anywhere else in the world. Ask your European friends how much college debt they have and they will look at you as though you asked them the best way to cook a housecat. The concept is foreign to them. Education in America is a business to make money. If it informs people, that’s fine, but that is not the objective.

The food you eat is relatively safe, but it is filled with sugar, and chemicals and packaged in plastic not because that is healthy (it isn’t) but because that is the most profitable way to make food.

The American story for better or for worse puts money before people, and the American story is about prosperity. If you doubt that we put money over people, it is in our founding documents. In the US Constitution slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, not to give them rights, but to give their owners more votes in Congress.

America was founded putting money over people, and we haven’t quite shaken it yet.

Redefine Prosperity.

America isn’t going to do anything about climate change or overshoot anytime soon because our organizing story must deny that those things matter. Climate change and overshoot aren’t valued because we can’t get any value from them. Prosperity is more money in our bank accounts, not more time with our families, more health, and a better future for our children.

A few weeks back, the magazine The Economist ran a cover story about how the American Economy was the envy of the world. The cover had a tight roll of bills taking off like a rocket.

Photo courtesy of The Economist

The upshot of the story was that the American economy was the envy of the world because it was growing, while others were stagnating.

That is the American story. What matters is money. Those other places in Europe, Canada, and Asia, that are envious of America, have better health, better education, and happier populations. I think they know the American story, they just don’t want it.

Until America decides prosperity is well-being and not just money, we won’t address the environmental degradation that threatens our civilization. Will America learn in time? No. In time was decades ago. Will America learn in time to save itself? I’d say it’s a coin flip.