The United States’ current economic
system depends on growth. It wants to,
and argues that it has to, continue to grow in order for the economy to stay
strong and for jobs to be created and maintain themselves. As economies grow, so does the amount of
resources needed to support them. As The Energy Reader points out, since the
world only has a finite number of resources, it is impossible for economies to continue
to grow indefinitely. Eventually, the
world economy will deplete close to all of the planet’s resources, and the
human population will crash.
In addition to this, the United
States’ economy is currently a “free” market, where businesses can set their
own prices and compete freely with each other.
The problem is, it is incredibly difficult for most companies to start
up in this country because of how strong the already existing, big companies
are. Additionally, businesses, just like
citizens, are innocent until proven guilty in America. This allows them to purposefully endanger the
environment or United States citizens and leave it up to the citizens
themselves or the government to prove that they are acting poorly. During this time, the business can continue
to make sales and make money, and by the time they have been asked to recall a
product, the damage has already been done and they have made their money.
I always thought that a free market
was a good thing, something to be proud of my country for having. The article in the book called “Faustian
Economics” by Wendell Berry changed my mind slightly on this. In this article, Berry argued that freedom
does not mean that a person can do whatever he or she wants. In America, people are free to do whatever
they please, but only if it is not at someone else’s expense because all people
have unalienable rights. As a result of
that, even freedom in America has limits.
Relating this to a free market, free
markets can have limits as well. A free
market does not have to be free of all rules.
Maybe America needs to give more rights for the start-up
businesses? Maybe they need to take some
rights away from the bigger companies?
Maybe they need to give more rights to the environment and other areas
that need protection? America needs to
stop obsessing over being limitless; everything has limits, even their own
rights and freedoms.
So following up on this idea, what
rights would we give to whom to make America’s market a better place? How can we limit our economy’s growth, or stop
it?
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