sixteen tons

i am fascinated by economics. i have never actually taken a course in economics. I've watched public television at 3 in the morning and found myself glued to the television as it pans through factories and displays graphs while a man voices over explanations and various economic theories. i've also investigated the relationship between the first and thrid worlds, economically that is, and how the whole dysfunctional relationship continues to exist. economic histories love to simplify the past century or so with the communist vs. capitalist idea, which has a convenience to it but also does not bother to re-evaluate the events which took place after the thoeries were voiced. everyone likes too say "oh yeah, communism was a great IDEA, but look at the reality", but the same could easily be said about capitalism. we have a series of corporations which limit the public market by paying the government to pass legislature to help them make more money. that is hardly a definition of less government- it is a worse big brother than the government could be on its own because it is literally owned by the elite class.

american capitalism's market economy has created a feudalism more noticeable now as the major industries and jobs which kept this country fed with chickens in pots, have competed each other out of the country in order to meet "market demands" for cheap stuff. what is left is an elite class which grows richer and smaller off of the trash it pays people in third world countries to make to sell to us, and in the meantime the same elite class is lending us money to buy it.

meanwhile, cities like cleveland and philadelphia, pittsburgh and detroit, and the rest of the third and fourth rate cities in this country, are finding themselves with no real reason to exist. no industry, no small to midsize companies to house, no exports, nothing they create to sell, to harvest, to pay anyone to do. there are twenty and thirty somethings looking around baffled, wondering where their city has gone, where the people have gone, why places like the flats are a shell, the ghettoes growing, the city government apathetic and stagnant, even careless. there is nothing there, the companies have picked up and left, downsized, re-organized, decided to just pay those 5 guys you knew in highschool to keep the system up and fire the thousands of workers they once had, and are now money making machines with nothing to offer to the world.

this sounds a little dark. but i swear some days all i see is this country dying, and see others, like india, with their eyes deadset on our achilles heel as they sit quietly and watch while they sharpen their economic tools.

"sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt.
st. peter dont you call me cuz i can't go, i owe my soul to the company store."

johnny cash.