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Shopping
Our role in this society is to consume. If you do not have enough money to consume, then you are supposed to join the military and defend the system of consumption. It is consumption or conscription. Buy or die. The system does not care what you do for a living, whether it is important or not, whether it is legal or not. The system really does not care what you think, or whether you think at all. All that matters is that you consume. Consumption has nothing to do with free markets. It has everything to do with profit. Your consumption realizes other peoples' profit. In fact, the system doesn't even care whether you actually use what you purchase. Shopping is for shopping's own sake. Shopping causes money to circulate. Our money has no intrinsic value - it is what is called 'fiat currency'. There is no gold or silver backing your Federal Reserve Notes, and, even if there were, gold and silver would not take the 'fiat' out of the money. Money is the embodiment of our collective faith in the system, and in each other. But only the government has the authority to issue money, i.e., literally "create" it out of a vacuum, hence the "fiat". Whatever form money assumes, be it precious metals, paper, or just a certain number stored in a computer, only the government can "create" it. Profit is realized through the circulation of money. The speed of circulation determines how fast profit can be made. When you consume (buy, use up, throw away) anything, you abet the system. No one cares what you think or what you do, whether you vote, demonstrate, protest, march or dissent, so long as you continue to consume. So, if you want to resist the system, your first small granular act should be to consume less. Get into the habit of thinking about your shopping as a means of resistance.
Inertial Buying Never stop thinking about what you are doing. Consider every act, even the smallest and least significant as an affirmative act of dissent and refusal. Buy less. Buy less often. Think before you consume.
Copyright Zbignew Zingh 2003 |
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