The People United... or, Divide and Conquer

This post is based on my sentiments about reform movements, the welfare state, and the non-profit sector.

I have argued that many people who genuinely desire to do good are coopted by the system and end up wasting all of their time and energy. I find this very frustrating; it seems there is enough will to change the system, but everyone is directing their efforts in different (and ineffective) directions.

In general, I believe changes made within the system (increasing minimum wage, improving funding for education, giving money and loans to the impoverished, legalizing gay marriage, raising taxes, cutting taxes, improving healthcare coverage, and so on) are merely cosmetic and fail to address the underlying issues, and therefore are necessarily of limited scope, both in terms of breadth and duration. These types of reforms only endorse and pereptuate an unjust system and lay the groundwork for future hardships and challenges faced by the oppressed.

What is fundamentally at issue is NOT money, or technology, or policy. The heart of the issue is relationships. Our global society is based on relations of exploitation - including, but not limited to, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and slavery. In fact, capitalism is impossible without some form of slavery, whether characterized as free labor or lack of self-determination. Although slavery has legally been abolished, capitalists have devised other means of obtaining free labor - internships and prison labor are a couple of examples. Some companies, like Walmart, have been accused of simply not paying their employees for all hours worked.

But believe it or not, the "dependency" form of slavery is both more widespread and more troubling. Most of the Third World has been forced into dependency relationships with the industrial powers. They are barely able to exert control over their own affairs. Many Third World citizens do not have any choice about what to produce or how to make their living. Their livelihood is determined by an international agenda. Sweatshops, plantations, and mines abound. Recent outrage over the Foxconn expose proves my point about the narrow scope of the reform attitude. People acted like this was the only place in the world where these conditions existed. They treated it as a problem of a single corporation, when it is the nature of our entire manufacturing system. And they pressed for some minor changes within Foxconn, ultimately leaving those workers on the assembly line and everyone else in the world out in the cold.

Clearly some of these changes make some difference in some people's lives. But my question is this. What if ALL of the time and energy expended in calling for and implementing these reforms, all of the people who belong to non-profits, NGOs, transnational organizations, and grassroots campaigns, came together and united for a single cause. What if everyone challenged the system itself? If all efforts were directed at ending this exploitative system... could it actually be transformed?

The image that comes to my mind is slaves on a plantation, petitioning to be allotted 300 more calories per day, rather than revolting or escaping to freedom.