As I wrote about before, a person chose to use her economic power and privilege to displace six people from their homes; as a result, I was forced to move. I’m fine, but I would like to take a minute to consider freedom, a virtue American politicians love to pretend to care about, and what that word means: freedom for who? Freedom to do what?
Since my parents chose to move my siblings and I from a lovely little town in the Scottish Borders to a tiny sulfur-scented cesspit in west Texas, I’ve heard over and over again “I bet you’re glad to live in a free country now!”[1] As I looked at the desert around me, dangerous and nigh-impossible to traverse without a car, breathed in the fragrance of rotten eggs from the drilling for oil, saw school-mates wearing the same hole-riddled shirts day after day, and reflected on how reluctant my parents were to take me to the dentist or the doctor lately, it was all I could do to avoid spraining a muscle as my eyes rolled violently into the back of my head.
The Declaration of Independence famously states that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including those to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But how can we be said to have the right to life when its necessities are locked behind a paywall? How is it that we have the right to liberty when our employers dictate who will enjoy the benefit of the profits derived from our labor, or when a landlord can remove the roof from above our heads at any time? How do we have the right to pursue happiness if the vast majority of our waking hours are spent pursuing the means to stay alive? The facts are these: if we do not have the right to water, food, clothing, housing, a clean environment, medical care, and everything else necessary to live to the furthest reaches of our natural lifespan, we do not functionally have the right to life. If we do not have the right to life, liberty is meaningless, an uncaring jungle, and the pursuit of happiness is all but impossible.
You are not free to enjoy stable housing, because your landlord is free to remove your access to your home at any time. You are not free to pursue happiness, because capitalists are free to lay claim to all of the necessities of life and withhold them from you unless you spend most of your life in servitude to them. You are not free to walk down the street unaccosted, because the right of a police officer to extend their arm does not end where your nose begins. There’s plenty of freedom about for the wealthy and the occupying army who serve and protect them, but where is the freedom for everyday working people? It seems that we’re free to work or starve, and that’s about it. Oh, and we can say aloud whatever bigoted opinions we like without legal consequences.[2]
Capitalism has had its chance. When unfettered by regulation, it sent victorian five-year-olds to be mangled by machines during twelve to fourteen hour shifts in textile factories. When tempered by government as a result of over a century of workers literally fighting and dying for the most meager protections, it continues to churn out poverty, homelessness, and preventable deaths by the million as a matter of policy. Existence is not success. If an economic system is incapable of ensuring that all people are granted the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is simply not fit for purpose. We’ve tried letting it run loose. We’ve tried regulating it. We’ve tried mixing in a little socialism in the form of social welfare programs. It keeps ruining lives all the same. Capitalism is a failed experiment.
With all that said, I have moved lol. Unpacking everything is going to take time, and as I no longer have access to a lovely large office to work and make incense in, we’re going to have to be somewhat creative with how we configure this place. I quite like the street I’m on, and the neighborhood seems nice. It’s also a benefit that there is not a cancer center for dogs across the street—that sure makes for some depressing scenes when you’re sitting on the porch. I’m going to miss walking to the river to feed the ducks frozen peas and smell the locust blossoms, though. I missed my last chance to do that and I was so sad I wrote a haiku about it:
Inside cool houses
No tall locust trees blossom
How I wish I’d left
I’m going to have to be intentional about visiting the river when the locust trees are in bloom. In the meantime, I have a new neighborhood to explore and a new home to make. And the person who chose to upend six lives for her own benefit is going to have to contend with what is now a very, very uncomfortable place to live as all of its charm and our years of work to make it liveable has moved out alongside us.
