It’s. Not. Personal.

One of the emotional blocks to acceptance of the market paradigm is difficulty in viewing economic outcomes as impersonal. If, while “living off the land,” or otherwise not engaging in “trade,” I die prematurely because of failure in the struggle against Nature, I can at least find some comfort in the fact that It’s Not Personal. (I’m not one of those people who personify nature.) Just an example of, as Forrest Gump would say, “Shit Happens,” (or on broadcast TV, “It Happens”). Personal failure to carve out a niche, to support myself, to live at least a little bit on my terms—those kinds of thing I tend to take personally. And I am probably not justified in doing so, assuming that economics is an “emergent phenomenon” rather than (as is more comfortable for me to believe) a technology of social control. If aggregate demand is an aggregate of the demands of flesh-and-blood human beings, then if the Invisible Hand says my contributions are worth (say) seven USD per hour, that is the verdict not just of some metaphoric hand, but of my fellow humans. Gee, thankx a lot, jerks. But seriously, folkx, (hint hint to Crafters of Economic Policy) dialing down the frustration level of everyday life from, say, 99% to 90% could turn a lot of us relatively apolitical. It would be great public relations. Either this is outside the ability of the Crafters of Economic Policy (perhaps as a result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics) or they’ve already made their gated comminity arrangements for when the shit hits the fan. For now (if only for my emotional self-preservation) I remain an anagorist.