It's Not "The Economy", Stupid.
by John K. Fitzpatrick
written for Spoon Magazine, Sept. 2004

I was asked to write about the thing that puts food in your mouth and a roof over your head - economics. The most important thing to realize is that when someone says the words -- "THE ECONOMY" -- you can bet the next thing they say is going to be bullshit.  There is no "the economy" -- but we are all involved in economics, and it has consequences for everything we do as work, buy to survive, and even influences how you think.  So you better have a grasp on economics, lest economics has a grasp on you!

When politicians and the suits on TV say "the economy" what they intend is to make you forget that this is only one of many possible economic systems. (OK, sometimes they simply don't understand it either, but if they are rich, they do.) The next time you hear them use "the economy", try to substitute the phrase "this economy" and you can see how they are trying to limit your thoughts. Because once you understand what economics is about and what is possible outside "this economy", you will fight for your fairer piece of the pie and more real freedom.

So, what is economics?  It's what people do together to produce, distribute (allocate) and consume "stuff".  By "stuff" I mean goods (food, housing) and services (fix your car, babysit your kid).  What people do together usually means that people play certain roles, for instance, in this economy when you buy food you play the role of "individual consumer."  When you go to work in this economy, you might play the role of "employee", and if you're lucky "union member".  When you run a business, you play the roles of "boss" and "owner", or maybe "debtor" if you owe the bank money.

These roles are defined by the institutions that run the production, allocation and consumption of any economy, so that each person gets to play some different roles at different times. In fact, the institutions are nothing more than the roles people play and the rules they follow. So if we change the institutions, we also change the roles we can play.  Why should you care what the institutions and roles are? Because they directly effect what kind of stuff you produce when working, how it is made, how many hours you work, how much you learn, how much say you get to have about it, and how much stuff you get in return for your work.

So when people say "the economy" is good or bad, up or down, they are glossing over the facts that whether it is up or down, your roles do not change regardless of the stock market or gas prices or whatever.  If the economy is up, that doesn't give you more say!  It doesn't give you more education!  It doesn't give you more Justice!  But in theory with a different economy, it could mean that, but they don't want you to know about that.

So economics is about the roles we play to produce, allocate, and consume stuff. Pretty darn simple!  In upcoming articles I will show how different economies (Capitalism, Communism) have defined these roles, rules and institutions, and why they don't work for you. Along the way I will examine how they effect the so-called "national interest", the impact on democratic politics, the warpage of racism and sexism, the dumbing-down of education, the evolution of our species, the attack on science and rational thought, and introduce you to a new system called Participatory Economics (ParEcon) which I hope you will agree will work much better, fostering Peace, Equality, Self-Management, Fairness, Solidarity, Ecological Sanity, and Justice for us all. And that's something you don't often hear after a mention of "the economy".