As we gird our loins for a potentially revolutionary period, barreling towards us like a runaway freight train down a mountain…
If there is one thing we can do one thing to prepare, mentally, it is to use our imaginations. Americans are a creative people. It’s part of what defines us as a society. You give us a problem to solve, we come up with a solution.
So I suggest we use our imaginations to try to dream up what a better United States looks like.
Do a thought experiment and try to imagine your best life. Picture your perfect job, your perfect work-life balance, your perfect family situation, your ideal emotional well-being...
Then try to extend that beyond yourself, beyond your neighborhood, beyond your town, beyond your region… all the way to your best society.
What can you come up with?
Free healthcare. Boom. Obviously. What else?
Good schools. Of course. But maybe not schools that function mostly to prepare a person to work for a corporation. What aren't we teaching our kids that they need to know?
Peace.
That seems like an important one. Scans as a little idealistic. Hard to take seriously. But if I’m imagining my ideal, that’s what we're shooting for, right? An end to war? At a minimum? Personally I like that ideal. Not a fan of dying from bayonet or grenade or missile wounds. No thanks. So peace.
Okay! Now we’re getting somewhere!
A big expensive military… hmm. Well, we already did peace, so what are we carting this big expensive military around for? I mean, the US military is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels. By miles and miles. Don’t need that anymore.
Debt? Canceled. Time for an American debt jubilee. Let's zero out our debts and start fresh.
Taxes? Definitely tax the rich more... preferably keep the burden on the rest of us as low as possible! Something that seems fair? And since it’s tax season, why don’t we end this big annual screw job and just do away with the whole concept of a tax filing day. Other countries don’t have this. They turn in a postcard once a year. Some simple formality - with a trustworthy bureaucracy. Those exist! Maybe not here, but they’re out there in places like Sweden and Denmark. If they can figure it out we can. So we should shoot for a trustworthy and efficient bureaucracy, if it’s possible.
As long as idealism prevails, how about ending monopolies? Everything with monopoly or cartel power gets turned into a utility company! And is no longer allowed to turn a profit. All utility companies will now operate as non-profit organizations, owned entirely by their employees. Management is no longer required, (breathes in hissing breath) we’re gonna have to let you go. Terry will walk you to your desk to collect your things. The Picasso stays with the company.
Work takes up too much of our lives. It shouldn’t. 24 hours in a day, we give work 8. We give sleep 8 (yeah right). Too much work. Future America should definitely be less work-focused. Normalize the 4 hour workday, the 4 day work week. Normalize closing on Sundays. Normalize rest.
In my imagined future, everyone is part owner of where they work. You work at a place, congratulations, you’re one of the owners now, as long as you work there. And you get to help make decisions about the business. You work 3 days a week at what you got hired to do… and on the 4th day, you take part in democratically making all the business decisions at your company. Is trying to help the bosses maximize shareholder value a reasonable goal for our lives? Let's stop doing that.
My perfect society has real vacation time. Do like Europe does, take August off. Normalize 3 or 4 weeks off in a row.
In my perfect world I can imagine having friends over on a weeknight. I imagine having energy to entertain people on a weeknight. Can you imagine a society with siestas? I can. That’s how you get energy for evening plans, you take a little siesta in the afternoon.
My perfect society has organizations where people help each other out. Call it mutual aid. Where people know all their neighbors… and treat them the best they can - as fellow human beings. We should build local organizations where we help meet one another's needs for childcare, healthcare, whatever you can imagine right there in our communities. Mutual assistance.
Right now our society puts business profits ahead of human needs. Necessary things like healthcare or having a roof over your head become opportunities for business to extract profits. I say it's time to stop putting capitalism's need for growth and profits ahead of our need to live. Business profits are not a worthy goal for society. Supporting human life and the needs of the human beings who make up our society is a worthy goal.
We don’t have to accept whatever this is that our ancestors gave us. It is possible to imagine different, better things. A better way of life… for you and your children and grandchildren. A happier life. An easier life… as a goal for us as a society. Let's put our brains to work - and try to get there.
Because people got us into this mess. People will get us out. We are those people. And we need to put on our thinking caps to figure out how we get from here, to there… It is possible. It won’t happen overnight, but through a series of choices that we make, together, along the way.
Let’s make them pay.