By Dan Hazen / Herald Forum
After farm work as a youth, my first career was in engineering. As a designer and drafter, I learned to see things from a “systems” point of view: How do individual parts come together to make a cohesive and coherent whole? A system. It’s a viewpoint that (like all viewpoints) is helpful until it’s not.
I have found it unhelpful with simple systems that are small enough to be comprehended intuitively, but very helpful with large, complex systems comprised of many, varied parts. For instance, a family of four is a social system that, because of its small scale, doesn’t require a lot of detailed system analysis, whereas a country or an empire is such an enormous and complex social system, the only hope of comprehension is a systems approach.
In the case of the American Imperial System: big surprise. It’s money. It’s a money system.
You can’t be blamed for possibly rolling your eyes at my apparent naiveite, (“Of course it’s money, Dan! Look at Elon and Zuckerburg, ‘The Corporations’ and that jerk in the BMW!) but stick with me for a minute, this system runs much deeper than you thought. It runs straight through you and me which makes us complicit. Two brief examples.
A Jan. 10 article in the Investment News, headlined: “Texas court rules against American Airlines in ESG 401(k) plan case,” reports “The presiding judge found the airline breached its fiduciary duty under federal law by prioritizing non-financial considerations in its employee retirement plan.”
Carefully consider this single but significant part of the system: It’s a violation of federal law for your company to invest your retirement dollars in anything but the most profitable instrument. Talk all you want about your commitment to the environment, education or public health, but your retirement dollars will support endeavors which make the most money. Period. It’s the law.
Example two. Washington is unarguably a “blue state,” leaning heavily toward progressive policies on education, the environment, sexual identify and immigration. In fact, we are one of 13 “sanctuary states” with laws limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Compassionate, right? Supporting human dignity, reducing suffering and standing up for the oppressed, right? Did you know the framers of this law gave it a name any legislator in Idaho, Texas or Alabama would be proud of? “Keep Washington Working Act.” It’s purpose is “ensuring the State of Washington remains a place where the rights and dignity of all residents are maintained and protected (here it comes!) in order to keep Washington working.”
Sure, your rights and dignity are protected … so you can serve the system.
Keep those low-wage jobs filled! Keep those tax revenues rolling in! Keep those low-end consumers buying cheap, non-nutritious food and knick-knacks from Amazon! My 401(k) is looking a little lean. Oh, yeah … and human dignity and stuff
Dan Hazen lives in Marysville and works in Everett.
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