Systems of profit and oppression

Should having a home depend upon providing another person with profit?

Poet and philosopher Eli Siegel was the first to ask the question, “What does a person deserve by being alive?”

How can we continue to live with the shame of building, sustaining and even celebrating societies that arrogantly refuse to recognize the inalienable right of every human being born into this world to have a home? We have become so mesmerized by our dominating systems of profit and oppression, that we have lost all ability to reference the simplicity of what we as humans ought to be able to access outside another man’s will, and that is a home, our daily bread and to love and be loved.

“The fundamental question about housing…is: should a person make a profit from the need of another person to have a home, shelter, a place to live? Should our ability to have a home depend on whether we can provide a profit for somebody?” Ellen Reiss.

We defend the systems that oppress us like a child sides with the school bully

Who’ll deny that money is always the root of our evils? Karl Marx once wrote that, “Money is the universal, self-constituted value of all things. It has therefore robbed the whole world, human as well as natural, of its own values. Money is the alienated essence of man’s work and being; this alien essence dominates him; and he adores it.”

We are in fact so indebted to the systems that hold out promises of wealth that we can actually assuage the guilt of seeing people wander the streets by casting the blame on them. We defend the systems that oppress like a child sides with the school bully in hopes that his loyalty will earn him favor and security. But the bully really doesn’t give a damn about anyone and can just as easily and capriciously turn on his adherents in an instant and without warning, leaving them with no other recourse but to beg for re-admittance.

Most of us in the mainstream take for granted the help we received upon entering this world. We didn’t earn a family that taught us and demonstrated for us how to ‘make it in this world.’ We didn’t earn a family that had the economic resources to empower our endeavors. We didn’t earn a family with the connectivity or clout to bail us out of the troubles we get ourselves into that would cripple those without. We didn’t earn the mental or physical capacity that might enable us to engage and pursue what our systems require in order to experience the wholeness and wellness of life.

That’s why we love success stories

Yes, people do overcome hurdles, but it is the exception that anyone should ever overcome being ill-equipped from the start to achieving any real degree of functional stability. That’s why we love success stories- because they are so exceptional, almost miraculous. Not to mention the fact that they also help to reinforce our ‘feel good’ myth that anyone can make it in this society if they just try hard enough.

Here’s an experiment for you. Sit down with 5 or 6 of your friends to a game of monopoly. Give them all varying amounts of money, properties, houses, hotels, etc. and you start with nothing – not even the instructions. See how well you do. To make the experiment additionally realistic, (and demoralizing), take note of how those around the table begin to determine your worth and your deservedness of their help accordingly. Good luck.

This world will no longer be yours

As Herbert Gans, wrote, “Changing behavior is always more productive than changing attitudes. But when the law and the economy are not available to change behavior, we must be satisfied with changing attitudes and hope that these may have some impact on behavior.”

I hope that we all open our minds and hearts to a change in our attitudes this side of homelessness. I assure you, once you need the experience of homelessness to change it for you… this world will no longer be yours and you will have lost all power to impact your community’s behavior.

“The world should be owned by the people living in it… All persons should be seen as living in a world truly theirs.” Eli Siegel.