Money as a Means of Rationing
The word "rationing" has strongly negative connotations, evoking images of bread lines, poverty, and bureaucracy. In reality, however, all societies ration; there is a limited amount of resources and decisions must be made about who gets what. Money, in my opinion, can only be understood as a method by which resources are rationed out.
Let me provide some examples. Smartphones are a finite resource. Let's assume that not everyone can have one. How do we, as a society, decide who receives one and who doesn't? Simple. They are given to whomever has a certain amount of money to pay for it. Anyone with less than that amount of money to spend does not receive a smartphone. That is rationing in action. Healthcare is a finite resource. Let's assume that not everyone can have all of their needs met immediately. How do we, a society, decide who receives healthcare, and who receives it first? The process is exactly identical. Anyone with more than a certain amount of money to spend receives healthcare, and anyone who doesn't doesn't.
This is the hidden reality of capitalism: cruel and unflinching rationing is taking place all around us. When the central committee of a foreign country decides which portion of the population should receive a certain scarce resource, that is viewed as evil. When the American market makes the same decision, based solely off of who is wealthiest, it is viewed as nature taking its course. Functionally, these two systems are identical, except that the former at least claims to choose based on need.
To see this double-standard in action, one needn't look further than the Soviet Union. When millions died in Soviet Russia due to famine, these deaths were attributed to communism. The Soviet government, throughout the twentieth century, decided who would and would not receive the finite resource of food, and therefore were held morally responsible for the deaths of those who starved. In India, a capitalist country, over the same period of time, tens of millions died from starvation, lack of healthcare, and other preventable causes of death. But in the latter case, it was the market, not the central committee, who decided who lived and died. Confusingly, those deaths were not attributed to capitalism or the market, but rather to scarcity itself. In the absence of formal and explicit rationing by a government body, it is as if the crushing moral culpability of starvation and misery vanishes.
Yes, of course the Soviet Union had undesirable qualities (I should not have to say this). There are more effective and democratic ways to ration based on need. But, in my mind, it is nearly impossible to argue that their often bureaucratic system of distributing resources was any more senseless or arbitrary than ours. What is our grand and noble alternative? Whoever has the most money gets to cut the line, no matter how many people are standing behind them or how long they have been waiting. Replace "money" with "social points" or anything else, the outcome is identical. We, like any other society, must be able to evaluate and criticize our system of who gets what, our system of rationing. But that conversation cannot take place until we are able to recognize that there is such a system in America, and it is just as brutal here as anywhere else.
Let me provide some examples. Smartphones are a finite resource. Let's assume that not everyone can have one. How do we, as a society, decide who receives one and who doesn't? Simple. They are given to whomever has a certain amount of money to pay for it. Anyone with less than that amount of money to spend does not receive a smartphone. That is rationing in action. Healthcare is a finite resource. Let's assume that not everyone can have all of their needs met immediately. How do we, a society, decide who receives healthcare, and who receives it first? The process is exactly identical. Anyone with more than a certain amount of money to spend receives healthcare, and anyone who doesn't doesn't.
This is the hidden reality of capitalism: cruel and unflinching rationing is taking place all around us. When the central committee of a foreign country decides which portion of the population should receive a certain scarce resource, that is viewed as evil. When the American market makes the same decision, based solely off of who is wealthiest, it is viewed as nature taking its course. Functionally, these two systems are identical, except that the former at least claims to choose based on need.
To see this double-standard in action, one needn't look further than the Soviet Union. When millions died in Soviet Russia due to famine, these deaths were attributed to communism. The Soviet government, throughout the twentieth century, decided who would and would not receive the finite resource of food, and therefore were held morally responsible for the deaths of those who starved. In India, a capitalist country, over the same period of time, tens of millions died from starvation, lack of healthcare, and other preventable causes of death. But in the latter case, it was the market, not the central committee, who decided who lived and died. Confusingly, those deaths were not attributed to capitalism or the market, but rather to scarcity itself. In the absence of formal and explicit rationing by a government body, it is as if the crushing moral culpability of starvation and misery vanishes.
Yes, of course the Soviet Union had undesirable qualities (I should not have to say this). There are more effective and democratic ways to ration based on need. But, in my mind, it is nearly impossible to argue that their often bureaucratic system of distributing resources was any more senseless or arbitrary than ours. What is our grand and noble alternative? Whoever has the most money gets to cut the line, no matter how many people are standing behind them or how long they have been waiting. Replace "money" with "social points" or anything else, the outcome is identical. We, like any other society, must be able to evaluate and criticize our system of who gets what, our system of rationing. But that conversation cannot take place until we are able to recognize that there is such a system in America, and it is just as brutal here as anywhere else.
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