Here’s a question: how do you get US citizens to care about the world’s problems when they don’t seem to even care about their own? The article “The Peanut Solution,” out in the New York Times on Tuesday, September 2, 2010, tells the story of “Plumpy’nut,” a nutrient-rich peanut butter paste that has shown immense potential for combating malnourishment in developing nations. The article also examines the corporate fight over the right to generate and distribute – and thus, profit from – this easy-to-produce product. Although apparently developed by a physician with little interest in financial incentives, a company by the name of Nutriset holds the patent. According to the article, this company is currently denying developing nations the right to manufacture this product, instead working to secure a monopoly on nutrition. These nations are, of course, in desperate need of means to combat food shortages. Admittedly, the issue is nuanced, and deals with corporate incentives to develop products of value to the poor, as well as crucial questions about the nature in which corporate interests can commandeer the treatment of disease and malnourishment. Still, by objective standards, the exploitation of the poor, sick, and dying for financial gains should cause an international outcry – or at least interest. Whether this comes to pass remains to be seen. I, however, have a sneaking suspicion that it will somehow fail to garner much national attention here in the US. For one thing, it is difficult to generate a sexy title for the situation, preferably one that preys on both our fears and biases (Ground Zero Mosque, anyone?). Even the article itself, written by Andrew Rice, uses the word “solution” right in the title, as if the notion of actually solving a problem appeals to anyone these days. What’s worse, the word is paired with one that conjures images of a monocle-sporting cartoon character. Still, even if the proper adjustments were made – perhaps “Poverty Peddlers” or “Can Peanut Butter Kill?” – I find it difficult to believe that this story would generate broad public interest. Sadly, we seem stubbornly indifferent to the global issues that truly impact people’s lives, even our own.
.Take, for example, the BP oil spill. While the cable news media drooled all over themselves covering the disaster, most of them seemed truly disinterested in the complex causes and implications. Most of discussion instead revolved around human interest stories and how much BP would pay in damages. While important stories in their own right, their prominence speaks to a trend in the media to oversimplify the broader issues and neglect long-term examination. This tendency applies to us as well. Even if you did sit glued to the television set every night, following the coverage and adding little snippets of information to your “Obama Sucks” Facebook page or “It’s All Bush’s Fault” blog, you likely have since moved on from the discussion. Now, though, is exactly when we should take a look at the steps needed to prevent such tragedies in the future. In the wake of the spill, I hear very few Americans talking about the loosening of government oversight, the carte blanche approach to corporate practices, or our dependence on an energy source that is both finite and highly volatile. In fact, I hear very little talk of the spill itself anymore, despite the fact that the Gulf waters remain saturated with pollution, threatening not only lives, but industry in an already much-weakened economy. In the public imagination, it seems, all of these things pose less of a threat than, let’s say, a cultural center in New York to serve Muslims that already lived there in the first place.
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Of course, perhaps the issue most firmly on the collective mind at present is unemployment. While complain about the government’s inability to magically create jobs, we largely ignore the deep-seated factors contributing to not only to the shrinking job market, but to the decline of a genuine middle-class. It’s no secret that current job growth is highly concentrated at two opposite ends of the employment spectrum. At one end, high-wage employment is rebounding, and at that the other we see an uptick in low-income employment. Middle-income employment is, well, middling, and many formerly white- and blue-collar workers can only find work in minimum wage, service sector jobs, if at all. Tempting as it is to view this as a temporary by-product of the struggling economy, in actuality it is the acceleration of a long-term trend. As a nation, we decided slowly and steadily to promote short-sighted financial growth over long-term economic resilience and stability. In doing so, we greased the rails for the current crisis.
.In gutting the manufacturing sector, for instance, we have eliminated a key path to inter-generational success. We still cling to the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” American Dream mentality, even though we have steadily removed wrung after wrung of the social ladder. Traditionally, factory jobs provided a relatively comfortable, steady income which allowed people to care for their families. It also allowed many people to send their children to college, and thus improve the economic prospects for that next generation. As corporate profits became a national priority, though, the US shifted from primarily exporting manufacturing goods to the export of raw materials. This not only resulted in companies displacing the local markets of many developing nations, but also devastated a cornerstone of our economy, not to mention society as a whole. Now, the government focuses on stimulus plans that encourage us to spend money that we ought to save, because our economy depends disproportionately on consumerism. Each month, the economic reports lament the continually high savings rate of the US population as an impediment to growth. We live in a system that actively discourages frugality, thrift, and far-sightedness, and encourages us to live on credit. In fact, it in many ways demands it, which contributed largely to the housing bubble. Many will blame working- and middle-class consumers for entering into loans that they no longer could afford to pay, but fail to acknowledge the benefits that this inflated housing market rendered onto the rest of us. Furthermore, as a nation we buy into the myth of job security for the middle-class, meaning that when we enter into such loans, we actually believe that we can pay them off. Only later, when we are blindsided by layoffs, does home ownership become a liability. This system, then, harms the future prospects of not only those at the bottom, but basically anyone not at or near the top.
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And still, we do not really talk about this, at least not in any dynamic, socio-economic terms. Sure, you might hear discussions of these issues on NPR or read the discourse in the New Yorker or the Economist, but regular people seem to subscribe to the notion that still, despite all the ways in which our economic reality has fundamentally shifted over the years to the detriment of the populous, the old formula of hard work necessarily equals success still applies (whether it ever truly applied is another issue entirely). We ask for our jobs to come back, but do not look at what needs to change for that to happen. We criticize government regulation as unpatriotic and anti- capitalist, but still want those deregulated industries to provide us the higher wages and health benefits that they do not have to provide in the developing world. It’s no wonder, then, that we seem none too interested in peanut-paste saving lives in Africa. We seem to care so little not only about our less fortunate neighbors, but even about our own precarious state. So many of the people struggling now to make ends meat held solidly middle-class jobs only a few years ago. Most of us live paycheck-to-paycheck without even realizing it, until someone pulls the rug out from under us. Naturally, we want that rug back, but neglect to even examine why it was so poorly secured to the floor, let alone amend the problem.
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