Walking through the Brooklyn Museum last weekend, I came across the painting above. The title is “Shooting for the Beef”. The faces on some of the men look directly toward the viewer. These faces have the confidence of men who know how to provide for themselves, a satisfied look of self-reliance. They will live and die by their own production. The house behind them is a solid, simple structure but made with the materials around it. These men stand straight; they don’t slump. Their legs are their source of transportation, and the winner will guide the “beef” home, walking before. While it is a competition, it is a friendly competition. The “beef,” because I’m not positive whether it is a bull or a cow, looks toward the viewer with nearly the same expression. Every member of this moment appears comfortable in their situation. This scene is surrounded by nature, nature that has been scarred by the efforts of these men, whether the roads that have been channeled through the landscape or the tree stumps where a few men sit. The men's faces also demonstrate their pride in their achievement over their pride in appearance. These are “hard” men, who have worked in abrasive conditions to forge a way of life. They didn’t come home and put on skin conditioner or some form of “wrinkle-be-gone,” and they didn’t send their children off to be educated. Do they read? Some, perhaps most. Would they want their children to read? Of course, and if they had the opportunity to collectively organize to have children learn to read, then they probably got together and made it happen, not as a governing collective but as a cooperative action among free volunteers. When the action was collective, it was voluntary and cooperative, probably to accomplish tasks that couldn’t be done individually: clearing roads, helping each other raise homes, mutual defense against outside threats. They didn’t drop by Banana Republic™ to pick up their clothes. They didn’t search Amazon™ to order their boots. More likely than not, they or their wives made these clothes. The only items they probably purchased was their musket and the tools they use to produce their life’s necessities. This is a world that existed without many external means of production. Small factories produced what couldn’t be produced by the individual, which was likely limited to weapons and perhaps forged tools like shovels, plows, and axes of greater complexity. However, these men probably had some level of forge and blacksmith skills. They probably made their own nails and horse shoes. They embody the means of production.
Marx misaligned the rightful ownership of the means of production. It shouldn’t belong to the “workers” any more than to the “capitalists”. The means of production is the human. Each human owns her means of production. The only thing she can guarantee is the ability to practice and utilize that means of production. When I say “guaranteed,” I don’t mean protected by an authority or governing body. I mean guaranteed by existence. Each human can utilize his means of production as he sees fit. He may barter his means of production to a corporation or another individual, but he has chosen to do so. We don’t have to do so. This is the inherent problem with both communism and capitalism: that someone or some entity other than “you” can “own” or “purchase” or “control” personal means of production. What do I mean by this? First of all we, Americans, have lost the heritage of our people, the heritage of self-reliance, of dignity in work and labor for one’s self and family, of humble pride in an existence built by our own labor, by our own ingenuity. The men in the picture are willing to compete, but in a competition based on their ability to use their musket. The men in the painting know that life is not fair, that they must rely on their own instincts, innovation, and integrity to survive. They don’t look to any source for support beyond what they can provide themselves.
Today, we Americans depend on a variety of entities and individuals for support. We claim our independence, but we are a society of dependents, one and all, myself included. We depend on others to provide the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we burn, the rights we need protected. We stereotype the individuals at the lowest rung of the nanny state as being either welfare queens, single teenage mothers or the lazy (the point that 2 of those 3 stereotypes are women can be an essay of its own). Yet we also receive from and depend upon the nanny state. I’m a teacher. My income comes from the state. I depend on the state to provide for my needs as I provide for them as a “public servant”, accomplishing what I hope will be the improvement of my student’s intelligence. I depend upon the energy that drives this computer where I’m writing this polemic. I am not self-reliant. Could I become self-reliant? Not without sacrifice and a complete reset of my values and a redistribution of my energy and effort. Can we expect people to become self-reliant? The answer to these questions may be coming. If the current system continues on its course, we may have no other option available.
I take a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” written in 1841:
Today, we Americans depend on a variety of entities and individuals for support. We claim our independence, but we are a society of dependents, one and all, myself included. We depend on others to provide the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we burn, the rights we need protected. We stereotype the individuals at the lowest rung of the nanny state as being either welfare queens, single teenage mothers or the lazy (the point that 2 of those 3 stereotypes are women can be an essay of its own). Yet we also receive from and depend upon the nanny state. I’m a teacher. My income comes from the state. I depend on the state to provide for my needs as I provide for them as a “public servant”, accomplishing what I hope will be the improvement of my student’s intelligence. I depend upon the energy that drives this computer where I’m writing this polemic. I am not self-reliant. Could I become self-reliant? Not without sacrifice and a complete reset of my values and a redistribution of my energy and effort. Can we expect people to become self-reliant? The answer to these questions may be coming. If the current system continues on its course, we may have no other option available.
I take a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” written in 1841:
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
“(E)nvy is ignorance;” What have we become but an envious people? The media provides plenty to fuel this envy. Most people don’t arrive at Emerson’s conviction. So many times I hear people say “I want it all.” Why? What does that even mean? We try to be “like the Jones” although that should probably be rephrased to “like Donald Trump” or “like the Kardashians.” We crave material objects as means of fulfillment. We imitate constantly. In the 1970s, attempting to be a “punk” meant used-clothing stores and ‘found’ items that were put together by the wearer. Now it means shopping at a retail store where patched jackets come from China, produced by someone else. We don’t take ourselves “for better, for worse” as our portion. We believe we can become anything, if only we’re provided the means. Whether Emerson meant the “plot of ground” literally or figuratively, we don’t follow his guidance.
We can though. We can see the “wide universe is full of good,” despite what the media portrays. We can see that the most “nourishing corn” comes from our own efforts, and we can make ourselves self-reliant again. We can recognize that “envy is ignorance,” and we can stop relying on corporations with vast, negative externalities to provide our “nourishing corn.” We can cooperate and collaborate with our neighbors and friends to accomplish what we can’t do alone. We can do it locally and not expect it to filter down to us from above. We can stop believing that electing the “right” leader will make a difference. What we can’t do is expect the current system to remain eternally, any more than we can expect the creation of a perpetual machine.
We can though. We can see the “wide universe is full of good,” despite what the media portrays. We can see that the most “nourishing corn” comes from our own efforts, and we can make ourselves self-reliant again. We can recognize that “envy is ignorance,” and we can stop relying on corporations with vast, negative externalities to provide our “nourishing corn.” We can cooperate and collaborate with our neighbors and friends to accomplish what we can’t do alone. We can do it locally and not expect it to filter down to us from above. We can stop believing that electing the “right” leader will make a difference. What we can’t do is expect the current system to remain eternally, any more than we can expect the creation of a perpetual machine.
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