“For Sale”! Are Human Souls Included?
A “For Sale” sign, is an important feature in the business of commerce. However, exactly what happens, when the line between “for sale” and living becomes blurred? That is the background on which we will be focussing here.
There is nothing apologetic in or about a “For Sale” sign as a presentation. The surface message of the sign is bold and unambiguous. However, the display of that sign does carry with it a host of underlying subtle messages; some of which are inviting, and others of which are cajoling. The sign seeks interactions which will lead to a positive confirmation, that a sought quantity of money will be forthcoming.
The sign is therefore a way of inviting positive purchase responses, from those members of the community who believe that they have, or that they have access to the necessary quantity of financial or other resources, which the seller will accept in exchange for the offered piece of property. At the same time, a message in the sign is that rights to any alternative or to any continuing usage of the offered property, will be conveyed only at the discretion of the current registered owner of record.
Might people (as owners of themselves), and who must sell their time-housed skills in order to get money as the ticket to their survival, become a bit uneasy about a prevailing sales environment? Should people begin to wonder whether the appropriately corporate-friendly legislative provision may be wangled, so as to cause the attached rights to “usage” of themselves to be also correspondingly conveyable to others, as property in the market, (when an appropriate community of people-manipulators becomes assembled)?
These people-centred considerations are not irrelevant, because the sight of a “For Sale” sign also communicates an interesting story. It acknowledges the presence of a community (of people), but it also appeals to those entities whose active interest and response the sign aims to importune. In particular, what the sign seeks to stir up, will be taking place within a more closely specified community (of potential buyers, that is). Furthermore, the seller is likely to be totally indifferent to the motives for purchase that prospective buyers have, be they private persons or corporations; as long as the asking price is met. Indeed, the overall message in a “For Sale” sign is that, “here is a piece of legislatively stipulated property, and any other entity (participant or predator, that is seeing or that is hearing about the property item, to which the sign is attached), is invited to lay claim to all of the use rights that the item for sale promises”.
Meanwhile, it is tempting to conclude that: People, having not been declared as legislatively ownable property, are therefore left out of the purchasable use rights loop in the “for sale” sign, aren’t they? Don’t bet the farm on it.
The substance regarding what comprises the property (which is being offered for sale), is somewhat a different matter. The property can be anything. Therefore, could it then be legislatively framed so as to make the feature property item, to be also comprised of a number of the now perceived personal rights and the choices, which have been so far up to now vested on the people who normally make up the society?
Recall, for example, that in the modern industrial society, it is patterns of sale and of purchase (of legislatively stipulated property), which is the framework through which people gain access to MONEY. Furthermore, it is that acquisition of money, which allows persons to make claims on the technical goods and services which they will use to meet their survival requirements, in the time-space FOR LIVING that becomes accessible to them.
Meanwhile, whoever displays a “For Sale” sign, is anticipating from the community, an offer price in financial-equivalent terms, even though how high that offer price is likely to be, is a matter of conjecture. Yet, community members may legitimately speculate that, there is a minimum offer-to-purchase price (in official currency units), below which the proposed sale will not be consummated.
However, within all that resounding normalcy, regarding the tradition of purchase and sale, if impacts on people are brought more directly into the mix, there arises a lurking HUGE “fly in the ointment”. It arises because, when we consider what the substance, direction, process, and the objective of our lives and our living is all about, subconsciously, we recognize that there are substantive purchase and sale features which enter into our appraisal and evaluation. In addition, although buying and selling churns up money, we know that a high quality-of-living is our objective.
It follows, therefore, that how our quality-of-living is being impacted by prevailing tolerated purchase and sale arrangements , is not irrelevant. As a result, the following question arises:
|
In light of the ever-present comprehensive legitimacy that is given to the never ending mix of purchase and sale arrangements; How may humans (as responsible, sentient, Consciousness-guided entities) protect or prevent themselves, from EXECUTING THEIR LIVES under a “For Sale!” sign? |
Additionally, When human experience and opportunities become involved (in that which is on the trading block), just how will the normal seller’s reserve price be computed, and in what currency units will it be stated?
This “fly in the ointment” reservation about how wonderful a buoyant sales environment is for human experience, has roots. The unease arises due to the fact that there are at least two different political-economic management approaches to matters regarding HOW the quality-of-living which humans have historically sought, may be best served or serviced. One management approach, involves explicit economic management accommodation to quality-of-living priorities; and the other approach unapologetically executes neglect of that focus. Furthermore, the difference between accommodating to quality-of-life targets, and ignoring them completely, also pivots on different “political”convictions. These convictions arise out of issues in respect of how in matters regarding the human experience, knowledge (and its generation and usage) may best be linked to our accommodation to our environment, as well as to our management of it.
One quality-of-life-focussed economic management approach (to the linkage between humans and the trade environment), is explicitly people-centred. It sees sales and trading as also servicing quality-of-life enhancement. Additionally, even though trade in monetary terms may be taking place, this economic management approach also concentrates on manipulating the environment and its resources, so as to further material survival, as well as to further the expansion and use of knowledge. The people-centred approach to what goes on in the environment of trade, therefore, emphasizes production and exchange, as being a domain of supportive mix of operations, in behalf of the expression of humanness. Furthermore, that expression of humanness is recognized as being accompanied by behaviours and outcomes which are associated with expressions of empathy and of mutuality.
In contrast, the other political-economic convention which guides the management of the production and trade environment, instead, emphasizes (or pivots on) the cultivation of exchanges that are generated by greed, selfishness, and inter-human exploitation. These features are cultivated and accommodated as the stimuli in behalf of the primary output, which in those circumstances is to the evolution of monetary profits from production, trade, and exchange.
Between these two differing political economic approaches in the “for sale” environment (that lead to the “fly in the ointment” distemper about accompanying results), the following implicit question arises:
What are the main targeted achievements, in respect of the living that human economic agents are able to do, that persons (and their societies) will want the prevailing environment of trade and exchange (that they legitimate), to service or to emphasize?
To answer that question, recall that (in full awareness of their mortality), in any environment of purchase and sale, PERSONS, as sentient, Conscious, mind-guided, and information-processing entities, essentially set out to manage the commitment of their time, their efforts, and their resources. Furthermore, IN LIVING, as time-use management, persons usually proceed in purposeful (and therefore non-random) operations.
Essentially, too, the sentience of persons leads them to seek to use their technical skills, (inclusive of production and trade ones), to find opportunities to execute preferred practices in living. As a result, the focus on the attainment of quality-of-living emphasizes that, persons seek choices and opportunities which will enable them to look upon their survival, as being MEANINGFUL AND WORTHWHILE.
Meanwhile, in societies where people live under the reality of the prevailing capitalist tradition (which especially emphasizes the facility that money offers), people are conditioned to appraise and to measure in financial terms, the significance and the success of how they have allocated their efforts. That financial result from the effort allocation, is then related to living. There the appraisal is computed in terms of the extent to which the person who is doing the effort allocation, has (at minimum) gained the required quantities of money, with which he/she may PURCHASE the goods and services; (as complements of his/her survival), that are being offered on sale to INDIVIDUALS on the “market”, at a profit.
In the capitalist political-economic emphasis, on how humans and their environment are to be linked through trade and exchange (as purchases and sales), there is a guiding principle. Furthermore, it is not people-centred. Rather, it imputes that IF persons want the opportunity to pursue living as time-use management, THEY MUST FIRST SELL ANYTHING, INCLUDING THEIR SOULS, so as to get the quantities of money which they will need, to “purchase” the survival-supportive outputs from their environment. In addition, governments that have been “captured” by capitalist ideology, (and by its operating corporations and commercial banks), are not focussed on supporting the opportunities out of which Human Development may arise. Instead, such governments look on, and also manage the environment AS MIXES OF RESOURCES AND COMPONENTS THAT MAY BE BOUGHT SOLD AND CONTROLLED as private alienatable property, (that, in turn, may then be managed to generate corporate financial profit).
Meanwhile, Human Development, can also be supported out of the way the trade and exchange environment functions. However, that result, is forthcoming when the time and resource commitment of persons allow them to achieve the targets in informed survival which human sentience instigates individuals to execute.
To assure that type of sentience instigated delivery, the governance system of a culture may not use legislation (regarding what may be treated as private property, nor programs of formal and informal education), to present the environment as being primarily a source resources, in behalf of the generation of financial profit. Instead, programs of education and of information processing and transference, must stimulate persons to recognize their common linkage with their environment.
Undoubtedly, too, Human Development is certainly not the output which is being produced, when, in order to survive, the bulk of the members of the community are primarily required to sell their time, as “property”, to service that financial “bottom-line” of corporations, in contrast with committing their time to service their search for quality-of-life enhancement.
Consider, therefore, that THERE IS AN ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT REALITY WHICH COMPRISES THE CHOICES IN LIVING THAT HUMANS MAKE AS SENTIENT BEINGS. It exists as the mix of time-use-management-choices, into which persons respectively enter. Additionally, this economic management reality also has a purchase and sale context, with its own “For Sale” flag, even though the usual monetary settlement is not the indicator of the “sale” that has taken place. Notably, too, the price, of the transaction, is the committed time; and the “property”, is the mix of outcomes on the lives of persons, which has attracted or has resulted from the time-use commitment. The “For Sale” flag, is therefore the stimulated expectations which had seduced the time commitment.
When humans make CHOICES among the alternative time-use operations (which comprise their living), they are substantively yielding their time as surrender “price” so as to achieve a “property” in the form of the behavioural result (which accompanied their offer to participate). As a result, whenever persons commit their time, they are therefore “selling” or “investing” their time-currency, so as to achieve or to claim a “property” (as an outcome/achievement/opportunity, that will become manifested as an event in their survival). Meanwhile, A SUBLIME EXISTENCE, AND MEANINGFULNESS IN THEIR LIVING is the outcome at which mortal, responsible, Conscious, sentience-guided humans, normally aim the commitment of their time. Therefore, in ANY society, as persons make time and effort commitments, they need to ask themselves the following question:
|
Is the “property” (in the form of forthcoming outcomes) in behalf of which they commit/“sell” their time for living, sufficiently supportive of THE SENTIENCE-GUIDED SURVIVAL AT WHICH THEY RESPECTIVELY AIM?. |
For reference, see: Managing our Living-Space: Quality-of-Human-Survival as the Economic “Bottom Line”; ISBN (1897318944). See also; Quality-of-Living and Human Development as the Outcome from Economic Progress: An Elaboration on Living as Time-Use Management; ISBN (1897036353).
Become a Member of MyCanada News Exclusives, LINK to get more details on this article.