Empire Remixed

by Brian Walsh

Kentucky poet, farmer, essayist, novelist and profoundly wise man, Wendell Berry once said that there were two kinds of economy:

There is the kind of economy that exists to protect the “right” of profit, as does our present public economy; this sort of economy will inevitably gravitate toward the protection of the “rights” of those who profit most. Our present public economy is really a political system that safeguards the private exploitation of the public wealth and health. The other kind of economy exists for the protection of gifts … and this is the economy of community, which now has nearly been destroyed by the public economy (Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, p. 138).

So what is it: the rights of profit or the protection of gifts? The private exploitation of public wealth or the economy of community? Read the rest of this entry »