U.S. and Them

I was listening to the radio this past week as I drove home from work. An academic was sharing his opinion about the economy. At one point, he referred to the "us economy." I had never heard the phrase "the us economy" before, and wondered what it meant. I was eager for him to explain. However, after a few more minutes of listening, I realized that he had simply mis-read his notes: he meant to say "the U.S. economy." There was no "us economy" agenda or concept he was promoting.

Even having figured this out, instead of allowing "us economy" to simply be a line mis-read, I couldn't shake the phrase. The us economy. The Us Economy. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like something that could be developed into an actual concept.

America is a capitalist economy, and I'm not suggesting that change - but even within our capitalist system, I think we have become too much of an I economy: "my economic interests revolve solely around me; whatever deal I can score, whatever I will most benefit from, that's how I make my economic decisions."

It's a large part of why our economy is currently in the tank; businesses and individuals operated for too long with this sort of thinking. Rather than thinking communal and big-picture, America has been a nation of individual and instant-gratification. What if we were less of an I Economy, and more of an US Economy?

I'm not suggesting communism, socialism, or any other "-ism" that makes our citizens reflectively shudder. To quote Ferris Bueller, a person shouldn't believe in -isms, he should believe in himself... and to take that one step further, he should believe in his neighbor. Nothing dramatic, nothing overly-self-sacrificing, but something nonetheless revolutionary. The US Economy.

In the Us Economy, before just buying the cheapest head of imported lettuce, the consumer would stop and think: "If I spend just a little more and buy the locally grown lettuce, I'm taking care of what I need and helping out local farmers... and by extension, my community."

In the US Economy, picking up a few extra groceries or socks when we can afford to do so, and bringing them to a local food pantry or shelter, would be a regular habit rather than a holiday tradition. Each purchase would help out someone else, and pump a little more money into the economy.

In the US Economy, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure would be both common sense and common practice. This would apply very directly to our health care system. It could also apply to our foreign policy, our environmental initiatives, and of course, our individual spending, since, after all, we are talking about the economy.

In the US Economy, there would be less stratification - US would not just U.S. We'd need to be more than just domestic-minded. When we DO buy a shirt or coffee or spice from another country, we should be shopping with free trade, fair worker conditions, and peaceful international relations in mind.

Little steps, but a big concept: each time we spend, thinking about the purchase's impact on more than just our own immediate wallet. Let our minds go instead to our collective future. Do I do this now? No - not nearly to the extent that I should. But hearing someone's live-radio gaffe inspired me to at least start pondering the possibility of changing the conversation about how we spend our money. Now I'm sharing the thought. That's how we start, right? Taking it from something to just I am thinking about, to something we can talk about...

**Note: I did Google "the us economy," but neither periods nor capitalization factor in to their searches, so any search I've been trying turns up every reference to "the U.S. economy" out there. Someone else may well have coined this phrase intentionally. It's very likely, in fact. Please feel free to post if you know of someone who has put some more time, thought and articulation into spinning out this idea.