Kitchen table conversations

The presidential candidates and pundits refer to families getting together for conversations 'around the kitchen table' to figure out how they can cut back on expenditures. But the solution to our current economic crisis really involves raising a different subject in these family conversations: "How can we help be part of the solution to the problem?"

Recent generations have been taught to think of individuals and families as 'consumers'. When you go to work, either as an employee or a businessperson, you're considered a producer, but as soon as you get home, you're merely considered 'a consumer'. This unhelpful dichotomy needs to change. People at home do more than consume, and they have an important role to play when they're not consuming. (The idea that they are literally 'nothing if not consumers' is extremely dangerous, since overconsumption is a key cause of most of the problems the world faces.)

Back to the kitchen table conversation: This should not be presented as a negative thing: "What do we have to give up?", but rather as a more general, and possibly positive "What do we do in this situation?" This can include cutting back consumption, but can also include "What can we do to help?" Patriotism is love of country, and when someone or something you love is in trouble, you look for ways to help, even if these actions require sacrifice. Knowing you are part of the solution can be far more rewarding than hedonistic consuming. People and families can endure much more hardship when they consider themselves helping to build (or rebuild) something important. Our leaders need to enlist the power of American families and citizens to contribute something other than taxes to our society. And leaders should not consider tax breaks the only way to solicit this response.

I'm really thinking about one particular way American families can assist in the economic recovery: 'buy American' or, better yet, 'buy local'. Money spend on domestic products is more likely to stay in the domestic economy than money spent on foreign goods. Money that stays in the domestic economy helps business after business (and thus employee after employee) keep going, and that's what we need.

I realize that American goods are generally significantly more expensive than foreign goods, and therefore 'buying American' necessarily means people can't buy as much as they could if they bought cheaper foreign goods. But there is a significant psychological advantage to viewing the issue as making a positive decision to make things better, rather than a negative decision just to reduce expenditures in order to survive.

We really lost an opportunity last Spring to make this point at the time the 'economic stimulus' checks went out. People should have been encouraged to consider how long their money would stay in the domestic economy when using this windfall income.

One last point: there are somethings national leaders really can't say. I suspect the President can't say 'buy American' because other countries would react negatively. "Protectionism" is a dirty word. Other countries rely on the American market consuming what is produced overseas, and they wouldn't like to hear American leaders interfering with this process.

But at some point citizens need to take care of their own countries. We are not sheep that are led entirely by government tax policies. Democracies are based upon citizen participation, and participation is not just a matter of voting whenever elections occur. Yes, we are "consumers", and we are "voters", but we are not just these things. Our nation's future depends on people adopting a broader view of themselves and each other.