There are many things about the United States that I still don't understand. Even though on Monday I took a 4th of July-inspired civics quiz, and passed with glowing colors, I feel that my understanding of this nation in which we live is limited at best. I can name the three branches of government, and I know my first amendment rights, but the real driving forces in this land still leave me drawing a blank.
We call it by different names: the free market, the "invisible hand," the foundation of our most excellent of democracies. Capitalism is a system that, in a textbook sense, makes a lot of sense. It is now a cornerstone of American life. Indeed, it has taken hold of most of the globe and has created a global marketplace unlike any that has existed in the past.
As a whole, the United States has really come out on top in terms of this global market. Ignoring for a moment the trillions of dollars worth of debt that we owe nationally, the U.S. is an incredibly prosperous nation. We used to be known as the country that had streets paved with gold. Although in fact many of our roads could use a good re-paving, the hyperbole is still striking.
For some people, our economic system has created a space for incredible wealth and power, more money than most of us could ever dream of having. And I'm not even talking about the celebrities and CEOs who have so much of everything that they have to come up with new ways to spend it or give it away. There are some Americans who have become wildly rich because they know how to work the system. They understand the market.
I'm not sure how many people in this country take advantage of the services provided by a financial advisor, and I honestly can't say what exactly those services are. Like CIA operatives and ghostwriters, financial advisors are phantom agents. In my mind, they love to gamble — the kind of people who, as kids, set up neighborhood poker games. Investment bankers, Wall Street big shots, all those people who watch the ups and downs between the opening and closing bells have a truly interesting job.
What makes it even better is that the money isn't even real. At least, it isn't tangible. Our stock market (the global market, too) operates on incredible faith — because rather than having huge wads of cash exchanging hands, the good and the bad of finance is particularly reliant on flashing computer screens and harried telephone calls. It seems incredible, but fortunes can now be made and lost without so much as a quarter making it into your pocket.
There are still some businesses that will only accept cash. These are usually tiny places, the kind of store or restaurant that might sell goods in mason jars. A lot of them are pretty humble anyway, what with all the homemade, do-it-yourself printer labeled products, but the fact that they only want the kind of money you can count seems almost quaint. What kind of place doesn't accept credit cards these days, anyway?
But what's frightening to me is the reality that even those places that eschew plastic are stuck within the system. If the U.S. suddenly became overrun with zombies, and all electricity was cut out, not even cold, hard cash could buy you the supplies you'd need to stay alive. A $20-bill would be the same as a $5-bill, and $1,000 would be just as meaningless.
It isn't that the sheets of paper are worth very much in and of themselves. We live in a time and place where so much of daily life is dictated by how much money we have in the bank. And just as we make plans based on the assumption that the sun will rise again in the morning, we operate under the assumption that our money will still mean something tomorrow. It really would take something like a zombie apocalypse to disrupt the American way. Just in case, you should probably buy some bottled water while you can.
— Anna-Lise Burnett is a senior in global and Asian studies. She can be reached at kburnet7@utk.edu.