Company Store

As part of my MaxQ song cycle I wanted to write a song about money and economic issues. Clearly money is a big player, both in creating the problems facing humanity and also potentially in solving our problems.

Of course, no one song is going to ring all the bells that need to be rung.

One song I didn’t write is a song about big picture economic theory. To speak plainly, I just don’t know enough about the subject, and would have a hard time believing myself and my song if I tried to write it. The best source I’ve found for approachable information on the subject of speculative economic theory is in the books of science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. In particular, Robinson’s most recent book as of this writing in early 2021, The Ministry For the Future, has a story line that embodies some very interesting economic ideas and potential strategies for humanity going forward. In this book Robinson explores, among other things, the idea of a new currency backed by the earth saving value of carbon sequestration. But though I understand this strategy within the context of the story it’s embedded in, I don’t understand it in my gut. I can’t write out of what I don’t know.

(Also see Robinson’s New York 2140 and his Mars Trilogy.)

The song I eventually tackled is one that touches a lot closer to home – the idea that we can influence the world through spending our money judiciously, patronizing those people and businesses and institutions we approve of, and avoiding putting money into the pockets of those we consider to be bad actors. Thus, Company Store.

I came up with the first line, “I’ll never trade with the slavers at the Company Store”, and almost quit right there. Something inside me resists calling anyone a “slaver”. It’s a really horrible thing to say about anybody, and I don’t want to unfairly malign people. But the line and the song didn’t want to go away. And yes, that line is over the top, but still, it rings true, doesn’t it?

So I finished the song and it works. Read it literally, read it metaphorically, there’s some kind of truth there.

Oh, about my blatant hypocrisy. I live in the USA, and let me tell you, it is difficult to avoid putting money into the pockets of entities that maybe I should boycott. I sometimes shop at Target. I buy gasoline from big oil companies. I buy food at Whole Foods. I am an Amazon Prime member. In some sense these are all instances of "the Company Store". I am not advocating some absolutely noble economic purity - just that we try to do the right thing with our economic power. Let us trend in the direction of saving humanity and the planet.

That being said, if there is a clear example of a company that is obviously a bad actor on the world stage, I’m fine with boycotting that company. We don’t owe anyone our patronage.

Make them earn it.