Myth and Socialism

I just finished reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Facesand I was thoroughly impressed.

 I know it's an old book and if you've seen Star Wars you already know the hero arc but, to me, the most important part of the book wasn't explaining that all mythology is based on the same archetypes or the journey all heroes take.  The most important part of the book was the Epilogue, "Myth and Society."  In the epilogue Campbell talks explicitly about what mythology, religion, stories, and, more recently, movies are trying to teach us; the essence of which is that there is more to life than individualism.  Instead of "Myth and Society" the epilogue could have been named "Myth and Socialism".

The society to which we belong moulds our lives; it gives us language and shapes our thoughts.  As an individual we cannot be representative of our society; we can only show facets of it, facets that change as we age and grow in experience.  One person cannot represent the young, the mature, and the old at the same time; a man cannot represent the feminine or genderless aspects of society; a scholar cannot represent other professions.  Together, individuals in the society make up the whole and our traditions and ceremonies serve to help us fit into the society.  Most ceremonies transition us from one aspect of our life to the next: birth celebrations, such as a baptism; coming-of-age ceremonies, such as Bar and Bat Mitzvah; weddings; funerals.  Each of these show us and the community where we belong in society.  Other ceremonies are about the community as a whole: Plough Monday was the first day of the agricultural year in England, Thanksgiving is a celebration of the harvest made possible only through the work of the entire society.

There are no ceremonies in which we celebrate a person being an individual separate from society.  Some ceremonies, such as a vision quest, might involve separation from the society but only for a period of time.  Being permanently separated from society was reserved as a punishment, typically for sever crimes.  Cain was exiled for the murder of Abel¹, in 16^th Century Scotland those found acting against the interests of the burgh were banished.²  Individual identity separate from society has only recently been something sought after.

Myths reinforce the idea that, as individuals, we are only part of the whole.  As Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”³ Or God’s words, “Muhammad hadst thou not been, I would not have created the sky.”⁴  Myths tell us that God is part of all of us and that we are part of God; all people are interconnected and belong to the whole.  And yet in today’s world we are removing all identification with groups and placing increasing emphasis on the individual.  As individuals we are lost; we cannot grasp the fullness of life without a group and “we have been split in two”, our conscious and unconscious selves.⁵

“We think of ourselves as Americans, children of the twentieth century, Occidentals, civilized Christians.  We are virtuous or sinful.  Yet such designations do not tell what it is to be man, they denote only the accidents of geography, birth-date, and income.  What is the core of us? What is the basic character of our being?”⁶  We are humankind; we are the past, the future, and each other.  We are better off as a group.  No single facet of humanity, not one religion, or social class, or profession, or gender can represent all of humanity.  Further, no single nationality or ethnicity can represent all of humankind.  As humanity has in the past, we must move beyond these limiting factors, we must recognize that our society is global not tribal or provincial or national.  These labels hold humanity back from maturing. 

Religion is unable to help us break away from the guardians of the status quo.  Long ago religion became a tool of the “ogre-tyrant,” used for propaganda and self-congratulation.  “It is hardly more today than a sanctimonious exercise for Sunday morning, whereas business ethics and patriotism stand for the remainder of the week.”  For proof we need only look to the United States, it is an unofficial requirement that to run for high office a person must be a Christian while also praising the system that encourages a few to hoard while others go without.  This can also be seen in Buddhism, which is today a tool for the country of Tibet.  Gautama Buddha was a prince who cast off his material life for enlightenment but the Dalai Lama has, until recently, been the head of the Tibetan state and continually uses his religious position for political purposes.  We must break free of these restrictive mythologies or be forever trapped in a cycle of violence against each other.

A key part in ending the cycle of violence is to discontinue our practice of Capitalism and our belief in the ideologies and myths that have sprung up to support it.  The profit motive is used to excuse violence on all scales, from banks forcibly removing people from their homes to countries warring on one another.  Capitalism is a belief predicated on violence and greed; it necessarily stagnates humanity as it encourages uniformity, falsely portraying a single facet of humanity as being representative of all.

We must all, as Campbell points out, be modern day heroes⁷.  It will, however, not be for society to guide us in our journey but, rather, for each of us to bear the torch that will guide us back to society.  We must discover those unconscious symbols that can serve as guideposts and help to create new mythologies or reinterpret old ones that will guide those following us.  We must become united in humanity.  That is not to say we must all have a single culture and use the same symbols and stories for enlightenment but we must recognize that we are all engaged in the same journey; the path may be different but the destination is the same: a global, respectful humanity.

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¹Gen. 4:11
² Elizabeth Ewan, “'For Whatever Ales Ye': Women as Consumers and Producers in Late Medieval Scottish Towns,” in Women in Scotland: c.1100-1750, 124-135, ed. Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen Meikle (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999), 126-127.
³Matt. 25:40
⁴ Saʻdī, The Bústán, trans. W.H. Allen (1879), 13.
⁵ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3^rd ed. (Novato, California: New World Library, 2008), 334.
⁶ Ibid., 332.
⁷ Ibid., 337.

Taxes and Death

There's two things that are certain in a person's life: Death and Taxes. Having not experienced the former for myself I will talk about the latter. Taxes are paid by everyone on nearly everything, it's just the way it is and the way it's got to be. In Alberta we happen to pay the lowest overall tax rate; it's part of our province's shortsighted addiction to resource revenue. Why have a stable source of revenue when we can rely on the business cycle?

Alberta forgoes between $10 and 20 Billion by having such a ridiculously low tax rate. This rate is defended as helping out the little guy. The 2009 budget claims that this benefits those with lower incomes. Unfortunately this isn't true. A recent study by the Parkland Institute shows that only two provinces have a higher tax rate for the lowest income bracket and all of them have a higher rate for the highest tax bracket. Who is it that we're helping here?

Alberta's tax system is not competitive, it's not even playing the same game. If it was the best system in Canada, wouldn't all the businesses and skilled workers that they are trying to attract to the province be here by now? Alberta could remain attractive and institute a progressive tax rate; it doesn't have to be ridiculous start off at about five percent for the lowest income bracket and end at fifteen percent for the highest tax bracket. Nobody is really hurt by this and it would earn Alberta at least another $10 Billion.

Moving away from income tax for a moment let's look at sales tax. Alberta does not have a provincial sales tax, the only province not to. This is all to be more competitive but it still doesn't attract all the new skilled workers that we want in this province. Let's charge a sales tax and let's make it progressive as well. For example, one needs to buy a car. They have a choice between a small cheaper car like a Honda Civic or for three times the cost a Cadillac Escalade. let's charge five percent for the cheaper purchase and fifteen percent for the more expensive purchase. Obviously, only those that are able to afford the bigger purchase will even think about buying expensive objects like yachts (maybe not in Alberta), sports cars, huge houses and we know they can afford the extra tax.

With a graduated sales tax and a progressive income tax Alberta would be able to have a hefty tax base to work with and they could afford to do all the basics that need to be done: health care, education (grade school and post secondary), infrastructure and maintenance. Even hitting a recession the government could afford to weather it with almost no problems at all because they aren't relying on the booms and the busts of the business cycle.

Part of being able to afford doing the basics is knowing what can be afforded and when. The extras that people want and things that are good to have: museums, art galleries, funds for all sorts of extras. These things would need to be funded on a basis of when the money is available. Mostly the money would be available through the royalty rates that the government collects primarily on the oil industry. With an effective and fair royalty structure Alberta would be able to collect a bunch of extra cash and use this for the extras that people want. They could even save a bunch and then when times are lean they could pull out the savings and spend their way through the recession and maybe no one would even notice that it happened.

This would take foresight and intestinal fortitude. Most people hate hearing the word taxes but they gonna happen whether you like it or not. Let's at least make it fair and tax the people who can afford to be taxed and who actually create some revenue from their taxes. Let's stop relying on oil and gas revenue and then cutting back on all the crazy spending we institute when the economy goes bust every ten years. Let's institute a plan that will benefit the most people most of the time. Let's raise taxes.