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The U.S. housing market is dragging the whole world down, down, down into one of the worst depressions in modern economic history. But is this a bad thing? The more people I talk to, the more fear I have for the current world economic situation. What’s the truth about the economy? Am I going to lose my job? What actions can we take as individuals in order to protect ourselves?

“I do not say that if you are a landowner you are bound to give up your lands immediately to the poor; if a capitalist or manufacturer, your money to your workpeople; or that if you are Tzar, minister, official, judge, or general, you are bound to renounce immediately the advantages of your position; or if a soldier, on whom all the system of violence is based, to refuse immediately to obey in spite of all the dangers of insubordination.

“If you do so, you will be doing the best thing possible. But it may happen, and it is most likely, that you will not have the strength to do so. You have relations, a family, subordinates and superiors; you are under an influence so powerful that you cannot shake it off; but you can always recognize the truth and refuse to tell a lie about it. You need not declare that you are remaining a landowner, manufacturer, merchant, artist, or writer because it is useful to mankind; that you are governor, prosecutor, or tzar, not because it is agreeable to you, because you are used to it, but for the public good; that you continue to be a soldier, not from fear of punishment, but because you consider the army necessary to society. You can always avoid lying in this way to yourself and to others, and you ought to do so; because the one aim of your life ought to be to purify yourself from falsehood and to confess the truth. And you need only do that and your situation will change directly of itself.

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“There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth.”

Leo Tolstoy in “The Kingdom of God Is within You” 1894

I’m lost today because the truth is not available.  The truth of what is going on in the world economically either doesn’t exist in one place or is simply being covered-up.  The reasons for the economic collapse seem varied, vague, and vacuous.  And in a scientifically-based world such as ours, this is difficult to fathom.  The truth appears to be hidden, unknown, and maybe even lost.

But is it?  Is it really hidden?  Or is it right in front of us just waiting for us to recognize it? 

For a long time, people have allowed others to control their actions, people have justified their indecent and immoral acts through ignorance and deceit, people have contributed, both knowingly and unknowingly to a political, social, and economic system that oppresses, dominates, and exploits – and it’s all justified because we all need to live, we all need to feed our families, we all need to survive.

As Tolstoy points out, it is our need to survive that enables the people in power to “hypnotize” us into doing their bidding, to make it seem as if our actions are not our own and are the State’s or the City’s or the Company’s actions instead.  And so we commit horrible crimes and do the work of the wealthy and the powerful because we think the consequences of these actions will come down on someone else.  In the meantime, we barely eek out a living for ourselves and our families.

We also have many false ideas about our situation.  We have unusually unwavering faith in people with money and power and we often think of them as omnipotent and omniscient and so must have our best interest in mind.  Even if they do keep a great deal for themselves, they’ll also always make sure we get what we need in order to survive.  And they don’t just make mistakes, I mean, look at how stable things are around us.  This is what many thought before this economic depression, either consciously or subconsciously.

Now that we’re in a depression, we’re beginning to see that maybe those people with the money and power were too few and did not have the best interest of society in their mind and actions.  Maybe it is as many philosophers and scientists have stated before, that those in power really only cared about themselves and their own families and friends.  Knowing that we realized this too late, we’re stuck to deal with it and we still do not have the information we need in order to make informed decisions.

The current depression is not caused by peculiar nuances of large financial institutions.  Rather, it is ultimately caused by our ignorance, by our refusal to learn about and acknowledge the truth, by our insistence that our economic, political, and social society is good for everyone and everything when we know that this is not true.

Will we lose jobs?  Yes.  Is there anything we can do to stop it?  Yes. 

We can start telling people the truth about our situation, the truth that we are in the position we now find ourselves, if we are working people without ownership of the means of production, we do this because we fear the consequences of not doing it: starvation, struggle, poverty, ridicule, not being able to take care of our families, etc…  We do not work because it is best for society.  No.  We do not work because it is a public service that is needed and without it the society will fall apart.  No.  Our motives for working have nothing to do with altruism or doing the right thing.  No.  No.  No.  We work because we fear the alternative.  Recognizing this and professing this to others is all we have to do if we want our situation to change.

“A man cannot be placed against his will in a situation opposed to his conscience.

“If you find yourself in such a position it is not because it is necessary to anyone whatever, but simply because you wish it. And therefore knowing that your position is repugnant to your heart and your head, and to your faith, and even to the science in which you believe, you cannot help reflecting upon the question whether in retaining it, and above all trying to justify it, you are doing what you ought to do.

“You might risk making a mistake if you had time to see and retrieve your fault, and if you ran the risk for something of some value. But when you know beyond all doubt that you may disappear any minute, without the least possibility either for yourself or those you draw after you into your error, of retrieving the mistake, when you know that whatever you may do in the external organization of life it will all disappear as quickly and surely as you will yourself, and will leave no trace behind, it is clear that you have no reasonable ground for running the risk of such a fearful mistake.”

Leo Tolstoy in “The Kingdom of God Is within You” 1894