No Sweat?

My will finally broke down, and I bought the No Sweat red high tops that I've been lusting after for what feels like years. I could resist such consumption no longer because, alas, they were on sale. I had been planning to wait until I actually needed new shoes. I have one pair of old running shoes that I wear almost every day. Occasionally, I wear my dad's old boots, but I have quickly realized why he stopped wearing them - the heal is rubbed raw somehow whenever I walk for a long period of time. Regardless, I didn't really need new shoes yet. The sneakers do fit me (not too big or too small), but I have not yet had the chance to test them out to see how comfortable they will actually be. Part of me is ashamed for finally caving in to pressures to consume unnecessary things, and another part of me is happy to support a union-made product.

It's a paradoxical situation for me, and such a situation exists because I am trying to live in two worlds at the same time - the Christian liberal world (which consists of my immediate family, and most of my friends up until recently, but especially friends I have made at college) and the anarchist world that I am slowly introducing myself to through things like food not bombs. The liberal world focuses on trying to change existing institutions to make them more just, and the anarchist world recognizes that the injustice of this economic system cannot be remedied - it goes all the way to the root of the institution, and therefore, a whole new economic system is needed, not more of the same. I highly doubt that all factories will ever unionize, ridding the world of sweatshop labor, because most Americans simply care more about buying things cheaply at walmart than worrying about the workers in China who are exploited to allow for those always low prices.

Even if all factories would unionize, the fact is that such copious amounts of work should not be necessary for survival. Private property (ownership by right, not by use) is an illusion that everyone buys into. Food kept under lock and key is the only thing that motivates people to toil and sweat, but food was not always kept under lock and key, and people did not always have to toil and sweat so much. Allow me a moment to wishfully daydream about the life of a forager...

But there are still ways possible to live without toiling and sweating my whole life away. I know they're out there. The site I just linked to is a good place for me, and anyone who wants to join me in my search for freedom from further slavery to capitalism, to start looking and thinking. I like the quote the site has as its motto, so I'll end this post with that:

"In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do." -- Henry David Thoreau