freelansing in Seattle

Seattle’s getting ready to celebrate the 10-yr. anniversary of WTO protests. One of the main events is the People’s Summit this weekend. Listings of other events can be found, as well as stories about the event’s meaning & legacy today, in the paper I help publish, Eat the State!

Battle of Seattle, or Battle in Seattle?: I’ve got a nit to pick with how we refer to the events of 1999. I’ve seen people use “Battle of Seattle” & “Battle in Seattle” interchangeably. I believe the two phrases are very different, & that the latter should be strongly preferred. Two reasons:

1) The WTO protests were in Seattle, but were made of — and all about — much more than just Seattle. People came from all over the world to participate in that epic week because the stakes were global. “Battle of Seattle” just doesn’t do it justice.

2) “Battle of Seattle,” as the name of a historical event, is already taken, by an event from 144 years before the WTO ministerial arrived in Seattle. That battle, on January 26, 1856, was between some factions of the local native population and the white settlers who had arrived a few years earlier. That was truly a Battle of Seattle, and rightfully deserves the name.

Finally, in commemoration of the anniversary of the Battle in Seattle, here’s a little political-economic fable I wrote just before that battle began. Still seems relevant.

The Invisible Hand: A Contemporary Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a land where the people placed great faith in an Invisible Hand. The Invisible Hand was a mythical creature of great magical powers, which had first been described by a wise man long ago named Adam Smith.

Smith explained that when people got together for the purpose of buying and selling and making things, all they had to do was act in their own self-interest and their actions would be guided “as if by an Invisible Hand” to create the greatest good for everyone.

In other words, this amazing creature could magically transform greed into public benefit. All that was needed was that everyone had to be competing against everyone else all the time, and that this competition had to take place with a minimum of rules and regulations. Cooperating or making rules were Bad Things, and would only prevent the Invisible Hand from working its magic.

People liked the fable of the Invisible Hand, because it told them they could Do Good by being greedy. Of course, the greediest people liked this story best, and so helped convince everyone that, with such amazing magical powers, the Invisible Hand should be allowed to control everything that involved buying, selling, or making things. And indeed, the Invisible Hand rewarded these people richly.

Over the years, the Invisible Hand did bring great wealth to the land, spreading enough of it around among enough people to keep them content. Even though most of the wealth went to a small minority, the rest of the people didn’t seem to mind all that much. After all, if the Invisible Hand had given enormous riches to some people, it must be a Good Thing.

Then one day the people who had reaped the greatest rewards from the Invisible Hand all got together. From every country on Earth they came, for the purpose of ensuring that everything that involved buying, selling, or making things, anywhere on the planet, would be controlled by the Invisible Hand, all the time. And that any rules that had been created that might restrict the Invisible Hand would be eliminated.

Even though this meeting was very secretive, the rest of the people heard about it.

“Hmmm,” people thought. “Maybe before we agree to let the Invisible Hand control everything in the world, we should think about this more carefully.”

And so people started to make a list of the times the Invisible Hand had brought Bad Things instead of Good Things.

This was a very long list, they soon discovered.

And so people said, “Maybe the Invisible Hand is good at doing some things, but it seems to do other things very badly. Maybe we shouldn’t let it control everything after all. Perhaps it’s time we started controlling things with our own hands.”

And so it was decided. And they lived happily ever after.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

And to all those who participated in the world-changing events of 1999: Happy anniversary!