Fact about the California economy: fourth biggest in the world. Got your attention? So does five trillion dollars of investment, pumped into the tech sector, arable farmland and the prison industry in the hope to make those trillions into quadrillions. But if you sniff the air something smells rotten, and we’re not talking the Pacific. Beneath the luxury yachts, tower blocks and business offices there is something sinister churning away behind everything, growing alongside the money business of the West Coast. Today I was going to identify the cancerous parasites lurking inside American economics by visiting the Los Angeles Financial Core.
Beforehand I needed to prepare. I visited a plastic surgeon in the Hollywood hills to get the surgery I had done in New York be reversed. Pulling out a portfolio, I showed the surgeon the diagram of my intentions, as well as my wish to undergo the surgery under local rather than general anaesthetic. Half an hour later the surgeon had peeled my face off to remove the augmentations, I watched the procedure in a mirror.
“What do you think about money?” I asked. It was difficult to speak with no lips, but the surgeon understood.
“You can never have enough money.” She said, scraping the wax fillers away from beneath my cheekbones. I couldn’t blink as I had no eyelids, nor did my eyes water as I had no tear ducts, so I spritzed myself in the face with a spraybottle.
“Some believe that money is poisonous, that the concept of money is inherently flawed and is destructive. We are unable to think of an alternative to money due to the toxicity messing with our minds.”
“We need money. What could you trade with me for this surgery today? What would I do to get the anaesthetic, the surgical tools, the room to do my work in? Give nose jobs to builders? Facelifts for factory workers?”
“Sure, why not? Your joke is just something that could happen, that’s easy to do, right? Give everyone plastic surgery. You like doing surgery?” I say, the surgeon rolling my face back upwards across the muscles of my skull so that I had lips once more.
“Yeah, I love my job.”
“Is your joy predicated on the idea that you are earning more money than other people? Do you think you should earn more than a cleaner?”
“Of course. I studied at college.”
“If there was nobody to clean up after you, you would be eaten by rats. All work is equal, no? We are selling our time. Time is a limited resource and the time that we have should be valued as such. The lowest paying jobs are often for the richest companies. Doesn’t that seem like bullshit to you?” I say.
I drive the Hyundai Sonata with bandages wrapped round my head. I look like the Invisible Man, smell of antiseptic and copper. Between fifth and eighth street are a cluster of skyscrapers that mark the L.A. skyline like a stock market graph. Numbers going up and down, measurements for theoretical organs that pulse alongside investment and consumer decisions. I snort a line of ibuprofen off the car dashboard before going into one of the buildings at random.
I enter the hallowed grounds of the Business Centre, a sixty six story building containing those that have dedicated their lives to the sacred art of economics. Analysts look at multiple monitors, trying to decode data, divining meaning from NASDAQ. Frankincense spills from pewter thuribles that hang from the ceiling, mixing with the smell of burnt coffee, chemical sweat, printer ink. I walk through the consecrated halls and pass meeting rooms, open plan offices, glass walls hiding their contents with venetian blinds. One can only guess at the different rituals taking place behind the closed doors, but one thing was certain; it was done in order to serve mankind via low-risk investment.
I arrive at a grand hall filled with row upon row of chairs. At the opposite end of the room there is a large portrait of Milton Friedman, the man appears as a bespectacled saint, holding aloft a weighty codex in on hand, in the other he holds an abacus. In front of this wonderful painting there is a pulpit, from which TEDx sermons are delivered and uploaded onto YouTube, as well as one of the senior directors at the Business Centre, deep in conversation with a representative from the Bank of America. This image brought to mind the fresco by Raphael of Aristotle and Plato, making me wonder if they had been born at a different time, would they invest in crypto? I approach the two men, asking if I may question them about economics.
“Of course, my child. For we must teach the next generation of capitalists in order for them to teach the next.” Says the older director, his eyes twinkling.
“Do you think of economics as a belief system?” I ask. The men laugh, shaking their heads.
“Economics is a science, child. We have developed our theories over hundreds of years. It is the science of transaction, of markets, of consumers.”
“But don’t economists get stuff wrong? Like, all the time?”
“We didn’t say this was a perfect science. What are you getting at exactly?” the Bank of America rep appears to be irritated already.
“I guess it seems more prescriptive than analytical. It only works because people believe in it, you know?” I say.
“If you truly understood economics, you wouldn’t say that. Don’t tell me you want to discuss theories of value…you’re not a Marxist, are you?” says the banker. I snap my lanyard to show annoyance.
“That is a strong accusation to make. I believe in Adam Smith, Ronald Reagan and infinite growth. I believe in capital, free trade and globalisation. I believe in million dollar handjobs and Dubai chocolate.” I say.
“So what is the nature of your questioning, child?”
“The fall of the Roman Empire was, in part, due to its adoption of a new belief system – Christianity – and this belief system became so powerful it superseded the imperial rulers and became Roman Catholicism. The Catholic church arguably had more power than the Roman empire previously, as even kings would need to pledge allegiance to the Pope. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“You are comparing capitalism to Christianity, saying that another belief system has overtaken U.S. politicians, that the banks are somehow more powerful than the White House? Is that it?” says the director. The representative from the Bank of America laughs.
“If only we were! Do you think we’d have sanctioned the tariffs? We have lost trillions of dollars thanks to the successive failures of our presidents. They don’t understand economics.” He says.
“I think there’s a possibility that nobody understands economics. That it’s a made-up system with little relation to reality, undertaken by people who overestimate their own intellect and importance in the world, and to challenge the notion of neoliberal capitalism is seen as blasphemy.” I say.
“It is not blasphemy. You are ignorant, child, that is all.”
“The notion that all of this is necessary, that because pension funds are invested in unethical businesses via asset management companies, that we are damaging our world because we can’t afford the alternative, that we can only have our lifestyles because of the exploitation of foreign workers…doesn’t it all just seem to be against humanity? Against nature?” I say. The men look at each other and laugh.
“What is the alternative? Do you want to trade bananas for clothes? Should I become a farmer?”
“Hahaha, let me guess, you think we should tax everybody for all the money they earn so we can give out vegan cookies? Is that it?” says the banker, barely able to get his sentence out as he was laughing so much.
“I don’t care any more really. I’ve spent too much time trying to convince people of other ways. We should accelerate capitalism to its logical conclusion, where one person owns everything.” I say.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Get out of here!”
“I see your faith is wavering, child, I can see your point of view. All I ask is that you wait and see.” The director says. I shake my head.
“Like I said, I don’t care anymore. I was led to believe I would have at least the same kind of life as my parents, instead it seems all future generations are paying for them to complain on Facebook about how lazy we are. Soon they will go into care homes and all the wealth we had been promised will be eaten up by multinational companies. I think that’s what you don’t fully understand yet, the economic nihilism of younger generations means all of this will collapse in on itself. The idea of capitalism is like a monoculture, an invasive species that has replaced everything with itself. Just as bacteria will suffocate itself upon growing too quickly, so neoliberal capital will choke on itself as there is nothing left to exploit.” I say. The two men shrug, going back to what they had been discussing previously, and so I leave the room, the floor, the building, back into the Hyundai Sonata. I did have one last trick up my sleeve. I boot up the laptop, open up a pseudo-AI I had been programming.
It drafted the minutes of board meetings where the director of a company would resign and appoint a new director, who was a fictional entity. The AI then prepared all the relevant forms to notify federal business administrators and the IRS, as well as press-releases to be sent out notifying journalists of the change in leadership. I also had the AI contact cell phone providers across the fifty states, changing the previous company directors phone number to one that didn’t exist – this wouldn’t stop any of the previous actions from happening, but would slow down responses. This was superior to simply hacking a companies webpage, the AI went through legal processes where security was flimsier, usually relying on a few forms and pieces of evidence that could be easily fabricated. As soon as the AI finished its first iteration of legally replacing the business owners, I had it work again on a random selection of organisations, making the fake directors resign and be replaced by a further fake director, with the foresight that the legal process would need overhauling to become more secure, shutting out the actual Directors from their own companies as it wouldn’t be certain if they were real or not. The last procedure the AI did was fire its entire workforce and liquidate the company.
All of this happened in the space of five minutes. As the worm zig-zagged across the internet, I rolled a joint of purple weed and a dash of Salvia, smoking it in my car and looking up at the skyscrapers around me. I had sabotaged approximately 33 million businesses, from bodegas in New York all the way to AI companies in San Francisco. The work could be easily undone, but I suspected it would have a demoralising effect on businesses and the people who used them. The stock market would free fall, assets would be sold off overnight, retirees would find their pension pots empty and people would start panic buying toilet paper as it would seem like the end of the world. As the saying goes, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But just because you can’t imagine something doesn’t mean you could aim at a theoretical model of reality where that has already happened.
Just as Martin Luther had driven a wedge into Catholicism, so had I in Economics. Though rather than nailing my thesis to a church door on Halloween, I had used an AI and wrote a blog about it. What had been lurking beneath contemporary American economics? Nothing. Similar to how the universe is mostly composed of Dark Matter, economics was composed of Doesn't Matter. It was less than an illusion, less than smoke. By metaphorically assassinating Abraham LinkedIn, the power that people leant to capitalism would be dissolved. The cobwebs of American economic interests across the world would be withdrawn, carved up, sold off, the war machine had blown a gasket. There would be no more Coca-cola.
