HOW MUCH IS YOUR LIFE WORTH?
Nildo Viana
If someone
asks the readers of this article, "how much do you want (in cash) for your
life" or "how much is your life worth", most of them would be
surprised, not understanding or outraged. Life is considered by many to be a
fundamental value and the right to life, as well as respect, is almost
consensual in our society. Thus, asking about the monetary value of life is an
offense, nonsense or a bad joke.
However,
everything we need to live needs to be bought with money. Human beings, in
order to survive, need housing, food and countless other material goods and all
of them, in our society, are goods, that is, material goods with use values
and exchange values, produced in certain companies by salaried workers. and
sold on the market. Nature was commodified. So, to satisfy basic needs, we need
to purchase goods. But human beings do not only have the needs that they share
with animals, as they have specifically human needs, such as praxis (conscious
teleological work through which we develop our potential, such as creativity)
and sociality (harmonious social relations with other human beings). And to
achieve this, even partially, in modern society, we need to consume merchandises[1],
that is, collective, cultural or even material goods, which have use value and
exchange value, but are not goods, because they are produced outside the scope
of companies and capitalist production relations.
All of
this, so the obvious conclusion is that in order to live in capitalist society,
we need money. How much money do we need to live in this society? In order to
know this, we would have to do the mercantile calculation of how much we would
spend throughout our existence and thus we will have the necessary amount
(excluding inflation and other processes that make the calculation more
complex). If the question were in that sense, it would not be so absurd.
However,
that is not the question. What you want to know is how much your life is worth
in money. Now, who would stipulate a monetary value for something that has such
a high cultural value? If everything is commodified in capitalist society,
acquiring exchange value, then why would life be left out? Precisely because it
conflicts with cultural values, with human needs (sociality), morals, and the
sympathetic feelings of human beings. Then we see the clash of two forces: that
of mercantilization, which expands to more and more things, and that of
humanization, which limits and seeks to abolish the transformation of human
beings into exchange values.
The
strength of mercantilization has already prevailed as in the case of black
slavery, as slaves (their lives) were sold for money. The civilizational
process partially restrained this process, making it illegal and immoral, but
forced labor still remains in places that the inspection does not act and
partially in prostitution, in the sale of human organs and in international
human trafficking.
However,
morals and the law are always relativized when the needs of the powerful and
the reproduction of society demand it. Today many sacrifices are made in a
country for “economic growth”, just as many individuals sacrifice themselves to
increase their purchasing power and consumption. Modern society exists under
the sign of mercantilization and this is an imperative need that tends to drag
and put a price on everything. That is why we can say that the future of
humanity will be decided in the confrontation between mercantilization and
humanization, and the more one advances, the more the other retreats.
The mercantilization
of social relations invades and commodifies everything. But specifically human
needs continue to exist and resist, even if marginally. Dissatisfaction
increases even when the possession of wealth allows us to consume what we want,
since consumption is distinct from self-realization and authentic and
harmonious social relations. Finally, we can say that humanity is faced with
the decision between continuing the process of mercantilization and dehumanization,
which points to its self-destruction, or to carry out a radical and total
transformation, which is possible and depends only on human beings who decided
to take their destiny in your hands. The life of competition, exploitation,
loneliness, psychological suffering, violence, environmental destruction,
alongside the misery of the billions with little or no money, must be overcome
and for that it is necessary to start thinking and acting towards this
transformation. Awareness of this process is the first step in making the right
decision and saving humanity from itself.
[1] The set of concepts used here were developed or
explained in the book The Mercantilization of Social Relations (Curitiba:
Appris, 2018).
