When is enough?

BBC NEWS | Business | US mutual funds under attack

The system trains us to be good units of productive work. Indeed the system cannot exist without our work.

From the moment we are able to comprehend, we are indoctrinated. "To work is good." "Don't be a waster. Get a job." The system needs us, we are employed by it.

We are indoctrinated to make money, then we are indoctrinated to disperse that money. To spend, to save.

In North Sydney train station there is a billboard advertising a shopping centre in Chatswood: "Today I didn't want to fall in love, I didn't want red roses, or a puppy. I just wanted to shop . Obey your shopping gene."

We save. And those savings are usurped. We give an abstract number to someone else, who aggregates it with other contributions from the indoctrinated and uses it to make huge profits for themselves. Meanwhile, they trickle fed back to us an ammount that is "competitive with the market."

Yes, we obey.

We lock ourselves into the cycle of abstraction. And as we do, we move ourselves away from what it means to be alive. What it means to lead a truly human existence.

When will we decide that we have had enough?