Yesterday, the Pennsylvania governor ordered the shut down of all non-life-sustaining businesses across the state. This got me thinking about exactly what businesses are not life-sustaining?
What is a Non-Life-Sustaining Business?
The only businesses that I can think of that are not life-sustaining are those businesses that go out of business. If a business is open, then customers are voluntarily coming to it and spending their money in exchange for the value they receive. Furthermore, for the business to stay in business, it must be brining in more revenue than it spends in terms of cost. The difference between the two is the business’s profit – and this is the measure of exactly how much it sustains life.
Helpfully, the governor has taken the consideration to list what businesses sustain life and those that do not. Let’s take a look at some businesses that the governor considers to not sustain life.
- The entire timber and logging industry
- Coal, metal, and non-metal mining
- Construction
- Clay and glass products
- Foundries, forging, construction of shipping containers
- Electric lighting, household appliances
- All transportation manufacturing
Do we not need wooden products to live? Take a look around your house and consider life without wood. Chances are you wouldn’t have a house!
Is coal mining not essential to life? Nearly 24% of the power produced in the USA is produced from coal. Clearly that isn’t essential to life, right? We could all simply turn off our freezers, refrigerators, indoor lights, not to mention the countless industries using electricity to preserve food as it is transported to you, for 24% of the time… I’m sure life wouldn’t look different at all.
The production of shipping containers are being forbidden? At a time when China’s production is starting to ramp back up, and at a time that the US is systematically shutting down production, clearly we won’t be in a place to use shipping containers. Or build and repair railroads.
The absurdity of this classification is frustrating beyond expression.
Life is the Pursuit of Value
If the governor is identifying what businesses sustain life and which do not, then he could at least take a few moments to think about what life is. Even at the base, biological level, life is a series of self-sustaining processes. Some things are beneficial to life sustaining itself, and some things are harmful, while others are neutral.
To a snake, a frog is a value. If the snake eats the frog, then it will continue to sustain its life. If the snake isn’t able to eat the frog, then it looses that value – it looses that opportunity to sustain its life – and it better find another one to eat. To the frog, the snake is an anti-value – it is a threat to its own continued survival. Life is a processes of pursuing values – values that allow or enable life to sustain itself.
What About Human Life?
Humans have a unique ability. We have a unique potential, different from all the other animals. We have the ability to live beyond the base, biological process of merely staying alive to continue the species. We have the ability to thrive and flourish.
The American Founding Fathers named this the pursuit of happiness. The ancient Greeks named it eudaemonia. As Ayn Rand put it we “are a being of self-made soul”. We create our soul by pursuing our individual values – those things that are most precious to us.
Pursuing Human Values
Businesses are specifically how so many people choose to pursue their values. It is our ability to use our minds and bodies in concert, that allows us to pursue values – to set goals – to make plans – and to achieve those goals – to stretch ourselves – to build our self-esteem – to trade with other humans – to exchange values that benefit both parties.
The healthy human being, with a healthy soul, is not a sloth that accomplishes nothing while living in luxury – the thriving human is active. The thriving human challenges himself/herself. The thriving human continues to grow spiritually. And for the vast, vast majority of humans, this pursuit of values occurs at work, through a business. Work is essential to human growth.
A Slap in the Face
To call the values that certain people are pursuing non-life-sustaining is a slap in the face. It is an insult of which the magnitude is hard to fathom. It is a clear message that you, as an individual human being, do not matter and do not count.
Your opinion of yourself? The self-esteem that you should hold? Your worthiness to be happy? Your ability to pursue it? Apparently it is all in the hands of the governor – and he has given you your answer.
A Panic Response
Across the country, governors continue to shut down states and shut down people’s lives. Instead of helping the population in the face of COVID-19, they have no idea what to do – but they know they have the mighty force of government power, so they decide to use it. They do not understand the long term ramifications of their policies. They aren’t even thinking long term. It is simply panic and a simple attempt to solve the problem of the day.
I find it disgusting.
Ryan Sawatzky 