According to one news account I read, most patients who rely on electrically powered medical equipment because of lung disease or other ailments were not affected by the power outages because their equipment usually have batteries or backup generators. It is shameful that people should have to worry that life-saving machines they depend on might stop working at any minute because they won't have electricity. That something as fundamental as electricity, which comes from reality, is seen as a commodity to be bought, sold and profited from is outrageous and utterly ridiculous. However, there is a beautiful explanation and answer to this crisis. The answer, I learned from the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, founded by Eli Siegel, a great educator and historian, is that our economy, which is based on profit has failed because it is unethical and based on contempt.
Contempt is as ordinary as making fun of the way another person looks.
Trying to make a profit from something as basic and fundamental as electricity is unethical-is based on contempt. In 1970, Mr. Siegel showed that for our economy to fare well it has to be based on good will and ethics. For years, businesses in cahoots with politicians have been trying to save and prop up the profit system through various means-government subsidies to big businesses, tax breaks for corporations, free trade agreements, and the ever popular scam known as deregulation. Throughout our nation's history individuals and businesses whose egos are tied to profit economics have opposed any type of law, or government regulation that interfered with the ability to make profits. Businesses have opposed laws outlawing child labor, environmental regulations, safe working conditions, because they cut into profits.