We have watched the horror that is the Administration’s great big monstrosity bill that will further impoverish millions of Americans progress in fits and starts through Congress, now to land on the president’s desk. At the same time the president is drooling over his new “alligator Alcatraz” facility. It’s impossible not to think of the Roman satirist Juvenal’s description of imperial appeasement of the masses with “panem et circenses,” or bread and circuses. Except now, we apparently have to choose between bread and circuses. And this bill means we will forego the bread (medical care and everything else being cut to feed the hungry billionaires) to fund the circuses.
A brilliant book by a young poet and writer, Airea D. Matthews, from last year took “Bread and Circus” as its title. The book juxtaposes text fragments from history of economic thought (Adam Smith mainly) with autobiographical prose and poetry to emphasize the challenges inherent in an economic model of self-interest alone. Here’s one of the poems from the book along with an illustration by artist Chloë Epstein:
The full book might also be an interesting read for many of you.https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bread-and-Circus/Airea-D-Matthews/9781668011461
Mereconomics 