Scarcity Lyrics

In the 1930's

An economist named John Keynes

Predicted that by the end of the 1900's

Americans would be working

Fifteen hours a week

Keynes was a capitalist

Who predicted leaps in innovation

That would lead to a world in which

People didn't have to work

To have what they needed to live

Food, water, shelter and clothing

For the most part, he was right

By mid-century the Green Revolution was in effect

And has spared one billion people of starvation

The world isn't perfect

But global issues of poverty and hunger

Are in a far better place than they've ever been

What he failed to predict

Was the unrelenting side of capitalist innovation

Consumerism hit the nation hard in the 1950's

And ever since

Income inequality has gotten far worse

Despite having the essentials for people to live

We are working more than we ever have

To support this unnecessary overabundance of products

Demanded by American consumerism

And a false scarcity, created by

One-sided distribution of resources

We are so far removed from the actual idea

Of "earning a living,"

We use the term to explain

Why 90% of us spend our lives making profits

For the top 1% that own everything

The only thing we're "earning" is more merchandise for

A sick, spoiled culture

And CEO's that can't profit enough from it

We are not an artificial intelligence

What part of getting a new phone every year is a fucking living

What part of working for Wal-Mart is a fucking living

What part of trying to look busy at a desk is a fucking living

Who's living are we working to sustain

How does it feel to be the latest innovation of a broken fucking system

How productive is your self-destruction

How free do you feel

In a work-culture of burnout

Heart disease

Anxiety

Poverty

And depression

Capitalism is finished

Hypocrisy

Scarcity

If we're really being honest

What'd we trade for fucking objects

Hypocrisy

Scarcity

If we're really being honest

What'd we trade for fucking objects

Me and my pals all got our degrees

We're lucky to work

Seventy-hour weeks

That eight-hundred bucks is time well spent

And life well-traded

For this month's rent

So don't you try to bullshit 'bout efficient ergonomics

Reducing my potential down to pushing little buttons

Call it the merit of earning a living

Feeding hedonistic

Adaptation

Fifteen hours

Bed by ten

Burn both ends

And do it again

God bless American capitalism

For cutting the brakes on commodification

The incentive to make is all we got

With no incentive to fucking stop

Streaming, phones and fashion that's designed for obsolescence

Look at all the poverty that's come from our abundance

Lemme work for cheap

For my whole life

To feed a star-spangled appetite