Joseph Mooney wrote this song in the context of Law 315: Business Associations, UVic Faculty of Law, 2018 (taught by Rebecca Johnson). The song is an engagement with questions raised in J.K. Gibson-Graham et al, Take Back the Economy.
Listen Here:
The Train Song
Joseph Mooney’s Reflection on the Project
My interest in corporate law and business associations was first sparked following the financial crisis of 2008. I was fascinated (and somewhat disturbed) by the sheer size and leverage ratios of the investment banks primarily involved in the crisis. In reading “Take Back the Economy” and reflecting on many of the author’s points, I continually thought about the tension between the advantages that large scale economies present in terms of providing goods and services around the world, and the apparent need to moderate the size of major corporations or the few “major players” in a particular sector. The authors make a strong case that we should be thinking about the sustainability of consumption trends and the economies that have been set up to meet (or some might argue, create) those consumption demands.
In writing the “Train Song,” I was attempting to illustrate the problems not only with massive corporations, but also with normative presumptions of what the economy is. As such, the song touches on the feeling of helplessness that many people feel in regards to affecting the trajectory of a given national economy, particularly those born into lower socio-economic classes. In regard to the problems with large corporations, the song attempts to illustrate the problematic nature of an obsession with growth and the, in my opinion, outdated notion of what a director’s fiduciary obligation entails. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to include some ideas regarding the utility of the corporate form, as well as the need for some kind of regime that can govern the allocation of goods.
I found that getting some of these nuanced ideas out in verse was quite difficult however. Simply put, it’s hard to describe and discuss complex problems with great concision. It certainly led me to an increased admiration of the many great singer songwriters who have an uncanny ability to express so much with so little, such as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. The song is already longer than I would have liked, but there is a great deal more that I wish I could have included, such as the fallacy of today’s economy being the result of natural forces, the role of un-paid labor and alternative economic interactions in allocating goods, as well as the long-standing existence of forms of association that are alternative from the classic capitalist forms.
I think that the linear narrative of the song is also something that made it difficult to express the convoluted world we live in today. In this sense the need to maintain an engaging story took away from my ability to accurately convey how long it can take to change entrenched ideas. Rather than simply disconnecting a box-car, becoming a source of positive change on a large scale can take longer than a life-time. “Take Back the Economy” even caused me to question the utility of such a large scale goal and instead consider a “turn-inwards” towards the local community level. It’s not that I think so highly of myself that I assume I can radically change the world, but I still like to entertain the idea that some very large scale changes in the dominant conception of what an economy is and how it should function may occur during my lifetime. The fact that this process occurs bit-by-bit, person by person and relies on an interplay between, if I may generalize, the law reflecting society’s priorities and society’s priorities being reflected by the law only serves to bolster the author’s call to action at a local level.
The project was a great way to engage in an a-typical way with some of the broader questions of policy, law and philosophy presented in “Take Back the Economy.” While I feel like there is a number of concepts I was not able to explore, it was still a very rewarding and enjoyable experience.