There Is No Alternative

At some point in our lives, we’ve all been told that there is no alternative. The dinner your parents made is what it is, take it or leave it; McDonald’s only serves Coke, so no, you can’t have Pepsi.

Our governments tell us “there is no alternative” all the time. In 1980, while the people of Great Britain were facing desperate poverty, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told the British public there was no alternative to a free market economy. Sorry, even if citizens were living on the dole, that was how it was. 

“There is no alternative” — TINA, as it’s sometimes called — is a lie the upper class propagates in order to control and manipulate the less fortunate. In the U.S., we’re TINA-ed all the time. Politicians encourage us to do the best we can with what we have, but rarely do they mention the possibility that we could have different systems altogether or that our government could be overhauled and actually meet the needs of all its citizens. 

The U.S. is struggling; our social systems do not properly serve our citizens. Life expectancy in the U.S. is just 77.5 years. The U.S. has an obesity rate of 41%, a murder rate of 6.38 per 100 thousand people, and an incarceration rate of 531 per 100 thousand people. Comparable countries are doing far better than the U.S. on these issues. Other wealthy countries have an average life expectancy of 82.2 years. The obesity rate in Spain is only 19%, Italy has a murder rate of just 0.6 per 100 thousand people, and Switzerland has an incarceration rate of just 73 per 100 thousand people. 

Apparently, TINA is a lie.

And yet, it’s ingrained in our thinking. As of August 2024, only 25% of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going in the U.S. And yet we’re told: “Sure, things are bad, but every other system is worse.” But do we really know if that’s true? How do we un-TINA ourselves? 

Our education system reinforces TINA. No class in my Massachusetts public school taught the history of labor movements or unionization in our country. Considering that Massachusetts is among the more progressive states, I’d guess that was true in your public school, too. Our history classes stressed the importance of individual change makers, “heroes,” who were so exceptional that they triumphed over a system that ignored them. We’re taught that individual will is what we need to improve, not the system that keeps us down. This, in my opinion, is a nefarious means of teaching students not to question the status quo.

But what if we asked about inequality? About other systems, about non-capitalist societies, about labor unions, or about how people have come together to make change and fight back against the bourgeoisie? What if we concentrated less on individual exceptionalism, and more on what we can do when we come together? What if we were taught not to see ourselves as being separated by race and gender, but rather as a collective, fighting for better quality of life? The sad truth is that we may never know what America could be if the TINA effect weren’t so prevalent. That is, unless we take it upon ourselves to educate others and raise awareness that there are alternatives: that we, the American people, don’t have to live this way.