American Pie

An Allegory

(Enjoy this essay as read by the writer instead of AI.)

Calumet Baking Powder Ad, Country Gentleman Magazine, 1928 PUBLIC DOMAIN WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Hello, Friend,

Let’s say you want to make a pie. The quality of the pie will be reflective of the level of your prosperity. You make (or have) the money, you buy the ingredients, you bake the pie.

It's your pie, right?

Well, yes, but here's a little food for thought. A lot of people had to work for not a lot of money to grow, process, and package the ingredients and get them to a store so you could buy them, bring them home, and bake that pie.

Someone planted, grew, and harvested the wheat.

Someone ground the wheat into flour.

Someone tended and milked the cows.

Someone hauled the milk to a dairy plant.

Someone processed the cream into butter.

Someone stood in the hot sun and picked the fruit.

Someone stood in a sugar cane field and chopped down the canes.

Someone processed those canes into sugar.

Someone loaded up and drove a truck to bring the ingredients to the grocery store.

Someone stocked the shelves.

Someone clung to the back of a stench filled garbage truck and took away the detritus of your pie making.

Every ingredient in that pie was available to you because someone else worked hard and likely got paid very little. Someone has to do the invisible work so you can drive to your local grocery store, buy your ingredients, head back home to your kitchen, and bake your fabulous pie. What about the people that do that invisible work? Not everyone gets to go to college or have a stable family life or grow up in suburbia or make the right connections or advance into big money jobs, because if we all did that who would do the invisible work and, more importantly, who would we blame for taking all of our pie? We certainly can't blame the giant corporations and their CEOs and stockholders that make the majority of money on the ingredients, lobby and fund politicians to ensure their interests are protected and their taxes are lower, and move their profits into offshore accounts so they don't have to pay any taxes at all.

No, we can't blame them. They’re the pie makers!

We have to blame the pie takers! They’re taking the pie!

If you're going to ignore corporate pie pillaging and instead blame the pie ingredient makers for the state of your pie, maybe it's time to think about this pie of yours. Is it all your pie or do you, perhaps, owe a slice to help the ingredient makers have access to basic things like roads, bridges, education, health care, food security, police protection, clean air, and fresh water?

I'm not saying you need to give your entire pie away, just a slice, mind you.

I think we should all get to have a nice juicy pie of our own making when we want one. I also think that the corporations and the CEOs and the folks who make the bulk of the pie money should at the very least pay the same percentage of their income that the folks who facilitate the pie making activities have to pay. It's only fair. It’s only right. It’s the only way to build a society where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happy pies are available to everyone.

That’s an American Pie and an American Dream worth fighting for.

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