The Ceremony and the System

Recently, I sat in a high school gymnasium during a senior awards ceremony in Missouri and watched students receive scholarships from businesses, organizations, utilities, and corporations. Families clapped. Students smiled. Teachers felt proud. And they should have. Every dollar matters when you are trying to build a future.

I was incredibly proud of my son and deeply grateful for the scholarship he received. Those opportunities matter to families, and they can absolutely make a real difference in a student’s future. Gratitude and critical thinking can exist at the same time.

But sitting there, I also could not shake a larger question.

If the systems we have built in this country were functioning the way they are supposed to, why are so many families dependent on scholarships, grants, loans, fundraising, and institutional assistance just to access opportunities that remain financially difficult for many ordinary people to reach sustainably?

Higher education has expanded opportunities for many people over time, but access to those opportunities has still often remained tied to financial strain, institutional systems, geographic limitations, and economic barriers that many families continue struggling to navigate.

The reality is that many students are now entering adulthood facing:

• rising tuition costs,

• housing affordability crises,

• stagnant wage growth relative to living expenses,

• and increasing financial barriers to building long-term stability.

So while scholarships absolutely help individual students, communities should still be willing to ask whether the larger economic and institutional systems surrounding those students are truly producing the kind of widespread stability, independence, and opportunity they claim to create.

To be clear, that does not erase the good these programs can do for individual students and families. My son received a scholarship, and I am genuinely grateful for the opportunities that may help create for his future.

Part of what makes systems like this so difficult to critically examine is that they often look compassionate, supportive, community-centered, and successful on the surface.

Scholarship nights look like support for education.
Corporate sponsorships look like investment in students.
Development projects look like progress.
Technology expansion looks like innovation.
Community partnerships look like collaboration.

Real benefits absolutely do exist inside those systems.

A deeper question still remains:

If the systems surrounding these programs are truly functioning in ways that meaningfully strengthen long-term quality of life for ordinary people, why do so many families still struggle with affordability, housing instability, debt, economic pressure, burnout, and increasing dependence on institutional assistance simply to maintain stability?

Eventually, communities have to evaluate systems not only by how they appear publicly, but by the long-term outcomes they are actually producing in people’s daily lives.

That was the thought I could not shake.

Some of these corporations were being publicly celebrated for “giving back to the community,” but in many cases the money did not even appear to be coming directly from corporate profits. Some programs were funded through customer donations, community fundraising, foundations, or public-facing giving structures tied to the very communities already financially supporting these businesses in the first place.

Suddenly, the scholarship table stopped looking like generosity.

It started looking like branding.

Not because students do not deserve scholarships. They absolutely do. Not because helping communities is bad. It is necessary. The deeper question underneath all of it is this:

Who is actually funding whom?

The more you look at the economic development machine in Missouri, the harder it becomes to ignore the pattern.

Communities sacrifice land, infrastructure, tax revenue, local business stability, utility costs, and long-term leverage to attract large corporations. Then those same corporations are publicly celebrated for returning a fraction of that value through scholarships, grants, sponsorships, and “community partnerships.”

The public sees the check.

What the public does not always see is the system behind the check.

The Machine Missouri Already Knows

Missourians have heard versions of this story before.

The St. Louis Rams promised economic growth, prestige, jobs, tourism, and civic identity. Taxpayer money helped fund the Edward Jones Dome while communities were told the investment would pay off long term. To be fair, the Rams did provide something tangible people could directly experience beyond economics alone. Families gathered together on Sundays. Restaurants, bars, hotels, and local businesses benefited from game-day traffic. The city experienced excitement, entertainment, and a shared civic identity that people could physically participate in and emotionally connect to. Whether someone agreed with the public financing or not, there was at least a visible and human trade-off people could understand.

The Rams organization also became connected to charitable initiatives, youth programs, grants, and community partnerships throughout St. Louis. Former Rams players like Isaac Bruce continued scholarship work in the region even after the franchise left. Those programs helped real people, and that matters. It is also what makes systems like this emotionally powerful and politically difficult to challenge. Communities begin associating institutions with opportunity, generosity, and local identity.

Even with those benefits, the public still absorbed major costs, and ultimately ownership left when a more profitable opportunity emerged elsewhere.

The emotional investment belonged to the community. The long-term financial control belonged to ownership.

Years after the Rams left St. Louis, city leaders are debating how hundreds of millions of dollars from the Rams settlement should be used to rebuild infrastructure, invest in North St. Louis, and revitalize parts of the city. That reality alone reveals a deeper contradiction at the center of modern economic development: communities are often asked to absorb long-term instability first, then celebrate partial financial recovery later as progress.

Manufacturing plants across Missouri became economic anchors for entire communities before restructuring, closures, automation, or corporate consolidation shifted priorities elsewhere.

Big-box retail promised lower prices and economic convenience while local downtowns and small businesses struggled to survive.

Casinos promised revitalization and education funding while many communities later questioned whether the long-term social and economic outcomes matched the sales pitch.

Now Missouri is hearing another version of the same promise:

Data centers will transform communities.

Some benefits may come. Schools may receive revenue. Construction jobs may temporarily increase. Infrastructure may expand. Scholarships may be awarded. Emergency services may receive funding.

Communities should stop pretending this is charity.

This is investment strategy.

Competing Definitions of Progress

For decades, Americans have increasingly been told that technological expansion and economic growth are synonymous with progress. National conversations now frame artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and digital dominance as essential to competing globally, particularly against countries like China.

Communities still have the right to ask an important question:

Progress toward what?

Technological advancement alone does not automatically guarantee stronger schools, healthier communities, affordable housing, environmental stability, or improved quality of life.

American classrooms contain more technology than at any point in history, yet schools across the country continue struggling with literacy gaps, student disengagement, behavioral challenges, mental health concerns, and declining trust in educational systems. Globally, regions with rapidly expanding technological infrastructure still wrestle with poverty, environmental strain, labor exploitation, and economic inequality.

Technology itself is not inherently harmful. Modern society depends on digital systems in countless ways. Communities should still be cautious about accepting the idea that every form of technological expansion automatically represents meaningful human progress.

Especially in rural America.

Places like Montgomery County have historically been built around agriculture, land stewardship, local relationships, small business ecosystems, and deeply rooted community identity. The county remains entirely rural according to Census classifications, and agriculture still represents a major economic and cultural force throughout the region.

For generations, many rural Missouri students viewed agriculture, trades, land stewardship, and locally rooted industries as central parts of their future identity — with institutions like University of Missouri serving as longstanding pathways into those fields.

That reality matters because communities should not feel forced to abandon longstanding regional identity simply to compete inside technological systems designed around entirely different priorities.

A country can pursue innovation without treating every natural landscape, rural community, or public resource as underutilized unless transformed into industrial infrastructure.

Communities also have the right to ask whether preserving ecological stability, local ownership, agricultural resilience, and quality of life might themselves represent a different — and perhaps healthier — definition of long-term national success.

Montgomery County Is the New Frontier

In Montgomery County, Missouri, massive data center development proposals are being tied to school funding, emergency services, economic opportunity, and community growth.

At the same time, Missouri openly offers large tax incentives and exemptions to attract projects like these. Reporting surrounding the proposed Amazon/AWS development in Montgomery County referenced incentive frameworks potentially reaching into the hundreds of millions or even approaching one billion dollars through various tax structures and abatements.

That matters.

Local families do not receive billion-dollar incentive frameworks to support schools.

Small businesses do not receive long-term abatements before being praised for sponsoring the football team.

Farmers do not receive customized tax structures before donating to local scholarships.

Ordinary people pay property taxes every single year to support schools, roads, and emergency services. They pay utility bills every month. They support local fundraisers, booster clubs, and community organizations directly from their own income.

Then billion-dollar corporations arrive, negotiate exemptions, restructure the tax equation, receive public infrastructure support, and are applauded for giving a small portion back.

That is the part people are starting to notice.

Schools Have Become the Moral Shield

This is where the machine becomes emotionally powerful.

The moment schools become attached to a project, criticism becomes socially dangerous.

If someone raises concerns about:

• land use,

• utility strain,

• water consumption,

• tax abatements,

• local control,

• or long-term dependency,

the response becomes:

“But think about the schools.”

Of course people care about the schools. We should.

Communities should also ask an uncomfortable question:

If these projects are truly so transformational and profitable, why are they not paying full taxes from the beginning?

Why are schools being asked to celebrate partial returns on systems that may have otherwise generated significantly more public revenue without abatements and exemptions?

That is not anti-growth.

That is accountability.

The larger question communities should ask is this:

Why are communities increasingly being told they cannot afford functioning roads, emergency services, schools, infrastructure, housing stability, or economic opportunity unless outside corporations arrive to “save” them through development deals and public-private partnerships?

Communities were never supposed to depend on billion-dollar corporations to fund the basic functioning of public life.

Roads, schools, infrastructure, emergency services, and long-term community stability were originally meant to be sustained through healthy tax systems, balanced economic structures, accountable governance, and strong local investment.

Instead, many communities now feel trapped in systems where ordinary residents continuously contribute through taxes, labor, utilities, debt, and local spending, yet are repeatedly told there is never enough money for meaningful public improvement unless large outside corporations are given incentives, exemptions, abatements, or long-term leverage over local development.

If communities are constantly being told they cannot sustain themselves without sacrificing increasing control and public resources to large institutional systems, they have a right to question whether the system itself is functioning in the public’s best interest.

More Communities Are Beginning to Question the System

There was a time when many Americans genuinely believed this system represented the pathway to stability and upward mobility. Work hard in school. Earn scholarships. Go to college. Get a degree. Build a better life. For many families, that dream was real, and education absolutely can create opportunity.

Communities are increasingly questioning whether the goals of large institutional systems are truly aligned with the long-term well-being of the communities they operate within.

Corporations, universities, developers, utilities, and large economic systems often present themselves as partners invested in helping communities grow and thrive. Sometimes real benefits do exist. Scholarships help students. Jobs are created. Infrastructure expands. Schools may receive additional funding.

Communities are also beginning to recognize that the primary responsibility of many large institutions is ultimately not community stability, local ownership, or long-term regional independence. Their responsibility is growth, expansion, profitability, operational efficiency, market influence, and institutional sustainability.

Those goals are not always the same.

Research surrounding student debt, housing affordability, and wealth accumulation increasingly shows that many young adults struggle to build long-term financial stability even after following the educational and economic pathways they were told would lead to success. Student debt has been linked to delayed homeownership, reduced savings, and slower wealth accumulation among younger generations. Rising costs of living continue making it more difficult for individuals to meaningfully reinvest back into the communities they came from.

Strong communities are built when people have enough financial stability and local economic power to:

• purchase homes,

• support small businesses,

• raise families,

• create local wealth,

• participate in civic life,

• and reinvest into the places they live.

The deeper concern many communities are now wrestling with is whether current economic systems are truly structured to strengthen local independence and long-term community well-being, or whether they are primarily structured to sustain larger interconnected institutional systems that continuously extract labor, data, revenue, energy, land, and financial resources outward.

That is why more communities are beginning to ask harder questions when corporations arrive promising opportunity, revitalization, scholarships, or economic transformation.

Not because people are anti-growth.

Communities are beginning to recognize that a system can appear helpful publicly while still operating according to incentives and priorities that are fundamentally different from the long-term goals of the people living there.

Leadership Is Not Meant to Protect the Machine

One of the most common responses people hear when questioning these systems is:

“That’s just how things are done.”

History shows that phrase has often been used to justify systems that were financially profitable while still failing the long-term well-being of the people expected to live inside them.

Leadership is not supposed to mean protecting a process simply because it already exists. Leadership is supposed to mean asking whether the process is actually serving the people it claims to help.

Many of these decisions are not made accidentally. Tax incentives, development agreements, infrastructure expansions, abatements, public-private partnerships, and economic recruitment strategies are approved by leaders, boards, agencies, consultants, and institutions entrusted with protecting the long-term interests of their communities.

Economic growth matters. Communities should still expect more from leadership than simply increasing revenue, attracting projects, or repeating industry talking points.

Strong leadership requires asking harder questions:

• Does this genuinely improve long-term quality of life?

• Will this strengthen local independence and ownership?

• Will young people be better able to stay, build families, purchase homes, and reinvest into their communities because of these decisions?

• Or are communities being asked to sacrifice long-term leverage for short-term economic promises?

Leadership that prioritizes institutional growth, political convenience, or corporate profitability above the long-term well-being of the people living there is not neutral leadership. It reshapes entire communities around systems whose incentives may not align with the public’s long-term interests.

That is why “this is just how things are done” may be one of the most dangerous phrases communities accept.

Systems do not improve when leaders simply manage them.

They improve when leaders are willing to question whether the system itself is producing the outcomes communities were promised in the first place.

What Exactly Is the Trade-Off?

The St. Louis Rams at least offered something communities could physically experience in return for the public investment. People could attend games, gather together, support local businesses, and participate in a shared cultural experience tied directly to the city itself.

Now compare that to the data center model being promoted across Missouri, including Montgomery County. Communities are again being asked to sacrifice land, infrastructure capacity, energy demand, long-term tax leverage, and public resources in exchange for promises of economic transformation. Unlike a sports franchise or even a traditional manufacturing hub, hyperscale data centers often operate with relatively few permanent local jobs once construction is complete. The facilities themselves are largely closed to the public and designed primarily to support cloud computing, artificial intelligence systems, corporate data storage, digital advertising infrastructure, and large-scale technological operations for some of the wealthiest companies in the world.

That does not mean the technology itself has no legitimate purpose. Modern society depends on digital infrastructure in many ways. Communities should still ask whether the long-term public benefit being received is proportional to what is being sacrificed to support it, especially when projects involve major tax incentives, utility expansion, large-scale land conversion, and infrastructure commitments that can reshape communities for generations.

The public trade-off becomes harder to justify when communities are expected to permanently reorganize themselves around infrastructure that primarily serves centralized corporate and technological systems while much of the financial power, ownership, and long-term decision-making remains somewhere else.

The Scholarship Table

That gymnasium in Missouri unintentionally revealed the entire system in miniature.

Students walking across gymnasium floors to receive certificates sponsored by corporations.

Scholarships flowing into universities tied to workforce pipelines and institutional partnerships.

Economic development organizations promoting growth.

Utilities preparing infrastructure expansion.

Communities being asked to trust projections and promises once again.

Underneath all of it sits the same question Missourians should have been asking for decades:

Who actually benefits most long term?

Communities are often told to celebrate the trickle while the stream flows upward.

The scholarship check becomes the visible symbol of generosity while the larger financial equation remains hidden behind partnerships, incentives, tax structures, utility expansion, development authorities, public relations campaigns, and institutional interdependence.

The community funds itself, then applauds corporations for facilitating the transaction.

Real World Solution

Communities should not blindly oppose development. They also should not surrender critical thinking the moment scholarships, school funding projections, or community grants are introduced into the conversation.

Missourians should demand:

• transparent tax agreements,

• public access to development records,

• long-term cost-benefit analysis,

• environmental impact transparency,

• infrastructure accountability,

• and honest conversations about who carries the financial risk if projections fail.

Communities should ask:

• How many permanent local jobs will actually exist?

• What happens when technology changes?

• What happens when corporate priorities shift?

• Who absorbs infrastructure strain?

• Who pays if utility costs rise?

• How much revenue is being reduced through incentives?

• And are local schools receiving the full public value communities are sacrificing for?

History shows one thing clearly:

Corporations make decisions based on profitability and leverage.

Communities make decisions based on hope.

Those are not always the same thing.

In solidarity,
Lyndsay LaBrier
Merchant Ship Collective

Recommended Reads from Merchant Ship Collective

This week’s featured books explore entrepreneurship, local sustainability, independence, and the idea that meaningful growth should strengthen people and communities — not just systems.

Company of One by Paul Jarvis challenges modern growth-at-all-costs business culture and explores how smaller, intentional businesses can create sustainable success, flexibility, and long-term freedom.
Read here: https://amzn.to/42QMYuG

Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher explores human-centered economics, local sustainability, meaningful work, and the importance of building communities that prioritize people over endless expansion.
Read here: https://amzn.to/4dIk0C1

Disclaimer

This article reflects personal analysis, publicly available information, lived community observation, and opinion regarding economic development, education, infrastructure, and institutional systems. The views expressed are intended to encourage civic discussion, transparency, and critical thinking surrounding long-term community impact and public policy.

References to organizations, institutions, corporations, scholarships, schools, or development projects are not presented as accusations of wrongdoing unless explicitly supported by cited public records or reporting. The author recognizes that many individuals and organizations involved in these systems may act with sincere intentions and provide meaningful support to students and communities.

Artificial intelligence tools were used as part of the research, organization, editing, and drafting process for efficiency and workflow support. All final analysis, viewpoints, conclusions, and editorial decisions remain the author’s own.

References

Access STL West. (n.d.). Heart of America Mega Site. https://accessstlwest.com/heart-of-america-mega-site/

Federal Reserve Board. (2016). Looking Behind the Declining Homeownership Rate. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2016/files/2016010pap.pdf

First Alert 4. (2026, May 14). Mayor, aldermen leaders announce Rams settlement spending bill. https://www.firstalert4.com/

Good Jobs First. (2025). Cloudy Data, Costly Deals: How Poorly States Disclose Data Center Subsidies. https://goodjobsfirst.org/cloudy-data-costly-deals-how-poorly-states-disclose-data-center-subsidies/

Isaac Bruce Foundation. (2026). Scholarship Program. https://isaacbruce.org/

KRCG. (2025). Montgomery County commissioners approve framework for Amazon data center tax breaks. https://krcgtv.com/news/local/montgomery-county-commissioners-approve-framework-for-amazon-data-center-tax-breaks

Missouri Department of Economic Development. (n.d.). Data Center Sales Tax Exemption Program. https://ded.mo.gov/programs/business/data-center-sales-tax-exemption-program

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2026). Subsidizing Servers: How States Are Competing to Attract Data Centers. https://www.ncsl.org/fiscal/subsidizing-servers-how-states-are-competing-to-attract-data-centers

Show-Me Institute. (2025). Why Hand Out Subsidies to Data Center Developers? https://showmeinstitute.org/article/subsidies/why-hand-out-subsidies-to-data-center-developers/