I haven’t posted in a long while, in strong part because I’ve been angry / frustrated / distressed about the current result of decades of government-distrust-mongering and neoliberalist capitalism. Result being that our government is dysfunctional, non-representative and financial disparities are wider than ever. Which has led to widespread disenfranchisement and higher susceptibility to manipulations and lies.
Capitalism, at its root = Competitive Greed
If we could strip away the glamour of that C-word, and an outsider were to consider the concept of “competitive greed” as a baseline for an economic system or government, they would not expect it to result in social good nor any sort of balance; rather, it would result in few winners and many losers in the “game.”
But in the USA, the idea of “capitalism” is mythical, interwoven as it is with the American Dream, that gilded rebranding of social Darwinism which posits that if one works hard, financial success is inevitable. To be inferred on the flip side, poverty would result from laziness…
By extension, if you’re born with a golden foot in your mouth (as certain Drumpf descendants were), you deserve it; it’s the product of social evolution over the generations (i.e., winners of capitalism pass on their loot to their descendants).
We’re all swimming in a sea of pro-capitalism propaganda, most of it by advertisements that we can encounter literally anywhere (online or in real life), but also in politics and media (which are both heavily influenced by advertisers), stores and social situations. We’re told that buying x, y, z products will make you better or happier (and that, without them, we’re deeply flawed); we’re told that success and happiness = more money / more things; we’re told that in purchasing products, we should hunt for the absolute lowest prices, the best “deals,” in order to have more money for additional products or for itself (i.e., money-induced happiness).
Therefore, I’m not surprised that so many people buy into it (literally and figuratively), but I’m disappointed that most Democrats, running on a platform of thoughtful change and social values, won’t denounce the system that generates so many social problems. As if clearly prioritizing the well-being of actual human beings over business interests and the economy is just too radical.
I get why Republicans stand firmly behind capitalism; they are primarily the party of big business and only secondarily (& often hypocritically) the party of social conservatism. The Republican power brokers have been working hard to defund or privatize most socially beneficial programs, deregulate businesses, provide corporate welfare and prioritize the economy above all else (especially above non-rich human beings, nature or the future). The same power brokers sell the lie of the American Dream (someday, purely through hard work, you can get rich too) while living as “born filthy rich, but pretending to be ‘common like you’.”
But Democrats, why keep defending such a broken system? Many of its victims are getting caught up in the hope and dreams presented by any lying Republican / Tea Party upstart (who will deliver a potent brew of individualism with fear of the “other” / change). Democrats could have a strong counter-message, that people are always more important than profits, that government should help and defend real people (and our environments), not serve at the behest of corporations-as-people (i.e., big business).
In theory, I can see how a rational person might think that the competition of capitalism would balance out and self-regulate. If you oversimplify and consider that producers will charge the highest price they can to maximize profit and that consumers will pay the lowest price possible and you imagine a large field of producers who offer comparable products, than those 2 opposing forces should even out.
Except that misses many factors and nuances, especially that consumers are also (for the most part) also workers. And one of the methods to maximize profits for producers is to cut costs, such as reducing workers’ wages and reducing number of workers. So the downward price pressure by consumers can simultaneously hurt other consumers (as workers) by resulting in wage decreases and job losses (especially due to automation and efficiency improvements). In addition, there’s wealth accumulation over time, which provides great and unfair advantages to some, and also consolidation of businesses resulting in reduced competition and increased power for producers. This scenario quickly becomes imbalanced and over time grows even more so.
In addition, there are a lot of problems with modern version of the stock market (especially since 1970s economists changed business culture to link executive pay with short term stock prices), but I’m not here to completely dissect capitalism. Mainly, I wanted to express my rage at the unfair grip it has on culture and our mainstream politicians of both parties.
