Much like the mind which craves that which it knows, so does humanity prefer to remain entrenched in systems of exploitation and oppression that are familiar. Capitalism benefits the very few owners of capital who (typically) inherited their wealth and need not lift a finger to accumulate vast amounts of riches. Meanwhile, workers across the globe spend the entirety of their lives trying to make ends meet– to provide shelter, to feed their family, and if they’re lucky, to go to a doctor for a check-up.
To say that capitalism ‘benefits’ anyone, however, is a fallacy. Many who accumulate the power and wealth that were supposed to alleviate their suffering experience exacerbated isolation and mental anguish. Their fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for shareholders prevents them from acting on their conscience (maybe we should pay our workers more? Maybe we shouldn’t clear old growth forests? Maybe we shouldn’t dump toxic waste into rivers?). Moreover, their complicity in a class system that deems them worthy of a dozen mansions and fifteen $200k cars while others sleep on the concrete outside their door fosters a creeping sense of guilt: capitalists know that the way in which they earned their money doesn’t justify the extent of this egregious inequality.
Capitalism that promotes and protects small business is often cited as the rationale behind maintaining it as a political-economic system. Capitalism is often equated with freedom and opportunity, which was true in its early stages but is more difficult to argue as global corporations monopolize the market and drive down costs & prices, employing questionable business practices that make new market entry daunting and fair competition nearly impossible. Marx correctly predicted that accumulation of surplus value inevitably creates a narrowing of wealth in the hands of a very few. These few can use their money to infiltrate the government and obscure democratic processes. Workers must spend their time and energy earning wages to support an increasingly unaffordable lifestyle– $120 groceries that last 3 days, $5/gal gasoline, $1500 deductible health insurance– and have little time and energy left for raising class consciousness or engaging in political warfare. Meanwhile, the media-propaganda machine tells them that everything is fine. It gaslights them into believing that Bidenomics is working and inflation is going down, while the reality workers experience directly contradicts these ‘facts.’
The alternative to free-market capitalism would be a planned economy.1 I’m reminded of Phoebe Bridgers: I’m high and I’m feeling anxious / inside a CVS. Why are there a dozen brands of tweezers? Why are there 14 differently-sized bottles of melatonin? Why am I getting advertisements for fucking shampoo? Is this meaningful innovation or futile excess? In a planned economy, everyone could decide directly what is a valuable investment of time, energy, and natural resources, and what is a waste. No more artists redesigning Hershey’s chocolate bar wrappers or creatives inventing new deodorant scents or scientists devising plans for fossil fuel extraction. Instead of the invisible hand of the market dictating what’s in or out, individuals could decide what’s in or out before we’ve spent the time and resources making useless (and, oftentimes, destructive) bullshit.
Another part of this alternative economy would be ensuring that everyone’s basic needs are met: housing, food, water, electricity, healthcare. There is no reason that, on a resource-rich planet, during the materially wealthiest epoch in history, driven by rapid technological innovation, that these basic necessities should be considered privileges contingent upon the material value one produces. How can we continue developing and advertising $15 artisanal pickles when our brothers & sisters in our own nation and across the globe don’t have access to clean water or electricity? Sure, maybe a trip to the Bahamas isn’t a right guaranteed for all, but is considered a privilege awarded to those who deserve it and is proportional to the positive contributions they’ve made to society. Maybe if you want to eat wild-caught salmon every night for dinner, you have to pay out of pocket. But to argue that some individuals deserve to starve without shelter or medical care while others deserve to eat filet mignon every night and sleep in $50M estates is indoctrinated absurdity that substantiates the claim that our dignity & worth is not inherent, but is determined by how much money we can amass and hoard for ourselves.
A natural reaction to getting rid of pointless jobs or fulfilling people’s basic necessities is: well then WHAT are people going to spend their time doing? As someone who is underemployed and currently working 20 hours a week as a hostess at a restaurant, I can tell you that people will want to work, especially because there are SO many problems to solve. Nobody wants to sit around doing nothing all day when the world is burning. Even smoking weed, playing with your pets, gaming on the computer, spending time in nature, kicking it with your friends, etc., gets old. These activities satisfy our need for leisure, but they do not fulfill our longing for meaning & purpose. Aristotle maintains that a life well-lived contains a balance of three things: work, leisure, and contemplation. Under the current mandates of late-stage capitalism, individuals spend the majority of their time working just in order to live. Leisure is restricted to low-energy activities like rest & recovery, doom scrolling, or escapism through drinking, drugs, TV, etc.. Under current circumstances, contemplation is a dark spiral that can be conveniently avoided by the myriad distractions offered by Pandora’s box of accessible, high-dopamine alternatives. Unfortunately, for many Americans, the balance between work, leisure, and contemplation is heavily skewed towards work which, as aforementioned, is typically meaningless and/or damaging to global progress, health, and wellbeing.
Before you write off socialism or communism as destined for failure, remember the Red Scare tactics and the capitalist propaganda machine that have convinced you of this. Rely on empiricism: how do you spend your day? Do you worry about having enough money to live a life you want? Do you feel trapped by a job that provides stability in exchange for your time, energy, creativity, and freedom? Do you feel helpless about the ongoing destruction of our planet and ensuing climate disaster? Do you feel isolated from your fellow man? There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need to work harder. “Individualizing pain lets the systemic causes for our suffering off the hook.”2 The system that separates you from your dreams, from nature, and from mankind, is the driver of your despair.
In order to free ourselves from the hegemonic system that is crumbling before our eyes, we must become comfortable with the unknown. Life is change and nothing is permanent. Do not let fear prevent you from educating yourself and demanding freedom. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Freedom is never given voluntarily by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
Supporting quotes / explanations / sources of inspiration / further reading:
Buddhism and Marxism with Breht O’Shea – Upstream (2023)
1Many people conflate a decentralized, planned economy with the centralized, command economies characteristic of the USSR or Venezuela, where not only does the government regulate production and distribution, but it also owns all assets. A democracy-driven, planned economy can take a plethora of shapes. In participatory planning, producers and consumers may form councils to negotiate the quantity and quality of what is to be produced. In negotiated coordination (characterized by social ownership much like a co-op), the allocation of consumer and capital goods is determined through a participatory form of decision-marking by those at the most localized level of production.
2Liberation Psychology with Daniel José Gaztambide Nuñez & Harriet Fraad – Upstream (2022)
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