Isn’t it nice being at the top of the capitalist heap?!/Image: Adobe Stock, used with license, Bolkins.
Today is Tuesday, which means it’s time for some right-wing reading with me, Professor Ebenezer Scourge. It’s one of my favorite days of the week, even though it involves reading an actual book instead of watching dumbed-down news delivered with flashy graphics by “reporters” who resemble models in a JC Penney catalog.
Viva Free Markets and Laissez-Faire
We’ve got quite a doozie for you this week! Now, if there’s one thing ALL right-wing thinkers, especially alt-right ones, have in common, it’s intelligence, fierce and unrelenting. Where does that come from? Books, of course!
We think it’s always good to go back to the basics, to remember the animating forces undergirding right-wing/conservative thinking. Perhaps the thing most fundamental to our collective enterprise–aside from guns–is money, money, money. And that, obviously, comes from Capitalism, Capitalism, Capitalism. We also love the “For Dummeez” series, because dumbing things down is, as we just said abut the news, is always good.
The Main Points You Need to Know
This little gem, Capitalism for Dumeez by A Really Big Dummee is a primer on all you need to know about the most fabulous model for living, capitalism. Here are some central bullet points about The System.
- Everything’s a transaction: Are you feeling sick? Hungry? Cold? Well, in the Western capitalist system, there’s always, always a solution–as long as you have something to exchange for it. Usually, that will be money. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, Alt-People! And why should there be? We’ve all gotta make a darn living, because, especially with dear President Trump nothing will be provided for us. It shouldn’t be. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!
- Me, me, me: There was a time when communities and membership in groups was what nurtured societies and individual people. But, especially in Late Capitalism (now, in the West), that just won’t do! How can we “get ahead” if we don’t spend eight hours a day working and the rest recovering from that soul-crushing experience?
- The Idiot’s Delusion: This is a nickname for capitalism often used by economists and philosophers. Here’s why: you would’t be able to convince most people to work for others, to toil away day after day for the profit of their bosses, if they weren’t all always thinking, “Well, my life sucks ass now, but if I just work hard enough and am free to do that, I could always be the next Bill Gates!” If there’s one word for that, it’s “smart.”
- You’ve Got a Severe Case of Stockholm Syndrome–In a Good Way!: Stockholm Syndrome is the phenomena of hostages becoming sympathetic to their hostage-takers, even taking their sides. In capitalism, the owners of capital and the means of production, a tiny minority of the population, are deified and worshipped even as they benefit, not even giving a fair minimum wage in return, from the servitude and labor of those who deify and worship. they We’re all locked into this weird, wonderful experiment called capitalism together! But some of us are in control–the wonderful 1%–and some of us are controlled–the unwashed masses.
- A Great, Big Ponzi Scheme: Poor Charles Ponzi. He’s the guy the term “Ponzi Scheme” is named after. He was just trying to make a buck and help out his investors through many fraudulent investment schemes in the 1920s. Instead of using the investments of the people who gave him money to engage in legitimate economic activity, he spent it, using the funds given to him by more recent investors to pay back the initial investors when they asked for the money he promised he would make them. Eventually, his schemes would collapse when either too many people asked for some of their investments back at once, or when someone alerted the authorities to what Ponzi was doing. Sound familiar? Hello! It’s how Wall Street works! What a great model to follow: highs based on investments grounded on shaky ventures followed by huge crashes in which people lose everything they’ve worked their fingers to the bone for for years and years. We’re encouraged, even pressured into by this myth that Investing our personal assets to make possible risky attempts at making money by the moneyed class is good for us and good for the economy–a patriotic act. A lil’ nationalism thrown in there for you right-leaning smarties.
- Wanna Go to the Mall? How to keep this economic juggernaut chugging along, ever-expanding, and simultaneously keeping people addicted to it? Well, by getting everyone hooked on buying stuff they don’t need, also known as consumerism! Capitalism requires that those living under it be continually convinced through various means that they must buy–own–a piece of “The American Dream.” A house, a car, you name it. Our worth as human is nothing more than how much we own, which, of course comes from buying…and buying, and buying, and buying. Responsible stewardship of environmental resources be damned–you need that new Lexus!
A Devotional Text for Everyday Use
Go pick up a copy of this literary gem today! When you feel like ending it all because of the debt crushing you, or the anxiety eating at you because you’re living beyond your means, or the nagging desire to give everything up to live in a tree in the woods with only the few possessions you actually need, Â pick up this inspirational text and open it to a random spot. Whatever you read will remind you why you’re #lLvingThatCapitalistLife.
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© 2017 Akbar Khan
