Is capitalism killing us–or just keeping us scared of dying enough to work harder and harder?/Image: Licensed Adobe stock, Minerva Studio.
In the song “Money” from the classic Kander and Ebb musical, “Cabaret” we’re told when you go to your pastor for advice, he tells you it’s all about love, this life. But when you’re hungry and need to assuage that bodily demand, what do you look to?: Money–(not to eat, but to pay for food!) Can’t deny that! And it does seem like we pay a lot of lip service to charity and generosity, but our entire society revolves around money, moola, dough, coin. We’re no economic experts here at Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW), which Visa and MasterCard are very thankful for, no doubt, But we went a-searching for some of the basic principles upon which this capitalist venture known as the U. S. of A. is founded. Here’s what we discovered.
See let’s get started with our desultory, superficial, and incomplete review of American Capitalism!
Free Markets, Free People
Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of capitalism, that which distinguishes it from other economic philosophies is its faith in the idea of the free market.
“Free markets are characterized by a spontaneous and decentralized order of arrangements through which individuals make economic decisions,” according to the good folks at Investopedia. More specifically, the market is left alone from governmental manipulation, and supply and demand is, theoretically, the sole influencer of economic activity,
As such, a totally free market is essentially non-existent in the contemporary world, as without safeguards imposed by governing bodies, it ends up running roughshod over human lives. The idea of it, the striving for it, is still an animating force, particularly in the United States.
Also, political thought in the U.S. links economic freedom and political freedom for the following reason, as articulated by Milton Friedman in his classic opus, Capitalism and Freedom: “The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables one to offset the other.”
Markets need to be free, people need to be free, but, ironically lunch never will be.
Me, Myself, and I
In the capitalist society, the concept of the individual is another founding principle.
“Such a society operates under the moral doctrine of individualism—where each individual is regarded as an end to oneself, and not as a slave for the ends of others,” according to capitalism.org
This individual then needs rights and protections from government interference in its life pursuits, hence The Bill of Rights.
Apparently ourselves as adventurous teens who just want to live an exciting life, if the old man would just get off our backs and let us stay out past curfew. Jeez!
Foul!
Also in pure capitalism, the government is seen as a referee, not a regulator, notes captialism.org. Meaning the government is not expected to regulate or manipulate commerce, leaving that to “the invisible hand” of the market. Instead, the government is looked to when disputes inevitably arise to make fair, reasoned judgments about the buying and selling of goods.
This referee/regulator dichotomy is also tied to the idea that governments generally won’t need to step in the middle of economic relationships, because the free market is being and because businesses need workers, they’ll value them. Well, I guess we can all agree that’s naive as all get out, huh, SYRW readers?!
In fact, The New Deal of “social safety net” programs like welfare benefits and social security in response to human lives ravaged brutally by the Great Depression is a testament to the over-simplified pie-in-the-sky naivete of this view of the innocuous nature of the free market.
For various reasons, governing bodies, in American capitalism, are looked at with skepticism, even distrust, they exist to make our lives more difficult, we seem to think. Taxation, which enables the law enforcement and social programs we’ve come to expect as a society. We all have this cowboy/vigilante mentality that if the government would just stop interfering, we’d be A-Okay.
This view conveniently overlooks the reality that once people get past the initial resistance to government assistance and get used to benefits like, say Social Security or Medicaid, we don’t want to give them up. It seems unfathomable now, that when we’re physically too old to work, we’d simply have to starve! Perhaps in early capitalism when communal and familial bonds were still a driving force in life, we could expect those around us to pick up the slack when we aged out of our prime working years. But this is seldom the case in the U.S. anymore.
Restuarant goer: “Hi. I’ll have the T-bone steak, a side of mashed potatoes and peas, I’ll start with a salad, and I’ll have an iced tea to wash it all down. Oh, and an apple cobbler.”
Waiter: “Great! That’ll be $25.”
Restaurant goer: “Oooooh…yeah, I’m 95, so I haven’t earned any money in ten years.”
Waiter: “Oh, okay then, we’ll they’ve reserved you spot 624689-38 at the morgue. Get in it and wait to do. Have a nice day!”
An Attitude of Aspiration
The U.S. is by most accounts in the capitalist evolutionary state known as Late Capitalism key (as opposed to Early Capitalism, which China finds itself in, for example), A key characteristic of this phase of the capitalist experiments is its aspirational one. That is, we who live under late capitalism, all on some level, believe that our economic prospects are essentially unlimited as long as we “work hard.” Then only thing stopping us, for example, at SYRW, from forming the next Apple Corporation is either an unwillingness or an inability–or both–to work at it.
This is also where the Protestant Work Ethic of the early American European colonists come in. They saw work as a moral imperative, as looked upon kindly by God, and therefore worthy of devoting the bulk of one’s life to and expecting of other people.
This is one of the reasons Trump supporters, like us here at SYRW, don’t resent a leader like Donald Trump. We’re hopeless optimists who see ourselves in him. If I work hard enough–or play enough scratch-off games–I could be him. Sometimes we get a little ahead of oursleves and get the spray tan and trophy wife before actually earning anything–whoops!
Simple Is as Simple Does
Wake up, SYRW, readers! Is that drool on your desk? Wipe it off, for Pete’s sake. We hope you enjoyed this stroll through the land of robber baron’s and free enterprise. Honestly, in case you couldn’t tell, we’re sitting here at our desks thumbing through references and textbooks, learning this along with you. Forgive us if we explained poorly or left key points out. We’ll try to correct these failings, if so, in future articles.
Until next week, readers, go bury your loot under a mattress! And forgive us for the lack of funny in this article, as that is our main goal, to make you laugh. This topic just lends itself to an attitude of oh-so-seriousness!
We at Spread Your Right Wings generally don’t like people, the Internet, or interacting with people on the Internet. Seek out someone—in person—to talk to and laugh with about this article. Check back with us as we continue to mock the right wing. Follow us on Twitter at @worstaltlife join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @worstaltlife. If you simply must get in touch with us, DM us through our Facebook group. Also, please, please see the disclaimer in our About section.
© 2018 Akbar Khan
