capitalism who?
What is capitalism? Maybe I don't know exactly, but I know it's more than just buying and selling things, which has been done around the globe for many millennia before anything like capitalism ever appeared on this planet. In the three hundred thousand year span of human existence, capitalism is just a tiny blip.
If you don't like the word capital or capitalism, feel free to call our current system by some other name. But whatever it's called, it's this thing that requires us to organize our entire lives around wage labor, creating surplus value which is extracted by an elite ownership class as profit, the infinite growth of which is reimagined as society's highest priority.
Whatever you wish to call it, ours is a system that builds millions of houses that stay empty while millions of people live on the street.
A system that prevents a transition to solar and wind power which are cheaper, but you only have to pay for it once and therefore isn't as profitable as fossil fuels where you pay again and again.
A system that requires we raise and slaughter millions of animals that then don't get eaten.
A system where super wealth buys control of public opinion, media, elections, and policy.
A system that requires we bail out the same financiers who crash the world economy, because they are deemed too big to fail.
A system that invests absurd amounts of money in AI that can only possibly return that investment by engaging in perpetual AI-enhanced wars and genocides, and by replacing human laborers, creators and fighters with computers that never complain, never get tired, never dream, and never feel remorse for killing.
That system.
We entertain ourselves by fantasizing that what we are enduring now is some kind of aberration within an otherwise perfectly reasonable system. We pretend not to remember that every capitalist empire in history, including our own, has come to power and wealth through the use of genocides and slavery, both of which would be rejected as utterly insane were it not for the invention and propagation of racism.
World history also teaches us that the collapse we’re living through now is what always happens to empires after about two hundred fifty years. They become too unequal, too overextended, and too reliant on their militaries and finance sectors. All the things that make life survivable fall apart piece by piece, and life degrades for everyone. But there are a couple of significant differences this time around:
For the first time in world history, the collapsing superpower spans the entire planet and holds every human being at gunpoint.
For the first time in world history, that collapsing empire owns and controls weapons that can instantly wipe out all life with the press of a button.
Meanwhile, for some reason we are expected to believe that our self destruction can be avoided only through elections every two, four years. We are expected to believe that our only options during these elections are two capitalist parties that have nothing but contempt for their voters and constituents. Parties whom almost everyone therefore despises.
For some reason we are expected to believe that a member of society is considered properly educated simply if they are caught up on the latest spats, scandals, and horse races of the ruling elite, who are periodically swapped out for each other to create an endless, suspenseful spectacle.
For some reason we are expected to hold politicians and media personalities to a lower moral standard than we hold each other. We're expected to ache with remorse over a poorly worded email or Instagram post, while politicians can commit genocide and require it to be overlooked and never discussed. Obviously if anyone among us should be held to a higher standard, it's those who make the laws we have to follow, and those who generate the propaganda to which we are all subject. That's the price of power.
If world history is our guide, there is zero chance that Americans simply elect a more moderate-right leader instead of a far-right leader, and everything magically goes back to normal. The fantasy that all our troubles are down to the personality quirks of this or that political or business executive, and unrelated to underlying historical systems, is being sold to you by a corporate media industry that is owned by the superrich and is a critical part of the empire itself, and which is collapsing right along with it.