Capitalism, Part 2
Figured I’d at least finish this one. The second part of my post on capitalism, the system that gives so much but also comes with a terribly high price…
One simple step to improving things is to support more employee owned companies and cooperatives. Let workers share the equity and decide their fate democratically. Support companies that aren’t so myopically focused on growth. Do not support companies that activity seek to hurt other companies in support of their growth plans.
Quit sending your kids to these ridiculous business schools. Encourage them to focus on a classical education in language, math, science, history and fine arts. Teach them how to think. Who says you can’t run a business with a liberal arts education? I do. I studied mostly History and English in college, and it prepared me well for life. Throw in sufficient amounts of biology, anthropology, political science, sociology, language, and you’ll be much better off than had you majored in communications or fashion merchandizing.
You learn business as an apprentice. Take the time in college to learn to write and to develop critical reasoning skills. College should be about education, but like everything else on the planet, it’s apparently been taken over by CPA’s and MBA’s hell bent on running our colleges and universities as businesses.
And for those of you that remain unconvinced and still believe capitalism is a grand and benign as apple pie (low fat, of course), consider this. Let’s say you’re a small proprietor. The owner of the community hardware store or a locksmith. You’re making a decent living, know your customers and provide a valuable service to the community. Somewhere along the way, your community gains the attention of Wall Mart and before you know it, they’ve negotiated a deal that will provide tax breaks for them and the necessary zoning changes so cranky old Mr. Gentry can rezone his property to commercial and sell it to Wall Mart.
The rest of the story has been repeated many times all across the country. You’re out of business, thanks to “competition” and struggling to hang on to your home. You’re forced to take a job at some gawd awful plant, making shit wages for robotic, mindless, shit work. Wall Mart decides it’s time to move on to a bigger spread and gets the county to agree to widen the road and provide even more tax incentives. The former site, what was once farmland held by a single family for generations and before that, home to the Cheyenne, is now a community eyesore, an ugly, abandoned wasteland of concrete.
It’s all “progress,” correct? The American way.
No, it’s a cluster fuck, and the little guy, the average worker and homeowner is the one getting the shaft. For every executive toasting his buddies and vacationing in Southern France (thanks to those rising stock prices), there are multiple families struggling to stay on the road and out of the ditch. But the road to riches is strewn with all sorts of ugliness and unnecessary peril. It’s the ugly underbelly of the system so many people believe is so grand.
Capitalism is cruel. Don’t be fooled, and don’t think for a minute that your time will never come.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece, Unforgiven. It’s just before the final scene when Clint and The Schofield Kid are waiting for their bounty money outside of town. A discussion ensues about killing, and the very real consequences of taking human life.
Munny: It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.
Yes. In this system, we all have it coming.