I see this new generation of "Progressives" struggling with the idea of rejecting Capitalism. They all have to say "oh I'm a Capitalist, I just want Medicare for All" or whatever approved slogan they have to say. My response is “yeah... fuck that.” Capitalism isn't a coherent ideology, it is an "economic system" that doesn’t “economize”, and tries to steal the valor of Science and Scholasticism, as well as the shortcut of oil-based work, as its own accomplishments. (Note: If you don't understand my oil comment, it is the classic calculation that one gallon of gasoline provides roughly the mechanical-work equivalent of 100 hours of human labor. Despite our need to move away from fossil fuels, we cannot deny how quickly and how far this resource -not Capitalism- has slingshotted our industries and technological progress in recent history.)
By definition, you only have Capital if you have enough wealth to create more wealth. Capitalists are the Wealthy. Why would you premise your entire economic system on the perpetuation of concentrated wealth... rather than sustainability, societal health, technological progress, ephemeralization (doing more with less), and conservation? From first principles upward it seems absurd to me. We could get into "supply and demand," "private property," "incorporation," "free markets," but honestly Capitalism fails in all of those too... and I don't want this to become a three volume tome. Why does THIS system have to be The End of History? They say it's the only one that works... okay, but what if it was less corrupt, focused more on sustainability, or stopped perpetuating inequality... to the extent we can call it "working," would it work any less if we did those things? Whenever anyone tries to make it run just a little bit more humanely, they call it Communism, and reject any progress. Why? We all know why, it's not a logical problem, it's a "I have all the power, and I don't want to give it up" problem.
Then there is the propaganda. They love to perpetuate the narratives of "might makes right" and "survival of the fittest" because they define success as what they have, then proclaim to be superior. Couple that with a system that commoditizes everything, and all the materials, land, ideas, labor (people)... become something they can purchase. They want you to operate alone, constantly feeding you "the hero's tale" and the idea of "rugged individualism" to make you forget that we are all interdependent. To distract you from the obvious truth that sharing ideas and lifting each other up is the only way to flourish. It's not convenient for them if you believe in "standing on the shoulders of giants", open sourcing ideas and processes, and democratizing our economy and governments; they'd rather you "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and get to work for them, get back to the fields, get back in the kitchen, get back to the mines.
I don't know if there is some transitional period or whatever, but I hope sooner rather than later we can collectively just say Capitalism is ridiculous, and not have to fidget and pretend it makes sense.
