The Church of the Fictitious Capitalist

Recently I was accused of being a socialist. Twice in fact. The 1st time was by a woman who, mind you, didn’t work at a company herself (she was a homemaker) and through her husband was able to derive benefits from the government; completely through the government: health care including dental, vision and mental health, education and training benefits, subsidized food and other goods, and housing subsidies, such as low interest, guaranteed governmental loans. All created and administered by the U.S. government. Somehow amidst the reality of her situation, in her mind I was the socialist.

The 2nd time I was called a socialist was by a guy who as someone’s employee and unabashed right winger was just certain that he was the capitalist in the conversation. After both of these conversations I had an epiphany of sorts. I thought “wait a second, whose the capitalist here? Is it a homemaker who derives all her government provided benefits through the work of others or is it the corporate welfare loving, social welfare hating, lackey?” Isn’t the capitalist the guy who takes the risk, who invests his blood sweat and tears with no guarantees of any return? Doesn’t the employee make the life of the capitalist possible by working for less than their value and doing so so that they don’t have to make the investment or take the risks? And their reward? They get a steady return of the profits, usually in weekly or bi-monthly installments, right?

Maybe I’m redefining the word but a capitalist is not the employee, not the cog in the system or someone who, by definition, works for less than what their worth.

I’m the capitalist. I have taken the risk. I have taken the leap and I have never had any illusions that there would be anything like a government bailout waiting for me if I screwed up. In fact, I’ve never had any governmental provided benefits available to me and I certainly wasn’t receiving any direction or guaranteed wages from an employer.

And what was my crime which warranted the fear inducing specter of being labeled a socialist, you ask? I actually had the audacity to advocate policies that would make me a more competitive capitalist! I wanted society to actually have to take some risks on me and my family if they were going to derive the benefit of the tax revenues that I could generate in my capitalist endeavors. I advocated that the government that represent me actually work on my behalf and put my tax dollars to work for me. I put forth that if my government wanted to benefit in the rewards of my endeavors through the tax revenues and jobs that I could create through the investment of my blood, sweat and tears, it was going to have to take some responsibility in sharing some of the risks; like ensuring that I could more readily and cheaply have access to education, child and health care.

As a true capitalist I can testify that these initiatives would make me much more productive. Instead of wasting valuable time, energy and finite resources on how to provide childcare, education and health care for me and my family, I could explore new avenues of market penetration. Instead of paying upwards of $1000-a-month for family health insurance, I could invest that money in advertisements or a part-time employee. Would my taxes go up with these new initiatives? Sure they would, but as a capitalist I know that if I want a return on capital I first have to take a risk and make an investment. Secondly, as a capitalist I understand that huge economies of scale would be created if we all share in the responsibilities, leading to much cheaper overall costs and greater benefits of choice and access for all.

My epiphany developed deeper. The reason why these people couldn’t appreciate their position in life as anything but capitalists was the same thing that kept them from understanding why we needed these initiatives to strengthen capitalism. I wonder if their belief system would be different if the forgiving system of social welfare which they don’t recognize that they live under actually benefited them in direct proportion to the amount of risk they’ve taken? What if they were compensated based upon the blood, sweat and tears they’ve put into their profession?

Or what if more practically, they, like many people in occupations in this country, had to truly compete against the lowest common denominator of wage earner who is both willing and capable to replace them? Maybe their perspective of things would change if the market truly decided their value and instead of coming home with a steady paycheck we let the attitude of the market at any given time cut their checks this week, this day, this hour? Maybe they’d appreciate their privileged and insulated positions in life if they were more like the working poor, who by the way work far longer and harder for less and live right on the front lines of capitalism.

That day may be closer than many think and if it were to happen they’d realize just what it means to be a capitalist without a net. Oh how the church of the fictitious capitalist would then be filled with parishioners praying for a little socialism.

(Cover photo by Flickr user BinaryApe used under a Creative Commons license.)

The Chants Could Still be Heard from the Depths Below…

In doing some research to live in another country I’ve come to realize that our country likes to do things that make the least possible sense. Just look around and you’ll see it everywhere. It’s so pervasive it’s almost like a disease.

Examples…..hmmmmm?

Land of the free? Except we demand that you have to sign an oath or lose your job. Incarcerating drug offenders doesn’t prevent drug addiction, so what do we do? Lock up more drug addicts! The death penalty doesn’t deter anyone from committing crimes and has repeatedly proven to have put innocent people to death, so what do we do? “Put in a speed lane” for state sanctioned murder just as every civilized nation on earth is abolishing it! Oil companies like Exxon are making record profits (a billion dollars a day even) while the majority of us struggle just to get by, so what do we do? Give oil companies massive tax breaks!

We say we love the “free market” and while we don’t mobilize to create a single payer, universal health care system that would cut costs, create portability and offer more choices, we instead give all sorts of corporate welfare benefits to highly profitable healthcare companies - gives new meaning to the phrase “free market!” The technology of our military has failed to help us win wars in Vietnam, Korea and now Iraq, so what do we do? Increase military budgets to over $1 TRILLION dollars a year!

We like to believe that we’re #1 in the world in every category and yet most Americans couldn’t find more than 2 European countries on a map. (And it’s not just because “soma people out there in our nation don’t have maps!”) How would we know we’re #1 if we don’t even know where to compare us to? The fact of the matter is that we aren’t #1 in almost every category.

We used to love our GDP numbers but the European Union is now essentially equal. Infant mortality? Not even close, in fact Cuba has got us beat. Government corruption? No way. Freedoms? Nope but it should warm the cockles to know that at least we’re tied with Botswana for freedom of the press. Education system? Are you serious?

But we are at the head of the class for a number of things we might not wanna tell momma about. We top the charts for climate changing pollution and how about military spending. We spend more on our military than the entire world put together! And aren’t we proud that we’re #1 in the number of handgun deaths or the number of people we incarcerate and the amount of money we spend on prisons. Or we could create a plaque and throw it up on the wall for being #1 for having the most amount of deaths due to medical errors or the record setting numbers of uninsured or the fact that we’re #1 in healthcare spending (more than double our nearest competitor) yet we don’t live longer or healthier than almost every industrialized country on the planet and that even takes into account the effects of diet and obesity <-- oh yeah, we're #1 in that too!

The U.S. was once the envy of the world but the legacy of those long lost days still lives on in the hearts and minds of many Americans despite the harsh reality.

So I have a bold new proposition. We'll simply ignore the truth and just chant: WE’RE #1! WE’RE #1! WE’RE #1!

What could be the worse thing that happens?

….And they continued to chant as the once mighty ship slowly sank.

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