Capitalism is this Generation’s Vietnam War
But We Can Make America Great for Everyone
I was recently reading an older Politico article written during the last Presidential campaign about how many on the left do not like, even hate Pete Buttigieg, who I was researching, for not being left enough, when it hit me. We are in the midst of a modern 60’s style social revolution just without the fun drugs, free sex and great music.
I understand social revolutions can not be explained by just a single instigator but in the haze of all the drugs, sex and rock n’ roll, the single biggest factor for the Sixties revolution was the Vietnam War. I understand that historical propaganda writes it now as a bunch of dedicated and idealistic young people protesting against an immoral war but let’s just cut through the bull, it was mostly a bunch of young adults scared to death that they would be drafted in to and die in a war that our country should not have been fighting.
Sure, there are a few anti-war hippies left but most grew up and did what most human beings do, they went out and had lives, created families and figured out that they also needed to make some money. I actually hate the sixties now as I blame it for the seventies, eighties and nineties when young people celebrated not dying in the Vietnam War by becoming greedy worthless yuppies out to conquer the world by buying more crap they did not need than any generation in the history of the world.
If you think I am wrong tell me about all the anti-war protests you have been to or watched on TV since the United States started the never-ending wars in the Middle East that are at least as immoral as the Vietnam War. Sure, there are a smattering of anti-war protests and protesters but if you really want to re-create the anti-war passion of the sixties there is only one way to do that, re-institute the draft and thus re-institute the primal fear of dying. Fear motivates human beings more than any emotion evolution ever created.
In the Sixties you could not just say you were scared to go to war, you had to pretend you were an idealist and if that was not enough you also had to demonize those that did serve their country and went to war. It’s not just a bad war but bad people that would go fight for their country in this war.
Well, it’s happening again. This time the fear is the fear of a dog eat dog world war where only the most brilliant and well connected get rich, just surviving may mean working a hard dirty job or even two or three jobs. It is the same crisis that is fueling fear in people of all ages in our country these days on the left, the right and in the center. It is much of what the left has in common with Trump supporters. They are all scared for their futures, of being left behind, of not being able to pay the bills. I actually respect many Trump supporters in this regard, most will tell you straight out that this is what they truly fear, their ego’s do not have them sitting up on any ideological high horse.
But for many on the left instead of saying, hey, I fear that I am not smart enough or ambitious enough to make a bunch of money or to at least live as well as my parents did and my friends do, the counter culture rap is one against capitalism. It’s not that I am not smart enough to make it big, I just choose not to participate in a corrupt system that is only fair to the rich and I actually like living with my friend in his parent’s basement making a few dollars delivering pizza and working for free on the campaign of some far-left politician who has no chance of winning.
Yea right. The moment you can start making a $1000 a day picking your nose for boogers that can be used to power the planet and everyone, including those young left idealists will suddenly fall in love with capitalism all over again. Capitalism rocks, everyone loves it when the money is easy, it sucks, is evil only when it’s hard and sadly the United States is slowly settling down to a lifestyle that is closer, still far from it, but, yes, closer to the reality of the rest of the world which is that roughly 70% of the world survives on less than $10 a day.
If you hold your ear close to a Bob Dylan vinyl album right now you can almost hear those kids in the Sixties saying how they are not scared to fight, they just refuse to fight in a war that is immoral. At least those kids in the Sixties were scared of dying, not just scared of having to work their asses off to get their bills paid.
At this point you probably think I am some a-hole conservative with no empathy that worships rich people and think poor people should be turned in to Soylent Green. Not at all, I am, in fact, the left wing socialist do-gooder to most people that know me. I just think blaming capitalism for the problems in our society is like blaming oxygen for the pollution in our air.
Does our country need insane levels of foundational and systemic change especially when it comes to the relationships between politicians and capitalism? Heck yeah. The cronyism that has taken over and soaked deep in to our system of capitalism is toxic and will probably be the ultimate downfall of our country if not cleaned up .
Our prisons should be full of white collar criminals like Donald Trump instead of people selling drugs which, in my opinion, should be legal. I would love to see a few people that convinced Grandma to invest her life savings in a worthless stock on death row and less that could not afford a good lawyer when they were arrested for being black and/or poor and in the vicinity of a violent crime. Do not even get me started on the 2008 financial crisis, tens of thousands of people would have gone to prison if our country did actually care about the law and justice.
The problem is that most people in our country think our corrupt system of crony capitalism is the only version and do not understand that it can be done in a way that is just and fair. Their thinking is much like those kids from the Sixties who knew they were not GI Joe and going to Vietnam was simply a roll of the dice when it came to life or death. They realize now that they are not Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and capitalism probably does not mean getting rich after writing a groundbreaking app or starting a company but a crappy job or two along with driving an Uber to pay the bills.
I agree, that is not a life, screw that, I started making money in the eighties when money metaphorically grew on trees, you just had to have a single digit IQ and be motivated enough to go pick it. I knew so many stupid people during the eighties and nineties that lived nice upper middle class lifestyles that were really, really bad at their jobs, it was all just too easy back then. To be honest I was probably one of those stupid people making easy money.
So what can be done, you ask? I would love to see our country have a system of capitalism more like the Nordic model of capitalism with large social safety nets while also making it super easy to do business. In most of the Nordic countries no one is getting in the way of, including the government, nor complaining about, anyone getting rich. Capitalists are celebrated while being expected to follow the law, keeping in mind that their system is not crony and no matter how rich you are, no one is above said law and the capitalists and their companies fall in line just like any good citizen that wants to stay out of prison.
Oh yeah, very important, everyone also chips in enough through taxes to make sure that no one falls through the cracks of their society and this contributes to why these countries rank so high on the world’s happiness index.
Sure, you think, of course they are happy and they also must have tons of lazy bastards that do not want to work who spend their days laying on their couches watching The Housewives of Copenhagen. Nope, sorry, more of their citizens work percentage wise and work more years as they grow older than even people in the United States as the social safety nets give them more of an opportunity to pursue the work they are most passionate about, that actually makes them happy. Unlike the United States they do not work 40–50 years in some crappy job they hate living a miserable existence simply because they are scared to death to lose their employer funded health insurance. Oh yeah, trust me, do not get me started on the United States lack of universal health care.
I am a Patriot, I truly believe the United States could kick ass and take numbers with the Nordic model of capitalism. I even think the wealthiest people in our country would be so much happier with a little less money under a system like this. Who wants to have to step over the homeless while visiting that hot new expensive restaurant downtown or have to worry about getting robbed by some addict who can not get quality mental health care and is robbing you to not only feed his habit but his baby. Their kids will not even notice the difference when Mom and Dad dies with only 250 million dollars in assets instead of 300 million.
Yea, you figured me out, I am all in for sharing the wealth, my Mom taught me as a child to not be selfish and to always share with others, I am just not a believer in true socialism, in fact, I am staunchly against it as it simply has never been proven to truly work. Socialism is awesome until the rich people run out of money. As I often like to ask people, if you get rid of capitalism and all of it’s incentives, where does all the money come from? Capitalism has proven to work and it can be fair and just, it simply needs to be reformed.
So yes, despite my friends loving to kid me that I am a socialist I actually consider myself a Democratic Capitalist with a great desire to see our country take the Nordic model of capitalism out for a spin. If I may quote the Gordon Gekko character from the movie Wall Street, “the point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.” Yes, greed is good, I compare it to sexual desire, but we have laws that punish people for rape and sexual assault, sex is a consensual activity, and our system of capitalism should be consensual right beside strong laws that punish people for theft and corruption and everything else capitalists and the very rich get away with now under our current corrupt crony system.
Bottom line, most people just want to make a decent living without having to get drafted in to the dirty business of killing the planet, of not paying enough taxes to feed the hungry and take care of the sick, of having to kiss the fat asses of disgusting politicians they have to bribe in some form or fashion to succeed and everything else that our slimy system of crony capitalism makes you do. Ultimately they just want a life that does not involve them having to sell their soul to survive. Trust me, I get it, and trust me, it will be a lot of work, a tough fight, but unlike Vietnam this war to reform capitalism, to bring more equality to our economy is a just war, a moral war, one that we can win that will Make America Great for Everyone.
