The Scary Side of Capitalism

Communism died a long time ago and Capitalism won. Inherent in the failure was the human factor. While communism in its purest form is wonderful, when you inject the reality of most human beings, the lack of honesty and corruption factors, the system was doomed to fail. Even when it survives, the 'leaders' don't live like the 'commoners' and the system becomes corrupt violating its very core, dependent on brutal violations of human rights to survive.

Capitalism is different. It rewards those who work hard! (Or are super clever thieves, frauds, or fakes). The salesman who can sell ice to the Eskimos would be patted on his back - when, in reality, he should probably be shot. Not because he is not talented, but because he used his talents to mislead others and benefit from it. At some point, we, the society, pay the price of these fundamental wrongs.

Capitalism has allowed America to surge ahead and be a place in which many can succeed. Like any unbridled system, however, it eventually breeds fanatics. Consider Religion. While generally good, the fanatics really take things to a level that undermines the core values. Imagine we killed people for saying the Earth was round. Yes, Christians. And I haven't started in on all the other fanatics out there. But there are many. The Catholic church that talks of the protection of human life from conception but yet was responsible for the deaths of children born to mothers out of wedlock (Ireland). Where does the madness stop?

Capitalism is now a victim of itself. Giving people rights is wonderful until the wrong people acquire those rights. Now unbridled greed is playing out. Electing Donald Trump as President of the USA four years ago was a huge mistake. Any examination of his character would show that he was lacking, and while his bullying may have worked in his arena where the almighty dollar (however acquired) holds title, running a country and taking care of all of its people is a completely different thing.

In Barbados, the DLP government ran the country into the ground over a two-term period. In a historical move, the self-declared highly Christian population moved in a way that elected the first female Prime Minister in a 30-0 victory. Guyana, 400 miles to the south, had a government that in only 4 years ruined the economy; re-institutionalized corruption to unprecedented levels; allegedly stole vast sums of monies and not only emptied the treasury but left it in deficit; signed the worst oil deals on planet earth; reignited racial tensions to a similar state as seen some 30 years prior; and introduced onerous taxation (amongst many other terrible things). Yet, in the election, they lost by a narrow margin of 34-31 seats. America, four years after electing Trump, saw the collapse of racial gains and corruption of many value systems as a bully ran amuck. Whilst the economy was booming, the President and his supporters managed to kill over 1000 Americans for every American killed by terrorists in the 9-11 bombing. Oh, and unnecessarily so. Very preventable. Yet at the time of the vote, the population was split 51.4-46.9% (Biden-Trump). While Mr. Biden and Kamala Harris did secure the win, why was the margin so narrow?

Perhaps, the Barbados vs Guyana/USA outcome is, in its MOST simplistic form, a race issue. In Barbados, each party was black. The predominantly black population had to choose which party was better - without core mitigating factors like religious or race factors. In Guyana, the losing party was largely black-based while the winning party was largely indo-based. While the result should have mirrored the Barbados result, it didn't even come close. In fact, the result was highly suggestive that the then ruling party had done a pretty decent job. I would bet that if both parties in Guyana were black, the result would have been ASTOUNDINGLY different. In America, had the blacks not come out and voted in unprecedented numbers, we would likely see another 4 years of Trump.  While the Caribbean result is fairly clear-cut, the American result is far more multifactorial, but there is no denying that 'race' - however defined - was a significant factor.

Food for thought. This author does recognize that this is an over-simplification of a multifactorial problem that will be debated for decades, but its simplification is necessary in choosing how to move forward. If the US doesn't address the fact that half of the population is now disenfranchised, capitalism will turn to domestic terrorism. We have to look north to our Canadian neighbours to see what life probably should be. Multi-ethnic, social-democratic, prosperous, well-respected with an incredibly high quality of life for most. Unfortunately, the seeds of capitalism have been so well-'fertilized' that there can be no rapid move to Canadian-esque quality of life for all.

The Biden/Harris administration is, luckily, in my opinion, what the US needs to move forward. The pendulum - post-Obama - swung, fell off the pivot, rolled down the hill - and is now being reinstalled. Appalling actions really don't come as any surprise to this author and, in fact, what is about to come may shock the world, but shouldn't. I'd love to think it is because humanity is so wonderful and hope springs eternally, but the grim reality is that we set a man-eating tiger free in our kid's bedroom and are now shocked that we can't find the kids. Human stupidity, fear (from being bullied), the fascination of the almighty dollar (however corruptly obtained) and reverence of things that did make America great but now need to be reformed/dismantled - Social Media, Google, Reality TV, Hollywood etc. Imagine if this time around the US had had normal elections. The usual one-day voting system. Imagine if, on that day, Trump had made the call to disrupt it on Social Media - telling his supports that they were about to be cheated and they had to ensure they got out and voted and stopped those against them from voting? Would you have gone out to vote with the very real threat of violence? Probably many Democrats would not have. Trump would be in power today and unstoppable with a confidence-boosting second term psyche and absolutely no filters. As awful as it sounds, Covid really was what ended up stopping Donald Trump from destroying America totally. Its death toll and his administration's complete ineptitude in dealing with a pandemic exposed weaknesses that a strong economy shielded. The pandemic also changed how the voting was to be done, so a one-day disruption via social media was not possible.  

The Guyana race issue is relatively easy to solve. An oil boom in a country with 800,000 people will see a massive influx of new citizens. While the former administration tried to change the racial demographics with crimes against the indo-population (to force them to migrate) and the influx of black Haitians, it was unsuccessful. The elections in five years will likely see a completely different demographic and hopefully, democratic rule will be chosen based on merit, vs race. America has two more voting cycles before the 'minorities' will become the majority. Trumpism, like Brexit, was perhaps the cry of a dying old guard.  

Shutting Trump down on Twitter and other social media platforms is too-little-too-late, but welcomed. He is wealthy enough to create his own platform and the public is only too gullible to join the new platform that will promise all sorts of wow, at the expense of their freedoms. Except now, no one can ban him. And herein lies the problem. With great wealth comes great responsibility - most of the time, however, it breeds corruption. The third-world is rife with examples of corruption at every level where the rich enjoy a different modus operandi. Maybe we all need to step back, ditch the egos, see which societies have which advantages, and approach this as a World issue. Perhaps then we wouldn't have mass migration burdening our well-run countries as people would stay home in their well-run democracies. The immigrant problem would be solved. Maybe we wouldn't have pandemics killing millions as we could effect a world lockdown for one month? Well, we all know that that will never happen. 

In the meantime, I'm eyeing up Canada.