American’s love to tout capitalism as a way out of no way, but most of us don’t clearly understand how capitalism works. If we did, we’d understand how it conflicts greatly with the safety and security of all things living, but especially humans and our food supply.

Most of us really can’t fully comprehend capitalism. We’re simply workers trained to be consumers, tricked into believing we are capitalist participating in a free market society.

We don’t realize Americans are only free to keep up with the Joneses and plan our next thing to purchase. We are trying to achieve the American nightmare, which is nothing more than nationally sanctioned political propaganda sold to foreigners by our State Department.

Most of us decent folks don’t have the desire or heart to be a capitalist, as it requires you to lie, cheat, steal, while ignoring the basic needs of workers helping businesses make a profit. Instead of being grateful for employees businesses rob the employees of things wages, time off, and other fringe benefits in exchange for bondage.

To be a capitalist in America (or anywhere in the world) you must be a bad, heartless person, something I am not. I learned I couldn’t be a Christian (at the time I was a Believer) and a capitalist, because the two don’t allow you to be bad and be good at the same time. Rarely if ever is there a happy medium.

Sometimes, we can’t see the harm that comes from capitalism, because it’s associated with pleasurable things we enjoy having.

Pleasurable things like a favorite sports car, a favorite sushi roll, a new house built by legal and illegal immigrants, a tomato picked by a mistreated illegal immigrant worker, or that designer leather purse and matching shoes. All you see is you got the things you wanted in exchange for money or credit. For many of us, our paycheck is considered pleasurable, as raises, promotions, and overtime affords us most of our basic needs and some of our wants.

But for all the pleasure we get from earning a few pennies and consuming, we forget someone likely experienced something bad to give us our goodies.

Like the American job shipped overseas to get employer’s products made with a smaller overhead and more profits. The employer doesn’t want to pay health insurance for us, because it cuts into his bottom line. Maybe it’s your neighbors in some rural, industry-driven part of your state who likely lost their manufacturing jobs to people in Thailand. Now those poor people are working in an unsafe sweat shop. Those jobs are never coming back to your rural neighbors. I’m sure the Thai workers aren’t too happy either.

So, the rural people moved out of their homes to find new jobs, because they gotta have jobs to survive. The local tax base has dried up because taxes aren’t coming from the old workers or the factories, and now teachers educating rural public school kids no longer get raises, new books, or access the latest technology. The schools are quickly slipping into second class schools, and aren’t able to produce students ready for a 21st Century economy. Additionally, there are no job prospects coming to the now desolate rural area. Hopelessness sets in…

Then America piles onto the displaced workers by telling them they need to do “something,’ like pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But how do you move to where the jobs are without money or with poor credit because it was ruined when your employer left you jobless? How do you pick up with young kids and move to a new place with no family connections or social supports if you’re accustomed to small town living? It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Capitalism doesn’t care, and neither does the average American. Just give us those cheap jeans or the latest 75-inch television.

Capitalism requires you to: take, squeeze blood from a turnip, swindle folks out of their hard-earned money, bullshit people into buying things they don’t need and can’t afford, overcharge consumers, cheat employees out of their wages to make shareholders richer, take from some to give to others, and so many other negative things that make us bad humans.

What I Learned

Capitalism requires you to believe in capitalism. Simply put, I learned I don’t believe in capitalism, because capitalism isn’t fair. I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors, and capitalism wasn’t fair or free. There are no such thing as free markets, because capitalism system is always rigged for the big guy. Trade acts favor corporations and the players know how to play the game fucking the small, lower class employees. Free markets apparently are for big corporations, not the little guy.

Fair doesn’t necessarily mean we have to all be equal, but it does need to be fair. For instance, if I go work for someone because I don’t want to start a business and deal with all the hassles of owning and operating a business, can I get paid a living wage? If I work for my employer for 15-years, can I trust my employer won’t betray me and send my job to Sri Lanka to a sweatshop just to not take care of the one who took him to the dance?

Can my employer offer me a wage that allows me to pay my bills, keep a roof over my head, eat, and not pay out all that I made so that I am essentially a slave. Can the landlord charge fair rents? Why is childcare so expensive, and college? Can we live without having to work ourselves to death?

Capitalism isn’t fair. What’s fair for business isn’t always going to be fair to me.

Convincing People They Need to Spend Money

Capitalism requires us to convince people to consume things we don’t need, and to spend money we don’t have. As a small business owner, I struggle coming up with gimmicks and lies to make someone think they are getting more than I’m offering, but it seems Americans love that shit. Capitalism requires it.

From make-up, anti-aging creams, shoes, yoga pants, dieting supplements, plastic surgery, tools and DIY shit, RV’s and campers, tiny houses, big houses, laundry detergents, medications, fishing lures, automobiles, bank products, or ice cream, someone is always trying to get us to buy stuff that we don’t need.

Businesses are always creating fancys way to swindle us out of our hard-earned money and we just sop it up like pigs eating slop. Even when we don’t have money, capitalism offers us credit which is money we don’t really have access to given to us based upon our ability to repay it…with interest of course.

They keep us thinking we need to have money in case we need to buy something.

The False Promises and Lies

Capitalism requires me to lie and make false promises. Consumers have been conditioned to make believe false promises. Blue pills can make your limp penis hard again, just ignore the fact the blood doesn’t go down there to make it rise on its own because there are other underlying health issues. We buy organic food that’s not really organic. We order hamburgers from fast food restaurants that only has a small percentage of actual meat in them. Nike shoes will make you run faster and Jordan’s can make us jump higher.

Old Spice will get men laid, and Revlon red lipstick will make our lips sexier even if our faces and bodies aren’t all that great. We consumers love being lied to and we can’t understand when you’re really getting a good deal.

How Our Government Deters Free Market

Our own government infringes upon our ability to make a profit (unless your a politician of course). Have you ever done business with our government? Well I have and most times it’s a pain in the ass. The government’s mantra is always getting what they need to keep the government going for the lowest price possible. They make us put in bids and tell us they are only going to hire us if our prices are the lowest and we provide high-quality services. They want good for cheap.

We’re not only have to undercut competitors, often we must undercut ourselves and our own interests just to say we have do business with the feds.

It’s the primary reason many doctors opted out of accepting Obamacare/ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare which limits health care options. Furthermore, the pay is an insult to any professional considering the amount of work required to simply get reimbursed.

We can’t afford to do work for our government, the same government that claims it supports capitalism. Not only do they pay little to no money for services sought expecting the moon in return, they reimburse or pay so slowly that your business would suffer greatly if you didn’t have a diverse client base to generate other revenues.

Our own government is the biggest obstacle to free markets for many of us doing business with them. It’s not feasible or reasonable to do business with the government in this fake free market society.

Greed and Selfishness

Capitalism means you must be greedy and selfish. Because I’m not selfish I had a very hard time with this concept. Engaging in the free market for me the small business woman means I must not give a fuck about people. I must only care about their ability to pay for what I’m offering. We rob opportunities from the poor without giving it a second thought to give to middle-class and wealthy kids, even if they don’t really need what it is they’re stealing. We take from poor communities to give to rich communities, never giving poor folks a shot.

Capitalism kills people and destroys Mother earth. Capitalism causes too many people to be left behind, creates classes and pits the classes against one another. We become what we earn, what we drive, where we work, or where we live. Capitalism leaves most of us morally bankrupt.

Regarding the Hard Work Lie

With capitalism, hard work doesn’t equate to getting ahead for everyone. Hard work is always sold to us consumers/slaves as the solution to all our get rich aspirations, when in fact it’s quite the contrary. For many of us, we work hard and are still barely making ends meet. We’re working longer hours and getting paid less. Many Americans are working more than one job, and still can’t seem to get ahead. There are lots of people who work hard doing manually and administrative labor, with no room to move up, be promoted, or to get rich.

To me, there is nothing more condescending than to have a smiling White male or female politician on television telling me I can achieve the American dream if I just work hard, when it seems that shit only applies to White people, using White privilege, taking White chances and using White advantages to achieve their American dream without ever acknowledging the playing field is always unfair. It feels like there are always extra barriers to Black prosperity (see the picture above).

Even in a free market regardless of your color, hard work doesn’t equate to moving ahead for most of us. The harder we work, the less we seem to have. Those in power, stay in power. Capitalism is the catalyst for keeping a lot of good men and women down, so a few greedy men can stay on top.

The Bottom Line

It’s so hard to be a good human and engage in capitalism. It feels like a pit you never get done climbing out of. I don’t know what the alternative should be, I just know we desperately need one.

We can’t continue on this way.

Marley K., 2018