Thread by @mhbx

Capitalism, as a system, has breached the boundaries. We are seeing what Capitalism as hyperbole looks like.

Capitalism is an economic system, not a social system, & not a system of government. As this ~ism (it is a belief system after all, not an law of physics) insinuates

https://twitter.com/DynawithaD/status/1260918684995985408

itself into these other domains it corrupts those domains. At first, like any healthy body, any healthy system, it can withstand a certain amount of viral attack. The body/system has an immune system. As we are experiencing that immune system cannot withstand increasingly new &

creative versions, forms, of a virus. Especially when the body has been under constant attack just in the normal course of life.

Capitalism, unconstrained by rules that dictate its purpose & relationship to society; when it becomes a purpose unto itself, it is a cancer that

becomes that body's, that society, that countries, greatest enemy.
Like a cancer, before it runs amok, and starts taking over everything, when the system is functioning properly & in right relationship, it is fine. It does what it is supposed to do.

Periodically an outbreak

of a toxic Capitalism happens. Sometimes it threatens to destroy everything. Consider the era of the Robber Barrons, Teddy Roosevelt, The Depression Era.

Each of these, and lesser outbreaks, demanded an intervention, additional laws & regulations, to refit it to the needs of

country.
At a fundamental level, this is just what Capitalism is... you cannot expect it to be or do anything else. Capitalism runs on a few axiomatic principles. These principles describe the functions of an economy in terms that accounts for human nature, both as a creative

force, but also a selfish, self-serving one. All that works well, until it does not.
It is like Democracy in these terms, as the bromide goes, it is the worst system, except for all the others.

When Capitalism is **part** of an overall system that is a state & how it is

operated; when Money is a function not a goal; when the overriding purpose of the systems of state are for the CommonWealth, then there is a functioning, more or less, healthy country. At every level. From the Federal down to the home.

When Money becomes the point...and money becomes a function of Power (which it is definitionally) AND that system, Capitalism, starts to take over the other functions of society with its economic imperatives it becomes a cancer.

In our time, and this post that provoked this

mini-essay/post, Capitalism has not only started to take over all the functions of a healthy society... it has emerged as the ultimate function.

To example and detail this point, which is the point of this post, is the stuff of books. There are a number taking on aspects of

this point.

My contribution to the discussion, such as it is, is to note that a properly functioning system has constraints. These constraints enable the system to function without destroying itself, and the context that it functions within.

In our case, the country & our society.
In our case the constraints are the laws and the customs that add the necessary functional context to our economic system so it can function with in the larger system of the country, and not BE the system.

These laws/rules are akin to adding a frame, transmission and wheels to an engine so the engine can do actual work of moving the vehicle.
Changing the analogy: When the engine breaks, the entire vehicle stops, even if every other part is perfectly fine.

Capitalism is essentially a sophisticated Ponzi scheme. This is why one of the critical constraints is to manage, or simply disallow, monopolies. Another is the requirement that money be recycled back into the larger system. Taxes.

When these constraints are breached, and there is sufficient accumulation of power(money) that enforces the breach, that is when you get single individuals threatening to be Trillionaires. It is when you have a handful of people who have amassed the power (money/resources) of

over 3,500,000,000 people...over half the global population.

This is when Capitalism becomes a dragon.
This is what the analogy in the opening post is talking about...
The "owner" cannot possibly Use all that stuff/food/money (notice the functional point: USE) but because the

rules are set up thusly, that dragon/person/corporation OWNS all of that power/resource/money...

Work this out to its logical conclusion and the society becomes what we are grappling with: A plutocracy. In prior times this structure involved Kings and various levels of

royalty/nobles and the bulk of the population as serfs or servants to support it.
Capitalism threatens to instantiate the same structure of society. The titles will be different. The functions will be the same. But worse. But that is the discussion of other dystopia's...

What is needed, IMO, is
a) an understanding of the nature of money as power
b) the underlying axioms of Capitalism
c) and understanding how those principles work at various levels. From the local market to the Global.
d) and understand that what works well at the local levels

does work because at those levels Money(power) is a function of exchange and meeting the needs of the society (system) at that level.
Money is called "Currency". That is because its essential function is to flow. It is meant to be an exchange of value.

When money becomes a

function of wealth...then it stops being currency and becomes a function of power. An accumulation.

It is at this junction, the edge between these 2 great needs & functions of society that the risk for sickness/corruption is introduced.

e) It is imperative that when Capitalism is being discussed to be clear what level, what dialect, of capitalism is the topic.
To conflate a functioning local version of capitalism w the national and global engagements between nations & multinational corporations is extreme error.

It is the kind of error that, to resume the analogy, becomes a cancer, or, in extreme cases, becomes a virus to which there is no known antidote... It just kills everything it infects.

I think we have been having the conversation about what and who we want to be vis a vis our economic & power systems for decades. (in more specific terms: Commerce & Governance systems). In some ways since the finding and founding of the New World,but that is for the big books!

Now we are here, again, at a crossroads, a choice point that no longer can be put off. A choice will be made.
And the choice will determine what happens next, and for years, if not decades, to come.

What is a world that has Trillionaires in it look like?
What is the meaning of a Constitution that has as its axiomatic principles
. Community (striving for a "more perfect Union")
. Justice

. A state of peace where creativity & humanity can strive for its highest good (ref Maslow re the requisite conditions for creativity & conscious development)
. A state where the general welfare of the country is a primary point & purpose...not a state of Royalty and Peasants.

. liberty, which is the fundamental state for these lofty goals to exist in reality

From these overarching intentions flow the ideas that enable such a society...

It is these ideas, and this august vision for the greatness of what "the people" can be, become and achive

that is the question that demands an answer.
We will choose what we want to happen next.

Till now we have been more or less on auto pilot. Default mode. Thinking that what is is what must be. That the basic tenants of Capitalism are tantamount to universal principles.

They are not.
And now, we are living in the consequences of this hyperbole.

This is not a choice between Capitalims & Communisim. That is the mind deadening foggery of those who need for the system to continue just as it is. Who profit and enjoy the blessings of the corruption.

It is a choice to consider why we have economic systems. Are the economic systems the reason for society, or a servant?

There are other, and better ways to frame the question.
This is one.

In our time we are grappling with the issue of life. In this turmoil we have come to

think differently about certain roles & jobs within our society. Who and what is 'essential' and what is not.

Part of the question that makes up this Crossroads, This "Two Roads" choice point is this: Who and what are actually essential in our country?

If the answer does not include some version of including all our citizens, and then enlarging our vision to others - which has been our historic lifeline when we have not been in the grip of a vicious xenophobia - and ultimately to all life, including the planet we call home...

If we end up asking and answering a small question, rather than the large one that presents itself...That will be its own answer.
And choice.