Moral Absurdity in American Capitalism
This article explores the uncomfortable confusion between necessity and luxury in modern day American capitalism.
American capitalism has reached a fork in the road. The cynic may argue with convincing evidence, and I may agree in some respects, that the fork is already in the rear-view mirror and we’re headed toward an even more unmoderated form of capitalism. Others may argue that the fork is just ahead in 2020 and we’ve got one last shot to rein it in. One choice keeps us on a path of moral absurdity, and one provides us some degree of salvation from our own destructive tendencies. But the momentum of absurdity is tremendous, having had time to build and reinforce itself through systemic change since the 1960s when the powers that were (and still are) decided what we value as humans is completely disconnected from what we reward. They blurred the line between what a dignified, modern society can offer for honest work and what the workers actually get. They furthered their interests, their wealth, and their comfort while simultaneously playing puppet master with politicians who then played a mantra that pitted the masses against each other. And you have to give them credit: It worked. And it’s working now better than ever.
The United States, since its inception, has been built off the backs of the poor and oppressed. Without the slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, which made possible vast wealth and innovation in just a few decades for just a small part of the population, this country would not have become a global powerhouse. Those slaveholding legacy families bestowed wealth and the means to keep that wealth through the generations. And, as you’ve probably already put together, it also bestowed vast poverty onto the masses.
And now here we are. Verifiably, roughly 82% of all newly-created wealth in the United States goes to the top 1%, while the bottom 50% have seen stagnate wages for decades while productivity has soared. In response, the narrative from the top has featured a preposterous condescending theme that effectively tells the working class poverty is normal and this level of inequality is natural. And of course, we should all be grateful for it.
But we aren’t grateful for this onslaught of purposeful confusion of necessity and luxury. Of all the injustices in the world, this is predictable, and thus preventable. Inequality is a natural outcome of capitalism in the sense that unmoderated capitalism eventually destroys itself as those few at the top abuse the many at the bottom. The metaphorical “gap” between the wealthy and the poor is indeed only a metaphor, after all.
The reality is that, in the richest country in the world, we have people who work full time but live on the streets. We have people who work several jobs, but are food insecure. We have people who stay home to take care of a sick family member and new mothers who have calculated that it’s cheaper to give up their career than to pay for child care. We have professionals in the upper middle class who have insurmountable medical bills because of a broken system. And they’re all told the same thing: This is what you deserve for what you do. You should have done better. You do not deserve even the bare necessities in this beautiful, wealthy, secure nation that you contribute to every single day. Instead, they say you should have been born into a legacy family like them. You should have had keen insight into an industry so that you could start a successful corporation like them. You should have had talent to play a professional sport like them. You should have been an actor or actress. You do not deserve basic security, dear teacher, dear janitor, dear food worker, let alone luxury.
But let’s make it clear if it isn’t already: the elite class lumped basic necessity and luxury into the same category of what one deserves for hard work. Hard work isn’t a gurantee that you’ll come home, in your first world country, and be food secure, shelter secure, and safe. Sadly, though, this confusion was part of the plan to keep you from demanding that your government take action to start making this country look more like a country of wealth and prosperity.
As if it plays out in an Ancient Rome-style gladiator fight, this is where the confusion has been written in stone the last few decades. The middle and lower classes have been taught to fight each other. After all, they do see each other every day. They fight over who is lazy and who is entitled and who is greedy. They rip at each other for that tiny sliver of the economy that’s been thrown to them, which is just enough to keep them from flooding the streets in protest with their right hand and collapsing the economy with their left. Cleverly, though, their arbitrary 40- to 60-hour work weeks keep the masses in a torpor and so underwater that they do not have the will to act unless things become so extreme that it forces their hands.
All the while, in the box seats, the top 1% watches in sheer happiness the system that’s been cultivated carefully, but not secretly. In fact, it’s so painfully obvious what’s happened. And while so many in the United States work so hard for so little, the top equates their own right to luxury with everyone else’s acceptance of insecurity. Can you imagine a better conclusion for this hidden elite class?
What moral ground do we stand on when bank accounts worth billions idle for the pissing contests of the ultra-wealthy while vital services for our society put and keep people in poverty? I say it’s very shaky. What words can even attempt to describe a society where mere entertainers, whose optional professions depend on all the comforts, securities, and results provided to them by the impoverished masses, not only have every necessity life requires, but also every luxury imaginable. These two concepts are not one and the same, but we treat them as though they are. But that confusion is part and parcel of the elite’s method to maintain a stranglehold on their wealth.
So as the working poor work hard and long to make ends meet, barely, if at all, saving for retirement, understanding that they’re one injury or illness away from financial ruin, probably not knowing that the system is rigged against them, feeling powerless by design, having no freedom to explore a different profession, and no ability to change their circumstances, I hope they remember that their contribution to this country’s very fabric of success is vital and that it deserves a baseline reward that comes straight from the power structures and the individuals that they ultimately go to work for every day.
