Virtually every man-made thing you see around you right now is likely produced because of capitalism. It’s capitalism that has allowed me to write this post on my Chinese-made mini laptop, and you to read it on your (almost certainly) Chinese-made device. “Awesome!” you might think. “Capitalism is freedom, then! You’re a free writer and I’m a free reader.”
No. Capitalism isn’t freedom.
It feels like that because both you and I happen to be – for the time being – near the fulcrum of the seesaw of economic exchange. And this seesaw isn’t well balanced, either. On the one end sits a hippo (capital), and on the other end half a billion ants (workers) trying to keep the thing from imploding. You and I are somewhere around the fulcrum. And because of that, most of us are stupid enough to think we’re more related to the hippo, rather than the ants.
But that’s the bubble-gum, pink-clad, rough love of capitalism. Like every system of dominance – think religion – it promises you heaven but makes sure to show you hell if you don’t fall in line. “Oh, so you don’t like the way things are, then? Well, why don’t you go and live in [insert sweatshop country]?”
Capitalism is an economic system predicated on injustice and psychological conditioning. We are all accomplices; the system works thanks to us.
How can you be a free writer in such a framework?
