Capitalism Kills

Firstly, capitalism is all about making money, and does so at the expense of individuals, and their labour and human rights.  Worldwide, employees are injured and dying on oilrigs, in coal mines and large factories because their regulation-hating employers want to maximise profits.  The capitalist system emphasises the maximisation of profits and the accumulation of wealth with little regard for the minimal wages paid to those who produce the surplus value applied to their products.  The state is focused on company objectives and numerical targets, rather than the well-being, health and safety of their workers. The creation of laws serves to operate the ideology of the bourgeoisie as a consequence of exploitation.  The majority of the population are exploited by the government and owners of big businesses, hence, exploitation from capitalism leads to the creation of laws which appear to benefit the proletariat, but truly benefit the ruling class by increasing profit margins, regardless of the potential for fatal outcomes.

Secondly, this system has stifled individual creativity, expression, thought and behaviour, all of which have come to be seen as detrimental to societal values.  In doing so, capitalism has killed our individuality and our “freedom of expression and of speech” (not that we ever truly had either of those to begin with).  Capitalists have made the decision to subdue their citizens based on what is privately profitable for them, not for what works well for their people; what engages and inspires us as a nation. Ultimately, this is a loss for society.  Part of our humanity is killed by orthodoxy, which in this case is the stifling cloak of capitalistic democracy and political correctness, which seeks to control not only what can and cannot be said, but what can and cannot be thought.  Such a contradiction between announced policy and actual behaviour is not down to hypocrisy.  It is due to blindness.  People on side of this political centre have certain ideals, imagined ways of being, that they would like to see realised.  But they can see only one way to realise them – through increased control, which inevitably means greater centralisation of power.  Any other approach seems fanciful, risky, dangerous, to the minds of people who do not recognise their own worship of power as a worship of a false and destructive ideal.  Therefore, it is evident that we live in a period of political correctness, bordering on tyrannical censorship.

Moreover, the capitalistic nature of war means that more people than ever are in the firing line of risk.  Many recent wars engaged by our state start off with the notion that the country we seek to intrude is in dire need of democracy.  This is a lie.  Capitalism wants to expand its geographical reach; it needs to open up new global markets; and it needs war to access cheap raw materials otherwise unobtainable at home.  The common perception is that war serves to boost the economy and strengthen economic, social and humanitarian capital.  According to this misguided argument, military conflict operates to generate growth and reduce unemployment (despite the economic crash of 2008, caused by the greed of capitalists, pushing over 30 million people into unemployment).  Long-term, however, global hostilities and military expenditures undermine the peaceful civilian outlook of “liberal” regimes.  The truth is that we have a parliament of power-hungry politicians who seek to rule the world.  This, unsurprisingly, leads to the death of thousands of people within military operations, but the greatest death is for the local people.  In recent years, the death toll of innocent civilians caught up unwittingly in modern technological war-zones has risen to 95%, compared to 20% 100 years ago.

Through this economic machine we have plunged into social breakdown, characterised by confrontation, economic polarisation, environmental destruction and the inability of all existing mechanisms to alleviate the continual descent.  It is therefore essential that we completely reject the cause of this crisis, capitalism.  This has emerged to be the only viable solution.

Capitalism is killing us all, with the exception of the handful of capitalists who thrive because they have managed to successfully poison the system and influence the corrupt nature of many politicians. They may currently own the system, but it is now time for revolution.  If there is to be any hope for humanity then it must come through the mass realisation and breaking of (metaphorical) chains that the economic foundations of society based on exploitation and wage slavery have no part to play in our future.  It is time for a new system.

Difficult as it may be to alter the structure of institutions and the state, it will be less difficult than altering a morality so malignant and so pervasive.  Institutions should be changed so that those directly in contact with the human situation and the horrors caused by the capitalist machine can use their knowledge and engagement in potent ways; so that responsibility and a degree of autonomy are accorded to individuals in a co-ordinate, rather than subordinate, way.  But to restore emotion to prevailing values, to put control and power in the hands of the people in a realistic manner, will require nothing less than a moral revolution.

Another world is possible.