Late Stage Capitalism

Hola mi Gente,

OK, so I’m speaking to day at a conference on the importance of education vs mass incarceration beginning at 5:30 PM, SUNY Empire at 177 Livingston St. 6^th Floor. Hope to see you there.

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Capitalism

Greed is good.

-- Gordon Gekko

[Note: A blind adherence to the virtues of “free markets” is symptomatic to neoconservative thought. Below, in an essay I adapted several years ago, I try to uncover the faulty reasoning behind the dogma.]

Rape is a basic and necessary expression of human nature. Sexual assaults have been present in every society since the dawn of time. It is the natural drive of man to reproduce, to compete successfully for advantage in the marketplace of life and evolution. In fact, it is this innate compulsion to reproduce that motivates man to do anything productive and worthwhile in the first place.

It is this competitive drive that motivates man to aspire to greatness. Can you imagine men striving for greatness were they not motivated by their drive to reproduce by any means? Of course not, because the drive to reproduce is at the very core of mankind’s fundamental nature. As long as we disregard childish “God” superstitions and recognize that a man is ultimately responsible only to and for himself, we therefore recognize that any measures that attempt to suppress this natural and intrinsic drive to reproduce by any means are inherently wrong.

To suppress sexual assaults is the perverse anti-human dream of the superstitious rabble. In fact, no human society has successfully eliminated rape, despite innumerable measures designed to curb sexual assaults. If man were only truly free to pursue this integral part of his nature we would walk as the masters of the Earth that we are.

Anyone with a relatively functioning forebrain will see that this is a painfully faulty and dangerous chain of reasoning. Just because the drive to reproduce is inherent in humans, it doesn’t follow that sexual assault and rape stem from that drive and are a part of human nature. Furthermore, that every society has been beset by sexual assault and none has successfully eliminated rape, doesn’t necessarily mean that sexual assault and rape are things that should be encouraged, or that there wouldn’t be disastrous and apocalyptic consequences were people given carte blanche to rape.

Now, reread the above but this time replace every occurrence of the words “sexual assault” with the words “free markets,” and replace every occurrence of the word “rape” with “capitalism,” and every occurrence of the word “reproduce” with “acquire wealth.” It is now word-for-word the position of economic neoliberal types such as Clinton and Obama. You will find this same line of thought in rationales against universal healthcare, for example, and free postsecondary education.

Well, boys and girls: what have we learned? First, my aim here is not merely to equate capitalism with rape (not a bad area to explore in future writings). Rather, my goal is to point out fallacious reasoning. Certain things might be inherently part of human nature or cannot be completely eliminated, but that isn’t a sufficient condition for a logically cohesive argument that they should be encouraged. If you want to argue that they should be encouraged, you must give other reasons.

The only other reason I seem to get is the unthinking and reactionary response of “socialism doesn’t work,” which displays an ignorance of the enormous and diverse body of economic and ethical thought outside of the current U.S. political and moral paradigm.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…