Capitalism is rotten because it is capitalism and capitalism is anti-democratic. Capitalism, which is greed thinly disguised an economy being for the welfare of all, is now exposed for what it is, the concentration of wealth for just a few. Capitalism thrives under authoritarian rule for there is the agreement that those leaders who will focus on taking the fetters off of big business will get significant financial rewards. Now big business has infected the Supreme Court, so for the regular citizens, all hopes of fair adjudication are sinking in a sea of despair. If the highest court in the land can be bought for motorhomes and expense paid vacations, one more pillar of American democracy has been irreparably weakened. Corrupt justices have a term for life and there are no consequences for violating their own standards of conduct.
Capitalism is like the game of Monopoly. You win when you drive all others into bankruptcy. It is a game where the greediest wins.
Between the lack of universal healthcare, the absurd focus on "needing" advanced degrees, the destruction of worker protections, the limited education about employee rights, and the lack of meaningful coverage of the harsh realities people face in this economy, we have created a country where nearly every organization will exploit its workforce to the extent they allow it. For-profits, non-profits and government agencies...transparently corrupt oil companies and tech-bro firms with mottos that pretend to care...it doesn't matter...the story is the same.
Those at the very top take an outsized piece of the pie while telling the masses below that the crumbs they are fighting over that fall down to them are even more than they deserve. Decades of stories that prove this executive largess IS NOT caused by merit remain barely covered by a corporate media with no vested interest in pulling the veil back, happy to cover whatever latest "crisis" those in power want to use to distract us from our exploitation.
LOOK! Gays are getting married!! Black people are taking your child's space in college! Trans people are everywhere! Teachers and firefighters and their greedy pension are destroying the economy! And By GOD....HER EMAILS!!!!!!
The sad fact of the last few disastrous years in America is that all we are doing is showing that the criticisms about us from so many around the world for so long have been accurate. We don't truly stand for anything. We are the big bully who used exploitation and manipulation to gain power and wealth and then claimed it was because we're so scary-talented. We yell at others about democracy while clearly supporting countless anti-democratic policies and institutions. We are misogynist xenophobes who use religion and fear to get whatever we want, principles be damned. We are, in short, Donald J. Trump in the form of a nation.
Reading pieces like this one on the myth of merit remind me of how little most people understand about our economy and their place in it. The way employers have treated employees over time has led to people seeing their work as worth only what stingy, greedy employers are willing to pay them. Therefore, as expected, they will be angry and frustrated that they are struggling just to survive and blaming the wrong people for their situation. Most Americans want a tax on the super rich as well as realistic tax rates for those who earn enormous amounts of money, but since Republicans and some Democrats benefit from seriously large donations from those same rich folks, it is not likely they will do the right thing without extreme pressure from constituents. It might help if they were called out on it, but with all the dark money permitted by Citizens United, it is hard to keep track of just who is paying what to whom. That could be fixed. It is funny that people don't notice the socialism that coddles the rich while everyone else has to suffer with what the rich want to call Capitalism. I think a lot of the challenges to our education system in the red states are an attempt to keep our children ignorant of the way things really work so they will be docile and expect nothing but what the rich want to give them. We need to find a way to wake those folks up and demand our schools do better and the gap between what the very rich earn and what average employees for their corporations earn is significantly narrowed to the benefit of the average employees. No worker should earn less than a living wage. If an employer can't afford that, they should not be in business.
Professor Reich, it deeply saddens and troubles me to hear that young man say he was only worth $14 an hour and thought the rich deserved theirs because they were smarter. Your intelligence does not have a monetary value! I look back through history and find some of the most remarkable men and women that have contributed to society that were not wealthy but had the creative intelligence to produce innovative ideas and products. For me, it takes intelligence to create beautiful art and music, to build wondrous buildings, and mold stunning statues out of a piece of clay. This man has decided that he isn't intelligent or worth much because he didn't go to college or wasn't born with a silver spoon. That is very disheartening. I am a union person. I believe in them because I saw what unions have done for the middle in America. After the war, America truly blossomed fueled by union led workers. We were the best at that time and I, for one, would love to see it again!
Unrelated comment: The Colorado Supreme Court ruling against Trump's eligibility to run is now presumed to be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Initial knee-jerk thoughts of the U.S. Court overturning may be premature. The NY Times posits that the three Trump appointees have frequently been opposed to Trump there. So much so that a similar rate of losses has not been seen since the Great Depression. It follows that the Colorado ruling actually may stand the test of the Federal court. The effects of this? Well ---- it could nationalize the decision against Trump being a legitimate candidate! Yes, that word was nationalize. In effect it would be a ruling from the Supreme Court that Trump participated in an insurrection. Nationalize -- his candidacy would be null and void everywhere. Could there be a bigger decision than that? I don't think so.
I worked in sales most of my life. Salary plus commission. Most of the companies I worked for didn’t even give a cost of living raise for my base. I was told “this is sales—work harder”. Of course, management kept raising the goals so it was also harder to make commission or they capped the commissions. Kind of a rigged system. It was always heartwarming, though, to see the boss drive in with another Porsche.
Worse is when children who will literally have a trust fund front loaded with tax payer funds from an illegal war decide they deserve political office to influence policies to pad their stock market portfolio off of privilege intelligence information inside committees. We the People and our next five generations are forced to give up our wealth to pay back their clear theft to the tune of $32 trillion as they voted over 40 times to raise their own pay, work less than 150 days out of 365 under the guise of local constituent work instead use that time to travel the world on our dime.
Some companies have tried to keep things in proportion. Ben and Jerry’s come to mind. And Dr. Bronner’s definitely. But my beef with it all is that money and stuff should not define a person in any way. Just as physical attributes do not bestow goodness either. Thank you for this thought-provoking series. Keep on keeping on in 2024 and help save our souls.
Trumpler just says shit based on his half-brain, his defensive paranoia and his always-grifting, gaslighting reaction to the world. He tosses BS out there, like Mein Kampf, poisoning blood, Manchurian Candidate, socialism, fascism, and more -- knowing his audience is stupider than he is, his toxic spew successful with enough of his rube and racist voters, furthered more by America’s corrupt electoral college system, will very likely serve to push him over the edge and win. (AND THIS TIME HE’LL NEVER LEAVE!) On top of which, he adds the toxic “If I don’t win, I declare I did, vehemently, again and again strategy” for it has worked in his favor.
Most of all this study in outrageous human stupidity and selfishness indicates we are in the ultimate dreaded downward spiral and only a miracle in goodness-triumphing-over-evil will democracy prevail.
Feel so angry on behalf of and sorry for our children over the toxic stew of chaos, hate and corruption we are handing them.
I like your stark dichotomy ---- socialism for the rich and harsh capitalism for the rest of us--- it identifies the problem very well. Thank you! I had the former part in my mind but not the latter placed together so neatly with it.. I'll use your easily relatable contrast when talking with people.
Peloton is a perfect example of how marketing manipulates. Sitting on a stationery bike and peddling with too loud music became "hot" because the bike instructors are STARS which is why they are paid $500,000-$750,000 for cycling fast and trash talking!!! The guy who started Peloton said he wanted to get great classes at home since this bike was just a clothes hanger. Obviously, Peloton is no different than Spinning launched in 1993 as group exercise in gyms or SoulCycle--group exercise on yellow bikes in boutique studios. This limited type of exercise sells because it is FAT burning ( really just raises Cortisol so you are hungrier) but doesn't require proprioception; balance; flexibility; coordination; or strength. Now 60 years after these crazes helped make America fat, they are in decline since Ozempic makes "torching calories" irrelevant. As the person who made Pilates a household name, I know that almost all exercise was marketed for fat reducing which is why exercise companies are buying drug dispensers just as WW did with
Sequence. Correct exercise is very beneficial, but after decades of failure the public may walk away and throw the baby out with the bathwater. A recent LA Times story said that employees prefer insurance to cover Ozempic rather than gym memberships. Sixty years of false advertising of diet and exercise; then fitness and nutrition; and now wellness. All the rebranding covering up the fraud. Now 65% of American is Obese. Fortunately, science can fix this before our health care system collapses. Competent instructors should be paid well, but none of them is a STAR. In fact, most are merely exercise junkies with their own body issues.
Does anyone else wish we could have one of these discussions on Saturday? I work during the week and by the end of my day I'm tired and the discussion has pretty much run its course. I've got nothing against the klatch, but I enjoy the discussions more. Maybe it could move to Friday or Monday? I have to think there are others who work Monday through Friday, and participation would increase for a Saturday discussion.
Why Is Capitalism So Rotten?
Capitalism is rotten because it is capitalism and capitalism is anti-democratic. Capitalism, which is greed thinly disguised an economy being for the welfare of all, is now exposed for what it is, the concentration of wealth for just a few. Capitalism thrives under authoritarian rule for there is the agreement that those leaders who will focus on taking the fetters off of big business will get significant financial rewards. Now big business has infected the Supreme Court, so for the regular citizens, all hopes of fair adjudication are sinking in a sea of despair. If the highest court in the land can be bought for motorhomes and expense paid vacations, one more pillar of American democracy has been irreparably weakened. Corrupt justices have a term for life and there are no consequences for violating their own standards of conduct.
Capitalism is like the game of Monopoly. You win when you drive all others into bankruptcy. It is a game where the greediest wins.
Robert, one of your best columns. Thank you for the shout-out to social workers - my beloved profession.
Between the lack of universal healthcare, the absurd focus on "needing" advanced degrees, the destruction of worker protections, the limited education about employee rights, and the lack of meaningful coverage of the harsh realities people face in this economy, we have created a country where nearly every organization will exploit its workforce to the extent they allow it. For-profits, non-profits and government agencies...transparently corrupt oil companies and tech-bro firms with mottos that pretend to care...it doesn't matter...the story is the same.
Those at the very top take an outsized piece of the pie while telling the masses below that the crumbs they are fighting over that fall down to them are even more than they deserve. Decades of stories that prove this executive largess IS NOT caused by merit remain barely covered by a corporate media with no vested interest in pulling the veil back, happy to cover whatever latest "crisis" those in power want to use to distract us from our exploitation.
LOOK! Gays are getting married!! Black people are taking your child's space in college! Trans people are everywhere! Teachers and firefighters and their greedy pension are destroying the economy! And By GOD....HER EMAILS!!!!!!
The sad fact of the last few disastrous years in America is that all we are doing is showing that the criticisms about us from so many around the world for so long have been accurate. We don't truly stand for anything. We are the big bully who used exploitation and manipulation to gain power and wealth and then claimed it was because we're so scary-talented. We yell at others about democracy while clearly supporting countless anti-democratic policies and institutions. We are misogynist xenophobes who use religion and fear to get whatever we want, principles be damned. We are, in short, Donald J. Trump in the form of a nation.
Reading pieces like this one on the myth of merit remind me of how little most people understand about our economy and their place in it. The way employers have treated employees over time has led to people seeing their work as worth only what stingy, greedy employers are willing to pay them. Therefore, as expected, they will be angry and frustrated that they are struggling just to survive and blaming the wrong people for their situation. Most Americans want a tax on the super rich as well as realistic tax rates for those who earn enormous amounts of money, but since Republicans and some Democrats benefit from seriously large donations from those same rich folks, it is not likely they will do the right thing without extreme pressure from constituents. It might help if they were called out on it, but with all the dark money permitted by Citizens United, it is hard to keep track of just who is paying what to whom. That could be fixed. It is funny that people don't notice the socialism that coddles the rich while everyone else has to suffer with what the rich want to call Capitalism. I think a lot of the challenges to our education system in the red states are an attempt to keep our children ignorant of the way things really work so they will be docile and expect nothing but what the rich want to give them. We need to find a way to wake those folks up and demand our schools do better and the gap between what the very rich earn and what average employees for their corporations earn is significantly narrowed to the benefit of the average employees. No worker should earn less than a living wage. If an employer can't afford that, they should not be in business.
Professor Reich, it deeply saddens and troubles me to hear that young man say he was only worth $14 an hour and thought the rich deserved theirs because they were smarter. Your intelligence does not have a monetary value! I look back through history and find some of the most remarkable men and women that have contributed to society that were not wealthy but had the creative intelligence to produce innovative ideas and products. For me, it takes intelligence to create beautiful art and music, to build wondrous buildings, and mold stunning statues out of a piece of clay. This man has decided that he isn't intelligent or worth much because he didn't go to college or wasn't born with a silver spoon. That is very disheartening. I am a union person. I believe in them because I saw what unions have done for the middle in America. After the war, America truly blossomed fueled by union led workers. We were the best at that time and I, for one, would love to see it again!
Unrelated comment: The Colorado Supreme Court ruling against Trump's eligibility to run is now presumed to be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Initial knee-jerk thoughts of the U.S. Court overturning may be premature. The NY Times posits that the three Trump appointees have frequently been opposed to Trump there. So much so that a similar rate of losses has not been seen since the Great Depression. It follows that the Colorado ruling actually may stand the test of the Federal court. The effects of this? Well ---- it could nationalize the decision against Trump being a legitimate candidate! Yes, that word was nationalize. In effect it would be a ruling from the Supreme Court that Trump participated in an insurrection. Nationalize -- his candidacy would be null and void everywhere. Could there be a bigger decision than that? I don't think so.
Note how much of the underpaid work is in what used to be called feminized fields. Add librarians.
I worked in sales most of my life. Salary plus commission. Most of the companies I worked for didn’t even give a cost of living raise for my base. I was told “this is sales—work harder”. Of course, management kept raising the goals so it was also harder to make commission or they capped the commissions. Kind of a rigged system. It was always heartwarming, though, to see the boss drive in with another Porsche.
Worse is when children who will literally have a trust fund front loaded with tax payer funds from an illegal war decide they deserve political office to influence policies to pad their stock market portfolio off of privilege intelligence information inside committees. We the People and our next five generations are forced to give up our wealth to pay back their clear theft to the tune of $32 trillion as they voted over 40 times to raise their own pay, work less than 150 days out of 365 under the guise of local constituent work instead use that time to travel the world on our dime.
Some companies have tried to keep things in proportion. Ben and Jerry’s come to mind. And Dr. Bronner’s definitely. But my beef with it all is that money and stuff should not define a person in any way. Just as physical attributes do not bestow goodness either. Thank you for this thought-provoking series. Keep on keeping on in 2024 and help save our souls.
Meritocracy only works if it’s a level playing field. Rules and regulations have to apply equally.
Trumpler just says shit based on his half-brain, his defensive paranoia and his always-grifting, gaslighting reaction to the world. He tosses BS out there, like Mein Kampf, poisoning blood, Manchurian Candidate, socialism, fascism, and more -- knowing his audience is stupider than he is, his toxic spew successful with enough of his rube and racist voters, furthered more by America’s corrupt electoral college system, will very likely serve to push him over the edge and win. (AND THIS TIME HE’LL NEVER LEAVE!) On top of which, he adds the toxic “If I don’t win, I declare I did, vehemently, again and again strategy” for it has worked in his favor.
Most of all this study in outrageous human stupidity and selfishness indicates we are in the ultimate dreaded downward spiral and only a miracle in goodness-triumphing-over-evil will democracy prevail.
Feel so angry on behalf of and sorry for our children over the toxic stew of chaos, hate and corruption we are handing them.
I like your stark dichotomy ---- socialism for the rich and harsh capitalism for the rest of us--- it identifies the problem very well. Thank you! I had the former part in my mind but not the latter placed together so neatly with it.. I'll use your easily relatable contrast when talking with people.
Thank you, Mr Reich. Your knowledge, understanding and moral compass make your essays a joy to read. I envy your students.
Peloton is a perfect example of how marketing manipulates. Sitting on a stationery bike and peddling with too loud music became "hot" because the bike instructors are STARS which is why they are paid $500,000-$750,000 for cycling fast and trash talking!!! The guy who started Peloton said he wanted to get great classes at home since this bike was just a clothes hanger. Obviously, Peloton is no different than Spinning launched in 1993 as group exercise in gyms or SoulCycle--group exercise on yellow bikes in boutique studios. This limited type of exercise sells because it is FAT burning ( really just raises Cortisol so you are hungrier) but doesn't require proprioception; balance; flexibility; coordination; or strength. Now 60 years after these crazes helped make America fat, they are in decline since Ozempic makes "torching calories" irrelevant. As the person who made Pilates a household name, I know that almost all exercise was marketed for fat reducing which is why exercise companies are buying drug dispensers just as WW did with
Sequence. Correct exercise is very beneficial, but after decades of failure the public may walk away and throw the baby out with the bathwater. A recent LA Times story said that employees prefer insurance to cover Ozempic rather than gym memberships. Sixty years of false advertising of diet and exercise; then fitness and nutrition; and now wellness. All the rebranding covering up the fraud. Now 65% of American is Obese. Fortunately, science can fix this before our health care system collapses. Competent instructors should be paid well, but none of them is a STAR. In fact, most are merely exercise junkies with their own body issues.
Does anyone else wish we could have one of these discussions on Saturday? I work during the week and by the end of my day I'm tired and the discussion has pretty much run its course. I've got nothing against the klatch, but I enjoy the discussions more. Maybe it could move to Friday or Monday? I have to think there are others who work Monday through Friday, and participation would increase for a Saturday discussion.