At a recent protest gathering there was the usual splattering of anti-billionaire protest signs, which is understandable, but it distracts from the deeper and more important issue.
There is a problem when billionaires are the focus of attention. It distracts from the real problem which is capitalism. Billionaires are a mere product, as are the impoverished, of the capitalist system. Capitalism pumps out billionaires and poor people the way the auto industry pumps out engines and transmissions. They are a structural characteristic of the system: products of the larger material and ideological system.
The major problems with capitalism are at least twofold. First, its theoretical and ideological foundation is greed. Greed elevates individual material ambitions above the needs of other individuals and the broader community. Greed destroys empathy, and ultimately, when a nation’s material advancement can be advanced through war, war is the path taken.
Second, in order to measure the firm’s material contribution to society, capitalism relies on firm specific accounting systems, systems which measure only a firm’s material contribution, without consideration of the firm’s broader impact on the community. Environmental destruction, property abandonment, job instability, and social conflict, are not accounted for under current accounting procedures. While these are difficult things to measure, this is no excuse for allowing private firms to privatize gains while socializing costs.
Without question, capitalism inspires the rapid development of new goods and services, but at what costs? How many of these goods and services are actually healthy for society. In the U.S., the Nation’s obsession with guns, sports, entertainment, personal grooming, oversized houses and cars, occurs side-by-side with poverty, homelessness, and numerous other inexcusable, and unnecessary social ills.
Would it not be better to divert resources from excessive unnecessary consumption towards publicly provided jobs, healthcare, environmental protection, advanced education and training, each of which would improve the Nation’s productivity? But this is impossible in a system premised on greed as there’s little willingness to sacrifice excessive personal consumption in order to enable the longer term investment required for the broader community’s health.
Additionally, and worst of all, capitalism inspires war. The competitive nature of the system sends survival-of-the-fittest firms on a never ending quest for low cost material and labor resources in both the domestic and international realms. This is a structural characteric of the capitalist system; it cannot be escaped.
The international competition for resources lead nations into conflict with other nations who are involved in the same competitive process. The lifting of material ambitions relative to communal concerns and to the humane more broadly, facilitates the slide towards war during this competitive battle.
Rather than focus our attention on billionaires–a symptom of the system, it would be more productive to focus on the flaws within the current ideological framework. Capitalism’s promotion of greed, material ambitions, competition, and so forth, are damaging and antithetical to most of our religious heritages. In the Christian context, anti-Christ is the term which best describes the system.
The good news is, when we see this clearly, it allows us to shed the spiritually damaging hatred which is inspired when we focus our attention on billionaires. When we see that billionaires are mere products of a flawed ideology, albeit one they believe-in, this facilitates a shift in our focus towards the real problem: capitalism.
The issue then becomes, how do we peacefully overthrow the damaging ideological system of capitalism, and replace it with a system based on cooperation, empathy, and love? Teaching and preaching is the answer to the this question, e.g. “the word was made flesh”.
This is both a material and spiritual destination.
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