We live in a collapsing socio-economic structure. Imbued with our thoroughly American, self-destructive, go-it-alone creed, we first resort to the hustle when hard times arrive. Many of us are adapting to the "New Normal" by hanging out in our soon-to-be-foreclosed houses until the last possible moment while retreating into the underground, no-tax economy. To join with our fellow sufferers in some kind of protest or effort to overturn the status quo would require the difficult admission that we couldn't make it on our own, that we were "losers" in the view of our dog-eat-dog society, that we needed the aid, comfort and solidarity of other human beings.
We fear that the ghost of John Wayne would disown us as Americans.
Many of us have bought in totally to the perverted view of humanity peddled by American media since the days of Horatio Alger.
Human beings aren't defined by FICO scores, resumes and that crass Capitalist term, "net worth." We are flesh and blood and spirit and intellect. We are love and anger, hope and cynicism, dreams and pragmatism. We live in a society, however, that would like to reduce us to a commodity, something to be "bought and sold in the marketplace" in the words of Easy Rider's George Hanson, formed into people who "do what they do just to be nothing more than something they'd invest in" in the words of Dylan.
Capitalism has reduced the concept of what it is to be human. Ancient religions claimed that people bore the image of God or were the dwelling place of God. Now, if we cannot serve to make some Capitalist the highest rate of profit, we are worthless, ready for the scrap heap, mere "eaters" unworthy of life.
How far Capitalist modernity has brought us! We now value human beings less than we did in the Late Bronze Age.
What has more enduring value? Human life or the Capitalist system? Look around. Gain perspective on what everyone in the political, media and--above all--business establishment is telling you. Things are bad now, they say. They claim the reason is that human demands are too much for this society to bear. They want you to buy the proposition that we can no longer care for the sick, no longer educate the young, no longer provide for a respite from work for the old.
They are selling the proposition that we are essentially no better off than our ancestors who lived in the age when horses were our main source of power and leeches our best source of medicine.
Do you believe it? Should the angry white man with little education and no power over his life believe it? Should the young black man living where unemployment in his demographic tops 50% believe it? Should the Bangladeshi who dreams of taking your job believe it?
Don't be fooled by such ridiculous claims. Our technology is capable of providing us all with better-than-adequate housing, education, health care and jobs.
It is the system under which we're living that is failing. By its nature, it concentrates wealth and power in fewer and fewer people. By its nature, it booms and then busts spectacularly. By its nature, it treats the environment as a commodity to be bought, sold, exploited and then thrown away, ignoring the reality that our planet is not disposable.
But we cannot rely only upon the critique of what is; we must demonstrate what can be. That will never be done by means of conventional electoral politics. No establishment politician will ever endorse, countenance or endow any truly revolutionary attempt to reverse the dehumanizing effects of our current socio-economic system. That job is up to us.
As might be expected, the collapse of this dying system has given birth to opportunities to experiment with new ideas about how human beings can live and thrive together. Human capital in the form of skilled people no longer viewed as useful by Capitalists, have been made "available" by the millions. Even capital in the form of real estate and personal property has been made available as prices of some goods have collapsed in this Great Recession. All that is required is to bring the two together in a spirit of openness and experimentation.
A great revolutionary once said, "We carry the new world in our hearts." As this old world collapses around us, it is time for those with vision and courage to demonstrate this new world by living it.