Two Conversations With Capitalists
One self-avowed extreme right-winger. One neoliberal. Two equally painful — but enlightening — conversations.
Adult conversations about the economy shouldn’t reduce you to tears. However, I haven’t yet gotten to a stage in my healing where I can discuss a system that has left me with severe scars without my physiology butting in and saying, “Hey, I still remember the trauma.”
In America, people tend to think of “capitalism” as synonymous with “freedom.” However, the truth is, this economic system is no better than medieval feudalism unless the government establishes strict rules outlining how those who have capital treat those who do not. Our leaders have fallen woefully short in that regard, allowing a semi-anarchic free-for-all among the struggling masses that has the United States leading the developed world in things like gun violence and infant and maternal mortality.
Perhaps the greatest indictment of our current policies reveals itself in my overwhelming physical response. Both discussions took me from a mental place of, “this is a pretty good day, things are going well” and reduced me to a highly triggered, paralyzed mop of a human being who wanted to scream and rage while simultaneously drinking a bottle of cyanide. My visceral reaction stemmed from the overwhelming hopelessness of my role within a system that benefits the few while leaving others utterly destroyed. Here’s why my recent conversations with committed capitalists left me shaken — and what I wish the people the present system does work for would understand.
The People Are “Just Lazy” Rationalization for Social Murder
My first discussion occurred with a self-proclaimed radical right-winger, so I should have braced myself for the Fox News talking points beforehand. However, this person is also a friend. I had no idea their words would cut me as deeply as they did, but our conversation left me in shambles. Fortunately, it took place over the phone, so I could use the “cough, cough, I’m just sick” excuse — because I had a full-on meltdown.
The conversation didn’t contain the phrase “affirmative action,” but it was chock-full of vitriol toward those “special people” who take employment that should rightfully go to — who? The speaker didn’t say, so I could only assume they meant able-bodied white men who lived in the right zip code and adhered to Anglo-Saxon, patriarchal social norms.
They would never say that last part, of course, but the context of the conversation made it clear that the disabled and those from impoverished inner-city areas didn’t meet the parameters of those who were “deserving” of such work. I’m surprised the scathing judgment toward the “undeserving poor” didn’t torch my iPhone, so castigating was the tone.
Like so many of us when the moment to utter the perfect comeback arrives, my verbal wit misfired. Instead, I burst into tears.
Most of my tears spilled from my frustration at those who have it good themselves and therefore insist that the only reason other people struggle is because of some imaginary moral failing, not the corrupt system in which they find themselves. I’ve come to loathe the phrase, “I’ve worked hard for everything I have.” The unspoken implication is, of course, that poor people — including me — haven’t. What a swift kick in the face that is to people who have overcome barriers that would break even the strongest.
See, I’m one of those “special people” my friend disparaged as undeserving of work that paid a living wage and provided benefits. I’m disabled. And while I have the resources to take care of myself now, I didn’t always, and I was forced into prostitution in the past as a result. Working my way back from that trauma and humiliation has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
The person I was speaking with knew something was wrong from my voice, as much as I tried to hide my blubbering. Once I recovered enough from the shock to address what they said, they told me they didn’t think of me as one of “those people.”
My point was, I am “those people.”
Every other single person I know who is as poor as me tries every bit as hard as I do.
This conversation caused me to reflect on how unfettered capitalism celebrates competition to an unhealthy degree. In doing so, it fosters hate and prejudice.
Folks, we live in 2021. Human beings have more than sufficient knowledge to distribute the planet’s resources to allow everyone to have enough to live. The fact that we have not doesn’t mean that poor people deserve their fate. It means that we as a society have failed to use our skills, education, and privileges wisely enough to protect our brothers and sisters along with ourselves.
Yet in America, instead of encouraging community through our economic policies, we do the opposite. Instead of fostering a spirit of “we’re all in this together,” it’s “every man, woman, and child for themselves.” It’s a free-for-all.
It reminds me of the time my dad threw me into the deep end of the pool and said, “sink or swim.” Maybe he didn’t intend to let me drown, but it sure AF felt that way to my 5-year-old self. And, sadly, experience has taught me that “sink or swim” is exactly how unregulated capitalism treats the unfortunate.
But it’s not enough to simply say, “the poor have had bad luck.” No, like a covert narcissist, unfettered capitalism has to grind a few passive-aggressive jabs in there, too. It creates a mythos by design, that there are only two groups of people in this world — winners and losers.
If you aren’t a winner, you must be a loser, deserving of nothing. You only got that job because you’re one of “those special people.” Not because you used your skills, your talent, your perseverance, and your determination to overcome the same daunting odds that everyone faces — and then some.
It’s not surprising that other nations who direct their tax revenue not toward military endeavors but social programs that ensure that all citizens have a liveable salary, housing, and healthcare have far less violence than we do here. Without a strong social safety net, there are only two ways to acquire the basics you need to sustain life if you start from a position of nothing: get extremely lucky by finding work you can do that pays enough to survive or take it by force.
When you’re so underpaid that all your hard work won’t cover your needs, you turn to force. You also harbor an enormous burden of justifiable rage. Worse, the inability to realistically get ahead in today’s economic climate leaves many people feeling powerless over their lives. Many seek to reclaim that sense of control behind the scope of a loaded gun.
The Opposing Ostrich Approach to Economics
The other conversation I had was less painful in some ways, but every bit as excruciating from others. Despite my economic condition, I live in an affluent area. I ran into one of my friends, and we got to talking about real estate prices. He’s seen me out filming yoga videos, and he knows I have the hustle in me. I think that fact worked in my favor.
When it came to housing matters, he was blissfully free of worries such as where to sleep at night, go to the bathroom, cook dinner — call home — the sort of cares that keep me awake at night. He wanted to discuss the relative merits of long-term rentals versus Airbnbs as investment properties. I’m not sure where he got the impression I roll with crowds who chat about such matters as casual conversation, but I donned my Mata Hari hat with a quickness to listen in to another edition of How the Privileged Class Views The Economy.
This conversation was much more pleasant — until I revealed that, as a freelancer and yoga guide, I currently live in the studio I rent to run my business.
I confessed that even though I average more than twice the current minimum wage for my work efforts — Representative Katie Porter brilliantly breaks down that math — I can’t afford so much as a 1-bedroom apartment without spending well more than 50% of my income on rent.
My statements — or perhaps the tears that sprung unbidden and unwanted to my eyes when I talked about my living arrangements — gave him a moment’s pause. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part. But I think, perhaps, he was doing the mental math and recognizing that if someone with my training and educational background was struggling so much as to keep a roof over their heads, then the people bussing his dinner table and bagging his groceries are really up a creek.
And, of course, they are. The average wage hasn’t kept pace with inflation for well over 40 years, leaving entire generations struggling. Most people will shoulder the burden as long as they can, figuring everyone sees tough times. But you reach a point where enough is enough, and I think — perhaps hope — America has reached it. I know I didn’t put myself through school and work multiple jobs most of my adult life to end up crying to a neighbor about my housing insecurity on a dusty desert trail, but here we are.
A Bipartisan Theme — and the Real Cause of My Tears
I’ve said before that perhaps the most revealing thing about my conversations with two committed capitalists was the way they reduced me to tears. When your economic situation has been so dire, for so long, it’s impossible to not choke up at the savage reality you have been living.
However, perhaps equally, if not more revealing is the way both individuals prefaced their conversations by defending how well they were doing in life. “I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve got,” was the unifying theme between left and right. Talk about bipartisanship.
That’s what made me want to scream: “I’m working hard, too! I have worked two or three jobs for most of my adult life — occasionally even moonlighting on a fourth — to make ends meet. I have nothing to show for my labor, and I started working at the age of 14 (not to age myself, but I’m now close to 50). My poverty is not a result of a lack of effort. It’s that I was never paid adequately for my work to begin with and, thus, had no realistic way to climb the ladder.”
Therein lies the three essential problems with unfettered capitalism.
1. It sets up an adversarial relationship between the rich and poor
Look. If you worked hard and succeeded in life, you deserve to feel proud of what you have accomplished. You shouldn’t feel compelled to defend your good fortune with, “And I worked this hard to get it.”
If nothing else convinces the elites in charge that “socialism” isn’t an inherently dirty word, it should be the increased security they’d feel if they didn’t have the (perhaps rightful) impression that those without resent them for their good fortune. Statistics show that only 3% of men and 1% of women have psychological profiles that incline them toward evil deeds — although their numbers are increasing under our current system. The rest of the folks — the vast majority — wouldn’t resent the “haves” as long as they have enough and don’t have to resort to criminal means to survive.
2. It leaves those without capital utterly vulnerable to the whims of others
People might no longer technically be slaves if you consider emancipation to only mean freedom from your employer whipping you to death. However, paying people so little that they can’t afford an apartment anywhere in America on 40 hours a week is downright abusive. And our government lets it continue.
It’s easy to say, “do better, and you won’t work for minimum wage.” That statement ignores the reality of those who have nothing but their labor to offer. If you own your home and have savings, sure, you can afford to say no to subpar job offers and wait for the right one to come along. If your rent is due next week, and you are on your last dime, you don’t have that luxury. You take what you can get now.
Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham comes right out and advocates starving people to force them back to working for unlivable wages. If that’s not a flat-out endorsement of modern slavery, I’m not sure what is.
That’s another reason so many of the disadvantaged are so justifiably bitter. Our economic policy is literally designed to let people starve if they refuse to step in line. It then goes one further, saying that even if you do what you should and work 40 hours a week, you still might not make it. Furthermore, if you fail, it’s your fault — not that you’re paid too little. Given today’s minimum wage, it’s possible to work 80 hours a week and still call your car home.
With no choice but to take what you can get, is it any wonder many people in my position without any assets find themselves working multiple part-time, dead-end jobs?
3. It disincentivizes work
Finally, and ironically, wage stagnation has gotten so bad that people are disincentivized from working.
It’s ironic because those that support capitalism the most do so because they claim that, without a little competition, people will have no drive to do anything. I’m not sure how they missed the part of human history where people lived their lives without money or financial incentives. The fact is, people will always find things to do with their time. Some will be super-productive, and some will be less so, but no one expects survival on a silver platter. They simply expect enough to live upon when they do devote valuable hours of their one-and-only lifetime to working for another.
I watched with such joy and pride as people refused to return to jobs paying less than $15 an hour. Why? These people were making a wise fiscal choice — one that we would praise them for if they had the kind of capital that lands people on the cover of Fortune.
Here’s the deal: people need fair compensation for their labor — otherwise, there’s no point. Committed capitalists love to say, “if you work hard, you are free to succeed.” What they don’t understand is, you’re also free to be exploited if you lack the necessary capital to start your own enterprise.
Otherwise, it takes nearly 20 years with nothing going wrong to rise out of poverty. How many of us can say we’ve gone 20 years without ever needing an unexpected car repair? Never getting sick once? Without our landlords raising our rents or selling out from under us, forcing an unexpected move? Without our bosses cutting our hours or going out of business, forcing us to desperately find a new post on a shoestring — folks making the minimum or just above don’t enjoy severance packages.
You don’t have to be a gambler to know those odds suck. If hard work doesn’t result in a realistic chance of affording your basic needs, what is the point of trying? At that point, the social contract is hopelessly broken — and the one in the U.S. is hanging by the barest of threads.
Being lazy, at least, pays off in immediate rewards. Betting 20 years of your life at harder labor that chain gang inmates are forced to perform on a chance you might someday have the cash to afford a home of your own? That’s not much of an incentive to pick up your apron.
Of course, both discussions eventually veered to the topic of risk and what my friends would do if something happened that threatened their comfortable existence. Both of them said that they would invest in the necessary equipment to recommence their previous businesses.
This revelation leads to what I think is the true source of the disconnect between conservatives, liberals, and those of us who could care less about party politics but desperately want common-sense reform before we bury more friends from preventable deaths and those of sheer despair.
Capitalism Works Just Fine — If You Have Capital
By this point in both conversations, my head ached from trying to hold back frustrated tears. How could I make either person see that there is a world of difference between doing something that you love and selling yourself into indentured servitude on the slimmest odds that the math may someday work out in your favor?
I pretty much decided it was more important at the moment to keep my happy thoughts — and my friends — by bringing the discussions to a close before I lost my cool. Shedding a few tears is one thing, but I felt myself ready to full-on rage and scream, “How can you be so blind?” Poverty can give you PTSD, and my emotional regulation is still too volatile to discuss certain matters without triggering extreme physiological reactions that make me act a fool.
Most impoverished people have little to no choice in what they do for a living. Some can’t afford the high cost of education, including trade school, and not everyone has handy parents who can teach them the tricks of their trade — or pass on materials and tools. Others (like me) have intervening life events that derail their careers and leave them taking whatever work their minds and bodies will allow them to do.
It doesn’t mean they deserve to suffer, but suffer, they do. Being paid an unlivable wage doesn’t only punish people now by forcing them to sleep in their cars. It robs them of their dreams of ever doing anything better or making more of themselves.
There’s no time for school when you’re working 70 to 80 hours a week to afford rent. Nor is there any time or money to invest in a side hustle you can build.
Of course, you extol the value of hard work if you have sufficient capital — which isn’t necessarily much, just much more than many poor folks have — to start your own enterprise. You spend every waking hour working at it because you do what you love and you know you will eventually reap the benefit of your labor.
What, exactly, do people who are so woefully underpaid, they can work from sunup to sundown without being able to afford their basic needs have to reap in terms of benefits?
If you think it’s a raise, think again. Corporate America loves to use percentages for raises so it can seem like they’re being generous when you’re being screwed. Sure, you can earn a whopping 10% raise on $7.25 an hour. Guess what? You’re still being paid less than $8 for an hour of your life, and you still can’t afford your rent, let alone saving for a home.
Therein lies the rub. Those of us without the kind of advantage even a modicum of capital brings are at the whims of the society in which we find ourselves. That’s why it’s such a sin that the federal minimum wage hasn’t budged since 2009, and Democrats in Congress don’t seem in any hurry to pass the kind of bold, progressive legislation that would address the growing inequalities that have the United States looking more like a third-world country every day.
Capitalism, even unfettered capitalism, works just fine — if you have capital.
For those without, it’s a life of indentured servitude, one that, under the present conditions, you have no realistic chance of escaping.
That’s freedom?
My Conversations With Capitalists Reveal Quite a Lot
I wanted to share these conversations because it was very enlightening for me. Everyone’s perspective is unique and has something to offer. My takeaway was to be less shy about offering my point of view. Even though I’m older, I’ve witnessed firsthand what today’s economy does to young people who don’t have familial assets on which to rely. Things are untenable.
I’m not saying the answer is pure socialism. I know it’s not, although idealistically, I’d much rather sit on the side of the fence that says, “we’re all in this together” than the one claiming, “every man, woman, and child for themselves.”
However, nor is the answer somehow equating capitalism with freedom. It’s only freedom for those with property. I’ve said before that unfettered capitalism is nothing more than feudalism. It bears repeating.
Congress must raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation. Yes, action must come from the federal level. Inaction at this level has already led to over 40 years of stagnation — everywhere. As it is, even $15 an hour is insufficient to sustain a decent standard of living in many places, but it would at least give a benchmark for other employers. Otherwise, anyone who pays anything over the minimum pats themselves on the back for “offering generous wages.” That statement means nothing if said paycheck isn’t enough for their employees to pay the rent.
Additionally, it must limit how much companies and industries can charge for essential needs. Our government needs to stop terrorizing people with fears of “inflation” and admit that they have the power to do things like limit prescription drug prices. They have the power to keep foreign entities and big corporations from buying up all the real estate and jacking rent prices out of control.
Our elected officials refuse to take such measures because their paychecks get signed by the folks making fortunes in those industries. We as a people must hold them accountable.
That starts by recognizing that the “inflation” argument against raising wages has and always has been malarkey. It simply has to happen in conjunction with other measures that reign in big-money interests, something politicians on both sides of the fence refuse to do. The government has to say, “no, sorry, you can not triple the rent or charge $5,000 for a single dose of this medication.” Maybe it’s not the poor people we need to keep starving into compliance, but those elected officials who would rather protect their selfish interests than do their job of effectively serving the public.
However, the biggest change has to start with each one of us and our rhetoric. Our first question as a society, upon seeing an impoverished person, shouldn’t be, “what did they do to deserve their fate,” but, “what can we do to help?
If we can’t lend a helping hand, we could at least refrain from the type of hurtful insinuations that accompany capitalistic worship: that people are poor because they don’t try. Because, frankly, it does reduce me to tears when people insinuate that I struggle because of effort. I know the words are untrue — but GD, does it ever get exhausting when society as a whole gaslights you.
Poor people aren’t lazy. They’re exhausted from trying to do too much with too little for too damn long. If your child was in a soccer game, played as hard as they could, but still lost, would you scold them and tell them it was all their fault?
That’s how you sound when you say things like, “nobody wants to work anymore.”
Instead of venting your angry energy about your favorite restaurant closing earlier than usual, why not be part of the solution? Advocate for living wages for everyone. Study economics and recognize the inherent unfairness of our system — and that we do have the power to change it. Read books like “The Deficit Myth.” Hold your elected representatives accountable for living up to their promises.
People don’t expect something for nothing. No janitor expects to build a mansion from their salary. At the very least, though, they should be paid enough that working 40 hours a week secures a place to call home.
Even if you are a diehard capitalist, hopefully, you can see that your system only works when the government puts the right checks in place to ensure no one who works hard and does what they should ends up exploited and broken. Capitalism only works when the people who start with zero capital have a realistic chance of bettering their station. Under today’s economic conditions, they do not.
I know the folks I spoke with are genuinely good people. We might have our ideological differences, but none of us want anyone else to suffer unnecessarily. In the end, we are all friends who care for each other. Maybe, just maybe, if we all start our discussions from that place of shared compassion, we can put aside party-line talking points and commit together to creating an economy that works for everyone.
