Observations From the Spectrum

an autistic's view of the world

Capitalism and the Virus

Capitalism is a virus that will either spread through the universe like Covid has spread across the globe or it will kill its host.

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains. - Karl Marx

Change never comes easy.  That’s the old proverb about the fish; teach or provide.  Providing solves the immediate problem.  Teaching solves the long-term problem.  In many ways, both solutions are needed today to solve America’s problems.  If you think America is perfect right now, you are part of the problem.

The challenge of 2020 is that we need both solutions in place.  We need Trump out of office and systemic change.  The problem with the solution, like in the proverb, is simple, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  We, American citizens, are not going to get both.

Add math and dating to the problems and one realizes that we have two probably equally challenging paths.  One, a path that removes Trump and leaves us hungry tomorrow.  Two, the path that shifts the power structure and allows for learning and systemic change to occur.

Capitalism is like a virus.  It needs a host.  Before the tech revolution that feeds it now, there was the industrial revolution and colonization.  All are forms of capitalism.  Colonization petered out like the game of Monopoly in which capitalism always wins.  One person owns the board.

The industrial revolution in many ways has now certainly peaked. We are no longer feverishly building cities and factories to produce this and that.  And the tech revolution is about to end.  The industry has enough consumers or addicts of technology who will repopulate the planet with more consumers and addicts.  The tech may change but it will be incremental from here on out until artificial intelligence creates the solution.

Elon Musk gets this.  He clearly can see that the Capitalist Virus needs a new host.  So he is betting the survival of capitalism on the colonization of Mars.  Back to square one.  

Is change possible?  I don’t know.  Too many people are afraid of being punished and losing their small piece of the pie while others still believe they can move up a class from the working class to the middle class.

Karl Marx described this as a conflict theory.  A person who is in the working class or proletariat battles against themselves.  Should they protest and strike and maybe give up their piece of the pie and be punished by the middle class or bourgeois, or do they hold to their piece of the pie in hopes that they will join the bourgeois when they earn more pie?

That’s the problem in a nutshell.  On one side of the triangle  you have the blind faithful willing and wanting to do what they are told.  They want a king.  They want King Trump.  They believe in the system and in most cases, the system is working for them.  They see scratches only at the surface.

The Left is the easiest to examine.  They are those who have a clear vision of others.  They see that the system is not working at feeding or teaching.  They understand that the poor are without food to eat and means to provide it.

The centrists are the trickiest because in many ways they are middle.  They are neither the Left in need or the faithful Right.  The system has worked somewhat for them.  They have bigger pieces of pie than the left but not as much as the right.  However, the Centrists are the citizens that are afraid of being punished.  They don’t care if the car moves as long as it turns on and the AC and radio work. 

Centrists are those who like and abide by the rules because they like having rules regardless of whether or not the rule is fair.  They are the line between the bourgeois and the proletariat.  

What the proletariat needs to wake up to is that the Centrists exist solely to control the proletariat.  They are not the boots in the ground like soldiers, teachers, nurses or cashiers, and they are not the owners.  They are the soldiers that see no war but do not plan.  They are the educators who teach no students and make no budgetary decisions.  They are the medical practitioners that see no patients and the store worker who neither owns the shop or stands behind the register.

Change is needed.  Capitalism is a parasite that jumps from host to host.  That we have allowed to jump onto education and medicine shows just how close we are to the virus killing the host.  My thought, either invest in Mars colonization or stand up to the Bourgeoisie and the ruling class.  Strike and vote Green –  end the capitalist duopoly.  

Dylan Netter

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