Commentary:
As we suffer this crazy weather that we are making normal, two top conversational topics are: it’s too hot, and more people are homeless.
Recently after Shell promised to help transition to renewable fuels, its CEO recanted, saying Shell would go all out to maximize oil and gas profits for the next decade.
That’s appalling. But why? Legally, a corporation exists solely to maximize shareholder profits. Unless it commits crimes (with serious penalties) or so disgusts enough people that profits suffer, the corporation’s duty is to ignore that stuff. It exists to maximize profit and insulate its owners from liability.
That’s our law. We take it for granted. But might there be something wrong with a system in which humans can organize an entity designed to run roughshod over everyone, give it immense power, and even call it human for the purpose of influencing our elected officials?
Homelessness is epidemic, nationally. Contributing causes include mental health, medical costs, drugs, war-sparked inflation, and insufficient low-income housing, because we haven’t built enough recently.
In a capitalist system, folks the system doesn’t currently need are refuse. We’ve modified our system to take some care of those folks, which a purely capitalist system wouldn’t; but right now there are just too many such people for our present systems to help. (Drug sales exacerbate the situation.)
Meanwhile, people eat highly-processed foods full of junk that harms us. Obesity and diabetes are epidemic. Industry has poisoned some of our air and water. It even turns out that fashion fabrics, either because of added substances, is extremely irritating to women’s skin, when cotton or wool mostly wouldn’t be. But profits trump health.
Yet voters harmed by these corporations fight regulations that would improve their health, believing that “big government” is the enemy.
No nation practices pure communism or pure capitalism. While most most capitalist nations are more humane to citizens than we, we have social security, equal rights acts, pensions, and the like. Meanwhile, major communist countries have found personal incentive a practical way to boost production and increase loyalty.
I haven’t seen socialism working anywhere, except maybe Kerala. But unchecked capitalism is worse. It uses workers and customers, rejecting those who can no longer work effectively or can’t afford products. They’re on the slag heap. That’s not ideological rhetoric. It’s what has happened, all through history. The system is built on human greed, and resists any steps to mute that greed.
At city council, folks complain about some homeless folks anger. Drugs area vicious factor, but capitalism contributes. Developed nations with the biggest gaps between rich and poor experience just the sort of nasty resentment small business folk here complain of experiencing. By the way extensive studies have also shown that on days the temperature exceeds 85 degrees Fahrenheit, overall crime increases by 2.2% and violent crime by 5.7%. (None of this excuses bad conduct – by criminals,homeless folks, or city officials.)
In basically a long-term con job, corporations convinced people that capitalism was somehow essential to our democracy. I’d guess there is some relationship between fostering creativity in political ideas and doing so in economic ideas. But the catechism we’ve mostly bought into is: 1. Democracy is wonderful. 2. Capitalism and free enterprise are essential to meaningful democracy. 3. Therefore, any efforts to bridle free enterprise would, if adopted, destroy democracy.
That’s nonsense. But it’s why efforts at improvements earn angry shouts of “Communist!”
Peter Goodman's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.