Hispanic Fanatic

I recently discussed the Republican Party’s obsession with calling anything they dislike “communism.” To the GOP, this antiquated insult applies to affordable childcare, cheaper groceries, and healthcare that actually heals people instead of making insurance executives richer.

However, just because I dismiss the GOP’s absurd insistence that democratic socialism is a front for Stalinists doesn’t mean that I hate capitalism. OK, that economic system has a lot of flaws (like, a lot). And the brand of capitalism that the US is currently practicing is more akin to corporatism or full-fledged oligarchy than the free-market concept they taught you in PoliSci 101.

But capitalism has its advantages (in theory at least), and the marketer Seth Godin, whom I’ve quoted before, recently made a good point about how capitalism can enrich society.

Godin points out that the “upside of free-market capitalism … is that every product and every campaign is an argument to win over customers, to solve problems in a new and better way.”

It would indeed be grand if companies tried to solve problems instead of fuck people over to raise their stock price a penny. But again, we don’t live in a free-market society that rewards problem-solving. We live a cutthroat-capitalist nation where billionaires think hording wealth is a virtue.

In any case, Godin goes on to point out why monopolies are so horrific for society, and it is simply because “they don’t have to argue.” When a monopoly takes over, “the customer has no choice,” and the “monopoly stops listening, innovating and working for improvement, because they don’t need to.”

OK, that makes sense. It’s one reason we have anti-monopoly laws. Of course, the Trump administration is flicking those laws away like they are pesky mosquitoes, meaning that this is a great time to be a money-grubbing robber baron.

But there is a political angle to why monopolies are so vile. You see, according to Godin, “the same is true for democracy vs autocracy,” in that the “despot has no need to make an argument, so they don’t.”

Keep in mind that our humble president is not even trying to make the argument that his policies have been good for America. He is focused on terrifying people into supporting him and suppressing the vote so he doesn’t face another impeachment.

This aspiring despot has no coherent or rational argument. And he no longer cares, if he ever did, about improving America. He figures he has a monopoly, so why not indulge in acts of corruption so brazen that his allies don’t even attempt a defense. 

But let’s return to the concept of capitalism. Can it be modified to fulfill its promise to society? Or have we jumped the shark economically and culturally, where the best we can hope for is that plutocrats take mercy on us and employ the masses to be their indentured servants?

Well, I have an answer to that question. But it will cost you a dollar to hear it.

Come on, I’m not going to just give it away for free. This is America.

Here’s a trivia question for you:

What’s the opposite of myopia?

Yes, it’s hyperopia. You have heard of the former because it’s more common, but hyperopia (i.e., farsightedness) is a real thing. People with either of these conditions just don’t see very well.

These terms are a nifty metaphor for our political situation, which is somewhere between authoritarian-leaning and full-blast oligarchy. We can’t be sure because we are living it, and people are notoriously bad at identifying the eras in which they exist. We need the perspective of time.

For example, baby boomers weren’t nostalgic for the 1950s while they were kids. It was only when they hit middle age that they proclaimed that those were the days and insisted on dragging the country back to this mythical decade that was vastly overrated, never mind the consequences.

So while it is perfectly obvious that the America of 2025 is a shitshow, it is unclear how much of a catastrophe we are enduring. We will have a better answer circa 2050, if the nation survives until then.

The effects of myopia and hyperopia exist on a political scale. People who are too close or too far from a situation often have a skewed perspective.

Consider the Y2K bug, that wacky relic of the Clinton years. I’m old enough to remember computer scientists who insisted civilization would collapse. They knew all the risks and potential for disaster, so they focused on that. At the other end of the spectrum, people who thought the fledgling internet was a fad and didn’t know the first thing about technology were busy stockpiling canned goods for their underground bunker. They didn’t understand how any of this worked, so they freaked out.

One set was myopic, and the other was hyperopic.

You can see the same results with the Iraq War, when experts smugly asserted that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction, while people who couldn’t identify Canada on a map yelled, “Invade somebody now.” Yeah, they were both wrong.

There are other examples throughout human history, and in our current maelstrom of misery, it is difficult to figure out who is overreacting and who is way too chill about all this.

Experts on fascism are fleeing the country. Are they too close to the situation or spot on in their analysis?

People who have no idea how tariffs work are saying everything will all be ok. Could this blasé attitude possibly be correct, or is their ignorance not just reprehensible but dangerous?

Is the right path somewhere in between, a concoction of justified anxiety mixed with Zen-like hope?

Again, we don’t know.

I will say, however, that my theory is not perfect. You know all those experts who said Covid-19 would kill a million Americans? They were criticized and ridiculed, but yeah, they were right.

Sometimes, the alarmists are absolutely correct.