By all accounts, the economy is doing well, and unemployment continues to shrink, to lows we haven’t seen since the 60s.

Why, then, all this talk about the Chinese and immigrants stealing all our jobs, and how all the bad trade deals mean we’re being robbed blind by our trading partners?

Because of authoritarian scare tactics, that’s why. A population that is fearful is much more likely to listen to what the Leader tells them, and to want the Leader to protect them.

But if the economy is doing well, why all the talk about ”economic anxiety” influencing the way people voted in the last election?

Well, first of all, there is plenty of proof pointing to the anxieties being of a different, more racially tinged variety. Disenchanted, disenfranchised whites being fearful of being displaced.

But, to the extent that economic anxiety really exists out there, where does it come from, if the economy is doing well, and unemployment is low? Is it all imaginary?

Hardly.

First of all: wages are low. People may be working, but they still can’t support themselves.

Second: debt is high. The economy may be doing well, but some of that is fuelled by borrowed money – not least the recent (unfunded) tax cut, which will increase the deficit, and cause the US to borrow more money. And the same holds true for the voters: people depend on borrowed money to kick the can down the road, and temporarily get out from under their economic woes - be it for rent, medical emergencies, student debt, rising insurance costs, inflated mortgage interest payments, or what have you. They don’t make enough money no matter how much they’re working, so they have to rely on their credit cards.

The worst part is: the current adminstration is not going to do anything about these two problems. No matter how much people voted for it based on their ”economic anxiety”.

As long as the anxiety persists, scare tactics will continue to work. Which means politicians in power have no reason to resolve the issues causing that anxiety, as long as they can successfully deflect, and shift the blame.

So if, during the next election cycle, you hear politicians talking about anything other than income inequality and spiralling debt, you will know they are deflecting. The economy is doing great, and unemployment is low. So how come so many people are living paycheck to paycheck? Because of income inequality and debt.

And none of that is being addressed because of corruption.

Politicians are being bought and paid for to deflect, and create political smokescreens (abortion, gender-neutral bathrooms, gay marriage, child prostitution rings run out of pizzerias, deleted emails, Benghazi, etc etc).

Why the smokescreens? Because corporations don’t want to have to pay higher wages, the entire banking sector thrives on debt, and the health insurance racket is funded by artificially inflated prices that we have to borrow money to afford.

And as long as politicians continue to deflect, this cycle continues. The 1% continue to pocket all the money, with which they can continue to pay off the politicians, and the 99% continue living in debt, stumbling from paycheck to paycheck.

This used to be called a rat race, as if it was something we are biologically conditioned to do, but today it’s an entirely manufactured situation:

A mouse trap.

That cheese you see dangling before you used to be called The American Dream. But it´s starting to look awfully moldy.

In recent years, politics have been globally tainted by populist outbursts of authoritarianism, racism and nationalism. Intolerance and isolationism are on the rise – perhaps in part as predictable knee-jerk reactions to the consequences of globalism and regionally increasing levels of inequality, and perhaps in part as an expression of a fear of change. But change is inevitable.

The industrial revolution, the rise of an increasingly global economy, and the emergence of fast, global communication technologies are drivers of change, as well as products of that change. Human society is quickly becoming less insular and more cosmopolitan, and nations are involved in an increasingly complex network of trade and political as well as cultural interaction.

In this acceleratingly changing landscape, we see increasing levels of fear and insecurity being expressed especially in national elections, and consequentially, populism is rising as a purveyor of simplistic solutions. Majority populations start expressing concerns of becoming marginalized, regardless of their actual realities, and in many cases, those majorities are reacting with territorial and fearful behavior, trying to defend or affect a status quo. Often, elections reward authoritarian, populist demagogues who play into this behavior, and seek to inflate these fears. But again, to a large extent, change is inevitable, and authoritarianism is not an appropriate or productive response.

So many ideologies through the centuries have been forever trying to fit us irregular, rounded humans into square, constrictive boxes. Either through conservatism (which tries to stave off change by slowing or even reversing its natural development and is based on an nostalgic, idealized view of the world as static and predictable), or through intermittent bouts of outright fascism (which seeks to force evolution and human nature into lockstep with strict, aggressive and inflexible dogma).

But there is no homogeneity, even though for instance in Scandinavia, a neo-nazi party is trying to invent an ”inherited essence” that supposedly defines all Swedes. There is no stasis, even though for instance in the US, Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are trying to build an ideological road back to the 50s that would ”make America great again”. Human nature is not a singular constant; it is a diverse multitude of gradients. And the world is not static; it is forever in flux, mutable and responsive. Nor can human nature be defined in strictly collective terms; we need to recognize that human beings are both individuals, with individual behaviors and needs, and collectives that are shaped by group dynamics of varying scales and characteristics.

Our DNA ensures that we all are unique. We start changing at the moment of conception, and continue changing until the day we die (even though we may prefer to think of ourselves as never changing). Human happiness comes not when we have managed to halt change and put our lives in stasis; it arrives when we are at peace with the world as it changes around us, accepting things as they are, and taking things as they come. We are unique, organic creatures, living in a changing, organic world. Our politics need to recognize and account for that, and not try to fit us into static, artificial molds, or separate us using arbitrary or dogmatic sorting criteria. It’s anathema to human nature, and it is inconsistent with the nature of the universe.

In fact, change is the one constant that we can count on, and the more open minded and adaptive we are, the better our chances of surviving in an ever changing world. The less rigid we are, the more likely that we stay healthy, physically and mentally, in the midst of the onslaught of time, and the confusion and insecurity that often comes with change.

No road is perfectly straight, and the more desperately we hold on to the wheel, trying to maintain a steady course, the less able we will be to adjust to the inevitable twists and turns ahead.

That’s why we need to recognize the diversity in- and the changing nature of humanity. We’re clearly not a homogenous collective of uniform clones, and that’s a good thing. We’ve survived the many shifts that the universe has thrown at us, and we have evolved, diversified and grown as a result. To look at humanity from a fragmented starting point, seeking to single out one fragment as superior to another, is failing to realize that diversity is the very thing that makes us human. The fact that our genes start to fall apart if we interbreed with people that are genetically too similar to ourselves is proof of this. We need diversity, just like we need to evolve in order to be able to handle change.

So I say: reject the notion of homogeneity. Reject excluding dogma. Reject ideologies that teach that differences are bad. Reject politics that try to ignore change, or reverse it. There is no one single preferable template for human beings, and there is no one single preferable state of human society.

The world is diverse and multi-faceted. Humans are diverse and multi-faceted. The world changes. Humans change.

Deal with it.

Heart, meet sleeve.

I was always leaning left, but in a broad sense. Never saw the need to put a label on it, or to swear allegiance to any particular ideological fan club. It always seemed to make sense to me: you build from the ground up, not from the top down. And you always empathize with the less fortunate, you don’t cheer on those who are already successful and in no need of further encouragement.

But here in the US? It feels like anything except full blown Marxism is tantamount to complete and utter blindness to the sheer devastation, crudeness and corruption that is American politics, and the idealized, mythologized folly of the ”Free Market”. I’ve never observed such widespread cluelessness and tunnel vision; so many people herded like sheep to believe in and vote for policies that aren’t just blatantly against their own best interests, but against common decency and even against the very survival of our species.

Every day is another shock to the system.

It starts with Trickle Down and the laughable notion of conservative ”fiscal responsibility”, but it definitely does not end there. In fact, every time I think we’ve hit rock bottom, our so-called president breaks through another layer of stupidity and keeps going.

And that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that, even seeing this destruction, seeing the dismantling of at least a nominally democratic system, conservative voters keep mindlessly cheering him on, like there is LITERALLY no tomorrow. Like there is no accountability.

It’s almost as if they’re AWARE that there is no tomorrow, and they somehow think it’s a fabulous thing. Chanting ”No Tomorrow! No Tomorrow! No Tomorrow!”

This whole election experience feels like we’re all suffering through the final act of a bumbling, ludicrously inept Vegas magician, who is going through the motions with the same old stayed sleight-of-hand routine, with the cards falling out of his sleeves everytime he moves. And yet, the audience is lapping it up.

I can only conclude that they WANT to be deceived.

A free lunch and just desserts for all?

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

- Hélder Pessoa Câmara

WHAT IT REALLY IS

Capitalism is a gigantic systemic shell game that turns 90% of us into suckers, believing we have a fair chance of finding the ball and affecting the outcome, while the other 10% operate the scam and pocket the bets. The only reason we are ever allowed to win anything at all is to sucker us into staying in the game, and possibly lose even more.

Capitalism is where we voluntarily place our heads in a financial guillotine, suspended by forces outside of our control, ready to unceremoniously cut our heads off once we are no longer commercially useful.

In essence, capitalism is a form of financial fascism. It's the law of the jungle - survival of the fittest - as if might really does make right. If you're not a profitable little creature, the other animals leave you to die, to fend for yourself against the perpetually circling capitalist predators that are part of the system. And you keep your fingers crossed, hoping that you won't be the one thrown to the wolves, passing the beggar on the street while callously forcing yourself to believe he probably deserved what he got, thanking your lucky stars that you're not him.

THE CONSEQUENCES

To make matters worse: in this global, profit driven rat-race, our fortunes are not entirely guilt-free, but often built on the misfortune of others. We keep our jobs because someone else was laid off. We get a discount or a cheap meal because someone else was not paid a living wage. We get good deal on a house because someone else was forced into foreclosure.

We make capitalist choices on a daily basis, choosing where to place our money, but we never see the full picture and never quite see the consequences of our choices. We may fool ourselves into thinking we've deserved whatever good things come our way, but fairness is not a component prevalent in capitalism. Whatever upsides we may see for ourselves, capitalism dictates that there must be a corresponding downside somewhere else. There is no such thing as a free lunch and it is never followed by just desserts, for anyone.

Unchecked capitalism and rampant greed have now placed the livelihood of the common man at risk, with the top dogs cashing out before it was too late, while the rest of us got stuck with the bill. The entire system is now revealed to be essentially just a giant pyramid scheme, full of Bernie Madoff clones who never technically broke any laws.

We pay for this either by losing our jobs to preserve corporate profits, by being denied a mortgage, or by seeing our taxes raised to cover the damages caused in the wake of another financial bubble. The real costs are never distributed fairly, never faced by a former profiteer or paid in proportion to the preceding profits. The winners of the capitalist system get away scott free while someone else gets hit by the consequences.

A FITTING BAROMETER OF HUMANITY?

"Capitalism may not be perfect but it is the least flawed system we've got", you might say (as do most proponents of this cynical and inhumane system, usually somewhat resigned). While this may certainly be true, is this really all that we as modern, supposedly enlightened people can aspire to? To be caught in this giant hamster wheel, hoping to get out and retire before the wheel breaks?

Is profitability and net worth really how we wish to be judged as humans? Do we see no better purpose for our existence than to cross the finishing line with the most expensive toys and the biggest bank account?

And, if the acquisition of wealth truly is the meaning of life, what does that say about us, in these current times of financial upheaval? Has life suddenly gotten less meaningful?

Wouldn't it make for a better world if our lives were measured by our compassion, our tolerance and understanding - not the cynical monetary yardstick of capitalism? What is so wrong with wanting an increased quality of life for as many as possible, instead of a ridiculous surplus for a limited few, and perpetual squalor and strife for the rest?

To some, these are somehow frightening questions that reek of socialism, leading people to shut off their reasoning faculties, and instead lash out with pre-programmed resentment. But this doesn't have to be about socialism vs capitalism. "Socialism" is really only a word. If words themselves bother you, start by defining how you want the world to be, and come up with a name for it later. It's quite possible that socialism, as it has been defined, really isn't the answer, or maybe the word itself simply retains too many bad connotations for it to even constitute a viable alternative. But to settle for capitalism as the only available paradigm for how to shape our lives and our society, seems both crass, defeatist and vulgar.

WHERE WILL IT TAKE US?

Let's get real for a moment: capitalism is not a new concept, one that is still deserving the benefit of doubt. It has existed for hundreds of years, and sooner or later, we must take stock of it and ask what good it has brought us.

Capitalism did not prevent two world wars - in fact, one might argue that imperialistic capitalism caused them. It did not stop the creation of the atom bomb. It has not curbed the practice of torture or prevented ethnic cleansing, nor has it staved off religious conflict. Humanity is at the brink of global environmental disaster, partially because capitalism can provide no sustainable motive to stop it. Capitalism has not helped find a cure for cancer or aids, nor has it provided any moral guidance or led to any noticeable advances in culture or ethics. Actually, capitalism can with some justification be called the enemy of all culture - after all, we are beings who would eat ourselves to death, regardless of what is nutritious and what is not. This applies equally to spiritual sustenance. We seem programmed to choose not what is good for us, but what is instantly gratifying. So, profitability is clearly never an appropriate indicator of actual cultural value.

I submit that capitalism as a principle is crude, archaic and not a worthy representation of 21st century human civilization. The only 'ism' we as humans need concern ourselves with is humanism. Finding dignity and value in being human. Striving to make human existence better - not just more profitable.

The bottom line is: do you really believe capitalism will take us there?

Conservatives dislike change, but at the same time, they are unwitting drivers of a type of change that is often highly destructive:

They are drivers of destructive domestic change, in supporting economic policies and financial de-regulation that fuels a casino economy and creates increasing levels of income-, gender-, and racial inequality, which erodes the fabric of society and undermines the social contract between people, sowing anxiety, mistrust and fear – fear that often leads to violence.

They are drivers of destructive international change, in supporting hawkish policies that disruptively unseat political leaders of sovereign nations without concern for the consequences, and hence de-stabilize entire regions – amping up tensions and conflicts between nations, ethnicities and religions.

They are drivers of destructive environmental change, in supporting de-regulatory policies that are changing the climate, and bringing with it increasing and amplifying environmental disasters which, in turn, also are drivers of societal change: famines and droughts from increasing air temperatures; increasingly violent storms from rising ocean temperatures; multiplying earthquakes from fracking; eco system collapse from pollution – all of which results in increasing levels of economic pain, crime, conflicts and mass displacement of people.

If conservatives like to preserve the status quo, and retreat into some kind of cocoon of safety, they have to first become aware of the changes that they themselves are causing, and learn to neutralize or counteract them. Time for conservatives to take some responsibility, and not just stick their heads in the sand.

The worst kind of change is often the kind that is caused unwittingly, and heaped onto other people without awareness or empathy; like a bull in a china shop. Only, this particular china shop is our very delicate planet, and there is no replacement.

If you break it, you broke it.