Evolved Capitalism: Capitalism Led by Peoples' Spirits, Not the Dollar, Can Save America
I wrote a post the other day based on some statistics I had read recently that said that 99% of products purchased by Americans were discarded within 6 months. And the average American consumer buys 53 times as many products as the average buyer in China. That it would take 3 Earths to supply all the natural resources consumed if everyone in the world consumed as much as Americans. And we are busy exporting this "free market" to the rest of the planet. I think it is not a stretch to say that our lifestyle of consumption and waste, along with military intervention to protect our investment interests overseas, is fueling the radical anti-American sentiment around the world. Capitalism is too closely tied to our democracy. In fact the dollar owns our democracy.
I am arguing for Evolved Capitalism. And it is something we can bring about right now, something that growing unarticulated in the hearts of the Millennial generation. Something that has been growing in the spiritual heart of America. For too long, we have been a slave to money as a democracy. Our politics is dictated by whomever has the greatest campaign chest and who is backed by the wealthiest corporations. We need to stand up as a people and not be a slave to corporate America, but instead stand up and lead it. Lead it by voting with our dollars. By investing in companies that have values we believe in, we can break our country's slavery to the almighty dollar.
We can lead instead of being led. Led by political candidates who are answerable to the corporations that handed them their power. We don't need this kind of polarizing leadership. The American people can stand up and lead. We can embrace our spiritual side and lead with our hearts. The side that gives and spends based on altruistic values. We can spend our dollars in a way that steers the nation back from the cesspool of greed and corruption that it is heading for. It will cause corporations to line up with our values. Corporations that influence our system politically through special interests. And this will lead to candidates that line up with our values. I don't think Bernie Sanders and his popularity with the Millennials was an anomalistic blip in history. I think it was the indication of a much bigger change coming in our lifetimes. He, by financing his campaign with his own money instead of money handed to him by special interests and corporations, struck a nerve and rallied the Millennial generation. Millennials are tired of the status quo. Advertisers find it increasingly difficult to market to them because they can't peddle their wares by convincing them through shallow values that they need the newest things. And that the newest things will make them happy. Someone recently said to me that he is hopeful that capitalism sooner or later will find a less expensive alternative to oil. Well it is my position that that won't happen until oil supplies are all but drained, leaving a wake of radicalization and destruction in its wake. That is the law of the free market. Supply and demand. As supply decreases and demand increases, prices go up and America gets motivated to find an alternative. But at what cost? What is left? It is a complete system that works, the problem with it is that it rapes the natural world of all of its resources. Well we don't have to be a slave to the market. The American people can evaluate the options not only based on cost (as myopic capitalism does), but quantify the other benefits of switching, for instance, to alternative energy sources. As we switch, money will follow. Investments will be made by corporations and the government because we lead and they will follow, and that will lead to breakthroughs that will bring the price down. This is Evolved Capitalism.
increasing as droves of young people forsake the Western life in protest of the glut of advertising, waste, in-your-face consumerism and the largest military in the world to protect our financial interests. A military that judges without courts who is on our side and who must die. Wouldn't the specter of America seen from the receiving end radicalize you if your country were raped of its natural resources? It would radicalize me. But who can be angry with a nation that follows its heart and does the best it can do for our fellow human beings?
Moderate America needs to stand up and pay attention to their spiritual side. The spiritual side that knows and understands Gandhi, Jesus, and Martin Luther King. The side that united to throw off the shackles of oppression of our black brothers and sisters that kept our entire nation in bondage. The side that wrote into the constitution that every man is equal. The side that rallied behind the founding of our National Parks, which has been called by the world over, "America's greatest idea." It didn't make sense from a capitalistic point of view. Our national parks were once places overrun by people trying to make a fast buck. But we turned the tide and set them aside and now they are a shining beacon of what is good in America to the rest of the world.
America can be a shining beacon to the world once again. And we can lead it there. We can do this by holding companies accountable for their values and voting with our dollars by purchasing products from the ones that line up with our values. We can do this. America has always rallied. We don't have to swallow the shallow platforms of fear we are being fed from our political candidates. Rally and do something good America. I have faith in you.
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