It pains me to write this stuff, because I used to be such a fan of Capitalism. I was the poster boy of this stuff; I went to Engineering school, I worked in an R&D office in Silicon-Valley, I have read Hayek & Rothbard & Atlas Shrugged more times than I can count. Only now to find that I have to shrug once again and admit with great shame and a head held low, I used to drive a Convertible. Yea, I was that Capitalist guy once.
Now being someone who has travelled from this hyper-Capitalist existence to becoming an impoverished goat farmer, I feel like I can shed some plain-speak on the plight of modern man. There's a certain market-dynamics at play working against modern man that no one wants to talk about. One that seems to be burying him under a pile of, I guess I'll just say, a Lack of Choices which really equates to a Lack of Freedom. This is never a sign of a society moving in a positive direction. We enter a phase where unless you really love being an engineer or a lawyer or a government worker or working a ton of overtime, You might as well live the life of a vagabond.
Things just keep costing more, commodity prices keep rising, people seem to keep losing workers, or at the very minimum cannot hire more employees to grow a business. At play seems to be a certain crypto hyper-capitalism of the left, and this isn't just me saying this (hat tip to Apex’s Notes substack). For it is not just social progress that the left seeks, there is also a constant need for what some may call neo-liberal, even hyper-capitalist progress. This makes it so that we enter a world where if you are not working in Silicon Valley or wherever frankly in Good ole' America, making over $100,000 a year (Even this number will soon be dated). Then you best be a poor fool, for it is those in that middle range, those just above poverty and just below $90,000 a year that seem to be the ultimate rubes, the ultimate financial scapegoat of our modern realm. Things keep costing more, inflation is expected to just keep going up, and wages do not seem to be keeping up with the cost of goods. Meanwhile, the tax code and private health insurance (which now subsidizes the public health insurance to a large extent) and everything for the most part is really just geared against people in that middle range.
Not to say everything is rosy for the moderately-wealthy either. They face increasing debt in order to keep growing their largesse and therefore they face never ending mortgage payments coupled with increasingly banal and complex toil just to keep up with the Benjamins (or is it the Joneses?) They are basically outsourcing their own life & family in order to keep up too.
Where Are the Workers?
Over the last several months, any business owner I have come across, or even the remaining employees will say themselves, (or just look at all the signs around town) "Everyone Is Hiring!" Yet why do they not find what they so surely seek!?
Those actual Hard to Find Workers.
They offer “Competitive Wages” the signs say!
Me-thinks more would want to work if instead of competitive wages they offered exorbitant wages, glorious wages, or even some highly sought after wages. Wages which make you drink from the keg of glory. Competitive wages mean you're making just enough to work a lot while going up to your eyeballs in debt, never to see your friends and family again. These amazing low-wage jobs may feature private health insurances with out-of-pocket expenses that rival six months of your paychecks! Hey, someone has to pay for those smart folks with subsidized insurance.
So next time you see a "we're hiring sign" And you see yet another news article about how people need to get back to work; Biden really needs this economy to come back eventually after-all! And it better come back better than inflation! Just remember it's those competitive wages that are keeping people from coming back to work, for if you're not making at least $50 an hour you'll never be able to afford those inflationary expenses which are bound to keep going upward at this rate. This is the new normal buddy, strap in for the ride...
Or like me relax on a goat farm...
Now although I may now rue my childhood fascination for computers, that bitter regret is tempered with the fact that if I had not done it and saved some cash from my Silicon Valley days I probably would be a lot worse off than I am today. As someone who no longer wants to be in that profession, I know sure well that not everyone wants to “learn to code” for some large corporate giant, I know I didn't anymore, so I became the poor goat farmer you see today.
The Newfound Stinginess of the Left
Today one would look at the American financial landscape and start to think that the Left is a bit more stingy at handing out Covid-Delta-Quadrant checks, at least at the same rate that the Right was handing them out during the Original Covid freak-out.
And now come to find out the vaccine is only 40% effective during the Quadrant Variant Relapse Phase!? Y'all better start firing up those printing presses.... Brrrrrrr....
This time the Government is keeping the Businesses open, if only they could find workers to bear the brunt of the Delta-Quadrant! And not to give Conservatives a pass either because they seem to be of the mindset that people just need to get back to work too. It is pretty much always a guarantee that on any and every issue the Conservatives are just Liberals from 5 to 10 years ago. Whereas Liberals 10 years ago may have been against such socially accepted tenets from today such as Gay-Marriage. Now Conservatives have finally come around to a warm heartfelt embrace of Caitlyn "the Bruce" Jenner for Congress or Governor or whatever spot they can get a so called Conservative tranny into.
This applies to Economics too; Conservatives are just Capitalists from 5 to 10 years ago there as well. Caught-up in the old fashioned notions of what Capitalism used to be. Just get back to work you young fools!!! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps won't you!!! We might want to start giving Boomers the same treatment as we threaten their Social Security checks at a later date.
Heck, I used to be that guy in the convertible, the office worker, looking down with disdain at 30-year-old video gamers living in their girlfriend's parents basement, as the losers they so surely are, but at this point I'm not so sure it makes sense for any of them to try to seek gainful employment. No one will pay them enough to move out of that parents basement into the hands of a much more scrupulous and less forgiving landlord. Who would pay for the Internet anyways?
It is with much shame of my former self that I now must admit that I finally agree with this Communist Gamer Guy’s three-hour rant (with 500k views!) He tells a compelling and heartfelt story, the Don Quixote of Errant Gamers… The Gamer Knight of the Sorry Face…
A broader critique of Capitalism
Another broader critique of Capitalism is that if more folks find out that they're working so that people in foreign countries can make Funko-pops, so that people in more affluent countries can buy those Funko-pops, If they find out that this is the “Invisible Hand” they're working for in the Great Spirit of Capitalism, They may no longer want to work.
You can replace Funko-pops with I-phones, E-vehicles or pet-dogs or whatever strikes your fancy… try Hormone-Blocker, it works too.
If a large enough population within a given populace stops working what service jobs remain, service being from Middle-French servitude, from Latin servitūs and servus (“slave”). And who wants to do that sort of work anymore. Then a new population will have to be imported to supplement and supplant those lost workers until they too become privy to the ruse. Upon doing so this Circular System of Capitalism will never-falter and will never be replaced. Socialism, as it necessarily must increase due to the loss of old workers, will be in addition to, on top of the Capitalist system. Capitalism being the fuel for the Socialist fire; providing the warmth for its old and wasted Capitalist-Socialist brethren. Who wants to live in this sort of dystopian world anyways? I know I don’t.
Hence I am enamored with the Amish, and have tried to leave this Other World
As Fast & As Much As I Can.
Super Top-Secret Surprise.
Ok so, I started writing a book, a piece of fiction. I am not even sure what the final format will be because most people (due to the issues raised on this very Blog), cannot even read a friggin book anymore! It's hard-work writing a book, And I've been really busy with the farm and family (we have a new healthy son/farmhand born a month ago!). And you know I've always viewed this goat pursuit as a means to meekly survive and spend time with my family and more time reading and writing and there's a lot of days when I think we're there and there's a lot of days when I have my doubts and there's just so many farm projects here that are unfinished, that in between the days where I think we've had much success I still have many days of much concern.
But then I think of my friend Nick over at Unism. And how much less he is starting with, And how much more he is risking because of it. Many days I still do think that with hard effort you can find what you're striving for, And that's what my aforementioned writing project is going to be all about.
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Leftism rejects capitalism. In fact, leftists think liberalism is the reason for all decadence and decay.