In a perfect world...
What’s your idea of a perfect world? Mine would be no war, no starvation, no unhappiness, no one wants for anything. Everyone gets along peacefully.
How much could we accomplish by eliminating the need for money and property?
I know, we’ve tried communism, dictatorships, monarchies and systems with varying degrees of success along with catastrophic failures. The problem is, in my opinion, that even with these systems, there are always a few who have profited at the expense of others.
Capitalism doesn’t bother cloaking itself in lofty or political ideals. While we may look at our society and consider it a success when compared to others, what is so successful about it?
Is it successful because we have more than others? Shopping is an activity? We all have cars and computers and wide screen TVs and we produce tonnes of waste every year that gets trucked off to the landfill.
Is capitalism successful because it created consumerism? Consumerism is a greedy little monster. The bigger it gets, the more it needs to consume. Companies must sell more in an effort to make a profit: they need to convince consumers to buy more by making more products.
We try and solve starvation, but in many parts of the world the rich eat first. If you can’t protect your food and belongings by law or by force, you do without.
We try and solve people’s bad habits such as eating food that leads to skyrocketing health care costs, but companies continue to produce junk food that they know will sell because that’s what they do. And as someone once said, “How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they’ve see Paree?”
We can regulate food, send aid and burn our credit cards, but all it takes is one person (usually more) who has found a way to make a profit, give themselves more than others have and society will once again be divided in the haves and have nots, with the “haves” always looking for ways to increase what they’ve already got.
Perfection is a long ways off.
Wendy Coomber is editor of the Ashcroft Cache Creek Journal