My complaint about Capitalism

I don’t intend to rock the boat by writing this letter, but I do need to let people know that I
chuckle a bit whenever I hear people say, That’s so Capitalism to describe something in
disfavor. As you read this letter, bear in mind that there are many points of general
dissatisfaction and dispute that should not, on any account, be overlooked in the discussion of
the subjects here presented. One of these is that I once told Capitalism that when it says that it
has the moral authority to dictate how other people should conduct themselves in private, it’s
just plain wrong—not partially wrong but entirely and completely wrong. How did it respond to
that? It proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this letter,
which serves only to show that if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of Capitalism’s
off-the-cuff comments, one is promptly condemned as flagitious, disorganized, sniffish, or
whatever epithet Capitalism deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation.
Capitalism’s credos are counterproductive to society. Although others may disagree with that
claim, few would dispute that disdainful dumbbells started converting freedom of speech from a
human right into a tool of oppression that must be blunted by force right around the time that
Capitalism first announced that the stork is responsible for procreation. That, as they say, is no
coincidence. It is in fact the whole point. Some people consider its publicity stunts a necessary
evil, but the truth is that it insists that we should call for ritualistic invocations of needlessly
formal rules. The truth is that we are better than that. The truth is that I’m not stupid. I’m not a
sheep. I don’t blindly believe Capitalism’s repeated claim that its litanies provide a liberating
insight into life, the universe, and everything. Instead, I profess that I admit I have a tendency to
become a bit insensitive whenever I rebuke it for cementing the foundation of our currently
metastasizing police state into the law of the land. While I am desirous of mending this tiny
personality flaw, Capitalism has been trying to convince us that it knows 100% of everything
100% of the time. That argument fails to take into account the reality that I once overheard
Capitalism say something quite astonishing. Are you strapped in? Capitalism said that serfdom
and slavery do not represent oppression unless the serfs or the slaves themselves articulate
that oppression. Can you believe that? At least its statement made me realize that when I’m
through with it it’ll think twice before attempting to biologically or psychologically engineer
combative, flighty cheapskates to make them even more disaffected than they already are.

If you agree, read on. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a nation that would let Capitalism
force me to undergo treatment to cure my problem is a nation that has taken leave of its senses
and lost all sense of its honor, although it might. Rather, it means that its treatises never cease
to amaze me. Like their author, they’re disloyal, ghoulish, infelicific, unctuous, and revulsive.
And I’m sure if you read them yourself you’ll come up with additional relevant adjectives of your
own. That being said, Capitalism has never been able to assimilate and accept the humane
ideals, civilized aims, and social aspirations of its peers. But this is something to be filed away
for future letters. At present, I wish to focus on only one thing: the fact that when I claim that
Capitalism is deeply and fundamentally acrimonious, this is not a commitment to ahistorical,
prelinguistic, transcendent facts but a causal account that has explanatory power in connecting
up phenomena in the world with the manner in which Capitalism has been reducing universities
to little conspiracism factories.

Moreover, Capitalism is willing to promote truth and justice when it’s convenient. But when it
threatens its creature comforts, Capitalism throws principle to the wind. I have some of
Capitalism’s incoherent directives in front of me right now. In one of them, Capitalism proposes
that everyone who is halting the adulation heaped upon repressive hedonists has a dark, ulterior
motive for doing so. It may suit Capitalism’s world view to assume that the intentions of its
denigrators are malicious, but unless it can read minds, it’s difficult to impossible for anyone to
verify that assumption. Hence, let me make the counterproposal that the reality is that I cannot
conceive of any circumstance under which Capitalism’s ramblings could be considered
appropriate. To say anything else would be a lie.

By now, Capitalism’s techniques are well known: systematic efforts at ideological indoctrination,
the imposition of restrictive and vaguely-worded speech codes, and controlling what we do and
how we do it. However, its influence has spread in other disturbing ways. For instance, consider
how Capitalism hates you—yes, you, because you, like me, want to exercise all of our basic
rights to the maximum. I hope and pray for success in that endeavor. Without decisive action,
though, hope and prayer will not deliver us. We must therefore tell everyone around that
Capitalism has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to pollute the great canon of
English literature with references to its nitpicky, iniquitous goals. On all of these occasions I
submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that its lies come in many forms. Some
of its lies are in the form of false-flag operations. Others are in the form of cop-outs. Still more
are in the form of folksy posturing and pretended concern and compassion.

Before you declare me demented, let me assert that Capitalism’s refrains are based on a
technique I’m sure you’ve heard of. It’s called lying. I could tell Capitalism that its view that the
purpose of life is self-gratification is nonsense upon stilts, although it obviously doesn’t care. I
could tell it that it is out of control, like a runaway freight train, but it wouldn’t believe me. It
probably also doesn’t care that its flights of fancy provide a vivid example of how it is the type of
organization that can look you right in the eye and, with an expression of the utmost sincerity,
tell you any kind of whopper that suits its purpose. So let me appeal to whatever small
semblance of reason Capitalism may be capable of when I tell it that if its dissertations were
intended as a joke, it forgot to include the punchline.

It is neither possible nor desirable to ignore the issue of miserabilism here, yes. But if Capitalism
can give us all a succinct and infallible argument proving that it never engages in stentorian,
disingenuous, or soulless politics, I will personally deliver its Nobel Prize for Passive-aggressive
Rhetoric. In the meantime, Capitalism is a serial exaggerator. If I were to be less kind, I’d say it’s
a liar. Either way, historically, if you were to maintain that I’m too tendentious to give Capitalism
a rhadamanthine warning not to create a climate of intimidation, this would entitle you to the
attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. In either
case, bilious criminal masterminds who think that Capitalism is an irreplaceable shaman who
can cure the sick, divine the hidden, and control events often cite authority figures who agree
with them. This is entertaining, but it may not yield reliable information. The fact of the matter is
that in public, Capitalism promises that it’d never cause an increase in disease, allotheism,
crime, and vice. In private, however, it secretly tells its buddies that it’ll do exactly that. I think
we’ve seen this movie before: It’s called Business as Usual for Capitalism.

To add another dimension to this argument, let me mention that Capitalism has allowed itself to
become a spokesman for the same point of view shared by contumacious blatherskites, hostile
four-flushers, and what I call unethical extremists while masquerading as an outspoken radical
bucking the system. While freely conceding that Capitalism’s modes of thought serve merely to
illustrate that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance are still quite prevalent in our culture, I do feel
that I frequently wish to tell it that its jactance is a distinguishing characteristic of bad company
and a bad education. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue.

Do we not, as rational men and women, owe it to both our heritage and our posterity to point out
that the emperor has no clothes on? I think we do. If Capitalism continues to devise aggressive
scams to get money for nothing, the result can be a tone-deafness, a cluelessness, on matters
that are at the center of experience for vast segments of the population. It would be nice to say
that insidious cynicism doesn’t exist anymore but we all know that it does. It will cause
one-sided hate sheets to be entered into historical fact before the year is over—not necessarily
by direct action, but by convincing its minions to scorn and abjure reason.

By spattering my reputation, it has sunk to new depths of depravity and unspeakable

wickedness. To prove this, I shall take only a few cases from the mass of existing examples. It is
a truism that it behaves like an eternal student at a vast, noisome campus where everyone is
taught that power, politics, and privilege should prevail over the rule of law. It is tempting to look
for simple solutions to that problem, but there are no simple solutions. Oh, and one more thing. I
sometimes see well-meaning people swallow its lie that coldhearted tinhorns have dramatically
lower incidences of cancer, heart attacks, heart disease, and many other illnesses than the rest
of us. To my mind, shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. That’s why I wish that all decent people
realized that Capitalism occasionally writes letters accusing me and my friends of being
garrulous phlyarologists. These letters are typically couched in gutter language (which is
doubtless the language in which Capitalism habitually thinks) and serve no purpose other than
to convince me that it has been fairly successful in its efforts to attack the fabric of this nation.
That just goes to show what can be done with a little greed, a complete lack of scruples, and the
help of a bunch of disruptive hermits.

You may be picking up on something here in all of my responses to Capitalism’s backwards

magic-bullet explanations. All of my responses presume that I can easily see Capitalism
performing the following duplicitous acts. First, it will create a world without history, without
philosophy, without science, without reason—a world without beauty of any kind, without art,
without literature, without culture. Then, it will funnel significant amounts of money to
unenlightened, crabby witlings. I do not profess to know how likely is the eventuality I have
outlined, but it is a distinct possibility to be kept in mind. Now, more than ever, we must see
through the haze of pharisaism. In short, Capitalism’s most recent deplorable claim (viz., that it
commands an army of robots that live in the hollow center of the earth and produce earthquakes
whenever they feel like shaking things up a bit on the surface) is a tissue of lies, bias, and
emotional manipulation from beginning to end. What you really need to do to be convinced of
that, however, is to study the matter for yourself. I’ll be happy to send you enough facts to get
you started. Just write to me.