Lee Camp took six minutes to expose a major lie in our implementation of our capitalist economy, the resulting damage, and solutions that have been popping up organically to mitigate its failure. I’ve been to economic conferences that were not as effective.
Lee Camp points out the sad reality of our capitalism
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This type of analysis of our form of capitalism rarely makes it on cable or network TV. This one should open discussions on economic systems that best serve us all.
Lee Camp started the segment with an important observation that Progressives need to mitigate, the obsession with the Russia story which leaves other just as important issues uncovered.
“So if you turned on the TV this week you saw, Donald Trump — Donald Trump — Donald Trump,” Camp said. “And meanwhile you are thinking, ‘I can’t pay my rent.’ So why are so many people struggling?”
What Camp should have also added is that struggling people care little about Russia in the scope of their everyday reality.
I love Camp’s construction of the segment and his deconstruction of how our implementation of capitalism is dependent on a lie we take for granted, at face value. Anyone who took Economics 101 in college or reads economic literature understands the concept of scarcity. They also learned that capitalism is best for the efficient allocation of resources. The market prices scarce resources higher. The converse is also true. That would be true in theory. In practice, not as much as it should be.
Lee Camp quoted Peter Frase, author of “Four Futures: Life After Capitalism.”
One of the distinctive peculiarities of capitalism is the way it inverts the logic of scarcity and abundance. That is, it tries to impose scarcity where none need exist, while at the same time treating truly scarce things as though they are actually unlimited.
He then gave an example of housing. We have an oversupply. But prices are kept artificially high by bankers. We could say the same about De Beers ensuring diamond prices remain high or the oil cartel keeping oil artificially high.
Camp also gave the example of the EPI Pen ripoff whose pricing has little to do with scarcity or supply and demand. They increased the piece by over 400% over a few years.
“When that happened,” Camp said. “There was no scarcity of EPI Pens. It was just capitalism being a bitch.”
Camp also pointed out another aberration, corporations’ seed manipulation. They patent seeds by changing its genetic code then force farmers to buy them yearly. If a farmer decides to use his unmodified seeds and his next generation of seeds gets cross-pollinated from another farmer’s genetically modified pollen, the corporations can sue the farmer for infringement. I wrote about this in my book “As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom.”
Lee then quotes Peter Joseph, author of “The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression.”
Pick up any introductory textbook on market theory and you’ll notice the rationale of the market’s very existence starts with one basic premise-resources and means are scarce. … [That idea] then justifies competition, self-interest, hierarchy, inequality, and oppression.
Lee Camp subsequently went into a litany of exploitative behaviors facilitated by our form of capitalism.
“There is no reward in the market economy for creating sustainability or abundance or being selfless,” Camp said. “So the economy wants insecurity and deficiency.”
He then quotes Peter Joseph again.
Emotional insecurity, groomed to be rectified by material gain, neurotically becomes a positive feature of culture that helps the market system work via increased demand.
“Our system wants you depressed, scared, and unhappy,” Camp said. “Because happy people don’t buy sh$t. They don’t need anything. Cause they are happy. Scared people want things.”
Camp points out that the thousands of ads we see on a daily basis ensure our insecurities which in turns primes the pump. He further said that during the Great Recession, thousands died from a nonexistent medical care scarcity. But when there is real scarcity, resources are extracted without regards to environmental effects for short term gain.
Lee said people are fighting back. The open source movement, decentralized development, and open collaboration for the common good are growing.
“Our reality is based on a lie, a fairy tale,” Camp said. “And that fairy tail causes endless misery, suffering, and death with absolutely no empathy. We are at a fork in the road. And we can either take the path forward. Or the psychopath forward.”
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