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Golden Termites
I suspect when Karl Marx developed his economic theories he did not imagine the possibility of a Stalin taking the helm. Equally, I suspect Adam Smith could not forecast an actor being elected president and using folksy populism to sell off democracy and the middle class to predatory corporate capitalism.
It is said that capitalism produces growth like no other economic system. Even if that is true, no one praises cancer because it is so productive of growth. What good is growth if it destroys the host? What good is a termite that lays golden eggs? What good are record profits if, at the same time, the golden termite is impoverishing members of our human family and destroying our roots into nature?
This nation is imploding because we are trying to live on an imaginary monopoly board. We act as if wealth and poverty are features of nature instead of a rigged economic system. We need to start fighting for the basic rights of every person and stop waiting for the invisible hand of the market to make things right. We must redefine success, not as rising above, but as being of value to each other.
We need to break the trance of colonial capitalism by reciting the following words until they become our life charter:
This planet is not the property of the few. This planet is our common home…
