Capitalism is Sociopathology

[tony human]

 Let’s face it. Capitalism is a disease--a raging infection that causes its hosts to become sociopaths. They just don't realize they are monsters;  this is really the marvel of capitalism: its ability to treat as a virtue the ruthless pursuit of profit over freedom, liberty and the basic humanity of those  they enslave. And the media we have, especially here in Ameristan, come to celebrate their sociopathy.

 

“It’s just business,” they say, when millions of people are laid off, when sales are down, when some investment bank arranges for a takeover of some enterprise and promptly tosses half the workers out on the sidewalk. “It’s just business,” when a bank tosses thousands of people out of their homes because, laid off from their jobs, they’re late in making a few mortgage payments;  “it’s just business,” when a well spews toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in the biggest man-made environmental disaster in the history of the Gulf .

 

Capitalism, in its 200 year history, has completely done away with the reality of human existence. Capitalism has no concern for society, for the well-being of the group. The only thing that matters, the only virtue, is profit maximization and increased share value, which means bigger bonuses for management and bigger returns for the investor. The Devil take the hindmost. This sociopathic ideology has reached the point where it has to be recognized as a fatal disease.

[Terry Bain]

What you are describing, (and I agree 100%) is exactly what the Occupy Movement seeks to end, but it is not capitalism.  You and I have chosen to end the rule of these sociopaths.  I am a capitalist, however, and if you have an insurance policy, for example - you are a capitalist.

You have to pay in money, sometimes under threat of possible arrest, but you are not really in control of how your capital is used,  And that is the problem.  Historian Carroll Quigley, in Tragedy and Hope describes how Capitalism has devolved into Monopoly Capitalism, by the Money Power.

The history of capitalism is as old as civilization - the  200 year history of Monopoly Capitalism is relatively new, It is increasingly being recognized as a fatal disease - and we are the cure.