Social Injustice, Propaganda, and Everyday Hero
Social Injustice in Capitalism has existed possibly since the birth of Capitalism itself. Whether it be displacing entire communities for various resources (i.e. oil, water), child labor, or even slavery, capitalism and social injustice can go hand and hand. When one thinks of corrupt capitalism, Big tobacco’s campaign against the relationship between smoking and lung cancer or coups for oil may come to mind; but these are just two examples of capitalist greed. The list of capitalist injustices goes on and on and on. Unsurprisingly, propaganda of all kinds have been created promote these injustices. However, there are the few individuals who decided to take a stand against this corruption, and exposed them to the world. They are called every day heroes. To understand the scope of capitalist injustice it is best to examine one of the oldest injustices that greed has ever committed: Slavery.
An Unforgivable Crime: Slavery
Older than Capitalism itself, slavery can be traced back to the birth of civilization, and it still occurs today, even here in the U.S.. Despite being banned worldwide, it, along with human trafficking, are a serious problem. According to the Global Slavery Index 2013, more than 29 million people live in slavery. Although big name companies may not be involved in the horendous crime, it very much does exist in the background, most notably the black market. According to Havocscope, The price of a human can range anywhere from $2 to $270,000. As bad as the reality of slavery is, and in turn greed, the propaganda often isn’t much better.
Propaganda
Capitalist propaganda can be found everywhere. From cartoons to posters to comics to even video games (to a degree), it’s everywhere. Cartoons? Eugene Krabs. Posters? How about the picture to the left. Comics? Marvel’s Tony Stark. How about video games? Litterally ALL tycoon games. Even Superman has promoted capitalism from time to time. In Action Comics #148, a man of Native American decent discovers that he owns all of Metropolis’s land. What does Superman do? Negotiate with the man? Beat him to near death? Nope. He decides to travel back in time to 1644 and get the chief of the tribe into selling what would become Metropolis. Pure greed and racism. While Superman apparently is no hero, other people are, like the Panama Papers Leaker.
Everyday Hero
On the ninth of May, 2016, the ICIJ published a leak of over 11.5 million documents: the Panama Papers. The John Doe has not revealed his name, for fear of his life. Infact, nothing has been revealed about him for this very reason. “I wanted to make these crimes public” was the reason given to German reporter Bastain Obermayer. Let me make this clear: hiding money in offshore banks is by no means a crime. However, disthonesty is, and this is exactly what many companies, including British prime minister David Cameron and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Only time will tell who this mysterious man is and just why these world leaders have been hiding money, but if there’s one thing that many of the people involved are guilty of, it’s capitalist greed.
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