We: Our Declaration of Interdependence
Chapter Four: Our Economic Divide
(This is one Chapter of the book We: Our Declaration of Interdependence. Other chapters are available on the Publication page).
We can create a world that works for all living things. There is enough for all. Our thoughts of scarcity and economic security relate to our current extreme economic inequality. We fall victim to thinking there is not enough for everyone. There could be, but collectively, we lack the imagination to create equitable economic systems.
Plenitude, a word first recorded during the 15th Century, describes a situation where there is enough. Plenitude is the universe’s natural order, yet we do not all experience plenitude.
If plenitude is the natural state of the world and even the universe, then why do over 700 million people in the world lack the necessities of life — food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare? People experiencing extreme poverty face harmful, life-threatening impacts, including malnutrition, low life expectancy, high rates of infant mortality, and an overall lack of safety and stability. In a world of plenitude, many people do not have enough to survive.
Wars are fought in the interest of the wealthy for the gain of the wealthy. War’s primary victims are the poor of the countries that are invaded and the poor of the United States. Children are especially vulnerable. — The Poor People’s Campaign.
How did we end up with such an unhealthy economic situation? Can an extremely unequal society also be a healthy society?
Capitalism is a term that refers to an economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism represented a transformation from the previous system of feudalism (Monarchs, Lords, and nobility owned the land). Socialism is a newer term that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community (most often resulting in government control over the people’s economic lives).
Feudalism, capitalism, and socialism are amoral; they are not inherently immoral or moral. They simply refer to economic systems. They differ about who owns what and how capital or goods are exchanged. However, Capitalism and Socialism have become ideologies imbued with robust belief systems. Since they have become ideologies, they serve as surrogate religions.
Today, capitalism has infected the world’s largest religion, Christianity, forming a religious ideology distinct from the origins of Christianity and capitalism. One scholar coined the term “Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine”* to describe the new religion that has formed an unholy alliance with monopolistic capitalism. The followers of this movement do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, and they do not follow the fundamentals of capitalism. Jesus taught love, compassion, inclusion, and generosity. Capitalism dominated by global monopolies is not Adam Smith’s capitalism. Unregulated monopolies have a detrimental impact on main street small businesses.
Freedom to initiate economic activity to compete with existing products and services is fundamental for true Capitalism. Monopolies are anti-capitalism. Capitalism is not inherently driven by extreme greed but has developed into an economic and political belief system that suppresses competition and freedom. More than that, monopolistic capitalism does not believe in free markets; it believes in the power to make the market work in its favor.
The Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine has morphed into the White Christian Nationalist (WCN) movement. Media has inadvertently aided the Un-Christian, greedy, judgmental, violence-prone religious extremists by mislabeling them with the word “Christian.” The Greek meaning of the word evangelical is “the good news” or the “gospel.” The problem is these religious extremists are not spreading good news, love, or compassion, so they are not following the teachings of the great Evangelist (Jesus). No wonder millions of loving, compassionate, generous followers of the teachings of Jesus have left organized religion. The fastest-growing religious group is now the “nones” (no religious affiliation).
Once the multi-national capitalists gain complete domination over nations, those nations become plutocracies or autocracies. The citizens of nations are weak and powerless because the plutocrats unduly influence their elected leaders. The laws promoted by the WCN movement do not align with the teachings of Jesus, the Hebrew Prophets, or the values of the earliest Christians. The WCN movement does not welcome the stranger, and they do not love their enemies. The only term in the title “White Christian Nationalist” that fits is the term White.
Every single one of the major world faiths, whether we’re talking about Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Darwinism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have all come to the conclusion that what holds us back from our better self is ego, selfishness, greed, unkindness, hatred. And it all springs from a sense of thwarted ego. — Karen Armstrong
The role of religion in a civil society is to maintain compassion and love for the neighbor. Religion should cultivate and encourage the goodness inherent in every human being, but it has far too often fueled the evil or shadow side of the human.
The earliest agrarian societies and most indigenous societies experienced cycles of abundance and scarcity because of the unpredictability of nature. These were shared economic realities. However, as civilization developed, hierarchies of power soon followed. Economic inequality became entrenched in the culture as Kings and Priests instituted laws that demanded that people tithe or make sacrifices to them, whether there was enough left for the peasants or not.
The Middle Ages was a time when culture and knowledge regressed. Feudalism was the dominant economic and political system. Lord, Kings, nobles, and clergy formed a hierarchy of power over the masses of people. Life was tough. People lived in small subsistence villages. Serfs and peasants stole food because food was often scarce.
Feudal Lords demanded obedience from their serfs (the peasant class). Serfs were enslaved persons or tenant farmers. They did not own their land. They worked the land, and their Lord received part of the crops. Much of the wild game was owned by the Lords, and it was illegal for peasants to hunt without explicit permission.
Drunken brawls, rapes, and mass killings were also commonplace. The honor and shame culture fueled extreme violence motivated by revenge. Homicide levels were at least ten times what they are today. Wars between neighboring lords were common. Serfs were obligated to serve in their lord’s army. Sometimes, they could earn their freedom, become nobles, or even be “knighted” and allowed to wear heavy armor and lead the other peasants as a reward for bravery and exceptional fighting skills.
Later in the medieval period, the nature of warfare expanded and developed between emerging Nations. Although most of these wars were short (a few hours to a few days), the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) between England and France occurred toward the end of the Middle Ages. These wars were fought by the poor and powerless (often under duress) to protect the property rights of the Lords and Kings.
In Chapter One, we explored the intersections between the historical evolution of religion and ideologies. Market ideologies have developed in partnership with religious ideologies.
Monotheism and feudalism have the same roots. Feudalism is the economic system where the means of production are owned by and controlled by lords, kings, and priests (all deriving their power from God). Feudalism was the dominant economic system until the Protestant Reformation.
The Reformation was a time of massive transformation in all aspects of society. The population increased, villages grew, and more urban areas developed. Advancements in transportation and shipping created larger markets. Peasants moved to cities, learned new trades, and joined guilds.
As the power of Monarchs and the Church declined, Mercantilism became the dominant economic system. Mercantilism was an economic ideology designed to generate greater wealth by increasing exports. Mercantilism motivated colonial expansion. An Empire (with many locations) was more competitive in the trade wars than a single nation. The Empires extracted raw materials from their subjects and sold them finished goods (at a profit to the Empire). Indigenous people became another commodity to be exported, creating the slave trade.
As the economic inequality of a nation increases, the probability of violence and revolution increases. The Boston Tea Party protested mercantilism and economic inequality. Taxation without representation was not new, but the American colonists raised it as a primary political issue. For the English colonists, the tea tax violated their rights as Englishmen to “no taxation without representation.”
Capitalism was already emerging in England among the landed Aristocracy due to the early stage of the Industrial Revolution. New technologies led to building large factories and shifted the balance of power from the “Landed Aristocracy” to the new industrialists. Investing in factory buildings, machines, and equipment required substantial capital, funds needed not just for a growing season but for decades. The combination of the Industrial Age and the decline of the power of Monarchs forced the transition from feudalism to mercantilism and eventually to corporate capitalism.
Colonization and mercantilism had devastating impacts on regions of the world where indigenous people practiced a gift economy. With a gift economy, you give, and you receive, and you receive, and you give. A gift economy can include bartering, reciprocal trade, or sharing. Plenitude is a characteristic of a gift economy. Gift economies emphasize interdependency, honor, loyalty, and intangible social rewards for generosity. European settlers did not understand that way of living. They arrogantly assumed their exploitive market ideologies were superior.
Once the colonizers had control of the new lands, they could own their land, tools, and machines and were free to produce goods and services. The economic system gradually shifted from mercantilism to capitalism as the power and influence of the Monarchies decreased. Early capitalism offered the freedom to engage in productive work, the freedom to start and operate new enterprises, and the freedom to acquire and own land.
I believe that all lives have equal value. That all men and women are created equal. That everyone belongs. That everyone has rights and everyone has the right to flourish. I believe that when people who are bound by the rules have no role in shaping the rules, moral blind spots become law, and the powerless bear the burden. … I believe that entrenched social norms that shift society’s benefits to the powerful and its burdens to the powerless not only hurt the people pushed out but also always hurt the whole. — Melinda Gates
The extent of economic inequality goes through cycles. The years leading up to the 1929 Wall Street crash and the Great Depression are called the Gilded Age. During the Gilded Age, working conditions were unhealthy and dangerous. Monopolies developed and used their power to eliminate or get rid of competition.
We experienced less inequality in the early post-World War II decades because wealth and income were taxed at high enough rates to redistribute the wealth more equitably. Money is power. Extreme economic inequality empowers the greedy and disempowers the poor.
Between 1980 and 2020, economic inequality reverted to the extremes of the Gilded Age. Poverty has increased, and a large percentage of middle-class households are a few months away from falling into poverty or homelessness due to the loss of a job, a significant medical expense, or even the breakdown of their car.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the mortality rates were five times higher for adults living in lower socioeconomic conditions. Because economic status and racial/ethnicity correlate, Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Indigenous populations experienced higher mortality rates. The COVID-19 mortality rate was lowest for wealthy white women. People who were privileged enough to either make ends meet for months without a job or to work from home could more easily ignore the public health warnings and even protest the restrictive policies, including mask requirements. Extreme differences in wealth and privilege conflicted with survival needs and fueled our divisions.
Capitalism is not inherently problematic. If the politics support individual freedom and free enterprise, capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and small business. When the culture supports and promotes competition, capitalism offers the greatest freedom of the economic systems. In a free market, the consumers choose among competing businesses. True capitalism requires a culture of political freedom and fairness in distributing wealth or profits. True capitalism allows workers to choose their employers and consumers to choose the products, services, and companies they do business with.
The form of capitalism currently dominant in the United States is not free market capitalism. It has sometimes been called late capitalism. Others have pointed out the impact of the shift from capital, land, and labor to knowledge as the new basis of wealth.
In 1993, Peter Drucker predicted the shift to a post-capitalist economic system would be completed between 2010 and 2020. We could refer to the current economic system as Terminal Capitalism. Terminal capitalism is a market system that only values return on investment to CEOs (and the minority of shareholders with control of corporations) while placing no value on human beings (human resources), other animals, ecosystems, or the viability of life on earth.
The Supreme Court of the United States Citizens United decision fuels Terminal Capitalism by granting legal entities all the rights of living human beings without any of the responsibilities. Corporations have the right to control our political system, pollute, oppress workers, and cause harm to people and the environment. Corporations can buy control of our water. Corporations can purchase thousands of homes as investments, causing a massive housing crisis for workers and families.
When corporations market products that result in deaths, there are almost no consequences to the individuals making the decisions that cause the deaths. The Corporations may suffer legal consequences, including damages, penalties, and fines. If people commit the same crimes as Corporations, they can be incarcerated. Many states have death penalties for people who knowingly kill masses of people. Perhaps corporations should be dissolved/terminated if they cause multiple deaths, with the proceeds of the sale of the corporate assets funding a trust for the benefit of the victims of their corporate negligence.
In our research, we see a clear link between increased inequality and privileged groups’ support of societal hierarchies. This support is, in turn, linked to racism and increased willingness to take part in violent persecution of groups such as immigrants. The findings point to the possibly serious consequences of increased inequality because of the corresponding changes in the way people think and feel about social relations. — Lotte Thomsen
Capitalism, in its original form, contributed to a more equitable society. However, that is no longer the situation. We are extremely divided in terms of our access to the resources we need to sustain our lives. Yet, an extremely small number of humans have acquired wealth and power beyond any previous Monarchs. The billionaire technology CEOS are the Masters of our Universe not only because of their current estimated wealth but also because they collect private data and use it to manipulate and control us. As long as they have monopolistic power, most people are very vulnerable to their megalomaniacal greed.
The Renaissance began during times of political and religious turmoil. A New Renaissance could transform the Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine (White Christian Nationalism), one of our clear and present wicked challenges.
If we want to create a global economy that works for all living things, we must stop admiring the greediest CEOs at the top of our economic and political power pyramid. Instead, we need to boycott the monopolistic corporations and choose other options that support open-source technology. When we spend our time working for these harmful corporations, we are participating in the harm they do. When we spend our money with monopolistic corporations, we are participating in the harm they do. They could not exist without our time and money.
We still have the ability to boycott or choose not to participate in the schemes of our economic oppressors. We can choose different career paths. This could change because they are already asking for legislation and court rulings that will restrict our right to decide how we spend or invest our money and restrict our right to unionize and fight for better working conditions. Our future depends on defending and protecting these fundamental rights.
Our future also depends on reclaiming our power and control over our personal data, the social media we use, and our DNA. When we choose open-source technology platforms, we have more power and control.
We cannot experience our collective power when we support any totalitarian movement. Instead, we give up our power.
We can discern that a movement is totalitarian because there will be a strong man controlling the movement. He will openly exhibit grandiose narcissistic traits (an unmistakable sense of entitlement, an exaggerated belief in their superiority, and an obsession with themselves). His malignant narcissistic traits (manipulative, obsessive, aggressive, malicious, and cruel) may be less obvious, especially to his followers.
Social media and Terminal Capitalism intentionally profit by cultivating our narcissistic tendencies. The United States, as the world’s dominant superpower, also has a powerful influence on global culture. The United States, as the world’s dominant superpower, also has a powerful influence on global culture.
If we nurture our children and raise them to use their power in collaboration with others, we can create a future where the majority of people understand shared leadership. Children raised in a culture of sharing, caring, creating, and critical thinking can create a world that works for all living things.
Author’s note: Writing about the forces underlying our current deeply divided world is challenging. If you are offended, we apologize.
If you are interested in responding or contributing to the conversation, please consider responding to this chapter or submitting a story to this publication.
Please do not attack the messenger. Critique the ideas and content instead. We plan to publish this book (paper and eBook) in April, and your comments or suggestions will be taken into consideration.
