Socialism and Capitalism

"The "American Dream" was all about class mobility." writes political economist and scientist, C. J. Polychroniou in the truth-out interview with Chomsky. 

If you were born poor you could study and work your way out of poverty, and with sustained effort could provide a better future for your children. You could find a home, buy a car and send a child to university. The city and town was based on those expectations. Jobs, malls, institutions, education - was built on the principle that we live in a civil society and a life without fear and anxiety - was attainable.

TV dramas were based also on a set of ethics around how to sustain the family, community and the work place. Then entertainments became more sensational - violence, sex, deal-making and power struggles became the meat of the story, where the winner was the one who had access to the most force.  The theme of ethics became pablum for the good old days. Societies where these programs became a steady diet put social justice issues off the radar.  

People who don't experience justice in their lives and who don't think about what a just society is, may look on their life as a personal inventory of win or lose. Parents who want to bring back social responsibility looked to discipline as reward and punishment (for other people's kids but not theirs). Equality became a struggle to keep up with the Jones's.  When dishwashers came out in different colours one had to get rid of the old sage green model for a more fashionable one. 

And then our worth was displayed on social media with the latest selfie. As if unexamined consumerism is not pornographic enough, the bullying and hate fills the air with a new fear: had we become so estranged from who we are we have to find it in public media? Have we become vacuous inflatable robots looking for the next definition to fill us up? 

No but that is how we are presented as a whole. What we need more than anything is to find hope in our work together. To establish what is good for most if not all through getting reacquainted with who we are. To work on our capacities together and not disrupt community work with bids for power.

Which means we need to move deeper into ourselves to check that which is ego and that which is integrity. "A genuine independent left party" says Chomsky.