I tried to make the following reply immediately but ran into a problem with my system that I was unable to resolve until just now. Here it is:

You say "thumbscrews," indicating that people are being coerced into believing that they (we) don't have the wherewithal (power, freedom, and so on) to focus on anything other than their (our) bank balances. I'll need to give that some thought, and I might find myself agreeing with you. But here's what makes me balk at doing so: By western-based standards, we (my family and I) are in the socioeconomic class known as the middle class . . . barely. Until recently, I had four jobs, though only one of them was full-time. Still, I worked--work--as many as 65 hours per week. This is neither a competition nor a complaint, but my contention is that even if I had the inclination to "get high," I would not have the time or the money to do so.

Everything is broken, I think, but unless I decide to fold in on myself and give up--destroying what small measure of stability my family and I have--I will have to keep running (hard!) to maintain my position. Broken or not, what is in place is what is in place, and there are no realistic alternatives (yet!). For me, there is no coercion. I have to earn enough--in conjunction with my wife--to survive. Beyond that, I can imagine something better, and I can determine the steps that might lead me to that better something, but survival and the necessity of working within the system make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to--realistically--be able to do anything to improve things for myself and, not incidentally, humankind.

It is fear, not coercion. Let us say, hypothetically, that someone (you?) comes up with a viable replacement for capitalism and that it is a system that resists human manipulation. Convincing me of its necessity and convincing your neighbor of its necessity, and convincing that middle-aged nurse who was in line in front of you at the supermarket yesterday (and whose feet hurt, you could tell) of its necessity is the easy part, requiring no real commitment on the part of those whom you have convinced. It is when you urge us to action that fear will set in: What happens, we think, if he is wrong? What happens if, well, if something happens, and we lose our homes/jobs/families/lives?

I have spent much time--in private--railing against this or that injustice, this or that system. What stays my hand from making my objections public is that I have few alternatives to offer.

Finally, my hope lies with my son and his compatriots (of which, perhaps, you are one). He (and they) is as dead set against capitalism (and the current form of democracy as perpetrated in the US) as you seem be. If I am myself stymied concerning how to effect positive change, I have real hope that he/they will find a way to do so. It is foolish and irresponsible to place the burden of change on those who are yet to come, but there you go.