Everyone's A Socialist

Libertarians rejoice! You can now finally hold up your hand and beg the government for money, just like the rest of us. Yes, the corona virus pandemic has granted you the privilege of shamelessly accepting big government. Your spiritual and ideological leaders at the peak of society's pyramid already went ahead and got theirs; now it's your turn to suck hard on the governments teat...

Ask not what your country can do for you... Don't come begging the government for help... Government is not the solution, it's the problem... Let the market do its work... Charity, and not the theft that is taxation, is the right way to distribute wealth and income... You've heard them all in countless variations; big government, and especially government interference in the marketplace is the bane of modern society and antithetical to individual freedom. "There is no such thing as society," there are only individuals who all strife for maximal individual freedom. Well, how's that working out for you now? In recent history we've had two major economic melt-downs, both of which clearly showed that everyone and everything on our planet is intimately interconnected. They both proved that "there are no individuals," there's only society and society is represented by the government.

I heard this story about an entrepreneurial young man who had the foresight that hand-sanitizers would become immensely popular during the pandemic. Drenched as we all are in the principles of the for profit economy, this man bought a sh*tload of hand-sanitizer, stored it in his garage and waited for the opportune moment to sell his load for an exponential profit-rate. This is normal, right? Same with face-masks, ventilators and a bunch of other stuff that's essential for SOCIETY to stay afloat, and for the economy to not grind to a halt; price gauging is normal, it's the way of capitalism. The podcast in which this story was told, was hosted by two young men, and one of them was disappointed that a judge stopped the price gauging by the hand-sanitizer "entrepreneur"; "let that poor man make some money, all the big companies do it too." People are dying. Millions lose their job and file for bankruptcy. There's a huge shortage in test-kits, medicine, masks, hand-sanitizer; even doctors don't have the means to protect themselves against the virus and are getting sick. Still, the capitalism virus has spread so far and so deep that many people think that that's okay, that it's okay to prioritize profits over human well-being and human lifes.

In this moment in time though, most people see how wrong it really is, and even right-wingers are now demanding of the government that they interfere in the economy, that regular people receive cash payouts to weather this storm. Suddenly they see that it's not okay that people who have contracted the virus and need treatment, are confronted with huge medical bills of many thousands of dollars; they demand that normal people's expenses in relation to the virus are covered 100%. They feel and know that we're in this TOGETHER, not individually. The deeper truth behind this, is that we're ALWAYS in "it" TOGETHER. It's not just now. Why should someone who gets cancer deal with it individually in "normal" times? Why should that person be allowed to go bankrupt? Just because it's cancer and not corona? Why should price gauging be allowed in "normal" times? The virus is special, but it exposes something fundamentally wrong with what we see as "normal." We're all socialists because we're all social creatures who can not survive individually; capitalism is the tool used by some individuals to exploit our society and environment, and it has been used expertly for centuries. It's time to wake up people, we're not alone, so it's time we stop pretending that we are.

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