When Is Enough Enough?

This question is pivotal in our times. We live in "the age of never enough" and it's breaking our souls, ruining the environment and getting us stuck in relationships we'd best just end.

Many Republicans will argue that it's best to just put what happened on January 6th, 2021, behind us and move on. They'll say it's for the good of the country. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in response noted that the abused are to do the same "for the good of the family." Talking too long or too much about Catholic priests abusing young children "will hurt the church." Focusing too hard on the abuses of deadly power by the police will "hurt their ability to do their job." It's all good to forgive and forget in cases of singular or sporadic missteps, but not so when the abuse is persistent or systemic; in those cases sooner or later the question presents itself, when is enough enough?

Mahatma Gandhi said that "the world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed." And that's exactly right; there's enough of everything for everyone. We produce more food than there are mouths to feed, there are more empty buildings than there are homeless people, we can desalinate water, so no shortage there, and the Sun is a nigh inexhaustible source of energy. And on top of that, we're smart! There's no rational reason why there's still hunger and homelessness in the world today. No reason other than the inexhaustible greed of some. We, as western societies, have decided that enough is never enough. We've decided that greed is the defining human characteristic we want to build our societies on. So we now have a few individuals who could single-handedly erase hunger and poverty in the world, but we've decided that they would be crazy, out of their mind, if they would do that.

A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller "how much money is enough?" His answer was: "just a little bit more." I like the honesty in that answer. He didn't want to enrich society, he wanted to enrich himself, which is the actual foundation and goal of capitalism. That honesty is in stark contrast with the way capitalists are envisioned today. People actually believe Elon Musk when he says that he does the things he does for the good of humanity. But he fires employees who try to unionize and he never invented anything. How can anyone believe anyone who claims that he works for the good of humanity when that same person can't even manage to do good for the people that work for him?

Our relationship with this destructive system is like the abusive interpersonal relationships that cause so much anger and sadness on an individual level. Ans up until now we've deployed the "forgive and forget" strategy. Yes, late stage capitalism is destroying so much, but like a parent who tries to change a child's destructive behavior, we still love it and hope to change it for the better. We're still not ready to say "enough is enough" and however painful, break that relationship. Well, we'd better wise up soon. We know how badly these things end on an individual level; often with the destruction of one of the two. Do we really want to find out how it'll end on a systemic scale? When is enough enough?

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