The Truth About Capitalism, Inflation, and Inequality (Patreon)

By Sam (@LiberationistMA)

Whether liberal or conservative, capitalists never want full employment. From their capitalist beliefs, if everyone worked, then everyone would have money. When everyone has money, capitalists fear inflation because inflation dilutes their wealth.

This is why for the rich, inflation is the great bogeyman, which they'll attach to other things they hate, like socialism, reparations, safety nets, or equality.

Under their rubric, if everyone has money, money is no longer scarce and valuable. Therefore, capitalism WANTS inequality and for only a few hands to have all the money, which keeps money guarded and scarce. Maintaining capitalism means we must starve. They EVEN TELL YOU this is what they believe.

Many of us without money may side with capitalists. We misguidedly believe they will help us become one of them, but why would they help us when helping us hurts their system? If they have something rare, and they give you some, it is no longer rare. Get it? Did you forget they constantly tell you they hate distribution of wealth REGARDLESS of how it happens? It's not really about "free government handouts"—they don't want too much money in too many hands even if it's earned because that's INFLATION! Capitalists want a very rich country with lots of poor people. This is America.

Even the idea that everyone can succeed is just victim-blaming. They don't actually want that because everyone having lots of money equals too much money supply equals inflation.

How does everything they say about the American Dream and bootstrapping square with what they also tell you about inflation? Inflation is the part they actually believe; everything else is to get you to STFU. Everyone succeeding is an existential threat to the rich, so they CAN'T allow that to happen.

They hate communism because communism wants to abolish money, but they also hate the myth of capitalist common prosperity and middle-class because that's TOO MUCH money in the system, which is the same as abolishing money.

You literally cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps—the straps will snap. That was the original meaning of the saying. But they'll allow and promote this misreading because even though they hate this myth, they know that nothing will change so long as it's done individually. However, they won't allow socialistic ideas because collective action will change things.

The actual capitalists who own lots of capital only see capitalism as monetary policies and taxes. The wannabe capitalists who don't own any capital are the ONLY ones who see capitalism as motivational stories. The ultra-rich don't care about motivational stories. They only care about numbers, graphs, and boring spreadsheets that keep track of the money they have and the money you don't. And you won't ever get that money; otherwise, you'll collapse their system.

Consider how the rich don't want the "inflation" of poor people having money and jobs, but they do want the inflation of jacked up prices to increase profits while blaming poor people for it. Profits are the inflation and redistribution of money toward the rich.

We need a new system.