Further down this page is a quote by Dr. Brett Weinstein, from episode 236 of the Dark Horse podcast, A Coup Against Merit.
The breakdown in this quote seems so important to me, as it describes phenomena I see at an increasing rate. In particular, the quote details the organic motivation for the building wave of resentment towards capitalism, and the (currently) realized and potential outcomes of such resentment.
I published an article in late May exploring why so many people are dissing capitalism. You can read that article here →
Why Are So Many People Dissing Capitalism?
An increasingly common meme in my life is hearing people dissing capitalism 🤔
Bret does a much more eloquent, less emotional job in the quote (below) explaining this building resentment and dismissal towards capitalism than I did in that previous article.
I cannot praise Bret and his wife, Dr. Heather Heying, enough for their content. The toolkit they’ve built through their expansive knowledge of evolutionary biology and complex systems, refined during years as collegiate professors, is one of the most freeing and empowering toolkits I’ve been exposed to.
I especially value their focus on teaching & discussing how to think, not what to think. They have high standards for their mental and ethical integrity, practicing open-mindedness and picking through topics with nuance that most are unwilling or unable to practice. These two have been pivotal in my character development.
The quote is as follows…
“You have a system that we call capitalism, but capitalism isn’t really an invention either.
Capitalism is a formalization of a process that nature created. And that process happens because you get collaboration…or exchange that creates wealth.
So if I make sledgehammers and you raise cattle, I can trade you a sledgehammer or two for some beef and we both get wealthier. Rather than me having only sledgehammers and you having only beef, we get wealthier by the exchange.
Then you get the invention of currency, which means that I don’t have to exchange sledgehammers for beef; I can exchange sledgehammers for currency, and then I can spend it on what I want.
That makes us even wealthier because it allows indirect exchanges that produce wealth.
And that process is natural, right? Humans invented that all long before we had erudite descriptions of how these processes work.
The engaging in collaboration and exchange that creates wealth has made humanity vastly better off, and, it’s a big part of what we are as a species. But it has some flaws.
Creating wealth is not the only way to get rich. There are other ways, corruption, and especially rent-seeking. So in rent-seeking somebody might…pay somehow to punish those who might import sledgehammers into some radius. And so they now sell the inferior sledgehammers that they make at a premium because their competitors are artificially driven out, right?
They have not made us wealthier. They’ve in fact resulted in people having crappy sledgehammers and paying too much for them.
And so the point is that…capitalism creates the opportunity for a lot of cheating. And so there is a problem in capitalism, which is a lot of what Marx focuses on what happens in these systems.
And so there’s a lot of resentment built up because you have two sets of people on the downside of such a system. One set of people are people who are not ready to take advantage of the opportunities and are effectively lazy. And the other are people who have been betrayed by the system because they haven’t been equipped very well to generate to bring anything to the table.
And so this leads to what we have described as the team loser phenomena, where you have a system in which ostensibly what you’re supposed to do in order to make a living is you’re supposed to bring value to us collectively. You’re supposed to enhance our collective wealth, and then you get paid for it.
But a huge number of people discover because they’ve been badly equipped for this system…for various reasons…they are not going to be able to get ahead, that they’re going to be on the losing end of the bargain that is driving people competitively to make us all wealthier.
All right, if you get enough people who are in no position or not willing to enter the market and try to bring value, and then they have an incentive at the point that they reach critical mass to attempt to overthrow that system and redistribute the wealth that it creates. And so this is what I’m arguing that Marx discovered and described, but didn’t invent, right?
That thing that, hey, the people who don’t want to compete or can’t compete in a merit-based system take up arms against it and they redistribute it, which results in a system that can’t produce anything.
So…basically the pie shrinks radically as a result of these communist upheavals.”
Wow! You might want to reread that a time or two and let it digest. There’s so much richness packed into this quote. Bret considers his specialty to be synthesizing concepts; this quote is one outstanding example of his ability to do just that!
Ultimately, I still feel that the solutions to corruption in capitalism are (1) to place strategic barriers dissuading corporations and governments from gaming the system (cheating) and (2) for the members of the public to take personal responsibility for their education, personal growth, and wealth.
In theory, regulatory agencies place strategic barriers- to dissuade those who would cheat the system. But let’s get real, the most powerful members of regulatory agencies are often too busy profiting from their financial and professional connections to corrupt bodies to be motivated to dissuade the cheating that gives these same members money, power, and status.
I certainly feel motivated to steer us away from a future in which those who are unwilling and/or unable to participate in the market overthrow the system and redistribute wealth (communism).
It’s understood that the governed always consent to the establishment of communism. Once the governed have agreed to allow the government to have that level of control, it’s challenging to get that control back into the hands of the people.
Regardless of how corrupt you imagine the current systems in the United States or other countries in the “W.E.I.R.D” (Western. Educated. Industrialized. Rich. Democratic.) are, at least there is still a back-and-forth struggle between what is corrupt and what is an honest free market. If the republic surrenders to communism…well, spend some time listening to people like Yeonmi Park, who have defected from communist countries.
Perhaps U.S. Citizens are particularly prone to naivete regarding the threat and progression of communism, given the political and economic history of our country and its relatively young age.
Giving up on capitalism is a slippery slope, no matter how corrupted the system has become.
While overturning the current system, redistributing wealth, and- the illusion of- building from scratch might seem like an appealing option in the short term, especially if you fall into either the unwilling- or unable-to-work group (or both, to some extent), resorting to communism will only lessen the total amount of resources available over time.
Think about it…wealth is generated because people feel motivated to generate wealth.
How are people motivated to generate wealth?
This motivation occurs on several levels. Here are examples:
People are motivated to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families.
People desire to provide for their communities, which is more easily done when their personal food and shelter are secure.
People desire to expand, grow, and have new experiences, which are more easily accessible with additional wealth.
People are motivated to ensure the long-term availability of food and shelter for their families.
I’m sure you can add to this list.
Namely, people are motivated to generate wealth (for the market) because they (personally) become wealthier.
That being said, when living in a society in which the flow of wealth does not follow merit, those who possess (or could possess) skills that would most benefit the society- skills that would add the most to the market- are significantly less motivated to contribute, because, what do they get from it?
There’s even less total accumulated wealth available because the people who don’t want to contribute to the market can get by without contributing, and the strict top-down control of wealth relies on the subjective distribution by the very few individuals at the top of the structure.
So merit-based income becomes unreliable and shrinks in dividends compared to a capitalistic system. This creates a snowball effect which produces a smaller and smaller amount of total accumulated wealth in the system.
So, how about instead of lamenting the corrupt state of capitalism, use that discontent as motivation to take action?
Let’s continue educating ourselves and take informed action to place boundaries around corruption in our capitalistic society. There’s certainly room in the market to monetize such action.
Will it take effort and time? Yes.
Will there be trade-offs? Yes.
Will you choose laziness and ignorance over the future of our country, the W.E.I.R.D world, and (associated) values of freedom and self-sovereignty?
That’s up to you.
P.S. I chose the cover photo for this post to offer hope and inspiration for (1) affordable and accessible financial self-education and (2) the belief that there are very financially successful people who want to help us plebians grow financially. This cover photo is a picture of CPA Diane Kennedy’s Loopholes of the Rich: How the Rich Legally Make More Money and Pay Less Tax. There is, of course, so much other content to be consumed on improving personal finances. See → Dave Ramsey, Napolean Hill, Robert Kiyosaki, and more! Remember, your local library has lots of resources for free.