what can we afford?

altruism and mercantile capitalism are in opposition to and in in conflict with on another...i have known this for some time...even at its best capitalism is extractive and consequentialist......there is never enough in terms of acquisition or wealth...the assessment of "worth" in its ethos boils down to what you have in terms of wealth and power...the acquisition of that wealth and power are the ethical good...the means of their acquisition are secondary...what economists ( those academic justifiers of greed ) would term an "external"...i have known this intellectually for decades...the process is plain to see...historically it was evident in the "gilded age" of "robber barons" in the late 19th century ( carnegie was a "good" baron...he only extracted wealth from the public and salved his conscience with philanthropy[even if that too was mostly aimed at wealth...how many workers went to carnegie hall to an event?] while his hatchet man henery frick did the dirty work..jay gould was a "robber baron" because he extracted wealth from stockholders through market manipulations...that distinction carries through to this era...trump is president...bernie madoff is in the slammer ) and has again been more evident in public policy and political behavior since the reagan administration...all of which is a logical extension of the hamiltonian system of government for and by special interests instituted in 1789...which has evolved into a system where even full-time employment ( when it can be found ) does not pay enough to meet even basic necessities..i was aware of this downward spiral simply be observing new hires at the now defunct corporation i worked for..the starting wage was above the minimum wage of the state of indiana ( the mississippi of the mid-west ) but it was nothing near what could be termed a "living wage"...debt penury seems to be the state the reagan-clinton-bush-obama-trumpist cadre want the public at large to live in...debt creates new money and ( ask them ) there can never be enough of that...searching for health care insurance under the grossly misnamed "affordable health care act" has coalesced these thoughts into a sharper focus...without delving deeply into the details lets just say it was far cheaper to cobra my present union-based insurance...i have long thought that the terms "capitalist" and "entrepreneur" were synonyms for "grifter" and "charlatan"...people trying to sell me things i don't need by creating a desire through fear...those i can resist...the legislative imperative for health insurance backed by a coercive government tax agency i cannot...legislatively enforced extraction...no wonder people are angry...greed has been in control of the legislative process since at least 1789...this is an intensification and, with the judiciary joining in, the rights of workers are under direct threat while their obligations under the system increase as the late empire falters...what next? debtor's prison? ( as an aside, in 2001 [ the latest year i could find figures for on short notice ] prison labor in the united states produced $583.5 million in goods, $388 million of which were purchased by the department of defense...all produced on an hourly wage scale of between $0.23 to $1.15...technically not slavery...not publicized much either )...this is not likely to improve as climate and political ( they are linked despite the deniers...for a start let me suggest "environment, scarcity, and violence" by thomas homer-dixon...a rational voice...which is why he is obscure ) conditions deteriorate...dust off ozzie spengler for some bed time reading.