Capitalism And Socialism

                                                                                     written 16 August, 2026

                                                                                 published 23 August, 2026

 

            Capitalism prioritizes the wealth of individuals, and socialism prioritizes the society of people: the two poles of the universal relationship between the self and the collective.  This is expressed in nature by the day/night and summer/winter dance between our individual sun and the universe of stars.  Living exclusively in daytime or nighttime is unsustainable.  Similarly, economies embracing either extreme capitalism or extreme socialism are doomed to collapse.  Reality requires a dynamic balance of both to endure.

            As our economy deteriorates and the progressive wing of the Democratic party becomes more popular, we are seeing a sharp rise in critique of the "socialist agenda" from the Republicans and status quo Democrats threatened by change.  For example, Kathleen Parker recently wrote in the Ukiah Daily Journal that socialism "just doesn't work", declaring that, "unlike socialism, capitalism embraces human nature".  

            While it is true that autocratic centralized economic control fails eventually, history shows unregulated capitalism fails as well.  Capitalism is mythologized as small businesses, entrepreneurships, competition, risk and reward, and a rising standard of living, which is accurate in the early stages.  But over time, economic consolidation becomes domination by monopolies, financialization, rent extraction, political capture, and wealth concentration, decaying into oligarchy and collapse.  America experienced this in the late 1920's, and we seem to be headed there again.  

            Capitalism rests on two mistaken assumptions: slavish devotion to the mythical "free market", and the acceptability of unrestrained human selfishness. 

            Adam Smith postulated the free market as the most equitable distribution of wealth, with several essential assumptions: equal access to financing and information, and inclusion of all costs within the price of an item, none of which are true in our actual economy.  Consequently, we have suicidal industries making exclusive short-term profits.

            Unrestrained selfishness is contrary to our spiritual heritage, and destructive to our nation.  Christ said "love one another", but in this supposedly Christian nation, we have a trillionaire declaring "empathy is the downfall of the western world", while most of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.  

            Our president is the most corrupt in American history, enriching himself while impoverishing the rest of the country.  He guts programs for people in need while funding tax relief for the wealthiest.  Climate change is burning up, or flooding out, our nation, but the president cries "hoax", funding energy systems making it worse, unable to admit he is wrong.  His ego driven war on Iran, supposedly a quick "excursion", has no apparent solution, while slowly destabilizing the entire world economy.  This is not sustainable.

            Recognizing the natural life cycle of capitalism, and desiring to prevent corrupt, oppressive oligarchy, societies can take actions to keep capitalism from digesting itself.  This takes the form of taxing capital, restricting money in political campaigns, regulating corporations, investing in essential public services, supporting robust unions, and strong anti-trust and anti-corruption laws.  Such regulated capitalism is what the rest of the world calls democratic socialism: a dynamic balance between capitalism and socialism.

            Months ago, Trenz Pruca posted this summary.  "Capitalism is like fire, brilliant, dangerous, and transformative, so societies have three choices: let it burn out unchecked (oligarchic collapse), extinguish it (authoritarianism), or manage it (democratic socialism).  The societies that flourish will be the ones that treat economics not as theology, but as gardening: tending the healthy growth, pruning the dangerous overgrowth, and remembering that unchecked systems, like unchecked fires, consume everything."

            Capitalist zealots have dominated the discussion in the U.S. for decades, defining any socialist tendency as evil incarnate.  But they are doomed to fail, because reality has an inclusive, socialist inclination.

            Consider a fruit tree.  Using free solar energy, water, and available nutrients, it produces tons of fruit over its lifetime, far beyond its own reproductive needs.  This bounty, freely given, nourishes untold numbers of other species and individuals.

            In our own body, tens of trillions of individual cells, all autonomous living individuals, thrive and function is relative harmony, as a classic socialist organization: to each according to its need and from each according to its abilities.  Some cells work all the time, others only in emergencies, yet are all provided for, freely given energy, nutrients, communication, waste disposal, and meaningful occupation.  When any part of this system fails, the whole organism is threatened.  Should human society be less inclusive than each citizen?

            In response to our growing institutional insanity, people are rising up, saying, STOP!  ENOUGH!  I believe this election will happen, despite the president's efforts.  Stay tuned, and vote!

 

Indigestible Waste

                                                                                       written 9 August, 2026

                                                                                 published 16 August, 2026

 

            Reality is whole, interconnected at the deepest levels, and life works in consort.  Every species ingests energy and material, and excretes "waste", but the "waste" of one species is "food" for another.  Except for industrial humanity.  We have forgotten our commonality of being, and produce "waste" that is toxic to life, indigestible, and widespread.  Three examples are radioactive nuclear debris, plastic, and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

            Industrial scale nuclear production began 80 years ago with two wartime facilities: Hanford, Washington, producing plutonium, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, producing enriched uranium.  They ended WWII, supported the Cold War nuclear arms race, and jump started commercial nuclear power reactors. 

            The production and use of nuclear fuel creates highly radioactive waste byproducts, toxic to life for a hundred thousand years.  No chemical or biological systems can break down this waste, only time.  The safe disposal of such waste requires careful handling, which is expensive and time consuming.  Forty years ago, production at both military sites ended, and decontamination cleanup began.  Almost $100B has already been spent, but completion is estimated to cost $1T more, and take another 60 years.  Mildly radioactive debris is buried in dedicated landfills, but highly radioactive material is buried at a military geologic facility in New Mexico.

            Spent fuel from commercial reactors, a much larger volume, also requires geologic disposal.  Globally, 427 reactors produce 8,500 tons of this toxic waste each year.  The U.S., with 92 operating reactors, began building a geologic depository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  After spending almost $100B, construction was shut down because the location was geologically unsuitable.  Only Finland, with 5 reactors, has an operating depository for such waste.  No other geologic site is currently in operation anywhere, so power plants store their waste on site, in specialized casks.

            The two most widely known nuclear accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima, also produced radioactive waste problems, still unresolved.  Chernobyl has a human exclusion zone, and a large barn covering the power plant wreckage, which is beginning to fail.  Fifteen years after the event, Fukushima hasn't yet uncovered the melted reactor core material, and they are running out of room to store the radioactive water being pumped out of the broken power reactors.  Cleanup is optimistically expected to cost $1T, and take a century.

            Ignoring all this, the U.S. is investing heavily in modern reactors, which will produce even more radioactive waste with no place to go.

            Plastic production began in the early 20th century, but increased dramatically in the 1950's.  Today, 500 million tons of plastic are produced annually.  Only 9 percent is ever recycled, 12 percent is incinerated, producing toxic air pollution, and most goes into landfills.  But one third is "mismanaged", tossed into the natural world, with 8 million tons entering the ocean each year.  

            Plastic is biologically inert and doesn't rot, so it persists long beyond its usefulness.  Plastic can take 1,000 years to degrade, not transformed, but broken down into smaller and smaller pieces over time, becoming microplastic.  Microplastic is found in every ecosystem, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain peaks.  Total oceanic microplastic weighs almost 100 million tons, and will soon outweigh all the fish.  100 million marine animals are killed by plastic annually.  

            Microplastic is found in every part of the human body.  Each week, we ingest 5 grams of plastic, the weight of a credit card, from air, food, and water.  Stanford Medicine Newsletter reports, "animal and cellular studies have linked microplastics to biological changes including inflammation, an impaired immune system, deteriorated tissues, altered metabolic function, abnormal organ development, cell damage and more." 

            Yet it is still "profitable" to create new plastic.   

            Unlike radioactive waste or ingested plastic, atmospheric carbon dioxide doesn't kill directly, but is increasingly heating the planet, disrupting every part of the environment, shifting us away from a climate where humans have thrived.  We add 35 billion tons every year, over 1,800 billion tons since the industrial revolution began, most of which will endure for over 1,000 years.

            Our economy is distorted, artificially excluding fundamental costs, which makes suicidal economic decisions look "profitable".  In a unity reality, all expenses are included.  Pretending they are not is bringing down our entire civilization.  Short term thinking, and the illusion of separation, are obsolete perspectives.  We know better.  The information has been broadcast for decades.  But flawed economics still dominate.  We have demonstrated we are smart enough to manipulate the material world.  The question is: do we have the wisdom to endure?

 

 

 

Houston, We Have A Problem

                                                                                       written 2 August, 2026

                                                                                   published 9 August, 2026

 

            In 2020, the president's niece, Dr. Mary Trump, a psychologist, wrote a biography of her uncle tilted "Too Much, And Never Enough", portraying him as a malignant narcissist.  On April 13th, 2026, more than 200 mental health professionals sent a letter to Congress warning that the president is dangerous because “his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder – malignant narcissism”, make him “grossly unfit for leadership”.

            A malignant narcissist may display the following traits.  They use, abuse, and discard people.  They are obsessed with power.  Everything is personal for them.  They hold grudges and take revenge.  They take pleasure from the suffering of others.  Nothing is ever their fault.  They are ruthless in their pursuit of what they want.  They don't have a conscience.  They have many enemies.  No one will see their insecurities.

            Research psychologist Dr. Lucas Bean describes narcissism as an unstable psychological condition, so disconnected from reality it inevitably collapses, in four distinct phases. 

            The first phase is refusal to accept reality.  "They double down, escalate things, lie even bigger, threaten people, demand more.  When the mask begins to crack, escalation is not a strategy, but a survival mechanism.  A narcissist will burn everything down before they admit they lost."

            The second phase is uncontrollable rage.  "Rage is never about the target, but the underlying shame.  Being unable to accept being a fraud, he turns that outward into destruction.  The rage gets louder because the walls are closing in."

            The third phase is implosion.  "This is where people closest to him start to see what is happening.  They have to admit they enabled a fraud, a loser, or double down and pretend nothing is happening.  The more invested in a lie, the harder it is to walk away.  Once everyone around a collapsing narcissist is trapped with him, there is no one around to stop him."

            The fourth phase is the point of no return.  "At this point there is nothing left to lose, and nothing he will not do.  Capacity for destruction becomes limitless.  A collapsing narcissist with dementia only reacts without filters.  A nuclear war feels like a better option than backing down and looking weak."

            Hitler was a malignant narcissist.  As WWII ended, and his defeat was apparent, he ordered the total destruction of remaining German infrastructure, to inflict on his country the devastation he felt within.  Fortunately, his generals had more allegiance to Germany than to Hitler, and refused to carry out those insane orders.  

            The whole world can see our president in the above descriptions.  Everything from the reflecting pool, to his stalled Iran war, increasingly thwarts his whims.  As reality closes in, he is becoming more unstable, flooded with shame, humiliation, rage, and panic simultaneously.  Although the president has surrounded himself with mindless loyalists, perhaps the growing awareness of his destructive collapse will embolden people in the government to save our country.  Forewarned is forearmed.  All we need is a miracle.

            I define a miracle as the operation of a system not currently within my awareness.  As an individual, I have a limited view of the world, therefore, countless systems outside my view are already in operation.  I find this comforting.   

            We can consider our president as a cautionary tale about the limitations of the individual ego.  The deeper reality is we are all in this together.  No individual can exist without the contributions from the living systems of life on Earth.  Our national obsession with money and the accumulation of things has caused us to forget this essential interconnection.  The planetary life systems have become shakier, as our species takes without regard for sustaining the welfare of all people, let alone the whole planet. 

            The political upheaval now making news is because people feel left out, and they are angry enough to do something about it.  The status quo tries to deflect attention, blaming anyone but themselves.  But as prices, climate changes, and material scarcities get worse, the distractions aren't working as well.

            This is beyond politics, but is instead about general survival.  While we are each a unique individual, we all arise from the fundamental common ground of spirit, materiality, and species.  All the spiritual traditions know this, as expressed by the universality of the Golden Rule.  Many know an evolution of consciousness is now taking place here on Earth.  We are here, now, to participate, experience, and manifest that awakening.  That is a miracle that might save us all.

 

Canada

                                                                                          written 26 July, 2026

                                                                                   published 2 August, 2026

 

            While the MAGA cult is fond of accusing critics of "Trump Derangement Syndrome", the entire world now sees true derangement in action: the president wants to punish Canada for "exporting" toxic wildfire smoke, claiming Canada hasn't managed their forests well.

            Canada currently has over 2,000 active fires, of which more than 700 are listed as large and critical, mostly in the wilderness of their northern provinces, far from human habitation.  Heavy smoke has been blowing out of Canada into the upper Midwest and Northeast of the U.S., at levels hazardous to health.  The smoke blows downwind, driven by global patterns that sane people know nobody controls.  

            The flammability of the forest has been increased by extensive heat waves, prolonged droughts, and increased tree death due to insect infestations, which are blown down by stronger storms, then ignited by lightning strikes.  These factors are amplified by the growing climate crisis.  But the president is not concerned with facts, only with blame, because he never takes responsibility.

            In the last 250 years, human industrial combustion has increased long lasting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by one half, added almost 2 trillion tons.  This has modified atmospheric chemistry, acting as insulation, warming the planet, changing the climactic impact on the surface where we all live.  Of the total added, the U.S. economy contributed 25 percent, while the Canadian economy contributed only 2 percent.  If anyone is responsible, it is not primarily the Canadians.

            But the president says the climate crisis is a hoax.  He lies to dodge any responsibility for what is unfolding.  In Congress, his Republican faithful are rushing to create legislation punishing Canada, while at the same time preparing to grant climate immunity to the oil companies, who knowingly created the problem while profiting immensely.  Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of these actions, another important consequence is the continued destruction of the long-standing relationship between our two countries.

            Upon entering office this term, the president imposed a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports.  While most of those tariffs were soon declared unconstitutional and repealed, but the relationship was damaged.  Canadian Prime Minister Carney said "Trump is trying to break us so America can own us.  That will never ever happen."

            Canada reacted swiftly, with reduced consumption of imported American goods, and reduced sales of Canadian goods to the U.S., which dropped 7 percent, the lowest since 1980's, and expanded exports to the rest of the world by 17 percent, an all-time high.  Individual Canadians responded as well.  From being the top foreign visitors in 36 states, spending $20 billion annually, tourism from Canada fell an average of 42 percent, and as much as 65 percent in some locations.  

            At the January, 2026 World Economic Forum, Prime Minister Carney called what America had done to the global order a "rupture, not a transition, not a realignment, but a rupture.  The rules-based international order that America built and led for 80 years is under threat, crumbling, no longer fit for the purpose".  The room stood and applauded. 

            More American goods are purchased by Canada than China, Japan and Germany combined, making it the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.  $3.6 billion in Canadian goods and services cross our border every day, including 85 percent of U.S. electricity imports, the energy equivalent of ten Hoover Dams, and 60 percent of U.S. crude oil imports.  Canada is our largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum, and uranium, which fuels 20 percent of U.S. nuclear plants.  Canada supplies 34 critical minerals and metals the Pentagon has identified as essential to national security.  Every one of these imports is something Washington cannot replace quickly, or at all in some cases.

            Prime Minister Carney said, "That’s not a trade relationship.  That’s a lifeline.  And America has been treating it like a bargaining chip."

            Our country does not exist alone, but is part of a massively interconnected economy and environment.  The president acts in total denial of that fact, adrift from reality, driven by personal aggrandizement and greed, risking our national economic and strategic alliance with our nearest neighbor, and the fate of the entire global economy.  His war of choice on Iran has returned to a destructive phase, expanding now into the Red Sea, and the price of oil has jumped 30 percent since fighting renewed.  With no solution in sight, he is flailing, his inadequacy obvious to the whole world.  

            Will any Republicans find the spine to say "enough", before he goes nuclear?