We discussed capitalism last night.  The essay was a three page thought experiment with an optimistic conclusion.  The author speculated that capitalism would be “humanized” as a result of covid.  I am not convinced that will be the case.  Moreover the covid virus is not done with us Americans.

Approximately a third of us have made up our minds to respond to the virus with our political selves, displaying our anti-government inclination by refusing to wear a mask in public.  States have been recognized for some time as red or blue states.  Red states have a majority of citizens preferring an authoritarian, white-nationalist Federal government.  States have autonomy, wide latitude to set their own policies.  Corporate objectives and government policy intertwine.  The government does not interfere with business.  The passive income received by the wealthy is taxed at an ever lower rate.  By contrast, Blue states have a citizenry that prefers a government that regulates the habit of corporations to externalize the “cost of doing business” in the form of environmental degradation, a warming earth.  Blue states have voters who think that corporations, and the uber-weathy should pay taxes, a lot more than the token remittance, if any, now being paid.  Education and roads are overhead costs that must be paid for.  Philanthropy by the mega rich while undeniably noteworthy, does not come close to discharging the proportionate obligation for the common goods utilized by corporations, and enjoyed by the fabulously wealthy.  And Blue state citizens believe that every one matters, especially the unfortunate, and citizens of color.

This morning’s issue of the New York Times described a condition of impasse in these terms.

On many other issues, though, there is no sign that congressional Republicans are open to compromise with Biden. Their political strategy, as Senator Mitch McConnell famously described in 2010, is to make a Democratic president look partisan and try to win the next election.

To sum up the scene before us, apparently there is no middle ground, a place to stand for both parties to compromise on issues critical to operating our nation, crucial to our well being.  Some of the issues are: educating up-and-coming generations to cultivate and pass on culture, renovation of immigration policy sorely needed in the face of a degrading climate, reformation of policing so that citizens of color do not live in terror for their lives, and mitigation of attitudes and habits of life that exacerbate global warming…

Is there a way forward, through this impasse?  The honest answer would have to be one of silence.  We do not know what we are going to do.

I’ll say it again, say it once more — the covid virus is not through with us.  India is still burning with an unrestrained spread of the contagion, with unprecedented deaths.  As a global neighborhood, when will we have suffered enough?  When we have suffered enough — the axis of our outlook, our attitudes will change.

Is suffering the gateway to a union of point-of-view?  A humanizing pleasure is expensive, received always at the cost of suffering.  Capitalism offers but a cheap, illusory pleasure…  Can stones be transformed into bread?

“Humankind does not live by bread alone…”*

*Matthew 4:1-4   Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. ²And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. ³And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. ⁴But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.