The Matrix is a system Neo, and that system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around. What do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save but until we do these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand; most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so in urge, so hopelessly dependant on the system that the will fight to protect it. - Morpheus to Neo (The Matrix 1999)

There are 168 hours in a week. Assuming that on average you get 7 hours of sleep a night (less than medically recommended), that leaves you with 119 waking hours per week. For those of us who work full-time I will subtract another 40 leaving us with 79 waking hours. At this point, some of you are thinking - "79 hours of free time, that's great" - but let's take a closer look at those 79 hours. At least 5 times a week you have to commute at least an hour (most people) to and from work (69hrs left). Most people have to eat, bathe, and get dressed so let's subtract another 14 (55hrs left). Of these 55 hours, 25 are Monday to Friday between 6-11pm, which means that during the week it's difficult to handle any business (pay bills, run errands, go to the doctor, etc), and you are relegated to watching the tellalievision during most of that time. The other 30 hours are on the weekend, which basically boils down to all of Saturday, and Sunday afternoon, so in essence you have Saturday, Friday Night, and Sunday evening as "free time" (because Sunday morning may be reserved for church and Sunday evening is limited by Monday morning's return to work). Keep in mind that this is an extremely broad estimate and doesn't factor in time for various household duties like cooking and cleaning, and of course the most time consuming job of all .- CHILDREN! If you have a child or children then all bets are off! Subtract 15 hours for the 1st child and 10 hours for each additional child (some hours may overlap), which may be far less than they need. The more I witness this sick and bizarre erosion of "quality of life", the more I wonder why people allow this cruel game to continue. The answers that keep recurring are Debt and the myths of Capitalism.

For the most part the World's economy, of which the U.S. plays a disproportionately important role, is based on debt. Either you owe somebody (bad) or somebody owes you (better), but as the collapse of major corporations such as, Enron and Global Crossing (Worldcom may be next), and the "ongoing investigations" on Wall Street have shown us, a lot of international finance is "smoke and mirrors".

In most societies in the distant and recent past, "money" was measured by things who's value was almost self-evident, like land and farm animals, as well as things who's value was almost completely a figment of our collective imagination, like gold, silver, and gemstones. Today many of the aforementioned items still have value, but the most important trading currency in the world, the U.S. dollar isn't backed by anything tangible [Also click the following link for more info. BUT I warn you, I wouldn't suggest reading much else at this link]. Every dollar bill used to be backed by gold or silver, but now the U.S. dollar is an I.O.U., a Federal promissory note, "faith" in the form of green paper - "guaranteed" to be paid by the taxpayers of this country. As long as the rest of the world has confidence in the U.S. dollar we can continue to smile and hold hands, but the minute that confidence waivers it all comes crashing down like a house of cards. But that is another story for another day, let's get back to why you're broke.

From childhood we are taught what life we are supposed to expect and desire. According to the script we are told to go to school, make good grades, and hopefully get into a good college (4 years, 15-30,000 per year). If we want to make "good money" we have to go to graduate school, medical school, law school, etc (2-4 years, 25-35,000 per year). Now everybody's loan and financial aid situation is different, but it's very easy to graduate owing the cost of a house. After graduation (maybe before) we'll probably want or need a car, and you know how we like to front and floss, so we can't have any ol' ride - we want a luxury car with 20 inch rims and a plush interior. You know the rationale - "Shhhyyyyt all that hard work I deserve to have something nice!" Then after a couple of years of socializing and fornicating we're supposed to find somebody to marry, buy a big house ($100,000 or more of debt) which we have to furnish (more credit card debt), have 2.5 children (wonderful to have kids but they cost), and work until near death to pay off these Debts. And once we have that big house and can't figure out where our money goes, our banker tells us to get an even larger house (even more debt) to get the "bigger tax break". Thanks Mr. Banker, but no thanks!

In addition to debt bondage there is another potent impetus keeping people in line - their minds via conditioning. We are taught very early in our lives to believe in a number of myths about Capitalism, the most popular being that (I) you too can become rich, (II) rich people are that way because they work hard, and (III) a good education will make you rich.

The first of these myths is not completely false, because it is possible that "you too can become rich" - it's just highly unlikely. This myth really got it's strongest support in America, during the late part of the 19th and early 20th century, when land (and whatever was under it - gold, oil, etc) was being stolen literally and figuratively, and could turn paupers to tycoons overnight. In those days things considered technological advancement and inventions were simple and could be produced (prototyped) and "discovered" simply. As technological "advancement" has become more complex the possibility of discovering the next breakthrough in your garage, in most fields, is slim to none. I've tried it and you simply can't make 100 Gigahertz computer chips or sequence genetic code at home. This technological invention ceiling, is compounded by consolidation in most industries from media to banking to oil, squashing any possibility of a new upstart displacing the major players. In essence the rich get richer, and then they stay that way. It should then come as no surprise that according to the 2000-2001 State of Working America report (by The Economic Policy Institute) the United States has more of its population living in poverty (20.7%) than does any other "advanced" economy, and out of all the other countries studied (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc), the poor in the U.S. were the least likely to leave poverty and the most likely to return to poverty upon escaping it. And for our final slap in the face, in the U.S. a family of 4 with an annual, pre-tax income around 18,000 is considered above the poverty line! For most of us our dreams of being rich extend about as long as it takes the newsperson to finish reading the numbers off those Lotto Balls.

The next myth is that rich people are that way because they "work hard". In fact, poor people are by far the hardest working people in any society. The whole idea behind becoming rich is that you don't really have to work at all. The goal of those at the top of the economic food chain is to be paid regardless of whether they work or not, a.k.a., "making your money work for you". Many of the wealthy (non-entertainers) are that way because they privately own (or at least a substantial part) of the "means of production" (the company, the factory, stocks, etc). The accumulation of wealth by the rich is more a function of the design of the legal system (property laws) than a representation of hard work. In addition, U.S. workers receive the least legally mandated vacation days among "industrialized nations". While much of Western Europe receives around a month of mandated vacation time in the U.S. it is approximately 15 days. So it's clear, there are a lot people working long and hard in America, but not many of them are getting rich doing it.

According to Executive Excess 2000, a report on CEO compensation produced by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy the average American CEOs made 475 times the salary of the average American worker. Even in other Capitalist nations like Great Britain, Germany, and Japan the average worker to CEO ratios were only 24:1, 13:1, and 11:1 respectively. The pay ratio is even more obscene if you take into account workers at the lowest point on the scale, who actually do much of the physical labor. Take for example Disney's Michael Eisner, in 1998 Eisner made $575 million in total compensation, meanwhile According to the Asia Monitor Resource Center, subcontracted workers in the Keyhinge factory in Vietnam were earning six to eight cents an hour (approximately $250 a year) to make products for Disney, far below the subsistence wage estimated of 32 cents an hour. For arguments sake, let's say there is a direct relationship between work and pay. If I work 45 hours a week for 45,000 a year ($1000 per weekly hour), then even if you increased Eisner's ratio to 100,000 per weekly hour, he would have to work 5,750 hours per week to "earn" his compensation (That's kind of hard to do considering there are only 168 hours in a week). Eisner is one of the most disgusting examples of worker/executive pay inequality but this is normal business practice under Capitalism.

The third myth is that education explains away economic inequalities in American society. While it is true that on average people with advanced educational degrees make more money than those with only a college degree, and those with college degrees make more than those without - an advanced degree does not assure you will be rich or even well off. The faulty organization of Capitalist society is such that only certain occupations, in particular fields are financially rewarding. Most times the high paying areas are those that serve as a support mechanism for the wealthy ruling elite, and either have no beneficial effect or a negative effect on the well being of the average person. For example corporate lawyers and high-level business executives are usually paid on the higher end of the spectrum. Very often their jobs duties in entail things that cause massive distress for the majority of working people, such as mergers and acquisitions (followed by layoffs), cost cutting measures (mass layoffs, benefit reduction, moving factories overseas), and fighting regulatory legislation. Meanwhile the people who we entrust to "educate" our children; maintain social safety nets, services, and the environment are compensated far more moderately or forced to the margins of the "not for profit" sector.

Even if someone had 10 advanced educational degrees, once they get past the 2nd or 3rd, they likely wouldn't experience an increase in pay because of them. Many of the wealthiest men in this country make fortunes not due to some secret "book learning" they acquired in graduate school but merely by their position in the company, and in the case of America's wealthiest man, without a college degree at all! Even if we all were educated such that everyone had a college degree, the absurd economic inequality that exist in American society (and many other places) would still exist, the only difference is that people would be far less willing to stand for it.

It's also important to remember that at the higher levels of American business there is little correlation between pay and performance. Executives often hire consultants to decide how much they should be paid and even when the executives perform poorly they exit with "Golden Parachutes" worth millions of dollars, made of bonuses, stock options, and other perks.

Now don't get it twisted, I AM NOT trying to persuade anyone not to pursue a college or post-graduate educational degree, (you'll probably be better off with one for a variety of reasons in addition to money) but people need to have a better understanding of the systems' design if they are going to change it. The world of long careers, job security, good benefits, that the educational system prepares people to live in, is quickly being destroyed by the capitalist system itself. Many people hope for an end to many of the world's injustices. However for the injustices based on economics they often refuse to look at the true culprit or don't understand the most fundamental aspect of Capitalism. And that fundamental aspect is: (write it down if you have to) Capitalism needs and creates massive inequality as a matter of it "functioning". The less restricted and less regulated it is, the more outrageous and unbearable the outcomes. Executives and wealthy investors cannot make obscene amounts of money unless at several stages people (the workers who produce the goods) are not being compensated properly or have been taken out of the equation completely (automation). Capitalism is also based on the irrational and impossible concept that profits can be increased "forever".

The educational system is designed to produce obedient workers and an adequate number of "educational failures" so that there will be enough able bodies to fill the mind-numbing, demeaning, low-wage jobs, this society relies on, since America's patriotic business community and lawmakers have shipped much of the manufacturing sector (i.e. factory jobs with benefits) to countries where labor is cheap, desperate, and abundant. Anyone who doesn't, or isn't willing, to fit into this cheap labor equation will likely have prison in their future (where they may become cheap labor anyway). In the drive of the ruling class to forever increase profits, worker wages and benefits are cut back, the workforce is downsized, the work day is extended, and in general the "screws are tightened" for the vast majority of the population. At the same time the government is quietly cutting back social spending and countless programs that affect the growing ranks of lower and middle income people under the guise of government "reform". Foolishly and arrogantly, some of us applaud these social rollbacks; as if social welfare programs have ever been detrimental to society or the economy, but ask yourself, how long you could survive without the support of family and friends if you found yourself suddenly unemployed? .

Despite the media "happytalk" that the economy is going to turn around tomorrow, ask yourself this, "when the economy was supposed to be booming - whom did it boom for?" Capitalism is a system that regards everything in life from cars to genes to water to the environment - in terms of it's ability to produce profit and predictably it is headed for crisis because only in theoretical math do numbers go on forever. In fact, we are currently finding that among many of the flagship companies of American capitalism, "profits" are topping or have already topped off. Profits and the financial health of many companies have been inflated/improved in many cases through a combination of fraud and accounting tricks. I've seen more than enough of what this system produces and it appears to me that it is time for humanity to move in another direction, in fact if most of us intend to be around, I don't think we have a choice.

So there you have it, I'm Hatin' on Capitalism! I guess this makes me a "leftist" (or according to the Department of "Homeland Security" - a "Terrorist"), or an environmentalist, "tree hugger", or a Socialist, or a Communist, or whatever name they give to people who don't believe that, perpetual War for resources, massive social inequality, environmental degradation, and over-consumption of resources, a.k.a. Capitalism is the only way to organize a society. Since I truly understand the psychology behind the labels and in some cases their true meaning, I welcome many of them. But if rejecting the injustice of this economic system gets me labeled as all of the above, the question must then be asked - what does that make my opposition?

Released: June 2002

Suggested Websites:

www.rprogress.org - Redefining Progress

www.wsws.org - World Socialist Website

www.ufenet.org - United for a Fair Economy

www.epinet.org - Economic Policy Institute

www.inequality.org

www.aflcio.org/paywatch/index.htm - Paywatch

www.acorn.org - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

http://stats.bls.gov - Department of Labor Statistics

www.ifg.org - International Forum on Globalization

www.ips-dc.org - Institute for Policy Studies

Suggested Reading:

THE State of Working America 2000 / 2001 by Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt

Executive Excess 2001 by Institute of Policy Studies

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.