With its profits-over-people agenda, capitalism has unfortunately spawned a monster that’s now out of control.
The free enterprise concept inherent in the economic model of capitalism should mean common people, or lower and middle class wage-earners, have greater potential to rise up and gain financial independence. In reality, however, free enterprise all too often leads to an almost total lack of government regulation that in turn allows the global elite to run amuck in Gordon Gecko-style financial coups.
Even if capitalism is the best economic system in theory – which it probably is – the type of corporatocracy it leads to in the real world usually means the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. And although much good has come from capitalism – America’s phenomenal success in the 20th Century was arguably due to the free market economics its Founding Father’s encouraged – the system’s immense flaws have also become evident in recent years.
We expand on this in our book The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy – Here’s an excerpt:
It’s almost as if capitalism is a robot that was originally programmed with a single instruction: Make profits by all means necessary.
Initially the profits surged in, putting food on the table for untold families, building communities and lifting living standards in numerous countries. However, the robot could not be stopped or reprogrammed, and without governments being able or willing to set boundaries the same system that once gave to the people now began to take from them. It began to lower living standards by widening the gap between rich and poor and by destroying the same communities it once built.
Unregulated capitalism began to abuse working class citizens – the very people it was designed to assist; it allowed leaders of corporations to play God while employees became workhorses for their owners. Perhaps a better description would be worker bees sacrificing their own welfare for the benefit of the royal queen bees.
Unfortunately, the advanced civilization and technological utopia that capitalism helped create is also one where most humans are treated like dogs in a dog-eat-dog world.
None of this means we are socialists or communists. Nor are we anti-progress. And no, we are not about to suddenly reveal that this whole book has been a thinly veiled disguise for our political beliefs – although no doubt some shallow thinking book reviewers may assume this. For those who have read this book in its entirety, it should be abundantly clear we are staunchly apolitical and believe that no political system canever provide a total solution.
Most of the issues we’ve raised in this book are essentially social concerns rather than economic or political ones.
Also, as filmmakers and authors, we are fully aware that we have benefited, and continue to benefit, from a capitalistic system. There is surely much good in capitalism. For example, the American Dream – the same dream that people of most other nations desire – says anyone who has ambition and a good work ethic can succeed no matter their race, gender or social class. Living up to those ideals is likely possible only in a free, democratic and capitalistic society.
Therefore, we would support a revised form of capitalism, rather than doing away with it completely. This restructured economic system would hopefully be one with more heart and social awareness while still allowing for self-made entrepreneurs to rise up and be rewarded for their efforts. Rewarding achievers is crucial as history has proven that whenever socialism or communism is implemented there’s little incentive to succeed because success is not duly rewarded.
It’s obvious something has to change in our capitalistic society as there’s far too much unnecessary suffering on the planet right now.
We have faith our book will contribute in some small way to that change and help make a dent in that awful statistic that reminds us 21,000 fellow humans die of starvation every single day. (Two people just died in the time it took you to read that brief statement).
Read more in The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Conspiracies-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B00J4MPFT6/
A book that’s for the common people...the 99%.
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Morcan Books & Films 