More Capitalist Propaganda Revealed

I used to believe in the American Dream. Capitalism did a good job of selling it to us. I thought that if we worked hard and followed the rules, we could have a comfortable life with a good job, a house, land, and family. Good old-fashioned hard work was all that was needed to make the dream come true.

That’s what the capitalist system peddles — but it’s a lie. The playing field isn’t even. We’re not all given the same advantages. The American Dream has become an American Illusion, accessible only to the 1% of Americans. The rest of us are busting our asses trying to survive. With home costs and grocery prices soaring, so many of us are one emergency away from poverty and homelessness.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last few years. I’ve been struggling financially, and I’ve spent a lot of time hustling to make ends meet. I thought that I would be comfortable at this point in my life, but I didn’t count on AI stealing a huge portion of my income or on groceries and property taxes skyrocketing. I didn’t anticipate one medical and auto emergency after another draining what savings I had.

As I’ve struggled, I’ve evaluated my spending. The more I looked, the more I found wrong with the system of capitalism in my country. The American Dream is hardly the only propaganda I’ve debunked this year.

Capitalist Propaganda Revealed

Capitalism lies a lot. Of course, it does. It’s trying to sell us something.

Here are a few of the lies that have come out of the capitalist propaganda machine:

Time Management

Time management is one of the biggest scams out there. We’re told that we need to learn to manage our time to balance life, work, and family responsibilities. We’re told that if we’ve got this skill, we should have no problem doing it all.

I’m calling bullshit on this one. Time management is a skill set that employers talk about to distract from the fact that the workplace is deeply problematic. A 40-hour work week made sense when there was someone home during that time to take care of household responsibilities. These days, most cohabitating people are both working full-time to survive. A 40-hour work week no longer works for most families.

Additionally, workers are often expected to come in while sick, work outside of office hours, and generally be available at all times. The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to manage our time. The problem is that there’s not enough of it, and wages are far too low for most of us to cut back our hours to find the necessary balance. Talking about time management is a distraction from the fact that we need higher wages, shorter hours, and reasonable expectations in the workplace.

The Free Market

America is supposed to be a free market, but I’m looking at several monopolies and know this to be a lie. A free market would allow us choices and the ability to price compare. But I live in an area where there is only one power company for my area. Even though I own a small house, I pay an exorbitant amount for electricity even with conservative use and energy-friendly appliances. The power company has a monopoly in the area, so they can charge what they want, and there is no recourse for inflated pricing.

Amazon is another example of how the free market has given way to monopolies. It’s cornered the market on online sales, and most businesses simply can’t compete with the free shipping offers and fast delivery. Amazon gives the illusion of affordability, but it does so off the backs of its workers, who aren’t paid well or afforded a work/life balance.

Trickle-Down Economics

Trickle-down economics is one of the weirdest lies of capitalism. Is anyone actually dumb enough to believe that tax cuts for the ultra-rich will ever make their way down to the rest of us? It seems insane that anyone has ever bought into this idea.

In truth, the wealthy can afford to pay their fair share of taxes to relieve the tax burden from families that struggle. It’s not difficult to see that this would be a better system than relying on wealthy people to redistribute that wealth out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s the only rational way to impose taxes, and yet, many wealthy individuals and corporations manage to pay no taxes while families struggle to pay theirs.

Investment Properties

In truth, I’ve never been able to own an investment property. I also believe that they are deeply unethical. It’s more than just buying up properties to turn into overpriced AirBnb locations. The problem is that investors can afford to snatch up affordably priced homes before the average buyer can do so and then list them for rent at a much higher price. This keeps the cost of living high, and it makes affordable housing even more challenging for families and individuals just trying to survive.

Once upon a time, I did rent from a couple who owned an apartment complex. They kept their rental prices low and rented to teachers, single parents, and people on fixed incomes. They could have inflated their pricing — but they didn’t. The market rate was easily double what they were charging, but they kept things reasonable and still maintained the property. But they sold when real estate prices went sky high, and the new owner immediately saw the potential for making a higher profit by immediately increasing the rent. He even confided — while I was moving out — that he had plans to gradually double it.

This is how people look at investment properties. They see the potential for profit. They don’t care about the people. It’s a capitalist scam that benefits those who are already receiving many benefits by virtue of their socioeconomic status. Done ethically, it’s not problematic, but many renters find that there are no ethics in renting, only an eye to profit.

Fast Fashion

Fast fashion is big in the propaganda machine. My own closet is evidence of its ridiculousness. It’s positively stuffed with clothes, and yet, I will see ads for something new and think I need it. I’ve had to deprogram this fast fashion impulse over the last few years.

Fast fashion is terrible for the environment. The materials used aren’t sustainable, and the entire industry is built around pushing trends and having consumers keep buying more clothes. The clothes they sell don’t last as long because of the poor quality, and they eventually end up in a landfill where they add to the problem of climate change.

Fast fashion is a scam I’m just not buying anymore. If I need something, I shop used markets first. I reduce how much I buy because I’ve realized I need so much less than I once thought I did. I’m not tricked by changing trends. I don’t need to be fashion forward if living that life means harming the environment.

The Myth of More

Certainly related to the fast fashion propaganda is the myth of more. We can see this easily with reusable water bottles. The point of them is to reduce the need for extra bottles. Yet, how many of us own more than one reusable bottle? A new trend drops, and people are adding water bottles to a collection that was only meant to be a single water bottle to replace all the plastic ones.

We’re told we need more. Everything is treated as time-limited and replaceable. If a car gets old, it must be time for a new one even if the old one is still running. If it’s a new season, we must need a whole new wardrobe. If something breaks, it’s easier to throw it out and replace it than to repair it and make it work.

Advertisers depend upon us living from a place of lack. They want us to feel like we need these purchases to be happy and fulfilled. There is no “enough.” It’s never enough.

Rejecting Capitalist Culture and Other Ways to Live

Capitalism, as a system, is inherently flawed. It’s too tied into colonialism and the patriarchy to ever be pure and good. But it’s been helping me to unravel one piece of propaganda after another. I want to live in alignment with my values and not just fall in line with cultural conditioning.

To that end, I’ve started growing more of my family’s food. I’ve stopped using pesticides. I’ve rejected fast fashion and started buying used things more often than new. I’m open to bartering in my area, and when advertising starts to get to me, I take a long pause before even considering making a purchase. The sense of urgency fades when I do that.

I’m trying to be a good citizen of my community and a good citizen of Earth as well. I’m tired of buying into a capitalist culture that sees us all as cogs in their big machine rather than living, breathing, feeling human beings. I don’t want to waste my one wild and precious life toiling for the wealthy while hoping some of that ease trickles down to me. I want to call it as I see it, and I want to live with intention rather than reflex.

I’m curating a different kind of life, and I’m helping my children see the beauty in it. I tell my children that Amazon might have a lot of cool things, but they also have shit politics, abusive labor practices, and a reputation for cheating businesses. They also stopped the charity programs that donated a portion of all sales to a charity of our choice. That’s interesting considering the program was canceled at the height of their profit.

I take my kids with me thrift shopping and show them that “used” isn’t a bad thing. When new purchases need to be made, I look at more than just the labels. I want to know how things are made and where. I want to know the politics behind it. It might take longer to make a purchase, but I’m choosing to be an informed consumer rather than a puppet of capitalist culture.

I am not extraordinary. I am a middle-aged mom who chose a creative career without any idea that AI would come along and firebomb it. I am a person of limited means who recognizes that privilege is real, and opportunities aren’t evenly distributed. I am an ordinary person trying to live a more ethical life because I know that my choices, however small they might seem, matter.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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Photo credit: Merri J on Unsplash