opinion

Opinion: Failed capitalism only benefits rich

So I have to ask what is the circumstance that leads to a man selling "Illegal" cigarettes being choked to death? Where is the initial seed that led to this? The seed that led to this has a name, it is capitalism and it does not work!

If a man enterprising enough to make a few bucks selling smokes could find a job that paid a livable wage do you think he might take it? But he can't find a job that pays anything close to what he needs for him and his family, so instead he is enterprising.

Wait a minute, isn't enterprising what capitalism is supposed to be about? Isn't initiative and a free market all that capitalism is supposed to represent? If these things were true then Eric Garner would have been rewarded for his initiative and entrepreneurial spirit! Instead he was killed.

Initiative is only initiative if you are rich, or the child of wealth. Enterprising is only enterprising if you fit the criteria established by the system to be enterprising.

Be black, sell pot, go to jail! Be white, legalize selling pot, get stinking rich.

But it is really not about color or race. It is about power. As long as the rich can divide us by any category, they will have the power.

So what do we do? Come to know one another for the great people we are. Communicate, educate and reach out to one another. Agitate for more activity. Atoms in action produce molecules and then produce everything.

Be in action, act up. Speak out and speak up.

Only when they have tranquilized us into somnambulance can we lose! So we must stay active and alert.

Turn off your television, take off your headphones and get involved in humanity. Come to know one another for everything that we are, warts and all.

And just to sum up, we are one race, the human race. And the only divide between us is the greedy, unfeeling and un-empathetic (in other words the rich who have the power now), and the rest of humanity — which I must say is us.

You and I, the workers and producers who receive so little of what we produce.

Jim Fouts lives in Fairfax.