“Welcome to Hell” read the placards.

This was the greeting at the recent Group of 20 summit, where leaders representing two-thirds of the world’s population, half of the world’s land mass, three-quarters of the world’s commerce and 85 percent of the gross world product, converged on Hamburg, Germany.

There were met with smoke bombs, firecrackers, trash fires, bottles, blaring music and the pent-up anger of thousands of protesters — the whole spectacle overseen by riot police, armored water cannons and circling helicopters, not to mention a cadre of lawyers patrolling the streets to assist marchers with their legal rights should they be detained.

Ostensibly, the “Welcome to Hell March” was occasion to air a host of disparate grievances — the climate crisis, the arms trade, terrorism, intolerance, mass migration, world peace, freedom for refugees and the rot of government in general and Germany in particular.

But it soon became apparent that the majority of invective was reserved for the greatest of all evils: capitalism.

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As one student protester summed it up, “I came here because ... I’m totally against the G20 summit. ... It’s the root cause or reason for what’s going wrong in the world. Wars can be bad but capitalism kills.”

Pithy — war bad, wealth and free markets death. No explanation needed.

Yet, should it come as any surprise the G-20 activists protested in such axiomatic terms? After all, Europeans are state worshippers. Long accustomed to kings, queens, holy dictators, emperors, shahs and czars, their nature is to embrace government, to welcome authority, to suppress individualism and to champion doctrines that advocate morally ambiguous notions such as “the public good,” “the common good” and “the greatest good for the greatest number” — all achieved through some kind of collectivism.

At its core, Europe’s is a tribal mentality allowing for the sacrifice of the individual for the “good” and the benefit of some majority.

Today in America, college students and professors, liberal sympathizers and professional leftist agitators have joined their European brethren and hopped the “capitalism kills” bandwagon, demanding a host of undefined “changes” (observe Black Lives Matter) that are loud on the rhetoric of “revolution,” “accusation” and “condemnation” but quiet on the specifics of any philosophy or political system to replace the “rot.”

Scratch their surface and you find self-anointed anarchists, radicals and rebels with one ideology — change — never mind what change that might be.

What does unite the “changers” is their complete lack of understanding of capitalism — with no comprehension of its tenets, its history, its moral foundation or of the unique relationship of individual rights to government. All they know is that capitalism must be destroyed, and it is of little consequence whether they know what it is they are bent on destroying.

Case in point, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, the homespun pundit-griot from Flint, Mich., whose mission has always been to demand others submit to the social crusades and political correctness of Michael Moore.

In his film “Capitalism: A Love Story,” he calls for armed revolution and waxes emetic in his trademark twang against capitalism: “Capitalism is evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people.”

In a fitting patriotic coda over the final credits, he plays a cheesy lounge version of “L’Internationale,” the adopted left-wing anthem of communists, anarchists, fascists and socialists — perhaps, in his mind, a clever attempt at political satire.

Like his “resistant” comrades, nowhere does Moore offer a clear alternative to capitalism — other than to repeat the need for some ill-defined “democracy” — content to leave it to others who understand politics and social dynamics to do the heavy lifting and come up with actual answers and ideas to his ultimatums.

Most recently, Moore has called for the Democratic Party — now reduced to the DNC brass, Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaMomentum growing among Republicans for Supreme Court vote before Election Day Warning signs flash for Lindsey Graham in South Carolina Majority of voters say Trump should not nominate a Supreme Court justice: poll MORE, Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Momentum growing among Republicans for Supreme Court vote before Election Day Warning signs flash for Lindsey Graham in South Carolina MORE, New York liberals, Hollywood glitterati and Silicon Valley moguls — to move further to the left and to forget about wooing back defected Democratic voters.

Presumably, his plan is to mobilize “real” Democrats with the tried-and-true leftist strategy of offering them more and more soul-destroying government entitlements.

Unfortunately, as it has played out, to pursue this goal all is permitted — violence, physical force, intimidation, lies, personal slurs, destruction of private property, shutdown of free speech, contempt for the rule of law, as well as promoting an open season on officers of the law. In this “new democratic” world the ends justify the means by creating and promoting a social climate where force and violent behavior are acceptable in settling political differences.

Ironically, the current assault on capitalism in America has been waged most earnestly by none other than the putative defender of America and capitalism, former President Obama, who for the past eight and a half years has reigned as the godfather of the American anti-capitalist movement.

Though many choose not to believe, the red flags have been there all along: the desire to rewrite America’s narrative; the promise of economic equality through wealth redistribution; the hamstringing of the economy through stifling regulations; the pursuit of a foreign policy built on apology and appeasement; not to forget the war on law enforcement, the judiciary, the criminal justice system, the constitution, our schools, the middle class, even entertainment — all as expressions of racism, privilege and capitalism gone amok ... the list goes on.

From the beginning, Barack Obama has been an exercise in style over substance, hoodwinking America and the world with his chimera of “hope and change” — witness his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 after only nine months in office — while his true intention has been to subvert the American capitalist system and replace our constitutional republic with some kind of constitutional monarchy, if need be, with just a phone and a pen.

This was and is Obama’s greatest sin: trying to divide America by having us believe that we are not part of the most just, most glorious, most moral and freest political enterprise ever devised, capitalism — a political system specifically designed to subject society to moral law — where as individuals we all agree to govern ourselves by the rule of law and to respect that law.

That is the genius of capitalism and the “hope” of the world.

Russell Paul La Valle is an opinion writer whose work has appeared in the The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Daily News, Newsday and The Village Voice. and many others. He is a former contributing editor to the philosophical think tank, The Objectivist Center.

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