Capitalism

This was part of my big realization last weekend, thinking about why people are so unhappy today when everyone around me (in Europe at least) is pretty well-off, if taken historically.

Just for example, in most of the western world today, poor people are overweight (from unhealthy, bad food) but in the past, and in many other parts of the world, people who are poor are thin, or die of starvation. Most of the people I know who complain about being “poor” have really no idea what they’re talking about. You’re not poor because you have a second-hand smart phone in your pocket. You’re not poor if can “only” afford to go camping for your holidays. And while you might live in a food desert, and have inadequate health care, and all the other things that might be part of today’s obesity epidemic, it’s still not an indication of the kind of poverty that killed people in the past. We’re just not poor in that way as much anymore. We have enough, and most of us have enough to be free of the kind of life threatening worries that exsited during periods of war or famine. We could choose to be happy with what we have.

However, capitalism works on the desire to always want more, so a capitalist society has to sell you the idea that you’re unhappy. It is based on selling dissatisfaction. “Get the new car/phone/t-shirt/sneakers and it will bring you joy.” Except it doesn’t, or not for long.

I’ll quote Philosophize This! again, this time in episode 009 talking about the Buddha: The first noble truth is that suffering is universal. But another way to think of that statement is that dissatisfaction is the default state of the human brain. Buddha thought that even when you try really, really hard to make yourself satisfied or comfortable or happy, it just leaves you as quickly as it came. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/the-buddha-6j7hj

So capitalism needs you to continue buying things to get that temporary rush of the new whatever, which really does make you happy for a while but just by our nature, it can’t last. And our capitalistic society has no interest in you finding personal, sustainable happiness. That’s not going to make anyone’s quarterly returns increase. What capitalism needs is to sell unhappiness so that folks buy more stuff….to make them “happy”.

If people were happy, or informed that they were happy or well-off, or to count their blessings that we have been living in a stable period in history, there’d be less to sell. Capitalism only works when people have to buy more stuff.

Stephen West in his podcast goes on to describe this about the Buddha, “The third noble truth is coming to the realization that suffering can be ended by eliminating desire.” And this is in direct opposition of our capitalist system, which finds its force from creating desires.

Capitalism as well works on competition, fighting for a market share, expanding; one day you have one [add business here: dry cleaners/ fast food restaurant/ shoe store etc etc] and then you open a second, and a third, and then you have [add amazing sum of money here] and, you become, supposedly, happy. There’s no room in a capitalist model to call someone “successful” because they’ve chosen to have, say, one tiny little surf shop that makes enough to live from and allows the person to hit the beach every day. But they are successful. They are doing what they want, they have time for themselves, and probably their friends, and have time for nature and waves. They’re happy with their second-hand smart phone and their camping vacation.

And that just doesn’t sell very well.

I’ve been feeling down lately but I’m trying today to force myself to remember how lucky I am, how much I have, and little I really need. If you talk the talk, sometimes it just works on your brain in spite of yourself. So tell yourself today, “I’m happy because…” …and stop taking all the little things we have for granted. Make your own list, but read it out loud to yourself so that your brain can hear what you “know”, but you’ve forgotten. And when you want retail therapy, go buy yourself some time to just sit and breathe. And be happy.