Hi Estes Bob,
Thanks for an interesting rebuttal.
Let me give you an example captialism at its best(IMO). i have been going to Cozumel after tax season for over 20 years. When I first went there extreme poverty was evdident. Lots of people lived in shacks and stick houses.Little girls stood on the corner selling candy. The gap between the rich and the poor was immense. Traffic was almost non-existent and most of the locals went everywhere on 3 wheel bikes with a basket attached.
About 5 years ago they built a new pier for cruise ships, The ships started comimg 6 days a week and are dropping off as many as 50,000 toursits day. The result-the rich are now fitlhy rich BUT poverty is nearly non-existent/ no more shacks, no more sitck houses. no more lilltle kids selling candy and traffice lights have been installed all over the island to handle the over 50,000 mopeds used by the locals. Now should we curse the rich for their windfall or praise the Lord for the increased quality of life for the overwhelming majority of the locals?
Of course I agree that anything that dignifies working people, even if it’s a short-term trend that will disappear in a few years, is a good thing.
With respect, if this is the best Capitalism has to offer, then it’s not that great. What you’re describing is what Marx called alienation. It’s a simple market trend.
At first, there is a surplus of workers. This leads to many being unemployed and poverty being widespread.
Then, capital comes along and builds some new project. All of a sudden, there are more jobs than people. Wages rise temporarily in an effort to attract outsiders to the area.
Either way, people are alienated from their proper relationship to their work, their world and their products. Human beings are dehumanized, and people are seen as simply a commodity which is bought at a higher price when in demand, and discarded when not.
The very wealthy are alienated too. They use capital to buy and sell, but produce nothing. They see the great masses of people not as their brothers and sisters, but as dehumanized herd animals to be bought and sold. They imprison themselves inside “gated communities” (my parents are good examples of this phenomenon) in houses large enough to house 50 people, and they fill their meaningless lives with consumerism and products rather than human relationships.
In a just society, people would be expected to produce something of value, and we’d be paid a fair wage in return. We’d have leisure time, and places to live, and time to study and improve ourselves. That’s all Dorothy Day wanted, and that’s all I want too.
