Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at University of Massachusetts, in Austerity: Another “Policy Mistake” Again states “punishing debtors, cutting payrolls and imposing austerity keep happening. The capitalist system drives its people and enterprises to return to those policies even though their huge social costs and ultimate dangers for capitalists are rediscovered repeatedly.”  Why do fans of capitalism, or is it fanatical capitalists, repeatedly undermine viability—theirs and society’s—for short-lived selfish gains in the immediate future?

The answer is fanatical capitalist are addicted to material self-interest satisfaction, preferably satisfied sooner than later. It is the substance of choice for realizing pleasure from having more means than one could possibly employ and avoiding the pain from the absence of meaning in it all.  When will it stop?  Like with all addictions, not until rock bottom is hit or one’s suicidal actions are successful.

Where does this come from?  Likely from the strongly held tacit belief that the measure of life, the worth of one’s life, is the amount of wealth one has accumulated.  If you have more then you are far more worthy and if you have less then you are less worthy.  Why else would one seek to have far more than he/she could possibly use in life? What is the point of having excessively far more than what is needed?

Capitalist addicts also believe that punishing those who they perceive to be without worth—those who have no-things—are unworthy of any government assistance to support their existence.  Austerity is the means to this, since it will cause the trough from which the unworthy feed to dry up.  It is only those who are worthy who should (and do) receive government assistance, especially if they don’t need it.  Although they don’t need it their sense of worth surely does!  Why else would there be support to provide subsidies to very profitable industries and to very wealthy persons!

The addicts feel they need to cause those who are unworthy to stop being on the dole, and to get a job, even if the job is a below subsistence level paying job—which it most likely would be.  Also below subsistence level jobs, though they don’t benefit the one with the job, they surely benefit the one offering the job—it means the worthy people can accumulate even more becoming even more worthy.

But the truth of life is one’s worth is not what one has, it is what one is.  What we are is human and as such we are all worthy, we all deserve respect.  Until far more wake up and realize this, we will be forever embattled.  The wonderful arguments made by Richard Wolff and so many other critical thinkers are good but unfortunately fall on deaf ears.  The change that is needed will likely never resonate, no matter how logical the argument. Addicts just are incapable of change absent of a significant emotional event that wakes them up.