Once we owned capitalism, now it owns us.

Well today we know the majority of Americans repudiated trickle-down economics, and the politics of fear, intolerance and disinformation that were the hallmarks of the Romney campaign.  I suspect that the GOP is in deep reassessment today. Hopefully it will begin with the acknowledgement that America is made up of more than plutocrats, straight, working-class white men, and ultra-conservative Christians (although it pains me to call them Christians).

I, for one, thought Mr. Romney would have been more successful had he simply been himself.  He wouldn’t have seemed so slippery and opaque.  But then again he had to appeal to the extreme right in his party, so he wore a patina that made him look like 1954. 

The plain truth is, no matter who won, the same problems exist the day after the election.  And here we are with an anemic economic recovery, continued unacceptable unemployment, growing deficits and a world of competitors using limited resources on a finite planet. 

Billions of campaign dollars were spent and nothing changed.  Joshua Holland from Alternet.org wrote, “As much as $6 billion was spent in an election that returned the same Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader, and the same man in the Oval Office.”  Yes, that money created jobs for the marketing industry but what did it cost the rest of us? 

We’re processing our planet into money.  The very substrate of our web of life is being destroyed by our need to continually improve financial performance.  The seeds of destruction are being planted by the system that brought us the best economy the world has ever known: Capitalism!

For those who cannot abide nuance, it might be best to stop reading now because reality abounds with subtleties, like it not.  So the very system that made this country the envy of the world, it now destroying that world in its name.

Capitalism needs a refit – a rethinking – a turn toward the truth; infinite growth cannot continue on a finite planet.  Worse yet, the historical advantages that capitalism brought to most of us equally according to our efforts has disappeared.  The vast majority of the benefits are going to fewer and fewer people and the costs of the devastation are being shared with the rest of us. 

Corporations consider the costs of that devastation, as externals.  Externals, because they don’t show up on the internal profit and loss statements.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  We, the non-suspecting, pay. 

What was once the ladder to a better life is now a dead-end street made up of people working two or three part time jobs with no benefits, unequal bargaining power, and complete absence of job security.  The Koch brothers and Walmarts of the world have done a pretty complete job of destroying unions and the ability of the common man to collectively bargain for a better life.  GOP politicians are doing their best to seal the coffin.  And finally a conservative-led Supreme Court ruled that money was too hampered by regulations on campaign contributions so they took out all the stops.

As long as corporations don’t expand their measurement criteria for what counts as acceptable performance, the only thing that will continue to drive performance and decision-making is profit dollars– and more and more of it every quarter.  On this trajectory, the system will devour itself.

As long as our elections cost in the billions, money will continue to rule them.  As long as money does, the world is at risk of complete destruction in its search.

So celebrate or mourn the election. It won’t matter as long as both politicians spent $1 billion to run.  The plain truth is that when a person cannot become president without a billion dollars, capitalism rules our political process. And more and more of those dollars come from the wake of destruction the present form of capitalism brings with it.     

Robert DeFilippis