PROVIDENCE —If capitalism has no haters, then I’m dead.

And, speaking of death, here's the hill upon which I will die: There is no ethical way to become a billionaire.

Capitalism is predicated upon the idea that individuals are in their position (socially, economically, etc.) because it is deserved. Cognitive dissonance is the grease that lubricates its mental wheel.

Capitalism tells us that the poor are that way because they deserve it —and that the wealthy are exceptional. And I call bullshit.

That mentality is an excuse for individuals to deliberately ignore our hard-wired need for community.

Humans are social creatures, and despite what billionaires might want you to believe, we depend on each other for survival.

Disconnecting from each other to the point where individuals feel entitled to possess extreme wealth while hunger runs rampant is diabolical. Ignoring the very real suffering of community members is dangerous.

Empathy is notably — mandatorily — absent under capitalism. Assets are the ultimate sign of success.

Accumulating wealth builds power and further encourages the delusion of individualistic exceptionalism. In late-stage capitalism, someone’s worth as a person is directly tied to their “net worth” (assets minus liabilities). How disgusting.

Without empathy, the door is wide open for exploitation and violence. The Epstein files are shocking to our collective consciousness, and all I can see is the thread of capitalism throughout. I’m surprised by the depravity, but I am unphased by the ultra-wealthy’s hypocrisy.

Prosperity is policy-based, in the sense that governmental policy gives people the ability to build wealth. When those policies are dismantled, the American Dream becomes smoke swirling just out of our grasp.

The affordability "lock-out" has arrived. The cost of daily goods and services are escalating while wages aren’t keeping up. Many of us are now aspiring to afford what used to be "standard." This is not inevitable; this is deliberate.

Public policies can help or harm us, and it’s a choice that policymakers are actively choosing. The state and federal government have the power to strengthen American families by equalizing the tax structure, making childcare more affordable, investing in education and job training, and subsidizing housing and health care.

But! Capitalism gives no incentive for the wealthy (powerful, politically influential) to move this forward. The goal is to accumulate more and more. Always more, no matter the cost — if the cost isn’t a financial one.

One huge disclaimer is that policies and historical injustices have created extreme racial divides across the spectrum. There is no way to critique America and American capitalism without loudly recognizing that — as well as recognizing the gender disparities.

Resources, power, and opportunity are distributed disproportionately —and that’s very much by design. The lottery of birth has a profound and perhaps permanent effect on how well someone will fare in life. Generational wealth and all the associated opportunities are not earned, nor is racism or sexism. Helpful and harmful forces that are completely out of our hands dictate so much of our destiny here in America, but capitalism can’t account for that.

Unsafe activities
When wealth building becomes impossible, it can encourage unsafe activities. As someone with addictive tendencies, mass normalization of gambling-like activities is something I am extremely wary of. The unpredictable nature of something like sports betting is a dopamine rush akin to using substances. I have been sober for 12 years now, and I will never try gambling because I know I’m predisposed to like it too much. I worry about people who haven’t yet reached sobriety, or those for whom addiction to gambling will give a swift kick in the teeth.

I know that when and if that happens, capitalists will tell them that it’s all their fault.