 |
| credit: Bloomberg |
The US spends almost as much as Switzerland on health care per capita, $9,536 versus $9,818. The extra $282 in Switzerland delivers and extra 4.2 years of life expectancy. In the US, life expectancy is actually shrinking, currently at 79. In the Czech Republic life expectancy matches the US, but 'Mericans spend double what the Czechs spend, 16.8% of GDP compared to 7.3%. Hong Kong topped Bloomberg's list of 56 countries with the most efficient health care system rating of 87.3.
The second chart shows what unrestrained capitalism is doing to the planet's natural systems. Greenland's ice cap is melting at a furious rate, elevating sea levels worldwide:
The orange areas show regions of surface melting of the ice cap, while gray areas show the ice cap already melted. The melting will accelerate unless the nations of the world act to keep the carbon emission commitments contained in the Paris Climate Accords which the dictator-to-be has reneged upon, following his time test business methods. The release of methane and carbon dioxide from melting permafrost and loss of albedo will amplify the greenhouse effect by as much as 5% according to a recent study. The current trend of warming is 3℃ by the end of the century, enough to release an expected 280 gigatons of CO₂ and 3 gigatons of methane, which is 10 to 20 times stronger greenhouse effect.
So what's the point? as prominent theorists of socialism have pointed out (e.g. Antonio Gramsci) capitalism depends on confidence: people's confidence that capitalism is fair or meritocratic; that capitalism makes them "free". Bernie Sanders destroyed that illusion in a recent speech, yet 39% of delusional 'Mericans still have the Horatio Alger fantasy that they will be among the 1% someday. Marx knew that capitalism enslaves the worker since he has no representation or power in the ruling capitalist cliques or stake in the system. Compare an individual's 4012k holdings to the wealth of the Walton family or the holdings of the BlackRock or Vanguard funds.
Advanced capitalism is doing something else Marx did not foresee: it is destroying the planet's natural systems that are absolutely vital to life on Earth. In a real democracy this existential threat could be stopped, but 'Mericans do not live in a real democracy. They live in a plutocratic, authoritarian state that deludes the masses with daily "newspeak" thought control. So while you work away your life at an underpaid job [chart below] dreaming of fantastic wealth, think about where your next breath of clean air, or drink of clean water will come from, or when the next F5 tornado, or 500 year flood, will wipe out your family home and possessions, and thank capitalism. The great progressive jurist, Louis D. Brandies correctly observed, We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.
