Our present economic systems are not structured to benefit us. Instead, it’s been tweaked throughout the years to allow people to protect their wealth. So, what happens to vulnerable people from disenfranchised communities who were not born with a silver spoon?
These minorities find themselves struggling to amass the same opportunities for success as those on the top. They cannot build a long-term vision that can sustain their evolution because they can’t even sustain their basic needs for survival.
When life becomes a routine of securing the bare essentials on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis, people start losing their sense of self. Their personality and mental health suffers. When depression is one of the greatest mental health challenges faced by Americans today, you know that people are trapped in an economic system that does not have their quality of life in its best interests.
In his book, Robert Verkaik tries finding the answers to heavy-hitting questions like: has capitalism broken its contract with hard work? Do we need to start reevaluating it? And if we do, how do we make it fairer so that it distributes more wealth, more fairly—which was the whole point of what capitalism was in the first place?
But how can we blame all these grassroot problems on an overarching economic system? While it is possible for people to dismiss market crashes because the system can bounce back, these disasters aren’t a one-time deal for everyone. They have lasting effects on people who have invested their lives into working for businesses.
These crashes don’t just change the dollar value. They change people as well.
According to Robert Verkaik, we moved to a capitalist system because we wanted to free ourselves from aristocracies, which concentrated all the land and wealth into the hands of the very, very few. Between the 19th and the 20th century, this was an effective transition that led to booming economies. And during this time, wealth was distributed relatively fairly in comparison to what capitalism is doing to the spread of wealth today.
Our survival throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was, in large part, due to the hard work of front liners and essential workers who made it possible for us to stay indoors and practice social distancing measures. Robert Verkaik emphasizes that we need to prioritize providing support to these workers, who traditionally went unnoticed.
Alexander McCaig discussed how, in the United States, a growing lower middle class is on its way to challenge the massive wealth gap. To this, Robert Verkaik believes that a more progressive taxation could be beneficial.
Robert Verkaik explains that in the last economic crisis, major banks injected plenty of capital into the system to keep the economy afloat. However, this liquidity eventually routed into the assets of the already wealthy. This manifested in owning multiple houses, jets, super yachts, and diamond investments, to name a few. And the value of these assets have doubled in the last ten years.
This means that the wealthy have only benefited from economic catastrophes, while the rest of us struggle to keep our heads above the water. Robert Verkaik believes that this will hold true for the pandemic, in the same way that it held true for the credit crunch. Meanwhile, the middle income earners continue to tread water.
He emphasizes that it’s less about using taxes on the rich to pay the poor, and more about dealing with a large middle class who are also struggling in different ways.
Ultimately, Robert Verkaik suggests that any change in the economy must be done with the climate in mind. This is why he supports the New Green Deal. Building economies with jobs that are environmentally sustainable is the key to the future.
What does this look like? It’s about looking for new economies and industries that create and help sustain new energies, sources of fuel, and houses with sustainable heating. These avenues bring in many more jobs to people who will be displaced through the changing nature of work and artificial intelligence.
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