Another night of reading "Bigger than Bernie" by @meaganmday and @micahuetricht, but tonight I'm reflecting on some of my favorite passages, including this one:

The way they describe the capitalist economic system is remarkably apt, and it's honestly something that I've never heard of or thought before (though that may be due to my own ignorance and relative new-ness to political studies/economic systems).

"Capitalism is an economic system in which a small group of people own things like factories, companies, and money itself, and everyone else has to sell their labor to them in exchange for a wage, which they use to buy what they need to survive." Absolutely spot-on definition.

Perhaps even more apt: "Through their labor, workers create a surplus that is funneled into the bosses' pockets as profits rather than being used for the good of everyone."

In this description/definition of capitalism, we are given real insight into how capitalism truly does...

...function—which is to say, it doesn't, at least not for the working class people, who's labor (as depicted in this passage) is what truly allows capitalistic profiteering and big businesses to exist—and thrive—in America/any capitalist country.

Capitalism, as revealed by this definition, is quite simply forced labor under an economic system wherein an ordinary person owes their boss labor, simply to repay the debt of being born and wanting to survive. I would not equate it to slavery (forced labor is a component of...

slavery, not the whole process/institution of slavery), but it is still inhumane and unjust in its own right, even if a boss or employer is seemingly kind or generous, the system itself implies a debt for life—a required repayment for one's own existence. It's sickening.

Anyway, the writing of that depiction of capitalism is extremely resonant with me, as a reader, and I presume is equally so with others. I think we all have an underlying understanding that capitalism "isn't fair" to the working class, but this passage lays it out, clear as rain.