The most demoralizing thing about all of this: we are finally at the point where large segments of the American population feel like it’s ok to say in public that sacrificing some people’s lives is necessary for the health of the economy.

It’s always been true, but now that it doesn’t bring universal condemnation to say it out loud, I’m worried that we will start to regularly craft policies with this principle in mind. It’s not far from that position to embracing full Aryanism.

The problem is that the GOP is now fully and publicly embracing this logic, but the Dems can’t respond effectively because they remain, at heart, a neoliberal political party. The market is still their preferred mechanism for solving problems.

But what’s needed is a completely different political vision that puts the dignity, even the sanctity, of human life in the center. It’s the only thing that can defend us against the demands to force poor, vulnerable people back to work for the profit and comfort of others.

If we rely upon the language of the marketplace for our political vision, the logic of profit and the central value of capital will always encourage us to conclude: “Some might suffer, but in the end it’s worth it.”

A lot of us know it’s not ever worth it. But what language do we use to claim this and defend it? What images do we rely on? In short, what makes you believe that human life has innate and infinite dignity and worth?

Of course, a particular type of Christian theology has long dominated the discourse of ethics in the US. That strand has now fully embraced the logic of capitalism and is openly advocating for mass death. I’m not suggesting we return to that dominance and exclusion.

But by and large, centrists in the US who are tired of conservative Christian ethics have avoided making solid ethical claims, in part because the act of making solid ethical claims is so strongly identified with conservatives. In that vacuum, the ethos of the marketplace thrives

We have, in many respects, outsourced our ethics to the marketplace. People live in unsafe areas with bad schools? They should move to better ones (of course that uses the market to “solve,” but really ignore, the problem that requires addressing much bigger problems).

The US is the richest nation that has ever existed on the face of the planet. We can definitely afford universal public healthcare, good housing for all, and a universal basic income. No question about it. At this moment in time, all those things would save countless lives.

But the marketplace individualizes is and fragments us. As Thatcher said, “There is no such thing as society,” and that’s the mantra I hear in the death cult today. So I think the task for us is this:

How do we articulate a vision of community based on the innate worth of all human beings without relying on images from the marketplace?

How do we create a robust, pluralistic conversation about ethics in our culture that accepts many different ethical or theological presuppositions, but excludes the logic of the market?