To end gun violence, end hyper-capitalism

Comment published on New York Times online blog in response to opinion essay by Nicholas Kristof, “We have two dead young heroes; it’s time to stand up to guns,” May 8, 2019:

The gun violence epidemic can be traced to two sources:

1) Life is tough in America (a single adverse event can make a person or family poor, and the poor get only harassments and no sympathy), while our culture is moralistic, and schools, churches, and the media do not ask people to think. The combined effect of these things is that Americans are very aggressive (most European countries are far less so) and problems tend to be solved by blaming someone, which tends to mean either impulsive or official violence.

2) The almost all-powerful NRA is an interest group lobby, and such groups control American politics. Corporate and interest group lobbies are more important than voters, who are in effect handled with advertising and public relations efforts. Thus, the recurring mass shootings are partly caused by the dominance of money in politics.

The proper name of both problems is capitalism. And particularly our extreme form of it. It is one that prefers the freedoms of capital and the wealthy to all other values, and so tolerates the great deal of violence that so much defines American society. Societies that are less neoliberal are less police states, and they are more peaceful.

We have the best ways of dying and living in terror that the profit capital makes from workers, consumers, home buyers and tenants, debtors, students, and prisoners can buy. It is only too bad we do not get a vote in how they spend our money. Others wield influence in our place.