Points to ponder before voting...

Sociologist Carl Couch isolated nine types of human relationships.  They include:  solidary relationships, where individuals have shared pasts and anticipate shared futures; exchange relationships, where individuals interact solely for the purposes of barter, buying, or selling; and authority relationships, where individuals submit to a hierarchical framework to fulfill a shared objective.

Now, when humans interact it's rarely simply a matter of assuming a given relationship and then allowing things to unfold as they will.  Many times a given type of relatedness takes place within the context of another.  For example, a friend of mine and I share a robust solidary relationship.  When I go to his house to help him with a building project, though, we enter into an authority relationship as he dictates to me how I can best assist him.  Our authority relationship does not displace the solidary one.  Rather, authority is enveloped by solidarity.  Thus, even though we interact in an asymmetrical way (he directs and evaluates my behavior, but not vise versa) there is a civility and camaraderie about it that betrays the deeper symmetry of our friendship.

We can apply these principles to exchange relationships also.  Imagine that my friend and I would like to enter into an exchange.  Because everything we do is subsumed by a solidary relationship, the focus of our exchange relationship is not just about striking a trade; we also want to make sure the exchange takes place in a manner that preserves our friendship.  In other words, we want the exchange to be fair.  By contrast, given an exchange relationship absent the encompassing solidary relationship, we are left only with how the exchange impacts us individually and the interaction devolves into one of soulless competition and one-upmanship.

Popular culture seems to regard exchange relationships as fundamental to all other relationships.  It might be suggested that while I like to think my relationships with my friend are always nested within a solidary one, in reality they all boil down to exchange, since, presumably, I only enter into friendships that I perceive will ultimately benefit me.  In this way, many conclude that classic capitalism is not merely an economic philosophy, but a description of the most fundamental and immutable quality of human nature.

Aside for the fact that Couch's theoretical work soundly refutes and discredits this notion, the primacy of capitalism hasn't exactly stood up to empirical trial.  Even the US, often perceived to be a bastion of capitalist thought and practice, doesn't make use of a capitalist economy.  Tariffs and anti-trust laws demonstrate that on a practical level the US acknowledges the need for "fair trade" rather than "free trade".  In fact, history has taught the US that capitalism is a mirror image of communism; it ultimately leads to the destruction of markets, allowing a small group of monopolies to lord over everyone else.

Nevertheless, capitalist thinking dominates life in the US.  Parental and solidary relationships subsumed by exchange relationships drive an epidemic of family dysfunction and divorce.  Lying and cheating are widely regarded as legitimate methods to employ in order to "get ahead".  Media are hijacked by commercialism.  Many acts of corporate greed are not only tolerated, but celebrated.  Often lauded are corporations who "invest" in "developing" countries, exploiting "free trade" policies and withdrawing as soon as wage demands become too high.  In general the entire US is run according to the corporate ethos (including its imperialist predilections that lead to war) because capitalism is, after all, "just how the world works".  And there is no particular political party or administration to blame.  The problem is systemic.

The good news is there's still a Constitution and US citizens still have a voice.  They must claim responsibility for the status quo and then do something about it, leaving the blame game to Republicans AND Democrats who never dreamed a third party could trump them both.

Well… a GC can dream anyway.