Zoom meeting
How inventive is capitalism? Is it creative enough to become socialism?
A sports fan I know thinks capitalism is the answer, but that it needs modification, needs to embrace a certain socialistic attitude it now lacks, and cites professional sports as possibly providing a new model of capitalist economic & social behaviors energized by socialist instincts.
His thinking: is it really necessary to have real fans in the stadium? Thousands and thousands of them, mostly driving into town from the suburbs to the arena, parking their big cars, filling the atmosphere with carbon, littering the streets adjacent to there stadium with ticket stubs, programs, and the like; not to mention the thousands and thousands of paper and plastic cups, hot dog wrappers, popcorn boxes et.al generated within the confines of the arena (the trash). He argues quite persuasively I think, that the cardboard cutouts and images of the fans now posted on video screens, that the faux fans watching their favorite football or basketball or baseball team, are doing such a credible job and seem to be having a good time, especially when the soundtrack of their cheering or the moans of their disappointment at the home team’s failure is broadcast as if there actually are real people at the game?
Furthermore, he believes, the cardboard cutouts now filling the stands, can be recycled for use in other stadiums, other events, such as concerts, rodeos, large-scale political gatherings, thereby eliminating a great deal of waste that would otherwise be thrown away, to the whole world’s environmental benefit.
I like his idea, but argue with him, having nothing else to do on a foggy Thursday morning.
It will never happen, I say. Socialism has been made a dirty word, with some good reason, but very little. The Right has totally disabled The Left—IT’S LIKE THE RIGHT HAS BEEN HITTING THE LEFT ON THE KNEECAPS since about 1952 or so, so that The Left looks/seems/is pathetic, always struggling to try and get back on its feet.
I hear myself yelling as I say this, and look at the screen where my friend is sitting in his den looking at me on his screen, yelling back.
Calm down, I say to myself, don’t yell at your friend. I change the subject.
“I lost something the other day, I say, “I’m really sad.”
“What’d you lose?” my friend asks.
“A great piece of language…Bed Bath and Beyond is closing all its stores, nationwide,” I say.
We laugh, neither of us admitting we’d ever been inside a Bed Bath and Beyond but both admiring the language of the name.
And then the sports fan says, “which do you think is worse, the George Floyd murder or the Breonna Taylor decision?”