Extractive Capitalism

This post owes its existence to my friend of many years, designer Terry Irwin. She pointed her Facebook readers to an article in The Nation about Wendell Berry, perhaps the closest thing to a latter-day Thoreau that these times have produced. The article included the phrase “extractive capitalism,” which I have used as the acrostic.

What is Extractive Capitalism? It is exploitation without reciprocity. It is taking advantage and not giving back. Clearcutting and fracking and unsafe offshore drilling are examples, but the practice does not limit itself to Earthly riches: during the housing crisis in the late 2000s, Extractive Capitalism extracted dollars from middle-classers and gave it to banking executives and stockbrokers.

Wendell Berry’s wisdom may be found in this passage from the article: “The time is past when it was enough merely to elect our officials,” [Berry] argued in 1972 concerning the fight against strip mining. “We will have to elect them and then go and watch them and keep our hands on them, the way the coal companies do.”

Another valuable phrase in the article sums this wisdom up: “Participatory democracy.”

In my country the concept of Socialism is being demonized by the current administration. It is painted as Big Government taking and doling out, with hordes of parasites with their hands out. But true, RESPONSIBLE Socialism, where each individual seeks the best fit of meaningful endeavor and fair exchange as a participating member of the state, will be what saves us from climate change, corruption and waste, I think.

Here is my poem, with the acrostic aspect disregarded for clarity, and a word or two changed because of the freedom from stricture:

Extractive Capitalism

ENGULF! Be meteoric
Extend hegemony
A trawler-drag historic
Uproots anemone
I acey-deucey dare ya
It cash-enriches molders
A test run of malaria
Will Instashare the holders
I venture we’ll do Chasms
Enable Cash Orgasms