American Capitalism: The Murder Culture vs The Gift Culture

By Justin Frambes

7/11/08


"Centuries ago they came to the "New World", the masses of European settlers escaping political and religious oppression, war, corrupt landlordism, etc. for freer, much greener pastures, but unknowing pawns as they were and slaves to a system so omnipresent they never saw it, let alone questioned it, they brought with them the monetary control system and systematically conquered the entire North American continent, ultimately resulting in the deaths of anywhere from 8 to 145 million American Indians through disease, dispossession of their land (most often illegal), and outright genocide, all in the name of [American] "progress" and profit. Along with the American Indians, the Gift Culture" passed into the pages of history.

As the United States established itself, so did capitalism and the modern corporate world under the monetary control system. Viewing the continent as a vast source of future wealth and American Indians and their way of life (Gift Culture, sustainability) as "savage," "antiquated," and standing directly in its way atop "waste and unappropriated lands" 1, it set upon its mission of removing them and plundering the land for every resource it had. Blinded by greed for the money and power to be obtained through acquisition of all the natural resources and growth of a taxpaying population, it never questioned its predatory way of service to self (where one serves self) at the expense of others — e.g. their disrespect, disregard, and brutality toward other peoples, other customs, animals, and nature itself (indeed, it lived completely out of touch with nature, where its only relationship to it was to prey upon it). Today, 232 years after its inception, the American empire having influenced almost every corner of the world (and led almost all other nations by example), its pursuit of material and financial wealth through capitalism has left the Earth's air, land, rivers and sea polluted beyond human repair and humanity in a state of misery and disarray.

American Indians were (and had always been) free from the monetary control system, living under their humble Gift Culture, but efforts during the 18th and 19th centuries to force them into accepting "civilization", being American citizens, and ultimately taxpayers subject to the jurisdiction (control) of the United States were relentless and unyielding, and eventually succeeded. What the world largely has today, as a result of the historically costly success of America and capitalism and abandonment of the Gift Culture (excluding the digital world where it still lives), is that of a convenient but ultimately regressive, debt-based, fast-paced, stressful, egocentric, self-important, individualistic, isolationist, unsustainable, anti-communal / anti-tribal, fear-based (fear of losing money, power, importance, normalcy, services, materialism, of death, and so on) way of life disconnected from nature and almost completely devoid of meaning and realism.

It is very revealing that most people cannot imagine what life would be like without money. The problem however is not necessarily money itself, it is humanity's belief in and use of it (via the ego). Unfortunately it demands that life is a perpetual state of debt to someone or something other than oneself, something to be continuously earned until the end ("the cost of living"), and places an arbitrary numerical value on life itself, when in actuality all life is equal and sacred. Furthermore it gives only the illusion of balance; its very existence creates imbalance and poverty, the opposite of its purpose, which is to obtain security. And when accompanied by greed, hatred, or self-centeredness it becomes the tool of corruption, control (through ownership), and leads to destruction and disregard for others and loss of quality and integrity in its pursuit, namely that of profits.

Such things are incapable of existing under a Gift Culture, a free system that is not derived from the ego and based on pure self-interest, but one of codependence, coexistence, and care for others — where wealth is not in how much one acquires, as it is under capitalism, but how much one can give away freely. With no universal currency to acquire, there is no controllable economy or outlet for greed and hatred through ownership to be had. The American Indians, for instance, had not even a definition of private property:

"The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delawares was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans.

The Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived." 2

Ownership of land is now at an all-time high and how much global corporations own is staggering. The capitalist system, having operated at full speed for over 200 years, has exhausted the world extensively, and is at this point showing blatant signs of impending failure, all due to its unsustainability and careless disregard for everything except itself. People are now, more than ever, finding themselves with less and less money and are becoming disillusioned with the monetary control system as a whole as the trillions of dollars of unpaid debt come full circle, causing prices to skyrocket due to the plummeting purchasing power of the dollar and the stock market to threaten a disastrous collapse.

With nothing being manufactured in the country anymore thanks to rampant outsourcing by corporations for higher profits and the Federal Reserve Corporation as usual looking out for its own interests and those of the banks, there is no solution in sight to the problem except to brace oneself for the impending great wave of changes.

In order to survive what seems to be coming, compassion (with discernment) for others, the slow formation of localized, self-sustaining communities, and free exchange of goods will become inevitable necessities, and perhaps with those, as the money itself and the belief in it collapses, will arrive a gradual return to the Gift Culture, where such selflessness, while at first provided out of necessity, will eventually be done so voluntarily as humanity realizes a better way of living.

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