This is No Way to Live
The way we live in the U.S. is unhealthy, physically and psychologically draining, self-inflicted and culturally amplified, and worsening by the day -- limiting opportunities for our children and future generations -- but not inevitable. Reader feedback tells us most of you already feel this way, and we suspect that people who agree on these points likely form a majority globally. This piece is a heartfelt attempt to compel meaningful collective action from this majority.
It is difficult, but still possible, for individuals, couples, families, and communities to opt out of the insanity which is modern American life and lead better than average, some even exemplary, lives. For instance, I think Greta Thunberg is a secular saint who certainly puts me to shame in terms of courage, commitment, and impact.
It's also possible for dedicated teams of people organized into movements and/or purpose-built action organizations -- such as Doctors Without Borders and March for Our Lives -- to make limited but important progress against natural plagues and human-driven scourges.
But for humanity to thrive, for everyone to self-actualize and optimize the meaning of their lives, for equality of opportunity and equal justice to predominate, and simply to prevent a climate apocalypse, we need a global movement that deliberately and relentlessly wrests power from elites and secures if for the people, in perpetuity. Our models, research, experience, and intuition clearly indicate that only such a global movement that begins now and gains rapid traction will enable us to overcome the gravitational pull of individual and national inertia, societal and institutional path dependence, and the massive and focused resources fueling authoritarianism.
When we talk about “how we live” in a nation as diverse as the U.S., we need to account for the fact that class is the biggest determinant of how we live. This is not a Marxist point of view, it’s just a stubborn fact that as a nation – like all nations over time including the Soviet Union -- we are meaningfully divided into socioeconomic strata.
We begin the analysis with how the less fortunate in America live.
Carceral State – the U.S. contains 4.2% of the world’s population but 20% of the world’s prisoners. Those incarcerated endure unimaginable fear, anger, deprivation, and violence. Their families endure endless shame and multi-generational impoverishment from lost family member wages and the costs of defending their family members. The nation loses out on the potential contributions from those incarcerated, but more importantly from the psychological erosion from turning a blind eye to the suffering and injustice. Don’t try to convince yourself that “they deserve it.” If that were true our carceral rates would hover near the global average. That, or there are other things wrong with the nation that “cause” our abnormal rates, and we’re either turning a blind eye to those, or actually causing them ourselves.
Drug Abuse – the U.S. has the highest rates of legal and illicit drug use on the world. Drug abuse leads to miserable lives for the abusers and their families. It causes un- and under-employment, massive loss of national productivity, undue familial strain, and cost on local medical and law enforcement entities. And death. 300 per day from opioid overdoses in 2023. Some communities in the U.S. are going bankrupt from the impact of licit drug use on local police, health, and social services. And the cherry on top of this tragedy is that the counties in the U.S where this is worse overwhelmingly vote for Trump.
They’re not “doing it to themselves” as the right likes to say.. We are collectively both driving them to it and permitting it to happen. We are complicit in a health scourge. Please don’t trot out the tired argument that this happens because we’re such a rich and liberal society. It’s happening because we’re an impoverished society from the standpoint of empathy and humanity. Older people are feeling increasingly lonely, rates of anxiety and depression in American youth are rising alarmingly, and the people that could help most with all of this are most worried about the accumulation of their 401ks. This is wrong, and it’s not societally sustainable. And this is the crack into which Trump oozes and the sewer in which MAGA breeds.
Violence – “Since 2000, the share of all childhood deaths caused by gun violence in the US has increased by about 33%, with the largest portion consistently due to physical violence, followed by suicide, and the smallest share caused by unintentional firearm injuries. Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the US are 19 times greater than they are in France, and 77 times greater than in Germany. The US has 33 times the rate of firearm homicide seen in Australia,” (Pew Research Center, April 26, 2023). Annual gun-related deaths in the US almost equal total US combat deaths in the 8-year Vietnam War! These deaths are just as needless and every bit as tragic as those that tore the country apart when I was young, but now they generate only sighs.
Educational Inequality – when I was growing up I lived in a suburb of Washington, DC. The Washington Post would print a feel-good article every spring about one African American High School Senior from the lower-class DC Anacostia neighborhood who got accepted to an Ivy League School. While this person was lauded for their talent and determination, the underlying tone from this supposedly “liberal” newspaper was accusatory – if this person could make it out – why couldn’t the rest of them? Why couldn’t the people who live in Anacostia just buckle down, get jobs, “fix” their neighborhoods, and get their kids into college? This sort of anecdotal analysis and paternalistic thinking is no better than that which propels the MAGA movement. The “pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps” American ethos is killing us. Mathematically, it is impossible, societally it pulls us apart instead of fostering teamwork. And yet even liberals unconsciously validate the premise by not challenging it.
Opportunity Inequality – Right this minute there are tens of thousands of people trawling through the wretched filth of massive refuse heaps all around the world, trying desperately to beat their competitors to the trash that has any worth. And did you further know that these trash heaps are controlled and that these tens of thousands of people have to pay someone a tax for the trawling privilege? These are human beings – don’t they too have an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness? Shouldn’t we be routinely discussing how to level the playing field of opportunity, and acting on our conclusions? How can we go on checking our 401ks daily while knowing this?
Wealth Inequality – 35% of Americans don’t have enough cash to afford a $400 dollar unexpected expense. Can you imagine the constant dread of being in that situation, the drain on your health, the groveling you’d feel necessary at work to keep that situation from getting worse. The constantly dashed hopes that something magical will occur and change that situation. I’ve spent the last 20 years feeling superior and secretly admonishing less well-off people I’ve noticed spending a lot of time on their cell phones. I’m habitually thinking: “why are they doing this? There’s no salvation on the other end of the line. Hang up the phone and do something! But they’re out of good options, and I haven’t been giving them any.
Health Inequality – wealth determines health in the U.S. – there is a direct correlation between wealth and longevity, morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. As wealth inequality continues to worsen, the health gap widens with it. How can this be acceptable to us? Why are we not in the streets demanding universal health care? Why are we the only Western Democracy without it? If we have the largest GDP and we’re the greatest country in the world, wouldn’t that be the first thing you’d fund instead of the last?
Legal Inequality - Why isn’t Trump in prison already for the Stormy Daniels affair when Michael Cohen has already completed his sentence for his minor role in that crime? How can Trump endlessly delays his trials, and more gallingly, challenge and appeal every aspect of his prosecution before his trials even take place, and all the way to the Supreme Court, and in record time, when all other Americans have to wait to appeal until after they’re convicted? In the real world, only 2% of appeals even make it to the State Court of Last Resort, and that after years of waiting. Why have we allowed our legal system to amplify the advantages of the wealthy and to further impoverish the poor? Why do we allow this condition to persist and still expect everyone to behave according to the law? This is insanity.
Hollow Communities – The America of the movies and of my own youth is long gone. People are no longer deeply connected to the older, admittedly aspirational positive ethos of America – equality for all, defender of the underdog, we can do anything we put our minds to it, Yankee Ingenuity. Don’t give me that shit that such thinking led to a crusading spirit that led to perpetual wars and our own form of empire. Those things did happen, but not because “the people” crusaded for them. Politicians, plutocrats and corporations crusade for them because doing so pays off for them directly. The people are impoverished by international crusading efforts, but far too many of us bought the national security bullshit, and very few people are pushing back. Hell, Vietnam and the Iraq War perfectly validate Marx’s great quote: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.”
But you know, that sort of writing is what everyone expects, and it’s essentially useless because it compels nothing and makes the reader smug if they know the quote already. The reality is that our country killed millions (yes, that’s the right number) of innocent Vietnamese and Iraqis because “the people” allowed this to happen. We didn’t win either war, and we set both nations back generations.
Climate Change – by our inaction we are daily reducing the potential quality of life for future generations, but we keep siting around hoping for governments to care and corporations to change – but if we don’t, why should they? What’s the incentive? The people are the only ones with sufficient incentive to change this issue and Americans are doing, well, bupkis.
Political Instability – why do we permit Fox News to exist? It is a societal poison and the most negatively impactful corporate force ever to exist in America. It may be the most purposefully amoral organization in the history of the world – though that’s a tough call. Regardless, if as so many claim, there is no legal, monetary, or popular antidote to Fox News, what’s the point of getting up every day and going to school and work? They may be advocating murder, but we’re committing cultural appeasement and passive, long-term suicide in response as opposed to fighting back.
Power Inequality – despite the land of the free and home of the brave rhetoric, we are neither. Individual Americans have little influence over their own government, and culture and society are increasingly money-making creatures vice being grounded in any sort of morality. This is one reason why all the rest of the stuff we spoke to in this piece happens – it truly does look bleak from the standpoint of agency and efficacy.
And making matters worse is cognitive dissonance – the disconnect between what you know about reality and how you believe it should be. It makes you sick, a sub-optimal citizen, and a status quo defender. Those of us who know all this stuff to be true but do nothing about it are aiding the authoritarians by salving the stings of inequality and providing false hope for our peers, families, and lower classes – and blunting the suffering messages coming “up” from the lower classes. I’m self-indicting, for what it’s worth. The point is that no one is at fault, but all of us are responsible.
The reality is that we’re stuck in a vicious cycle in which we have little individual power to start with, which depresses us into inaction, which decreases our power, and so on. The wicked problem of neoliberalism, digitalization, and financialization and their moneyed interests fob us off with consumerism, and politicians distract us with enemies, robbing us of the time, energy, and critical thinking skills to fight back effectively. The answers are two: acknowledge reality; fight back collectively.
There are tens of thousands of big-hearted Americans doing what they can at individual and small scales – working for environmental non-profits, running soup kitchens and food pantries, donating time, clothing and money to help the disadvantaged, fighting bad laws and marching against the injustices we note here.
And there are several powerful and mature efforts and organizations at home and abroad making a real difference, from March for Our Lives to Black Lives Matter to the ACLU to Doctors Without Borders and Fridays for Future, to name a few.
All these things matter, they’re righteous efforts, they need to continue, and they are all key pieces of the foundation being laid to save the world. But they’re too small, too exclusive, too singularly focused on slicing off pieces of power in narrow spaces that are easily isolated from one another by elites. They need to be combined into one massive movement whose objective is to reclaim the people’s power at societal and international scale at the expense of elites. This is not revolutionary, we already own these rights as stated in the American Constitution, we’ve just not been willing to continue to fight for them.
We bet your intuition and experience tells you there’s more to this than we’re capturing here. Granted. There are books worth of “more” – and we’re busy writing our own to convince our skeptics. But none of it lets us off the hook – the “more” we can write and read about this problem is just how we work through our cognitive dissonance. It gives us culturally acceptable reasons to do nothing, to wait for the arc of justice to bend some more. Look, we all know this is true and that something must be done -- and that we must do our part to get these things changed. So, let’s stop dithering – it’s our dithering that’s preventing solutions from gaining traction.
We’ve laid out the (Just Nation) Movement that must come together to enable change. If you’re not familiar with our ideas, you can read about them in previous Substack newsletters. The gist is that the people the world over must rise and seize back the power we’ve ceded to elites, leveraging multiple Participative Democracy efforts growing out of existing progressive organizations and following a detailed strategy.
We realize joining such a movement too early is dangerous. So, what we need from each of you at this time is a pledge to yourself that you’ll join up as soon as you feel safe enough to do so. From some of you we need you to join or even initiate a local Participative Democracy initiative. And we need a few of you to throw all caution to the wind and lead this thing. We’re ready to follow and we suspect several billion others are too.