How does one spot an ideologue? By the strength of their convictions and adherence to the “ideological square”, a nifty construct consisting of two exaggerations and two downplays:

  1. Exaggerate how bad things are now

  2. Exaggerate how great things will be if We prevail

  3. Downplay the current system’s capacity to make things better

  4. Downplay Our capacity to screw things up

Yes, I‘m thinking of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who beautifully illustrated “exaggerate how bad things are” in some recent tweets. To wit:

“How on earth could young people, whose wages are flat, costs of living skyrocketing, experiencing increased social instability via bigotry, addiction, + violence, expected to live shorter lifespans than previous gens dare question the larger economic forces in their lives?!”

“Under capitalism, there are two ways to make money, and you definitely have to make money. If you’re lucky, you own something like an apple farm, or a glue factory. That makes you the owning class. If you don’t own anything, you’re part of the working class and you make money by selling your labor. You pretty much sell your labor until you retire. Sorry, let’s take that again. You pretty much sell your labor until you die.” 

“In conclusion, capitalism is a fun and efficient way to consolidate all the world's resources in the control of a tiny group of massively rich individuals at the expense of everyone else.”

How does one puncture the bubble of certainty in which the ideologue is enveloped? I don’t know. But that won’t stop me from trying. In that spirit, over the course of several posts, I’m going to address Ocasio-Cortez’s critique of capitalism, one assertion at a time. But, first, a very short lesson. Please click on the links for additional info.

What is capitalism? Briefly:

  1. Capitalism is an economic system in which capital goods are owned by private individuals or businesses. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market, rather than through central planning (planned economy or command economy).  Most modern countries practice a mixed capitalist system that includes government regulation of business and industry.  Capitalism/Investopedia

  2. Capitalism operates on two central tenets: private ownership and voluntary trade. Private property provides the owner of resources an incentive to maximize its value. In a capitalist system, the person who owns property is entitled to any value associated with the property. Capitalism/Investopedia

  3. Voluntary trade describes a market where buyers and sellers have the right to exchange (“sell and buy”) goods and services by their own preference or refuse to if they so choose. Voluntary trade also describes a person's freedom to choose to work for compensation.   Voluntary Trade/businessdictionary.com

  4. Profit is closely related to the concepts of private property and voluntary trade. By definition, an individual only enters into a voluntary exchange of private property when he believes the exchange benefits him in some psychological or material way. In such trades, each party gains extra subjective value, or profit, from the transaction. Capitalism/Investopedia  

  5. Profit as a financial benefit is realized when the amount of revenue gained from a business activity exceeds the expenses, costs, and taxes needed to sustain the activity. Profit/Investopedia

Next: What’s happening with wages?

Links and References:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalism.asp Capitalism: reviewed by Will Kenton. Updated Feb 23, 2019

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/voluntary-trade.html Voluntary Trade

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp Tragedy of the Commons: reviewed by Will Kenton. Updated Feb 6, 2019

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profit.asp: Profit

Van Dijk, TA (1995). Discourse Semantics and Ideology. Discourse & Society, 6(2): 243-289.