> the crisis of capitalism This is so blatant at this point, given the increasingly small percentage of the US population that is beneficially served by the sy

> the crisis of capitalism This is so blatant at this point, given the increasingly small percentage of the US population that is beneficially served by the system, that it seems like extremist efforts by the tiny percentage reaping the benefits are almost inevitable (not inevitably successful, but inevitably existent). The necessary extent of the denial of reality is only possible for people living in the ultra-wealthy bubbles that the current extremes of wealth inequality have created. But the ability of the population at large to get even a glimmer of understanding of their predicament is small and diminishing. An example is the California agricultural industry. Over 1/2 of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US are grown in California. The overwhelming majority of those crops are harvested by undocumented immigrant labor. In spite of that, in 2016 and 2024 that geographic area of California, the inland valleys, voted overwhelmingly for Trump (and in proxy for this tech extremism). Almost immediately in both instances ICE raids deported many of those same agricultural laborers, to the significant destruction of crops in the field. The ideas of the "rational consumer" and "rational markets" are fictions on a scale with Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, and the inability to comprehend the depth of this fiction drives many people to support systems that are increasingly not to their benefit...