We need to let go of this “storm the castle on the hill” mentality that afflicts so many writers on the left. “Capitalism” is not so much an ideology as it is the natural consequence of a system based on money. Let me explain:

Money is nothing but arithmetic. It has no real existence; it is an arithmetical transform of information about the relative value of commodities. And above all, it is a zero-sum game: If I have it, you don’t. And if I have it, I can easily arrange things so that I can get more of it, and you will have less. For example, if I have a surplus of a commodity you need, and I control the market, I can easily raise the price, and you will have no option but to pay it.

A monopoly game illustrates this principle very clearly: it is a model of an unregulated market economy, and it has only one possible outcome: one player gets everything, while the rest have nothing — and are in debt to the winner for their houses and hotels.

Compare this artificial, arithmetical money game to rhe real world — the biosphere. In a healthy ecosystem, as in a healthy society, too much or too little of any biological “good” is toxic to the system — water, sun, air flow, food, you name it — all optimal, rather than maximizing. And in the real world, value is a positive sum: a tree, for example, provides a wide range of services to other organisms, the more successful it is:

Money, conversely, being nothing but arithmetic, is not only zero sum, but also a maximizing, rather than optimizing value: more is always better.

So in all these ways, a system based on money is antithetical to nature. In the former, more is always better; in the latter, enough is enough; in the former, you are what you own; in the latter, you are what you do. In the money game, nothing has value until it has a price — that is, until it becomes a commodity for trade. In the real world, value is incalculable, because it is inherent in relationships. Every element has multiple functions, and every function is served by multiple elements. (Consider the market value of board feet vs. the multiplex value of a forest.). Finally, in the money world, “the bottom line is the bottom line.” In the real world, all that finally matters is the survival and propagation of life from one generation to the next.

So to “fight” capitalism is futile; all you have to do is stop playing by the rules of the money game and start emulating, and learning from, our biological support system— by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.