Capitalism

I have grown up with the idea that 'Survival of the Fittest' was the natural order of life. Darwinism, a natural competition of life where only the greatest strongest and smartest beings are allowed to live, was the justification for the world as it was and will continue to be. Capitalist ideas of hard work, tough days and hard earned cash were drilled into me by my parents, teachers and my friends. There wasn't a single one of us who didn't want to wake up a millionaire and have the world at our fingertips. This competition pushed me into attending an Ivy League institution where I had hoped to acquire the tools and connections to help me break the poverty cycle of my indigenous nation. It wasn't too long before I realized that capitalism was a facade of what could be and not what is.

As a person indigenous to Turtle Island (North America), I have had the wonderful experience of having a wonderful connection to the land that surrounds me. My tribe, according to anthropologists and historians, have roamed the Southwestern desert for at least 1,000 years. Each generation of people learned to tune themselves with the environment, carefully developing reciprocal relationships with non-human entities. These relationships cultivated into a way of life that emphasizes the delicate balance between humans, animals, plants and the Earth. Each generation would pass on what they knew about these relationships and left road maps for their posterity to follow so that they too would maintain the balance of life. It was a generational responsibility to take care of all aspects of life, the environment and its many non-human inhabitants.

It is commonly assumed that pre-Columbus America was an untouched wilderness that was destined for European advancement. This narrative, although commonly accepted, is not the reality of what the world was during that time. Indigenous people of all nations had a relationship to the land that consisted of reciprocity and humility. Humans were aware of their ecological systems and the food web long before textbooks taught school children about how energy transfers from one organism to another. My ancestors farmed, hunted, built cities and communities alongside their non-human counterparts. All of those non-human entities were considered 'beings,' beings capable thoughts, power and had a role in all life. Human actions of taking - farming, hunting, and building - were done in respect to relationships that were developed with all the beings in the environment. They never took more than needed and were thankful for what they were given.

The arrival of colonists and their systems of power brought with them an alien concept of capitalism. When Columbus was lost at sea, he stumbled onto an inhabited island with several Native tribes that lived in the Caribbean. Although Columbus and his men were beaten by the journey and came close to their death, “savages” came to their aid and saved them from imminent destruction. Yet, Columbus’ thoughts, according to his journal, consisted of overtaking the island and claiming it for his own. And so, the boat of European colonization set sail.

The indigenous populations of the Ameicas was well over 100,000,000 but after nearly 500 years of wars, famine, land acquisition and disease brought with the invaders, about 99% of the population diminished. The desire for capital spurred the stealing of millions of Africans to work stolen land for White invaders who had no conceptual of familial relationships to the land. Slowly, capitalism attempted to destroy what indigneous humans had been maintaining for thousands of years.

As the land was mutilated, raped and permanently damaged, the land began to fight back. Climate change is the response to the unhealthy woes of unlimited consumption and the desire for human-centric living. The severed relationships grounded in communal ties to the land were destroyed, along with human humility. Carbon emissions greatly accelerating climate temperatures is currently bringing the world to its knees as several species of plants, animals and entire ecosystems are starting to die. Capitalism has built the road to self-destruction that we refuse to destroy.

Indingeous people are at the forefront of defending the non-human. Although indigeneous people are less than 5% of the global population, they maintain more than 80% of biodiversity on the planet. Essentially, 80% of all life is being maintained by less than 5% of the population. Their relationships to the non-human are the fundamental philosophies responsible for our healthy bodies, environments and lives. Their resistance to colonial, capitalist structures, through those delicate relationships, has been the most important contribution to human life on a global scale for the past 500 years.

In retrospect, humans of all nations should return to their indigenous relationships to combat climate change. Aside from historical justice, white supremacy based colonial institutions and inhuman concepts of capitalist structures, it is the best interest of the colonizers and their governing bodies to restore the decision making power to the indigenous people of the world. If life is to continue on the Earth, the necessary, life-giving balances must be returned to the care takes of those balances. They know the world better than capitalism and colonizers have ever known it to be. The anthropomorphized view of the world where humans consume and gather capital just doesn’t make sense to me as the world we live in is coming to an end.